#THe only people who comment on CNN articles fucking hate CNN

[panvani]

I love seeing into the minds of CNN commenters

[immoral-summer]

On the topic of PewDiePie

@tearahi​

I’m going to both address the main topic and minor tidbits from each of your articles, but let’s start with your articles:

Popular YouTube Streamer Promotes Channel That Publishes Anti-Semitic Content

The article talks about Felix calling someone a “crybaby” because of the gender wage gap. In case you didn’t know, the gender wage gap is a perpetuated myth that only “exists” because of averaged differences in each gender’s work area.

What I mean is that men, because they’re typically stronger and more lenient towards hard labor, they’ll work said labor-intensive jobs that earn more, whereas women typically work in “easy” jobs, such as secretary, office, teaching, etc. There’s no wage gap.

YouTube’s most popular user amplified anti-Semitic rhetoric. Again.

One thing I must mention is bias. Vox is typically left-leaning, so I’m going to assume this article is chock full of left-leaning bias from the start...

Told you.

This article also mentions past grievances, the “nazi salute video” and the “Fiverr anti-semitic sign video” specifically.

Upon finding the infamous “Nazi Salute” video, it seems to me like it’s... a joke. It’s a mockery of his “fame” and “persona”. I’m not shocked that journalists would use this, tbqh.

The Fiverr incident was satirical. It was meant to convey a message that Fiverr has no moderation. In general, Fiverr is an untrustworthy site, that famous “Credit Card Digits” guy got into legal trouble because Fiverr didn’t bother giving him the earnings he got after a ban. Take a quick Google search to find that one out.

The article also mentions the video in question, noting that “the first 15 seconds of part two contain a reference to a 2017 incident in which PewDiePie himself dropped a racial slur...”, which isn’t at all relevant to the topic. Yet another strategically-placed bit of bias to make people dislike Felix because of a slip-up that he’s apologized and faced consequences for many times already.

Not only that, the article mentions his followers’ ages, not realizing that parents exist and that not teaching your child about the proper ways and tips on using the Internet is what brings about its dire effects. The article also attempts to speak about the “Sub to PewDiePie” meme as negative. Vox describes it as “aggressive” to say a simple phrase. The article makes the fans look aggressive.

It’s also interesting how Vox mentions WSJ’s “investigation” on PewDiePie, where they even say that WSJ “emailed Disney representatives for comment on the content of his videos”. Sounds to me like the WSJ is attempting a CNN and either blackmailing or pressuring executives.

PewDiePie Receives Backlash After Recommending Anti-Semitic, White Supremacist YouTube Channel

I’d like to use this article to mention something that I strongly dislike about YouTube and this controversy’s hypocrisy.

Remember when Logan Paul video-taped a man hanging from the Aokigahara Forest in Japan? Remember how this caused the infamous “Ad-pocalypse” on YouTube, where advertisers were bailing out due to the controversy, which caused the entire “Demonetization” feature to occur on YouTube, which subsequently ruined multiple channels due to petty shit like “offensive language”?

Yeah, after that, Logan got his little movie released on YouTube Premium, whereas Felix’s “anti-semitism” scrapped his whole Premium show. Here’s the website’s article on this issue. I hope you can understand why I mentioned this.

Your last article doesn’t mention much, so this is where I’ll begin the main topic:

The video itself seems fine. There’s minor edgy post-editing, and his opinions are very out-there in terms of broadcasting it to his fans. I don’t understand how this video that he enjoyed with edgy humor is somehow making Felix out to be a “white supremacist nazi”

To reference Vox’s terrible article, they mentioned that this video was one of many “dog-whistles” to instill “white supremacist propaganda”. They also specify that the video contained “racial slurs” and all I heard was “nigga”. Says a lot about their fucking credibility, huh?

Also, I fully watched Part 2, which was linked in one of your articles alongside referencing the Charlotesville Attack, and I didn’t see said reference. Do let me know if there’s a timestamp for it, cause the commentary’s got me bored.

and with that, this is where I begin my first point:

Stop taking everything online so seriously.

This is hypocritical coming from some kid online who hates the idea of radical feminists even touching him, but this is a serious point to make.

It’s understandable, morally, to give grievance when someone makes an “edgy” joke or uses 4chan memes. Yes, boo hoo, someone online, for example, called you a “faggot”. I know it affects people, I know it’ll hurt being called a slur or some shit. We need to start taking the idea of the internet into play when discussing this type of shit.

The internet is anonymous. The internet has countless amounts of opinions, personalities, and worldviews. You can’t apply your thinking and understanding of your personal opinions onto others. You can’t say “don’t say faggot” and expect people to listen.

The only tip I can give you from this is just... don’t take the internet so seriously... unless there’s some call to action that can threaten your life, or some shit obviously, but you’re better fucking off just sweeping shit like this as either “stupid” or “funny” instead of getting your panties in a twist over tiny, petty comments that you’re inevitably going to see online.

And now my second point:

Stop fully believing in the media, especially when you haven’t confirmed anything yourself.

While the articles mention E;R as a whole, they continuously use the same video Felix mentioned as some sort of “proof”, even though there was little-to-no “white supremacy propaganda” or “nazism” in the video linked. This is why you fact check before assuming things are correct.

To give you a better example, look at the recent Covington Students controversy, where CNN gave a false report that painted teenaged students as “racists” due to edited footage. Nobody attempted to research and a bandwagon of angry people began to harass, dox, and threaten death upon the teens until someone had released a full 2 hour video that showed the teens’ innocence.

On top of this, some of your articles mention Felix’s past transgressions, even though these events were either satirical examples or poking fun at idolization.

Instead of telling the truth, your sources began the infamous train of hate, purposefully used said past videos as “proof” that he’s “anti-semitic” and a “nazi”, and Vox had even detailed WSJ’s blackmail scheme to get PewDiePie fucked. You and the others took the bait and are still lost in the sauce.

Take that as you will, I’m done here.

If you need clarification on anything, feel free to @ me. I’m going to hope you at least skim through instead of pushing this aside.

[sociologyquotes]

Men’s-Rights Activism Is the Gateway Drug for the Alt-Right

08/17/17

“Christopher Cantwell has a knack for getting himself noticed. The 36-year-old white supremacist with an internet radio show and a long history of violent rhetoric was one of the most visible figures at this past weekend’s #UniteTheRight rallies in Charlottesville.

The overgrown skinhead managed to thrust himself again and again into the center of the action, caught in one photo circulated on Twitter striking a dramatic pose as he sprayed anti-fascist counterprotesters with mace. He played a starring role in a Vice News mini-documentary on the event, helpfully providing the Vice crew with a never-ending supply of incendiary quotes. “We’re not nonviolent,” he declared at one point during the protests. “We’ll fucking kill these people if we have to.” In a later sit-down interview with Vice he coldly announced that the ISIS-style car attack that left activist Heather Heyer dead was “more than justified … I think a lot more people are going to die before we’re done here, frankly.”

Cantwell has not always been a figurehead of the alt-right. The Long Island native first gained notoriety as a cop-hating libertarian after moving to Keene, New Hampshire, in 2012 to take part in the the Free State Project, a quixotic political movement with the goal of turning the state into a haven for “free people.” He’s affixed various labels to himself over the years as his politics have transmogrified: anarchist, anarcho-capitalist, atheist, asshole. Perhaps the most revealing of his political past selves? Christopher Cantwell, men’s-rights activist.

During 2014 and 2015, Cantwell posted regular men’s-rights screeds to his blog on subjects ranging from Elliot Rodger’s murder spree to the reasons why men and women “are not, cannot, and should not be equals.” In one particularly overwrought post on “rape accusation culture” that was later republished on the then-popular men’s-rights site A Voice for Men, he warned fellow men of the alleged dangers of false accusations from vengeful women.

“No evidence necessary, just point your finger, ladies, and men will go to prison,” he declared. “Just say the word and their reputations and careers will be ruined. Simply bat your eyes at a policeman and he’ll snatch up any ex-boyfriend you feel jilted by.”

Cantwell is hardly the only alt-rightist with a past as a men’s-rights activist. Media gadfly, “sick Hillary” conspiracy theorist, and self-help guru Mike Cernovich was known for his men’s-rights talk before he turned to Trump and the alt-right — though he now claims to have broken with the movement. Canadian YouTube “philosopher” Stefan Molyneux declared himself an MRA long before he became a darling of the alt-right (and he recently conducted an interview with the author of that notorious Google memo, James Damore). Peter Tefft, a young man with a fashy hairdo who was famously disowned by his family after being outed as one of the torch-carrying marchers in Charlottesville, went through a men’s-rights phase before declaring himself a fascist, according to his nephew in an interview with CNN.

There are good reasons why men’s-rights activism has served for so many as a gateway drug to the alt-right: Both movements appeal to men with fantasies of violent, sometimes apocalyptic redemption — and, like Cantwell, a tendency to express these fantasies in bombastic prose. And both movements are based on a bizarro-world ideology in which those with the most power in contemporary society are the true victims of oppression.

In other words, if you can convince yourself that men are the primary victims of sexism, it’s not hard to convince yourself that whites are the primary victims of racism. And it’s similarly easy for members of both movements to see white men as the most oppressed snowflakes of all.

(This is not to say that men alone benefit from a white-supremacist ideology, or that men alone are responsible for the toxic doctrine. Women have a long history of involvement in the KKK and played a critical role in spreading the movement.)

Neo-Nazis rail endlessly about the danger of Western civilization — always defined as inherently white — being overrun with brown and black “savages,” and speak of the need to “physically remove” — that is, exile or simply murder — the nonwhite interlopers. Despite their violent fantasies — which sometimes lead to violent actions, as they did this past weekend — they see themselves as the victims, engaging in violence only to defend themselves and their race from destruction.

The men’s-rights movement indulges in similar fantasies. Several years back, A Voice for Men founder Paul Elam infamously suggested that “Domestic Violence Awareness Month” should be replaced with “Bash a Violent Bitch Month” in which “men who are being attacked and physically abused by women [can] beat the living shit out of them.”

Men’s-rights activists love to imagine apocalyptic scenarios in which this sort of retributive violence plays out on a global scale. In a comment on his own website, Elam warned feminists and other uppity women that “treating half the population, the stronger half at that, with too much continuing disregard is [not] a very good idea. Thinking they will never come out swinging is a stupid, stupid way to go.”

Both MRAs and alt-rightists are so adept at playing the victim that both groups have convinced themselves that they are oppressed by the mere presence of women in “male spaces” (in the case of MRAs) and nonwhite people in “white countries” (in the case of alt-rightists).

MRAs throw a fit whenever they discover women trying to set aside a place of their own — raging against such alleged oppression as women-only gyms — but they insist that their own “male spaces” should remain forever free of lady taint. Alt-rightists similarly rail against what they call “white genocide” — which doesn’t refer to the forcible ethnic cleansing of white people but rather to demographic changes rendering mostly white countries somewhat less white. They’re so acutely sensitive to the slightest hint of “white genocide” that they can be sent into paroxysms of indignation upon catching sight of diaper boxes festooned with pictures of nonwhite babies and ads for sweatpants featuring interracial couples.

The danger of both of these ideologies isn’t just that they’re both based on bizarro-world fantasies that bear little resemblance to reality. It’s also that, with Trump in the White House, they may have a chance to impose some of their bizarro-world logic on the rest of us. Let’s hope that reality prevails.”

---from the article “Men’s-Rights Activism Is the Gateway Drug for the Alt-Right” by David Futrelle

[tacticalshit]

Parkland School Shooting, Real Talk about a Real Problem

The liberal left wing media constantly cries that shit like this happens way too much and honestly they’re partially right. The problem however is they are not addressing the actual root cause they instantly regurgitate talking points with out trying to find the solution to a problem. So lets take a moment to pause and discuss possible solutions to a problem that has gone on resolved for quite some time!

We failed those students. We ALL failed them. Social Justice warriors, Law enforcement, Gun owners, Mental Health professionals, Teachers, Everyone failed them

Many are coming out saying the shooter was Antifa, Democrat, threepercenter, republican but the truth of the matter is he wasnt one of us but he was on the nutjob side of the right wing. He hated antifa. He hated isis and made fun of muslims. so far as to say things like, ” Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad lol” His class mates even claimed he was racist towards muslims.

In fact there is over 2 years worth of violent post and threats being made yet nothing came of it. One YouTuber reported a comment in which Cruz stated,  “I want to be a professional school shooter.” This was 5 months before the shooting. What else did you need to read to see that this is a threat?!?! This is not the only instance of this. These threats of violence go back quite a bit and he evens pays tribute to other active shooter situations.

CNN reports that a user named Nikolas Cruz left comments on several Youtube videos in which he talked about shooting people and violence.

Nine months ago, the user posted on a video clip from the NatGeo show “Alaska State Troopers: Armed and Dangerous,” writing, “I am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people.”

Six months ago, the user wrote, “Im going watch them sheep fall f*ck antifa i wish to kill as many as i can,” on a YouTube video titled “Antifa Gun Club.”

Also nine months ago, Cruz commented, “I am going to do what he did,” on a video about the 1966 sniper shooting at the University of Texas.

CNN says the user wrote on other posts, “I whana shoot people with my AR-15 (sic)” and “I wanna die Fighting killing shit ton of people.” The user also wrote, “Elliot rodger will not be forgotten,” a reference to the 22-year-old California man who killed six people and wounded 14 others near UC Santa Barbara in 2014 before killing himself.

With all these algorithms being used by the NSA and even Facebook and YouTube, you would think that this would have pinged on their radar like a fucking nuclear threat and reported! That is far from what actually happened. The Algorithms Facebook and YouTube put into place to police its users failed miserably on multiple instances of content that should have been flagged.

