New Twitter Files: How Obama Created an Agency to Create Blacklists of Supposed Foreign Disinformation Operators... and How Those Mechanisms Were Almost Immediately Turned, Surprise Surprise, Against the American Conservative Movement

Matt Taibbi wrote this post as a backgrounder to the today's Twitter Files.

A new #TwitterFiles thread will be dropping in a few hours, at noon EST. It follows up the Hamilton 68 story of a month ago with examples of state-funded digital blacklisting campaigns run amok. It's self-explanatory, but some advance context might help:
In 2015-2016, during the brief, forgotten period when Islamic terrorism was fading as a national obsession and Trumpian "domestic extremism" had not yet become one, Barack Obama made a series of decisions that may yet prove devastating to his legacy.
The short version is he signed Executive Order 13271, establishing a "Global Engagement Center" ("GEC") to "counter the messaging and diminish the influence of international terrorist organizations." This act got almost no press and even within government, almost no one noticed.
In the bigger picture, however, a lame duck president kick-started the process of shifting the national security establishment's focus from counterterrorism to "disinformation." Whether by malfunction or design, this abrupt course change of Washington's contracting supertanker would have dramatic consequences. In fact, the tale of how America's information warfare mechanism turned inward, against "threats" in our own population, might someday be remembered as the story of our time, with collective panic over "disinfo" defining this generation in much the same way the Red Scare defined the culture of the fifties.
This is a complicated story and it would be a mistake to jump to simplistic conclusions, like that the Global Engagement Center (humorously nicknamed "GECK" or "YUCK" by detractors in other agencies) is an evil Orwellian mind-control scheme. It isn't. But for a few crucial bad decisions, it could have fulfilled a useful or at least logical mission, much as the United States Information Agency (USIA) once did. However, instead of stressing research and public reports, as the USIA did when responding to Soviet accusations that Americans had caused the AIDS crisis, GEC funded a secret list of contractors and employed a more surreptitious approach to "counter-disinformation," sending companies like Twitter voluminous reports on foreign "ecosystems" -- in practice, blacklists.
GEC was not conceived as a partisan mechanism to defang conservative media, despite the recent true and damning series of reports by the Washington Examiner, outlining how a GEC-funded NGO in England used algorithmic scoring to de-rank outlets like The Daily Wire and help papers like the New York Times earn more ad revenue. The blacklisting tales you'll be reading about later today on Twitter also primarily target American conservatives, though GEC and GEC-funded contractors also target left-friendly movements like the gilets jaunes (yellow vests), socialist media outlets like Canada's Global Research, even the Free Palestine movement.
The scary angle on GEC is not so much the agency as the sprawling infrastructure of "disinformation labs" that have grown around it.

I keep banging this drum: the people the media is calling "experts" and "researchers" in "the disinformation space" are in fact just shut-in hyperpartisans who sit on Twitter all f*cking day and are basically unemployable. Then one day they decided to call their Twitter account "Disinformation Watch" or whatever and announced that they were experts and because they had the same politics as the media, the media did absolutely no vetting to determine if they were experts or just partisan hacks with axes to grind and nearly unlimited time available to issue "reports" on the internet.

Underneath America's love affair with "anti-disinformation" in the Trump years -- which expressed itself in the seemingly instant construction of a sprawling complex of disinformation studies "labs" at institutions like Harvard, Stanford, Clemson, UT, Pitt, William and Mary, the University of Washington, and other locations -- lay a devastating secret. Most of these "experts" know nothing. Many have skill, if you can call mesmerizing dumb reporters a skill, but in the area of identifying true bad actors, few know more than the average person on the street.
This is described repeatedly in the #TwitterFiles. In one sequence Twitter was contacted by Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times, who was writing a hagiographic profiles of "disinformation" warrior Renee DiResta, who'd achieved some renown as a campaigner against vaccine misinformation. Frenkel wrote Twitter to ask why they hadn't hired "independent researchers" like DiResta, Jonathan Albright, and Jonathon Morgan -- coincidentally, all hired witnesses of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- to help Twitter "better understand" its own business.
At the sight of Frenkel's provocative note, some Twitter execs lost it.
"The word 'researcher' has taken on a very broad meaning," snapped Nick Pickles. "Renee is literally doing this as a hobby... Of those three only [Albright] is the most credible, but... the bulk of his work is Medium blogs."
"Like CVE before it, misinformation is becoming a cottage industry," agreed comms official Ian Plunkett, referencing "countering violent extremism," a.k.a. counterterrorism.
Today's thread among other things will detail crude digital blacklisting schemes dreamed up by this new cottage industry. Each features the same design "flaw," in which giant lists of supposed foreign disinformationists somehow also come to include ordinary Americans, often with the same political leanings.

Guess which leanings those might be.

Read the whole thing; that's just the first half. He notes that Americans fund this system through this taxes, so we're now paying for our own censorship.

Or, actually, conservatives are paying for our own censorship. Liberals are paying taxes to muzzle us. They are, as usual, getting their money's worth from the government their partisans control.

The actual Twitter Files, #17, starts here. I'll quote them here refer you to the thread for the supporting screencaps and other documentation, you lazy-bones.

The thread starts with 40,000 Twitter accounts -- accounts, not posts -- being referred to Twitter's censors by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. The DFRL is funded by the GEC described in the article above, created by Obama.

The accoiunts are accused of being "inauthentic" -- bots or paid ASSETS. In this instance, they're accused of being some kind of bots agitating for Hindu nationalism in India.

By the way, note that The Regime didn't like the Hindu Nationalist party and still doesn't. If these accounts were tweeting on behalf of the socialist parties, they would not have flagged them.

But it turns out, many of these accounts were perfectly real users, often conservative Americans, who just favored Hindu nationalism in India.

There are a lot of Indians in America, you know. They read the news from the homeland.

4. "I have no connection to any Hindu folks... Just a Reagan Republican here in CT," replied "Bobby Hailstone."
"A Hindu nationalist? I've never even been out of this country. Let alone the state of NJ," said "Lady_DI816."
"These people are insane!" said "Krista Woods."

I remember occasionally covering this party, led by Modi, I think, positively.

But of course, I'm already known to be a RUSSIAN ASSET.

But no one can come by opinions (however shallow and transitory) that The Regime doesn't approve of without being accused of either being AGENTS of foreign disinformation operations, or DUPES and VICTIMS of foreign disinformation operations.

If we had all the correct information, we'd just believe all the crap that warmongering c*nt and creepy technofascist Anne Applebaum believes, you know!

Not only were some of the accounts real people, but "many" of them were -- in fact, virtually all of them were real.

5. Twitter agreed, one reason many of the accounts remain active. "Thanks, Andy," replied Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. "I spot-checked a number of these accounts, and virtually all appear to be real people."

7. DFRLab is funded by the U.S. Government, specifically the Global Engagement Center (GEC).
Director Graham Brookie denies DFRLab it uses tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have "an exclusively international focus."
8. But Americans on DFR's list, like Marysel Urbanik, are unconvinced its focus is "exclusively international."
"This is un-American," says Urbanik, who immigrated from Castro's Cuba. "They do this in places that don't believe in free speech."

9. The Global Engagement Center is usually listed as a State Department entity.
It's not.
Created in Obama's last year, GEC is an interagency group "within" State, whose initial partners included FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, DARPA, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and others.
10. GEC's mandate: "To recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign... disinformation."
On the surface, it's the same mission the United States Information Agency (USIA) fulfilled for decades, with a catch. USIA focused on foreign "disinfo."
GEC's focus is wider.

11. "It's an incubator for the domestic disinformation complex," says a former intelligence source. "All the shit we pulled in other countries since the Cold War, some morons decided to bring home."
12.GEC could have avoided controversy by focusing on exposing/answering "disinformation" with research and a more public approach, as USIA did. Instead, it funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer an insidious -- and idiotic -- new form of blacklisting.

14. Here are 5500 names GEC told Twitter it believed were �Chinese� accounts� engaged in �state-backed coordinated manipulation.� It takes about negative ten seconds to find non-Chinese figures: https://t.co/pkttqOL34S pic.twitter.com/wjyuJrUFpN
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023

15. GEC's "Chinese" list included multiple Western government accounts and at least three CNN employees based abroad. "Not exactly Anderson's besties, but CNN assets if you will," quipped Twitter's Patrick Conlon.
"A total crock," added Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.

The following is important: This is how the GEC did a soft-shoe-and-a-shuffle and stopped concentrating on actual Russian disinformation efforts and started focusing on American conservatives and other dissidents.

They argued in 2020 that even if some people, like conservatives, aren't in any way associated with Russian government operators, if we're even talking about the same things, we're part of the same "ecosystem," and thus "amplifying" those toxic messages, and thus should be counted a RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION.

Do not let mere technical "independence" from Russian entities fool you, the report says. Russian agent, conservative commentator -- they're just two heads of the same disinformation coin.

In so many words, that is.

Tomato, tahmahtoh-- let's call the whole thing censored.

17.This GEC report was contradictory. On one hand, it offered reasoned evidence that a specific outlet like the �Strategic Culture Foundation� was partnered with the Russian Foreign Ministry, which would make it a true "proxy site." pic.twitter.com/7nFrJMjydW
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023

19. The �ecosystem� is not a new concept. It�s been with us since Salem: guilt by association.

As one Twitter exec put it: ��If you retweet a news source linked to Russia, you become Russia-linked,� does not exactly resonate as a sound research approach.� pic.twitter.com/H4RxQhgM3B
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023

21.GEC�s report on China was �more entertainment value than anything,� said Rodericks. �It equates anything pro-China, but also anything against China in Italy, as part of Russia's strategy.� pic.twitter.com/uH1nl7LMEU
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023

This is also big: Twitter actually looked into this stuff and rejected it.

But you know who does absolutely no fact-checking about stories they can use to bash Republicans, don't you?

That's right, the Truth Tellers of the Super Anti-Disinformation US Media.

