#a conspiracy of greens

[lemonhemlock]

I didn't think about him being a knight and having endangered himself before, you're right!

I was mostly thinking along the lines of one of the kids being directly attacked and him probably not jumping at the opportunity to get between that (I feel like he would/could but he'd probably think about whether it's the smartest decision/in favour of his goals whereas Aemond would act rather rash).

Maybe he would protect Alicent without further thought tho (but I am not knowledgeable, I just base my opinions on vibes).

What do you think?

Hi there!

I think Otto gets a little bit of a bad rep in general. He doesn't talk the talk without walking the walk, if you think about it. As I've said, he has already put himself twice in harms' way on the same bridge on Dragonstone - once against Daemon, once against Daemon & Rhaenyra, both times facing dragons, both times ready to throw hands if necessary. He's not hiding somewhere in the background, he's the first to fall if things go awry. Tywin Lannister, another Hand of the King, would have simply sent an envoy, for example, and it's not for lack of courage, as he fights in battle himself to save his family from Stannis.

Which is why I think it's the more notable that Otto went himself, on behalf of the Crown. If he is willing to do that for the institution, to perform what essentially is a ceremonial, albeit (unnecessarily, for him) dangerous act, why wouldn't he protect Alicent and his grandchildren if they were in the way of direct harm?

It's also important to note that he never intentionally placed his daughter in harm's way. In his mind, Viserys is a good man who would never mistreat her (in a way he understands as being significant).

Similarly, I think a lot of this confusion stems from the political climate not being relayed properly to the viewers. Otto fully expects Viserys to change his heir once he has a son. Fandom likes to believe this is evil machination from his part, plotting Rhaenyra's murder years in advance, but most other noble lords think the same thing. Does anyone think Corlys and Rhaenys were trying to get Laena and her future children killed by putting her forward as a potential bride? Does anyone think Rhaenys was secretly plotting to defenestrate Rhaenyra while they were sassing off on that balcony? Jason Lannister shows up from way out west and fully expects Aegon to be named heir as well. People are very confused when Viserys doesn't budge.

Otto is not so unfeeling as to reduce his daughter and grandchildren to canon fodder for his personal ambition. He wasn't expecting this problem in the first place. He is taken aback and has to recalculate and re-calibrate his strategy. That is why he starts insisting to Alicent in private that she also join him in pushing for Aegon as heir. That is why he suggests betrothing Rhaenyra to Aegon. That is why he tells Alicent her children will be in danger if Viserys doesn't switch. He wasn't tricking or trapping her in a future bloody war over succession when he sent her to comfort/distract the king. Viserys is the rogue element here, someone that we in the field of international relations would say is not behaving like a rational actor.

Which is what I think Otto was doing in the eye-gouging trial as well. Taking in information and making a cost-benefit analysis. Aemond's eye was already lost by that point and perhaps he thought there was nothing to be gained politically by further antagonizing Rhaenyra. Alicent was also the one with the knife; she had the upper hand in that moment. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Otto is flawless here - he is not Westeros' no 1 hugger and comforter. For example, he could have interjected himself in support of his daughter, instead of her slowly losing her mind. To further the Tywin comparison, for all his faults, he would have been raging there at the King alongside Cersei. Otto has a different personality - he works more behind the scenes. Nevertheless, I don't think he would have stood idly by if Viserys suddenly decided to start removing the tongues of his family members.

[nights-at-the-opera]

Found a new type of guy.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gabe Fleisher at Wake Up To Politics:

A few weeks ago, after CNN published its bombshell report about North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, I was texting with a friend. Rumors had been flying around the political world all day about what the report would bring. Now that it had arrived, my friend told me he was unimpressed; it wasn’t as earth-shattering as he’d been expecting. “One day, when your grandchildren ask you what American politics was like in 2024,” I responded, “you can tell them that we learned a gubernatorial candidate called himself a Nazi on a porn website, and your initial response was to shrug.” [...]

The U.S. is currently grappling with two major hurricanes at once — trying to prepare for one while still recovering from the damage of the other. The latter, Hurricane Helene, was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. More than 200 people have been killed, mostly in North Carolina, but also in Georgia and South Carolina as well. Entire towns in western North Carolina were leveled; some residents have now gone more than a week without running water.

