“Told entirely without narration, ‘You’ve Been Trumped’ captures the cultural chasm between the glamorous, jet-setting and media savvy Donald Trump and a deeply rooted Scottish community. What begins as an often amusing clash of world views grows increasingly bitter and disturbing. For the tycoon, the golf course is just another deal, with a possible billion dollar payoff. For the residents, it represents the destruction of a globally unique landscape that has been the backdrop for their lives.”
Note the media framing and the target list below, since nothing’s going to happen because like most alternative facts, it will never have happened, just as it got assembled in the factory of conspiracy-theory machines… Then again, bunkers on Scottish golf courses are much like bomb craters.
“A terrorist could decide to target a Trump Tower in Stuttgart, a Trump hotel in South Korea, or a Trump golf resort in Dubai. ”
It has all been a bad dream since November.
So instead of the casualties, outrage, counter-attacks, MIC investment, and patriotism… maybe it will be all an alternative fact and the US government should just say that it would be a conflict of interest to care about some overseas properties like 16,800 wine bottles in Istanbul.
…I don’t think “cheating” is an accurate description of anything he did during the round we played together, just as I don’t think “lying” is an accurate description of what he does when he gives a speech or answers questions at a press conference. In Trump’s own mind, I suspect, he really did shoot 71 that day, if not (by now) 69. Trump’s world is a parallel universe in which truth takes many forms, none of them necessarily based on reality.And we’d all better get used to his way of thinking, because for the next four years we’re going to be living in that universe, too.
Consider it another Trump flip-flop: back in October, Donald Trump told a crowd, “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win.” Trump went on to decisively win the Electoral College, but now he is questioning the results anyway. In a tweet this weekend, the president-elect alleged — providing zero evidence — that “millions of people” voted illegally, and that that’s the reason Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
The latest totals show Hillary Clinton leading Trump in the popular vote by more than 2 million. Trump tweeted on Sunday afternoon, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” He did not provide evidence to back up that claim, and Trump’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for more information.
So he brought a cheering section (a claque) and did his campaign shtick for a spy agency that knows far too much about him, how strange this trip has been.
Most presidents know that they should respect such agencies, especially one that trades regularly in “alternative facts”, now that we’re in another strategy of tension (epistemological, even). So little intelligence, tucked back into so few briefings or boxers.
But like he’s never been seen laughing, he never apologizes, even to an agency that probably has actual evidence of his turpitude. And using the wall as a prop … like stacks of steaks and file folders, perhaps a wall too far, even for The Company which ultimately is the people’s company.
John Brennan thought he should be ashamed of himself, but Orange GazBag will be apparently without shame for another 1400 days, or less.
Apparently as proof, the President noted that he had set an “all-time record” in Time magazine cover stories. “Like, if Tom Brady is on the cover, it’s one time, because he won the Super Bowl or something, right?” he told the intelligence officials. “I’ve been on it for fifteen times this year. I don’t think that’s a record that can ever be broken.” Time told Politico’s Playbook that it had published eleven Trump covers—and had done fifty-five cover stories about Richard Nixon.
Trump spoke briefly about eradicating “radical Islamic extremism,” a cornerstone of his foreign policy. But he devoted more than twice as many words to the dispute over the turnout at his Inauguration. “Did everybody like the speech?” Trump asked. “I’ve been given good reviews. But we had a massive field of people. You saw them. Packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I say, wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, the field was—it looked like a million, million and a half people.”
Had a great meeting at CIA Headquarters yesterday, packed house, paid great respect to Wall, long standing ovations, amazing people. WIN!
Crowd scientists who spoke to the Timesestimated that about a hundred and sixty thousand people attended, compared with the record-setting 1.8 million who were estimated to have been at President Obama’s first Inauguration. Trump was defiant. “We caught them, and we caught them in a beauty,” he told the C.I.A. crowd. “And I think they’re going to pay a big price.”…
At 7:35 a.m. on Sunday, Trump responded on Twitter to the negative reactions to his comments. “Had a great meeting at CIA Headquarters yesterday, packed house, paid great respect to Wall, long standing ovations, amazing people. WIN!”
