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#trump family business
drmprop · 2 years
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You can reverse fame. J. Cole
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carrickbender · 1 year
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I thought it was appropriate today.
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agrownupgeekgirl · 4 months
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andthebeanstalk · 6 months
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My sister-in-law frustrates me to no end even though we barely ever interact because she keeps inviting my partner to parties with her Christian Republican friends, even though my partner told her not to send an invite to us if those friends will be there. And even though my sister-in-law is bisexual!!
And then she turns around and complains about not knowing how to deal with her friends saying, like, horrible sexist stuff as though that is just some natural unavoidable quirk of having friends!
Like, these Christian Republicans she has befriended don't seem to be kind - they're not even nice a lot of the time! They don't make for good friends, and she doesn't seem happy or supported in relation to them. In fact, she basically only ever talks about how her friends and/or current boyfriend are making her unhappy!
Because here's the thing: The effect of prioritizing 'including your Trump-supporter friends at your parties' over 'being invested in creating a safe space for marginalized people in your home', is that people who DO care about creating those safe spaces... won't wanna hang out with you! Because if you invite both cats and mice to your table equally, only the cats will show!
She's so afraid of losing the shitty friends she has now that she allows them to act as barriers to accessing friends who are invested in her wellbeing in a capitalistic hellscape!
It makes me sad because she's basically trapped herself, and there's nothing I can do to offer help without either compromising my morals or making my partner's life way harder by starting shit with her family.
Like, I consider myself a good friend, yeah? I try really really hard to be one, and it matters to me immensely. I am ride-or-die for the folks I love, and I am invested in being open and vulnerable and radically safe to be around when it comes to building strong friendships that are mutually fulfilling. I have a unique talent for validating people that I have honed for years because I genuinely want to make sure people feel safe and loved and seen.
And if my sister-in-law and I were friends, I could give all of that to her. I would strive to be an example of what it looks like when someone decides to care about you and treat you right on purpose, without expecting anything in return but your mutual respect. She would be family. She would be [Queer] Family. I would see to it that she knew she could call on me when she needed a friend.
But like.
This asshole has invited me to hang out with Trump supporters on multiple occasions.
We ain't gonna be friends.
#original#diary#family shit#I'll just continue to act friendly at family events#my friends help make me a better person. i don't think she could say the same for hers. makes me mad and sad#reminds me of the time i had to end a friendship bc a woman i had been inviting to group events revealed to me that she was#literally friends with Kelly Ann Conway. yes the aid to the president. that Kelly Ann. and when i tell you this friend of mine did NOT#understand why her defending Kelly Ann Conway made me feel unsafe. it was WILD#that's how my sister-in-law reacted when my wife was like 'hey stop inviting my non-cis ass to parties with transphobes'#both made arguments similar to 'i already don't have many friends why do you want me to lose more??'#like girlies you can't invite me and a bunch of homophobic Christians to the same party what is fucking wrong with you??#you can goddamn bet if you came to one of my parties there wouldn't be anyone there who'd try to defend the Trump administration#loneliness is frightening and painful and no joke but cowardice is no joke either#and this attitude meant that my wife and i could not safely rely on her when we went through several crisis situations#and this is something i find difficult to forgive bc shit was touch and go over here for a couple years#my wife isn't even as salty as i am about it but she never is when the primary person harmed is herself#maybe if sister-in-law recognized the flawed behavior and changed but she probably won't tbh and i have shit to do#have fun with your fascist friends girlie i wonder if sometimes it feels more lonely than if you were alone#have fun practicing the white silence our parents got so good at; you're really carrying on the family business your dad must be so proud <#i haven't had to deal with friends saying sexist shit for literal years sorry you've made yourself unsafe to trans people i guess#making friends is hard i know that all too well. but i also know that the more friends i make who make me feel sad and small#then the less time i have for friends that make me feel loved and motivate me to be a better person. time=limited. people=over 6 billion.#school was harder because the amount of folks was more limited. same with small towns. but we are all ADULTS LIVING IN CHICAGO#capitalism makes finding friends harder too but like it has GOT to matter to you that Trans people and POC feel safe#we each have control over whether oppressed people feel safe around us. don't fucking waste that.
