A mishmash of informed snark, piquant opinions, refined nastiness, occasional schmaltz, & tawdry graphics, served up continuously since 2006 by COSMIC CONNIE, aka CONNIE L. SCHMIDT. Covering New-Age/New-Wage culture & crapitalism, pop spirituality & religion, pop psychology, self(ish)-help, alt-health hucksterism, conspiranoia, business babble, media silliness, Scamworld, politix, & related (or occasionally unrelated) matters of consequence.
Showing posts with label Donald Trump v the First Amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump v the First Amendment. Show all posts
I'm probably only the four-millionth or so person
to mention this, but have you noticed a certain hyper-sensitivity in many of the conservative/libertarian manly men (and a
few proud and defiant women) -- you know, the ones who are
currently infesting the political and cultural landscape with
their bright red caps and fact-devoid social media memes? Have
you observed, as I have, that they seem to have awfully thin skins --
especially when you consider their derisive sneers about the
oppressive, America-threatening "political correctness"
of the left, and their screeds about wimpy liberals (aka
"snowflakes") who are hypersensitive to
"triggers" and have an insatiable need for "safe
spaces?" I have previously danced around the theme of
right-wing snowflakery, e.g., in this May 2016 post (trigger
warning: contains nekkid Donald Trump picture). But it's a matter
that has captured my attention more fully in light of rabid Republican "strategist" Devin Nunes'
comic $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, a made-up mommy, and
a fake cow. (And I'm probably only the
four-millionth or so person to publicly write about this, but I
never claimed to be a groundbreaker.)
Anyway. From the Vox article linked to just above:
A member of Congress since
January 2003, Nunes is perhaps best known nationally first
for his involvement in the Benghazi investigation and second for his dogged defense of Donald
Trump, upon whose transition team
Nunes served. It was Nunes, for example, who wrote the 2018 memo on wiretapping that many Trump supporters believed
would permanently damage special counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign. (It didn’t.)
So it stands to reason that Twitter users less enthralled
with Trump would tweet things about Nunes that were perhaps
less than cordial — like calling him a “presidential
fluffer and swamp rat,” for instance. (In fact, a tweet
using those very words was included in the lawsuit.)
But in the 40-page complaint filed on Monday, Nunes argues that tweets like
that and the two parody Twitter accounts were not merely
examples of Twitter being Twitter. Rather, he argues that the
social media platform served as “a portal of defamation”
by permitting parody accounts of his mother and his imaginary
bovine to exist on the platform.
The operative word, seemingly missed by Nunes
and his lawyer, is "parody." Which, you know, is protected in the United States by the First Amendment and whatnot. Parody and other forms of sometimes unpopular speech are not protected everywhere, of
course. In Russia (to name but one example of other places in the
world where freedom of expression is not exactly a sacred cow), a
person might, thanks to a new law recently signed by Trump's dom
bromantic partner Putin, conceivably be
prosecuted for parody, since it is by its nature disrespectful,
and if your parody or satire disrespects Putin or the Russian
government, well, then, shame on you, Господин or девушка Smarty-Pants.
But the US isn't Russia... not yet, anyway.
Here
is the direct link to the fake farm animal's Twitter account, which has more Twitter followers than the real Devin.
Goodness, that must trample on his ego. If you're on Twitter and
haven't done so already, why not go ahead and follow that cow?
I've herd that she's very nice, the crème de la crème.
Who feels more "hard done by": libs or
cons?
Defamation cases are nearly always about hurt feelings, and a sense of being hard done by, as much as they are
about actual damages. (A tip of the hat to an ancient post on the Kung Fu Monkey blog, which I've cited here before, for the "hard done
by" theme. Ah, "that sweet crack pipe of moral
indignation.") For me, this latest legal looniness brings up
an argument that has been going on for a few years regarding who
is in fact more hypersensitive: liberals/left-wingers or
conservatives/right-wingers. TheTylt.com -- to name but one
of countless examples -- has tackled this matter, running two
surveys that I know of a couple of years ago -- this one and this one. Spoiler: the
right-wingers won the sensitivity sweepstakes both times.
Moreover Trump is apparently making good on the promise/threat that he spewed forth in his recent two-hour-plus rant to the Conservative Political Action
Conference: a vow to sign an executive
order that would punish colleges and universities that "do
not support free speech" by denying them federal research
funds. The initial promise was a direct response to a February
19, 2019 incident on the campus of the University of California
Berkeley in which a man who was not a Berkeley student was on
campus expressing his support of Trump, whereupon another man,
who was not a Berkeley student either, punched him. The punchee,
one Hayden Williams, was paraded around by Trump as a hero at the
CPAC rant, the poster child for liberals' oppression of
conservatives on campus.
Never mind that Berkeley was, in fact, already providing a solid
platform for conservatives and pro-Trumpsters. In this case, the
conservative org Turning Point USA was, with the university's
permission, recruiting students to the cause. And never mind that
many universities already have free-speech guidelines
and policies that allow non-liberal expression on their campuses. Those inconvenient facts didn't stop the right-wing
whining following the punching, and didn't stop Trump from his
subsequent grandstanding.
