Today's Tweet

Gosh, ya mean the flag and the anthem and all that stuff might mean different things to different people?

Holy crap - whooda thunk it?

Rodgers: Kaepernick isn't on an NFL team because of his protests and it would be "ignorant" to think otherwise. https://t.co/EvOgSwj8g6

— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) August 30, 2017

Business Insider:

You won't find Aaron Rodgers kneeling during the national anthem this season, but in a recent interview with ESPN's Mina Kimes, the Green Bay Packers' offensive captain said he had no issue with players who choose to protest.

That includes Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who is still waiting for a job offer less than two weeks before the start of the 2017 regular season. Kaepernick drew national attention even from outside sports circles last season when he popularized the practice of not standing during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice in America.

Rodgers said it would be "ignorant" to believe that Kaepernick's trouble finding a team had nothing to do with his activism.

Watch That Social Media

This could get fun

Vox, Ella Nilson:

It is unclear how successful the so-called Russian “troll farm” on Facebook was. Many of the accounts were crudely designed and used stilted, awkward language, and many of their posts were not widely shared throughout social media. Also, the majority of them ran in 2015, the year before the election, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were still competing with other candidates in the primaries.

The Russia-linked accounts worked to spread misinformation in two ways, according to a recent New York Times report. In one strategy, they bought political ads that focused on social issues including immigration, race, gay rights, and gun control, rather than touting one candidate over another.

Their second strategy was to create hundreds of fake accounts that linked back to their own websites, filled with hacked material on Hillary Clinton and prominent Democrats like businessman and investor George Soros. The Times investigation found a concerted effort to spread misinformation and direct traffic to these sites using these fake accounts.

Fake accounts are nothing new in social media; Twitter is rife with fake “bots” that can spread dubious stories or popularize hashtags. As the Times pointed out in their report, enough fake Twitter bots can push certain hashtags into Twitter’s “trending” category, where tweets with those hashtags can then be seen by more people.

Twitter has mechanisms in place to try to prevent bots from spreading fake trends around the internet, but new research by a cybersecurity firm called FireEye found that one bot-propelled hashtag still broke through, and Twitter’s relative lenience on fake accounts compared to Facebook doesn’t help.

Facebook, on the other hand, is taking new steps to crack down on fake accounts. It recently announced it wouldn’t allow pages to advertise on its site if they repeatedly posted fake content, and that it has been increasingly monitoring and shutting down fake accounts.

A former FBI agent named Clinton Watts recently told the New York Times that Facebook and Twitter are both experiencing a “bot cancer eroding trust on their platforms.” To Facebook’s credit, Watts said the site is currently doing much more to combat the issue, “cutting out the tumors by deleting false accounts and fighting fake news.”

It’s worth noting that even the most successful fake Facebook accounts have nothing on Fox News when it comes to influencing voter’s decisions, according to a new study.

I'm wondering if there might be some legal action against Zuckerberg and/or his minions for violations of various Campaign Laws.

Keith

Almost unavoidably soon-to-be future ex-president of The United States.

Today's Debunkment

Snopes:

A friend posted it on Facebook, but now I can't find the original graphic.

Here're a couple I dug up:

Today's Quote

For the next time you get stuck in a Nazi-vs-antifa debate, and you you're forced to deal with the False Equivalence bullshit.

"I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire."

--Winston Churchill

New Music

NPR Tiny Desk

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Tunes:
Chaos and Clothes
Molotov
Last Of My Kind

Players:
Jason Isbell (vocals, guitar)
Sadler Vaden (guitar)
Amanda Shires (fiddle, backing vocals)
Jimbo Hart (bass)
Derry deBorja (keyboards)
Chad Gamble (drums)
Ashwin Wadekar (guitar on "Last of My Kind")

Randy Rainbow

For your dining and dancing pleasure - DACA Shame:

Today's Tonight

My love-hate relationship with football continues.

My Donkeys play the late game Monday night.

Per Five-Thirty-Eight:

Broncos  (-7.5)   74%

Chargers            26%

The End Of The Beginning?

Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter:

Given the nation’s problems, from the unsettling situation along the Korean Peninsula, to the destruction left by Hurricane Harvey, to general income inequality, to terrorism, to climate change, our timing in bringing a man like Donald Trump into the White House really couldn’t be worse. The man is clearly unfit for any kind of public office, let alone the highest office in the land. The majority of the electorate knew this when they went to the voting booths. His “many sides” response to the events in Charlottesville during his horribly eventful, 17-day vacation sparked a run on his remaining popularity. (As Trump’s better, Winston Churchill said, “I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire.”) The members of the president’s vaunted business panels left him. The members of his arts panel left him. The Republican leadership blanches at the mention of his name. His popularity in the swing states he won is on a downward spiral. Even charities that had booked space for their fund-raisers at Mar-a-Lago, his mid-market wedding-and-birthday rental facility, are pulling out. He still has the neo-Nazis and the racists, which must give him some comfort. This is going to sound unkind, but why are supremacists invariably the worst specimens of the race they are claiming to defend?

With normal presidencies, history often takes its time reaching a verdict. But once in a while, the verdict arrives with the speed of a tweet after an imagined slight. Judging from the assessments of six distinguished historians—see “History’s First Draft,” such is Trump’s grim fate. His time in office, like so much of his life, will be deemed a corrupt, messy shambles. The only lingering question is the extent of the damage he will have done by the time he is forced out of office.

Reading the essays by Jon Meacham, Stacy Schiff, Robert Dallek, Edmund Morris, A. Scott Berg, and Garry Wills, you come to the realization that our 45th president resembles none of the others—there is no true parallel. He is a mutant. In terms of temperament and judgment, he is the opposite of a Monroe or an F.D.R. He may be as intellectually hollow as Reagan, but he lacks Reagan’s humor, grace, and core of principle. He may be as psychologically disfigured as Nixon, but he lacks Nixon’s intelligence and stamina.

Today's Tweet

Every day. The weirdness known as USAmerica Inc just gets weirder every day.

In the pantheon of visual metaphors for America today, this is the money shot. pic.twitter.com/09COuDutBC

— David Simon (@AoDespair) September 7, 2017

Today's Pix

About That False Equivalence

The Daily Beast, Dean Obeidallah: 

Let’s put it bluntly: Antifa is not part of the Democratic Party, while white supremacists are part of the GOP. 

But that hasn’t stopped some on the right from peddling the false narrative that antifa is part of the Democratic Party and somehow Democrats have to answer for the movement. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson recently declared that Antifa “is a political militia that is doing the bidding, in effect, of Nancy Pelosi and Governor Jerry Brown and the mayor of Berkeley and all these supposedly mainstream Democratic politicians.”

- snip -

Sean Hannity added his voice to this chorus of false equivalency throwing a temper tantrum about antifa while asking: “When are the Democrats in this country going to condemn this out of control left-wing hate and violence?” And the list goes on with people like Laura Ingraham parroting this talking point.

You get the idea. The right wants people to believe that antifa is a wing of the Democratic Party and that Democrats must answer for its violent actions. This couldn’t be more wrong and the right knows it. 

Let’s be clear about who antifa is and isn’t. It’s a decentralized anti-fascist group. Experts make it clear that antifa members are “self-described revolutionaries” who are “anarchists and communists who are way outside the traditional conservative-liberal spectrum.”

Today's Tweet

Of all the shitty things we remember Tricky Dick for, sometimes he was straight up and dead on.

EPA
Clean Water Act
Clean Air Act

But look where we are now.

What has happened to us? pic.twitter.com/0edEyAZGJh

— banksy (@thereaIbanksy) September 6, 2017

And also too:
Title IX
Cancer Research
26th Amendment
Ended the Draft

Market-Based Solutions

I think we can all say we're fairly well aware of the Natural Disasters that're piling up all around us, even if way too many of us are still resistant to the reality that hurricanes and wild fires are Human-Exacerbated.

But let's not dwell on the past. Let's talk about sensible Vienna School solutions.