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darnellclayton · 2 months
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Christian Nationalism & The Seven Mountain Mandate
While watching MSNBC, Joy Reid referenced the Seven Mountain Mandate while mentioning the latest strong man obsession by the far right (around the four-minute mark). Joy Reid discussing latest strategy being proposed by Christian Nationalists by presenting Donald Trump as a “Fun Dictator.” During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny…
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maisharush · 8 months
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Trouble on the blue app
Whew. Who knew I could be so popular 😅 I recently ran an ad on Facebook and I had racists coming out of the woodwork for my neck. Don’t worry, I got receipts. One guy called me a diversity hire ” swooping in at a time when people don’t have any money”. WHO doesn’t have money? Listen, if you’re broke just say that. 😳 Another guy went on to talk about how trump was up in the polls. This concerns…
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wilwheaton · 4 months
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Boeing and its 737 are a textbook case. In October 2018 and March 2019, two crashes of an earlier version of the Max 737 killed 346 people, and grounded the planes for nearly two years. The disasters were ultimately traced to design failures in the model’s flight control software info that was not conveyed in its guidance to pilots, not to mention the Federal Aviation Administration, even though executives knew about it. Yet repercussions were almost nonexistent. A midlevel functionary charged criminally was acquitted by a jury in a matter of hours. It took the better part of a year — and two embarrassing days of congressional testimony — for Boeing to fire then-CEO Dennis Muhlenberg. The Trump administration ultimately decided to fine Boeing $2.5 billion for not informing the FAA about software changes that contributed to the fatal airline crashes, while deferring a criminal charge against the company. For Boeing, the fine effectively amounted to a business expense. The government even declared the company’s failure and misconduct “not pervasive,” a huge favor to a company facing massive lawsuits from victims’ families. Given this farcical excuse for accountability, it’s no surprise that the trouble didn’t stop for Boeing and the Max 737’s manufacturer, Spirit AeroSystems. The Lever reported Tuesday morning that a federal securities lawsuit filed last year against Spirit alleges “widespread and sustained quality failures,” including pressure on employees to downplay “defects.” And according to the Financial Times, last year Boeing itself flagged Spirit for improper installations and badly drilled holes on other 737s.
Boeing’s midair blowout is just a symptom of a much deeper rot
“For Boeing, the fine effectively amounted to a business expense.”
When I heard about this blowout on the 737, my first thought was, “this was caused by corporate greed and cutting corners, because Republicans have eviscerated accountability in corporate America.”
There is no satisfaction in learning that I am likely correct, just the grim knowledge that they’ll probably tighten some screws, but the rot at the core of the danger will be left untouched.
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sargeantposting · 4 months
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A Logan Sargeant Primer: Part I (2000 - 2015)
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Logan grows up in a ritzy suburb of Fort Lauderdale called Lighthouse Point with his parents and his older brother, Dalton.
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The Sargeants don't have a deep motorsport history. Dalton and Logan get their first go-karts for Christmas in 2006, a gift from their father after their mother refuses to let her children ride dirt bikes anymore. Logan tells the NYT that:
“No one in the family was really even that much into racing. We just picked it up as a hobby, something to do on the weekend.”
The two brothers get more serious as the years go by-- within a few years, they're racing competitively. They both do well. Logan finishes in third place in only his first year of racing, and wins two titles in his second. 
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Unfortunately, they figure out fairly quickly that there isn’t much more room to advance in American karting:
My older brother, Dalton, and I had been racing for a few years, and it had gotten to the point where we were asking around about where the next best level of competition was, and everybody was saying the same thing…. It was always Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe. To the point where my parents really started to think about it. At first it was just this idea, like Maybe we’ll move to Europe, who knows. I was just a kid overhearing stuff, so I didn’t know how serious the conversation must have been until this day I’ll never forget.
The conversation gets serious in 2012, when Logan’s dad, Daniel, asks the two if they want to move to Switzerland:
It was summer, and we were out to lunch. It was me, my dad, and Dalton. [...] So we’re at this restaurant, right? Chowing down on burgers (my favorite), and my dad gets to asking us about racing. Finally, he’s like, “What do you guys think? Do you really want to race in Europe? Are you 100% sure about this?” Me being 11 and naive, I was like, “Yeah sure.”  Looking back on it, I think I was lucky I was that young and that I didn’t really know what I was signing up for. All the different ways it could change my life, the level of sacrifice it would require from my whole family. Because if I had known, I don’t know if I would’ve made the same decision so easily. It all happened fast, like in the movies. One minute, it’s Christmas, I’m six, and me and Dalton are yelling at the top of our lungs, excited about the two karts sitting in the driveway, pointed diagonally at each other like in a magazine. Next minute, I’m 11 and Dalton’s 14. We’re sitting at the table eating lunch with my dad, and it’s decided — our family’s moving to Europe.