The former, Hurricane Milton, is expected to make landfall in Florida tonight. Forecasters suggest that it could hit Tampa Bay, which was also impacted by the devastation of Helene but has not been in the direct path of a hurricane since 1921. The city is considered uniquely vulnerable to natural disaster; analysts are already predicting damage upwards of $50 billion. Local, state, and federal officials have been pleading with anyone in Milton’s path to evacuate immediately. “I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said on CNN earlier this week.

“Several years ago I asked [the National Hurricane Center] to show me what the worst case storm hitting Florida would look like,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) posted on X. “What they showed me back then is almost identical to the #Milton forecast now.” With both storms hitting the U.S. only weeks before a heated presidential election, it is not shocking that they has quickly been sucked into the political discourse. America has a long history of election-year disasters becoming talking points on the campaign trail, from Hurricane Andrew hurting George H.W. Bush in 1992 to Hurricane Sandy boosting Barack Obama in 2012. But the responses to Helene and Milton have been marked by something new: an unprecedented flood of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Don’t take it from me. Take it from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who told reporters on a Tuesday conference call that the misinformation surrounding these two hurricanes has been “absolutely the worst I have ever seen.”

Many of the false claims have come directly from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has claimed that: the Biden administration is “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” (GOP governors have said otherwise); that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants” (FEMA’s congressionally-appropriated program to help local governments house migrants is completely separate from FEMA’s disaster relief funds); and that “we give foreign countries hundreds of billions of dollars and we’re handing North Carolina $750” (that is merely the amount of aid made available to hurricane victims immediately; over the long run, victims can receive up to tens of thousands of dollars in support). A slew of Trump allies, including X owner Elon Musk, have amplified several other conspiracy theories online. But the prize for Biggest Whopper goes to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who posted — on her official congressional account — this week: “Yes they can control the weather.” The supposed “they” was not immediately identified, although Greene previously suggested in 2018 that California wildfires that year were caused by space lasers linked to the Rothschilds, a prominent Jewish family that has long been the subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories. (Greene posted again about “lasers controlling the weather” this week.) In recent weeks, Hurricanes Helene and Milton have sparked a flurry of antisemitic attacks against Jewish officials involved in the response, including claims that they created the disasters.

In her initial post, Greene attached a video of former CIA Director John Brennan discussing geoengineering, an umbrella term for scientific research into manipulating climate systems in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. Geoengineering remains largely theoretical; it is not possible to geoengineer a hurricane, and the technology has no connection to anything that happened with either Helene or Milton. “Climate change is the new Covid,” Greene asserted in another message. “Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled. Did you ever give permission to them to do it? Are you paying for it? Of course you are.”

Other right-wing influencers advanced the argument. “The weather can and is being manipulated,” Georgia Republican Party official Kandiss Taylor posted to her nearly 60,000 X followers, adding: “[Georgia] voting has been compromised and don’t know if we will be able to get all our early voting days in. Now, a hurricane is coming straight for Florida. These two states are necessary for a Trump victory! No coincidence.” Taylor’s message has received more than 3 million views on X. The theories became popular enough in right-wing circles that Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), who represents Asheville and most of western North Carolina (the area hit hardest by Helene), issued a press release on Tuesday to reassure his constituents of the falsity of various claims. Near the top of the list? “Nobody can control the weather,” he wrote. The statement, in its entirety, is a fascinating historical document — showing the types of claims that a Republican congressman felt he needed to fact-check in 2024, partially due to misinformation spread by his own colleagues and his party’s presidential candidate.

This piece in Wake Up To Politics by Gabe Fleisher is a must-read on the misinformation/disinformation crisis regarding Hurricanes Helene and Milton, thanks to Donald Trump and MAGA-aligned figures (especially in the right-wing media apparatus).

