An analysis: Political belief vs. reality; The cynical Republican FTZWS machine goes silent

An interesting WaPo article discusses a link between what people believe is true and the news sources they rely on:

The link between the news Americans consume 

and the things they believe

The extent to which Fox News’s editorial decisions diverge from its competitors is well-established. From burying the initial story that led to Trump’s Manhattan indictment to ignoring its own mistakes to focusing on boosting Trump and targeting Biden, the network’s efforts to support the former president and his party are clear.

We should not be surprised, then, when we see that people who watch Fox News or consume conservative media that takes a similar approach to coverage have diverging assessments of the country — and of reality.

Some of this is self-selection: Many Fox News viewers watch Fox News because of the beliefs they hold, rather than their beliefs following from watching Fox News. But the two intermingle, with Fox (at times explicitly) reinforcing the existing biases of their audience.

There certainly isn’t much indication that the network’s coverage leads to people having a more accurate understanding of political issues. Ipsos asked respondents to evaluate the truth of several untrue claims, centered on immigration and the 2020 election. Those who cited Fox News and the conservative media as their main source of news were between four and nine times more likely than CNN/MSNBC viewers to believe the false claims.

A question about the most important issues facing the country yielded widely varying responses, depending on the information source. Fox News/conservative media consumers were way more likely than anyone else to say that immigration was the top issue. They were also more likely to believe false claims about immigration under Biden.

That data feels right. In my opinion, there is a much bigger bigger disconnect between reality and sound reasoning on the authoritarian radical right and most everyone else. Regular old-fashioned conservatives are probably closer to the CNN/MSNBC crowd than the Faux/conservative crowd. 

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

A NYT news article comments about the silence of the usually very noisy radical authoritarian Republican FTZWS machine (flood the zone with shit) regarding the brutal Biden Hunter prosecution:

For nearly four years, Republicans have delved into the darkest corners of Hunter Biden’s life, seeking to tie his troubles to his father, President Biden. But as the younger Biden stands trial in Delaware on gun charges, the case’s glaring political contradictions have rendered the G.O.P. largely mute, from former President Donald J. Trump on down.

It stands to reason: The baseless claim that the Biden Justice Department is running a political persecution of Mr. Trump is somewhat undermined by the department’s prosecution of the president’s son. It is also hard to make much of allegations that Hunter Biden lied about his drug use to purchase a handgun when your party is sponsoring legislation to ease gun-purchasing restrictions for veterans struggling with mental illness, not to mention the case before the Supreme Court that could allow domestic abusers to buy firearms.  

The charge that Hunter Biden faces — lying about drug use on a federal background check to purchase a gun — and its clash with the gun rights absolutism in the G.O.P. On Tuesday night, the House narrowly passed a measure that would remove military veterans who had been reported to the F.B.I. for mental health concerns from the national gun background check system. 

“I’m encouraged to see Congress refusing to turn a blind eye to the 260,000 veterans who have been wrongfully submitted to the F.B.I.’s corrupt system,” declared Representative Eli Crane, Republican of Arizona and the amendment’s sponsor.

But that “corrupt system” is the same one that Hunter Biden is accused of subverting on federal forms as he sought to purchase a gun.

Gun rights organizations have tied themselves in knots over the case, trying to reconcile their political efforts to defeat President Biden with their attacks on the instant check system. “Gun Owners of America believes that the gun control Hunter Biden violated is unconstitutional and Forms 4473 shouldn’t even exist,” said Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president. “However, so long as these infringements remain on the books, Hunter Biden deserves no special treatment from the D.O.J.”

I agree that Hunter deserves no special treatment from the DoJ. And, it is the case that he is getting none. This is good for the rule of law because it means that DJT should also get no special treatment from the DoJ. That conundrum is why the cynical, morally rotted Republican FTZWS machine has gone mostly silent about the DoJ prosecuting Hunter. 

And to think I falsely thought that no amount of hypocrisy could ever make the Republican dark free speech Leviathan shut up. Will wonders never cease? 