Now He had been previously treated for mental health issues and we are not sure if he got his firearm before or after treatment but on the 4473 which you have to fill out before purchasing a firearm, it asks, “have you ever been adjudicated as a mentally defective.” This in essence means a judge said you are crazy and need treatment. Treatment often includes psychoactive drugs. These are the same drugs you see on late night tv with side effect warnings like “STOP TAKING IMMEDIATELY AND SEE A DOCTOR IF YOU GET FEELINGS OF SELF HARM OR SUICIDE. These big pharma companies never mention Homicidal thoughts, and think about it, if a company told you that if you take a drug and one of the possible side affects would make you want to kill your friends or loved ones would you take it? Probably not! So as soon as it comes out he was on what ever drug it was will quickly be swept under the rug and TADA, “BAN GUNS!” we have a scapegoat ladies and gentlemen.

We are not saying you should never have your 2nd amendment rights if you have had mental/emotional problems in the past, but if you are on these type of drugs you should probably not be in possession of a firearm during that time period. What needs to happen is there needs to be a cool down period afterward so it can be determined if you are a threat to yourself or others before your rights can be reinstated, much like DWIs and driveing privileges.

Discretion among the firearm industry is also a key factor. Just because someone passes a background check doesn’t mean you should sell them a firearm just to make that bottom dollar .in our opinion A great example of this happened a week after the Vegas shooting. Where a customer went into a vegas gun shop and asked, “how many rounds does that hold” The shop responded, “15” to which the customer made the comment. ” well I guess thats fine, it’s I’m not going to Mandalay bay.” The customer was instantly told to get the fuck out, the 4473 ripped in half, and the sale cancelled. It could have been a case of too soon for a joke or the guy could have legitimately had something wrong with him.  Either way shops need to use their right to refuse service to individuals they deem irresponsible, and to use the highest form of discretion.

Another great article to take a look at the delves further into this is “Murder Marketing, Targeting The Ultimate Niche By Extremists”  Which talks about social media and the ways it can be used to drive people to commit these atrocities, and horrible events.

The post Parkland School Shooting, Real Talk about a Real Problem appeared first on Tactical Sh*t.

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[fapangel]

And what is your take on the media finally reporting on Antifa, and the people who have gone strang my silent while comparing them to Indiana Jones or th soldiers of Notmandy

It's a perfect time to answer this question,because in the last few days, the media has begun to tentatively trydigging up Charlottesville again, such as this utterlybugfuck headline in the Atlantic, lastweek's WaPo op-ed digging it up again, and CNBC's horrifiedscreeching over Trumppointing out how his comments on Antifa were vindicated. Thusthere's no better time to stuff this narrative right back down thebastard's throats by reviewing how they went from praising anddefending violent anarcho-communist insurrectionists as freedomfighters to condemning them as thugs in the space of only two weeks -all because of Trump.

Nobody seems to have grasped the significance ofwhat happened in the last two weeks of August. It's high time thatchanged.

The Power of the Media

It all started, of course, on August 13th,when Trump's initial statement on Charlottesville pointed out thatthe IllinoisNazis weren't the only ones that came to Charlottesville looking tostart trouble. The ensuing savage attacks by Democrats and theirmedia establishment was routine and expected - as was the usualgibberingpsychopathscalling Trump a jackbooted Nazi - but then theestablishment GOP rushed to gore him in the back in a veritableRINO stampede, followed by CEOs on his “advisory councils”resigningwith grand flourishes of self-righteous back-patting. The“mainstream” media and associated attack dogs had been callingTrump Hitler from day one, andyet people that had stuck by himthrough monthsof that unrelenting slanderwere now running scared.

The biggest tellwas Trump himself - the man who'd weathered over a year of beingcalled a racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, sexist, and rapistwithoutoncebacking down, flinching or even blinking, utterlycaved after only 48 hours of constant attacks. Thethorough shredding of their own credibility and the democratizationof information has stripped the media of most of their onetime power,but their ability to tell lies of omission - to exclude entire topicsof conversation from the public sphere - was still enough to sendTrump's most loyal admirers and the majority of the establishment GOPrunning in a panic,andbring to heel a man that'd shrugged off a 13-month campaign ofnonstop hate, character assassination and viscous slander. Thisis also the power of the label “Nazi:” once the media finallymanaged to make it stick - even a little - they got exactly what theywanted; Trump standing before the nation reinforcing their narrativethat Illinois nazis, and onlyIllinoisnazis, were the problem.

Itwas a mistake, of course - the media rewarded Trump by squealing withdelirious glee, then attackinghim allover again with twicethe frothing, foaming-at-the-mouthsavagery, as anyone with a brain could've told him would happen.

Trumprealized his true error almost immediately - andsaid so in as many words on Twitter, stating the obvious: Thatthe Fake News Media were malicious bastards that would never, ever besatisfied by any capitulation he made. Thatpublic tweet was a harbinger of things to come - but not even Iexpected the sheer brass balls Trump displayed when he walked intothe next day's press conference swinging.

The Absolute Madman Actually Fights Back

On August 15th, Trump walked into aTrump Tower press conference and didsomething no careerpolitician would've had the sheer steel balls to do -he stared down the mainstream media jackals that had routed hispolitical and social allies in only 48 hours, and calledthem out as the partisan, lying bastards they were. Thetruly incredible thing was that he didn't walk in with preparedstatements - he counterattacked into the inevitable bad-faithquestions that had fuck-all to do with the point of his pressconference (infrastructure.) He started by calling out the fleeingCEOs out for being job-exporting thieves putting their personalprofits before the national interest, pointed out the partisanship ofreporters and their penchant for timeliness over accuracy, and thenhe dropped the bomb.

Hecalled out Antifa and theblack bloc.

Hechallenged their never-questioned blanket slur “alt-right,”demanding they define it, hepointed out that there was an “alt-left” at Charlottesville thatcharged into the fray swinging clubs,he called a reporter Fake News, like it was their name, (whiletelling them to shut their yap,) and nailed the media for theirdeliberate omission of truth regarding “both sides” atCharlottesville. He even got digs in at McCain and Obama withoutbreaking stride - all of it completely unscripted and in full-contactconfrontation with a hostile media gaggle.

Butby far the most important thing he did was call out the black bloc:

“Now, in the other group also, you had somefine people but you also had troublemakers and you see them come withthe black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats.You had a lot of bad people in the other group too.”

It was arguably betterthan calling them out by name - because he was describing whathe'd seen, as he said, “in the same pictures” we'd all seen. In afew minutes, Trump had blown months of willful media silence andconcealment wide open.

The media did what theyalways do, of course.

They doubled down.

Withindays, the WashingtonPost was stridently defending Antifa, painting them as heroic“anti-racist” activists, their savage violence, oppression anddomestic terrorism as self-defense, and comparing them to WWIIfreedom fighters. That boot-licking pack of lies - written by self-admitted Antifa ally and apologist Mark Bray (a Californianprofessor, of course,) was regurgitatedad nauseum by this long-winded screed as well. Then there's thisalleged “news” story painting Antifa as mostly a fantasy oflunatic right-wing media, (including those dreaded murders theNRA!) and thisopinion story striving to deny any moral equivalency between onegang of race-obsessed, club-swinging totalitarian thugs and theother. Oh, andthis opinion story which shed more whiny bitch tears thanHillary's campaign staff on Nov. 8th. And thislong-winded pile of lies again trying to label antifa thugs asinnocent “protesters,” offering as evidence a twitter video clipby “Unicorn Riot,” a packof left-wing propagandists who leaked the Denver PD's riotmanagement manual, an especially helpful bit of intel for theviolent assholes in Antifa who's black bloc tactics revolve aroundfighting, assaulting, and escaping police riot control techniques.Theyhave a complete fucking tactical manual for such things. (It'sa real scream to read, too.) Therewas also thisarticle claiming Trump was foolish to try fighting the media -this one, as they say, “didn't age well.” Andif all of that wasn'tenough, havethis stirring call from another extremist professor tellingpeople to “start throwing rocks” to stop the “ancientevil now standing unhooded.”

Andthat was the Washington Post alone.The truly insaneoutlets, like Slate, didn't mince words - outrightpraising Antifa as heroic defenders of the innocents against the eviljackbooted fascist stormtroopers, in addition to thisass-kissing, massive feature article that's little more than amouthpiece for an antifa activist to - and I quote - “explain[Antifa's] strain of left-wing militancy to a fascinated but deeplywary wider world.” Fascinated.You can hearthe drool dripping fromthis writer's slack-jawed, star-struck awe. Thenthere was oldreliable the Atlantic asserting the “no moral equivalence” lieonce again. Time magazineexemplified the standard tack for any media (i.e. most of them) lessbatshit fucking loco than the WaPo inthis article, introducing Antifa as some milquetoast, generalized“anti-fascism vibe, man,” whitewashed their violence and savagebeatings of bystanders as mere “window-breaking” vandalism (alongwith parroting their apologies, “the media's picking on US!” and“but they fight back sometimes!”) and talking about the blackbloc's black clothing without naming the actual reason for it - toevade police arrest via anonymity. (CNN'ssimilar puff piece was so savaged for its “peace through violenceheadline” that they hastily changed it.)And it didn't stop there, of course - theRINOs caved again like the craven cowards they are, Trump simplydissolvedhis business advisory councils before any more CEOs could makeself-aggrandizing shows of their resignations, and the arts committieresigned en-masse completewith grade-school theatrics in their maudlin resignation letter.But the absolute best partwas when they started comparing violent anarcho-communist thugs toAMERICAN SOLDIERS STORMING THE BEACH AT D-DAY.

Yes,really - startingwith the Editor In Chief of the Atlantic himself, butsure as hell not stoppingthere. Even CNN couldn'tresist the dank meme. They had gone all-in, lionizing theseCommunist thugs - adherents of the ideology that'd go on to murdertens of thousands of American soldiers and servicemen in Korea,Vietnam and elsewhere - as American heroes. Within a few days ofTrump's doubling down, the mainstream media was erecting Antifa onthe plinths they'd just torn Confederate statues down from, anointingthem with the blood of fallen American soldiers, and praising them asfucking heroes.

Two weeks later, it blew up in their goddamn faces.

That Didn't Age Well

On August 27th, a small “No Marxismin America” rally in Berkeley, consisting entirely of unarmed,peaceful protesters, weresavagely set upon and beaten by a much larger pack of Antifa blackbloc thugs after Berkeley riot police let the bastards into theprotest site without a fight. Since the violence waswitnessed by an AP wire reporter, even the WaPohad to mostly report the facts for a change. That AP footageshowing single conservative rallygoers being viciously beaten andkicked by five or six masked, black-clad thugs apiece proved Trumpright in dramatic and undeniable fashion - but more importantly, itproved the media absolutely, utterly, and horrifyingly wrong.

After piling thatpack of lies as high and wide as they possibly could for weeks, themedia was forced to swallow every ounce of their own shit.

Amere two weeks after churning out that disgusting pack of lies,apologies and outright praise for Antifa I partiallysampled above, the WaPo had to publish thisofficial editorial board op-ed condemning them. The Berkely PD'swillfully allowing the violence to take place must've been especiallyawkward, given the WaPo's twoseparate articlesblaming the Charlottesville PD's lackluster response for the earlierviolence.

Theshit-eating just kept going and going. Mark Bray, the aforementionedAntifa historian, apologist, and cheerleader, was himself disavowedby his own college's president forsupporting a pack of violent thugs, followed by the WaPo'slengthy review of his book which ended with the telling line“The inherent contradiction of antifa is that, if America isindeed so irredeemable and hypocritical that violence is the answer,then what exactly are you fighting to preserve?” Theyalso ran thiscolumn explicitly refuting their earlier denials of moral equivalencybetween antifa and Illinois nazis, which pointed out that theUnited States defeated Nazis andCommunists (onetime ally of the Nazis) but that only Communists areroutinelydefended by the New York Times. Even this defense of antifa bythe WaPo's own media columnist (which blames antifa's sudden bad rapon a Vast Right Wing Meme Machine) opens by admitting that antifa'snewly-tainted name was suddenly everywhere- anda week later they were running demandsfor specific Democraticpoliticians todo the ritual denouncing of The Enemy,for a change. EvenNancyPelosi herself jumpedon the condemnation bandwagon. Even the Mayor of Berkely, JesseArreguin (opensupporter of one of the most violent and cultlike of Antifagroups, By Any Means Necessary,) whowas responsible for ordering Berkeleypolice to stand down on prior occasions (resulting in violence,)went on-record to demand Antifa be classifiedas a “gang.” (The FBIopted for rather stronger labeling.) Eventhe partisan, serial liars at the Southern Poverty Law Centercondemned them, though they refused to apply the “hate” labelthey rubber-stamp almost everyone else with. Even the Chicago fuckingTribune, one of the most consistently rabid anti-Trump publicationsI've seen this side of the WaPo openly criticized Democratsfor their conspicuous silence regarding the Communistinsurrectionists among them.

Theentire debacle was a glorious comeuppance without peer - the entireDemocratic party and mainstream media smear machine caught dead torights in their ghastly, bald-faced lies and forced to choke themdown again.

Amedia smear machine powerful enough to coerce CEOs of massiveinternational corporations, powerful career politicians and even -momentarily - the most powerful man on the planet.In the waning days of August, two weeks after they bent the Leader ofthe Free World to their will, they weren'tjust humiliated and discredited - they were also forced to openlyacknowledge the violent political terrorists that had benefited sostrongly from their willful veil of silence, de-masking them forever.

Andit was all the work of Donald J. Trump.

Hope Rides Alone

Trump knew exactly what he was doing.

His tweet the night before his bombshell Aug. 15thpress conference proves his (most impressive) loins were well-girdedfor combat before he walked before the cameras in Trump Tower - hewas ready and willing to offer battle. He knewthe press (as they always, always do)would be launching questions at him completely unrelated to the topicat hand, questions calculated to do him the most damage - and hechose that as hismoment to engage, rather than working it into his speech as preparedcomments. He countedon their malice to give him the openings he needed - and in a fewminutes of unrehearsed, ad-hoc debating, gave the mainstream mediathe poke needed to set their zealots fervor ablaze. I hate the mediawith such horrific passion that I've said nicer things about anglerfish and Windows ME andeven I wasleft astounded at the media's rush to lionize club-swinging communistterrorists as freedomfighters and heroes - butTrump wasn't. Thecourage to take on the people - and the lies - that'd sent hispolitical allies running like craven cowards not 48 hours earlier isnothing short of astounding, and the kind of risk no careerpolitician would ever entertain. I could've told you that the mediawould paint themselves into a corner with their hysterical, manicscreeching, and that they'd be proven for fools (again)when Antifa inevitably committed a new act of barbaric thuggery, butTrump hadthe sheer brass balls to bankhis very fortunes on it.

