How to Obamagate

Trump vs Big Tech

 

Social media ‘algorithms’ are more about probability than ideology. They direct people to places they most likely want to go. It 's more like a popularity contest. Turns out right-wing conspiracy theories take up a lot of this space. Why not. They’re intriguing, especially to their biggest audience: adolescents. In 2016, YouTube decided to throttle back. They were concerned about promoting disinformation during elections. The right-wing was first to cry foul. They accused YouTube of censorship and threatened to reverse their Sect 230 protections. In his final days in office, Trump is doubling-down on this threat. Problem is ..without these protections social media platforms will start scrutinizing content even more, creating a vicious cycle that will hurt right-wing content providers the most. I have a theory. The right-wing isn’t stupid. They're run by a crafty TV-show host who’s looking for a media outlet of his own. Before he goes, however, he wants to take out the competition.

Trump vs Georgia

Transcript Analysis 
January 2, 2021 

 

Trump held an hour-long conference call with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger. He was joined on the call by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and several lawyers. 

Trump: “If we could just go over some of the NUMBERS, I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia.” He spends the next hour presenting "NUMBERS" he thinks prove his case. This is what Donald Trump thinks passes for proof.

1. Rally size
2. Numbers that only White House staff possess
3. Number of people who said he couldn’t lose
4. Number of people who are angry about the election 
5. Number of down-ballot votes
6. Number of rumors, allegations and unconfirmed reports 
7. Number of things that don’t pass his ‘smell’ test 
8. Number of times that Trump has repeated unsubstantiated claims that the election was rigged. 

Michael Flynn

 

 

Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for Obama who was FIRED for following conspiracy theories instead of intelligence information ..and later convicted of lying about his role in foreign election interference during the Trump campaign ..is back in the White House advising Trump on foreign election interference. He’s saying that the SolarWinds hack was DISRUPTIVE attack on ELECTION SECURITY by foreign influencers. As a result, Trump should declare martial law ..confiscate state election systems and re-do the election under military command. He’s conflating a federal government system with state run systems in order to promote a false relationship between foreign intelligence gathering and foreign disruption of elections. This is BULLSHIT: It was NOT a disruptive attack on the ELECTION conducted by foreign influencers ..IT WAS A COVERT OPERATION TO SPY ON THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ..!! SolarWinds is a network administration system used by the federal government and has NOTHING to do with state run election systems

ask China

Obamagate

Pompeo

RADDATZ: Do you believe coronavirus was man-made? 

 POMPEO: The best experts seem to think so

 R: But the DNI says the consensus is it wasn't 

 P: That's right. I agree with that

 R: So to be clear, which is it? 

P: What's important is the Communist Party could've prevented this

Fake news derangement

In the 1960’s I saw the news cycle get ahead of the government. Photojournalists were sending satellite images of the war in Vietnam before the next White House press conference. People grew distrustful of the government’s version of events. I believe this is what Trump is fighting when he calls the mainstream media ‘fake news’. They defy his attempts at framing events and controlling the narrative. Label it what he will ...we're not going back to the fifties. Everyone knows the speed of information is accelerating, which makes his attempts at controlling it look about as effective as trying to package water from a fire hose.

Master of Deception

Speech perception is ephemeral. The meaning of a sentence is derived by an active, interpretive process. The surface structure is rapidly forgotten and what we remember is the gist of what’s said. Deception works because this process is open to suggestion.

Half truth: Trump signed an executive order that he claims: “Restores religious liberty.” However, all he did was change the wording of section 501 of the U.S. Code which exempts churches from paying Federal income tax. Before it simply said that religious groups risk losing their tax-exempt status for making “..political speeches that amount to participation or influence in a political campaign.” What he changed it to is: “Religious groups do not risk losing their tax-exempt status for making political speeches that do not amount to participation or influence in a political campaign.” Trump simply restated it as a double negative. Changing the syntax does not necessarily change the content. In other words, the same restrictions still apply. He falsely claims that this amounts to a: “restoration of religious liberty”
 

Framing: Trump announced that the new American Health Care Act (AHCA) will: “cover more Americans more cheaply.” A review by the Congressional Budget Office found that the net effect was less coverage at a higher price for most Americans. Trump’s announcement only sounds good if you don’t have a copy of the bill in front of you.
 

Pre-supposition: Trump says he fired Comey because the FBI was in turmoil. He adds “..you know that, I know that, everybody knows that.” Saying ‘everybody knows that’ frames his opinion as a generally accepted reason to fire him. But we all know Trump fired Comey for personal reasons that had nothing to do with his performance as FBI director.
 