Also never mind the fact that, according to the Chicago Trib
article I cited a couple of paragraphs ago, "it's unclear
what type of free speech limitation could trigger a loss of
federal research funding. White House officials declined to
provide specific cases of free speech suppression." The
guiding sentiment behind the EO seems to be that by golly, it's
time that someone stepped up and protected (conservative) free
speech!
Here's an opinion piece,
published on March 4, 2019 in the wake of the CPAC rant,
explaining why Trump is missing the point, once again.
...Because almost across the board
institutional missions center on scientific discovery,
knowledge and learning, institutions of higher education are
a key mechanism for fostering democratic education. Campuses often subscribe to John Stuart Mill’s notion that a
university is a “marketplace of ideas,” where educators
offer “balanced perspectives” so that students can “hear
the other side” on every issue.
However, academic freedom guidelines specifically say that
faculty members need not always cover “the other side” if
the standards of the discipline deem that other side to be
untrue. When topics seem to be settled, with a right answer
having emerged through science and ethics, faculty can focus
on the knowledge produced. A white nationalist view, for
example, does not merit debate within the campus marketplace
of ideas.
In the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Va.,
tragedy, these
disagreements have taken on a deeper significance, as those
of us who work within higher education navigate increasingly
polarized contexts for teaching, learning and research.
Public discussions of these issues have been dominated by legal analyses of the First Amendment, without sufficient
attention to philosophical discussion of disagreement, truth
and the democratic purposes of higher education.
College faculty and campus leaders are caught between wanting
to be nonpartisan and promoting their institution’s
missions, which often prioritize excellence and truth...
On the other hand, if colleges and unis are
mandated by executive order or law or whatever to allow free
speech, religious schools such as Liberty University, which also
receives federal research funds, might have to allow satanists
and abortion-rights advocates to speak on their campuses. So
there's that. Could be interesting.
Misusing the courts to capitalize on being hard done
by
It's not unusual for thin-skins who have the resources to try to
use the legal system to fight back against real and imagined
slights, generally via multi-million dollar
"defamation" lawsuits. Trump is one notable and obvious
example; a few of those defamation lawsuits are listed in this article,
though the piece also covers some of his other infamous and
yuuugely expensive legal dramas.
Another recent example is the "Covington kid," the
MAGA-cap-sporting Catholic school student Nicholas Sandmann, whose parents sued the New York Timesfor $250 millionand, more recently, CNN for $275
million, for the news outlets' initial coverage of an incident in
which their kid confronted an elderly Native American activist
and some shouting Black Hebrew Israelite cultists. (Never mind
that the NYT and CNN and most other mainstream outlets revised
their stories as new info came to light.) Part of the plaintiffs'
argument was that the media are biased against Donald Trump and
conservatives. Ah, snowflakes. No two are alike, and yet at some
level they all are.
And now there's Devin and that fake mama and that bogus bovine
and, of course, that very real social media platform, the latter
of whom possesses the actual deep pockets that Devin and his
legal team hope to mine.
If you want a good laugh, read the lawsuit. I have been
trying to find a dowloadable PDF of the document that includes
the filing/court stamps, indicating that it was actually filed
and the date and time that this occurred. The document to which I
linked does not seem to be that, but it was uploaded to Scribd by
Fox News on March 18, and seems to be the reference point for all
of the chatter about it. It begins by trying to lay out the case
that Twitter has been purposely defaming
poor Devin and continues to do so, and that furthermore Twitter has it out for all Republicans.
1. Twitter is an information content
provider. Twitter creates and develops content, in whole or
in part, through a combination of means: (a) by explicit
censorship of viewpoints with which it disagrees, (b) by
shadow-banning conservatives, such as Plaintiff, (c) by
knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly
abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice
and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby
facilitating defamation on its platform, (d) by completely
ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by
allowing that content to remain accessible to the public, and
(e) by intentionally abandoning and refusing to enforce its
so-called Terms of Service and Twitter Rules – essentially
refusing to self-regulate – thereby selectively amplifying
the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and
Devin Nunes’ cow, and materially contributing to the
libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this
action.
2. Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this
case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct,
imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a
publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political
operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon. Twitter knew
the defamation was (and is) happening. Twitter let it happen
because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda and motive:
Twitter allowed (and allows) its platform to serve as a
portal of defamation in order to undermine public confidence
in Plaintiff and to benefit his opponents and opponents of
the Republican Party...
And so on, and so forth, adding up to yet
another fine red whine. Alas, poor Devin, and oh, those poor,
put-upon Republicans.
This bit, which occurs towards the end and wraps up the counts
for which the plaintiff is demanding so much money, made me
chuckle.
COUNT IV – COMMON LAW CONSPIRACY...