See Also:

MMFA: On The Victory Channel's FlashPoint, pro-Trump prophets suggest Hurricanes Helene and Milton are “spiritual” and that “God did say in the prophecies that these storms would be sent to interrupt the flow of our election process”

[abrandnewshadow]

2008 livejournal discussion about f.t.willz

both posted by anon in 2008. and where tf did they get that idea

I liked this persons case below

and some relevant comments here

[tomorrowusa]

Dr. Anthony Fauci voluntarily testified before a House committee and debunked MAGA Republican conspiracy theories regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Donald Trump and his lickspittles were telling Americans to drink bleach, take useless malaria pills, stick ultraviolet lights up their butts, and eat horse paste, Dr. Fauci headed an effort to develop vaccines for COVID-19.

A reminder to people with short memories who view the Trump administration as some sort of bucolic paradise: The last quarter of that administration included the worst government response to an infectious disease outbreak since 1920. Trumpsters who want us to ignore Trump's horribly botched response to the pandemic are like cruise-liner enthusiasts who want us to ignore the last 2% of the voyage of the Titanic.

Economic activity ground to a halt in 2020 as the US slid into a recession. I took this picture of a sign at a dollar store which had been completely closed for almost two months.

The whole Trump clan was disdainful of the sacrifices hundreds of millions of Americans were making.

Why has the U.S. COVID-19 response been so bad? Jared Kushner, Vanity Fair suggests.

At Times Square Jared and Ivanka's contemptuousness was made into an ad before Election Day.

If you are looking for the Original Sin of Trump's pandemic response, it was on January 22nd when he basically told CNBC's Joe Kernen that COVID-19 was nothing to worry about.

Of course it wasn't "just fine".

Trump did not declare a state of emergency for seven weeks. That gave the virus plenty of time for it to spread throughout the US.

Republicans know that their Dear Leader totally mishandled the pandemic response. That's why they repeatedly try to make Dr. Fauci a type of scapegoat for Trump's horrendous incompetence. Dr. Fauci has spent his entire career fighting disease. Donald Trump has spent his entire career narcissistically promoting himself.

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying: "The Buck Stops Here!" If Trump had a sign on his Oval Office desk (which he seldom used except for photo ops) it would be: "It's Everybody's Fault But Mine!"

Don't be hesitant to remind people of how awful 2020 was. And point the finger of blame at the orange blob who was responsible for the catastrophe.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo:

As climate disasters increase in frequency and severity, we are faced with still another grave threat: misinformation, along with its more sinister sibling, disinformation. 

As strong evidence that the writers of 2024 have jumped the shark, we have to begin today’s discussion with a simple fact: The government cannot control the weather, let alone create catastrophic hurricanes that it can send at will. Yet because of irresponsible conspiracy mongering by political leaders, with a healthy assist from online influencers and amplification by foreign actors, this bizarre claim became a top priority that many leaders, both Democratic and Republican, had to spend valuable time debunking, when they could have been focused on saving more lives and property. It’s tempting to simply laugh, but just as with the insane and false claims about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, this disinformation also carries serious and dangerous consequences. In today’s piece, I discuss how we got to this point and how political leaders and experts are pushing back. I also will place this particularly weird claim in the larger context of everything else we are seeing to help make the otherwise nonsensical make a bit of perverted sense, at least in terms of the political value it contains for those seeking to undermine our democracy. “They can control the weather.”

In a press conference yesterday, President Biden’s exasperation was evident as he shot down the newest conspiracy theories around relief efforts and hurricanes. Biden noted that “even one congresswoman” was “suggesting I control the weather and implying I’m sending it to red states.” “This stuff is off the wall. It’s like out of a comic book,” Biden declared. He’s talking of course about the Jewish Space Lasers QAnon lady, Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Moscow), whose tweets around the hurricanes have reached new levels of both stupidity and dangerousness. In one particularly off-the-wall tweet, viewed five million times as of this writing, Rep. Greene attached a video of a speech by CIA Director John Brennan from eight years back. Director Brennan at the time was discussing innovative ways to use aerosols to deflect the sun’s heat to reduce climate change. But in Greene’s smooth, hollow brain, that somehow became “Yes they can control the weather”—implying the hurricanes were manmade and not the long warned about by-product of an overheated ocean following decades of increased carbon in the atmosphere.

