Donald Trump’s response to social media bans is… a blog

Welcome to 2002.

Every politician handles the ends of their careers differently. Some retired legislators take up public speaking gigs, some continue their beloved philanthropic endeavors, and some just go for long walks in the woods. Not Donald Trump, mind you. America’s 45th (but not final) president has steadfastly focused on what he does best: unloading every single asinine and toxic thought that rattles out of his conspiracy-addled noggin directly onto the internet. That has been a bit of a challenge in recent months, what with him having gotten himself unceremoniously banned from virtually every English-speaking social media site on the planet on account of all his unfounded election stealing allegations and incitement ahead of the January 6th Capitol Hill insurrection.

But no longer! Mere hours before Facebook’s Oversight Board announced its ruling as to whether or not it will allow the former president back onto its platform, Trump seized the initiative and unveiled a brand new communications platform of his very own. Take that, Big Social Media! Behold the awesome golden glory of From the Desk of Donald J. Trump , a whole entire web page dedicated to giving Trump what he so desperately desires: somewhere on the internet where he can complain about how the rest of the internet is so mean and unfair to him.

The page will allow Trump to post comments, images, and videos. According to Fox News , the page appears to be powered by Campaign Nucleus, a"digital ecosystem made for efficiently managing political campaigns and organizations," which was built by his former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, whom Trump has previously threatened to sue.

And true to the former president’s style, this won’t be a traditional sort of social network. This is a one-way means of communication. Trump posts and we unwashed masses are to suckle upon his perky bronzed teats for business and political wisdom. Not to mention a healthy dose of Q-Anon conspiracy and old-fashioned fascism.

And yes, before you ask, the web page is of course built to the same exacting standards as every other Trump property:

dragonfly9 · May 10, 2021, 10:04pm

Here’s the way Trump with the help of a Republican businessman Russell J Ramsland Jr who wanted to interpret the election results only for Trump by questioning election results and calling it fraud.

The making of a myth

Russell J. Ramsland Jr. sold everything from Tex-Mex food to light-therapy

technology.Then he sold the story that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

ADDISON, Tex. — Key elements of the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump took shape in an airplane hangar here two years earlier, promoted by a Republican businessman who has sold everything from Tex-Mex food in London to a wellness technology that beams light into the human bloodstream.

At meetings beginning late in 2018, as Republicans were smarting from midterm losses in Texas and across the country, Russell J. Ramsland Jr. and his associates delivered alarming presentations on electronic voting to a procession of conservative lawmakers, activists and donors.

Briefings in the hangar had a clandestine air. Guests were asked to leave their cellphones outside before assembling in a windowless room. A member of Ramsland’s team purporting to be a “white-hat hacker” identified himself only by a code name.

Ramsland, a failed congressional candidate with a Harvard MBA, pitched a claim that seemed rooted in evidence: Voting-machine audit logs — lines of codes and time stamps that document the machines’ activities — contained indications of vote manipulation. In the retrofitted hangar that served as his company’s offices at the edge of a municipal airstrip outside Dallas, Ramsland attempted to persuade failed Republican candidates to challenge their election results and force the release of additional data that might prove manipulation.

“We had to find the right candidate,” said Laura Pressley, a former Ramsland ally whose own claim that audit logs showed fraud had been rejected in court two years earlier. “We had to find one who knew they won.”

He made the pitch to Don Huffines, a state senator in Texas. Huffines declined.

He tried to persuade U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.). Sessions declined.

No candidate agreed to bring a challenge, and the idea of widespread vote manipulation remained on the political fringe — until 2020, when Ramsland’s assertions were seized upon by influential allies of Trump. The president himself accelerated the spread of those claims into the GOP mainstream as he latched onto an array of baseless ideas to explain his loss in November.

The enduring myth that the 2020 election was rigged was not one claim by one person. It was many claims stacked one atop the other, repeated by a phalanx of Trump allies. This is the previously unreported origin story of a core set of those claims, ideas that were advanced not by renowned experts or by insiders who had knowledge of flawed voting systems but by Ramsland and fellow conservative activists as they pushed a fledgling company, Allied Security Operations Group, into a quixotic attempt to find evidence of widespread fraud where none existed.