The stealth CN attack on tax dollars; DJT’s vengeance lust; Canceling Germaine, again

A WaPo article discusses a quiet, but very clever effort by America’s theocratic CN (Christian nationalist) wealth and power movement to get access to more tax dollars:

Texas may pay schools to use 

curriculum critics call overtly Christian

Texas public education leaders are proposing to pay school districts to teach elementary language arts lessons that critics say disproportionately focus on Christianity.

Worries about the separation of church and state in the Texas curriculum were previously reported by the 74, an education news website, when the materials were released last week.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath denied that the lessons push Christian beliefs. [that is not credible]

“It’s hard to understand or to teach Western civilization or European history without understanding the impact or the influence religion had on Martin Luther and his treatise and Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers. “But there’s a difference between providing context of the circumstances and actually injecting stories and fables and religious indoctrination into the curriculum.”

Capo said the state starved school districts for money to the point that they have to adopt this curriculum because districts get $60 per student to offset the costs. “You’ve created a funding shortage for school districts and then thrown them this carrot,” he said.

Despite the rise of inflation, Texas legislators have not given teachers a significant raise in about five years, said Jaime Puente, director of economic opportunity with the nonpartisan tax policy group Every Texan.

The new curriculum gives a chance for some districts to replace their books that could be five or 10 years old with new materials at a defrayed cost.

“It’s not like there’s much of a choice,” he said.

Many view the new curriculum as part of a ploy by Republican state leaders to hollow public schools and eventually privatize education. [that is how I see it]

Note the brilliant simplicity of the CN tactic to claw its way into more tax dollars. They starve public schools and then offer some desperately relief in the form of stealth radical Christian theocracy education.

For decades, getting more tax dollars has been a key piece of CN dogma. By arguing there is no separation of church from state, tax dollars could be more easily used to pay for literally all CN activities.

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

An interesting WaPo article focuses on Faux News’ Sean Hannity’s persistent but failed efforts to get DJT to say he will not employ political persecution of political opponents if he gets re-elected: 

Even Sean Hannity can’t get Trump to back away from wanting revenge

[Last December, Hannity tried to get] Trump to disavow any intent to subvert democracy and seize power, to kneecap the hand-wringers on the left and in the old guard who were offering warnings about Trump’s second term.

“Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight,” Hannity lobbed to Trump, “you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.”  

“Except for Day One,” Trump chirped, to the amusement of the audience. Trump has since argued that this was just a joke, .... But this was not the answer Hannity was seeking. The Fox News host spent decades tuning his antenna to understand what candidates should and shouldn’t say and was trying to keep Trump on-radar. He failed.

[Then on Wednesday June 5, 2024,] Hannity overtly wanted Trump to assure viewers and America that he wasn’t going to target his political opponents if reelected — an assurance, in effect, that he would close the barn door even though the horse was well over the horizon.

“My question is a very serious one,” Hannity said. “People are claiming you want retribution. People are claiming you want what has happened to you done to Democrats. Would you do that ever?”

“Look, what’s happened to me has never happened in this country before,” Trump replied, “and it has to stop, because—” Hannity jumped in. “Wait a minute!” he interjected. “I want to hear that again. It has to stop.”

There you go! Trump said the thing that will give him enough cover for the next few months. Whew. But then, as when Trump was asked about Jeffrey Epstein this month, the former president kept talking.

“Focus on those that want people to believe that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies,” Hannity repeated after Trump had gone on a tangent about how he’s “a very legitimate person.”

They’re wrong, Trump said, repeating the line Hannity enjoyed that it had to stop. Uh, but! “I would have every right to go after them,” Trump continued. “And it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden, and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.”

Another tangent, this time accusing Biden’s family of taking money from a Russian woman, which isn’t true. (“Turned out to be true,” Trump said of the story, without Hannity offering any objection.) More riffing from Trump and then Hannity tried again.

“Will you pledge to restore equal justice, equal application of our laws, end this practice of weaponization?” he asked. “Is that a promise you’re going to make?”

“Well, you have to do it,” Trump replied. “But it’s awful.” Then he gave the game away. “Look,” Trump continued, “I know you want me to say something so nice.” “No, I don’t want you to say!” Hannity objected, a claim that you may evaluate for yourself. “I’m asking.”