Trump’s remarks caused astonishment and anger among current and former C.I.A. officials. The former C.I.A. director John Brennan, who retired on Friday, called it a “despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of C.I.A.’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes,” according to a statement released through a former aide. Brennan said he thought Trump “should be ashamed of himself.”
Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum, so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in your brainpan, feel free to add a comment. ___________________________________________________________
“Insecure people often falsify the past, in order to make the future pure.” ― Shannon L. Alder
I love quotes — they give us glimpses of the person quoted that you’ll never see in a photograph or a painting. They are the original “sound bites” — and because they are something the ‘quotee’ thought about, wrote down, and edited before you saw it, they are pithy and precise, striking words which illuminate an idea, then make it stick in your head.
Unlike the words caught by a reporter who just shoved a microphone in the face of some politician, celebrity or victim of disaster.
Here are some of the ones which struck me recently as very relevant to now:
One betting shop lost five million dollars on HRC winning the White House in 2016, so unpredictability rules still about the construction of facts. And then there’s probabilty and the machinery of government, perhaps compelling POTUS45* to resign to “get back to his business” as if he ever left it in 2016.
In the case of POTUS45*s White House, however “after the fact” ex ante or ex post, have now become new euphemisms of truth. OTOH objective reality is fast becoming Schrödinger’s pussy cat.
“Alternative fact” as a meme is in itself a contestable “fact” so that “alt-fact” could become a neologism, but like alt-right, no about of white-washing can make its meaningfulness come epistemologically clean.
Fact (“a piece of information presented as having objective reality”) spiked dramatically on January 22nd, following an exchange between Chuck Todd and Kellyanne Conway on NBC’s Meet the Press that was fraught with epistemological tension.
You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and Sean Spicer, our press secretary is giving alternative facts to that,” Conway shot back.
“Wait a minute, alternative facts? Alternative facts — four of the five facts he uttered, the one that he got right was Zeke Miller, four of the five facts he uttered are not true. Alternative facts are not facts — they’re falsehoods,” Todd replied. —Maxwell Tani, businessinsider.com, 22 Jan. 2017
ðÂÂÂA fact is a piece of information presented as having objective reality. https://t.co/gCKRZZm23c
They gaslit CNN with the “Fake News” lede that POTUS45* wrote his own speech. Maybe he or the Mar-a-lago concierge really did it in the lobby.
There were mostly tweetable moments cribbed from campaign moments in an otherwise lackluster text delivered with slurred speech.
But you can’t fabricate such a dismal message… perhaps Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller thought they were being sly or even literary, but really … it only makes Morgan Freeman even more like PBO or vice-versa, the speech foretells some immanent crises.
And like Melania’s speech, it’s not really plagiarism but a rhetorical homage, much like our upcoming military action will not be a war but a pageant.
Compare Trump’s declaration that,
“Today’s ceremony, however has very special meaning. Because today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another.
But we are transferring power from Washington D.C. and giving it back to you… the people. For too long a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have born the cost.
Washington flourished but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs and while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. That all changes starting right here and right now because this moment is your moment. It belongs to you.”
Sound familiar? Declareth the cartoon Batman villain:
“We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you… the people.
Gotham is yours. None shall interfere. Do as you please. Start by storming Blackgate, and freeing the oppressed! Step forward those who would serve. For and army will be raised. The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endure. Courts will be convened. Spoils will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. The police will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great city… it will endure. Gotham will survive!”
A White House official told the Journal that Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller penned the address.
Aides claimed before the speech that Trump was writing it on his own, and Trump even posted a photo to social media of himself with a pen and a pad that he claimed showed him writing the speech
![trumptown[1].png](https://flowersforsocrates.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/trumptown1.png?w=456&h=456)
Apparently as proof, the President noted that he had set an “all-time record” in Time
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