I went into DC yesterday to pay my respect, look over the half masts, and scope the razor wire, but fully did not expect to see this.
They gotta convict this POS.
They won't.
Blue Lives don't matter, it was all a bunch of racist bullshit and the GOP will confirm this when they acquit.
Does the FBI know who killed Officer Sicknick?
I'm pretty sure they don't know who landed the blows, but had our former president upheld his oath of office and told the truth about the election, Officer Sicknick would still be alive.
If there are no consequences for what Trump did, it will only happen again.
Spoiler: There won't be, and it will.
0
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,798
I went into DC yesterday to pay my respect, look over the half masts, and scope the razor wire, but fully did not expect to see this.
They gotta convict this POS.
They won't.
Blue Lives don't matter, it was all a bunch of racist bullshit and the GOP will confirm this when they acquit.
Does the FBI know who killed Officer Sicknick?
I'm pretty sure they don't know who landed the blows, but had our former president upheld his oath of office and told the truth about the election, Officer Sicknick would still be alive.
If there are no consequences for what Trump did, it will only happen again.
Spoiler: There won't be, and it will.
pretty sure they arrested the guy with the extinguisher. fbi plastered his picture.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Why wouldn’t anyone acquitted of a crime not go that legal route and claim defamation afterwards?
Reason for asking is that people really believed that there was evidence of voter fraud so that is why they ran with it. Same goes for being committed of a crime. There was evidence there but can you claim libel after acquittal? The people accusing were obviously wrong.
Why wouldn’t anyone acquitted of a crime not go that legal route and claim defamation afterwards?
Reason for asking is that people really believed that there was evidence of voter fraud so that is why they ran with it. Same goes for being committed of a crime. There was evidence there but can you claim libel after acquittal? The people accusing were obviously wrong.
Curious.
As I understand it, defamation lawsuits are notoriously difficult to win. Not only does it have to be proven that the defendant lied, but that they did so with malicious intent.
If the local news runs a story about someone getting arrested & accused of murder who eventually gets acquitted, that isn't a malicious lie, they're just reporting the news. I had a friend back in the day who's father, a high school principal was arrested for DUI. The local paper reported it, he sued for libel, and lost. Their reporting wasn't untrue, nor was it malicious. He was arrested and charged with DUI. The results of the court case were irrelevant to his lawsuit, the newspaper did nothing wrong.
If Newsmax / Fox etc simply reported on the fact that people believed the election was stolen that would have been fine. Even if they reported rumors about the machines being faulty, I don't know that would fall under libel either had they clarified that they were reporting rumors (this paragraph is pure speculation).
I am not familiar with the specifics about the right wing media reporting on Dominion, but I do know this: Newsmax seems scared shitless, so I infer that Dominion's lawsuit is no joke and there's something there.
Someone who knows law better than I, please feel free to correct or clarify as needed.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,798
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Did someone tell Marge that Patriots.Win was contacted by the media and that they cancelled themselves by refusing an interview request? Which is it? Cancel culture or self censorship? Or an alternate reality given the day of the week and the topic de jour?
TheDonald’s owner speaks out on why he finally pulled plug on hate-filled site
The Army veteran, a site moderator who owned its domain, watched with growing alarm as racism, threats and QAnon references flourished on the pro-Trump site. His former co-moderators called him a ‘sellout’ who went ‘rogue’ after internal schism.
Jody Williams knew things had gotten out of hand early last month, when a post on the pro-Trump message board TheDonald included a detailed diagram of how to tie a “hangman’s knot” on a noose.
Williams was a moderator for the board and owner of its Web address, so he removed the noose instructions. But within an hour, he said, another moderator quietly restored it near the top of the site. Three days later, on Jan. 6, a real noose was hung on makeshift gallows on the National Mall, amid a violent siege on the U.S. Capitol.
The battle over the noose diagramwas just one of many over a site so infested with racist, anti-Semitic and violent content that Williams, 41, an Army veteran who lost a leg in a noncombat accident, oftenrecoiled at what his fellow Trump supporters said and did.
“You might be happy being some ethno-nationalist, but I’m not,” said Williams, recalling his exchanges with a handful of particularly hardcoremoderators. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”
The story of TheDonald, a furiously pro-Trump forum that became an online staging ground for the Capitol assault, is a cautionary tale about the Internet’s dark side. What began on Reddit as an online political rally for an upstart presidential candidate turned increasingly foul as Williams fought — and often lost — against what he said were “nefarious forces” determined to advance the most extreme ideologies, including white supremacy.
Williams — who controlled the Web address where the forum moved after Reddit expelled it last year — finally took decisive action on Jan. 21, two weeks after the Capitol assault, after waking to news that a group of other moderators had started their own site and used it to attack him. Soon, Williams used his power as the Web address owner to knock TheDonald offline.