And he hitthe jackpot.

Anyonewho thinks Trump isn't playing “4D chess,” or that he's “cavingto pressure” after the lastweek of August is either a boomer crewman, Amish, or a raging idiot.The metric asston(ne?) ofshit the media was forced to eat was absolutely, entirely thanks toTrump's August 15thpress conference. He took their greatest victory over him to-date andturned it into their most bitter defeat in only two weeks time. Onlya fool could doubt the man's brilliance at this point.

Thenext time you hear some Bannonite drone screaming to the high heavensabout DACA, remember the last week of August.

[dearyallfrommatt]

Alt-weeklies are dead. Blogs are dead. Bootlickers and the civility police won.

 The above story from The New Republic written by Alex Pareene was brought to my Twitter world by Radley Balko, superlative journalist and maybe the only self-described libertarian I’d let thrive after the Purge. In short, it discusses the recent emasculation of Deadspin and how it’s indicative of the death of the “rude press”. That is, the elimination of smaller, shall we say less respectful outlets like Splinter and Gawker, publications that would stick their fingers into they eyes of the rich and the very much richer.

 And it’s not just those web-based publications’ deaths that article warns of. It’s the slow extinction of the alt-weekly or alt-monthly, all to be replaced by boutique publications that won’t be so gauche as to upset their betters. In other words, they’ll be “civil” because “civility” might be the most important thing we’re missing in this cold, cruel world.

 The first writing gig I got out of college was at an alt-monthly and the only “regular job” I’ve ever had was with an alt-weekly, so I might be a bit biased on this matter. Twenty-some-odd years ago in Gainesville, FL, a pair of cats named Colin Whitworth and Mike Podalsky started MOON Magazine, maybe the altest alternative magazine that wasn’t a ‘zine that I’ve ever seen. I mostly wrote about music and Gainesville being what it was, there wasn’t much sticking-in-the-eye that needed doing.

 Though I do remember them pissing of a real estate guy so badly he started his own “alt-monthly” in competition. It lasted one issue as I recall. Every afternoon at 4:20, we'd have a “staff meeting” and the magazine run pieces from severely left-wing sources going after the destruction of the Everglades or the dangers of the Cassini probe. It was that kind of magazine.

 After I left Gainesville for Athens, I took up with Flagpole Magazine, a music/news/arts weekly in Michael Stipe’s hometown. Athens is a different town and publisher Pete McCommons was a different breed. An old school newspaper man contrasted to Mike and Colin’s “young upstarts”, Flagpole was a gentler poke that nevertheless contrasted well with the bought-and-owned-by-the-chamber-of-commerce local daily, The Athens Banner-Herald. He still gave a lot of room to his staff to go nuts, notably my direct editor Ballard Lesemann.

 When I left college in 1997, I had already worked in actual, for real newspapers for almost a decade. Furthermore, I’d grown my hair long and discovered Hunter Thompson, so I was by no means inclined to go back to covering school board meetings for some small town weekly. MOON went the way of the dodo sometime in 2001, and though I left in 2002, Flagpole’s still kicking.

 I rarely made anything close to a living at writing, but I’m thankful of my time with the alts and grateful to Colin, Mike, Pete and Ballard for letting me share the ride with them and have a little fun. So, again, grain of salt. One thing working on alternatives taught me was that “complete objectivity” was not only impossible but unnecessary so long as your cards are on the table, so I ain’t going to put no shuck on you.

 Now, I won’t summarize or really explore what the above-linked New Republic piece goes into. I highly recommend it be read and considered with much gravity. Even if you don’t agree with its conclusions - or even the need for the existence of “rude journalism” - do study on what it suggests. Do we really want a world where the extremely rich, either as individuals or as a group, can shut down publications that don’t show proper fealty and people who’re willing to tell the Boss Man to take this job and shove it?

 The responses to Radley’s retweet and others I’ve seen elsewhere are telling indeed, though. While there are plenty of sympathetic voices, not a few folks are saying “well, good, fuck ‘em”. There is a negative view of journalists, but if anyone suggests that it’s caused by recent events in the business are lying or stupid or ignorant or all three. For as long as there have been rich dudes willing to start wars for more wealth, there have been plenty of poor bastards willing to die for them. Nowadays, we have folks willing to pay Major League Baseball for what they used to get for free, and not even blink an eye.

 A lot of it’s political. Right-wing media doesn’t have the same problems in getting funding because, well, most rich people are quite fine with the nuts and bolts of conservative thought. The economic side, anyway, which spells less taxes or regulation; the social side, they have enough pull to not have to worry about anyone griping unless they piss off someone higher up the ladder.

 Which is extremely amusing, since these are the same folks who stay constantly stricken with the vapors about how much money Hillary Clinton (or Elizabeth Warren or Barrack Obama or Bernie Sanders or fill-in-the-blank-here) bring home. The “common people”, they’re saying, don’t need hoity-toity nerds who can string sentences together and count without taking off their shoes telling us that they’re favorite rich guy needs a kick in the nuts for being the type of bastard that needs kicking in the nuts on a regular basis. The hooting baboons that support digital frat houses like Barstool are happy to stick it to those PC creeps, man, rebelling in that way that hurts the actual elite not one tiny bit.

 They also hate the corporate media and social media sites, which they will tell you endlessly in the comments sections of corporate medias’ pages on social media while FOX and CNN have a special on it every other week. They hate “political correctness” trying to tell them that the “natural order” isn’t just boozy white dudes watching the Pats and gorging on chicken wings, making  cracks about the opposing quarterback being homosexual or making “hey-it’s-just-a-joke” jokes about Serena Williams or some WNBA playing being a “man, baby”.

 There is most definitely a place for big mainstream news sources like CNN or The New York Times or TIME Magazine. A professor of my in journalism school used to repeat the quote, paraphrased from memory, that “journalism is the first rough draft of history”. Despite what the right wing has been screaming for years, whoever the president is, the big papers are rarely out for his blood. Once you become president, you are a “Washington insider” and all the corporate media really cares about is making money. 

 Whatever he says about the “Washington Swamp” and “fake news”, Donald Trump’s been part of that world, as is every Washington politician or media figure. FOX News is the mainstream media and the Washington Examiner has plenty of backing to keep that so. Who funds The Federalist? That publication has its place but that question must be asked. To do otherwise is to tell the powerful that you’re just fine with them running things, thank you very much.

 But there needs to be a place for a small, scrappy paper speaking for the weird and shat-upon, flicking the earlobe of the rich and powerful and running ads for weekly drag shows. The dirtbag center - that’s what I’m calling the tedious middle-class bourgeoisie spawn that all voted for Trump because they hated Hillary but don’t want to admit it and were shocked as the rest of us, deal with it - wants to be kept fat and saucy while their kids joke about “learning to code” and they all grind themselves down in a miserable existence. Sticking it to the media and the elite, man, all up in the “intellectual dark web,” man, just like Peter Thiel or Bari Weiss, man.

 This is one of those things that shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does, because these people are that guy who started a one-run magazine to get back at Colin and Mike for saying hurtful things about them being crooked. In America, at least, there has always, always been a group of people who will kick down for the benefit of their upper-class betters and do it with a smile on their faces. It’s why dumbass country boys went to die for slavery and why thick-necked hardhats smashed picket lines and assassinated union leaders.

 Like the story notes, we all thought that blogs would be the new hotness, but that lasted just long enough for Google to deciding that “do no evil” was bad for the bottom line. People, especially wingnuts, boo-hoo about Facebook or Twitter without acknowledging or even recognizing that Mark Zuckerberg is a greedy little shit and Jack Dorsey is quite comfortable with cosplaying Nazis. Thanks to Ajit Pai’s bought-and-sold ass, Net Neutrality - about the only thing that keeps the internet from being anything other than a glorified Want Ads - is going to be that much harder to make reality.

A lot of this goes back to the “civility” thing, or lack thereof, NYT columnists bemoan whenever they get caught out being a dipstick. We’re too mean to each other, they say, we don’t know how to respect each other, they say. Rich people know how to run things better than the hoi polloi, so do sit down and be quiet like nice children. Or else. 

 Because here’s the thing, friends and neighbors: the rich, I mean really rich class in this country do not give a solid gold shit about you apart from how much more money they can squeeze out. Suck up to Elon Musk all you want and bemoan Bill Gates having to pay so much in taxes that he’s still a billionaire afterwards all you want. They are not going to let you on the space ship with them once they’re done fouling the waters and scouring the land.

 You can cheer the death of Deadspin all you want, hoot at the firings of journalist who say bad things about Trump or the cops or Tom Brady, and general be gleeful that the media all should “learn to code” to your heart’s content. Because it won’t end there. Conglomerations are already scooping up weekly and small town dailies, shuttering the superfluous and give everyone the same story in the same tone while kissing the proper butts.

 In the end, we need an antagonistic press. We need someone willing to piss off the deep pockets and old families and moneyed interests. We need someone that’ll give a voice to left-handed, bisexual, transvestite furries who love swing dancing. Or even just a little time, a slice of acknowledgement that the world isn’t just boozy obnoxious white dudes on barstools or bitter wine moms sniping on Facebook. You can cheer the downfall of such, but all you’re doing is putting the noose around your own throat and saving the Powers That Be a little time.

 You may not want to rock the boat, friends and neighbors, but have no illusions. When the rubber hits the road, the Wealthy Elite will throw you over. Don’t make it easier for them.

[yobaba30]

Next to a photo of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Arizona lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords were the words “Target Practice.”

It was the headline of a story in the National Rifle Association’s American Rifleman magazine, where the author, chief NRA lobbyist Chris W. Cox, criticized newly introduced bipartisan universal background-check legislation. But in the eyes of others, the headline and accompanying photo of Pelosi and Giffords, who was shot in the head in Tucson in 2011, said more than the article did.

Some claimed the headline was an intentional attempt to incite violence against the politicians.

“The NRA’s words here are clear,” tweeted Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). “They may pretend that the article is about something different. But everyone can see what is being suggested against [Pelosi and Giffords]. Time to shut them down with our voices and votes.”

A firestorm erupted over the weekend after photos of the spread in the magazine’s March edition began circulating on social media, inviting scorn from parents of children killed in the Parkland mass shooting as well as Democratic lawmakers. Some, including Swalwell, called for legal consequences against the NRA for its “Target Practice” headline, while other gun-rights supporters insisted that critics were reading too much into the words.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) was among those who pushed back against critics, specifically Swalwell, who he suggested had stirred up fake outrage.

“How can you claim this?” he said in response to the California congressman. “Are you deliberately lying or did you just not read it? The article is about legislation targeting gun owners, not the NRA targeting Democrats. If your goal is to ensure that ‘outrage culture’ is alive and well, continuing to divide us, congrats.”

The NRA could not immediately be reached for comment, though spokeswoman Dana Loesch retweeted a story on Sunday about Crenshaw’s remarks. The American Rifleman magazine is the NRA’s official publication, with more than 2 million print and online readers, according to its media kit.

The backlash began Friday evening after Jennifer Bendery, a politics reporter at HuffPost, tweeted images of the spread, and it accelerated after parents of teenagers killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School condemned the image as well, equating it to domestic terrorism.

“Who are you trying to intimidate @NRA?” wrote Manuel Oliver, who lost his son, Joaquin Oliver, in the shooting. “By now, you should know that we don’t give a [expletive] about your efforts to terrorize a nation. This ‘nazi style’ propaganda only shows your low power over society.”

Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime in the Parkland massacre, called on NRA members to renounce their membership over the spread.

“Magazine covers and titles are highly thought out,” he wrote on Twitter. “People get paid a lot of money on decisions like this. The decision in NRA magazine to have an article titled Target Practice next to photo of Pelosi and Giffords is intentional. This is incitement of violence and not OK!”

He continued: “For those who have ever challenged my assertion that the current NRA leadership uses terror tactics, look no further."

The controversy comes amid heightened sensitivity toward perceived threats against lawmakers, journalists and other public figures in recent months. On Thursday, Roger Stone was forced to apologize in federal court, the day after he posted an image of Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing his obstruction of justice case, with what appeared to be crosshairs visible just over her shoulder. A Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested on Feb. 15 and later accused by prosecutors of plotting a terrorist attack after an arsenal of guns and a hit list targeting politicians and journalists and bombmaking materials were found in his possession. And last year, a man whose white van featured images of Democrats with targets on their faces was arrested after sending pipe bombs to prominent lawmakers and to CNN.

“This is only slightly more sophisticated than what Roger Stone did last week,” John Iadarola, a liberal pundit and online talk show host, said of the American Rifleman spread on Saturday.

Democrats Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), who is running for president, and Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.) were also among the lawmakers to condemn the spread.

Pelosi has not chimed in, but her daughter Christine Pelosi called the NRA’s magazine spread “criminal” on Sunday.

“We must condemn the NRA’s intentional, outrageous criminal incitement,” she wrote on Twitter. “We cannot allow this hate speech to stop common sense gun violence prevention such as #HR8.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced House Resolution 8, or the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, on Jan. 8, the anniversary of the day Giffords, then a Democratic congresswoman, was shot in the head in Tucson at an event for her constituents. The gunman fatally shot six others.

The bill would require universal background checks on all gun sales and most gun transfers, including among private sellers.

fucking terrorists and bigots.