When Logan tells the same story in GQ in 2023, he says:
I was always just going with the flow. For me it was just: sure.
The Sergeant family leaves for Switzerland just as Logan finishes up fifth grade. While Logan always talks about the family move to Switzerland in the context of his parents making sacrifices for his career, it's a little more complicated than that.
 GQ’s profile steps around the subject, briefly mentioning that “in addition to the racing opportunities, [Logan’s] Dad had business there.” Unfortunately, business would be an understatement. 
At the time, Logan’s dad, Daniel, worked for the family business– an asphalt trading and shipping company named Sergeant Marine. One of the driving forces behind Sergeant Marine’s success would be Daniel’s older brother, Harry. 
When Logan’s detractors mention his family’s connections to Trump, they’re usually referencing Harry. The NYT describes his billionaire uncle as “a former [Top Gun] fighter pilot and onetime finance chair of Florida’s Republican Party who has been sued by the brother-in-law of King Abdullah II of Jordan and whose name turned up, tangentially, in the 2020 impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump. (Harry was not accused of any wrongdoing.)” 
Harry would leave the company around the time Daniel moved his family to Switzerland. According to The Florida Phoenix, “The entire family was embroiled in a long-running bitter series of lawsuits that ended with a 2015 bankruptcy settlement. Harry III walked away with a cool $56-million. In return he gave up any claim to ownership of Sargeant Marine and other family companies. There were 14 different lawsuits in several states in addition to the bankruptcy. The lawsuits produced salacious testimony that could only arise in a vicious dispute between millionaires. Harry III accused his brother Daniel of spending millions on his sons’ pursuits of race car driving and other ventures. Meanwhile, Daniel accused Sargeant III of being a spendthrift on things such as a $7.5-million mansion, private jets and exotic cars.”
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Logan with his dad.
It would, somehow, get worse:
Oil and asphalt mogul Harry Sargeant III claims that industrial design plans along with recordings of "private consensual relations" were purloined from his private email account and traded off to a corporate intelligence agent as part of a years-long smear campaign against him spearheaded by his brother. Reigniting a long-running saga of brother-against-brother litigation, Harry Sargeant III claims that hundreds of pages of business records, personal discussions and "extremely sensitive videos and photographs" were illegally obtained from his email account. The material was used as currency for information-bartering between his brother Daniel Sargeant and a corporate intelligence chief at the nonparty legal service firm Burford, the lawsuit alleges. Harry is demanding damages for alleged invasion of privacy on the part of Daniel. The brothers had in years past worked together on managing the Sargeant family's global oil and asphalt empire, before intra-family disputes began to tear them apart. [...] The lawsuit claims the Burford investigator, a former corporate attorney, knows Harry well. According to the court documents, the investigator for years worked as an enforcement agent on a $28 million judgment secured against Harry by the king of Jordan's brother-in-law Mohammad Al-Saleh, who accused Harry of cutting him out of a deal to distribute oil to troops in the Iraq War. [...] Harry claims brother Daniel gave the corporate intelligence agent the treasure trove of Harry's emails  in exchange for inside information that would help the Sargeant family's asphalt company Latin American Investments in a separate multimillion-dollar legal dispute. Harry's underlying email account ran on a server of the family company Sargeant Marine. When he was ousted from the Sargeant empire, Harry had been told that the account was cut off at the root and all information in it had been destroyed, the lawsuit says. The lifted emails were instead provided to an "untold number of people" inside and outside of the family businesses in 2016, the lawsuit claims.
The information that Daniel traded his brother’s sex tape for would end up being useless. Daniel is currently out a $5 million bond and awaiting sentencing for the foreign bribery and money laundering charges he pled guilty to back in 2019. After bribing officials in three South American countries to secure asphalt contracts, the Department of Justice ended up making an example of the company– and Daniel– for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 
While Logan cites his career as a big reason for the family move, it appears that Sargeant Marine had conveniently made shell companies in Switzerland to aid in their illegal business dealings that same year.