“But I don’t want to look naive,” Trump continued. “What they have done to the Republican Party, they want to arrest on no crime. They want to arrest the person that won the nomination in a landslide.”

He’s popular, the indictments are bad, etc., for a while. And then: “I will do everything in my power not to let — but there’s tremendous criminality here,” Trump said. “What they’re doing to me, if it’s going to continue, we’re really not going to have much of a country left. It’s really — it is weaponization. You call it ‘lawfare.’ You call it — some people call it just ‘warfare.’”

It is clear that DJT will abuse his power and try prosecute and imprison at least some political opponents if he gets re-elected. Faux News and Hannity are idiots for not realizing by now that DJT usually cannot be reasoned with.

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

From the Canceling Germaine Files: From time to time I check out a different pro-Trump site to see how it deals with inconvenient comments and how or if Disqus relays that feedback to the commenter. The usual response I get to posting inconvenient fact and reasoning is being blocked or banned. Today I tried out the pro-Trump site BizPac Review, which has this pro-Trump article posted: 

Russell Brand: ‘I don’t know how you could do 

anything other than vote for Donald Trump’

Actor and comedian Russell Brand was clear this week that he sees through the smoke screen that is the Democratic Party’s approach to counter Donald Trump.

Brand interviewed RNC spokeswoman Elizabeth Pipko on his new Stay Free podcast premiering Friday and shared his thoughts on the November election, questioning how any freedom-loving American could pull the lever for President Joe Biden.

“In a straight choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, if you care about democracy, if you care about freedom, I don’t know how you could do anything other than vote for Donald Trump for precisely the reasons that they claim that you can’t,” he told Pipko.

“They act as if a vote for Donald Trump is almost like you’re directly voting for Armageddon, like you see hysterical performances outside of courtrooms, endless MSNBC bombast,” he continued. “But I’m starting to think that no, a greater threat to democracy is this kind of technological feudalism, that tells you that it cares about you and that it’s protecting vulnerable people, all the while increasing censorship, increasing the funding of wars, increasing the division between ordinary Americans.”

The weaponization of the legal system is proving to be harmful for Democrats as Brand took note of the difference between reality and discourse.

“For a long time, I’ve been concerned about the snobbery and the contempt and condemnation in which people that support Donald Trump are plainly held by his detractors,” Brand said. “And this is while you have an administration that’s emulating his policies, plagiarizing from Donald Trump, while simultaneously criminalizing him from the weaponization of the legal system.”

I checked BizPac’s credentials and the site seemed to be reasonably characterized as pro-Trump. MBFC did an assessment, and the site claims to be a conservative news and opinion website founded by Jack Furnarni in 2009. The about page says it is a “political news website that provides breaking news and analysis unfiltered by the liberal bias that has eroded the media’s credibility. With public trust in the press sputtering at an all-time low, BizPac Review fills the void with its unparalleled coverage of current events that the mainstream media intentionally ignore.”

Out of curiosity, I posted this inconvenient comment in response to the crackpot blither that Mr. Brand spewed:

So far, so good. BizPac moderates comments. Good for them. An hour later I checked to see what Disqus said about my comment. Pending, so so far, so good.

I want back to BizPac to check on my comment. As I suspected, BizPac deleted my comment. Disqus told me nothing about it. 

The comments to Mr. Brand’s nonsense 

did not include my comments

Q: Where did Germaine’s comments go?

A: Into the black hole of radical right cancel culture

In the old days, Disqus would change the status of pending to blocked or banned. Now it doesn’t do anything, and just leaves comments in pending status. I presume that has to do with making more money by keeping users in the dark and allowing paying sleaze sites to do their dirty work in secret.

The tally so far is I’ve been blocked or banned at all 11 (or is it 12 by now?) pro-Trump sites I’ve tried to post inconvenient truth at. I am losing count, but the result is now quite predictable.

DJT, his GOP and propagandists constantly complain about cancel culture by the left. What a bunch of shameless hypocrites.

About the Normandy invasion and authoritarianism

Allied and American pro-democracy forces in WWII were antifa against fa, i.e., fascism. Literally. Today, American antifa forces in defense of democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties are arrayed against DJT, the corrupt authoritarian Repub Party and corrupt fascist Christian theocrat and corrupt capitalist authoritarian forces in America today. 

