DTomlinson
DTomlinson's JournalIf you're arguing with a narcissistic psychopath, you've already lost.
You have to demonstrate to other people, in no uncertain terms, that the narcissist/psychopath is a menace to them, and them specifically.
Often, people learn the hard way, by being victimized by such people. Some people refuse to admit that theyve been conned, and get angry and resentful at those who desperately try to enlighten them to the danger, to the destruction.
You have to pick your battles with the narcissistic psychopaths victims: find those who could be persuaded to see the light but arent there yet, move on from those who are a lost cause, and stand in solidarity and organize with all of those who recognize the damage, the destruction, and the gravity of the continued threat - and are prepared to fight back.
Daniel Dale nails it on how the media lets Trump get away with the same brazen lies.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1284881802121838599Abolish DHS, and start with ICE and CBP. They are indisputably Trump's paramilitary goons
and thus, an active menace to the American people.
Fascists.
The dazzling rise and tragic fall of Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Nayef (WaPo).
This royal family showdown has been building ever since MBS, as hes known, deposed his predecessor in June 2017. The roots lie even deeper, in the bitter rivalry between supporters of the late King Abdullah, who had championed MBN, as the former crown prince is called, and the courtiers who surrounded his successor, King Salman, and his impulsive son MBS, when the new king assumed power after Abdullahs death in January 2015.
Brennan addressed the allegation, made to me by Saudis who are close to MBS, that MBN had skimmed money from intelligence accounts. Over the course of my interaction with MBN, he wasnt someone I thought was engaged in corrupt activity or was siphoning off money, Brennan said.
George Tenet, who was CIA director when MBN took control of the counterterrorism portfolio at the Interior Ministry in 2003, spoke glowingly of MBN in his memoir, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, published in 2007. He is someone in whom we developed a great deal of trust and respect, he wrote. Many of the successes in rolling up al-Qaeda in the kingdom are a result of his courageous efforts.
Tenet recalled the scene in an interview. Gathered with him and Abdullah were Nayef and his son MBN, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, who acted as interpreter. Tenet admonished Abdullah that al-Qaedas plots were directed against your family and religious leadership and urged him to declare war,he wrote in his memoir.
Abdullah nominated his commander on the spot. As Tenet recalled in the interview, the king looked at MBN and said in front of the others, Youre going to handle the counterterrorism account.'
A March 30, 2009, cable from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to the intelligence and national-security agencies back in Washington boasted that the Interior Ministry was THE BIGGEST DOG the largest and most domestically influential Saudi ministry. MBN, the cable said, is held in high regard by Abdullah and well-respected by the Saudi populace for his effective work in beating down Al Qaeda in the Kingdom and running an effective deradicalization program which has gained wide local and tribal support. ... The result is operations in the USG interest can be conducted in a highly effective and cooperative manner within the Kingdom.
Abdullahs support for his counterterrorism chief seems never to have wavered. MBN succeeded his father as interior minister in 2012 and, even after Adbullahs death and Salmans succession, MBN was named crown prince in April 2015 suggesting that he would eventually become king. But MBS was named deputy crown prince at the same time, an ominous sign for MBN.
The ambitious, risk-taking MBS found a powerful new ally when Donald Trump became president in 2017. Aljabri fled the kingdom in May 2017. A month later, MBN was summoned by his nominal deputy, MBS, and told to resign. He asked to call two prominent princes, Mohammed bin Fahd and Khaled bin Sultan, the MBN associate said. They told him the game was up, theyd made their deals with his rival and MBN had no choice but to resign as crown prince.