Logan, blissfully unaware of any drama, tries to make the most of the big move. They move to Lugano, Switzerland– Dalton and Logan go to the American School on weekdays and race on the weekends in the European junior circuit, bouncing them between Italy, Switzerland and Britain. In GQ, Logan says:
“I definitely felt like school was a lot more challenging than in Florida,” he recalled. “And we were missing a lot of school, for sure, but that’s part of it with racing. It is what it is.”
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Logan loves Switzerland. In his Players’ Tribune article, he says:
We moved into a three-bedroom apartment. It was me, my parents, Dalton, and our dog Roxy, the world traveler. Big difference from Florida. We had a whole new life. I loved Switzerland. I had a lot of good friends at my school there. I can’t explain it, but I just felt more a part of things. Me and my friends were big Chelsea fans, and we’d be hanging out, playing soccer all the time. We played Call of Duty like every other kid in the world.
However… Logan is the only one. Daniel is out doing shady asphalt deals around the world and suing his brother. Dalton moves back to Florida after a year-and-a-half. Their mother follows soon after that. Logan ends up living alone at the school: 
Dalton was my older brother, so for as far back as I can remember, I was chasing him. Man, we fought all the time. Every race, we were up against all these other kids, but he was always the one I was really trying to beat. But the thing is, when you’re a kid you miss things. You just can’t see everything so clearly. Like, for instance, being a bit older than me, I think he felt the shift more strongly when we moved, but I didn’t know it. He stayed in Switzerland for a year and a half, did some European karting, and started testing Formula cars. Then one day he just decided he wanted to go home and race in America. I won’t lie, that was a shock at the time. But I get it more now. Making that big life change was hard on my mom, too. Just think, you’re living in this brand new place, don’t have many friends. Me and Dalton were at school all day. My dad was traveling all over the place with work, so he was hardly there. The reality is, she was on her own a lot. So she ended up going back to Florida, too. For about a year and a half after that, it was just me. I was living at the school during that time.
When talking about how his mom moved back to Florida while Logan was living alone in Europe as a teenager, he told the Players’ Tribune that:
Looking back on everything, I just see all the sacrifices they made, and it means so much. No matter what they were going through, my family always pushed me to keep going. I feel like that was probably the hardest for my mom, especially. She means the world to me. She’s a bit of a worrier too, and overthinks. I think I get that from her. She’s always been the person I could go to when I was doubting myself. So I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to encourage me to keep going, when I know she probably wanted our family to be together. I’m really grateful, not only that they believed in me that much, to move our entire family, but that they took my passion for driving seriously enough not to let me give it all up.
While Logan’s personal life may be troubled, his karting career is doing exceptionally well. In 2014, he wins the prestigious SuperNats18 in Vegas:
Infinity Sports Management, Facebook - SARGEANT DOMINATES IN LAS VEGAS. Logan Sargeant produced a stunning display last weekend in the TAG Junior category at the Supernationals race in Las Vegas. After finishing runner up in the race in 2013 Logan was eager to go one better this year and bring home the winners trophy. Although Logan got pipped in qualifying he still managed to win every heat ensuring he would start from pole position for the final on Sunday. From there he kept the lead and came home 5.6 seconds clear of the second driver. With this win in TAG Junior Logan become the first driver ever to win the TAG Cadet and TAG Junior categories at the Supernationals race.
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2015 manages to be even more exceptional. Logan starts the season by being the first North American driver to win a WSK event by winning the WSK Champions Cup in La Conca, Italy.
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Logan with his mother after winning the WSK Champions Cup.
The season reaches its peak with Logan becomes the first American to win an FIA Karting World Championship, the top junior series, since Lake Speed in 1978.
He gets to go to the FIA Awards:
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Logan: And I couldn’t thank my mechanic enough. And also my parents, uh, they really helped me to be able to win the world championship and it’s just an amazing feeling. Interviewer: I mean, did you, did you, what did you do when you found out you won? Did you call your friends at home? Did you phone your grandpa? What did you get up to? Logan: Uh, no, I just gave my mom and dad a really big hug. Interviewer: Is it still sinking in now? Logan: Yeah, it’s, it’s a really emotional thing. [...] Interviewer: Tell me about when you were a little bit younger than you are now. You’re only 14 now. But why racing, why, why is this so important to you? Logan: Um, well, my dad bought me a, a racing kart when I was five years old and we started from there. We thought it would just be like a little hobby and, uh, it ended up becoming like a professional thing we did. So. Interviewer: So, so was there a moment when you, when you or your dad just thought ‘Wow, I’m quick. I can do this’? Logan: Um, well, not really. We just kept progressing and then, um, when we, when we decided to come to Europe to race, um, we moved to Switzerland and from then on we were just, uh, going to school, I started going to school in Switzerland. And, yeah, and then we just kept going and then ended up like this. Interviewer: Do you have any other hobbies? Can you fit anything else in? Logan: Um, well, other than school it’s really hard. But when I get my breaks and I go back to Florida for, um, I like to go fishing a lot and, yeah, that’s what I do. Mostly. 