To assemble a picture of the company’s role, The Washington Post obtained emails and company documents and interviewed 12 people with direct knowledge of ASOG’s efforts, as well as former federal officials and aides from the Trump White House. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private matters or out of fear of retribution. Three individuals who were present in the hangar for those 2018 meetings spoke about the gatherings publicly for the first time.

By late 2019, ASOG’s examination had moved beyond audit logs. Among other claims, Ramsland was repeating the ominous idea that election software used in the United States originated in Venezuela and saying nefarious actors could surreptitiously manipulate votes on a massive scale. As the 2020 election approached, he privately briefed GOP lawmakers in Washington and met with officials from the Department of Homeland Security, documents and interviews show.

ASOG’s examination by last summer had already cost more than $1 million, according to a document the company gave government officials that was obtained by The Post. Ramsland had sought funding from Republican donors whose fortunes were made in the oil, gas and fracking industries, Pressley said.

This comes from ASOG's confidential “executive summary” of a report on how to “eliminate system-wide election fraud threat” that was given to government officials in summer 2020. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

After the Nov. 3 election, to an extent not widely recognized, Ramsland and others associated with ASOG played key roles in spreading the claims of fraud, The Post found. They were circulated by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), a staunch Trump ally who had been briefed by ASOG. And Ramsland’s assertions were incorporated in the “kraken” lawsuits filed by conservative lawyer Sidney Powell — who The Post learned had also been briefed two years earlier by ASOG — and aired publicly by Rudolph W. Giuliani, then Trump’s personal attorney, as they tried to overturn Joe Biden’s victories in key states.

During that period, Trump was hyper-focused on making the case that the election had been rigged, former White House aides said. He would listen to “literally anyone” who had a theory about it, in the words of one former senior administration official.

Windthin · May 11, 2021, 9:20pm

Huh. Apparently Don Jr.'s wife was being serviced secretly by the Secret Service.

Windthin · May 11, 2021, 9:28pm

dragonfly9 · May 12, 2021, 2:03pm

She is doing stand up work…standing on principles.

The Washington Post: Top Stories | Inside Liz Cheney’s plan to take on former president Donald Trump

Rep. Liz Cheney may lose her House leadership position Wednesday, but she aims to become an even more influential political figure capable of weakening former president Trump’s hold on their party — and continuing to push for his purge.

Rather than focusing on whipping votes to save her job as conference chair, the Wyoming Republican this week has been drafting plans for increased travel and media appearances meant to drive home her case that Trump is unfit for a role in the Republican Party or as the nation’s leader were he to run in 2024, according to a person briefed on the plans.

She is also considering an expanded political operation that would allow her to endorse and financially support other Republican candidates who share her view of the danger that Trump poses to the Republican Party and the country, the person said.

…

Cheney is unlikely initially to join with other groups of current or former Republicans who oppose Trump’s role in the party. But she is decidedly against following the path of other Republican Trump critics who have bowed out of public life rather than confront his power over their party, and she has signaled that she is unwilling to moderate her conservative ideological approach.

“She is, I think, the leader of the non-Trump Republicans, and I don’t know how big that group is,” said Bill Kristol, a prominent conservative critic of Trump who chairs the Republican Accountability Project. “It could be 10 to 15 percent of the party, though, and that is a lot of people. It is a fair number of donors, and it has the potential to grow.”

dragonfly9 · May 12, 2021, 3:50pm

Windthin · May 12, 2021, 7:34pm

Windthin · May 12, 2021, 7:41pm

Also:

Windthin · May 12, 2021, 7:46pm

This guy is so insane.

Lin Wood: Trump has secret military backchannel to authorize nuclear strikes

Windthin · May 12, 2021, 11:47pm

Well, this is nuts.

