Propaganda can only be tamed when the mainstream media does the thing
When you think it’s over but it’s not Dept:
November 6, 2023
Press Release
Two armed criminals are off the streets after the United States Capitol Police (USCP) captured them and confiscated their handguns – one of which had a “Giggle Switch” to turn the weapon into a machine gun.
“This is just another example of our officers and their vigilance and perseverance putting away dangerous criminals,” said USCP Assistant Chief Sean Gallagher. “They are constantly working to keep everyone safe throughout the Capitol Complex.”
Additional detail.
Q: When ya stage a false impression and get caught at it, why isn’t the mainstream media reporting it?
A: Propagandists count on the failure of media outlets. It’s not some conspiracy. The truth is many editors are just extraordinarily unaware and/or stupid. It’s not fun to be so blunt about it, but there’s several excellent media critics who keep trying to draw attention to media flaws and bias and many editors make the conscious choice to ignore them instead of improving their content. This permits deliberately aimed lies to flourish.
Per Stanford Daily:
[President Richard] Saller said “an individual affiliated with the University attempted to chalk phrases on the ground pointing toward students participating in the sit-in for Palestine.”
According to Saller, the phrases “included deeply offensive language about violence toward Jewish people.” He said that although the photo was initially assumed to be antisemitic in nature, this was later disputed.
“The chalking was created by a Jewish community member who was trying to use irony and sarcasm to draw negative attention to the pro-Palestinian protests on campus,” Saller said, referencing a statement made by Stanford Hillel. “Within a few minutes of chalking, they regretted what they wrote and erased it with water and actually apologized.”
In the bank fraud trial in New York today, Donald Trump regularly evaded answering questions by pontificating endlessly which kept annoying the judge. He’d direct Trump to answer yes or no questions. Trump and his lawyers claimed this violated Trump’s freedom of speech.
In reality our entire court system would collapse if judges permitted defendants to drone on endlessly while ignoring the questions asked.
The other reality is Trump and his lawyers are deliberately trying to provoke the judge into taking actions against Trump that give them more options to appeal.
Per Rolling Stone:
Trump dodged questions and ranted about this “haters” while on the witness stand, leading Judge Arthur Engoron to scold him repeatedly and push the former president’s attorneys to rein in their client. “I beseech you to control him if you can,” Engoron implored. “If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.”
An explosive response from Engoron could include ordering Trump to be remanded to a jail cell for the night. The judge in the case had already imposed a gag order on Trump, warning him to refrain from attacks on the judge’s staff. Late last week, the order was expanded to also include Trump’s attorneys. Trump has still shown a brazen willingness to violate it repeatedly. And as bizarre as it may sound, there are attorneys and political advisers to Trump who have told the former president that a so-called “remand order” to put him in custody for repeatedly breaching the judge’s rulings might be a good thing — both legally and politically.
The ex-president’s legal advisers had long ago told Trump that his chances of winning at trial are close to zero — hence, their scorched-earth, “Fyre Festival”-style courtroom performances. According to the three sources, several Trump attorneys and other key allies have advised him that the more the New York judge supposedly “overreacts” — including perhaps remanding Trump — the better their case for an appeal will be.
“I call it the Chicago 7 disruption strategy,” Alan Dershowitz, the celebrity lawyer who defended then-President Trump during his first impeachment, tells Rolling Stone.
The legal strategy is turning Trump loose to speechify in the courtroom the same way he does in campaign stops, prattling on about how nobody else knows anything nor how to fix anything. Only he, the Mighty Wizard of Frauds, has the Godly power. And when that power gets blocked by the Constitution, government regulations, laws, or judges they all must yield to the divine Wizard.
And the more appeals he can file, the longer he can hold onto his assets and stave off civil and criminal penalties for the many laws he’s broken. Because he believes and has openly stated that if he win the next election, he’ll fire judges, prosecutors and hundreds of government employees, jail reporters, political opponents and any other critics. He’s all about the revenge, maintains that he’s above all the laws and if he can’t convince judges of that, he’ll summon his flying monkeys.
And they’re out there. As the Rolling Stone article notes Trump’s lawyers might even try to get Trump thrown into jail for a night or two so he can proclaim his martyrhood and get millions in fresh campaign funds from the cult he’s so carefully groomed.
The danger in this approach is that Trump often contradicts himself.
Today he tried to defend himself in court against claims that he was responsible for Trump Org financial records in July 2021, telling the judge he had too much going on to pay close attention to those records:
"I was so busy in the White House. My threshold was China, Russia and keeping our country safe."
The prosecution reminded him that his defense was ludicrous; he wasn’t even president in July 2021.
And at other times, he seems completely delusional. In Kissimmee, Florida over the weekend, he repeatedly said in the 2020 election he won the popular vote in all 50 states.
As that video shows, some in the broadcast media are directly challenging Trumps words and actions now which is a hopeful sign. But I believe they could point out what he’s doing far more effectively while explaining what the laws say. The laws were written before Trump arrived in DC so their existence isn’t political, created just to go after him.
It was Trump who began weaponizing the State Department and the Justice Department in his first term in office; that evidence is clear. But he and his House supporters claim it’s Biden that’s weaponizing everything. And the prosecutors. And the judges. They have zero evidence to support those claims.
On March 24, 2022, Trump and this Attorney Alina Habba filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and 30 other defendants, alleging they tried to rig the 2016 election against him. Nine months later (last January) the judge in that case issued an extensive 46 page order. It began:
”This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.
Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative. A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.”
On page 6 he wrote:
”Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose. Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well the impact of his actions.”
Ouch. Trump and Habba were then ordered to pay $938,000 to cover the legal costs of the 31 defendants Trump maligned.
And today, almost 10 months later, Habba called Judge Engoran ‘unhinged’ for trying to maintain order in the courtroom.
That’s the stuff the media should be reminding folks of now.
And if more of the mainstream media doesn’t consistently make it clear that this is Trump vs the entire judicial system of the USA, they could find Freedom of the Press ended by this defective mobster. And discover that jailhouse food isn’t very enticing.
Recommended Reading
1) Judd Legum on the silly attack on Florida school librarians by two Moms For Liberty.
2) McSweeney’s takes on Bootsy DeSantis.
3) An Israeli news station poll indicates 76% of Israelis want Netanyahu to resign.
And if your state has an election tomorrow, GO VOTE.
Note the many cities in their upcoming tour….
thanks man: sharing chunks and links from this...and thanks for the Roger Miller!