... 54. Beginning in February 2018 and continuing through the
present, Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow,
acting as individuals, combined, associated, agreed or acted
in concert with each other and/or with one or more
“clients” or other donors, non-profits, operatives or
agents of the Democratic Party (whose identity is unknown at
this time) for the express purposes of injuring Nunes,
intentionally and unlawfully interfering with his business
and employment as a United States Congressman, and defaming
Nunes. In furtherance of the conspiracy and preconceived
plan, the Defendants engaged in a joint scheme the unlawful
purpose of which was to destroy Nunes’ personal and
professional reputations and influence the outcome of a
federal election.
Nunes is asking for a minimum of
$250,000,000 for the alleged attempts to destroy his reputation,
but is certainly open to the idea of receiving much more, should
it please the court. On
his monologue on March 19, 2019, Stephen Colbert said that Nunes' legal team came up with that figure by
applying a scientific legal formula: they took the dollar amount
that Nunes' reputation is actually worth, and added $250,000,000
to it. That sounds about right.
Less than 24 hours after being launched, that
account had more than 30,000 followers. And although as of this
writing the account still contains a solitary tweet, the
following is making its way steadily to 44,000.
I am well aware that there is an ongoing debate
about several issues related to social media, and one of these
issues is the question of whether or not platforms such as
Facebook and Twitter are indeed biased against conservatives. A poll taken late last year by
Hill.TV and American Barometer indicated that a majority of American voters
thought that the social media giants have a systemic bias against
conservative views. Unsurprisingly, the poll was heavily divided
along party lines, with Republicans overwhelmingly likely to view
tech companies as being biased against conservatives. Media
bias is a perennial issue that is
worthy of exploration and analysis, but frivolous defamation
lawsuits by whiny politicians and other public figures are not
helpful at all. Conspiranoia strikes deep...again
All of the talk about conspiracy to defame reminds me very much of
another defamation flawsuit from a few years back, one in which I was the top-named defendant. It didn't
make the mainstream news, of course, and was barely a blip in the
blogosphere, but if you think I am going to pass up an
opportunity to sneer about it, you are very much mistaken. As you
may know, the suit did not go very well for the plaintiff, Not-Doktor Leonard Coldwell,
aka LoonyC, the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld; his
attorneys advised him to drop the case, and he did. Nor did his previous attempt to sue a critical blogger (my pal
and co-defendant in the aforementioned case, Salty Droid) go very
well; his rent-a-lawyer in that one
dropped out of the case early on, and the whole thing was
dismissed because LoonyC never showed up for any hearings. Yet he
has continued to boast about his powerful legal team and about
his steadfast willingness to fight and defeat anyone who dares to
"defame" him.
Arguably the majority of defamation lawsuits fail, at least in
the US. It's complicated, and I don't
claim to be anything remotely resembling an expert on these
matters. But it seems that more than likely, Devin Nunes doesn't have a very strong
case, in part because he is a
politician and a public figure, and America has a long history of
protecting those who make fun of our politicians. Also, Twitter
is merely distributing, not creating, the offending content. But
some have warned that even if Nunes loses the lawsuit and the
probable appeal, he is creating an opening for the Supreme Court
to reconsider its previous rulings on defamation and public
officials. As a lawmaker, Nunes is in a unique position to
introduce legislation that could very well have a chilling effect
that would make Putin proud.
For now, it seems nothing will stop either Nunes or his
detractors from... oh, you knew this was coming, didn't you?...
milking this matter for all it's worth. But it's worth noting
that last year Nunes was a co-sponsor of HR 1179, the
"Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act." Cory Doctorow on Boing-Boing made sport of this (as well as the now-defunct fake-mama Twitter account).
Nunes is upset that he was called a
"herp-face," and is really upset about a human centipede meme that depicted Nunes, Trump and Putin as
generic, labeled stick-figures with their mouths grafted onto
one-another's anuses. This tweet may just be the greatest
exhibit ever filed in a lawsuit.
It's a very good thing to have a little comic
relief in the midst of the horror and chaos that is swirling all
around us, but let's hope that the right-wing snowflakes don't
have the last laugh.
Addendum, 5 April 2019:
Republican strategist Elizabeth "Liz" Mair, who besides
Twitter is actually the main defendant in Nunes' silly complaint,
wrote a serious editorial about the real threats to free speech
for all of us. It was published in USA Today. Here 'tis. Related on this Whirled: Vintage whines from
conservative conspiranoid snowflakes
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Over the past couple of weeks there has been a
great deal of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the
right-wing conspiranoid cartel regarding the recent
"censorship" of conspiracy-porn producer and
right-wingnut Alex Jones, who earlier this
month was booted from several social media platforms, including
Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. Despite the whining, said
"censorship" is benefiting Jones by adding to his
hero/martyr creds, and, to the surprise of no one who has been
following these matters for any length of time, he and his
colleagues in the hate bidness are doing everything possible to
exploit the situation. Wrote Erin Durkin at The Guardian on 11 August, 2018:
Alex Jones says he’s being silenced
– but he isn’t shutting up and you can still listen to
him.