 Public record: On his termination letter, Trump said: “I appreciate that, on three separate occasions, you told me I was not under investigation.” However, there’s no record of Comey ever saying that. Trump’s statement is deceptive because it enters an indeterminate event into public record

Discourse analysis of the news

I’m paying closer attention to news stories these days. I like to see how many examples of fake news and deceptive claims I can spot …I’m weird that way. I know that just because a story sounds sensational … doesn’t mean it’s a widespread pandemic. A picture of protestors at a local college doesn’t make it a campus-wide event. A group of cheering supporters at a political rally doesn’t represent everyone in attendance. I call this a ‘slice-of-pie’ sort of misrepresentation. It’s not necessarily the fault of the reporter …it’s just the nature of news. It’s not always a view from 35,000 feet.
 
 I’m also seeing where events are reported in a sequence that’s different from the way they actually occurred …and how it affects my interpretation of things. One thing after another is easily mistaken for one thing caused the other.
 
I’m also clearer on the difference between ‘speculation’ and ‘data-based accounts’. I know it takes a sufficient number of cases to turn a speculative claim into a credible account. It’s the difference between Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying “…legalizing marijuana will lead to something like the opioid epidemic” and the New England Journal of Medicine reporting “a study of 2,500 users shows that marijuana does not have the same addictive properties as opioids.” I guess it depends on your perspective, and, from what I’ve seen, pre-conceived notions about marijuana can beat out data-based reports almost any day of the week.

Deceptive speech

1. It’s deceptive when Trump calls news outlets fake and dishonest because reports about him “…haven’t been positive.” He didn’t say that reports about him haven’t been honest. 

2. It’s deceptive when the administration says: “The national debt went down $12 billion since we’ve been in power.” That’s implying that they deserve credit for events that are actually beyond their control (they’ve only been in power for a month and have not yet done anything to affect the budget). 

3. It’s deceptive to attribute job losses by middle class Americans to undocumented immigrants …unless you consider gardening and fruit-picking middle–class occupations.

 4. It’s deceptive to treat the fair-trade agreement with South America the same as China. South America doesn’t engage in anti-competitive practices like the Chinese. They don’t present the same barriers to foreign investment.

5. This is not necessarily deceptive but a big component of intelligence is understanding the question. Over two-thirds of the errors on an intelligence test can be attributed to misunderstanding the question. This was certainly the case at Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing. When asked: “As Attorney General, if presented with evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign communicated with the Russians …what would you do?” He replied: “I did not communicate with the Russians.” Why did he deny doing something he wasn’t asked? He claims he was responding to a something he read in the news that day …and got it confused with the question. Good thing intelligence is not a qualification. 

6. Spicer has reached the level of master of deception. He’s not necessarily good at it …just prolific. In the latest example he cites news-stories about British spying to back up his accusations against Obama. When British Intelligence confronts him, he says: “I was simply pointing out these news-stories. I wasn’t endorsing them.” However, when you cite news-sources to back up your claims …you are crediting theses sources as valid, which is the same as endorsing them

Discourse analysis

I look for samples of deceptive speech in the news. Happens more often than you may think. We don’t process speech like a linguist. It’s too ephemeral. We listen for meaning and not a literal transcript of what's said, which makes it easy for speakers to pass-off fiction as fact and make implications sound like direct assertions. The original sentences don’t hang around long enough for us to tell the difference and we’re left with a more general sense of what's said. The new administration provides a lot of examples. Here are a few I've come across lately.

 1. It’s deceptive when press secretary Spicer defends Trump’s travel ban by saying: “The power given the president to protect our country is substantial and without question.” It’s deceptive because he’s implying that Trump’s actions are ‘beyond question’ because the constitution is beyond question. However, it is not unreasonable to ask whether his actions were a legitimate use of power and met the criteria proscribed by the constitution. The courts clearly found his actions questionable.

 2. It’s deceptive when the administration says they didn’t fire national security advisor  Flynn because he did anything wrong but because it was leaked. According to press secretary Spicer: “leaks are criminal and what should be investigated here.” It’s deceptive when he deflects attention by implying that some kind of “breach in security” was at fault and not the actions of the national security advisor.

 3. it’s deceptive when attorney general Sessions says marijuana use should be prosecuted under federal law because: “When you see something like the opiate addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing that we should be doing is encouraging people.” He’s implying that marijuana carries the same health and safety risks as opioids.

 4. It’s deceptive when the administration denies ever saying: “We are conducting mass-deportations using the U.S. military.” But that is exactly what Trump was implying when he announced: “ We are conducting deportations at unprecedented levels and doing them as efficiently as a military operation.” What’s the difference. Since speech perception is not literal …implications get treated as direct assertions and “ ..mass-deportations by the U.S. military” is exactly what gets conveyed. Denying it because it was not part of the ‘actual transcript’ is like something you’d hear in a court of law. It’s deceptive because it’s not the natural way we process information. We don’t keep record of things like a stenographer and the administration knows this.

 5. It’s deceptive when Trump characterizes undocumented immigrants as criminals based on one case. As tragic as it was … a single case does not represent an entire population. However we don’t think like statisticians. We mistake sensationalism for the size and magnitude of a problem. The administration knows this and they’re relying on it to help make their case.