MBN submitted and swore allegiance to MBS. A royal decree issued June 21, 2017, announced that he had been removed as crown prince and replaced by his deputy. Some of his former friends and allies, including senior officers of the Mabahith, had already switched sides and become MBS supporters. Others were arrested and reportedly tortured. The Ritz-Carlton arrests of prominent Saudi businessmen and princes in November 2017 intimidated any remaining dissenters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/05/dazzling-rise-tragic-fall-saudi-arabias-mohammed-bin-nayef/
FBI Director, May 2020: Saudi officer who killed three in Pensacola was longtime Al-Qaeda associate
Meanwhile, Israel has attacked Iran, the Yemenis are still being murdered by the Saudis and Emiratis (with US help), and the autocrats of the Arab world in general are acting with more impunity and US support under President Donald "Muslim ban" Trump.
The new evidence shows that al-Shamrani had radicalized not after training here in the U.S. but at least as far back as 2015, and that he had been connecting and associating with a number of dangerous AQAP operatives ever since. It shows that al-Shamrani described a desire to learn about flying years ago, around the same time he talked about attending the Saudi Air Force Academy in order to carry out what he called a special operation. And he then pressed his plans forward, joining the Air Force and bringing his plot hereto America.
Thanks to a lot of hard work by our people, we now know that al-Shamrani continued to associate with AQAP even while living in Texas and in Florida; and that in the months before the attack, while he was here among us, he talked with AQAP about his plans and tacticstaking advantage of the information he acquired here, to assess how many people he could try to kill.
He was meticulous in his planning. He made pocket-cam videos as he cased his classroom building. He wrote a final will, purporting to explain himself, and saved it in his phonethe exact same will that AQAP released two months later when they initially claimed responsibility. He wasnt just coordinating with them about planning and tacticshe was helping the organization make the most it could out of his murders. And he continued to confer with his AQAP associates right until the end, the very night before he started shooting.
We are still exploiting the evidence weve now obtained from al-Shamranis phones. And were continuing to run our investigation, now with the benefit of a lot more insight into the murderers mind and intentions, his relations with AQAP, and his tactics.
We have more to learn. But we know enough now to see al-Shamrani for what he wasa determined AQAP terrorist, who spent years preparing to attack us.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-director-christopher-wrays-remarks-at-press-conference-regarding-naval-air-station-pensacola-shooting-investigation
This is a man who said Obama was an illegitimate POTUS and HRC was rigging 2016. He's at it again.
The only way he can "win" is by de-legitimizing his opponent's win - which in turn, de-legitimizes the very process itself. As we saw in 2016 and as we see with his Presidency, Trump wins when our democratic institutions - to the extent they exist - are corrupted, undermined, and seen as illegitimate by just enough Americans, just enough voters.
Stirring up racist and white supremacist backlash is not separate from this at all. After all, what was the secession of the majority of slave states in 1860 but a white supremacist declaration of the illegitimacy of a democratically elected President (Lincoln in that case)? Or the first Ku Klux Klan and the "Redeemers" who violently restored white supremacist rule and defeated post-Civil War Reconstruction? Or the 1950s "Massive Resistance" of Southern segregationists to the Supreme Court's rulings against "separate but equal?" Or, of course, stating that "I really don't think that Barack Obama was born in this country?"
Classic American white supremacist projection: OUR election fraud, OUR illegitimate actions and defiance of legal, constitutional outcomes of American elections, court decisions, etc., are not actually fraud or illegitimate actions at all - because from their point of view, black people, people of color, cannot EVER be legitimate, regardless of whether they are ordinary voters or Presidents.
Trump is only legitimate in an illegitimate system. Never forget that.
Trump is desperate -- and dangerous (Michael D'Antonio, CNN).
After three-and-a-half years of his deceitful and chaotic reign, Trump's lies about voting come as no surprise. The same is true for the string of awful choices that have put him in a hole with the voters. In this case, Exhibit A is his administration's failed response to the Covid-19 pandemic. While Trump claimed all was well and played snake-oil salesman for a treatment that was not effective, the virus went on to kill more than 120,000 Americans. And now it's only getting worse. In states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida, where GOP governors followed his lead, the spikes in infections have helped push the nation to break the previous single-day record of new cases.