The right wing provocateur’s Infowars was banished from
most of the web’s farthest-reaching platforms this week –
sending him scrambling to find other ways to get his message
out, and appealing to Donald Trump for a rescue from the
companies he casts as big tech villains.
Though he is far from silenced, the "censorship" has
clipped Jones' nasty little flying-monkey wings, making it a bit
more difficult to accidentally or purposely stumble into his
toxic poppy fields. The piece in The Guardian concludes:
In videos posted since the removals,
Jones has alternated between bravado and desperation.
“I am not backing down,” he said in one video, though he
acknowledged feeling “spiritual-level desperation” and
seemed to see Trump as his only hope to regain his larger
platform.
“Come out before the midterms and make censorship the big
issue,” Jones said in an appeal to Trump.
“It’s the right thing to do, Mr President. It’s the
truth,” he said.
So far, Trump has not ridden to the rescue.
Personally, and as I've mentioned on several
social media discussions, I would be more concerned about the Orange Oaf of Office's threats against the First
Amendment than I'd be about social
media platforms putting the reins on lesser oafs like Jones.
In any case, despite Trump's failure thus far to step up to the
plate, some of Jones' most vociferous fans have sprung
to his defense. Apart from Jones' own nonstop hollering about his
repression and oppression, the usual group of loathsome suspects
is having yet another whine-and-cheesiness party on the Internet.
On Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams' Natural News site, f'rinstance, Adams waxed paranoid about "censorship" by the tech
giants.
Even though the criminal justice system
is corrupt and dishonest in its own way, there is at least
recognition that those who are accused may face their
accusers; that the accused has the right to see the evidence
against them; and that evidence may be presented in their
defense.
But in the world of online censorship by tech giants, no
due process exists. You’re banned without
explanation… you cannot face your accusers… you cannot
present evidence in your defense… and no evidence even
needs to be cited against you.
As will be made clear if you watch the video
embedded in that post, Adams framed all of this oppression and
repression as a "liberal" conspiracy. And in a subsequent post on Natural News, another contributor, Ethan Huff, piled it on.
Censorship is one of the ways that
liberals shut down arguments they can’t win. Many of them
can’t even have civil conversations about their beliefs
because they get immediately triggered whenever others oppose
them. To keep up with the latest news on liberal censorship,
visit Censorship.news [another Mike Adams site ~ CC].
Even weasely (no offense intended to weasels) right-wing pols
like Texas' Ted Cruz spoke up for Jones; some have said that this could be a signal that he's
trying to shore up his support from the fringe right. When I shared a post about Alex Jones' tribulations on my Facebook
page -- the post centered around the
Natural News whines and Leonard Coldwell's republication of same
-- I got some no-nonsense responses from a couple of my buds. Dave
wrote:
I'd guess there are still plenty of
outlets for Alex and his ilk - Fox news, Breitbart, etc.
But... that doesn't fit the persecution complex very well.
I love this part"...all sorts of leftist hate speech
that targets white people, Christians, and conservatives
continues to pollute the social media world unabated."
Mr. Clueless to the courtesy phone please.
Nailed it, Dave. And Martin nailed it too:
The typical reaction of these morons.
They never really grasp the fact that there's a difference
between being silenced by the state and being silenced where
they have no right to spout their bile and hatred in the
first place.
Freedom of speech stops at my front door. Spout hateful shit
in my home you either leave or get a smack in the gob or
both.
Yep.
First off, this is NOT a "First Amendment"
issue
In the US Constitution, the First Amendment addresses freedom of
expression, but it doesn't give one carte blanche to say
and write any and everything. This article on the New Statesman site 'splains it in simple terms, complete with Brit-English
spelling, seeing as how it's a British magazine published in
London.
The First Amendment to the US
constitution is wilfully misrepresented by people like Jones
and his supporters. It protects against abridgement of free
speech by the government. What it does not provide for is the
right to place your free speech on someone else’s platform,
like a private website such as YouTube. If I write something
racist or peddle a monstrous and cruel conspiracy theory
against the victims of a massacre like Sandy Hook, it would
not be an abrogation of my free speech when the New
Statesman withdraws their invitation to write for them
again. It's a privilege, not a right, to have a platform like
this.
But free speech as Jones portrays it is not free speech at
all, it is consequence-free speech.
Exactly. And privately owned platforms such as
the social media outlets that ousted Alex Jones have a right to
determine the type of content they want on those platforms.
Nor is it a "left-wing"
conspiracy On most social and political issues I could be
considered left-leaning and liberal, a fact that has turned even some former fans and supporters of this blog against me (they were okay with my claims that Kevin Trudeau is a scammer, but they can't abide my criticisms of Trump).
