Misleading content shared by Trump and his team is often defended as humor. But his supporters aren’t always in on the joke.
When CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan went to a Trump rally in Bemidji, Minnesota, grievances against social media platforms Twitter and Facebook were a common refrain.
Many of the President’s supporters told CNN that they felt the platforms’ fact-checking processes were biased against conservative viewpoints. Others discussed social media posts that contained manipulated media as if they were real.
“Like when Joe Biden fell asleep during a live interview on television,” one supporter recalled, describing a video that went viral only a few weeks prior to the rally.
The video — which appears to show Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden sleeping as a TV news anchor repeats, “Wake up!” — was shared on Twitter by White House social media director Dan Scavino.
But the video was fake.
It was achieved by splicing together real footage of a 2011 interview between journalist Leyla Santiago, now of CNN, and entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte with footage of Biden looking down, his eyes appearing at least partially closed, to make it appear as if he were snoozing. An audio track of loud snoring was placed on the video to complete the effect.
When the video was fact-checked by news outlets, including CNN, and eventually labeled as “manipulated media” by Twitter, prominent Trump supporters complained that it was an obvious joke and a meme.
Asked last week why Trump shares fake videos and baseless conspiracy theories about Biden, Tim Murtaugh, Trump campaign communications director, invoked a meme defense.
“You call it a fake video. What it is is an internet meme,” he said. “Those are very frequently done to make a political point.”
The joke was lost on Chris, the Trump supporter in Bemidji, who apparently believed the video was real footage. He acknowledged, “I missed that one,” when he was shown how the video had been manipulated.
But the fact the video was faked didn’t change his impression of Biden because he believed something like that could happen, Chris said.
Chris said he did not want to share his last name.
The dissemination of misleading videos about Biden by the Trump campaign in an effort to make the Democratic presidential nominee seem confused or senile has happened repeatedly.
#2020Election #CNN #DonieOSullivan
CNN is the world leader in news and information and seeks to inform, engage and empower the world…brought to you by SLOPPBOXX.COM.
CNN NOBODY BELIEVES YOU ANYMORE YOU ARE FAKE NEWS 😂😂😂… YOU LIE SOOOO MUCH😂😂😂😂
This almost seems not real. People can’t be this stupid.
I love the courage of Donie O’Sullivan to go out into these lion’s dens, or as I like to call them, cemeteries for rationality and truth. Donie does a great job everytime
Reality disturbs their fantasy world.
lol anytime Biden goes to China. I guarantee he gets a fresh one kids should never be rubbed. sniffed
Maga consists of the most gullible fools in the world. They will believe anything as long as it’s what they want to believe. He keeps lying and lying and lying to them and they always find some warped rationalization to justify it. That’s lfe in a cult. When a religious person tries to justify something evil trump has done I just tell them to save it for St. Peter.
This is why fact-checking matters.
Viral videos can feel convincing in the moment, but slowing down to verify claims makes a real difference. CNN did a solid job walking through what was real, what wasn’t, and how misinformation spreads so easily online.
Critical thinking is a skill we all need right now; regardless of where we stand. 👀🧠
Facebook fact checkers never should have happened. They blocked so much truth, especially during covid.
Sometimes I feel they deserve everything they get.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQBz6x0odew&pp=ygXIAWR1bWJhc3MgZHJ1bXBmIHN1cHBvcnRlcnMgb2gsIHlvdSBzdGlsbCBzdXBwb3J0IFRydW1wPyAgSSdtIHNvIHNvcnJ5Li4uIERJRCBZT1VSIFBBUkVOVFMgSEFWRSBBTlkgQ0hJTERSRU4gVEhBVCBMSVZFRD8hPyAgRkFULCBEUlVOSywgQU5EIFNUVVBJRCBJUyBOTyBXQVkgVE8gR08gVEhST1VHSCBMSUZFLCBEVU1CQVNTIFRSVU1QIFNVUFBPUlRFUlMh
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It’s noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”
bushbots – the term is never capitalized, for their blatant stupidity warrants not even that bit of formal respect – are BushCo/PNAC’s base. They are the vast swarms of really stupid people, who believe patriotism is supporting their elected leaders – no matter how nefarious their behavior, nor how damning the evidence of their behaviors is – just so long as somebody’s wrapped in a flag and singing a Christian hymn.