Then he defended himself publicly against his former compatriots,who had criticized him as a “rogue” and a selfish coward.Williams, who lives in Texas and has three young children, also endured death threats, online harassment and FBI questioning, he said.
Moderators at Patriots.win, where some of TheDonald community moved after it went dark, did not respond to requests for comment this week. On their new spinoff site, they have labeled Williams a “sellout” who “betrayed the community … [of] hundreds of thousands of loyal patriots.”
The schism that fracturedTheDonald offers a potent symbol of the increasingly tense battles over free speech and extremism on the Web. Online communities that frame themselves as refuges for free expression often find themselves pulled to the fringes, forcing members to either confront the shift or tolerate increasingly radical ideas.
Such dynamics have played out on Facebook and other mainstream social media sites, but they have been supercharged on niche forums such as Gab, 8kun, Parler and TheDonald, which promoted themselves as free-speech zones but ended up trafficking in the worst of the Web.
TheDonald, which Williams said generated more than a million visits a day in December, was perhaps the most popular pro-Trump stand-alone site, and it offered his supporters a gleefully uninhibited forum where followers could laugh about conservative memes and troll liberals without worrying about the content-moderation rules of mainstream social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
But as Jan. 6 approached, online discussions of potential violence alarmed FBI officials, especially on TheDonald, according to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. Some of the violent and incendiary comments posted on the site were quoted in an internal FBI report issued a day before the riot, though the report, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, does not mention TheDonald by name, these people said.
One of the comments cited in the FBI memo declared Trump supporters should go to Washington and get “violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.”
Some of those watching TheDonald from afar argue that if the site had grown so obviously repugnant, Williams should have acted sooner — before the FBI came calling, before the site’s domain registrar demanded it be cleaned up, before TheDonald played a role in instigating an attack that left four rioters and a police officer dead and the seat of American democracy ransacked.
Whether or not Williams condones racism and anti-Semitism is irrelevant. His site helped incite and facilitate one of the most egregious assaults on American democracy,” said Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism. “He doesn’t get to pretend he wasn’t part of the problem.”
In response to such critiques, Williams said he wanted Trump to win and stay in the White House. He didn’t want to destroy something he had spent so long growing. He didn’t think, until the very end, that it was necessarily his call whether to blow it all up. He thought his actions as a moderator, part of a team that removed 3,500 problematic posts and comments on an average day, helped keep the worst stuff at bay — while also helping Trump.
“Did I compromise some of my principles to do so? Without a doubt,” Williams acknowledged. “Sometimes you swallow pills you don’t like to get things done. That’s the world we live in. … That’s politics.”
However observers come down on how Williams handled the situation, he has troubling things to report from the front lines of the Internet.
Williams saw, up close, the QAnon extremist ideology, Holocaust denial and unalloyed racism. He witnessed repellent people spreading images of child sexual exploitation, flooding an affiliated image board so thoroughly that it had to be shut down.
And then, perhaps most unnervingly for Williams, he watched terrifyingly extreme online actors playing a very long game of grooming, seeking to recruit the disaffected to their causes.
“They’re like any far-flung terrorist group,” Williams said. “They think they’re going to win eventually, and they just need to slowly drive a wedge in there.”
Still a fan of Trump’s policies
Williams is no liberal, nor even a moderate.
In since-deleted tweets, he said that Democratic “communists” were screaming “for war,” and he defended a post on TheDonald showing a box of bullets as a response to the “rigged ballot box.” Days before Jan. 6, Williams tweeted that Trump supporters going to D.C. should “siege the corrupt Federal Apparatus that seeks to chain you all up,” including the hashtag “#DCMustFall.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,798
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
By tradition, outgoing American presidents leave handwritten letters to their successors, in an envelope in the Resolute Desk. These have always been gracious, encouraging, and even conciliatory, especially when the new president defeated the old one. George H.W. Bush’s letter to Bill Clinton, after a particularly contentious campaign, was moving: “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
Donald Trump had indicated he would not leave a note for Joe Biden, but as I write this, just before the inauguration, the White House reveals that he did. They did not disclose what it said. I think I know. Others might speculate on this, but only I can truly channel Trump, since only I possess the requisite degree of infantilism:
“Dear Sleepy Joe, Crazy Joe, Quid Pro Joe, Joe Hidin’, Joe Blow, Joey Baloney, Joseph Corrosive, Skinny Joe Pipsqueak, Jojo Rabbit Poop, Joey Hairplugs, Squinty Joe, Joe the Dumber, Dela-Where-The-Heck Am-I Joe, Ernesto ‘Joe’ Guevara, Joe Zedong, Joe Bidet, Kamala Harris Jr., Joey No-Cojone, Mr. Pale Fail, The Schmoozer Loser, Metamucil Joe, Twenty-Fifth Joemendment, The Senile Implant, Four-Toed-Cane Joey, Coma Joe, Joe Feeb, Joe Dillweed, Hairsniff S. Truman, Joe Doodyhead, Joe Dork, Mister Doctor Jill Biden, Joe Yellow Dentures, Clueless Joe Jackson:
“Congradulations. Melania said I had to right this letter myself in my own handwritting and I have to be nice even though this is the GREATEST FRUD in the History of Human Elections. You are BAD.