Yet I've also always leaned
towards letting fools have their say, no matter how foolish their
say may seem to me. Long before Whirled Musings came into
existence, I generally advocated freedom of expression, no matter
how distasteful I personally believed such expression to be. In
more recent years I've tolerated all sorts of verbal abuse and
trolling on the few platforms I maintain, i.e., this blog and my
Facebook page. For years I allowed Leonard Coldwell to repeatedly and publicly and falsely
call me a diseased slut and a prostitute and a sexual harasser
and a killer of dogs. He blocked me
from commenting on, and in some cases even from seeing, the posts
in which he viciously defamed me, so I had no way to defend
myself on those forums. Whenever one of my friends or allies
tried to post even the most polite contradiction to his claims,
he would block them and/or accuse them of being me, writing under
fake accounts. He offered absolutely zero evidence of his
accusations against me, yet he kept making them and continued to
incite his followers to harass me, which they did. Talk about
lack of "due process"...
Even so, I never tried to sue or silence the little perv, and one of his more dimwitted fans privately told me that Coldwell had told him that the reason I never sued him was that I knew that what Coldwell was saying was true, and that I was afraid of being "exposed." Actually, my reasons centered around financial limitations as well as First-Amendment issues, but in any case, what happened was that Coldwell tried to silence me by continued defamation and
incitement, and ultimately by a sham of a lawsuit (which failed). Nevertheless, I
persisted (apologies to Elizabeth Warren).
But I'm not any sort of hero in the ongoing
battle for the right to freedom of expression, which, as noted
above, is often framed in the US as First Amendment rights. I'd
say that my pal and blolleague Jason Jones, aka Salty Droid, is
more of the hero type. Not only has he endured worse verbal abuse
and more disturbing threats than I have, he has also been
repeatedly banned and blocked on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and
other platforms, simply because the scammers he wrote and talked
about didn't like what he had to say.
Yet Jason, despite his own "liberalism" and passion for
legal and social justice, hasn't tried to sue his detractors or
silence them in any way. He could very easily have taken legal
action against some SaltyDroid-haters who posted false and
defamatory videos about him a few years ago. These videos remain
online and are among the top search results for "Salty
Droid," and have been cited by numerous idiot scammers such
as the aforementioned Coldwell. But Jason has chosen not to waste
time and energy and money to silence the liars. In a May 2018 post he wrote this
about his detractors' efforts:
These are defamatory hit jobs that go
way too far, and I’ve done nothing at all about
them. I made no effort to have them removed or delisted. I
did not threaten to sue. I didn’t even complain, and I’m
not complaining now.
I want people inside the Internet Marketing community (and
the other sub-cultures I write about) to read my writing. I
want to be part of the conversation. But lots of other people
in that conversation hate what I’m saying and think my
ideas fall somewhere between extremely dangerous and
completely catastrophic; so I can’t expect smooth sailing.
It seems like the people who most want to have their voices
heard are the same people trying to silence other voices.
It’s hypocritical, pathetic, rampant, and it’s bad for
America...
I've found that to be the case too. Here's another
post about those videos, with more
details about the SEO dirty tricks that kept them at the top of
the search results.
And here is a comment Jason wrote on another one of his posts,
regarding the notion that the right to freedom of expression
applies to everyone.
I was really trying to like my fellow
GW Law alumnus Michael Avenatti [the infamous Stormy
Daniels' lawyer and harsh critic of Donald Trump], but
then he did this:
So he gets to go on every media outlet ever created, all day
and all night, to talk shit. But if someone talks shit about
him he starts whipping out defamation threats?
But it's not all black-and-white Like most stories, this one has nuances that are
often overlooked by both the pro- and anti-Alex Jones camps. An opinion writer on the Libertarian Reason.com site notes that while it's not about the First Amendment,
and while many people would not miss Jones if he disappeared
entirely, that's not exactly the point. The point, the writer
suggests, is the confusion over what exactly defines "hate
speech." And the larger issue is what the author describes as
"viewpoint censorship."
I will shed no tears for Jones. But
social media platforms that take a broad view of what
constitutes unacceptable hate speech have given themselves an
extremely difficult task—one that will likely prompt yet
more cries of viewpoint censorship down the road.
The writer of this piece on the liberal Huffington Post makes similar points, and says that the real problem is
digital platform monopolies. Anti-trust law may be the way to
deal with this issue, the author suggests, though it might not be
the solution that Alex Jones and the hatriots have in mind.
If Twitter, Facebook or YouTube were
constitutionally required to host any and all content anyone
wanted to post to them, they would become unworkable
platforms overrun by spam and bad actors attempting to
distort the platforms to their desires.
And none of this would address the actual underlying problem,
which is that removal from Facebook and YouTube feels like
actual censorship because the major platforms have
monopolized the audience for certain formats of online media
content. If you are creating videos to be distributed online,
you have to be on YouTube. That is where the audience is. If
you are writing articles or other content online, you have to
be on Facebook because it has 2.2 billion users.