22. Twitter staffers had professionalism. They tended to look at least once before declaring a thing foreign disinformation. This made them a tough crowd for GEC.
Fortunately, there's an easier mark: the news media.
23.GEC's game: create an alarmist report, send it to the slower animals in journalism's herd, and wait as reporters bang on Twitter's door, demanding to know why this or that "ecosystem" isn't obliterated.
Twitter emails ooze frustration at such queries. UGGG! reads one.
25.Twitter disagreed with GEC's alert about Russian "disinfo" in South America, which appeared to confused cause and effect.
As Rodericks put it, "I believe what they mean is: 'there was a surge in accounts that agreed with Moscow-aligned narratives' = Moscow controlled."
26. Roth noted Bret Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy was quoted in Frenkel's story and said: "Seems like ASD are back at their old tricks."
27. Roth was referring to the fact that the ASD created Hamilton 68, another guilt-by-association scheme detailed in Twitter Files #15. The Hamilton "dashboard" claimed to track accounts linked to "Russian influence activities," but the list was largely made up of Americans.
28. The Hamilton 68 dashboard creator, J.M. Berger, was on the GEC payroll until June of 2017, just before the dashboard's launch. Hamilton claimed the list was "the fruit of more than three years of observation."
Berger "unequivocally" denies working on Hamilton for GEC.
30. The Hamilton 68 dashboard employed digital alchemy to create streams of headlines tying Americans to "foreign" disinformation.
The "ecosystem" reports GEC and many "disinformation" laboratories feed reporters are often just subtler versions of the same thing.

31. In a crucial in-house Q&A in mid-2017, Roth was asked if it was possible to detect "Russian fingerprints" using Twitter's public data. Though "you can make inferences," he said, "in short, no."
32. Twitter therefore knew from the first days of the "foreign interference" mania that the media zone was flooded with bad actors playing up cyber-threats for political or financial reasons, GEC included.
33. "GEC has doubled their budget by aggressively overstating threats through unverified accusations that can't be replicated either by external academics or by Twitter," wrote Rodericks.
34.The same is true of New Knowledge, the scandal-plagued company staffed by former NSA officials that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) hired to do "expert" assessments of the initial batches of "suspect" Facebook and Twitter accounts.
35. When Twitter saw New Knowledge and its reporter-worshipped "disinformation" gurus like Jonathon Morgan and Renee DiResta were making analytical leaps they felt were impossible, they knew something was off.

37. Roth said two of the five accounts were a �small Indonesian content farm� just commercial spam. (Would suspend but don�t want to throw fire on the NK report by making anyone think they�re correct.) Becca account is an American and not at all suspicious.� pic.twitter.com/BMzfIzjtsR
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023

38.Twitter's Nick Pickles: "New Knowledge's pitch... pick accounts that they have deemed to be IRA controlled, and then spin up bigger macro analysis... stories about '2000 Russian accounts tweeting about Kavanagh/Walkway/Caravan' [were] often based on media activity from NK."
39. Just like Hamilton 68, GEC and New Knowledge littered the media landscape with flawed or flat-out wrong news stories. Exacerbating matters, Americans in both cases paid taxes to become the subject of these manipulative operations.
40. Particularly egregious: a New Knowledge report to the Senate on Russian interference was leaked just days before it was outed in a scheme to fake Russian influence in an Alabama election, and no media outlets issued retractions.
No SSCI staff have commented, either.
41. Foreign cyber-threats exist, and there are sophisticated ways of detecting them. But GEC and its subcontractors don't use those, instead deploying junk science that often lumps true bad actors in with organic opinion.

42.�Disinformation studies� has mostly become a con, where non-experts mesmerize reporters with what one former GEC staffer calls �hairball� charts, usually measuring something idiotic � like who follows two Chinese diplomats, or shares an Iranian �FREE PALESTINE� meme. pic.twitter.com/YDS3HOSFoy
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023

I must, must, MUST be heard on "the Hairball Chart!"

It is made by an off-the-shelf bit of "network analysis" software. All the software does is pick up connections between data nodes -- say, between two users mentioning the same politician -- and then build a little faux-3-D model purporting to show the "linkages" between all the "players" in the "network."

This is absolute dogshit, for so many reasons, including user bias -- they are choosing, in the first place, who to nominate to put in "the network." These assholes mention Russia all the time, but they don't put their own Twitter accounts in the Hairball as among those which mention Russia, for example.

For another, it just tells you nothing -- look, a bunch of conservative accounts are opposed to the current foreign policy of a Democrat President, which currently consists of fighting a proxy war of dubious value, and this war happens to be with Russia. This doesn't make anyone opposing this Russian agents -- it makes them opposed to the war, and, at worse, just partisans opposed to Biden.

Anyway, for years and years internet "researchers" have been using this retarded bit of visualization software to prove, for example, that the conservative backlash to woke Star Wars is actually being organized by and directed by Steve Bannon -- look, they're connected on the Hairball Chart! You see! Proof!

That's not something I'm making up. That really happened, and got a lot of media attention.

The media looks at this chart and thinks Oh, that must be proof! A Computer made that, and computers are basically made of math, so this is true! I'll report this as a fact from a "disinformation expert!"

Trust the media, everyone! They'll protect you from disinformation!

They're really smart and good at their jobs and not lazy partisan hacks so incompetent it would be laughable if it weren't so infuriating!

44.An IG report shows GEC was initially obligated $98.7 million, of which roughly $80 million came from the Pentagon. It reportedly gave to at least 39 different organizations, whose names were redacted.
Why is this list secret?
45. Twitter comms official Ian Plunkett wrote years ago that "misinformation, like [countering violent extremism, or CVE] before it, is becoming a cottage industry."
Disinformation is the counterterrorism mission, rebranded for domestic targets.
46. Reauthorization for GEC's funding is up for a vote this year. Can we at least stop paying to blacklist ourselves?

The GEC was contacted by the Atlantic Council, which said they didn't publish the list of suspected Indian bots because they didn't have faith in that particular researcher.

When Matt Taibbi asked them if they therefore contacted Reuters and told them to be skeptical about the story they'd done on the list, the Atlantic Council got busy and had other things to do and couldn't find the time to answer.

DEFUND THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL

Not another penny more from US taxpayers.

Posted by: Ace at 04:14 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 first.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at March 02, 2023 04:15 PM (uNylN)

2 From centered to normal to slanted. Cool.

Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:15 PM (DRSnL)

3 WHAT A SHOCK

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at March 02, 2023 04:15 PM (xisCQ)

4 Not even a podium

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:15 PM (xhxe8)

5 Obummer hates America and Americans so this all makes perfect sense.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at March 02, 2023 04:16 PM (tn/bQ)

6 Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do to be a domestic terrorist.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at March 02, 2023 04:16 PM (fUnHJ)

7 top ten italical

Posted by: gnats local 678 at March 02, 2023 04:16 PM (kFrCu)

8 Surprise, surprise. A commie acts like a commie.

Posted by: Tonypete at March 02, 2023 04:16 PM (qoGsy)

9 OBAMA!? Considering other Americans as the enemy as opposed to foreign threats?

Who could have expected that!?

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at March 02, 2023 04:16 PM (xisCQ)

10 Will Dubya now stop servicing Mooch's dick?

Posted by: Maj. Healey at March 02, 2023 04:16 PM (E+05M)

11 At least it's not all centred.

Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at March 02, 2023 04:17 PM (Vwz3I)

12 I noodlummed the otters. Now to get a fresh cup of kawfee before I start in on this epic.

Posted by: Zombie Robbo the Llama Butcher at March 02, 2023 04:17 PM (BTgKJ)

13 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:17 PM (Zz0t1)

14 "Barack Obama made a series of decisions that may yet prove devastating to his legacy."

Maybe so, but we'll still be stuck with this damn rock:
obama.org/the-center/

Posted by: Mentholated Smooth-Drawing gp at March 02, 2023 04:17 PM (MvF+J)

15 Democrats.

F*cking EVIL bastards. EVIL.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:17 PM (Zz0t1)

16 *Lamont The Big Dummy lights cigar*

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM (Zz0t1)

17 Been reading about the Army's woes regarding recruiting, when I came across this pic:

https://tinyurl.com/ycktpyrm

Is it just me, or does the recruit in the foreground look like he's one jelly donut away from ventilating his drill sergeant?

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM (oyiEi)

18 How many people have actually seen the "Twitter Files" tweets or stories?

10%
5%
2%

Posted by: rd at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM (Z32m1)

19 At least it's not all centred.
Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at March 02, 2023 04:17 PM (Vwz3I)

That was giving me a headache.

Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM (DRSnL)

20 "Global Engagement Center"

AKA Scientology matchmaking service.

Posted by: Mentholated Smooth-Drawing gp at March 02, 2023 04:19 PM (MvF+J)

21 Willowed:

Been reading about the Army's woes regarding recruiting, when I came across this pic:

https://tinyurl.com/ycktpyrm

Is it just me, or does the recruit in the foreground look like he's one jelly donut away from ventilating his drill sergeant?

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:16 PM (oyiEi)

Holy crap. If Pvt. Pyle had a great grandson!

Posted by: Archer at March 02, 2023 04:19 PM (gmo/4)

22 Been reading about the Army's woes regarding recruiting, when I came across this pic:

https://tinyurl.com/ycktpyrm

Is it just me, or does the recruit in the foreground look like he's one jelly donut away from ventilating his drill sergeant?

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM

LOL, that is Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at March 02, 2023 04:20 PM (uNylN)

23 Is it just me, or does the recruit in the foreground look like he's one jelly donut away from ventilating his drill sergeant?
Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM (oyiEi)

Wow. No, not just you.

Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:20 PM (DRSnL)

24 Democrats.

F*cking EVIL bastards. EVIL.
Posted by: Sponge
___

Their time will come.

https://tinyurl.com/3ffzvbeu

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:20 PM (oyiEi)

25 I get the feeling that Sam Bankman-Fraud and Sheera Frenkel would hit it off.

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:20 PM (tiR3O)

26 When I joined I was 5' 11", weighed 165 lbs. and was fit.

Posted by: Archer at March 02, 2023 04:21 PM (gmo/4)

27 Is it just me, or does the recruit in the foreground look like he's one jelly donut away from ventilating his drill sergeant?
Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM (oyiEi)

Some call it a Keyser Blade, I call it a slingblade.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:21 PM (Zz0t1)

28 Been reading about the Army's woes regarding recruiting, when I came across this pic:

https://tinyurl.com/ycktpyrm

Is it just me, or does the recruit in the foreground look like he's one jelly donut away from ventilating his drill sergeant?
Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:18 PM (oyiEi)
===========

Is this the Fattie Club?

Posted by: rd at March 02, 2023 04:21 PM (Z32m1)

29 What was the meme about horse shit and a pony again?

Posted by: Holy Crap at March 02, 2023 04:21 PM (glGDV)

30 I didn't know the Army held spin classes.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:22 PM (Zz0t1)

31 Who the fuck names their daughter Sheera?

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:22 PM (tiR3O)

32 Wow. A lot of content here to go through. Chuy can be very thorough. That's a good thing.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at March 02, 2023 04:23 PM (Xrfse)

33 Is this the Fattie Club?
Posted by: rd
___

Pretty much.