Yeah, maybe history does not repeat. But it damned well does rhyme.

So on this 80th anniversary of D-day, let us quietly think in 2024 about what the hell we are doing to our democracy, civility, and fact- and reason-based perceptions and thinking.

We owe it to the suckers and losers (as DJT puts it) who lost their lives defending what is good and decent to oppose the evil and hate of America's Republican Party radical right wealth and power movement. That legacy of their blood is left to us all who still believe that fighting for democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties was and still is worth it.

In God's infinite love, Republicans hate LGBQT; Jim Crow was better for black families; A gigantic flip-flop

The infinite love of God really does work in mysterious ways. The Hill reports:

Colorado’s Republican Party this week called for LGBTQ Pride flags to be burned, describing LGBTQ Americans as “godless groomers” in a fundraising email and multiple social media posts railing against Pride Month.

“Burn all the #pride flags this June,” the state GOP wrote Monday on the social platform X. Earlier Monday, an email sent by the party with the subject line “God Hates Pride” perpetuated the false claim that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children to abuse them.

“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy, and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children,” reads the email.

The party’s message — which includes a link to a sermon led by Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor known for his anti-LGBTQ views — is signed by state Republican Party Chair Dave Williams, who is also a candidate for Congress.

Guess it is time to burn evil, Godless pervert groomer flags like this:

Wait, wait! Didn't Republicans condemn flag burning and try to outlaw it? 

Yup, they sure did, in their usual morally rotted, hypocrisy-based, and crackpot & lies-infused style of Godless, authoritarian politics:

President Donald Trump said Monday that he’d support laws criminalizing flag burning, saying in a call with governors that it’s time for the Supreme Court to take up the issue again as nationwide protests have intensified over the death of George Floyd.  

Trump, who as a candidate in 2016 proposed jail time or loss of citizenship for burning the American flag, called the act a “disgrace” on Monday and pledged support for an “anti-flag burning” statute.

Q: Is God is on the side of authoritarian, hater Republicans, or on the side of the political opposition? 

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

The Hill reports:

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) suggested that Black families were better off during the Jim Crow era, while speaking at a campaign event for former President Trump.

Donalds, who is on the shortlist for Trump’s potential vice-presidential pick, was campaigning for the former president in Philadelphia at a “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event aimed at garnering Black male voters, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

During the conversation, the first-term lawmaker said he is starting to see the “reinvigoration” of Black families, adding that it is “helping to breathe the revival of a Black middle class in America.” Donalds also claimed that the nuclear family — or one with a mother, father and children living under the same roof — and its values have been eroded by Democrats and lost among Black voters after they supported the party following the Civil Rights Movement, the outlet reported.

“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more people voted conservatively,” Donalds said.

He says that things were better under Jim Crow

Q: Were things better for Nazis under Hitler because Nazi families tended to stay together? Is crackpot reasoning good or bad for democracy? 

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

The WaPo reports about a gigantic Republican Party flip-flop on supporting convicted felons for president:

GOP voters have flip-flopped fast on questions about Trump and crime

A new poll follows a string of examples. It shows the percentage of Republicans who say a felon shouldn’t be president dropping from 58 percent in April to just 23 percent today

Donald Trump’s position on presidents and crimes is reliably inconsistent:

• He pushed for prosecutions of many foes — including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — before his own legal problems led him to conclude that presidential candidates and presidents should be spared charges.

• He said in 2016 that Clinton’s being convicted would lead to a “constitutional crisis” if she were president; now he is pressing forward with his campaign despite his own felony convictions.

• He has suggested that Clinton, Obama, Ted Cruz and Vice President Harris should be disqualified from running for various reasons. But when critics tried to disqualify him under the 14th Amendment, Trump decided it was unthinkable to deprive voters of their choices.

For a brief moment this weekend, Trump seemed to acknowledge his convenient evolutions. Asked about urging the jailing of Clinton in 2016, he told Fox News, “And then this happened to me, and so I may feel differently about ...” before trailing off.

And Trump is not the only one to engage in a series of about-faces. So have large swaths of his party.