There is a way to deal with this problem that doesn’t make
it impossible for platforms to moderate content users post to
them. It’s called antitrust law. If there weren’t one
main platform for video distribution and one main platform
for social media ― and if those platforms didn’t also own their biggest competition ― an actual market for different platforms
that hosted varied content could exist instead of one
platform overrun with every type of jerk.
Something to think about, anyway.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think that Alex Jones
and his fellow conspiranoids should get a pass for claiming that
the Sandy Hook school shooting was a "hoax," carried
out by "crisis actors," or for making the same stupid
claims about virtually every other mass shooting that was carried
out by a white guy, or that was perpetrated against a
marginalized group such as LGBT people. Those who make such
claims deserve ridicule, public shaming, and in some cases legal
action. But overall, and to arguably a greater extent than many
of their justifiably outraged critics may want to admit, the
conspiranoids have a right to make fools of themselves in public.
Certainly Alex Jones has a right to freedom of
expression. But so too does Jason Jones...and Trump's legions of
detractors... and for that matter, your very own Whirled hostess.
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to help keep this Whirled spinning. Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit
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you!
Oh, dear. Here we are on the very the last day
of March, and I'm just under the wire again. For the nearly
eleven years of this blog's life -- since July 2006 -- I've
blogged at least once every calendar month, and often much more
than that. I've been preoccupied once again with real work and real life and
falling in love with my husband all over again and other engaging
things, not to mention that I've been busy railing on social
media, and that takes a lot of energy. But now it's high time to
return to the Whirled. And though this is still not a political
blog, except when it needs to be, I'm feeling like it needs to be
again today. I know some of you don't like that, so you'll just have to turn the other way for a while.
Despite the roiling Trussia scandal
and all of his other worries, our esteemed SCROTUS Herr Drumpf is still
engaging in his petty wars with the critical media, and shaking
his tiny little fist at the First Amendment. I first wrote about his threats against the First Amendment
over a year ago, shortly after he had
bloviated about "opening up libel laws" to make it
easier for him to sue journalists and media outlets that hurt his
feelings.
The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong
for two solid years. Change libel laws?
I'm sure the New York Times is quaking in its
boots over that threat. Fortunately he's getting a lot of
#Resistance to his dumb tweet. Follow the link to the tweet, and enjoy the responses.
Detractors spared no effort with their snark, cartoons, and
general smackdowns.
Of course I haven't forgotten the Drumpf/Scamworld connection,
which makes SCROTUS more relevant to my regular beat. Not that
it's even such a reach any more: unfortunately Scamworld and politix have
merged in unpleasant new ways that are shaking the foundation of
America.
That Herbalife/Icahn connection is eminently
worthy of further exploration (though already
explored at length by Salty Droid), and
I suspect that our little fake robot has been engaged in such
exploration for the past couple of months, which may help 'splain
why his blog has been mostly quiet since that January post.
[[Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Icahn] to
help the nation “break free of excessive regulation.” But
there is an additional detail that is raising eyebrows in
Washington: Mr. Icahn is a majority investor in CVR
Energy, an oil refiner
based in Sugar Land, Tex., that would have saved $205.9 million
last year had the regulatory fix he is pushing been in
place...
...The blitz has already generated at least one clear
outcome: Since Mr. Trump was elected president with Mr. Icahn’s
very vocal support and nearly $200,000 in political
contributions to Republican causes — the stock price of CVR
Energy has soared. By late December, it had doubled. It is
still up 50 percent from the pre-election level, generating a
windfall, at least on paper, of $455 million as of Friday.
The merging of private business interest with government
affairs — aspects of which have previously been reported by Bloomberg, but which The New York Times has found further
evidence of — has generated protests from ethics experts in
Washington, as well as certain Senate Democrats. They
consider Mr. Icahn’s dual roles perhaps the most troubling
conflict of interest to emerge so far in the new
administration.
The larger problem is that the Drumpf wrecking
crew seems hell-bent on waging an all-out war on science, and in addition to decimating safety regulations, they
are apparently attempting to erase all mention of "climate
change" and related matters from official communications
issued by any of the government agencies that are involved with
environmental issues. In the new "political
correctness" under Donald J. Trump, the term "climate
change" has become very, very politically incorrect indeed.
"Donald Trump v
the First Amendment" would actually be a better title for
this post, since that's really the gist of it. As Trump has
escalated his fight for freedom of (hateful) expression for
himself and his frothing fan base -- and has lobbied against
that same freedom for anti-Trump protesters and the journalists
who have offended him over the decades -- I have added a few
updates to this post since its initial publication on March 1,
2016, the original Stupor Tuesday. The stupor has deepened and
spread since then.