bushbots are automatons, “sheeple” – those who bleat along in unanimous accordance with party line – no matter how corrupt or misguided. They are too stupid to ever contemplate that they – and their children’s children – are being fleeced by the very people they have been so adamant to support – merely by the virtue of “their guy won” in a very controversial election – and they’re too proud (read: stupid) to admit they contributed to the misdirecting of the future of the nation.
No WMD? No problem, bush is the greatest president!
Illegal wiretaps? No problem, bush is the greatest president!
Can’t find bin Laden? No problem, bush is the greatest president!
New Orleans under water? No problem, bush is the greatest president!
Price of oil outrageous? No problem, bush is the greatest president!
Halliburton gets special contracts and kickbacks? No problem, bush is the greatest president!
You get the idea.
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
-Vladimir Ilych Lenin
“You can fool some of the people all of the time – those are the ones you count on.”
-GW Bush
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
– U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw
(Macmillan, 1950, NY)
Full passage:
“Yes, we may all congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing a close. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. The best blood of the flower of American youth has been freely offered upon our country’s altar that the nation might live. It has been, indeed, a trying hour for the republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudice of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war. God grant that my suspicion may prove groundless.”
How can a Republican hold to be true the precepts set forth by GOP president Lincoln, while simultaneously supporting the fascist ideals held by that administration and its followers? The two ideals are diametrically opposed.
Stupid bushbots.
And now, they are drumpflodytes.
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
– Henry Ford
FAKE NEWS! FAKE NEWS!
It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then, to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.
I began to think alone – “to relax,” I told myself – but I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”
Things weren’t going so great at home either. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother’s.
I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, “Listen – I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.”
This gave me a lot to think about.
I came home early after my conversation with the boss. “Honey,” I confessed, “I’ve been thinking…”
“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”
“Honey,” I said, “It’s not that serious.”
“It IS serious!” she said, lower lip aquiver. “You think as much as college professors, and college professors don’t make any money, so if you keep on thinking we won’t have any money!”
“That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently, and she began to cry. I’d had enough. “I’m going to the library,” I snarled, as I stomped out the door.
I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche, with a PBS station on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors… they didn’t open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked.
You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker’s Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting, we watch a non-educational video (last week it was “Porky’s”), then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.
Life just seemed… easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
I think the road to recovery is almost complete for me; today, I registered to vote Republican.
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
– Vladimir Ilych Lenin
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly…it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”
– Joseph Goebbels
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
– George W. Bush
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
– U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw
(Macmillan, 1950, NY)
Damned FAUX-News watching, poop-flinging, tree-dwelling, monkeys with car keys prove once again, as Einstein postulated, that “the two most-common elements in the universe remain hydrogen and stupidity.”
http://www.rense.com/general44/50.htm
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2005/12/beyond_spin.html
It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone – “to relax,” I told myself – but I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”
Things weren’t going so great at home either. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother’s.
I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, “Listen – I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.”
This gave me a lot to think about.
I came home early after my conversation with the boss. “Honey,” I confessed, “I’ve been thinking…”
“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”
“It is serious,” she said, lower lip aquiver. “You think as much as college professors, and college professors don’t make any money, so if you keep on thinking we won’t have any money!”
“That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently, and she began to cry. I’d had enough. “I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out the door.
I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche, with a PBS station on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors… they didn’t open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker’s Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Porky’s.” Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.
Life just seemed… easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
I think the road to recovery is almost complete for me; today, I registered to vote Republican.
Bush Curses Inconvenient Constitution During a GOP Meeting on Extending the Patriot Act
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.
Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”
“”Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a ‘living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete’s sake.”
As a judge, Scalia says, “I don’t have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it’s better than anything else.”
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don’t think that it’s a one-way street.”
And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”
© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue