The All-Purpose Political Thread

[Svengoolie 3]

And here's more good news for people tired of bad news.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/social-worker-left-surprise-dollar11m-to-childrens-charities/ar-BBRwcpZ?OCID=ansmsnnews11

[Pacman000]

And from a good story to a controversial one.

Apparently everything really is political now, even Rudolph:

https://www.avclub.com/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-rudolph-the-red-nosed-rein-1821393418 

[Allhallowsday]

Apprentice Producers Struggled to Make Trump—and His Decisions—Seem Coherent 

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/mark-burnett-profile-in-the-new-yorker-apprentice-producers-struggled-to-make-trump-and-his-decisions-seem-coherent.html 


Television producer Mark Burnett was a key part in making President Donald Trump possible. When he approached the now-president to host the Apprentice, Trump was a mogul on the decline. But Burnett, and the popular reality show, turned him into a household name that was synonymous with success. The New Yorker talked to several people involved in the show for a profile on Burnett that has several interesting revelations about how producers worked to make Trump seem bigger than he was.

"He had just gone through I don't know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king." Bill Pruitt, a producer on the show, said, "We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise."   

Although Trump immediately proved himself to be an ideal character for reality television, producers had to do a lot of editing work to make him seem coherent. "He wouldn't read a script — he stumbled over the words and got the enunciation all wrong," Katherine Walker, a producer on the show, said. "But off the cuff he delivered the kind of zesty banter that is the lifeblood of reality television." Although editors "cleaned it up so that he was his best self," Walker is convinced "Donald thinks that he was never edited."   



continued...

[Svengoolie 3]

And from a good story to a controversial one.

Apparently everything really is political now, even Rudolph:

https://www.avclub.com/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-rudolph-the-red-nosed-rein-1821393418 

What if we just ignore things like this to death?

[Pacman000]

Not a bad idea.

[Rev. Powell]

With stories like the Rudolph one, the problem is you only need like a couple hundred idiots on social media to cause a viral sensation and consequent outrage. Even though millions and millions of people think it's a stupid argument.

[Svengoolie 3]

Not a bad idea.

Pacman remind me to karma you when I can do it again in 6 hours.

[indianasmith]

That's like the fake rumor that Christians everywhere were outraged by the change in design on the Starbucks cups a couple of years ago.
I'm regularly plugged into churches, I teach at a Christian school, and I have hundred of Christian contacts in my social media.  The vast majority of them were either unaware the cups had changed or else simply didn't care.  I don't think I met a single actual person who was personally offended by the new cup design, and only a handful that copied and pasted the original meme someone made about it.

Fake controversy all the way around.

[Pacman000]

http://www.platypuscomix.net/educational/stoplikingthings.html

Satirical article, arguing against all entertainment.

[Alex]

Spent most of the last three weeks avoiding the news. I wonder what will await me on Tuesday when I start to catch up on current events.

[ER]

Spent most of the last three weeks avoiding the news. I wonder what will await me on Tuesday when I start to catch up on current events.

Let me catch you up. About two and a half weeks ago they found Bigfoot and Amelia Earheart hanging with Andy Kaufman, who was pretending to be Kanye West all these years. It was a big news week.

[Alex]

Who is Andy Kaufman?

[316zombie]

tony clifton's alter ego.

[ER]

tony clifton's alter ego.

LOLOL

[Allhallowsday]

The biggest bombshells from Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress


https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-biggest-bombshells-from-michael-cohens-testimony-before-congress-224614574.html  

...
Hush money reimbursements from Trump

In his opening statement and throughout his testimony, Cohen made clear that hush money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal came at the direction of Trump himself.

"Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign," Cohen testified, adding, "I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on Aug. 1, 2017 — when he was president of the United States — pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me — the word used by Mr. Trump's TV lawyer — for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf. This $35,000 check was one of 11 check installments that was paid throughout the year — while he was president."

Furthermore, Cohen testified that a year after being elected president Trump told Cohen to mislead the public about his knowledge of the payments.

Why it matters: Cohen is going to jail over the payments to Daniels and McDougal. If Trump told him to make those payments, he's guilty, too...  

...
Trump may have known about his son's meeting with Russians

For years, President Trump has insisted that he knew nothing of his son Don Jr.'s June 9, 2016, meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer in order to obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

In his prepared statement, Cohen implied that Trump had advance knowledge of the meeting, and approved of it.

"I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father's desk — which itself was unusual," Cohen said in his statement. "People don't just walk behind Mr. Trump's desk to talk to him. I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: 'The meeting is all set.' I remember Mr. Trump saying, 'OK, good ... let me know."

Why it matters: Meeting with a foreign national to solicit help in a U.S. election is a violation of U.S. law.