~CC, March 17, 2016
As I've mentioned a few times, this is not
normally a political blog, though I'm not averse to donning my
extra-thick boots and gas mask and wading into the quagmire on
occasion, such as on this 2009 piece and,
marginally, on my most recent post. But
since this is a Very Big Day in US politics,
and the November presidential election is very much at stake, I
felt a need to post some more thoughts about the orange-haired
blowfish and clown prince of American xenophobia and racisim,
Donald J. Trump, while it is still legal to do so. And I am only
being partly facetious about the legality matter, in light of Trump's
recent declaration that he wants to "open up libel
laws" in this country, to make it
easier for him to sue people who say or write bad things about
him, and even, possibly to make it easy for an unspecified
"we" to "win a lot of money" in these
lawsuits.
In that respect, it could be argued that
Trump is actually building on a tradition that is reflected in
everything from the Church of Scientology's Fair Game policies and practices, to the dirty but futile tactics clumsily employed by
the stupidest man in Scamworld, Leonard Coldwell, who has both
outrageously defamed and unsuccessfully sued his own critics. At
any rate, in light of Trump's long litigious history where
his critics and perceived "enemies" are concerned, his
pompous declarations are not really very surprising. Never mind that he'd probably have an uphill battle re the whole
"libel law" thing; what's
worrisome is the declaration itself -- along with the fact that
so many of the TrumpChumps enthusiastically embrace the idea
(apparently not realizing that if we'd been under such Draconian
laws now, many of these idiots would be thrown under the
jail for sedition because of the lies about, and violent threats they've perpetrated against, President Obama).
On another recent Facebook thread, Fred described
me as a blogger who is not above publishing slander and
distortions in order to increase my readership. Not true at all,
but to his credit, Fred (unlike Coldwell and even Trudeau) does
allow the occasion dissenter to post on his Facebook threads,
though I don't think this was always the case. On his Trump/libel
thread I wrote the following (note: although the non-embedded
Salty Droid links in the text were in my original post on the
Facebook thread, I added the embedded links for the purpose of
this blog post):
Trump's implied threats regarding libel
law are the words of a tyrant, not a leader of the free
world.
Although I know that some writers and even some organizations
make a sport of deliberately publishing distortions and lies
-- in fact , that is one of the bases of the Church of
Scientology's "Fair Game" policy -- I have never
knowingly published anything false about anyone. But I have
published strong opinions based upon my subjects' very public
words and actions, and their publicly advertised products and
services. However I have always offered to correct or clarify
or even retract inaccuracies when pointed out to me --
provided that I have reason enough to believe they are
inaccurate or that my opinion was totally misguided.
In the US defamation is based upon KNOWINGLY uttering or
publishing falsehoods about someone or something. That is as
it should be. Do you really want to change this?
For months I have been expressing my fear that under a Trump
presidency a new form of "political correctness"
would emerge and that Trump (and his lackeys and loyal
supporters) would attempt to chill criticism of Trump. This
article and others seem to substantiate that fear.
Now, he could just be blowing smoke. But consider this: Trump
has a long history of suing people who write or say things
that he thinks make him look bad. Do you really want a
president who is willing to gut the First Amendment,
especially after winning over thousands by decrying
"political correctness?"
Also consider all of the vicious, ugly, hateful lies that
have been published about Obama. I support people's right to
spread these ridiculous lies even though I disagree with
them, because this is, after all, still supposed to be the
Land of the Free.
I even support the right of someone who doesn't like me to
publish a "Connie Schmidt Exposed as Big Pharma
Whore" blog. This happened last year (although in fairness, I should say that guy is
in Belgium, not the US).
Finally, there's a lot of stuff coming out now about Trump U
because, as Fred pointed out, it is indeed election season.
But at least one blogger (not I) was really on the ball and
has been pointing out Trump's Scamworld creds for years.
These two posts are from 2013:
And the issue about Trump U isn't really that he was using
the word/concept "University" as a marketing tool.
The core issue was that he was running a scam, and lots of
folks did feel that they squandered money on it. Just like GIN ...
GIN, of course, is Kevin Trudeau's scammy
brainchild, the Global Information Network, with which Fred van
Liew was deeply involved back when Trudeau was at the helm. As
you may know, I've written a lot about GIN on this blog over the
past few years, but the post linked to at the end of the above
text has a link to a document that explains exactly why GIN was
such a big scam -- a pyramid scheme, to be more exact. So far
Fred hasn't responded to that particular comment, but again, to
his credit, he allowed it, so that's something.
But this is about Trump, not about Fred. And although I do realize that part of the complaint against Trump U did indeed center around the dodgy use of the word "University," that was far from the crux of the matter. (See PS below for a link to an article about the latest (as of this writing) court decision regarding Trump U.)
Freewheeling, raucous debate is an
essential part of what makes democracy work. Having to look
over your shoulder before criticizing a public official is
exactly the kind of culture of suspicion and fear that the
American Founders believed to be un-American.
And number 5, "Trump Is an American
Fascist" really resonates with me.
The case against Trump, then, is that
he is an autocrat in democrat’s clothing, a tyrant in the
wings, a bully who admires the “strength” of tyrants and
butchers, who finds a free press to be an inconvenience that
he intends to tame with legal force once elected, a man who
demonizes opponents and romanticizes violence, especially
against minorities, who pines for the day when government
could have its way with people without the trouble of
constitutional law getting in the way.