Republican loyal to Trump claims Capitol riot looked more like ‘normal tourist visit’

The comments by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., during a House Oversight Committee marked the latest attempt by some Republicans to revise the narrative around the deadly Capitol riot.

dragonfly9 · May 13, 2021, 2:37am

GracieC · May 13, 2021, 4:50am

So just exactly where was Andrew Clyde during the insurrection? If he was not present at the Capitol, then he doesn’t know. If he was present, then why was he hiding?

dragonfly9 · May 13, 2021, 5:14pm

Here’s a new confirmation - ex-tax collector Joel Greenberg, now under Federal indictment will plead guilty and has a cooperation deal. Rep Gaetz is on the line here…

(CNN)The ex-Florida tax collector with close ties to Rep. Matt Gaetz is planning to plead guilty on Monday in a federal court in Florida, according to a new filing Thursday.

As part of the deal, Joel Greenberg will cooperate with investigators in a wide-ranging probe, according to one source familiar with the matter. For months, federal investigators have been examining whether Gaetz broke federal sex trafficking, prostitution and public corruption laws and whether he had sex with a minor.

Gaetz has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.

CNN has previously reported that Greenberg has been speaking with federal investigators since last year, including providing information about how he and Gaetz allegedly had encounters with women who were then given cash or gifts for sex.

He had previously pleaded not guilty and this spring has been in jail as he awaits trial. The court document made public on Thursday set the hearing for Monday to be a “change of plea.”

CNN reported new details last month about parties attended by Greenberg and Gaetz as recounted by two women who attended the gatherings. The behavior of Gaetz and the other high-powered men at the events, and a pattern of digital payments that followed, will likely be items of interest to the Justice Department as part of its probe of Gaetz.

Greenberg started speaking with investigators when he realized it was his only path to leniency in the face of considerable evidence against him, two people briefed on the matter told The New York Times in April.

Federal investigators are examining allegations that Gaetz had sex with an underage girl who was 17 at the time and with women who were provided drugs and money in violation of sex-trafficking and prostitution laws. Federal investigators are also seeking to determine whether Gaetz was provided with travel and women in exchange for political favors as part of a broader probe, people familiar with the investigation tell CNN.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Paul LeBlanc contributed to this report.

dragonfly9 · May 14, 2021, 7:39pm

A former confidant of Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, admitted in court papers on Friday to an array of federal crimes — including sex trafficking of a minor — and agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigations, handing prosecutors a potential key witness as they decide whether to charge Mr. Gaetz.

Joel Greenberg, who was a tax collector in the Orlando area until he was indicted last year, did not implicate Mr. Gaetz by name in papers filed by prosecutors in Federal District Court in Orlando.

But Mr. Greenberg admitted that he and unidentified others had paid a 17-year-old girl for sex and that he had provided her with drugs. He admitted that he “introduced the minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts” with her, according to the documents, and that he was sometimes present. The others were not named.

Prosecutors revealed in the documents that they have evidence they say corroborates Mr. Greenberg’s admissions — including a series of communications and transactions Mr. Greenberg had with the girl, and a list of dates of their sexual encounters. The inclusion of that material appeared designed to bolster the credibility of Mr. Greenberg as a witness whose truthfulness would likely be challenged by anyone who is charged based on anything he tells prosecutors.

Mr. Gaetz, a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is said to be under investigation into whether he violated sex trafficking laws by having sex with the same girl. Mr. Greenberg, who has been meeting with prosecutors for at least five months, has told investigators that Mr. Gaetz had sex with the girl and knew that she was being paid, according to a person briefed on the inquiry.

Mr. Greenberg also admitted that he had stolen money from local taxpayers, committed identity theft and defrauded the federal government.

dragonfly9 · May 14, 2021, 7:52pm

A very conservative almost ‘dirty tricks’ group who worked with Project Veritas and called themselves "Groundswell,’ wanted to allegedly entrap former NSC advisor HR McMaster and get him to say more disparaging things against Trump. The lengths that they went to get to him are right out of a spy-novel…and it was to give Trump some cover.