Once they drop the lbs, then they get to go to their basic training unit.

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:23 PM (oyiEi)

34 Obama wouldn’t work that hard.

Posted by: Holy Crap at March 02, 2023 04:23 PM (glGDV)

35 keep banging this drum: the people the media is calling "experts" and "researchers" in "the disinformation space" are in fact just shut-in hyperpartisans who sit on Twitter all f*cking day and are basically unemployable

====

Losers.

Posted by: runner at March 02, 2023 04:23 PM (Nw6sz)

36 Speaking of disinformation, the NBC News reporter who dared to visit Crimea and report that the people in Crimea supported Russia has predictably been placed on the semi-official Ukrainian kill list.

https://tinyurl.com/4cud4jej

Posted by: The ARC of History! at March 02, 2023 04:23 PM (2tUFv)

37 31 Who the fuck names their daughter Sheera?
Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:22 PM (tiR3O)

It happens.

Posted by: She-Ra, Princess of Power at March 02, 2023 04:23 PM (BTgKJ)

38 Sheera’s mom? Dinette.

Posted by: Holy Crap at March 02, 2023 04:24 PM (glGDV)

39 I didn't know the Army held spin classes.
Posted by: Sponge
__

Nor did I.

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:24 PM (oyiEi)

40 The problem with the Twitter Files is that the issues they describe are *very* complicated. Lots of shady stuff happening at Twitter, but no way to distill it into anything that the average LIV can parse and understand.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 04:24 PM (YIVH2)

41 "Anyway, for years and years internet "researchers" have been using this retarded bit of visualization software to prove ..."

Not just this software, but the whole toolchest of visualization and 'data science' and datamining warez. Important to note that they usually misuse, rather than use these.

Posted by: Mentholated Smooth-Drawing gp at March 02, 2023 04:24 PM (MvF+J)

42 Lightning never strikes where you need it to.

Posted by: Eromero at March 02, 2023 04:24 PM (0G42s)

43 I didn't know the Army held spin classes.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:22 PM (Zz0t1)

When husband went to the chief's academy they had spin classes. That was the only time I knew of that the CG had them.

Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (DRSnL)

44 Firing federal employees can be difficult, but you can take away their security clearance and neuter them.

Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (RHGPo)

45 9 OBAMA!? Considering other Americans as the enemy as opposed to foreign threats?

Who could have expected that!?
-----------------
Well he was the scion to two generations of CIA and State fellow traveling operatives. Who could have seen that coming. And he's queer as a three dollar bill.

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (tiR3O)

46 I didn't know the Army held spin classes.
Posted by: Sponge

You're confusing them with the La Vergne (Tennessee) Police Department.

https://is.gd/GI9Fds

Posted by: Tonypete at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (qoGsy)

47 have any of these loons ever identified any bots from any country besides russia?

Posted by: gnats local 678 at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (kFrCu)

48 "well, I've finished sniffing everyone, now it's time for me to find the malarky guy"

Posted by: sockamster, gator at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (MLrvz)

49 "Whether by malfunction or design,"

Oh! I think I know the answer!

This, in a sane world, would give Congress an easy 90 million+ to cut.

Posted by: Fool Otto at March 02, 2023 04:26 PM (DB16e)

50 When I joined I was 5' 11", weighed 165 lbs. and was fit.

Posted by: Archer
___

I was underweight when I joined in '87.
Was at my perfect weight when I joined in 2001.

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:26 PM (oyiEi)

51 Read the whole article and not totally sure other than Propaganda they got out of it as not sure anyone they targeted paid for their overreaching

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:26 PM (xhxe8)

52 Michelle Obama @MichelleObama · 23h
I wouldn't be who I am today without the strong women in my life—my mom, my daughters, my girlfriends. They inspire me every day.

This #WomensHistoryMonth, let’s celebrate the women in our lives who encourage us to be our best.

Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at March 02, 2023 04:26 PM (Vwz3I)

53 Speaking of disinformation, the NBC News reporter who dared to visit Crimea and report that the people in Crimea supported Russia has predictably been placed on the semi-official Ukrainian kill list.

https://tinyurl.com/4cud4jej
Posted by: The ARC of History!

====================

Crimea was part of Russia proper since the time of the Czars. Khruschev gave Crimea from Russia SSR to the Ukraine SSR.

Posted by: rd at March 02, 2023 04:27 PM (Z32m1)

54 "shut-in hyperpartisans who sit on ~~Twitter~~ AoSHQ all f*cking day and are basically unemployable."

Mea culpa.

Posted by: Mentholated Smooth-Drawing gp at March 02, 2023 04:27 PM (MvF+J)

55 Nick Pickles also sounds like a painful way to make a living.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at March 02, 2023 04:28 PM (Jg7EG)

56 if no one mentioned it, 'shira' is hebrew for 'song.' i don't think it's uncommon as a girl's name among us chosen.

Posted by: gnats local 678 at March 02, 2023 04:28 PM (kFrCu)

57 Jesus Criminy.

Taibbii doing God's work here.

He may be a flatassed GenX poser who still thinks he working at rolling stone (IDK, I just put words together sometimes)...but he's at least concerned about the truth, even if it's from the blue fash overlords...not just tv evangelists.

Posted by: sockamster, gator at March 02, 2023 04:28 PM (MLrvz)

58
You're confusing them with the La Vergne (Tennessee) Police Department.

https://is.gd/GI9Fds
Posted by: Tonypete at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (qoGsy)

That was 'spinner' classes. That's a bit different.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:28 PM (Zz0t1)

59 53 Speaking of disinformation, the NBC News reporter who dared to visit Crimea and report that the people in Crimea supported Russia has predictably been placed on the semi-official Ukrainian kill list.

.. so has Elon Musk

Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:29 PM (RHGPo)

60 Getting rid of government agencies is impossible, say Republicans like Paul Ryan (especially when GOP control both houses of Congress and the Presidency).

All it takes is an EO.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at March 02, 2023 04:29 PM (NUHK/)

61 Crimea was part of Russia proper since the time of the Czars. Khruschev gave Crimea from Russia SSR to the Ukraine SSR.
-------------
Yep. Also Poroshenko had to be replaced by Zelensky cuz he didn't want to kill Russian speaking Ukes. The CIA always gets its man.

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:29 PM (tiR3O)

62 the best part of taibii is he spends all day arguing with libtards who get assigned their NPC talking points to taunt him for being a putin snuggler, a trumptard, a putin snuggler, or a ... let me check ...yeah, a trumptard.

he's very patient to explain to each npc to delete themselves.

Posted by: sockamster, gator at March 02, 2023 04:29 PM (MLrvz)

63 Damn!

This has to be an all-time tl;dr Ace posting!

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at March 02, 2023 04:29 PM (ZSK0i)

64 President Biden informed Senate Democrats in a closed-door meeting Thursday that he won't veto legislation blocking the Washington, D.C., Council's move to soften crime laws. Following the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., confirmed the president's plans to sign the bill once it gets to his desk.

Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:29 PM (RHGPo)

65 Crimea was part of Russia proper since the time of the Czars. Khruschev gave Crimea from Russia SSR to the Ukraine SSR.
Posted by: rd at March 02, 2023 04:27 PM

============

Khruschev's predecessor Stalin moved the Tatars from Crimea to Siberia as punishment for disloyalty. Now a lot of Tatars are allied with Ukraine.

Posted by: rd at March 02, 2023 04:29 PM (Z32m1)

66 Motivational platoon, white gym shoes. You know.

Posted by: Eromero at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (0G42s)

67 Fundamentally transformed

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Buy ammo, food, water at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (c2f5O)

68 Michelle Obama @MichelleObama · 23h
I wouldn't be who I am today without the strong women in my life—my mom, my daughters, my girlfriends. They inspire me every day.

This #WomensHistoryMonth, let’s celebrate the women in our lives who encourage us to be our best.
Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at March 02, 2023 04:26 PM (Vwz3I)

Fitting. Hershey's Canada put a 'chick' with a dick on the wrapper, so.......

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (Zz0t1)

69 Speaking of disinformation, the NBC News reporter who dared to visit Crimea and report that the people in Crimea supported Russia has predictably been placed on the semi-official Ukrainian kill list.

Expect not a peep from the organizations that allegedly exist to "protect journalists".

Posted by: The ARC of History! at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (2tUFv)

70 56 if no one mentioned it, 'shira' is hebrew for 'song.' i don't think it's uncommon as a girl's name among us chosen.
------------------
What does Frenkel mean in English?

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (tiR3O)

71
Of course short people are more likely to be psychopaths. It's a feature of sexual dimorphism in humans.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (oINRc)

72 by favorite part of the war on terror is how every tool was used only on republicans and never on muslims.

no, apparently, GWB had the secret war-fighting manual from sun tzus' grave that said "if you are fighting fanatical terrorists, the best thing to do is give them unlimited immigration, and leadership roles in your govt."

Posted by: sockamster, gator at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (MLrvz)

73 Outrage!!!!

Anyway....

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy, Set the Earth to fire and reshape it closer to the heart's desire at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (60mTw)

74 More than half the global population will be overweight or obese by 2035: report

... just in time for a world of EVs

Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:31 PM (RHGPo)

75 "my favorite part..."

damn you, fat sausage fingers

Posted by: sockamster, gator at March 02, 2023 04:31 PM (MLrvz)

76 re 52: she and hillary both owe pretty much everything to their husbands.

Posted by: gnats local 678 at March 02, 2023 04:31 PM (kFrCu)

77 Michelle Obama @MichelleObama · 23h
I wouldn't be who I am today without the strong women in my life—my mom, my daughters, my girlfriends. They inspire me every day.

That's a meaningless statement. A certain man with a funny mustache wouldn't have been the same without the help of women.
I'm irritated. Yes I am.

Posted by: That Northern skulker at March 02, 2023 04:31 PM (VdGjU)

78 Defund The Federal Government.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 02, 2023 04:31 PM (GE8Ol)

79 Dude. There is not, nor has there ever been any "panic" over "disinformation". That is but a convenient cover story for using "diSiNfOrMaTiOn" as the reason to do anything you want to your political opposition. Including, of course, the Democrat PR wing - the mainstream media.

Posted by: deadrody at March 02, 2023 04:31 PM (/jrmI)

80 ...its like we've been "fundamentally transformed". For chits and giggles; "when somebody tells you, who they are; believe them". Comprende?

Posted by: pahound at March 02, 2023 04:32 PM (kG66/)

81 Conservative media?????

I know of no conservative media.