[weedstoner]

sorry i literally have no friends who watch bachelor/bachelorette so here are my opinions

i’m officially cutting all ties w the bachelor franchise bc this recent scandal thing has brought to light how absolutely awful 99% of the people who go on that show are

like i’m seeing both male and female cast members (even female cast members who are supposedly friends with corinne, who admits she blacked out and can’t even remember the incident and has hired a lawyer to do an independent investigation) basically saying she asked for it, she signed a contract so she has no recourse to complain about anything, she put herself in the situation, she drank too much, she acted “slutty” just like she always does, and it’s like......really fucking disgusting and disappointing

and i’m really sorry that all this shit had to happen in the midst of rachel’s season because i genuinely like rachel and i think it’s important that she’s the first black bachelorette and they’re like actually talking about racial issues on the show (specifically, the trope of black men being seen as inherently “aggressive”) which is great but it just gets overshadowed by all this bullshit

and of course warner brothers releases a statement essentially saying “we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing, but no one is ever gonna see the actual video of the incident because of ~privacy~” as if they’ve ever cared about the privacy of their cast before lmfao like there was literally just an article posted by CNN picking apart the contract that all contestants are made to sign (which is a common contract for reality tv, by the way) that says they agree to let the production essentially own their image and can use it however they want without fear of any legal recourse. there is nothing stopping them from showing these tapes or at the very least censored versions of the tapes other than the fact that the tapes show stuff that they don’t want publicized

and somehow for most people this is enough for them to say “ok, well clearly nothing actually happened and corinne is just a lying slut who wanted to fuck a guy and then regretted it later” and it’s so fucking gross like i don’t want to be involved even marginally with a fandom that is so blatantly sexist

and this isn’t even the only example! how is it that all of the most genuinely hated cast members are all women (and by genuinely hated i mean, the people who get evil comments all over their social media and who everyone generally agrees are the worst) and then we have guys like chad (outwardly physically violent and shown to be an actual threat to the safety of the other people on the show MULTIPLE TIMES) and lee (blatant racist who somehow thought he should agree to appear on the season with the first black bachelorette even though he thinks BLM is a terrorist organization and the NAACP is racist) and demario (ghosted the girl he was dating, whose apartment he had keys to, to come on bachelorette and then straight up lied to rachel’s face when he was confronted about it) who still somehow get defended constantly? 

like, this incident involved corinne and demario, and just looking through bachelor instagram accounts, 95% of the comments are about how corinne is probably lying and is just a slut anyway and besides, she got drunk and agreed to be on the show so that means she was asking for it. i have barely seen ANY comments talking about how demario is clearly a sleazeball and has been proven to be a liar. and that’s so fucking disgusting to me honestly

so yeah i like, can’t do this anymore. when caroline and i started watching during jojo’s season we thought it was just a silly reality show we could laugh at occasionally and make fun of, and it was for a few seasons, but now it’s just so ugly. everything is ugly. the cast is ugly and the production team is ugly and warner brothers is ugly. fucking reality tv as a whole is ugly!

growing up in LA with a father who works in the television business and who has drafted many, many reality tv contracts, i always had a natural aversion to reality tv because i knew it was fake, and i think a lot of the appeal of reality tv to most people comes from being able to convince yourself that maybe some of it is real, so i could never really do that because i grew up knowing the truth. i guess i thought i could give it a chance, and maybe i picked the wrong franchise to do so, but nonetheless i am incredibly disappointed. i’ve never believed that the show is 100% real, i am aware of how producers choose who to give good/bad edits to, i know that entire plotlines can sometimes be completely made up, i know that footage can be manipulated to make the audience believe things happened that never did. but i at least thought that MAYBE some of the people on the show wouldn’t be complete shitwads. of course this was a stupid assumption to make

at this point, the more i hear about the franchise and the more i watch, the more i hate and resent it. these are a bunch of beautiful, skinny, perfect people, most of whom have never had to deal with any real hardship in their lives, who are solely on the show for the fame it will bring them afterwards and nothing else. no one on the bachelor is looking for a wife or husband, let’s be real. if they are, they’re the outlier of the group. 99% of people who have appeared on the show now have lucrative careers hocking diet pills and beauty boxes on instagram and getting the occasional write-up in people magazine or us weekly, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. these are people who don’t have the stamina to model but want to make bank off of being pretty and having almost zero personality. the only women on the show who actually do have personalities end up being fucking demonized for it and all of the men have totally contrived personas because they’re trying their best to look macho on tv. it’s a bunch of fake pretty people running around doing stupid shit, which a bunch of producers with no morals later edit into some ~drama~ that gets stretched out for 40 minutes of the show

so yeah i can’t do it anymore i really tried but i think i just fucking hate reality tv. or at least american reality tv. i’ve been watching some korean reality tv lately and it is striking how different it is from american reality tv. in the US, reality tv is heavily edited to create high drama and a story arc that makes sense narratively and also captivates the audience. in korea, at least from what i’ve seen, the focus is much more on capturing the genuine relationships between people, with the premise (i’m assuming) of highlighting those little interactions that really show personality and also strengthen the relationship. any “drama” that happens is clearly not contrived or built up to be bigger than it is - it’s just stuff that happens, it’s part of life. in other words, we shouldn’t even be calling our version of reality tv “reality tv” because it’s almost exactly like watching a scripted drama anyway

[regular-lord-reckoner]

okay so there’s this guy i’ve known since like elementary school (and before you jump to any kind of conclusion, he’s gay so just...chill) and i mean...we know each other i guess? in a really loose sense of the word because we’ve had some classes together and we were in choir together but we were never like...close friends by any means 

but all of a sudden apropos of fucking NOTHING he keeps messaging me on facebook 

it’s mostly like...some political shit, like the newest stupid thing trump’s doing and yeah, i post some rants now and then but i dunno if he’s expecting that i’m going to take one look at whatever article he’s sent (which i’ve likely already seen) and i’m just gonna...produce some content or launch into a whole discussion but like...no, dude, that’s not how that goes 

but i’m not a complete asshole so initially i just kinda responded like “yeah, wow that’s messed up, can’t believe he’s in charge” etc., etc. 

okay so jump back a few weeks to when my body decided “hey bitch, FUCK YOU” and i ended up in the emergency room with another fucking kidney stone 

and i posted that, like i checked in on facebook as being in the hospital and everything 

and even after that, i had various comments on shit of people who i am actually close to who were checking in on me and i was giving updates about how the stone hadn’t passed yet and how i was still dealing with pain, etc. 

and during this whole very public endeavor this dude is still sending me these articles and shit, he sends like two in a row, and then when i don’t respond in a timely fashion he’s like “thoughts???” 

so i never responded 

because seriously? fucking seriously, dude? 

i’m only over here in pain that i’ve heard is comparable (if not worse) to labor pain but yes, let me fucking drop everything to comment on yet another fucking article you felt compelled to send me even though i’ve already seen it 

and so even though i never answered that one he still sends me ANOTHER yesterday

same shit, i think this time it’s trump tweeting that stupid video of him “beating up cnn” or whatever and right after that he’s like “I think you’re the oldest friend I have” or something like that 

and again like...i don’t respond because i’m just...yeah, no 

and then fucking TODAY he sends another message like “sorry, that was random. but what grade did we meet?” 

like...dude, fucking S T O P

because here’s the thing like...either i don’t want to talk to your ass or i can’t right now and you need to fucking deal either way 

contentiously sending me messages isn’t going to do shit but irritate me either way 

i’ll respond in my own time, thanx

and obviously there’s a part of me that’s not a total heartless bitch and an asshole that says, y’know, he’s probably dealing with something right now and could use a friend, especially if he’s reaching out this far to someone he doesn’t know that well 

but at the same time...that’s 10000% not my problem. 

and more to the point...if you can’t even fucking pretend to give a shit about me, why do i owe you the emotional labor of stepping up to the plate in your hour of need? 

he thinks he’s gonna win my favor by kissing my ass or making it out like we’re super good buds but like...my dude, you don’t fucking know me and i don’t know you 

we’ve been pleasant to one another because we’ve been forced into situations together, but i promise you...you don’t fucking know me. And vice versa 

Because more to the point like...if i’ve come to realize anything it’s that even the emotional labor i do put in for people i do know and care about hardly ever amounts to shit, y’know? 

whatever may or may not be happening with him is unfortunate and i’m sorry for it, but how fucking unfair is that to just...waltz up to someone you barely fucking know and try to coerce them into doing that hard work while offering absolutely nothing in return? 

and i’m not saying he’s gotta buy me things or give me anything tangible but like...if you can’t even just...give me some space and are already stepping all over my boundaries what right do you have to me? 

i dunno. and maybe nothing at all is going on, because honestly if memory serves me correctly he just kinda...does this. if you give him an inch he’ll run a full marathon with it 

and i feel bad because maybe he just...doesn’t get it? maybe he doesn’t realize that’s not how you actually build friendships and shit, but i know there’s at least one girl (it may be his cousin, i’m not sure) that he’s actually been friends with for a long time so i mean...he at least can understand that, but it’s like...people he’s just known for a long time and had a few positive interactions with are not your good, good friends, i’m sorry

and maybe he just thinks i’m a neat person and wants us to be closer but again like...this isn’t the way at all that you go about that shit with me 

my actual friends will sometimes send me things either to get my reaction or to have a discussion and i don’t mind because chances are it’s actually something relevant to my interest or it’s something i haven’t seen but need to or just something along those lines but even still like...if i don’t respond right away there’s no pressure

there’s no follow up “thoughts?????” like an hour later or whenever. there’s no next day message still trying to prompt a response out of me. 

they can literally see me still online doing other shit and just...get it. that i need space and that’s respected and i do the same 

and i get it, i do. it’s been hard for me to not get nervous and panicky when i send someone a message and they don’t respond because i’m like “oh no, that was really stupid, i bet i’m annoying them, oh god why do i even speak, they’re ignoring me now, they hate me, FUCK” but it’s worth doing to realize your feelings don’t always come first and sometimes that other person just isn’t in the headspace to answer a message right now and that’s okay 

i just...i dunno. i feel bad, i do, but i think i’m gonna have to just...ignore him because again, if i respond it’s encouraging him and he’s just going to keep doing this and i just...can’t, i’m sorry 

he’s a nice enough guy, but i do know him well enough to know i don’t want to be closer friends with him, our personalities don’t mesh like that and i just...i can’t, my dude 

i don’t think anyone fully grasps or realizes just how fucking damaged my ability to connect with other people is 

i get by, i can do casual acquaintance bullshit like a mother fucker 

and i can maintain a precious few close relationships 

but apart from that? nah, man 

and i realize that’s my own thing, that’s no one else’s problem or fault but...that’s exactly why i don’t go banging down the door of people i barely fucking know and insisting they be friends with me 

i’ve been depressed my whole life, i’ve been dealing with anxiety for probably longer than what i’ve even realized, i’ve been paranoid for a long time, and given just...a lot of shit (some of which is indeed traumatic) that’s happened to me i have HELLA BAD trust issues and that makes maintaining relationships a fucking struggle 

because it’s already bad enough that the little goblin that lives in my head is constantly like “you know this person could walk out of your life at any time and there’s nothing you can do about it, right?” or “this person you love could just fucking die and you’d be helpless to stop it” or “this person might secretly hate you, but of course they’ll never say so because it’s not as fun that way” or just...whatever paranoid, abandonment-issued fueled thoughts it feels like coming up with 

i literally LITERALLY don’t have it fucking in me to saddle up with another person and try to share whatever weight it is they might be carrying 

and that’s shitty, that’s selfish, that’s horrible and i know that. i do 

decent people don’t just turn their back on someone who is probably crying out for help but luckily i don’t think of myself as a decent person anyway so...there’s that 

i just...can’t. i really can’t. 

and i hope maybe someone else that he reaches out to will be more capable, i hope maybe he picks up on the hint as i don’t reply to messages, but i just...can’t 

it’s hard enough for me to respond to people i am close to, y’know? not always, but like...sometimes i see a message pop up and my brain’s like “yeah, i can’t fucking do this, i can’t handle this right now” and it’s not because of the person it’s just like...i can’t perform the way this person needs me to. i can’t be that person, i can’t be myself right now, i’m completely numb, i have no access to any of my emotions and i don’t have it in me to even pretend like i do right now 

and again like...that’s obviously my own shit that i should get help for because i know that’s not healthy but that’s how it is right now and i’m not really in a position to fix that at the moment 

because even the things i could do just...on my own are still steps that are way, way too big and i’m just too fucking tired and bruised to do it, especially when there’s this other huge part of me that’s like, “why does it matter if you do end up losing all the friends you have? you don’t deserve them anyway” so...there’s that 

idk

i’m not looking for validation or reassurance, i’m just...really aggravated about this and i realize i’m probably in the wrong, again like...i should be more compassionate and i should put all my shit aside and just...try to help this poor guy because maybe he’s even worse off than i am, but there’s this other part of me that’s just like...why is that my responsibility and why should i do that for someone who doesn’t actually seem to care about me, but just wants to use me as a glorified sounding board? 

[sienna27]

Comments from Howard Stern on Trump (who you can at least count on for a no BS assessment) says something kind of fascinating here about the voter fraud:  “He just wanted a couple more bucks out of NBC, and that is why Donald is calling for voter fraud investigations. He’s pissed he won. He still wants Hillary Clinton to win. He’s so f—ing pissed, he’s hoping that he can find some voter fraud and hand it over to Hillary.”

That’s such an interesting take on it, because I always believed the other part, that he never thought he’d win and just did it for the money and the attention (remember they were ready to roll out Trump TV until he actually won) and then after the fact he was just being his usual dickhead, ‘poor winner’ self, but maybe not.  It plays in though with an article I read about Obama giving Trump the WH walk thru in December, and how Donald was “surprised” at how much was involved in actually being the president.  So Obama had to put in an unusual amount of transition time with him, before he left.  And also, there’s the report out of Angela Merkel’s office that she spent last Saturday afternoon explaining the Geneva Convention to Donald. 

He honestly doesn’t have a fucking clue.  I mean, I know that we know that, but the more of this shit that comes out, the more I just want to put my head in my hands.

