SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ NOV 24, 2017

...and his transition into literal cult leader is now complete.

Over at VOX, David Roberts' article America is Facing an Epistemic Crisis (don't let the big fancy word spook you) explores the terrifying disconnect between a growing number of movement conservatives and the very notion of objective, consensus reality. He also checks out some of the latest developments in Far Right propaganda techniques in their ongoing War on Reality. It begins thusly:

Over at the Gothamist, Jake Offenhartz has an astounding and richly symbolic storyabout the latest bit of “fake news” burped up by the alt-right. 

At Columbia University on Monday, alt-right self-promoter Mike Cernovich gave a speech to College Republicans. Other students showed up to protest. And then some alt-right members in attendance, posing as protesters, unfurled this banner:

Alt right strikes first at Columbia Cernovich event, plants NAMBLA-branded sign in front of protest march pic.twitter.com/IAw6yIeINC

— Jake Offenhartz (@jangelooff) October 30, 2017

The banner has a NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) logo on it, making it look like the protesters are defending pedophilia. Ha ha. 

Cernovich grabbed the image off Twitter, stripped it of context, and sent it bouncing around the right-o-sphere. When Offenhartz reported the copyright violation, Twitter removed the photo from Cernovich’s account. That led the alt-right to cry censorship, which led to more publicity for the photo, which led, in the end, to thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of conservatives believing that students of Columbia University were openly marching in favor of pedophilia. 

Basically, the alt-right tricked itself into believing even more stupid, wrong things. Burn, I guess?

This article goes on to cover some incredibly important ground before addressing the rhetorical question of its subtitle: "What if Mueller proves his case and it doesn't matter?" Riviting, vital stuff. Give it a read and a good hard think.

Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about the above-mentioned Columbia University stunt by alt-right provocateurs, the pedophilia-obsessed "Weird" Mike Cernovich and his co-conspirator , Jack "Rape Melania" Posobiec, you can read this Gothamist account by Jake Offenhartz, the photographer who snapped the image Cernovich and Posobiec appropriated for their sick and twisted purposes. For even more information, check out this New York Magazine account, which asks, with just a hint of incredulous exasperation:

How do you run a country in which 30 or 35 percent of the population believes that Democrats ran a secret child sex ring out of a pizza parlor, that ISIS controls certain towns in the Midwest, and that Columbia students are openly marching in defense of pedophilia? Where does all this madness drag us?

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Speaking of Far Right hit-jobs, how are you enjoying the orchestrated effort to transform the public image of the Senate's most genuinely humane and gifted centrist legislators in decades into that of a sex-crazed groper and a penis-criminal on par with the likes of Judge Roy Moore, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey? Pretty great days we're living in, aren't they?

Anyway, just in case you're not quite 100 percent on the origins of this effort, along comes Erin L. to explain how “The Alt-Right Propaganda Machine is Winning Because Americans Insist on Being Stupid: A Timeline of The Al Franken Scandal”. First, she writes:

Al Franken is not the first sacrificial lamb — and definitely won’t be the last — as Americans refuse to acknowledge or take action against the fine-tuned Propaganda Machine that is omni-present on our social media platforms.

Then, she charts:

And then, she continues:

America has its very own Joseph Goebbels, yet we seem to be either too ignorant to history, or too ignorant to technology, to acknowledge and deal with the massive propaganda machine that’s been assembled over the last 2 years here in America. Al Franken is just the latest casualty, and there will be more. 

It’s disturbing to see Americans still falling for the same dirty tricks we fell for the entire 2016 election season. We have the benefit of hindsight now and a cavalry of expert citizens educating us about propaganda and how to counteract it. Yet time and again, we are let down. Our media fails us. In their desperation for clicks they hop on any bandwagon that appears lucrative. And our people fail each other. They suspend critical thinking skills to line up on “sides” that don’t even truly exist. 

So let’s use this past week’s Al Franken “scandal” as an illustration of the latest pizzagate-style propaganda hit job against our common senses. These manufactured “news stories” always follow the same distribution and amplification process, with few (but detectable) variables.

She then goes into excruciating detail about the mechanisms, personalities, technologies and modalities involved in the New Fascist International's New Media propaganda offensive. Bookmark this magnificent effort, and spread it around to all your friends whom you think are capable of comprehending and/or counteracting these efforts.

***

Speaking of orchestrated take-downs aimed at destroying the reputations and effectiveness of our most eloquent, knowledgeable, and important voices of opposition and resistance, you may have noticed that long-time Daily Dirt favorite Matt Taibbi is having his name dragged through the slime-pit these days. This time, it consists of literal rape-apologist/promoter Mike Cernovich (him again?!) accusing Taibbi of rape, based on a clearly satirical excerpt from a decade-old book about his tenure at the Moscow-based alternative bi-weekly tabloid, The eXile.

The claims are complete and utter bullshit. However, considering the current media-fueled mass hysteria centered on "sexual assault", Taibbi's ability to defend himself has been severely curtailed. Still, his efforts in this regard are well worth reading.

But even more important than Taibbi's own apology-tinged explanation is Alayne Fleischmann's definitive, 21-page Open Letter on the subject, which lays bare just exactly how flimsy of a construct this "Matt Taibbi, Sex Pest" narrative really is. 

DDD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR JAN/20/2017

THE MAIN EVENT

• A massive avalanche in the Italian Alps buried a three-storey hotel on Wednesday. Two bodies have been recovered and thirty tourists are still missing.
• Meanwhile, in Tehran, thirty Iranian firefighters perished while combating a fire in a historic high-rise building. It collapsed unexpectedly on Wednesday, burying the men under flaming debris. 
• Forgive me if this sounds like a broken record about broken records, but for the third time in as many years, scientists have declared 2016 to be the hottest ever year since records have been kept.
• In other disaster news, Trump is being inaugurated today. A group of "bikers for Trump" have already arrived in Washington DC, providing a Nixonian frisson to the proceedings by pledging to "protect" the inauguration events from protesters, and to do so with violence if need be. Despite having offered to do so in the past, Trump has yet to say whether he will pay any legal fees incurred by these fine citizens in the course of fulfilling their duties.

A DEEPER DIVE

• Roasting Trump's pick for heading up Education, Betsy DeVos, alive; tanning would-be Attorney General Senator Jefferson Beauregard Bedford Forrest Sessions III's hide; exposing wannabe Health and Human Services Chief Tom Price's Big Tobacco ties; I think it's safe to say that Minnesota Senator Al Franken has been rocking the shit out of these Senate confirmation hearings. But perhaps his finest moment came during the Price hearing, after Price and Senator Rand Paul yakked up some insurance industry nonsense about how "association health plans" would help create "bigger risk pools" to "spread the risk", to which Franken devastatingly quipped: "I tell you how we get a really big risk pool. It'd be called Medicare for Everyone. That'd be the biggest risk pool." You've really got to watch it to get a sense of Franken's pitch-perfect timing on this. It makes Texas Governor Rick Perry's couch gag and subsequent SNL quip look like a big bag of amateurish poop by comparison.
• Today is the fourth and final day of the World Economic Forum, held annually in Davos, Switzerland. If you're interested in what a wide cross-section of the world's moneyed elites hope to accomplish in the coming year, you need to start educating yourself on these folks. This year's theme? "Responsive and Responsible Leadership."
• On the eve of President Obama's final day in office, the CIA released 13 MILLION pages of formerly classified documents to the public. Included among these records are extensive documentation of the "Stargate" psychic super-soldier program, information about tests on "remote viewing", and numerous reports on UFO sightings. In other words... a load of hooey.

***

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Once you're done watching this, the 23rd installment of our old pal Keith Olbermann's "The Resistance" vlog series for Esquire, you'll be able to start making sense of the graphic at the bottom of today's edition of the DDD Executive Summary. That graphic is from early 2005, and you'll be able to own a printed copy of it--and the story that it illustrated--when I finish putting together my long-gestating "Best of the Daily Dirt" collection, which will be available to you later this year! I'll keep you posted with updates!

2. You have got to read Seth Abramson's article, entitled The Domestic Conspiracy that Gave Trump the Election is in Plain Sight, which begins...

Information presently public and available confirms that Erik Prince, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump conspired to intimidate FBI Director James Comey into interfering in, and thus directly affecting, the 2016 presidential election. This conspiracy was made possible with the assistance of officers in the New York Police Department and agents within the New York field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All of the major actors in the conspiracy have already confessed to its particulars either in word or in deed; moreover, all of the major actors have publicly exhibited consciousness of guilt after the fact. This assessment has already been the subject of articles in news outlets on both sides of the political spectrum, but has not yet received substantial investigation by major media.

This is life-and-death stuff, involving some of the darkest actors in the current US realpolitik milieu. It is every American's duty to learn, and help spread, this information, and all subsequent revelations relating to this information. It's the only way to stop it.

3. As America says goodbye to President Barack Obama and says hello to President Electoral Traitor Trump, I'm going to give the last word on that to the "Liberal Redneck" Trae Crowder...

***
QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The guy who ran for president on his ability to make and close deals could not successfully book a Bruce Springsteen cover band."

- Chase Mitchell, on Twitter, cracks wise. And he's handling the resulting death threats with great aplomb, as well!

DDD EXTRAS

• If you want to learn about some cool and/or weird things that happened on the 20th, 21st, or 22nd day of January, check out our sister-site, Useless Eater Blog, where you will find out about such crazy stuff as Bud Dwyer's deeply disturbing live to air suicide.

THE TAKEAWAY

Our old pal SixX is trying to help me come up with something fun to do to "celebrate" this blessed event with y'all. Whether that takes the form of a day-long live blog, or a running Periscope of Facebook Live video feed of some sort, we're not quite sure yet. In any event, keep checking this space for updates!

GANNON/GUCKERT circa 2005