Posted by: vic at March 02, 2023 04:32 PM (sbuTN)

82 Heh. When I was 29 I was and even 6 feet, 170 lbs. I seem to have shrunk in both of those dimensions since then.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at March 02, 2023 04:32 PM (Xrfse)

83 Proof that a stopped clock is right twice a day:

Romney slams Buttigieg: ‘He’s not ready for the responsibility he has’

Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:32 PM (RHGPo)

84 Only in Russia:

https://tinyurl.com/bp5z9uyh

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:32 PM (oyiEi)

85 Khruschev's predecessor Stalin moved the Tatars from Crimea to Siberia as punishment for disloyalty. Now a lot of Tatars are allied with Ukraine.
---------------
Saw several Crimean pastures populated with rude structures with no one living in them. This was the Tartars claiming land rights in Crimea. The Russians and Ukes were not pleased.

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:32 PM (tiR3O)

86 "This is un-American," says Urbanik, who immigrated from Castro's Cuba. "They do this in places that don't believe in free speech."

Ah hell. That hits you right where you live.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (zZu0s)

87 An IG report shows GEC was initially obligated $98.7 million, of which roughly $80 million came from the Pentagon.

Yup, we're paying to have ourselves censored.

Posted by: pookysgirl can think of better things to spend the money on at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (dtlDP)

88 [Proof that a stopped clock is right twice a day:

Romney slams Buttigieg: ‘He’s not ready for the responsibility he has’
Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:32 PM (RHGPo)

But he puffs peter, so that makes him qualified for every job on earth, dontchaknow.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (Zz0t1)

89 I suppose I'm racist for thinking Michelle Obama spoke meaningless twaddle.

Posted by: That Northern skulker at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (VdGjU)

90 82 Heh. When I was 29 I was and even 6 feet, 170 lbs. I seem to have shrunk in both of those dimensions since then.
---------------
Bet you feet, nose and ears have grown.

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (tiR3O)

91 Are you telling me if I'd've just gotten the twitter handle of the guy wearing the "Who's your Vladdy" t-shirt at the local Serb-fest I could've gotten my cevaps paid for by Uncle Sugar?

Posted by: DaveA at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (FhXTo)

92 What does Frenkel mean in English?
Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (tiR3O)

After stripping away all the verbiage, the internetz seem to think it's a variant of Frankel, meaning someone from Franconia, a region in SW Germany.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (ZSK0i)

93 "if you are fighting fanatical terrorists, the best thing to do is give them unlimited immigration, and leadership roles in your govt."

The one thing that I did not expect after 9/11 was that the Muslim population of the United States would be allowed to double in the following ten years.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (2tUFv)

94 Ever since the song "Short People" came out my hubby sings a few bars every time I ask him to get something down from up high.

Decades this has been going on. It may be turning me psychopathic.

Some day I may just have to reach up and kneecap him.

Posted by: Just Lily at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (+CNyv)

95 Michelle Obama @MichelleObama · 23h
I wouldn't be who I am today without the strong women in my life—my mom, my daughters, my girlfriends. They inspire me every day.

This #WomensHistoryMonth, let’s celebrate the women in our lives who encourage us to be our best.
-------------

"You see gentlemen, behind every great man there is a woman urging him on, and so it was with my Stella, she urged me on into outer space."

Harcourt Fenton Mudd

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (VwHCD)

96 Michelle Obama @MichelleObama · 23h
I wouldn't be who I am today without the strong women in my life—my mom, my daughters, my girlfriends. They inspire me every day.

As far as I'm concerned, you are a nobody.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at March 02, 2023 04:34 PM (Xrfse)

97 You are always going to have a certain amount of people seeking to confirm their personal bias. Put those people aside for a minute. Now given that, you have to wonder how long this can happen and a majority of people still trust any of these outlets or people. They have zero credibility and even here you can see like minded lemmings at Twitter balking.

Posted by: Marcus T at March 02, 2023 04:34 PM (WSTFK)

98 At NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Rolls-Royce has begun testing of the F130 jet dual-engine pods that will power the US Air Force's B-52H Stratofortress heavy bomber fleet for the remainder of its service life into the 2050s. Entering service in 1955,

Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:34 PM (RHGPo)

99 Most of these "experts" know nothing. Many have skill, if you can call mesmerizing dumb reporters a skill,
___

ZING! In fairness, the population of dumb reporters is about 95% of all reporters, so it is an effective skill.

Posted by: Chuck Martel at March 02, 2023 04:34 PM (fs1hN)

100 If you check Barry's website, "The Office" of Barry and Mooch, half of the eagle (presidential seal) prominently displayed, like these two law license surrendered former lawyers are somehow still connected to government.

Oh wait...pResident Penetrating Fingers is the 3rd term of Barry & Bunch.

*slaps forehead*

Posted by: Ju at March 02, 2023 04:34 PM (aTmM/)

101 Michelle Obama @MichelleObama · 23h
I wouldn't be who I am today without the strong women in my life—my mom, my daughters, my girlfriends. They inspire me every day.

This #WomensHistoryMonth, let’s celebrate the women in our lives who encourage us to be our best.
Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at March 02, 2023 04:26 PM (Vwz3I)

Fitting. Hershey's Canada put a 'chick' with a dick on the wrapper, so.......
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:30 PM (Zz0t1)

I don't think I even knew there was a Women's History Month.

Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:35 PM (DRSnL)

102 Bet you feet, nose and ears have grown.

Sigh. It's inevitable.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at March 02, 2023 04:35 PM (Xrfse)

103 >The one thing that I did not expect after 9/11 was that the Muslim population of the United States would be allowed to double in the following ten years.

Posted by: The ARC of History!

or we'd have a president named Hussein

Posted by: DB - Spanning the globe at March 02, 2023 04:35 PM (geLO8)

104 > Anyway, for years and years internet "researchers" have been using this retarded bit of visualization software to prove, for example, that the conservative backlash to woke Star Wars is actually being organized by and directed by Steve Bannon -- look, they're connected on the Hairball Chart! You see! Proof!

The root problem with their analysis, I think, is they are implying an established or long term link between nodes. In fact, all that proves is a transitory link whose only defining characteristic is they are people who expressed an opinion on the topic.

Any random person can happen across any random tweet that sparks their interest and share it to their friends. That doesn't mean they have an established relationship with the person whose tweet sparked their interest.

Posted by: bonhomme at March 02, 2023 04:36 PM (eyxn4)

105
I don't think I even knew there was a Women's History Month.
Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:35 PM (DRSnL)

I had never heard of it until today, actually.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 02, 2023 04:36 PM (Zz0t1)

106 Bet you feet, nose and ears have grown.
Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM (tiR3O)

So has the hair in/on all of those.

Posted by: rd at March 02, 2023 04:36 PM (Z32m1)

107 Finished See Something Say Nothing basically how the Barky administration leaped in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood permitting them to freely move in and out of the country and any incriminating evidence what was being kept track of was wiped out of the system.

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:36 PM (xhxe8)

108 I don't think I even knew there was a Women's History Month.
__

I will spend as much time 'celebrating' it as I did celebrating last month's b.s.

Namely, zero.

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:36 PM (oyiEi)

109 look, a bunch of conservative accounts are opposed to the current foreign policy of a Democrat President, which currently consists of fighting a proxy war of dubious value, and this war happens to be with Russia. This doesn't make anyone opposing this Russian agents -- it makes them opposed to the war,
____

It makes them Agents of Putin, you Putin Stooge! That's right I said it!

Posted by: Mark Levin's blind spot at March 02, 2023 04:37 PM (fs1hN)

110 107 And bet with Sundowner as Barky 3.0 it continues

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:37 PM (xhxe8)

111 re 70: ok, had to look it up. apparently refers to descendants of the 'franks', people of 'franconia', although the best know descendant of the franks would be that oscar meyer person, who is probably a russian bot, too.

Posted by: gnats local 678 at March 02, 2023 04:37 PM (kFrCu)

112 J6 Glowies opening doors. The Wuhan Flu came from a lab. The FBI tries to infiltrate Catholic Churches and declare school board Dads "Domestic Terrorists." The AG admits he can't arrest leftist criminals because they operate at night, etc etc etc

At this point I have Smoking Gun Fatigue.

Posted by: Zek at March 02, 2023 04:37 PM (5FPX4)

113 44 Firing federal employees can be difficult, but you can take away their security clearance and neuter them.
Posted by: SMOD at March 02, 2023 04:25 PM (RHGPo)

Actually, that would make them fire-able in many agencies. If you are in a job which needs a clearance, and you can't get one, that is one of the few ways you can cleanly fire a fed...

Posted by: Nova Local at March 02, 2023 04:37 PM (exHjb)

114 So has the hair in/on all of those.

lol. I was going to add that to my comment.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at March 02, 2023 04:38 PM (Xrfse)

115 >>>Michelle Obama @MichelleObama · 23h
I wouldn't be who I am today without the strong women in my life—my mom, my daughters, my girlfriends. They inspire me every day.

This #WomensHistoryMonth, let’s celebrate the women in our lives who encourage us to be our best.

Posted by: andycanuck

>Nobody has ever explained to me who Mitch really is. The last time I saw her wearing slacks, it looked like she was sporting a penis.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at March 02, 2023 04:38 PM (Jg7EG)

116 I don't think I even knew there was a Women's History Month.
---------
And so soon after Black History Month!

Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at March 02, 2023 04:38 PM (Vwz3I)

117 We need $1 million to replace all of the worn out seat cushions on the C5 fleet

DOD: Nah, sorry, man. No room in the budget.

State: We need $100 million to censor Americans

DOD: We can get you $80!

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy, Set the Earth to fire and reshape it closer to the heart's desire at March 02, 2023 04:38 PM (60mTw)

118 We could save a lot of time if we just declare some month as "Everyone except straight white males" month. EESWM, because those guys are the worst!

Posted by: Archimedes at March 02, 2023 04:39 PM (eOEVl)

119 I don't think I even knew there was a Women's History Month.
Posted by: Jordan61

I think it is presented as Women's 'Herstory' Month" usually. No wonder we are all confused.

Posted by: Tonypete at March 02, 2023 04:39 PM (qoGsy)

120 Air Mobility Command removes tail numbers and unit information from planes alarming watchdogs.

https://tinyurl.com/ykpnzd6w

Goes to Military.com

Posted by: Archer at March 02, 2023 04:39 PM (gmo/4)

121 Twitter execs were so astounded by this government interference that they did exactly nothing.

No whistleblowing. No running to Congress. No outing the bad actors.