Howard Stern said on his program Wednesday that Trump will hate being president and the role will be detrimental to his mental health.

Stern and Trump are long-time friends, with Trump making numerous appearances on Stern’s radio show over the years.

“I personally wish that he had never run, I told him that, because I actually think this is something that is gonna be detrimental to his mental health too, because, he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved,” Stern said. “He wants people to cheer for him.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be a healthy experience. And by the way, he’s now on this anti-Hollywood kick. He loves Hollywood. First of all, he loves the press. He lives for it. He loves people in Hollywood. He only wants hobnob with them. All of this hatred and stuff directed towards him. It’s not good for him. It’s not good. There’s a reason every president who leaves the office has grey hair.”

Trump frequently appeared on Stern’s radio program over the past two decades, engaging in the kind of crude talk about women and celebrities typical of the shock-jock’s show. During the campaign, CNN’s KFile surfaced demeaning comments Trump made about women on the show.

Stern said he considers Trump a friend, but is opposed to his politics.

“I like Donald very much personally. I was shocked when he decided to run for president, and even more shocked that sort of, people took it seriously,” Stern said.

“I remember saying to him when he announced his presidency, I remember being quite amazed, because I remember him being for Hillary Clinton,” Stern added.

“And I remember him being very–I mean he was pro-abortion. So the new Donald Trump kind of surprised me.”

Stern said he doesn’t believe Trump has had a change of heart on issues like abortion, but is instead playing to his base.

The radio host said he also believed Trump ran for president solely to get a larger contract from NBC for “The Apprentice.”

“I think it started out as like a kinda cool, fun thing to do in order to get a couple more bucks out of NBC for The Apprentice, I actually do believe that,” Stern said.

“He just wanted a couple more bucks out of NBC, and that is why Donald is calling for voter fraud investigations. He’s pissed he won. He still wants Hillary Clinton to win. He’s so f—ing pissed, he’s hoping that he can find some voter fraud and hand it over to Hillary.”

    CNNMoney (New York)  First published February 2, 2017: 3:52 PM ET

[junketsonasadplanet]

A Field Guide to Journalism

The Fourth Estate - journalism - is a central pillar for modern democracies now that the internet age is no longer a “flash in the pan,” research tool, or means of communication but instead an entire digital alter-ego for a generation. A means and medium of expression; a boundless, dangerous sea new to human experience whose swift movements change our perception of information. More placid waters no longer entice, the slow-moving panopticon of democracy’s policy-making needs to be translated and emphasized against a torrential flood of amusement.

Start by making a Twitter account. No one uses Facebook for news, only fucking boomers use Facebook. “I use the ‘Book,” some fucking boomer is saying while wearing sandals and flipping a burger on the grill, “it’s how I keep in touch with my grand-kids!” A CNN editor rubs their hands together. That’s what they’ll run with, “the ‘Book is how today’s grandparents stay in touch!”

That’s perfect because CNN/FOX/MSNBC - pick your poison they’re basically the same - are competing for the main demographic of long term coma victims and retirement homes leaving the channel on the TV in the day room. “It’s how I keep in touch with my grand-kids!” is echoing under humming fluorescent light to an audience of failing kidneys, lung cancer, and stroke victims who are staring at each other. Imagine knifing two Vietnamese in a tunnel and forty years later you’re getting abused by your Dominican nurse who steals your pocket change and slaps you when you don’t take pills. People don’t hate boomers because they ran the planet and economy into the fucking dust they hate them because they’re pathetic.

We’re still talking about how to find a good news source so hang on. The generation of unbridled wealth and power fucked up everything they touched and are slackjawed now staring at the desert of reality, either that or Facebook. Your grandson OD’d because he mixed Oxy and Everclear? Hit that share button saying you’ve got an angel waiting for you in Heaven. People shit themselves when they mix like that. Imagine an Angel in its gown with shit running down its leg. CNN doing 24/7 coverage of Zuckerberg during the Cambridge Analytica trial in Senate with a well-hidden earbud. Now look concerned. No, little more deeply concerned, avoid some eye contact and unfocus your eyes while staring at the ground. Okay, now start to look determined. Look at the Senate - do not smile - look at each Senator in turn and tell them you are taking action to prevent fake news from spreading on your platform.

Zuckerberg is taking classes on how to look more human/relatable, catastrophically failing. We had to get a remote operator with a Berkeley M.S. in psychology to feed him cues. The dude cannot understand how to express emotion. It’s crazy. We tried showing him shock footage and he got a hard-on. A full blown mast watching a guy get beat to death with bricks.

Zuckerberg cannot convey basic human emotion and gets a boner knowing he employs vast amounts of people whose only job is to screen “offensive content” on Instagram and Facebook. Contractors in Phoenix, Arizona, some in Hollywood, Florida and Austin, Texas who are paying rent watching cartel executions and child porn. Automated systems immediately flag undistorted footage so the uploaders distort it or create new footage. If you’re reading this and waiting to hear about modern journalism then so is a contractor now watching the same footage of someone get their head beat in.

At the Phoenix branch of Facebook, Inc, they have a sign for “Days Since We Saw the Funkytown Execution Video” that never goes to 1. Some ingenious motherfucker will reverse the video or overlay it into an anime AMV and upload to Instagram while tagging every “social influencer” he can. I spoke to him once, he told me the most popular was “Redbone but you’re Mexican” where the Funkytown song in the background as they hack a man’s hands off while injecting him with methamphetamine so he can’t pass out so his stumps try to touch his face while some cartel goon peels the skin off his head is instead replaced by the muffled sound of “Redbone” by Childish Gambino.

Facebook is breeding an ingenious mutt race of some very efficient serial killers, conspiracy theorists, but mostly of people who will claim PTSD and join lawsuits against the Zuck so they can claim peanuts while the tort lawyers bring half a billion home and masturbate on Twitter that they have taken a major stand against a worldwide corporation that they use to try to talk to their grand-kids. No one who is a lawyer or social media influence or Mark Zuckerberg has a soul so they sleep pretty well.

Now, back to Twitter. You may have an account already. Undergo basic SMS verification if not and follow @MaggieNYT.

Don’t read any article she posts or retweets. It’s all the same beltway circlejerk anyways. You, as an elite member of an inner circle, are there for the comments. Most of @MaggieNYT’s followers are caught in a hate cycle of following her and insulting her in comments. You enabled Trump, they shout. Yeah, a liberal Brooklyn Jew is the reason why Donald Trump was elected. The ADL is legislating for hate crime laws protecting Jewish public figures and important journalists, whose Venn diagram is a circle.

Full disclosure: I’m saying this as a Jew. I’m attempting to define how to find #GOODNEWS in a world of #FAKENEWS which is fatally important in order to preserve our democracy. This is an important conversation we must undertake in light of historic persecution of my race. No one likes Haberman but she #PERSISTS despite being a punching bag.

@MaggieNYT’s Twitter is single-handedly the cause for a significant rise in anti-Semitism. You show an average person Henry Kissinger enthusiastically masturbating to child porn while authorizing the overthrow of democracies and the sale of weapons to fascist governments then lock them in a room where their only content is @MaggieNYT’s tweets and see which one wants 2020 to look like 1940 quicker.

The good news is that journalism is being rapidly overtaken by Markov-bots which dissect the salient #BUZZWORDS and generates a publishable text. That’s the future of journalism. Not just Markov chains of seemingly deep insight but they’ll innovate by having attractive women half-naked and bleach blonde narrating the whole thing. That’s the future. Naked News is already a thing, God bless, but pretty soon the whole world will look like Twitter. Nude women talking about viral pandemics and religious insurrection while they lightly press a vibrator between their legs and wink at the camera.

Are you upset by this future? You live in it, but it’s okay to have your opinion. We’ll have a body dysphoric person as part of the Markov chain designed to make you feel better. You can watch a larger women masturbate while she tells you that Hubei is a ghost town. Or a trans-woman, a white/black/latino male, a Muslim. That is how you distinguish #REALNEWS from #FAKENEWS. Maggie has little chance in the oncoming environment which relies on a degree of sex appeal and brevity. Most of her readers are actively imagining how good her lipstick would look on a curb.

It would be a shame if someone activated a ***** **** {redacted} in New York or Los Angeles or Palo Alto. The land would be uninhabitable for a decade at least. You would see a vast steppe land of disintegrating buildings and corpses. How terrible if someone found how easy it was to make […] {redacted, jfc get on track, we’re talking about modern journalism}.

[fairest]

DIDN’T GO TO TWITTER YESTERDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

Extremely online.

Ethics are elsewhere.

Smoked the wrong kind of weed yesterday … ended up at the Met … where I could process not a thing …  saw not one painting … the Rothko looked like a Tooker, the Pissarro looked like a Rothko … I had several deep vacant thoughts about how horrible my recent writing is … ridiculous … total embarrassment … how do I even live … the world looks away … the world is doing me a favor.

I am terrified by the evening, but only at night.

Jets lost, Mets lost, Giants lost, at least we have Heineken and pretzels.

Sorry for making fun of the clothes people wear.

In New York, as Edmund White said, the costume ball continues.

I have this note here: Dodgers cap photo shoot.

It’s so exciting to be in New York and see the beautiful new skyscrapers instead of having to read tediously clear articles about New York skyscrapers that use words like “the site of production” and “global elites”.

We had the Buddha Delight with tofu at Wei West in the Goldman alley, my aunt and uncle split the check.

New York is for not having to read theory anymore.

That’s what you’re paying for.

There are no theories here, there is no news.

I take back everything bad I said about New York.

My left nut used to be that H&M, my right nut is now a Sephora.

Last night we went to a party.

I spoke in short sentences.

I told a girl with no hair & the wrong name that girls with no hair are hot.

I ate a whole bowl of Utz Salt & Vinegar potato chips and hoped in vain the DJs would play something other than Vince Staples.

I realized nobody at the party had read my latest diary entry.

I mean, who reads anything, text can only be seen, not read, on Twitter, on a phone, on Facebook, on The Atlantic Monthly, on Jacobin.

Sorry if I made fun of people yesterday, sorry, even to David Frum, sorry.

Should I be believed, though, because I waited so long?

No, I don’t want this sympathy with the city, we must get out of town.

My God, I am so sorry.

I miss the comfort in being bad.

Remember on Girls, when Elijah and Dill break up for the last time, and Dill says bittersweetly, I’ll think of you every time I go to Brooklyn.

Sarah Schulman wrote compared to Manhattan, Brooklyn seemed like a forest.

I smoked the right kind of weed later in the evening and we ate pizza and ice cream.

Growing up means not feeling guilty for forgetting the people you aren’t interested in.

I made somebody grow up. 

The world is growing up around me.

Thought about tweeting yesterday:

The commercial for lube you have to watch before a porn hub vid is also a commercial during The Revolution w/ Steve Hilton.

Jack White hated New York. Had those early press shots taken with the towers in the background. Made Meg write on his t-shirt with a Sharpie: NEW YORK CONFUSES ME.

For Plath, New York was three things: pain, parties, and work.

Frank O’Hara felt that if every negro in New York cruised over the World’s Fair in a plane and ran out of fuel the world would really learn something about the affluent society.

Bukowski said outside of Dallas, Houston, Charleston, and Atlanta, New York City was the worst place he had ever been.

Acker thought the girls are conservative and the boys all gay or male feminists. Non-playful breeds. She would take Nazis any day of the week.

Sebald asked us to imagine the amount of painkillers consumed in New York City every year, and how if you crushed them down you could go skiing, if you were also 420 friendly.

Babitz said, well, you know what she said, Eve Babitz was a fucking genius.

James Polk, the worst president in U.S. history, won New York.

Philip Roth said the purpose of streets is to pick up women. There’s no other reason for them.

I said to my cousin at dinner tonight, what’s it like having to talk to your brother about Trump, you guys must really disagree a lot.

My cousin said, actually, I don’t think there’s much for us to disagree with.

Sorry about your student loans, what’s the wi-fi here.

I take back everything I said yesterday, New York is a beautiful place, especially if you avoid Twitter.

I bought Facebook at $19, what’s your accomplishment?

Think I’ll go listen to Wagner in Zucotti Park.

I want to take a step back for a moment, erase all I said.

There was news this weekend, but we were on vacation, tomorrow we fly home, they’ll be more news.

News without Twitter sucks, because Twitter is great for news. That’s why if you avoid what’s great for news, you avoid news, and a few seconds later you find your own language.

Watched a lot of FOX NEWS this weekend (Manhattan is a red state obviously; we have the meats) and FOX NEWS is so much better than CNN and MSNBC combined, you actually learn something other than aghast-ness.

Your own language is down there somewhere, it’s not witty, it’s not smart, it’s not intelligence, it earns no likes, your own language is not retweetable, your own language doesn’t get a reaction.

I have this note here: artists are people who know other artists.

I’ve been to therapy, I know what it means to express myself, but that’s something we’ll have to pick up next time. 

Nothing that appeals to the masses survives.

News is universally appreciated.

Anything universally appreciated has already disappeared.

You must not leave an impression on your own time. You must not engage.

Leave society.

News is worse than comedy. 

Do not interact with the language of your own time.

Do not talk back to something that doesn’t talk to you.

Ten people liked the Odyssey, six people liked Ulysses, nobody likes the writers of today, the writers who will be misread tomorrow.

You must believe.

It’s always a coming out scene for a desperate amateur.

It’s always finally my time.

Today’s the day the world will understand me.

My phone is losing power and last night was a long week, I keep thinking of that Eileen Myles poem, old people are always / charging things.

If you are holding this document in shaking hands, given to you by a man and his hands shook too, in your hands you hold the truth of one man who had the energy, the self-respect, the life force, to not go to Twitter yesterday.

We are cashless and anti-gun.

For as much as I’ve said, more has gone unnoticed.

The last great myth of the male novelist, before this one.

I said to my wife we know nothing about Vietnam.

It’s gone.

We know nothing.