The operation against Mr. McMaster was hatched not long after an article appeared in BuzzFeed News about a private dinner in 2017. Exactly what happened during the dinner is in dispute, but the article said that Mr. McMaster had disparaged Mr. Trump by calling him an “idiot” with the intelligence of a “kindergartner.”

That dinner, at an upscale restaurant in downtown Washington, was attended by Mr. McMaster and Safra A. Catz, the chief executive of Oracle, as well as two of their aides. Not long after, Ms. Catz called Donald F. McGahn II, then the White House counsel, to complain about Mr. McMaster’s behavior, according to two people familiar with the call.

White House officials investigated and could not substantiate her claims, people familiar with their inquiry said. Ms. Catz declined to comment, and there is no evidence that she played any role in the plot against Mr. McMaster.

Soon after the BuzzFeed article, however, the scheme developed to try to entrap Mr. McMaster: Recruit a woman to stake out the same restaurant, Tosca, with a hidden camera. According to the plan, whenever Mr. McMaster returned by himself, the woman would strike up a conversation with him and, over drinks, try to get him to make comments that could be used to either force him to resign or get him fired.

Who initially ordered the operation is unclear. In an interview, Ms. Ledeen said “someone she trusted” contacted her to help with the plan. She said she could not remember who.

“Somebody who had his calendar conveyed to me that he goes to Tosca all the time,” she said of Mr. McMaster.

According to Ms. Ledeen, she passed the message to a man she believed to be a Project Veritas operative during a meeting at the University Club in Washington. Ms. Ledeen said she believed the man provided her with a fake name.

Image
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Around the time Mr. McMaster resigned, Mr. Seddon pushed for Project Veritas to establish a base of operations in Washington and found a six-bedroom estate near the Georgetown University campus, according to former Project Veritas employees. The house had a view of the Potomac River and was steps from a dark, narrow staircase made famous by the film “The Exorcist.”

The group used a shell company to rent it, according to Project Veritas documents and interviews.

The plan was simple: Use undercover operatives to entrap F.B.I. employees and other government officials who could be publicly exposed as opposing Mr. Trump.

The group has previously assigned female operatives to secretly record and discredit male targets — sometimes making first contact with them on dating apps. In 2017, a Project Veritas operative also approached a Washington Post reporter with a false claim that a Senate candidate had impregnated her.

During the Trump administration, the F.B.I. became an attractive target for the president’s allies. In late 2017, news reports revealed that a senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agent and a lawyer at the bureau who were working on the Russia investigation had exchanged text messages disparaging Mr. Trump.

The president’s supporters and allies in Congress said the texts were proof of bias at the F.B.I. and that the sprawling Russia inquiry was just a plot by the “deep state” to derail the Trump presidency.

Project Veritas operatives created fake profiles on dating apps to lure the F.B.I. employees, according to two former Project Veritas employees and a screenshot of one of the accounts. They arranged to meet and arrived with a hidden camera and microphone.

Women living at the house had Project Veritas code names, including “Brazil” and “Tiger,” according to three former Project Veritas employees with knowledge of the operations. People living at the house were told not to receive mail using their real names. If they took an Uber home, the driver had to stop before they reached the house to ensure nobody saw where they actually lived, one of the former Project Veritas employees said.

One woman living at the house, Anna Khait, was part of several operations against various targets, including a State Department employee. Project Veritas released a video of the operation in 2018, saying it was the first installment in “an undercover video investigation series unmasking the deep state.”

In the video, Mr. O’Keefe said Project Veritas had been investigating the deep state for more than a year. He did not mention efforts to target the F.B.I.

A former Project Veritas employee and another person identified the woman who targeted the State Department employee as Ms. Khait, who had appeared on the television show “Survivor.”

Ms. Khait did not respond to a request for comment.

By the time Project Veritas released its first “deep state” video, Mr. Seddon had left the group for other ventures — chafing at what he viewed as Mr. O’Keefe’s desire to produce quick media content rather than to run long-term infiltration operations, three former Project Veritas employees said.

He was replaced by Tom Williams, a longtime associate of Mr. Prince’s, two of the former Project Veritas employees said. Mr. Williams also eventually left the group.