They simply laughed at the absurdity and then ultimately did the bidding they scoffed at.

Weak chested men.

Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:40 PM (KbCG3)

122 I don't think I even knew there was a Women's History Month.

That's how oppressed you are. The Man is keeping you so down you don't even know about the monthlong celebration of your oppression.

Posted by: bear with asymmetrical balls - an election is simply a festival for the majority at March 02, 2023 04:40 PM (ppBhU)

123 93 The one thing that I did not expect after 9/11 was that the Muslim population of the United States would be allowed to double in the following ten years.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at March 02, 2023 04:33 PM

I know! We figured we could least triple it in a decade, but our Statist minions are lazy and incompetent. Still enough to get where we're going, though!

Posted by: Communist Agitators in Government at March 02, 2023 04:40 PM (JCZqz)

124 So has the hair in/on all of those.
Posted by: rd at March 02, 2023 04:36 PM (Z32m1)

The ear hair gets really annoying as you age, as I have found out to my great chagrin.

Posted by: Thrawn at March 02, 2023 04:41 PM (Rl7KJ)

125 The ear hair gets really annoying as you age, as I have found out to my great chagrin.
-------------
Just grab it and pull it.

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:41 PM (tiR3O)

126 People know more about grievance grp's history months than they do about actual history.

Posted by: sniffybigtoe at March 02, 2023 04:42 PM (UuD2k)

127 A new poll from Berkeley Institute finds that DeSantis tops Trump in CA, 37% to 29%. Also, DeSantis' new book is #1 on Amazon. Of course, it's not all roses.
The sales come despite a widely publicized review in the New York Times that suggested the book “reads like a politician’s memoir churned out by ChatGPT.”

Oh no, the NYT doesn't like the book. I'm devastated.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 02, 2023 04:42 PM (eOEVl)

128 I kept saying that what we had been seeing as corruption in DC was just the very top of the corruption iceberg. And I don't think we've even gotten to the waterline yet.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at March 02, 2023 04:43 PM (BdMk6)

129 >Nobody has ever explained to me who Mitch really is. The last time I saw her wearing slacks, it looked like she was sporting a penis.

There have been several pictures that show a bulge there. I suppose any woman who's photographed hundreds of times a day will sometimes present a bulge in some of those pictures. Even so, there's at least one video of Michelle jogging down some stairs that damn sure looks like something's waggling around down there. That combined with all of the bulge photos makes you wonder.

Posted by: bonhomme at March 02, 2023 04:43 PM (eyxn4)

130 Is all of women's history month a woman's time of the month?

Posted by: sniffybigtoe at March 02, 2023 04:43 PM (UuD2k)

131 If only we had an opposition party to call this out in Congress...

Posted by: Romeo13 at March 02, 2023 04:43 PM (oHd/0)

132 re 127: i wonder what they said about the latest book from moochelle. no, I don't.

Posted by: gnats local 678 at March 02, 2023 04:43 PM (kFrCu)

133 Archer interesting.

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:44 PM (xhxe8)

134 Air Mobility Command removes tail numbers and unit information from planes alarming watchdogs.

Well, that's rather sobering.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at March 02, 2023 04:44 PM (Xrfse)

135 Obama, in 2015. Seven years ago. Before Trump was anything but loud and before COVID.

They've been at it for a while.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:44 PM (t0OGg)

136 Not 100 people will read Mooch's book, 1,000 will buy it and Mooch will get $10 M for it

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:45 PM (xhxe8)

137 128 I kept saying that what we had been seeing as corruption in DC was just the very top of the corruption iceberg. And I don't think we've even gotten to the waterline yet.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at March 02, 2023 04:43 PM (BdMk6)

LOW estimates of total Government spending (Local, State, and Fed) is 40% of GDP. Some estimates put it as high as 47%.

All that money has to go somewhere... because it sure aint doing anything productive like fixing roads or securing the border.

Posted by: Romeo13 at March 02, 2023 04:45 PM (oHd/0)

138 There have been several pictures that show a bulge there. I suppose any woman who's photographed hundreds of times a day will sometimes present a bulge in some of those pictures.

Posted by: bonhomme at March 02, 2023 04:43 PM (eyxn4)

Commonly known as polterwang.

Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:45 PM (DRSnL)

139 Most of these "experts" know nothing. Many have skill, if you can call mesmerizing dumb reporters a skill

They're like a cat following a laser.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 02, 2023 04:45 PM (eOEVl)

140 74 More than half the global population will be overweight or obese by 2035: report

Not if I can help it!

Posted by: Ozempic at March 02, 2023 04:46 PM (w0NJk)

141 Biden last night, while laughing:

@Breaking911 · 20h
BIDEN: "[Marjorie Taylor Greene] was saying that a poor mother who lost 2 kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is, that fentanyl they took came during the last administration."

KJP this afternoon:

@Breaking911 · 34m
REPORTER: "[Biden] mentioned a mother that had lost two of her sons to fentanyl. [...] He seemed to laugh. The mother is demanding an apology..."

KJP: "He expressed sympathy for her last night. [...] His words are being mischaracterized by someone who is regularly discredited."

Posted by: andycanuck (Vwz3I) at March 02, 2023 04:46 PM (Vwz3I)

142 GEC was not conceived as a partisan mechanism to defang conservative media, despite the recent true and damning series of reports by the Washington Examiner, outlining how a GEC-funded NGO in England used algorithmic scoring to de-rank outlets like The Daily Wire and help papers like the New York Times earn more ad revenue.
++++
Flatly unconstitutional, not that it matters.

Setting aside the issue of speech and censorship, this is an example of the state funding organizations that manipulate markets in order to restrain trade and encourage the misallocation of capital. It's flatly illegal on those terms, and we haven't even gotten to the First Amendment yet.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:46 PM (t0OGg)

143 "The word 'researcher' has taken on a very broad meaning," snapped Nick Pickles. "Renee is literally doing this as a hobby... Of those three only [Albright] is the most credible, but... the bulk of his work is Medium blogs."
++++
The *most* credible is a Medium blogger? Yowza.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:46 PM (t0OGg)

144 Underneath America's love affair with "anti-disinformation" in the Trump years -- which expressed itself in the seemingly instant construction of a sprawling complex of disinformation studies "labs" at institutions like Harvard, Stanford, Clemson, UT, Pitt, William and Mary, the University of Washington, and other locations -- lay a devastating secret. Most of these "experts" know nothing. Many have skill, if you can call mesmerizing dumb reporters a skill, but in the area of identifying true bad actors, few know more than the average person on the street.
++++
Uhhh, no. "America" did not have a "love affair with 'anti-disinformation'" - the Left did, and all of its organs of power. This was not an "America" obsession, it was an "organs of state and Party power" obsession.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:48 PM (t0OGg)

145 Wow Ace. This is an amazing post. I don'tknow how you do it. This presents the information in a very undersandable way. I think a lot of people don;t understand Twitter so tend to skip over this stuff. But, Twitter is incredibly influential and what the government did is criminal. i am convinced this is why we did not get a red wave.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 02, 2023 04:48 PM (Y+l9t)

146 ok but seriously - can this GEC monster PLEASE get zeroed out?!?!? come on McCarthy you eventually have to DO SOMETHING

this one is easy

Posted by: BlackOrchid at March 02, 2023 04:48 PM (w0NJk)

147 Not 100 people will read Mooch's book, 1,000 will buy it and Mooch will get $10 M for it
Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:45 PM (xhxe

Bingo.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at March 02, 2023 04:48 PM (ZSK0i)

148 gonna need to eat a lot of insects if you want to be overweight.

Posted by: gnats local 678 at March 02, 2023 04:48 PM (kFrCu)

149 ... The AG admits he can't arrest leftist criminals because they operate at night ...

So basically Solar Panels are more useful that FBI agents.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at March 02, 2023 04:48 PM (l7lsb)

150 That gay Democrat Mayor of College Park, MD who just earned a bunch of child porn charges is a mentee of Pete Bootyjuice.

https://bit.ly/3kIEraG

Posted by: bonhomme at March 02, 2023 04:48 PM (eyxn4)

151 We're paying to have ourselves censored
____________

Maybe stop the payments? I'd be quite the statement if every taxpayer just said, fuck it... I ain't paying for this shit and told the IRS to pound sand.

They'd need a wee bit more than 87K agents to unfuck that.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at March 02, 2023 04:49 PM (Q4IgG)

152 A new poster had suddenly appeared all over Oceania. It had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a woman. The thing had been plastered on every blank space on every wall, even outnumbering the portraits of Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic about everything, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of feminism.

Posted by: Woman's History Month at March 02, 2023 04:49 PM (GE8Ol)

153 11. "It's an incubator for the domestic disinformation complex," says a former intelligence source. "All the shit we pulled in other countries since the Cold War, some morons decided to bring home."
++++
Yeah, Like color revolutions.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:49 PM (t0OGg)

154
The funny part is, as far-left and woke (and dishonest) as ChatGPT is, it has nothing on the rigid ideologues of the putatively human NPC Community.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 02, 2023 04:49 PM (oINRc)

155 Obama is evil. It's as simple as that.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 02, 2023 04:49 PM (eOEVl)

156 Fun fact (just in time for Women's History Month!):

https://tinyurl.com/3dnw92v5

Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (oyiEi)

157 Maybe stop the payments? I'd be quite the statement if every taxpayer just said, fuck it... I ain't paying for this shit and told the IRS to pound sand.

They'd need a wee bit more than 87K agents to unfuck that.
Posted by: Martini Farmer at March 02, 2023 04:49 PM (Q4IgG)
---
Easier said than done, considering how many of us have our taxes automatically withdrawn by our employer. I never see that money until it's time to file my return and try to claim some of it back.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (YIVH2)

158 @74 so with so many fatties by 2050 the humans will look like the people in WallE

Posted by: Smell the Glove at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (lReCd)

159 A lot of our current troubles can be laid directly at the feet of Obama.

Posted by: gourmand du jour, gimpy edition at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (jTmQV)

160 12.GEC could have avoided controversy by focusing on exposing/answering "disinformation" with research and a more public approach, as USIA did. Instead, it funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer an insidious -- and idiotic -- new form of blacklisting.
++++
Insidious, yes. Idiotic, no. Its premise was idiotic, but its premise was also a fiction. It's a censorship and speech control system, not a "disinformation" control system.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (t0OGg)

161 Distributing tax payer money to contractors is the Fed govt model now. A large portion of an agency budget is money just to hand out to NGO's

There are even NGO's that take the govt money and then decide which other NGOs are worth of the grant money or contractor.