Note how she provides ample cover for her ignorance, telling her followers that anyone who counters or ridicules her claims “is lying to you” and that this is all part of some massive cover up and “the people” know it. (As Jimmy Kimmel pointed out last night on his program, Greene used to say bad weather was God’s way of punishing liberal sinners. Funny how that changes when it’s her region that is hit by it.) Rep. Greene also posted a map of the areas affected by Hurricane Helene, with an overlay of an electoral map by political party, implying strongly that the hurricane was created by Democrats to hurt the political chances of the GOP. 

Notably, however, when Democrats presented the North Carolina legislature, which has a GOP supermajority, with a proposal to extend the time for affected voters to register and to allow absentee votes more time to arrive, not a single GOP legislator voted in favor of it.

[...] But experts are worried about more than their own safety or the difficulty of their jobs. A sharp decrease in public trust during severe weather crises could lead to some terrifying outcomes. As Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who served as director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management for two years, warned on MSNBC, “At some point in time, we’ll see people tell residents not to evacuate because the hurricane’s not really hitting you.” If that sounds implausible, we’re already seeing versions of that from large, influential accounts on the right. The troll account Catturd (again, I can’t believe I have to write about this) declared last night that, due to the changing wind speeds of Hurricane Milton, “I’ll never listen to weather channel again.” As of today, that was viewed 2.4 million times.

Why lie about the weather?

There’s something particularly sad when the weather—one of the last, normal topics of conversation, even between people of divergent political views—is no longer uncontroversial. Victims of the hurricanes cannot even commiserate without the threat of political backlash.   “How did you ride out the hurricane? “You mean the one you Democrats sent here to destroy us?!”’ Never mind that this government weather machine seemed to batter the Gulf and the Caribbean during Trump’s presidency, and he never bothered to turn it off or order it to stop. Our foreign adversaries have long viewed the ignorance of U.S. voters as an exploitable weakness. They understand that during crises, Americans historically have come together and stood united, helping each other out wherever we can without regard to political viewpoint. And that is precisely why they have targeted these crises now, to spread rumors about the government seizing lands, bulldozing whole towns and hundreds of bodies in massive cover ups, and apparently now even generating and directing the deadly hurricanes in the first place. Bad political actors thrive where there is little common factual ground remaining for the public to stand upon. Their goal is to continue until it has all been swept away, the zone flooded from a storm surge of shit, to coin Steve Bannon’s infamous strategy.

Jay Kuo rightly calls out the far-right climate-denying conspiracy theorists pushing dangerous lies about Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

See Also:

The Guardian: How could hurricane misinformation affect the US election?

[odinsblog]

I never heard of British journalist Emily Maitlis before, but shout out for the way she slipped in that last QAnon question. It was …. *chef’s kiss*

Why do Republicans always like their politicians racist, trashy and dumber than dirt?

[wojakgallery]

Title/Name: Definitely Human Known As: The idea of reptilians was popularised by David Icke, an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist who claims shapeshifting reptilian aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies. Icke has stated on multiple occasions that many world leaders are, or are possessed by, so-called reptilians. Reptilian humanoids play a prominent role in fantasy, science fiction, ufology, and conspiracy theories. Wojak Series: Feels Guy (Variant) Image by: Unknown Main Tag: Reptilian Masked Wojak

[wholegrainporkndbeans]

Milkman conspiracy milkman conspiracy and Blair Cooper, private investigator

[generallemarc]

Michael Flynn and Jill Stein having lunch with Vladimir Putin a year after he conquered Crimea

This is at a celebration event for the 10-year anniversary of the founding of Russia Today, which ought to be called Pravda 2.0. The fact that Flynn went on to unironically believe in QAnon(no, that's not something the left made up, he's sold merch related to it and been on podcasts that push it) and that Stein went on to simp for Maduro in Venezuela and Castro in Cuba doesn't really that surprising anymore, at least not to me. Here they are almost a decade ago, cozying up to the man who'd just conquered the Crimean peninsula and provoked the Donbas Conflict. The third Western politician there, Willy Wimmer, is a former member of the German Bundestag with a long history of denouncing NATO whenever it decided to do its job. And no, he's not a member of Die Linke or AfD, he was a Christian Democrat. Why they let him stay in the party when the party itself was so committed to the alliance I'll never know.

So, Green Party voters, lemme ask-are you alright with voting for a candidate so accepting of dictators? And to anyone familiar with Emir Kusturica and/or his work, the hell is a film director doing here?