It has responded to his legal jeopardy and now his conviction by disowning its previously professed principles in a remarkable fashion.

A new YouGov poll this week is perhaps the most striking example.

Whee! A gigantic flip-flop!! MAGA!!

The good news: 

~23% still think a felon president is bad

But this is very messy. Other poll data suggests the net effect of the 34 guilty verdicts are hard to parse:

This is a fundamental component of this election and American politics in general: Many people don’t pay close attention to even objectively important developments. That tends to be more true of political independents, people who are not attached to political parties. It is also particularly true of younger Americans, who are more likely to identify as independents.

 

 

 

  

Worth noting: the top-line support for Trump and Biden (and for not voting or voting third party) didn’t budge before or after considering the verdict.

It is often the case that people, when asked, attribute existing political beliefs to new information when the opposite is the case. They will say, for example, that learning about X scandal or Y policy makes them more likely to support their candidate, even though they were going to support that candidate all along.

This poll offers something similar. According to SurveyMonkey, 1 in 10 Republicans changed their mind following the verdict. One in 20 went from undecided to Trump or from Trump to undecided. And support among Republicans for Trump went from 73 percent before hearing about the verdict to 74 percent after.

It’s possible that none of those views were particularly dependent on the verdict at all.

It is probably still too early to draw firm conclusions about what effect if any the 34 felonies will have on the outcome of the election. Let’s give it more time and reconvene in the first week or two of August to see if there is anything to be seen.

How does one become THIS numb?

I wonder at the genius of the Right, Trump, Rightwing media.

Maybe their intention was to make us numb. To bring us to the point where we are exhausted.

That is how I feel.

In my absence from here (what? you didn't notice?) I did a lot of perusing of other forums to gauge the temperature. It's nasty out there and getting nastier.

Yet, if I were to avoid American cable news and online forums, my living in Canada seems to shelter me.

I see no MAGA hats, not "F*ck You Biden" lawn signs. And no group of people clustered together prophesizing "the end of democracy."

I just know that when I consider composing a thread, I honestly don't know what to talk about any more.

Any time I suggest that the Dems are their own worst enemies or that Joe needs to step down NOW, or that the constant attacks, indictments, and convictions against Trump are actually helping him, not hurting him, I can feel the slow burn at the back of my neck.

Is this because I have become numb thanks to the tactics of the Right, or because I live in Canada, or is it just human nature? Namely, you can only allow yourself to get riled up for so long because you exhaust yourself.

Think about it. Can't get over a failed marriage? Carry the anger and frustration around like a ball and chain for years. Eventually, wouldn't you just say "F*ck it"? 

I want to hug someone. I don't mean just hug my significant other or friends or family members.

I want to hug every angry Palestinian protester, every Trump supporter, every prophesizer of doom, every member of Germaine's forum, every American now living in fear, frustration, anxiety, and bitterness. 

Would it help?

Authoritarian Republican vengeance lust; DJT’s vengeance lust; Israeli propaganda machine targeted US tax dollars

As GOP authoritarianism hardens into its full-blown revealed form, the elites lust for vengeance is not hidden. A NYT article exemplifies the seething hate and urge for payback in the wake of DJT’s 34 felony convictions that elite Republican authoritarians are now publicly expressing:

The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: 

‘Fight Fire With Fire’

Republican leaders in and out of government are publicly pushing to prosecute Democrats as legal retribution for Donald Trump’s felony conviction

Republican allies of Donald J. Trump are calling for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony conviction in New York.

Within hours of a jury finding Mr. Trump guilty last week, the anger congealed into demands for action. Since then, prominent G.O.P. leaders in and out of government have demanded that elected Republicans use every available instrument of power against Democrats, including targeted investigations and prosecutions.

The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms.

Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump who still helps guide his thinking on policy, blared out a directive on Fox News after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying financial records to cover up a 2016 campaign hush-money payment to a porn actress. Mr. Miller posed a series of questions to Republicans at every level, including local district attorneys.

“Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” he demanded. “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?”

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said, using the catchall slurs Trump allies routinely use against Democrats.  

Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr. Trump, said in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that now was the moment for obscure Republican prosecutors around the country to make a name for themselves by prosecuting Democrats.