They literally hire a contractor to pass out money to contractors.

Posted by: sniffybigtoe at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (UuD2k)

162 Yikes.. That's like reading a Novel.... Almost sorry I read it... For My blood pressures sake

Posted by: It's me donna at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (bs+z0)

163 Again:
I don't think we have even begun to scratch the surface to expose the massive amount of government resources used to censor, silence, and destroy America citizens in pursuit of defeating Trump.

The number in dollars and time spent will exceed $3 billion--more than both campaigns spent combined.

A measly $1 million donation to Nixon set off a firestorm of campaign finance laws.
One federal agency--that we know so far--donated near $100 million to elect Joe Biden.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at March 02, 2023 04:51 PM (0u9on)

164 157 Maybe stop the payments? I'd be quite the statement if every taxpayer just said, fuck it... I ain't paying for this shit and told the IRS to pound sand.

They'd need a wee bit more than 87K agents to unfuck that.
Posted by: Martini Farmer at March 02, 2023 04:49 PM (Q4IgG)
---
Easier said than done, considering how many of us have our taxes automatically withdrawn by our employer. I never see that money until it's time to file my return and try to claim some of it back.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (YIVH2)

I've often said a tax strike would be an amazing turning point in this country's history.

But as you say, it's unworkable when we're all involuntarily tied into it.

Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:51 PM (KbCG3)

165 Then one day they decided to call their Twitter account "Disinformation Watch" or whatever.

Isn't that essentially what the chick who was to run the Disinformation Board was?

She was in government. Then one day called herself a Disinformation Expert.

Posted by: Steve_in_SoCal at March 02, 2023 04:52 PM (NW9xb)

166 They literally hire a contractor to pass out money to contractors.
------------------
You know this pisses off Harvey Weinstein.

Posted by: Puddinhead at March 02, 2023 04:53 PM (tiR3O)

167 America's love affair with "anti-disinformation" in the Trump years
--------------

Funny I don't remember "America" having any such love affair.

Posted by: ... at March 02, 2023 04:53 PM (BXxcV)

168 The "ecosystem" is not a new concept. It's been with us since Salem: guilt by association.
++++
Except it is one step phonier, and one step more insidious.

It isn't guilt by association. That would be "this guy hobnobs with Russians and so he is guilty of being a Russian, too." This is guilt by superficial congruence. "This guy thinks something that a Russian thinks, so he is guilty of being a Russian, too." Does this guy think the same thing a Russian thinks for the same reason? Because is compromised? Or did he arrive at his congruent conclusions independently? It's almost certainly the latter in all cases, but that doesn't matter. The congruence alone is guilt.

That's vastly more sinister than mere "guilt by association."

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:53 PM (t0OGg)

169 I've often said a tax strike would be an amazing turning point in this country's history.

But as you say, it's unworkable when we're all involuntarily tied into it.
Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:51 PM (KbCG3)
---
I'm not even sure if it would have as much effect as people think, considering that government spending is largely decoupled from tax revenue.

It would make a statement, I suppose, but who knows if it would accomplish anything substantive?

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 04:54 PM (YIVH2)

170 > A lot of our current troubles can be laid directly at the feet of Obama.

Posted by: gourmand du jour, gimpy edition

I think 8 years of the press worshiping obama opened the door to the mainstreaming of anti-white racism

IMO YMMV

Posted by: DB - Spanning the globe at March 02, 2023 04:54 PM (geLO8)

171 34.The same is true of New Knowledge, the scandal-plagued company staffed by former NSA officials that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) hired to do "expert" assessments of the initial batches of "suspect" Facebook and Twitter accounts.

35. When Twitter saw New Knowledge and its reporter-worshipped "disinformation" gurus like Jonathon Morgan and Renee DiResta were making analytical leaps they felt were impossible, they knew something was off.
++++
Man, it would be cool if we had a free press in the United States of America.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:54 PM (t0OGg)

172 I don't think we have even begun to scratch the surface to expose the massive amount of government resources used to censor, silence, and destroy America citizens in pursuit of defeating Trump.
--------------

This was coming for us with or without Trump.

Posted by: ... at March 02, 2023 04:54 PM (BXxcV)

173 Barky said he was fundamentally changing the country

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 04:56 PM (xhxe8)

174 This all started when non-science entities started calling themselves "labs." (Sundance Film "Lab," etc.) People working in social "sciences" and the humanities desperately want the respectability and seriousness associated with actual scientists. So they try to launder their opinions as "facts." It's just another pressure tactic to get news entities to skew reporting their way as factual. And it's worked magnificently, so far. It helps when all the journalists' opinions align with theirs.

Ever wonder why so many leftists wear eye glasses? I wonder how long until we start seeing these clowns wearing white lab coats?

Posted by: Rusty Trawler at March 02, 2023 04:56 PM (1gif2)

175 When do the Republicans start playing these games?

Posted by: wth at March 02, 2023 04:56 PM (v0R5T)

176 Isn't this whole issue exactly the thing the now-defunct Reliable Sources hour was designed to deal with, specifically a source of unimpeachable neutrality and integrity?

Say what you like, the host only had eyes for us.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at March 02, 2023 04:56 PM (a3Q+t)

177 Remember, Twitter thought suppressing speech was more important than monitoring and reporting illegal activities like pedophilia.

Posted by: Blake - semi lurker at large at March 02, 2023 04:57 PM (2YtOq)

178 A lot of our current troubles can be laid directly at the feet of Obama.
Posted by: gourmand du jour, gimpy edition at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (jTmQV)

Many of our troubles have been perpetuated over several decades by the left. Barky's regime amplified them into uncontrollable monsters.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at March 02, 2023 04:57 PM (BdMk6)

179 I'm not even sure if it would have as much effect as people think, considering that government spending is largely decoupled from tax revenue.

It would make a statement, I suppose, but who knows if it would accomplish anything substantive?
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 04:54 PM (YIVH2)

Consider the non-monetary implications, though. What's the enforcement mechanism when the American people en masse say, "Nope." You can't function as a government in that arena.

Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:57 PM (KbCG3)

180 I voted for Trump and if he's the nominee I'll vote for him again. However the fact that the GEC still exists is one of the problems with Trump's presidency. He was naive and had no idea what he was up against. He hired generals because he thought they were patriots and would stop stuff lol or this . That vast hive of scum and villainy that is the deep state / Dem alliance was beyond what he expected.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at March 02, 2023 04:57 PM (lReCd)

181 175 When do the Republicans start playing these games?
Posted by: wth at March 02, 2023 04:56 PM (v0R5T)

Gotta "own" the media to do that

Posted by: It's me donna at March 02, 2023 04:57 PM (bs+z0)

182 Alex Murdaugh's morals > Every Democrat's and DeepStater's (birm) morals

Posted by: Gref at March 02, 2023 04:58 PM (AMIL/)

183 That's vastly more sinister than mere "guilt by association."

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:53 PM (t0OGg)

All while Hunter receives millions from the wife of the Mayor of Moscow.

Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:58 PM (KbCG3)

184 Fun fact (just in time for Women's History Month!):

https://tinyurl.com/3dnw92v5
Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:50 PM (oyiEi)

heh. I am blessed that Mrs. Mahon is not an archaeologist.

Posted by: Mr. B Natural at March 02, 2023 04:58 PM (xPJvm)

185 @ 150-
'We have always been at war with Oceana.
'

Posted by: Eromero at March 02, 2023 04:58 PM (0G42s)

186 This is absolute dogshit, for so many reasons, including user bias -- they are choosing, in the first place, who to nominate to put in "the network." ... For another, it just tells you nothing -- look, a bunch of conservative accounts are opposed to the current foreign policy of a Democrat President, which currently consists of fighting a proxy war of dubious value, and this war happens to be with Russia. ...
++++
Yuuuuuup. Network charts can be useful, especially when they can add other dimensions like commonalities across the network (e.g., A follows B/C/D/E, D/E follow K, K follows S, A/B follow S, etc.). Analyzing network effects can be a valuable tool, but you need 1 of 2 things to make it an effective entry point:
1. A very small network targeted for review (e.g., ISIS accounts on Twitter)
2. An enormously large network where you try to glean patterns.

What you should never is target the effort against a large network based on something imprecise - which is what it sounds like is what they did. That will just yield false effects. Convenient, though, for targeted large numbers of domestic political enemies.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:58 PM (t0OGg)

187 "I never see that money until it's time to file my return and try to claim some of it back."

Which is why they set it up that way.

Posted by: gourmand du jour, gimpy edition at March 02, 2023 04:59 PM (jTmQV)

188 suspected Indian bots
.......

The rez has internet?

Posted by: wth at March 02, 2023 04:59 PM (v0R5T)

189 Whoops with the sock.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, channeling Sponge, apparently at March 02, 2023 04:59 PM (xPJvm)

190 Anyway, for years and years internet "researchers" have been using this retarded bit of visualization software to prove, for example, that the conservative backlash to woke Star Wars is actually being organized by and directed by Steve Bannon -- look, they're connected on the Hairball Chart! You see! Proof!
++++
Yup. By corrupting the input assumptions, you can get any correlation you want. Temperature correlates to median shoe size, for example. Whatever.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:59 PM (t0OGg)

191 Consider the non-monetary implications, though. What's the enforcement mechanism when the American people en masse say, "Nope." You can't function as a government in that arena.
Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:57 PM (KbCG3)
---
This would probably work much better at the state level if/when a red state decides to become fiscally solvent to the point where it no longer needs federal dollars for roads/schools/etc. Then they can really tell the feds, "NO!"

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 04:59 PM (YIVH2)

192 DEFUND THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL
++++
Not even a good start.

Defund all NGOs. Every single one of them. If you're an NGO, you don't get taxpayer money. For any reason, in any amount, at any level.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:00 PM (t0OGg)

193 I guess Jeffrey Dahmer wouldn't have reached the dizzying heights he did without the women in his life
Michelle is a nitwit.

Posted by: That Northern skulker at March 02, 2023 05:01 PM (VdGjU)

194 All while Hunter receives millions from the wife of the Mayor of Moscow.
Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:58 PM (KbCG3)
++++
And the Red Chinese.
And the Ukrainians.
And who knows who all else.

Funny, innit?

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:01 PM (t0OGg)

195 174 . . . . I wonder how long until we start seeing these clowns wearing white lab coats?
Posted by: Rusty Trawler
______________

Quite a while back, actually.