[booniesoil]

Secret agent.... Vs.... Secret agent.... Get it.... GET IT???? This is hoe they flirt

credit to dooble for injecting this idea into my brain thank u. One of these is Freddy. They got Freddy. Poor Freddy. He was such a good secret agent. Er, I mean, assasin.

[blackbatcass]

reading post-grell pre-connor ga v2 is sooo fucking crazy it’s like playing roulette. some issues are written by randos some are written by chuck dixon and some are written by kelley puckett. you will get the most fun insightful heartwarming issue of all time and then the next one is like BOOM time for someone who has never read the grell run in his life and is about to slap you in the face with the WORST ollie characterization in history

[ailingwriter]

More Jimmy Olson.

Clark: Any leads on that missing pilot?

Lois: None yet. Jimmy?

Jimmy: Okay hear me out-

Lois: Oh god.

Jimmy: Look, there's no scientific explanation for him to have gone missing, right? Which means...

Clark: Aliens?

Jimmy: Aliens!

Lois: Okay, so he was abducted by aliens so they could, what, dissect his brain or something?

Jimmy: No, so they could induct him into their intergalactic police force!

Lois: ...Yeah that isn't going to print.

[agentgrange]

There's a section in Delta Green: The Conspiracy where they offhandedly say that the Simba rebels in the Congo were going to do a Karotechia-style ritual to rip the world apart and America had to help the fucking Belgians put them down to stop it from happening. I low-key felt nauseous after reading it. ArcDream writes some of the best scenarios I've read for Call of Cthulhu, but some of their shit is grossly ignorant, and it stands out so much next to any of their good writing.

That reference seems to be offhandedly mentioning Operation Kurtz from Fall of Delta Green. I think it does an ever so slightly better job in Fall of Delta Green at establishing the context behind the operation than just "lol communists unleashed a death god and the Belgians are the good guys."

Of course Fall of Delta Green fails to mention that those 'European mercenaries out for revenge" historically almost certainly would have been--

In fact to be honest both versions of Delta Green make zero mention of Operation Paperclip and seem insist that Delta Green would have only ever fought Nazis. Only The Conspiracy though makes a point of stressing how Delta Green works with Mossad to fight the Karotechia working for those *damn* Nassarists in the "Arab-Israeli Wars." (They use the word "Arab" and "jihad" several times but the words "Palestinian" and "intifadah" are never used once.)

Then again what do you expect from the same book that gives us such hits as "the anti-fascists in the global south were stupid to accept Soviet support because actually the Soviets and the Nazis were allies. The Soviets were only cynically pretending to be anti-imperialists by jumping on the bandwagon. America were the REAL anti-imperialists because the OSS helped make the Indochinese resistance groups! Once they joined the Soviets they stopped being anti-fascist and just became anti-colonialist!"

[junespriince]

What if Tim was red and green color blind,,,, imagine his idea of red is green and while he writes it as is the ratio of red and green in his og Robin notes are off and it bothers him once he realizes he's red and green color blind.

[tomorrowusa]

People are saying that Weird Donald spends more time with racist conspiracy nut Laura Loomer than he does with Melania.

During an MSNBC panel discussion on Donald Trump allowing himself to be influenced by far-right characters, which had a marked influence on his Tuesday night debate performance, contributor Ed Luce suggested the former president has quickly become his own worse enemy. [ ... ] Noting that the former president recently added far-right conspiracist Laura Loomer to his travel entourage, Luce explained "This is the kind of person Donald Trump is hanging out with." He's hanging out with people who tell him, 'Yes, what you said about crowd sizes is true. Yes, what you said about you having the greatest economy in world history is true. What we've been hearing about people hanging other people's pet dogs or abducting their cats, that's true.'"

Laura Loomer is an extremist's extremist. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks Loomer is too extreme.

'Growing feud' between Marjorie Taylor Greene and far-right activist traveling with Trump

Loomer even attended the official 9/11 memorial commemoration with Trump on Wednesday.

Laura Loomer is a sociopathic slimeball who never lets objective reality cloud her worldview. She's the perfect travel companion and policy adviser for Donald Trump.