In other words, Donald Trump is a fascist. Or, at least, as close to a fascist as America’s
political culture is ever going to produce. As Wehner rightly
said, Trump is “a demagogic figure who does not view
himself as part of our constitutional system but rather as an
alternative to it.” It is startling how few of the
contributors to the National Review symposium—David Boaz
and Ben Domenech excepted—got this right.
Some readers will dismiss my argument right off as alarmist
nonsense. Trump is no Hitler, they say. Calling Trump a
dangerous autocrat and quasi-fascist only shows how paranoid
and unhinged I and other Trump critics have become.
Maybe. But you don’t have to go full Hitler to be a danger
to the culture of a free society. Most dictators in history,
in fact, have not stooped to Hitlerian levels of barbarism
and madness.
For those who think "it can't happen
here"... well, don't be so sure. My pal Shel Horowitz at the
Green and Profitable blog made some good points on this January 2016 post.
It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that,
apart from his apparent tyrannical leanings, one of my main
objections against Trump has been his Scamworld connections. As
usual Salty Droid was way ahead of the curve here; see the two
blog posts linked to my Facebook comment, quoted above.
As I'm getting ready to publish this post, Stupor Tuesday is
winding down, with the polls in my state set to close in less
than 15 minutes. At this point I have little doubt that Trump will
come out ahead of the other loathsome
autocrats/plutocrats/theocrats in his party, at least nationwide, but for now, if you
haven't done so already, enjoy John
Oliver's brilliant takedown of Donald
"Drumpf."* Watch it while you still can.
PS ~ This won't make
much difference to Trump's faithful followers, especially those
who are scammers or wannabes in their own right (some of them
that I know of have heartily condemned Kevin Trudeau as a scammer
but they can't see that their political idol is an even worse
one)... but it appears that the lawsuit against Trump U is going
forward. Here is a direct link to the decision. PPS added March 15, 2016:Well, here we are on yet another Very Important Tuesday, and I'm
not just talking about the Ides of March, a day on which
we can celebrate the entertaining ways that various political
players who are now supposed to be allies continue to stab each
other in the back (Carson stabs Trump while Trump stabs Christie). I am also referring to the fact that it is "Mega Tuesday," and some Very Important States are at stake.
Meanwhile, in news that is especially pertinent to this blog
post, information continues to emerge about Trump's attempts to
stifle free speech. The non-disparagement clause that
even his lowliest volunteers are reportedly having to sign
probably wouldn't hold up in court, but isn't the fact that he is
going to such lengths to stifle criticism more than a little
scary? You think that "political correctness" is
cramping your style? Try living in a country ruled by "Trump
correctness." Also see this piece on Salon.com regarding the right's
hypocrisy/double standard regarding Trump protesters. Now get out there and vote, if you're in a state where
that's happening. Addendum March 16, 2016:Mother Jones speaks out about Donald Trump's "media enemies list, once again demonstrating that Trump = cowardice plus
tyranny in one loud, smirking, bloated orange package. The
MoJo piece is an important read from one of the media on
Trump's enemies list. And yes, I know that MoJo is a
"liberal" outlet, but for those of you who claim to
care about the Constitution, doesn't this raise any red flags to
ANY of you? What about you Trumpsters who support your candidate
because you say he is fearless? Or you who have been screaming
about President Barack Obama's supposed "tyranny?" Or
you who are hollering that Trump's -- and your own -- rights to
"free speech" are being trampled by "political
correctness" or Obama or "libtards" or Black Lives
Matter or Muslims or the New World Order or anyone else on your
imaginary "enemies" list?
Hello?
Whether or not one agrees with the Trump/Hitler comparisons (and the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan
Greenblatt, does not, for several
reasons), Trump has so far shown us a pretty scary and
potentially tyrannical aspect to his demagoguery. His attempts to
control the media around him, in an effort to quash criticism of
him, are quite telling and an indication of what he is capable
of. I can envision even harsher efforts should he be elected. He
might frame his efforts as an attempt to restore respect to the
office of the presidency, a respect that he will of course say
was destroyed by Obama. But however you look at it, the elements for a
prospective Trump dictatorship seem to be present, even without
genocide or work camps or a "final solution," as this September 2015 piece,
framed around a retrospective look at Sinclair Lewis' classic
1930s novel It Can't Happen Here, so eloquently
insinuates. And even though he may not be actively advocating
things such as pro-Trump militiasto
"protect" his fan base from those evil protesters,
Trump hasn't condemned them either. So the Lyin' Guard marches on
even as Trump is quite clearly going overboard in an attempt to
control the conversation about him -- bringing to mind everything
from Scientology's efforts to shield its members from
external influences, to Kevin Trudeau's infamous "rats in your head"
admonition regarding critics (an
admonition still being embraced by GIN loyalists). Turds of a feather...