Posted by: Dr. Ponytail Douchebag at March 02, 2023 05:01 PM (gf7Ez)

196
Whether by malfunction or design

*snort*

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 02, 2023 05:02 PM (n+4am)

197 The Bullshit is so important it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of more Bullshit.

Posted by: Winston Smith not Churchill at March 02, 2023 05:02 PM (LaNzR)

198 this the Fattie Club?
Posted by: rd
___

Pretty much.

Once they drop the lbs, then they get to go to their basic training unit.
Posted by: SMH at what's coming at March 02, 2023 04:23 PM (oyiEi)

Is that what FitCo turned into? Spinning class? Just missed being in there in '88. Not because I was fat, though. 6'2" at 140 pounds. If I turned sideways I could hide behind a t post.

Posted by: AZ Hi Desert (Gringo fuertemente armado-Tempus belli)) at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM (l7Kbv)

199 Yup. By corrupting the input assumptions, you can get any correlation you want. Temperature correlates to median shoe size, for example. Whatever.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 04:59 PM

Man, that just gigos my mind.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM (a3Q+t)

200 I've often said a tax strike would be an amazing turning point in this country's history.

But as you say, it's unworkable when we're all involuntarily tied into it.
Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at March 02, 2023 04:51 PM (KbCG3)
---
I'm not even sure if it would have as much effect as people think, considering that government spending is largely decoupled from tax revenue.

It would make a statement, I suppose, but who knows if it would accomplish anything substantive?
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 04:54 PM (YIVH2)

DC/IRS as they are now, would make a tax revolt into the largest government property grab in world history.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM (BdMk6)

201 Barack Obama made a series of decisions that may yet prove devastating to his legacy."
==
Trust me. He could not be more proud.

Posted by: Michelle at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM (Cu8xr)

202 This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:
https://is.gd/QEkDPD

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM (t0OGg)

203 Man, that just gigos my mind.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM (a3Q+t)
++++
Yup, except in our brave new world, the acronym has changed.

Now it's GIPO: Garbage In, Policy Out.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:04 PM (t0OGg)

204 Murder in broad daylight in Blue cities? Government censorship with Big Tech? Sexual degeneracy at the SOTU address? Lefty websites in bed with China....DU isn't talking about any of this! If I'm not posting, I have to work at my Fed job, and I'll be damned if I do that!!!

Headline quick hits:
Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults Biden has been highlighting U.S.-backed efforts to empower these groups during a five-day, two-country visit to Africa this week.

Cindy McCain is set to take over as head of the United Nations’ World Food Program, putting the longtime political spouse at the top of the globe’s largest humanitarian group and on the frontlines of a growing global food crisis. One guess why her daughter wasn't selected...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein dealing with 'health matter' in California, office says Feinstein, who turns 90 in June, was not present for several roll call votes this week and did not attend Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at March 02, 2023 05:04 PM (JCZqz)

205 Thanks for the explanation and coverage of this.

Was sifting through the thread before checking AOSHQ.

Easier.

Posted by: artisanal ette at March 02, 2023 05:05 PM (9qHsE)

206 If I turned sideways I could hide behind a t post.
Posted by: AZ Hi Desert (Gringo fuertemente
-------

I was about that tall and thin back when. I couldn't hide behind a post, though. The nose would give me away.

Posted by: Blake - semi lurker at large at March 02, 2023 05:05 PM (2YtOq)

207 Headline quick hits:
Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults Biden has been highlighting U.S.-backed efforts to empower these groups during a five-day, two-country visit to Africa this week.

Cindy McCain is set to take over as head of the United Nations’ World Food Program, putting the longtime political spouse at the top of the globe’s largest humanitarian group and on the frontlines of a growing global food crisis. One guess why her daughter wasn't selected...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein dealing with 'health matter' in California, office says Feinstein, who turns 90 in June, was not present for several roll call votes this week and did not attend Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at March 02, 2023 05:04 PM (JCZqz)
++++
The elites are enjoying their fiddles and cake as always, I see.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:05 PM (t0OGg)

208 Re: prior comment, the tax withholding process is another reason to hammer the self employed.
Such as what is being done.

Posted by: gourmand du jour, gimpy edition at March 02, 2023 05:06 PM (jTmQV)

209 202 This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:
https://is.gd/QEkDPD
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM (t0OGg)

Well, I'D certainly press her for free!

Posted by: Zombie Robbo the Llama Butcher at March 02, 2023 05:06 PM (BTgKJ)

210 This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM

True blonde:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[X] Dubious

Posted by: Duncanthrax at March 02, 2023 05:06 PM (a3Q+t)

211
I think 8 years of the press worshiping obama opened the door to the mainstreaming of anti-white racism

IMO YMMV
==
I don't know what happened. But I think the Cambridge police acted stupidly.

Posted by: Belligerent Ignorance at March 02, 2023 05:06 PM (VIxI6)

212 Defund all NGOs. Every single one of them. If you're an NGO, you don't get taxpayer money. For any reason, in any amount, at any level.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:00 PM (t0OGg)
---
In typical "newspeak" fashion, "Non-Governmental Organization" seems to mean the opposite of what it purports to describe...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 05:06 PM (YIVH2)

213 Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at March 02, 2023 05:04 PM

These people really do occupy an alternate reality, don't they?

Posted by: Al Czervic at March 02, 2023 05:07 PM (kVF4j)

214 Goebbels would be proud.

Posted by: Muthaucker at March 02, 2023 05:07 PM (pN0Zg)

215 This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:
https://is.gd/QEkDPD
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)
.........

She could start by freeing those puppies.

Posted by: wth at March 02, 2023 05:07 PM (v0R5T)

216 Off, Caddyshack sock!

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at March 02, 2023 05:07 PM (kVF4j)

217
This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 02, 2023 05:03 PM

One question, of course... does she partake of Mike Pence Feminine Hygiene Spray?

Posted by: Divide by Zero at March 02, 2023 05:07 PM (enJYY)

218 Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults Biden has been highlighting U.S.-backed efforts to empower these groups during a five-day, two-country visit to Africa this week.
---
Wonder if she's gonna promote the glories of transitioning to Kenya's young adults...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 02, 2023 05:08 PM (YIVH2)

219 213 Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at March 02, 2023 05:04 PM

These people really do occupy an alternate reality, don't they?
Posted by: Al Czervic at March 02, 2023 05:07 PM

Yes. And sadly, looking at our nation's trajectory over the last 150 years, they're slowly winning.

Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at March 02, 2023 05:08 PM (JCZqz)

220 This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:
https://is.gd/QEkDPD
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)

Mind the gap...

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at March 02, 2023 05:08 PM (kVF4j)

221 This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:
https://is.gd/QEkDPD
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)
.........

She could start by freeing those puppies.
Posted by: wth at March 02, 2023 05:07 PM (v0R5T)
---
FREE THE SPRINGFIELD TWO, MARGE!

Posted by: Homer Simpson at March 02, 2023 05:09 PM (YIVH2)

222 Mind the gap...
Posted by: RedMindBlueState at March 02, 2023 05:08 PM

So you've met Fraulein Fulda?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at March 02, 2023 05:10 PM (a3Q+t)

223 This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:
https://is.gd/QEkDPD
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)
.........

A body so sweet you wonder if its photoshopped

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Buy ammo, food, water at March 02, 2023 05:10 PM (c2f5O)

224 > This sun-kissed bikini blonde wonders what it would be like to have a free press:

DUDE! THAT'S MY-
wait
no, that's not her

Posted by: DB - Spanning the globe at March 02, 2023 05:12 PM (geLO8)

225 Cindy McCain is set to take over as head of the United Nations’ World Food Program, putting the longtime political spouse at the top of the globe’s largest humanitarian group and on the frontlines of a growing global food crisis. One guess why her daughter wasn't selected...

Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at March 02, 2023 05:04 PM (JCZqz)

Heh, I guess there IS one thing AoS and DU agree on!

Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 05:12 PM (DRSnL)

226 Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults Biden has been highlighting U.S.-backed efforts to empower these groups during a five-day, two-country visit to Africa this week.
........

Good grief. I hope she doesn't start trying to speak Khoisan.

Posted by: wth at March 02, 2023 05:13 PM (v0R5T)

227 Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults Biden has been highlighting U.S.-backed efforts to empower these groups during a five-day, two-country visit to Africa this week.

Please tell me that she didn't use a banana to demonstrate.

Posted by: Cheri at March 02, 2023 05:13 PM (oiNtH)

228 It's all fake.
Everything the government tells you is a lie.

Unless you saw it or heard it FIRST HAND, be suspicious.

Posted by: nurse ratched at March 02, 2023 05:13 PM (JGlUB)

229 True blonde:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[X] Dubious
Posted by: Duncanthrax at

[X] Doesn't matter

Posted by: Steve_in_SoCal at March 02, 2023 05:14 PM (NW9xb)

230 All I did was strike the match and toss it into the kindling. Well, I fanned the flames too. Deal with it, wingnuts.

Posted by: Baracky O'Cracky at March 02, 2023 05:14 PM (Xrfse)

231 >Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults

what a pointless exercise

Posted by: DB - Spanning the globe at March 02, 2023 05:14 PM (geLO8)

232 @223

>>A body so sweet you wonder if its photoshopped

There is absolutely some retouch work on the photo, and more than likely some contour work as well.

Regardless, she's still at least an Applebee's 11.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at March 02, 2023 05:16 PM (up/3i)

233 Breakfast Ugalis.

Posted by: wth at March 02, 2023 05:16 PM (v0R5T)

234 It's all fake.

Posted by: nurse ratched at March 02, 2023 05:13 PM (JGlUB)

the sun kissed blonde in a bikini?

Posted by: Archer at March 02, 2023 05:16 PM (gmo/4)

235 doon spelled backwards is

Posted by: DB - Spanning the globe at March 02, 2023 05:17 PM (geLO8)

236 When I was younger I never would have dreamed the US would have become so Soviet. But here we are.

Posted by: I hate this timeline at March 02, 2023 05:17 PM (YdDJ9)

237 Sen. Dianne Feinstein dealing with 'health matter' in California, office says Feinstein, who turns 90 in June, was not present for several roll call votes this week and did not attend Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison

A health matter that has been going on for a long time now. Dementia that has had her staff running her affairs for the last few years. After it was announced that she would not be running again, reporters asked her about it and she replied that she hadn't made her mind up yet. Her staff had to remind her that yes, she wasn't running again, and Feinstein replied "It is what it is". Remind you of anybody?

Posted by: Cheri at March 02, 2023 05:17 PM (oiNtH)

238 Jill Biden talks safe sex in Kenya? Just how arrogant does one have to to think this is a subject of interest to the average Kenyan?