Mr. Bannon was convicted in a federal prosecution for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena in the Jan. 6 investigation, and faces trial in September in a New York state court — before the same judge who oversaw Mr. Trump’s trial — in a charity fraud case.

As usual, elite authoritarian Republican rhetoric is loaded with insulting, divisive dark free speech. Blatantly false allegations Marxism and Communism are now standard lies and slanders among radicalized, anti-democracy GOP elites and propagandists. 

As I have postulated before, maybe there is a silver lining to unleashing the lawyer-dogs of political vengeance war. At the very least, it should scare essentially all Democratic Party politicians into becoming seriously law-abiding people. Not sure how Republicans would change, in any at all. regardless, Democrats should do the same to Republicans. Also, when false charges are prosecuted, those falsely accused should counter sue for false prosecution. Yes, that could get messy. But in the long run, maybe democracy and the rule of law will benefit. Or, maybe not. 

But it would be an interesting experiment in defending democracy and the rule of law. At least the lawyers would like it.😊

Authoritarian liar, thug & criminal Bannon wants

revenge prosecutions against Democrats

Fun Bannon note: Bannon himself is literally contemptuous of the rule of law as applied to himself, and presumably authoritarian Republicans generally. Reporting in May 2024, MSNBC wrote: Trump White House aide Steve Bannon loses appeal of contempt of Congress conviction -- A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Trump White House senior advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted in connection with refusing to testify and provide documents to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

Another NYT article comments about how DJT sees the vengeance thing: Trump says he might ‘have to’ prosecute his political opponents. -- Former President Donald J. Trump again suggested his political opponents could face prosecution on Tuesday, saying in an interview with Newsmax that it might “have to happen to them” following his conviction by a jury in New York. “You know, it’s a very terrible thing. It’s a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question,” Mr. Trump said in response to a question from the host, Greg Kelly, about whether the conviction could help him politically.

Good grief. DJT is such a shameless, transparent liar. He obviously would be overjoyed to enthusiastically prosecute Democrats for their real or imagined crimes.

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

America’s alleged ally Israel quietly fired up its propaganda machinery in the US last year. It wanted to suck more cash out of the US for Israel to use in its apparently spreading war against everyone in the neighborhood:

Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers 

With Influence Campaign on Gaza War

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military, according to officials and documents about the effort

Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation.

The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials said. The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and the documents.

Targeted US politicians included Ritchie Torres, left, 

and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries

Last week, Meta and OpenAI published reports attributing the influence campaign to Stoic. Meta said it had removed 510 Facebook accounts, 11 Facebook pages, 32 Instagram accounts and one Facebook group tied to the operation. OpenAI said Stoic had created fictional personas and biographies meant to stand in for real people on social media services used in Israel, Canada and the United States to post anti-Islamic messages. Many of the posts remain on X.

X [free speech “absolutist” Elon Musk] didn’t respond to a request for comment.  

On its LinkedIn page, Stoic has promoted its ability to run campaigns backed by A.I. “As we look ahead, it’s clear that A.I.’s role in political campaigns is set for a transformative leap, reshaping the way campaigns are strategized, executed and evaluated,” it wrote.* 

* Meaning AI will be used to lie, distract and deceive in political campaigns and corporate propaganda programs and dark free speech from AI will be evaluated for effectiveness. 

An Israeli news source commented: Report: Israeli fake social media accounts targeted US Congress for military funding -- The covert operation was allegedly commissioned by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, which allocated approximately $2 million and hired a Tel Aviv-based political marketing company [a/k/a/ professional liars] to execute it. The accounts targeted over a dozen members of Congress, with a focus on Black and Democratic representatives such as Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. “Israel's role in this is reckless and probably ineffective,” Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, told the Times. “That Israel ran an operation that interferes in US politics is extremely irresponsible.”

Maybe extremely irresponsible, but what the heck? Who cares? There is no repercussion for Israel merely participating in the America’s pay-to-play political system. It is open to everyone to play any way they want, e.g., setting up fake social media accounts and using them to deceive and influence US politicians, as long as they pay someone. It is just constitutionally protected free speech!