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When interviewed after his win, Logan tells kart360 that:
Moving away from home is a very hard thing in your own personal life. You lose all of your best friends. You don’t have your "home" and you have to adapt to a different culture. It is hard to move to a country that speaks a different language than what you know, but racing is so important to me that I stuck through it and kept on going.
Logan clearly struggles on a personal level. He discusses his feelings in his Players’ Tribune article, saying: 
Coming up racing as a kid isn’t easy. That’s the most honest way I can put it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to myself, I’m done. I’m ready to come home. I’m glad I didn’t, but there were plenty of times when I wanted to. I remember one big time was the summer right after Dalton went back. We took this trip to the Bahamas with some of our extended family and friends. We were on the water, and everything was feeling like old times. And I think I just had this pit in the bottom of my stomach, like dreading going back. There was a night when I went to my mom, and I was like, “I’m just ready to come home.” I remember her asking me more questions about what I was feeling. I don’t even remember what I said, to be honest. I just remember that she didn’t tell me what to do. She left it completely up to me. My dad used to always say, “If you put in the work now, it’ll pay off eventually — it’ll be worth it.” And he kind of reminded me of that on that trip too. It’ll be worth it. Those four little words … that’s what kept me going. After that I sucked it up, went back to Switzerland, put my head down, and I went for it."
When Logan makes the jump to single seaters the next year, his parents rent him an apartment to live in by himself in London. The only time he’ll spend more than a few weeks in the US since he was a 12-year old would be during COVID.
But Logan’s time in single seaters will be for the next installment.
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Logan through the years.
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misstycloud · 1 year
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Yandere omega x reader. Pt 2
TW: baby-trapping, non-con
Pt. 1
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Yandere omega who freaks out at the news of your recent engagement. This wasn’t supposed to happen! The stress keeps him from sleeping at night and makes him unfocused at work, so much that the boss has no other choice but to send him home to rest. They can’t have their most valuable asset either away, can they?
Yandere omega that believes that if he could rekindle your passion for him, maybe you’d break off the betrothal and come back to him. So he decides to rush to your home and ring the doorbell until you finally open.
Yandere omega who begs to let him in. It won’t be more than five minutes, he promises. He just needs to get some of his clothes that he forgot last time. Albeit reluctantly, you accept his excuse and allow him to wander inside, as you had done so many times before. But those were under different circumstances.
Previous to your arranged marriage, you were free to some degree. With a large amount of wealth and charm, you were able to get anyone you wanted. There were hardly someone who would pass the opportunity to spend some good time with you.
To maintain this life, the only thing you had to do was work and that you did. You had to say you did a great job in your family’s company, creating hit business deals and increasing the finances.
But it appeared your family would not be satisfied solely with that. That was why you have to marry some guy; to secure an heir to the corporation, as your parents would put it. Your mother was also rather intrigued by the idea of grandchildren as well.
Yandere omega sneaks into the bathroom to prepare by switching his casual outfit to a more eye-catching one. He even styled his hair slightly, hoping you’d pull on it like before.
Yandere omega who thought he could win back your affection, however, it appeared fate had other plans. The second you see him walking out the restroom wearing what he knew you’d have like him in had it been the past, you growled.
“Fuck, I should’ve known you’d pull shit like this.” You had to admit he did look very appetising. Though you were engaged now, which meant you couldn’t immerse in such activities anymore.
“Why the long face? You didn’t object before?” The beautiful omega whispered seductively.
“Yeah but- ugh- look, just go.” Pointing at the entrance, you ushered him to leave.
“I’d rather stay here though, with you.” He ignored your warning and continued advancing forwards into your arms, then he laid his head against your chest and dragged his nimble fingers across it.