Mr. O’Keefe has long defended his group’s methods. In his 2018 book, “American Pravda,” Mr. O’Keefe wrote that a “key distinction between the Project Veritas journalist and establishment reporters” is that “while we use deception to gain access, we never deceive our audience.”

dragonfly9 · May 17, 2021, 8:33pm

WHereever Steve Bannon goes, trouble follows…and misinformation is trouble.

A sprawling online network tied to Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has become a potent platform for disinformation in the United States, attacking the safety of coronavirus vaccines, promoting false election-fraud claims and spreading baseless QAnon conspiracies, according to research published Monday by the network analysis company Graphika.

The report, provided in advance to The Washington Post, details a network that Graphika says amplifies the views of Guo, a Chinese real estate developer whose association with former Trump White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon became a focus of news coverage last year after Bannon was arrested aboard Guo’s yacht on federal fraud charges.

Graphika said the network includes media websites such as GTV, for which Guo last year publicly said he was raising funds, along with thousands of social media accounts that Graphika said amplify content in a coordinated fashion. The network also includes more than a dozen local-action groups over which Guo has publicly claimed an oversight role, Graphika found.

Graphika’s research sheds more light on Guo, a onetime billionaire real estate developer who, in addition to his relationship with Bannon, has drawn attention for the confusing mix of disinformation and invective he has broadcast since moving to the United States, including contradictory attacks on both the Chinese Communist Party and anti-CCP dissidents in the West.

The Graphika report “is an important forensic analysis of the ways that rich and politically motivated people can manipulate social media,” said Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.

Other analysts also have identified the network as boosting Guo-related media and aligned political messaging. Alethea Group, a firm that tracks disinformation and other online threats, said it had detected an effort in November to spread disinformation in Spanish.

Windthin · May 17, 2021, 10:15pm

Trump DOJ Tried to Unmask User Behind Devin Nunes Parody Twitter Account

Windthin · May 18, 2021, 5:04am

Secret Service fears they’re stretched too thin and the president could get shot: report

The understaffing of the Secret Service has become a national security problem, according to an alarming report from MSNBC and Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig.

While the Secret Service has suffered from scandals in the past, the main scandal is that funding for the USSS hasn’t kept up with the technology and growing threats.

As the first Black president, Barack Obama and his family experienced their own unique challenges with fence-jumpers and shots fired at the White House that made it to the walls of the building. While the first couple wasn’t in the White House during the shooting, their daughter and Mrs. Obama’s mother were inside. But the Obamas were never told about the incident.

During Donald Trump’s administration, the president sought to ban overweight agents from his detail. He explained that they couldn’t possibly protect him if they were too fat to run down the street. During his time in the White House, Trump’s wife and young son weren’t the only ones being protected by the Secret Service. Taxpayer dollars also went to protect Tiffany Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Eric Trump and his wife, and Donald Trump Jr. and his family.

The protection of Trump’s family has lasted months after he was removed from office. It ultimately has cost millions of additional dollars to protect Trump’s adult children. In one month, the adult children cost taxpayers $140,000, found the Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

“But the numbers omit what’s likely the most expensive and certainly the most controversial aspect of the extended protection: the cost for agents to stay at Trump properties, which CREW said the Secret Service did not provide,” said Forbes May 5.

Leonnig’s book reveals that Trump’s daughter Tiffany and ex-daughter-in-law Vanessa got “inappropriately close” to their Secret Service. There were also allegations that Trump directly profited off of the Secret Service staying in his properties.

The Biden Administration is denying a report that the incoming administration demanded a fresh set of agents for Biden.

At the same time, in Secret Service Facebook groups, the agents were speculating that President Joe Biden’s election was illegitimate. They even went so far as to call the rioters patriots.

“Nobody’s paying enough attention,” Leonnig said, noting that it applies to the Department of Homeland Security and Congress.