Anthony Bourdain is all that’s left.

Anthony Bourdain is to Vietnam what the Classic New York Egg Sandwich is to…

Extremely online.

The only people ‘extremely online’ are those with one thing left on the web.

Any site that doesn’t support frames and is all about your Napoleon thesis is extremely online.

Any porn star with only one casting couch vid and comments that say ... what’s her name ... whose got other vids ... I wish she did more ... she’s too hot for porn ... the guy is so much hotter.

She is extremely online.

Think I’ll go to Zucotti Park and place my hand over a teenager’s mouth.

I saw this posted bill the other day.

Wanda Sykes is giving a talk on the authentic self.

Life is inconceivable.

Money is made by people who say otherwise.

[robgrayofficial]

GOOOOD AFTERNOON PATRIOTS!This is your girl, u/Ivaginaryfriend here and I'm back with your weekly recap of all things dank and spicy!As always, If you happened to miss any past recaps you can catch them here!Let's get this recap started!Sunday, September 2nd:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Tiger Woods showed great class in the way he answered the question about the Office of the Presidency and me. Now they say the so-called “left” is angry at him. So sad, but the “center & right” loves Tiger, Kanye, George Foreman, Jim Brown & so many other greats, even more....... ... ....The fact is that African/American unemployment is now the lowest in the history of our country. Same with Asian, Hispanic and almost every other group. The Democrats have been all talk and no action. My Administration has already produced like no other, and everyone sees it!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Peaceful memorial gatherings, showing victims of Muslim attacks, is now considered “alt right”. No wonder liberal schools want to ban 9/11 memorials!Chick-fil-A Manager Stops Service To Pray for Employee Having Surgery for Breast Cancer. With In and Out getting love, I figure we still want to appreciate Chick-fil-A.The perfect woman doesn't exi...Uncucked Seahawks owner Paul Allen gives $100,000 to help Republicans keep control of U.S. House, MAGA🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Imagine trying to explain this picture to someone 5 years agoI'll just leave this hereJust an iconic photo of the 21st century that you'll never see in a textbookTRUMP 2020Anon gets robbed by the FedsMonday, September 3rd:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Happy Labor Day! Our country is doing better than ever before with unemployment setting record lows. The U.S. has tremendous upside potential as we go about fixing some of the worst Trade Deals ever made by any country in the world. Big progress being made!The Worker in America is doing better than ever before. Celebrate Labor Day!Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, represented his union poorly on television this weekend. Some of the things he said were so against the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself, that it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly. A Dem!The U.S. is respected again!(Retweeting The White House) In July, President Trump announced the Pledge to America's Workers. In little more than a month since, MILLIONS of new opportunities have been created for our workforce.(Retweeting Ivanka Trump) Today, on #LaborDay, let’s also recognize the amazing stay-at-home parents across America, who seldom receive the credit they deserve for the invaluable work that they do, as they nurture and raise the next generation of American workers! Thank you! #HappyLaborDayTwo long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff...... ... ....The Democrats, none of whom voted for Jeff Sessions, must love him now. Same thing with Lyin’ James Comey. The Dems all hated him, wanted him out, thought he was disgusting - UNTIL I FIRED HIM! Immediately he became a wonderful man, a saint like figure in fact. Really sick!I see that John Kerry, the father of the now terminated Iran deal, is thinking of running for President. I should only be so lucky - although the field that is currently assembling looks really good - FOR ME!According to the Failing New York Times, the FBI started a major effort to flip Putin loyalists in 2014-2016. “It wasn’t about Trump, he wasn’t even close to a candidate yet.” Rigged Witch Hunt!President Bashar al-Assad of Syria must not recklessly attack Idlib Province. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Japan only admits 27 Muslim “refugees.” Two already arrested for gang rape.r/politics just can't believe in happy/successful conservative POCDiner that kicked out Sarah Huckabee Sanders has severe drop in tourism, now pulling from emergency funds to “rescue their image” in new ad campaign.Since President Trump took office, he has helped create 3.4+ million new jobs (7/31/18), the overall unemployment rate has dropped from 4.6% to 3.9%, long-term unemployment has dropped from 1.9 million to 1.4 million, and some of us with crappy jobs have found better jobs through more choices!ININININININININININININININININININ - N - OUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUT🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Ryan Gosling's next movieJust a picture of the savior of the western world going out to meet his destiny.Blue Wave 2018- Ben Garrison cartoon! Beach Closed!He could have kept to his billionaire lifestyle, where the media and celebrities all loved him. Instead he decided to help our country. And he didn't do it by taking a knee, but by standing up!What the fucking fuck!?Tuesday, September 4th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Personnel to Key Administration PostsPresident Donald J. Trump Signs an Executive Order Protecting Americans' Retirement🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:NBC FAKE NEWS, which is under intense scrutiny over their killing the Harvey Weinstein story, is now fumbling around making excuses for their probably highly unethical conduct. I have long criticized NBC and their journalistic standards-worse than even CNN. Look at their license?Everyone in the path of #Gordon please heed the advice of State and local officials and follow @NHC_Atlantic for updates. The Federal Government stands ready to assist. Be safe!Jon Kyl will be an extraordinary Senator representing an extraordinary state, Arizona. I look forward to working with him!The Brett Kavanaugh hearings for the future Justice of the Supreme Court are truly a display of how mean, angry, and despicable the other side is. They will say anything, and are only.... ... ....looking to inflict pain and embarrassment to one of the most highly renowned jurists to ever appear before Congress. So sad to see!“Pledge to America’s Workers”Paul Cook is a decorated Marine Corps Veteran who loves and supports our Military and Vets. He is Strong on Crime, the Border, and supported Tax Cuts for the people of California. Paul has my total and complete Endorsement!“Judge Brett Kavanaugh is an Exceptionally Qualified and Deserving Nominee for the Supreme Court”Statement from Secretary of Defense, James Mattis:Statement from White House Chief of Staff, General John Kelly:Statement from White House @PressSec, Sarah Sanders:The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly. Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake NBC News said it’s time for the Press to stop complaining and to start fighting back. Actually Chuck, they’ve been doing that from the day I announced for President. They’ve gone all out, and I WON, and now they’re going CRAZY!The already discredited Woodward book, so many lies and phony sources, has me calling Jeff Sessions “mentally retarded” and “a dumb southerner.” I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing. He made this up to divide!Jim Mattis Calls Woodward Book 'Fiction': 'Product of Someone's Rich Imagination'“Secretary Mattis Nukes Woodward Allegations”SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Statement from Secretary of Defense, James Mattis:Statement from a White House Chief of Staff, General John KellyConfirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett KavanaughWhile America was distracted with the Kavanaugh circus, nobody noticed that Arizona flipped RED today in the SenateWomen’s March leader Linda Sarsour was among the left-wing activists arrested Tuesday for interrupting the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:SALT MINE THREAD CONFIRMATION HEARING FOR SUPREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME COURT NOMINEE JUDGE KAVANAUGH - REDDIT SUICIDE WATCH CONTINUESA black man drops a red pill in r/news, gets massive downvotes but also gold x 4. #WalkAway, bro!Just a picture of our next Supreme Court Justice.Watching the Kavanaugh hearing on Fox, it sounds like a couple of these non-gender specific humans might be producing lots of salt in the audienceBrett Kavanaugh leaves his house with....an ADIDAS bag. #NikeBoycottWednesday, September 5th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration PostPresident Trump Meets with the Amir of the State of KuwaitPresident Trump has an Expanded Bilateral Meeting with the Amir of the State of KuwaitPresident Trump Meets with Republican Congressional LeadershipPresident Trump Meets with Sheriffs from Across the Country🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Isn’t it a shame that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact, and get away with it without retribution or cost. Don’t know why Washington politicians don’t change libel laws?Almost everyone agrees that my Administration has done more in less than two years than any other Administration in the history of our Country. I’m tough as hell on people & if I weren’t, nothing would get done. Also, I question everybody & everything-which is why I got elected!The Trump Economy is booming with help of House and Senate GOP. #FarmBill with SNAP work requirements will bolster farmers and get America back to work. Pass the Farm Bill with SNAP work requirements!Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts. I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way? As far as the NFL is concerned, I just find it hard to watch, and always will, until they stand for the FLAG!Thank you General Kelly, book is total fiction!Thank you General Mattis, book is boring & untrue!Join me tomorrow night at 7:00pm MDT in Billings, Montana for a MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY! Get your tickets here:Today, it was my honor to welcome the Amir of Kuwait to the @WhiteHouse!The Failing New York Times!TREASON?Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!I’m draining the Swamp, and the Swamp is trying to fight back. Don’t worry, we will win!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Day 2BREAKING: Kim Jong Un agrees to cooperate with United States in nuclear talks.There is an admitted TRAITOR inside the Trump Administration. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this ASAP!!!!!Here's the video of Alex Jones confronting CNN's oliver darcy - the reporter who lobbied YouTube & Facebook to shut down Infowars. "You are incredibly shameful," Jones told Darcy, adding, "You are literally an anti-American, anti-free speech coward."Sarah Sanders Unleashes the Fury on a TraitorFITTON:GIANT Email Finds by Judicial Watch: Strzok drafted initial Comey letter on Weiner laptop to Congress. Comey seems to have shut down probe before Weiner laptop review complete.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Paid Protestors she me the moneyJust being AntifaSo this is the end game they really wanted?Alex Jones having a ball at Facebook/Twitter Congressional hearingsBrigade us all you want, lefties. You’re still losingThursday, September 6th:TODAY'S ACTION:Six Nominations Sent to the Senate🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims “unwavering faith in President Trump.” Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!The Deep State and the Left, and their vehicle, the Fake News Media, are going Crazy - & they don’t know what to do. The Economy is booming like never before, Jobs are at Historic Highs, soon TWO Supreme Court Justices & maybe Declassification to find Additional Corruption. Wow!Cosumer confidence highest in 18 years, Atlanta Fed forecasts 4.7 GDP, manufacturing jobs highest in many years. “It’s the story of the Trump Administration, the Economic Success, that’s unnerving his detractors.” @MariaBartiromo“The record is quite remarkable. The President has faithfully followed the agenda he campaigned on in 2016. People should focus on the results, and they’re extraordinary!” James Freeman - Wall Street JournalLook forward to seeing everyone in Montana tonight! #MAGAAre the investigative “journalists” of the New York Times going to investigate themselves - who is the anonymous letter writer?Landing in Montana now to support Matt Rosendale for U.S. Senate! #MAGAGetting ready to go on stage for Matt Rosendale, who will be a great Senator. Jon Tester has let the people of Montana down & does not deserve another six years. Matt is strong on Crime, the Borders, & will save your Second Amendment from the onslaught. Loves our Military & Vets!MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!Thank you Montana, I love you!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Day 3Man Caught Paying Off Kavanaugh Protesters Works For Soros-Funded OrganizationMcCABE GRAND JURY: Secret Grand Jury Proceedings Underway Against Andrew McCabe; Witnesses Summoned – It's almost like Christmas morning every day right now! SaLtY tEaRs RaIn On Me!!!!Obama’s spying scandal is starting to look a lot like WatergateDocs Reveal Clinton Meddling In Russian PoliticsPRESS BRIEFINGS, INTERVIEWS, RALLIES:WATCH PARTY: President Trump & Matt Rosendale Rally - Billings, MT - 9/6/18🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Kick and scream all you want, losers. Kavanaugh is getting approved. Day 3 lets go!The Left's worst nightmareOkay.. which one of you was this?Alex Jones’s last tweet... Press F to pay respects.over 100 downvotes in 10 minutes, these people are FUCKING SEETHING that Kavanaugh is getting inFriday, September 7th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Appoint Individual to a Key Administration PostPresidential Proclamation on National Days of Prayer and Remembrance, 2018🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:What was Nike thinking?Matt Rosendale will be a Great Senator from a Great State, Montana! He is a fighter who will be tough on Crime and the Border, fight hard for our 2nd Amendment and loves our Military and our Vets. He has my full and complete Endorsement!The Woodward book is a scam. I don’t talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up. The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts - and our country is doing GREAT!Under our horrible immigration laws, the Government is frequently blocked from deporting criminal aliens with violent felony convictions. House GOP just passed a bill to increase our ability to deport violent felons (Crazy Dems opposed). Need to get this bill to my desk fast!“Unprecedented Jobs Growth Streak Continues as Wages Rise”14 days for $28 MILLION - $2 MILLION a day, No Collusion. A great day for America!(Retweeting Dan Scavino Jr.) .@larry_kudlow: “Job gains, wage growth show Trump's economic boom continues”(Retweeting Caleb Hull) [“I complained plenty about Fox News, but I never threatened to shut them down.” It’s probably a good time to remind you that Obama used the Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers who leaked to journalists more than all previous presidents combined.]()(Retweeting Richard Grenall) [fact check: @realDonaldTrump kicked the Nazi out of NYC after 14 years and multiple Presidents allowed him to stay.]()(Retweeting Eric Bolling) Watching @BarackObama take credit for @realDonaldTrump successes is disgraceful. Score So Far- TRUMP: -Unemployment Rate -GDP -Wage Growth -# Blacks Employed -# Hispanics Employed -# Women Employed -ISIS Wins -Homegrown Terror Events. OBAMA: -Slick Speaking -School ShootingsSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Day 4Fuck yes!!!. ICE Raids Dairy Farm Where Illegal Alien Accused of Killing Mollie Tibbetts WorkedA sample of 300 verified Twitter accounts promoting anti-white racism. Strange what will get one banned and what will get one check-marked and promoted, isn't it?BREAKING: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signals Cory Booker may face ethics probe over document release in political stuntLOL!!! Trump on Obongo's speech: "I fell asleep. I've found he's very good, very good for sleeping."🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Not Real SocialismHad a few Pedes ask about the image I used on my sign at the Billings rally last night. I didn't create it, I just spruced up the color and changed the slogan on the hat, added the text at the bottom. Make it your own!14 DAYS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHACorey Booker is the gift that keeps givingTrump Jr. for the winSaturday, September 8th:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Dave Hughes is running for Congress in the Great State of Minnesota. He will help us accomplish our America First policies, is strong on Crime, the Border, our 2nd Amendmen, Trade, Military and Vets. Running against Pelosi Liberal Puppet Petterson. Dave has my Total Endorsement!“To this point, President Trump’s achievements are unprecedented.” @LouDobbsWe are breaking all Jobs and Economic Records but, importantly, our Country has TREMENDOUS FUTURE POTENTIAL. We have just begun!Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China - but there is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive. Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now. Exciting! #MAGASIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Marketwatch: The reasons why Trump’s trade wars will boost U.S. jobs and stocksSomeone Remind Obama that Trump Kicked the Nazi Out of NYC – The Same Nazi Obama Ignored for 8 YearsCNN buys ad on “InfoWars” search in App StoreSecDef Mattis signs a flag for the door gunner on a CH-47 Chinook upon departure from Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 7Battlefield 5 censors "white man" in chat. I thought it was ok to be white?🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:THIS AGED WELL QUOTE: Mark CubanJust Delete It.Typical Obama...Number of days since President Trump asked kneeling NFL players to recommend wrongfully convicted people for pardonsSuper Rare PepeSOOOO MUCH FUCKING WINNING!Without further ado, some tunes to get you jamming through all this WINNING:I Love ItRosesPink and WhiteStay Up!Only OneIvyMAGA ON PATRIOTS! #robgray

[hacktagmedia]

Omarosa says Trump is a racist who uses N-word – and claims there’s tape to prove it

Former Apprentice contestant and ex-White House adviser writes in new memoir that she witnessed ‘truly appalling things’

Former Apprentice contestant and ex-White House adviser writes in new memoir that she witnessed ‘truly appalling things’

Donald Trump is a “racist” who has used the “N-word” repeatedly, Omarosa Manigault Newman, once the most prominent African American in the White House, claims in a searing memoir.