I hope the interpreter endlessly mocks Doctuh Jill.

Posted by: Blake - semi lurker at large at March 02, 2023 05:18 PM (2YtOq)

239 225
Heh, I guess there IS one thing AoS and DU agree on!
Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 05:12 PM

Lol. Sadly, that quip about Meg wasn't italicized, because I wrote it.

227 Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults...

Please tell me that she didn't use a banana to demonstrate.
Posted by: Cheri at March 02, 2023 05:13 PM

There's a photo: https://tinyurl.com/ytjma8u9
White girl surrounded by black dudes...I've seen a similar meme.
Instead of thinking about baseball to last longer during sex, try thinking about Dr. Biden next time, in her sexy fishnets!!!

Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at March 02, 2023 05:18 PM (JCZqz)

240 There is a new thread for which I didn't "first"!

Posted by: gourmand du jour, gimpy edition at March 02, 2023 05:18 PM (jTmQV)

241 Jill Biden talks safe sex, condoms with Kenya's young adults
____

When having sex with Hunter, use a condom? As if anyone doesn't already know that.

Posted by: Chuck Martel at March 02, 2023 05:19 PM (fs1hN)

242
True blonde:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[X] Dubious
Posted by: Duncanthrax

True blondes pubes are not scratchy. Or, so I've heard.

:: wife no longer looking over shoulder ::

That's the test.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at March 02, 2023 05:20 PM (enJYY)

243 Earlier threads I brought up chainsaw that isn't starting.
Out if blue see a ad for a chainsaw that would fit in your hand.
Not opening it

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 05:22 PM (xhxe8)

244 Seems to me this unfolded thusly:

Obama WH tried to use GEC and through cutouts to get Twitter to censor opposition.

Twitter laughed at it and refused, but didn't report what was happening to anyone.

GEC + cutouts were still able to gin up media hysteria, which then led to Dems in congress threatening the social media companies about regulation if they didn't "do something"

Eventually, the deep state realized that entities like GEC and its cutouts weren't doing the job, so they took it to the level of FBI pressure on these companies, which they naturally took more seriously when combined with congressional threats.

This then culminated during covid and then the laptop story where twitter and other social media companies finally started censoring and blacklisting in earnest.

not absolving the obvious partisan hacks at twitter or facebook. It doesn't appear that the media stories bothered them much, but they didn't take any action to correct them, either.

But the evolution appears to have gone from them laughing at these hamhanded efforts by the government into going along with them after threats and pressure from congress and the FIB.

Posted by: the dandy at March 02, 2023 05:22 PM (JqGnL)

245 Been saying a few
We are reliving the Russian Revolution

Posted by: Skip at March 02, 2023 05:23 PM (xhxe8)

246 "Biden made US troops in Afghanistan coordinate w/ his envoy Khalilzad on how & when they could engage with the Taliban enemy. Troops were not allowed to engage even when checkpoints attacked. In Doha, Khalilzad brokered withdrawal w/ the Taliban 5 Obama freed from Gitmo
The Pentagon's inspector general for Afghanistan complains in a new report the Biden administration is hiding classified annexes detailing side deals it made with the Taliban before the withdrawal, including restrictions on US fighting and Taliban counterterror efforts" Paul Sperry

Posted by: Fool Otto at March 02, 2023 05:23 PM (DB16e)

247 collective panic over "disinfo" defining this generation in much the same way the Red Scare defined the culture of the fifties.
Except that the folks fighting communism in the fifties were seldom communists themselves, and communism actually was a real threat.
"Disinformation"? Not so much. It's 95% projection and what they're fighting is a phantom threat.

Posted by: GWB at March 02, 2023 05:29 PM (NJ9MR)

248 But no one can come by opinions ... that The Regime doesn't approve of without ... either being AGENTS ... or DUPES and VICTIMS
This is standard cult practice. You must be the devil sent to tear the religion apart or you've been deceived by charlatans.

Remember folks: Progressivism IS A RELIGION.

Posted by: GWB at March 02, 2023 05:35 PM (NJ9MR)

249 Thankfully, conservatives like to get kicked around and bullied. If they had built their own platforms, we would have never got these goods on Obama, who, of course, will be held to account.

Posted by: Coki at March 02, 2023 05:41 PM (38JP5)

250 When do I get a history month?

Posted by: Chaim Yankel at March 02, 2023 05:43 PM (wrJpE)

251
I don't think I even knew there was a Women's History Month.
Posted by: Jordan61 at March 02, 2023 04:35 PM (DRSnL)

And its hardly the time to "celebrate the important women in your life". its supposed to be about *History*

Posted by: Oldcat at March 02, 2023 06:03 PM (eoQWY)

252 A health matter that has been going on for a long time now. Dementia that has had her staff running her affairs for the last few years. After it was announced that she would not be running again, reporters asked her about it and she replied that she hadn't made her mind up yet. Her staff had to remind her that yes, she wasn't running again, and Feinstein replied "It is what it is". Remind you of anybody?
Posted by: Cheri at March 02, 2023 05:17 PM (oiNtH)

Senator Fetterman?

Posted by: Oldcat at March 02, 2023 06:05 PM (eoQWY)

253 I voted for Trump and if he's the nominee I'll vote for him again. However the fact that the GEC still exists is one of the problems with Trump's presidency. He was naive and had no idea what he was up against. He hired generals because he thought they were patriots and would stop stuff lol or this . That vast hive of scum and villainy that is the deep state / Dem alliance was beyond what he expected.
Posted by: Smell the Glove at March 02, 2023 04:57 PM (lReCd)

In his favor, he learns and resents those who shafted him. Most Reps just seem to want to placate them.

Posted by: Oldcat at March 02, 2023 06:07 PM (eoQWY)

254 Barack Obama made a series of decisions that may yet prove devastating to his legacy.
---
Really??? Barack "No Scandals" Obama??!!!

Posted by: Axeman at March 02, 2023 06:07 PM (krQz2)

255 "Disinformation" is just another way of saying "We're right, they're wrong" but with an added "and they're bad!' to assume a type of malice where ignorance normally does the trick of "being wrong".

But it's the old "We're right, they're wrong" at its base.

Posted by: Axeman at March 02, 2023 06:09 PM (krQz2)

256 Today, I think (or was it actually calendar yesterday?), MSNBC did a report from Sevastopol, Crimea, where they interviewed people on the street, that said that they felt "Russian" and not "Ukrainian".
MSNBC also said that Sevastopol (now home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet) was a military town, with all kinds of Russian military presence.
They said that the idea that Ukraine could retake Crimea and Sevastopol was (paraphrasing) 'kind of a pipe dream'.

These reporters on this are now apparently on a Ukraine government "kill list" (as in kill them!), and NBC is kind of ....puzzled. (?) (but we're not Faux News!!!)
So now, is NBC or MSNBC going to be put on some kind of GEC blacklist? A whole network that by and large supports the Biden Junta? Questioning our "ally's" ultimate motives, since apparently Biden leaves this policy all up to Zelensky and his band of...whatever?
You mean we should not be planning to send our sons/daughters/LGBTQ... to die for Ukraine "freedom"?
What is THIS witchcraft?
As they say.....stay tuned. Don't touch that dial!

Posted by: A face in the crowd..... at March 02, 2023 06:12 PM (vcOmj)

257 Most of these "experts" know nothing. Many have skill, if you can call mesmerizing dumb reporters a skill, but in the area of identifying true bad actors, few know more than the average person on the street.
---
I.e., they are disinformation assets.

Posted by: Axeman at March 02, 2023 06:13 PM (krQz2)

258 In the 20th century, the Democrats asked "Who decides?!"

In the 21st, they have an answer: "We do".

Posted by: Axeman at March 02, 2023 06:16 PM (krQz2)

259 ace is en fuego again, good stuff boss.

But I have to just continue to chuckle at Taibbi.

Obama's "legacy". LOL.

And it was a "secret" that these obvious lightweight hacks weren't experts.

Posted by: rhomboid at March 02, 2023 06:19 PM (OTzUX)

260 Oh - and whichever idiot was supposed to be doing "vaccine disinformation".

Hilarious. Tell us, airhead, what is information, or disinformation, about the "vaccine". LOL.

Posted by: rhomboid at March 02, 2023 06:24 PM (OTzUX)

261 Nobody panic. Remain calm, all is well.

The Republican House is going to have "hearings" on this government agency and chatise them into behaving from here on out.

I just about spitup the coffee I was drinking, due to the laugh I was trying to suppress while writing that last line. 🤣

Posted by: Tracy at March 02, 2023 06:37 PM (Fs4VT)

262 We talkin' about stages---STAGES!!!

Posted by: Allen Iverson at March 02, 2023 07:01 PM (krQz2)

263 The Republican House is going to have "hearings" on this government agency and chatise them into behaving from here on out.

Posted by: Tracy at March 02, 2023 06:37 PM (Fs4VT)
---
There will not be a dry arm--un-lashed with a wet noodle--when they are done!

Posted by: Axeman at March 02, 2023 07:02 PM (krQz2)

264 The Global Engagement Center is usually listed as a State Department entity. It's not. Created in Obama's last year, GEC is an interagency group "within" State, whose initial partners included FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, DARPA, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and others.
-----

USINT is running the country. Only bloody civil war can free us.

Posted by: insurgens ad opus at March 02, 2023 08:02 PM (dG2I5)

265 Ace & long-time Morons, as you know, I'm partially to blame for all of this. So, I'm sorry if that means anything to any one. These tools were developed to be used against people supporting actual real world violence against Americans (ie, al Qaeda) but then, well, here we are with people in power unable to distinguish between Eric Rudolph, FSB agents, and a guy farting on the wrong desk.

Posted by: Rusty Shackleford's Pet Jawa at March 02, 2023 08:31 PM (6IdiZ)

266 I'm late, I know...I've been reading for ages & still not finished. This is really something. I'm so grateful but overwhelmed. Thanks, Ace. 🤗

Posted by: Lola at March 02, 2023 09:13 PM (GshMh)

267 "Or, actually, conservatives are paying for our own censorship."
actually, we're paying for a government that detests us and is actively seeking to destroy us and everything we hold dear

Posted by: ontoiran at March 03, 2023 11:49 AM (XyXp6)

268 I am not sure where you are gеtting yоᥙr info, but good topic.
I needs to spend some time learning more or
understanding more. Thanks for excellent info I was looking for this information for my
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Posted by: aversions at March 09, 2023 06:24 AM (oowxk)

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