“Milo, I said!-aah!” Quickly you slapped a hand over your mouth and nose, for something sickenly sweet and familiar filled your senses. “N-no stop…”
Milo smiled, showing delight at your troubled expression. “Ah, I knew you couldn’t resist me. No need to hold back.”
You wanted to push him back and create as much distance between you as possible, but it was getting hard when the young man in front of you looked so enticing. No, you must not give in.
“I- ahh~“you were forced to stop in your tracks because his hands had started wandering lower and lower, teasing you. “Shit…”
Yandere omega who had decided to use his trump card. No one could refuse his pheromones and that includes you. Milo hadn’t used that trick to intentionally seduce anyone before, so he wasn’t actually sure if it would work. Turns out luck was in his favour, even he was a bit surprised at how fast you yielded.
Yandere omega who is sooo happy he can be together with you again, and he is not meaning only for one last time until you finalise your vows or anything. Why is he so confident? Well, let’s just say he has a plan B to make you unable to leave.
Yandere omega that wonders how you would feel about having that son you always dreamed of.
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liberalsarecool · 2 months
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The only idea the GOP has it to reprioritize whiteness in the image of Trump: rape is OK, not paying your taxes is OK, treating your wife like shit is OK, burying your ex at a golf tee is OK, cheating is OK, betrayal is OK, putting your family in RNC/White House positions is OK, running your business by fraud is OK, lying about elections is OK, committing espionage is OK.
But only if you are a racist white man.
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mariacallous · 9 months
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For Sander van der Linden, misinformation is personal.
As a child in the Netherlands, the University of Cambridge social psychologist discovered that almost all of his mother’s family had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War. He became absorbed by the question of how so many people came to support the ideas of someone like Adolf Hitler, and how they might be taught to resist such influence.
While studying psychology at graduate school in the mid-2010s, van der Linden came across the work of American researcher William McGuire. In the 1960s, stories of brainwashed prisoners-of-war during the Korean War had captured the zeitgeist, and McGuire developed a theory of how such indoctrination might be prevented. He wondered whether exposing soldiers to a weaker form of propaganda might have equipped them to fight off a full attack once they’d been captured. In the same way that army drills prepared them for combat, a pre-exposure to an attack on their beliefs could have prepared them against mind control. It would work, McGuire argued, as a cognitive immunizing agent against propaganda—a vaccine against brainwashing.
Traditional vaccines protect us by feeding us a weaker dose of pathogen, enabling our bodies’ immune defenses to take note of its appearance so we’re better equipped to fight the real thing when we encounter it. A psychological vaccine works much the same way: Give the brain a weakened hit of a misinformation-shaped virus, and the next time it encounters it in fully-fledged form, its “mental antibodies” remember it and can launch a defense.
Van der Linden wanted to build on McGuire’s theories and test the idea of psychological inoculation in the real world. His first study looked at how to combat climate change misinformation. At the time, a bogus petition was circulating on Facebook claiming there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to conclude that global warming was human-made, and boasting the signatures of 30,000 American scientists (on closer inspection, fake signatories included Geri Halliwell and the cast of M*A*S*H). Van der Linden and his team took a group of participants and warned them that there were politically motivated actors trying to deceive them—the phony petition in this case. Then they gave them a detailed takedown of the claims of the petition; they pointed out, for example, Geri Halliwell’s appearance on the list. When the participants were later exposed to the petition, van der Linden and his group found that people knew not to believe it.
The approach hinges on the idea that by the time we’ve been exposed to misinformation, it’s too late for debunking and fact-checking to have any meaningful effect, so you have to prepare people in advance—what van der Linden calls “prebunking.” An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
When he published the findings in 2016, van der Linden hadn’t anticipated that his work would be landing in the era of Donald Trump’s election, fake news, and post-truth; attention on his research from the media and governments exploded. Everyone wanted to know, how do you scale this up?
Van der Linden worked with game developers to create an online choose-your-own-adventure game called Bad News, where players can try their hand at writing and spreading misinformation. Much like a broadly protective vaccine, if you show people the tactics used to spread fake news, it fortifies their inbuilt bullshit detectors.
But social media companies were still hesitant to get on board; correcting misinformation and being the arbiters of truth is not part of their core business model. Then people in China started getting sick with a mysterious flulike illness.