The future US president was caught on mic uttering the taboo racial slur “multiple times” during the making of his reality TV show The Apprentice and there is a tape to prove it, according to Manigault Newman, citing three unnamed sources.

Trump has been haunted from around the time of his election in 2016 by allegations that outtakes from the reality TV show exist in which he is heard saying the N-word and using other offensive language.

In her book, Unhinged, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian ahead of its publication next week, the former Apprentice participant insists that the reports are true, although she does not say she heard him use the word herself.

She also claims that she personally witnessed Trump use racial epithets about the White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s husband George Conway, who is half Filipino. “Would you look at this George Conway article?” she quotes the president as saying. “F**ing FLIP! Disloyal! Fucking Goo-goo.”

Both flip and goo-goo are terms of racial abuse for Filipinos.

Critics have previously questioned Manigault Newman’s credibility and are likely to accuse her of seeking revenge against the administration after her abrupt dismissal last December.

At the time, she writes, she felt a “growing realization that Donald Trump was indeed a racist, a bigot and a misogynist. My certainty about the N-word tape and his frequent uses of that word were the top of a high mountain of truly appalling things I’d experienced with him, during the last two years in particular.”

Recalling her sudden and unceremonious departure, she writes: “It had finally sunk in that the person I’d thought I’d known so well for so long was actually a racist. Using the N-word was not just the way he talks but, more disturbing, it was how he thought of me and African Americans as a whole.”

Trump hosted NBC’s The Apprentice from 2004-2015 before running for the presidency and still likes to laud his high ratings.

His insurgent election campaign was rocked in October 2016 by the release of an Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy”. The media firestorm prompted Bill Pruitt, a producer on the first two seasons of The Apprentice, to tweet that there were “far worse” tapes of Trump behind the scenes of the show.

Further allegations emerged that Trump had used the N-word in the recordings. Then, following the New York property tycoon’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton, the actor and comedian Tom Arnold claimed to have the video of Trump using racist language.

The White House staffer Kellyanne Conway and former aides Hope Hicks and Omarosa Manigault Newman at a press briefing last year. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

“I have the outtakes to The Apprentice where he says every bad thing ever, every offensive, racist thing ever,” Arnold told the Seattle-based radio station KIRO. “It was him sitting in that chair saying the N-word, saying the C-word, calling his son a retard, just being so mean to his own children.”

But Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns the rights to the reality TV show, and its British creator, Mark Burnett, have resisted pressure to release the footage because of “various contractual and legal requirements”.

Once close to Trump, Manigault Newman was among his most high-profile supporters during the election campaign and drew a top salary of $179,700 as director of communications for the White House office of public liaison. She held her April 2017 wedding at Trump’s luxury hotel, close to the White House.

Hers is the second memoir from a former Trump administration member, following that of the ex-press secretary Sean Spicer, but it was always expected to be less adulatory. This week the Daily Beast reported that she had secretly recorded conversations with the president and “leveraged” this while seeking a book deal. On Sunday she is due to appear on NBC’s flagship political show Meet the Press.

Some commentators have struck a note of scepticism about her book. Brian Stelter, senior media correspondent at CNN, wrote in an email newsletter: “Is former ‘Apprentice’ star Omarosa Manigault-Newmana reliable source of info about the Trump White House? Buckle up for debates about that in the coming week. Because she’s about to betray Trump in a new tell-all book.”

For its part, the White House has previously dismissed criticisms from her. In February the deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, said: “Omarosa was fired three times on The Apprentice and this was the fourth time we let her go. She had limited contact with the president while here. She has no contact now.”

In the book, she recalls how in late 2016 Trump’s team held a conference call and scrambled for how to respond to the tape but it never came out. Then a source from The Apprentice contacted her and claimed to be in possession of it. Trump was in office and Manigault Newman continued to investigate. Advertisement

She continues: “By that point, three sources in three separate conversations had described the contents of this tape. They all told me that President Trump hadn’t just dropped a single N-word bomb. He’d said it multiple times throughout the show’s taping during off-camera outtakes, particularly during the first season of The Apprentice.”

Recalling that she appeared on the first season, Manigault Newman reflects: “I would look like the biggest imbecile alive for supporting a man who used that word.” She says she confided in the former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who said, “I need to hear it for myself,” and continued to ask her frequently about what progress she was making.

She believes that Hicks told the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, that Omarosa was close to getting her hands on the tape, and this gave him cause to terminate her job, though he found a different pretext.

Four months after her departure, she spoke by phone to one of her Apprentice sources. “I was told exactly what Donald Trump said – yes, the N-word and others in a classic Trump-goes-nuclear rant – and when he’s said them. During production he was miked, and there is definitely an audio track.”

Manigault Newman also recalls her interactions with Trump during the filming of The Celebrity Apprentice in late 2007 – a time when the little known Democrat Barack Obama was in the ascendent. “During boardroom outtakes, Donald talked about Obama often. He hated him. He never explained why, but now I believe it was because Obama was black.”

In January, Trump was widely condemned for reportedly dismissing Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “shitholes”. Manigault Newman describes a similar experience that appears to support that account. When she told Trump that she was going to Haiti, she writes, he demanded: “Why did you choose that shitty country as your first foreign trip?”

He added: “You should have waited until the confirmations were done and gone to Scotland and played golf at [his course] Turnberry.”

In another damning passage, she describes his “broken outlook” and how “the bricks in his racist wall kept getting higher”, wondering if he did “want to start a race war”. She adds: “The only other explanation was that his mental state was so deteriorated that the filter between the worst impulses of his mind and his mouth were completely gone.”

The book comes days after Trump faced renewed allegations of racism over his persistent descriptions of the congresswoman Maxine Waters as having a “low IQ” and CNN journalist Don Lemon as “the dumbest man on television”, as well as criticism of the basketball star LeBron James. This weekend marks the first anniversary of the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that erupted in deadly violence; the president claimed there were “very fine people on both sides”.

Elsewhere in Unhinged, published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Manigault Newman takes aim at Trump’s sexism. Recalling more outtakes from The Apprentice, she says he asked personal questions about female contestants such as “What do you think she’s like in bed?” and “Do you think she’s sexy?” He allegedly asked male contestants: “Who you think would be better in bed between the two of them?”

Asked about the allegations in Manigault Newman’s book, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said: “Instead of telling the truth about all the good President Trump and his administration are doing to make America safe and prosperous, this book is riddled with lies and false accusations.

“It’s sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the president during her time in the administration.”

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[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

15 internet moments in 2018 that made us scream 'NOPE'

*unintelligible screaming* 

We're only halfway through 2018, but it already appears to be the year of loudly yelling at the internet every 20 minutes or so.

From insensitive YouTube videos and mortifying viral challenges, to disturbing makeup trends and abhorrent tweets, the online world has truly tested our patience these past six months.

SEE ALSO: Elizabeth Warren got a new puppy because everything else is bad

Here are 15 of the biggest NOPE moments the internet had to offer this year. They'll be tough to re-live for sure, but let them inspire us all to be better online contributors in the future.

1. Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Logan Paul saga

YouTuber Logan Paul kicked off 2018 in one of the worst ways imaginable. On New Year's Eve, Paul shared a video with his 15 million subscribers that contained footage of an apparent victim of suicide he found in Japan's Aokigahara forest.

After the video received a serious amount of backlash, Paul apologized, claiming he "intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention," but in the weeks that followed the situation only grew worse.

Dear Internet, pic.twitter.com/42OCDBhiWg

— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) January 2, 2018

A supercut of Paul's trip to Japan, which showed him severely disrespecting Japanese culture, went viral. He was dragged for an insensitive comment he left on Cardi B's Instagram, and admitted he wasn't making content with his younger fan base in mind. 

In wake of the vlog backlash, Paul did make an effort to advocate for suicide prevention by pledging to donate a total of $1 million to various suicide prevention organizations, but that didn't erase all the pain and disgust his careless video caused viewers. 

2. The painfully embarrassing Tide Pod Challenge

The year has already birthed a number of viral challenges, but none have proven to be as foolish and potentially deadly as the Tide Pod Challenge.

After teens started recording and sharing videos of themselves frying and "eating" poisonous soap-filled pouches known as Tide Pods, YouTube had to step in and take action. Tide Pods videos were pulled from the site, but the damage was done. 

Tide Pod inspired pizza, doughnuts, sushi, and shots were created, and things wound up getting so out of hand that stores had to LOCK UP THE DELICIOUS LOOKING DETERGENT. UGH! Humans sometimes, honestly! 

y’all really joked around so much that tide put their tide pods in plastic boxes...smh pic.twitter.com/Z44efALcX5

— ㅤnavid (@NavidHasan_) January 13, 2018

3. Meals cooked in a MOUTH

The first half of 2018 was also when we learned about this chef who cooks meals using only her freaking mouth. She preps turkey stuffing, steak tartare, pancakes, and even a smoothie using her teeth and saliva, then uploads the videos to YouTube. We don't care if it's "performance art," it's A LOT to comprehend, so can we get a NOPE over here? 

4. When someone tried to make teeth nails a thing

Some bizarre beauty trends have popped up in 2018, but teeth nails took things way too far.

Instagram user @nail_sunny cursed feeds everywhere by sharing a video of regular old nails being transformed to resemble human teeth. The cringeworthy footage was set to Drake's "God's Plan," and IDK about you but I prefer the original music video a whole lot more.

A post shared by Nail Sunny Loves FIFA 2018 (@nail_sunny) on May 8, 2018 at 9:07am PDT

5. Kanye West's tumultuous Twitter return

In 2018, Kanye West decided it was time to tweet again and fans had NO idea what they were in for.

Since April 13, 2018, when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey welcomed the rapper back to the platform, Kanye has taken his 28 million followers on a dramatic roller coaster filled with tattoo designs, fashion photo shoots, the deepest of musings, album release dates, controversial comments on slavery, and a whole lot of love for Donald Trump.

pic.twitter.com/YyUw0mCKov

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

Watching Kanye's feed over the past few months has truly been exhausting, even for his IRL friends.

6. Pelican takeover

A real-life horror film was shot at the 2018 Pepperdine University graduation when very large pelicans swarmed the ceremony and wreaked havoc on attendees.

Things got so intense that security had to step in, and, after all their intruding, the birds didn't even get diplomas.

7. Elon Musk hating on journalists

Grimes' boyfriend gave President Trump a rest and decided to share his own thoughts about the media via Twitter. Musk announced he plans to create "a media credibility rating site" that will allow the public to review the truth of individual articles, journalists, editors, and publications.

Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda …

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Despite the fact that his girlfriend's mom is a journalist, Musk carried on with his anti-media rant, explaining his belief that the journalist's lack of credibility is the reason Trump was elected in the first place. 🙃

8. The Nukebook

Japanese graphic designer Shusaku Takaoka shared a horrifying recreation of the iconic image from The Notebook that will probably ruin your life.

Normally, the photo from the romantic film, based off a Nicholas Sparks novel, shows stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams embracing in the rain. But Takaoka replaced the actors with Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un to give the internet the following painful sight.

A post shared by shusaku takaoka (@shusaku1977) on Jun 12, 2018 at 6:50pm PDT

2018, please be nicer to us!

9. BBC imagining the "perfect body"

In a terrifying video shared by BBC, anatomist Alice Roberts examined an advanced model of the perfect human body. It had enlarged eyes and ears, a chimp's lower back, emu legs, a breast-less chest, the heart of a dog, and lungs of a swan. And oh yeah, did we forget to mention A BABY POPPING OUT OF A MARSUPIAL POUCH? NOPE!

10. The IHOb hype

The International House of Pancakes (aka IHOP) really tested everyone's patience in 2018. The chain  restaurant, best known for its breakfast food, decided to unleash a long, drawn out, and very secretive marketing campaign in which it would re-brand from IHOP to IHOb.

Mashable figured out the "b" stood for burgers before the big announcement, but IHOP made everyone wait an entire week before officially revealing the burger news. So extra.