See the interview below:

dragonfly9 · May 18, 2021, 2:58pm

Trump reported making more than $1.6 billion while president - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Donald Trump reported making more than $1.6 billion in outside revenue and income during his four years as President of the United States, according to a review of his financial disclosures by CREW. While Trump publicly took credit for donating his taxpayer-funded salary, that ended up being less than 0.1% of the revenue and income he disclosed during his presidency. Far from being a sacrifice, the donation was merely a fig leaf to cover up four years of brazen corruption.

Despite seeing a major dropoff in hospitality related revenue in 2020 due to the pandemic, in total Trump disclosed at least $1,613,583,013 in revenue from the Trump Organization and other outside income. Trump disclosed a high end of $1,790,614,202, but it is impossible to know exactly how much he pocketed as president, as some of his assets list a vague “Over $5,000,000” in yearly income and because of the structure of Trump Organization businesses, reported revenue does not necessarily reflect his personal income from them. One of the reports also included 19 days of revenue and income before Trump assumed the presidency.

A major part of his Trump Organization revenue came from the marquee properties that he often visited during his presidency. The Trump Hotel in DC, his now “home” Mar-a-Lago and his golf courses Doral, Bedminister and Trump National Washington brought in a combined $620,709,659 over the last four years. He paid a combined 399 visits to these properties as president. With the pandemic shuttering hotels and golf courses, the Trump Hotel dropped from $40 million a year in revenue to $15 million from 2020 through the end of Trump’s presidency and Doral, which saw regular revenue in the mid-$70 millions, only tallied $44 million. Mar-a-Lago, however, saw a slight uptick to $24 million, as the president continued to visit during the pandemic. The Virginia-based Trump National Washington, which the president spent many weekends at during the pandemic, did not see a dropoff from the previous three years.

Maybe the most notable foreign properties in Trump’s portfolio are his three European golf courses—Turnberry and Aberdeen in Scotland and Doonbeg in Ireland—which the famously debt-laden developer bought in surprising cash deals and which have hemorrhaged money every year he has owned them. But while the courses have lost money, Trump still disclosed $138,726,106 in revenue from them over the last four years, this despite revenue dropping by nearly two-thirds in 2020.

What remains to be seen is whether he’ll be able to keep the grift going post-presidency. Members of Congress, his administration, political supporters, special interests and foreign governments flocked to his properties in numbers never seen before. He also, over and over again, directed government spending to his properties, from his insistence on doing government business at Mar-a-Lago to Mike Pence staying at Doonbeg when he had meetings all the way on the other side of Ireland to his attempt to host the G-7 Conference at his struggling Trump National Doral property.

The argument could be made that Trump needed the presidency to keep his struggling business empire above water and the profits flowing into his pockets. The Trump Hotel in DC defied all expectations to quickly turn a profit despite charging well above most other DC hotels. People who wished to influence the president—lobbyists, politicians, foreign and state governments—paid a premium to see and be seen at the Trump Hotel, rubbing elbows with the president and his closest advisers. With Trump out of power, although threatening America with another run, it remains to be seen whether his businesses will still be seen as a new breed of corporate and foreign lobbying. In the wake of his attempted insurrection, many companies cut ties with his businesses. Only time will tell if that holds.

When Trump failed to separate himself from his businesses—and in fact used the presidency to increase his business earnings—he made it clear that his top priority was his personal profits. In that regard, the Trump administration was a ringing success.

WTF Community

More Questionable Behavior from Trump, T Admin, DOJ, and R's vs Dems, Press, Justice

The case

The board’s findings

Donald Trump’s response to social media bans is… a blog

Welcome to 2002.

The making of a myth

Russell J. Ramsland Jr. sold everything from Tex-Mex food to light-therapy

Lin Wood: Trump has secret military backchannel to authorize nuclear strikes

Republican loyal to Trump claims Capitol riot looked more like ‘normal tourist visit’

The comments by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., during a House Oversight Committee marked the latest attempt by some Republicans to revise the narrative around the deadly Capitol riot.

Trump DOJ Tried to Unmask User Behind Devin Nunes Parody Twitter Account

Secret Service fears they’re stretched too thin and the president could get shot: report