The coronavirus pandemic propelled the threat of misinformation to dizzying new heights. Van der Linden began working with the British government and bodies like the World Health Organization and the United Nations to create a more streamlined version of the game specifically revolving around Covid, which they called GoViral! They created more versions, including one for the 2020 US presidential election, and another to prevent extremist recruitment in the Middle East. Slowly, Silicon Valley came around.
A collaboration with Google has resulted in a campaign on YouTube in which the platform plays clips in the ad section before the video starts, warning viewers about misinformation tropes like scapegoating and false dichotomies and drawing examples from Family Guy and Star Wars. A study with 20,000 participants found that people who viewed the ads were better able to spot manipulation tactics; the feature is now being rolled out to hundreds of millions of people in Europe.
Van der Linden understands that working with social media companies, who have historically been reluctant to censor disinformation, is a double-edged sword. But, at the same time, they’re the de facto guardians of the online flow of information, he says, “and so if we’re going to scale the solution, we need their cooperation.” (A downside is that they often work in unpredictable ways. Elon Musk fired the entire team who was working on pre-bunking at Twitter when he became CEO, for instance.)
This year, van der Linden wrote a book on his research, titled Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity. Ultimately, he hopes this isn’t a tool that stays under the thumb of third-party companies; his dream is for people to inoculate one another. It could go like this: You see a false narrative gaining traction on social media, you then warn your parents or your neighbor about it, and they’ll be pre-bunked when they encounter it. “This should be a tool that’s for the people, by the people,” van der Linden says.
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simply-ivanka · 2 months
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DEMOCRATS HAVE TRIED MOST EVERYTHING TO GET TRUMP OUT OF POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, THE RACE FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT AND THE WHITE HOUSE.
They did not care if they destroyed Trump as a person, a US citizen, destroyed his business, his family and friends, his political associates, his children. Democrats used mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, New York Times, countless magazines (Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair and so on), social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, to name a few) to shut down dissent, to shut down the Trump political wave and they did this for the Democrats. They corrupted our sources of information to further their agenda.
Think about this, hard. If Democrats will do this to someone who stood up to them and their agenda, think about what they are doing and will do to us US citizens.
Please Repost Every Single Time
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Trump has withstood the worst of the worst. No one, not one public person would have stood up to the continuing abuse of executive, judicial and government authority the way Trump has. Criminal indictments, baseless civil suits, changing laws to suit Democrats, judges favoring Democrats against Trump, the continued imprisonment of the J6 defendants.
How can any of us want a Democrat to represent us, the United States in the White House? How can any of us want a Democrat to represent us in Congress? If you do, you must be nuts, you must not care about anything but yourself. Destroying our way of life, our traditions and principles for this rising tide of "everything that is wrong with the world" is obscene.
It's now or never. Trump or America gets flushed. Simple as that.
Get rid of all Democrats. Local, State, Federal. Throw all of them out. Include the RINOS. Mitt Romney, Linsey Graham, McConnell, and the others.
Clean slate!!
Let us help ourselves. Let us help Trump get back into the White House. He will get the job done. He will make us proud. He has our backs. Let's have his.
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stupittmoran · 5 months
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Top 10 headlines the media didn't tell you this week, Repost & FoIIow for more.
DeSantis vs Newsom debate turns into a sh*tshow as the Florida governor calls out San Francisco's human feces problem.
Elon Musk interview goes viral, causing mass cancelations of Disney Plus and other services.
Texas is suing Pfizer for misrepresenting COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and conspiring to censor the public.
KC Chief's fans plan to attend next game with black and red face paint after the media accused a child fan of racism.
Former official has been indicted on three grand jury charges for altering 2020 election results.
Reports of "White Lung" pneumonia affecting mostly children in China has been found in Massachusetts & Ohio.
BLM Leader endorses Trump for President in 2024, accuses democrats of racist policies.
CTIL files reveal how the government conspired to censor citizens and alter the 2020 election.
Joe Rogan says anyone who tells him to 'trust the experts' can suck his d*ck, Covid taught him that the so-called experts are bought and paid for.
James O'Keefe releases bombshell undercover report exposing China's operation of a biolab in California.
How many more Chinese biolabs are there in the United States?
BONUS: Speaker Johnson ramps up Biden impeachment, stating Biden has lied at least 16 times about his involvement in his family's business schemes.
If you appreciate this Top 10 recap, remember to Repost and FoIIow me for another week in a clown world 🤡🌎
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