For 60 pancakin’ years, we’ve been IHOP. Now, we’re flippin’ our name to IHOb. Find out what it could b on 6.11.18. #IHOb pic.twitter.com/evSxKV3QmT

— IHOb (@IHOb) June 4, 2018

11. Millie Bobby Brown leaving Twitter

Twitter hit an especially low point when Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown left the platform in June after becoming the subject of a hateful meme.  

It all started when the hashtag #TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown — which was started in 2017 by the now suspended Twitter user @KelsFiona — resurfaced online. In response, people began sharing false stories, negative memes, and fake Snapchat photos claiming that Millie is homophobic. 

i think it’s time i share my #TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown story... i was at my local starbucks, and milky boobie brown comes in so i asked her for a picture. then she PEES in my drink! then she called me a “fat chicken dyke” and put a straw in my nose! i’ve never been so ashamed.

— Laurane :) (@Laurie________) June 5, 2018

After the 14-year-old anti-bullying advocate — yes, she has an entire side Twitter account dedicated to spreading love and kindness — endured a substantial amount of trolling she deactivated her account. How are those anti-harassment plans coming, @Jack?

12. BBQ Becky, Permit Patty, and Pool Patrol Paula

Meme's don't always stem from lighthearted events, and 2018 has proved that with BBQ Becky, Permit Patty, and Pool Patrol Paula. 

In May, an Oakland woman named Jennifer Schulte called the police on two black men who she believed were grilling in a park without a permit. After a video, which captured the woman's interaction with the men and phone call to the police went viral, Twitter users slammed her for racial profiling and she came to be known by meme-makers as "BBQ Becky." 

A month later, Alison Ettel called the police on an 8-year-old girl for selling water on a sidewalk. Ettel was also transformed into a meme, dubbed "Permit Patty," and her harsh actions against a child of color were condemned by many.

We gotta new meme tho y'all #PermitPatty pic.twitter.com/DW3TFjRzn4

— Racist Raj 🌹 (@_ethiopiangold) June 23, 2018

Less than a week later, a third white woman — 38-year-old Stephanie Sebby-Strempel (now known to the internet as "Pool Patrol Paula") — was charged with assaulting a 15-year-old black boy at a public pool after reportedly yelling racial slurs. A video showing part of the confrontation was posted to Facebook, and the #PoolPatrolPaula hashtag was started to raise awareness of her unacceptable behavior.

In light of this utterly disappointing trend, Mashable created a list of 5 things white people can do before calling the cops on a black person. Please read it.

13. Roseanne's racist remarks

In June, actress and comedian Roseanne Barr tweeted a racist remark about President Obama's former black female advisor, Valerie Jarrett.

Barr's tweet received a serious amount of backlash. In response, the actress deleted the tweet, claimed she was just joking, and then tried to blame Ambien for her actions. Ultimately, the tweet led to her show being cancelled, her agent dropping her, and a her taking a short leave of absence from the social media platform.

14. Marco Rubio complaining about the fucking "F-word"

After a shooting at the Capital Gazette left five dead, staff writer Selene San Felice appeared on CNN where she said the following: "I'm going to need more than a couple days of news coverage and some thoughts and prayers, because it's our whole lives have been shattered. And so thanks for your prayers, but I couldn't give a fuck about them if there's nothing else."

Instead of tweeting support for the press, Marco Rubio decided to rage tweet about people using the f-word a little too freely.

Sign of our times... the F word is now routinely used in news stories, tweets etc It’s not even F*** anymore. Who made that decision???

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 29, 2018

"Sign of our times... the F word is now routinely used in news stories, tweets etc It’s not even F*** anymore.  Who made that decision???" Rubio tweeted on June 29.

Always nice to see a man who has his fucking priorities straight. Isn't it?

15. A whole lot of Donald Trump

In the first half of 2018 Donald Trump has had a LOT of not so great moments online.

Early in the year "girther" memes examining Trump's physique spread after the White House announced he's 6 feet, three inches tall, and weighs 239 pounds. There was that time he tried to convince everyone he's a "genius," tweeted incorrect facts, attempted to host the failed Fake News Awards, insulted many — including but certainly not limited to Jay-Z, Alec Baldwin, and Maxine Waters.

Crazy Maxine Waters, said by some to be one of the most corrupt people in politics, is rapidly becoming, together with Nancy Pelosi, the FACE of the Democrat Party. Her ranting and raving, even referring to herself as a wounded animal, will make people flee the Democrats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2018

Not to mention the mess of typos and deleted tweets the president's Twitter followers have had to endure.

So yeah, as you can see the internet is occasionally a digital portal to hell. But the online world hasn't been all bad this year. Check out 16 of the best internet moments in 2018 to restore your faith in humanity.

Want more clever culture writing beamed directly to your inbox? Sign up here for the twice-weekly Click Click Click newsletter. It's fun – we promise.

WATCH: This moon blob meme was the only good thing on the Internet this week

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: March 2018

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of March 2018 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

It takes a remarkable lack of awareness to liken somebody wearing a political symbol to the Star of David, the Nazi swastika or a t-shirt bearing the image of Robert Mugabe, yet that’s exactly what FA chief Martin Glenn managed to do - almost word-for-word, in fact.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson issued Russia the blood-curdling threat of “Shut up and go away” - which he somehow forgot to say when accepting £30,000 to have dinner with Lubov Chernukin, the Russian banker who happens to be a member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

For whatever reason, NRA TV host  Collins Iyare Idehen Jr. (otherwise known as Colion Noir) broke from the channel’s remarkable similarities to ISIS recruitment ads to mock the Parkland teens by saying that nobody would know who they were if their friends hadn’t been shot - somehow missing how that’s the fucking point as there is no reason for anyone to know the names of any of these kids or their former classmates, but rather than consider the reason why (as that would involve taking responsibility) the only thing he can do is mock, and sneer, and underline just how much of the problem the NRA have become.

Twitter user...sorry, former Twitter user MomsLuvTrump20 hit the dickhead jackpot by doctoring an image of Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez tearing up a shooting target from a shoot with Teen Vogue so instead it showed her tearing up the US Constitution (quite poorly, it has to be said) and shared it online, not only getting tens of thousands of shares and an undercurrent of seething ignorance that someone would dare tell America that they have a gun problem, but this also led to people sending Gonzalez death threats.  Yes, death threats, to someone who all too recently survived a gun massacre - which, contrary to what Adam Baldwin thinks, is not satire.

On the subject of Photoshopped images, Newsnight editor Jess Brammar really took offence at accusations that the programme she is responsible for was responsible for manipulating images of Jeremy Corbyn in order to make him fit the narrative that he was some sort of Russian stooge, and did so by...posting an image to her Twitter account that made it even more obvious that Newsnight had Photoshopped the image of Corbyn.

Somehow forgetting to uphold the obvious lie that they are in any way left wing, CNN columnist Jeremy Bailenson came up with a quite remarkable crock of shite in an article ripped from the late 1990s where he said gamers playing first person shooters are being trained to be the next generation of mass shooters citing evidence such as...some gibberish about holding a VR controller being exactly the same as holding an AK47.

To the surprise of nobody, certifiable headcase Munroe Bergdorf didn’t last long on the LGBT advisory panel they were appointed to (while a section of the media still wrongly claim that Bergdorf was appointed as LBGT advisor), yet when stepping down from their role Bergdorf’s response was to cite racism instead of the more common diplomatic response stating their appointment had brought undue pressure upon the panel - which merely added more fuel to the fire of the Tory commentators who kept making all manner of false equivalencies between Bergdorf being appointed to an unpaid role on an independent panel to Toby Young being appointed in an official capacity worth tens of thousands of pounds a year by his mat Jo Johnson back in January.

In yet another example of the right using the “Left = Nazis” rhetoric, we had Minnesota Republican Mary Franson making a direct comparison between the March for our Lives march and the Hitler Youth - and after her making a direct comparison between the two (unsurprisingly) led to her being called out for such idiocy, she attempted to defend herself by claiming she didn’t make a direct comparison between the two nor was her intent to...and when that predictably failed, then she decided to apologise which certainly has nothing to do with her being up for reelection.

Filibustering enthusiast Philip Davies took time out from his hectic schedule of campaigning against political correctness as he refuses to treat women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals or the disabled as being equal to him to conduct himself in the most professional manner when being interviewed by Luisa Omielan - by responding to reasonable questions by hurling out insults and accusations before shoving Omielan around his office.

In response to the imminent threat of a whistleblower revealing the Vote leave campaign broke rules on electoral funding, Stephen Parkinson knew there was only one thing he could do: threaten to publicly reveal the homosexuality of the whistleblower to keep him quiet, and when that obviously didn't work he outed him anyway - which was not only sanctioned by Theresa May, but she also supported Parkinson for his gross violation of privacy, use of blackmail, and endangering the safety of the whistleblower and his family.

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: Tommy Robinson had a camera crew waiting for him outside a random branch of McDonalds, who just so happened to be in place to film a group of “far left extremists” as they “attacked” Robinson and, more importantly, were able to film him fight them off to show who the “real” “man” is - just as I am sure there is a perfectly legitimate reason for Robinson insisting that the police shouldn’t investigate the incident or, for all his talk of him and his crew being assaulted, the paramedics being unable to find so much as a bruise on them.  I can’t think what I could possibly be implying here...

On a similar subject, we have those people wailing about “free speech!!!” at the news of Paul Golding & Jayda Fransen being jailed and, a week later, Facebook shutting down Britain First’s page.  Obviously that was what happened, and nothing to do with the pair violating the terms of their exclusion orders for the former, or spending six years violating several of Facebook’s Terms of Service (without the provider batting an eyelid, it needs to be stressed) for the latter.

On the subject of freedom of speech, Sajid Javid referred to Momentum as “neo fascists” in Parliament knowing full well that he could hide behind parliamentary privilege and not be sued for it there - but if he set foot outside and said the same thing he'd receive a solicitor’s letter within the hour.

One of the approximate 357 Liverpool FC correspondents on Sky Sports’ payroll, Jamie Carragher, showed he could handle the mildest form of criticism by...winding down the window of his car and gobbing in the general direction of somebody reminding him that his beloved Liverpool just lost a game to Man Utd from the window of his car, only to miss and instead coat the taunter’s daughter instead.  The only surprise is he didn't have seven of his mates join in, just like his ex-teammate Steven Gerrard.

Glorified talent show judge with the business acumen of a market stall trader Alan Sugar thought it was a clever idea to tweet an image suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn shares the politics of Hitler’s inner circle.  What is it with Apprentice judges showing levels of judgment and intelligence that would make calling them “halfwit” a compliment?

There’s something remarkably pathetic that it took two hacks from Murdoch’s Hate Comic, Gary O’Shea and Thea Jacobs, to write a sneering article damning “snowflake students” for suggesting that Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t the antagonist of Frankenstein but the victim.  You know who else made the same suggestion?  Mary Shelley, when she wrote the fucking book back in 1818!

In the latest example of their historic women’s division historically making history, the WWE announced a battle royale for WrestleMania 34 named after the Fabulous Moolah - only to find that quite a lot of wrestling fans are aware of Moolah’s reputation for holding back women’s wrestling in North America for the best part of four decades, not only skimming the vast chunk of her trainees’ salaries but also forcing them to pay rent at her motel if they wanted to work, and even pimping out her trainees and they were quick to let the event’s sponsors know about it.

Seemingly not learning from the last time he made a complete tit of himself (and earned a visit from Jeremy Corbyn’s solicitors in the process) Twitter troll and occasional MP Ben Bradley thought it was a good idea to pose with a pair of former Labour councillors and welcome them to the Tory party - only to be reliably informed that those councillors had been suspended and, in one case, deselected from the Labour party for making racist comments, and that them being happy to cosy up to the Tories sort of proves Momentum’s point better than anything else.

In an apparent competition to see who could act like the biggest fuckwit when discussing the same subject, the intense wave of revulsion that comes from a group of Floridian teenagers having a better grasp of what humanity involved led to Laura Ingraham taking to Twitter to mock how David Hogg got rejected by various colleges as his GPA was too low that led to various advertisers dropping Fox News like a hot, faeces-covered stone before she announced she'd be taking a week-long vacation, while the homophobic, pro-gun, child molesting racist Ted Nugent referred to the Parkland kids as “soulless” which led to...not much happening, because who has given a tuppenny fuck about Ted Nugent in the past 25 years?  Either way, still a colossal dickhead.

On that subject, I can’t help notice there’s a lot of pro-gun liars intent on regurgitating the lie that the March for our Lives kids bullied Nathan Cruz, and how the poor innocent victim Cruz fought back against these vicious bullies and we should stop persecuting him for cold-bloodedly murdering seventeen people who, by their own thick-headed excuse for an argument, weren't even the seventeen people he meant to shoot in the first place.  And that, Ted Nugent, is what a soulless person looks like - and there’s a shitload of them all over Twitter.

Be thankful for the Salisbury nerve agent attack as it gave the British media even more reasons than usual to avoid reporting how Drug Minister Victoria Atkins banned the growing of cannabis for medicinal use in the UK with one swipe of the pen - and with another granted Paul Kenward, who just so happens to be her husband, a license to grow medicinal cannabis in the UK for export abroad.

Somebody who thinks it’s a good idea to describe themselves as a “professional shitposter” Count Dankula attempted to say that he was going to jail for teaching a dog the Nazi salute, which of course Breitbart and lots of people who used this as an excuse to make completely unconnected rants about Islam jumped on immediately.  They probably should have broken with tradition and checked their facts before mouthing off, because what actually got him charged with inciting racial hatred was making comments as “Gas the Jews!” throughout the video, as if the systematic extermination of millions is the basis for some good, hearty gut laughs for all the family.

I know that he wasn't aware of the irony that he was unfolding in front of him, but watching how Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix went into detail about how the company would use hidden cameras in a ploy to honeytrap politicians while being filmed saying this by a hidden camera did almost as much damage to the firm’s image as the revelations that came out as a result of the piece.

And finally, blaming video games while an elephant with the letters N, R and A emblazoned upon it shits on the Oval Office carpet, we have Donald Trump.