Beset by these crises, the president has refused to alter course. (This is, it seems, a man who would rather double-down on a deadly decision than admit a mistake.) True to his dangerously divisive form, he's risking the safety of Asian Americans -- who have already been attacked as scapegoats for the pandemic -- by using a racist phrase to describe Covid-19. He has also continued to use social media to spread inflammatory videos; he retweeted clips that show Black people physically assaulting White people and shared a doctored "racist baby" video. (The video, which was manipulated to look like a CNN segment, was taken down by Facebook and Twitter after one of the children's parents lodged copyright objections.)
What's going on here? A recent New York Times and Siena College poll shows Trump is 14 points behind Biden. Never one for learning new tricks, Trump is responding by pushing all the buttons that worked for him as an outsider candidate in 2016. He indulges in stream-of-consciousness rants, like the one explaining his recent physical struggles at West Point. He pastes ugly nicknames on his opponents. And he continues to rail against immigration. In Arizona, the president didn't meet with brave nurses treating coronavirus patients or comfort the families of those who died from Covid-19. He did, however, tour a recently built barrier at the border with Mexico.
The trouble with Trump's rerun approach is that he's not an outsider anymore. He's the President -- which means he bears responsibility for the state our country is currently in. Things are so bad that he's even lost his chance to brag about the economy, which was once at the center of his claim to success. Unemployment is above 13%, and the economy is estimated to contract 5% in 2020. And while other nations are easing out of lockdown and kickstarting their economies thanks to strong public health measures, Trump's pandemic bungling threatens to make the economic price even steeper for Americans.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/opinions/trump-desperate-dangerous-reelection-strategy-dantonio/index.html
A beast is at its most dangerous when wounded and cornered.
The conditions that allow for the Republican Party to exist in its current form must be remedied.
That will be our only hope.
"Yes, this is an ongoing national and global crisis, but WHAT ABOUT OBAMA" - Trump/Republicans
Conservatives Threaten to Leave Twitter for Parler--But for Real This Time
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that President Donald Trumps 2020 campaign was weighing alternatives to traditional social media platforms after Twitter and Facebook took moderation actions against posts from the president and his campaign. Facebook last week removed Trump campaign ads that contained red inverted trianglesa symbol used by Nazis to designate political prisoners in concentration campsciting site policies against organized hate. Twitter has recently added warning labels and fact-checking links to Trump tweets that contain misinformation or content that violates Twitter community guidelines.
The Journal reported that the recent moderation action has top campaign officials considering alternatives, such as moving to another, lesser known company, building their own platform or doubling down on efforts to move supporters to the campaigns smartphone app, according to people familiar with the discussions. One possibility reportedly floated by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is a Twitter alternative called Parler.
The social platform Parler, launched in 2018, bills itself as an alternative to Twitter, closely resembling the all-but-defunct app Gab, which was quickly overrun with extremists and conspiracy theorists shortly after its inception. Like Gab, Parler has become home to its own pockets of far-right extremists who enjoy the platforms loose content moderation policies. Although Parler claims to be nonideological, it exists currently as a bastion of almost exclusively pro-Trump, right-wing content. Trumps campaign teased nearly identical considerations to the press this time last year, but a shift to Parler never materialized in any major sense.
The Daily Beast reported last year that Parler and Gab were locked in a heated standoff over which platform Trump would post on first, although as it stands Trump has yet to give up Twitterwhere he is able to shape national news with 280 characters a tweet at a time and reach more than 82 million followers. No reporting since then has indicated serious plans for Trump to join either platform soon.
But with Parler in the news, Trumps leading online sycophants are once again vowing to abandon Twitter once and for all.
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/conservatives-%e2%80%8bthreaten-to-leave-twitter-for-parler%e2%80%8b-but-for-real-this-time/
So...which Nazi alternative to Twitter will be get Trump first? Or (more likely IMO) will Trump continue to post on Twitter while Nazi courtiers and social media grifters desperately try to get his attention?
Anyone want to take any bets?
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Member since: Sat Apr 11, 2020, 11:56 AMNumber of posts: 411