You see, it's not a problem of happenstance - it's a simple problem of distribution and logistics.  So all we have to do is transfer some of the western states' fires to the Gulf Coast, and send some of the rain in Texas Louisiana and (soon) Florida to Alaska Oregon and California.

Can you imagine the payoff for some bright young entrepreneur with a good idea and mom's garage to work in?

And of course, we start the ball rolling by providing incentive - like, say...oh I don't know...a tax cut.

So c'mon, libtards - trade in those Birkenstocks for a nice pair of Khakis and a white polo shirt, and let's get to work.

Let's Review

(former) Sheriff David Clarke is a douchenozzle extraordinaire - actually, he's not all that extraordinary considering all the other douchenozzles 45* keeps huddled around him.

The good news being, of course, that John Kelly is whittling away at that huddle, with Clarke being the latest wood chip to hit the floor without even becoming part of the stick (how's that for stretching the metaphor beyond its tensile strength?).

But anyway, with his book and all, the guy's convinced he's hit the big time, so now he's headed out onto the Wingnut Welfare Circuit to become the new Sarah Palin.

I think we can expect some very small things from this fuckwad.

As a reminder, here's a tour of all that weird shit he puts on his uniform trying to make us think he's impressive.

BTW - this is about half-a-hair short of Stolen Valor. Which would be plenty of reason for a General Kelly to stomp this clown into a greasy carpet stain.

WaPo gave us a rundown a while back:

1. Clarke’s four-star epaulets are standard for a chief of police or sheriff.

2. This is a pin that reads “Sheriff” made and branded by the Harley-Davidson motorcycle company. (Thanks to Charlie Deck for spotting it.)

4. A U.S. flag lapel pin.

5. A “thin blue line” pin. The expression “thin blue line” is meant to evoke the role of police in society: a thin blue line of people willing to stand between us and them. This pin mirrors similar others that are popular in the United Kingdom.

6. This is a pin for the Israeli civil guard, a branch of the Israeli police that serves as a sort of neighborhood watch since terrorist attacks in the mid-1970s. (You can see a more clear version of it here.) At other times, Clarke has worn a badge for the Israeli traffic police. (Much thanks to Naomi Fry, Jacob Kornbluh and Noga Tarnopolsky for their help tracking down this badge.)

7. Clarke’s actual sheriff’s badge.

8. A 9/11 memorial pin, presumably of the sort Clarke mentioned in the interview above.

9. This appears to be a small lapel pin that says “WTC” (like this one), a reference to attacks at the World Trade Center. (Thanks to Ryan Shyffer for helping identify this.) Pins similar to this were given out to New York Police Department officers who helped in the aftermath of the attacks.

10. Almost certainly a badge for the General Mitchell International Airport division of the Milwaukee County Sheriffs Department. A source who wished to remain anonymous sent a photo of a similar badge, depicting a five-pointed star on a background of extended wings.

11. A pin from the National Rifle Association. Clarke has been a proponent of the organization for some time, including starring in an ad for the NRA.

12. A U.S. flag bar pin.

13. A small replica of a 19th-century U.S. Secret Service badge (like this one). (Steve Hager identified it as being a souvenir given out to those who help out with a presidential visit. Thanks to Johanna Farkas for finding the original.)

14. A 75th anniversary FBI National Academy pin. The academy provides professional training on intelligence, terrorism, management and forensic science. You can see a more clear version of this pin here. (Thanks to Kyle McAllister-Grum, who identified this.)

15. Clarke’s name tag.

16. A “thin blue line” ribbon from Concerns of Police Survivors, an organization for the family members of law enforcement officials killed in the line of duty.

17. An FBI National Executive Institute pin. The institute trains law enforcement executives in leadership.

18. A pin labeled “NSI,” perhaps for the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative of which Milwaukee is a part.

19. An FBI National Academy completion pin. Clarke’s relationship with the FBI over the years means that one can stumble across politically interesting photos like this one.

20. Pin for the CeaseFire crime reduction program of which he was once a liaison for the Milwaukee Police Department.

21. A pin depicting a baby’s feet (“the precious feet”), signifying support for the antiabortion movement.

22. Blue Knights law enforcement motorcycle club pin.