“Melania said I have to say you are ‘good,’ but I won’t capitolize it, so you be the judge of what I think. Also I forgot some nicknames up above. You are also Joe JustBidenTimeTillTrumpReturns. And Joe Mama So Fat. You are a FAKE PRESIDENT, and everyone knows it. Suitcases full of ballots, polling places swarmed by ZOMBIES and ghosts, ballots mailed in from Kenya by Obama, people voting 12 times in different costumes with fake noses, believe me the most UNFAIR AND CORRUPT election EVER! I won by 220 million votes, MINNIMUM.
“Okay, Melania says to calm down and she will hand-write the next paragraph. So here she goes:
“Bill, your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
“Okay, I am back and have calmed down. I don’t want to make this all negative so let me just say in the noble tradition of former Republican presidents who won but got the election stolen from them by Democraps I want to say sincerely that I wish you good luck, which you will really need because your brain rot is so BAD you can SMELL it coming from your ears and you will BE SO NAMBYPAMBY you will put everyone on WELFAIR even Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos who owns the failing Washington Post and the failing Canada.
“Okay, that’s about it. You may have noticed certain problems with your ‘transition’ including that some pens smell funny. Don’t worry about it. I definately did not do anything bad with them, and also your bed. I definitely did not hire any professionals to do anything on them.
“In closing let me note that my signature is bigger than your signature.”
By tradition, outgoing American presidents leave handwritten letters to their successors, in an envelope in the Resolute Desk. These have always been gracious, encouraging, and even conciliatory, especially when the new president defeated the old one. George H.W. Bush’s letter to Bill Clinton, after a particularly contentious campaign, was moving: “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
Donald Trump had indicated he would not leave a note for Joe Biden, but as I write this, just before the inauguration, the White House reveals that he did. They did not disclose what it said. I think I know. Others might speculate on this, but only I can truly channel Trump, since only I possess the requisite degree of infantilism:
“Dear Sleepy Joe, Crazy Joe, Quid Pro Joe, Joe Hidin’, Joe Blow, Joey Baloney, Joseph Corrosive, Skinny Joe Pipsqueak, Jojo Rabbit Poop, Joey Hairplugs, Squinty Joe, Joe the Dumber, Dela-Where-The-Heck Am-I Joe, Ernesto ‘Joe’ Guevara, Joe Zedong, Joe Bidet, Kamala Harris Jr., Joey No-Cojone, Mr. Pale Fail, The Schmoozer Loser, Metamucil Joe, Twenty-Fifth Joemendment, The Senile Implant, Four-Toed-Cane Joey, Coma Joe, Joe Feeb, Joe Dillweed, Hairsniff S. Truman, Joe Doodyhead, Joe Dork, Mister Doctor Jill Biden, Joe Yellow Dentures, Clueless Joe Jackson:
“Congradulations. Melania said I had to right this letter myself in my own handwritting and I have to be nice even though this is the GREATEST FRUD in the History of Human Elections. You are BAD.
“Melania said I have to say you are ‘good,’ but I won’t capitolize it, so you be the judge of what I think. Also I forgot some nicknames up above. You are also Joe JustBidenTimeTillTrumpReturns. And Joe Mama So Fat. You are a FAKE PRESIDENT, and everyone knows it. Suitcases full of ballots, polling places swarmed by ZOMBIES and ghosts, ballots mailed in from Kenya by Obama, people voting 12 times in different costumes with fake noses, believe me the most UNFAIR AND CORRUPT election EVER! I won by 220 million votes, MINNIMUM.
“Okay, Melania says to calm down and she will hand-write the next paragraph. So here she goes:
“Bill, your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
“Okay, I am back and have calmed down. I don’t want to make this all negative so let me just say in the noble tradition of former Republican presidents who won but got the election stolen from them by Democraps I want to say sincerely that I wish you good luck, which you will really need because your brain rot is so BAD you can SMELL it coming from your ears and you will BE SO NAMBYPAMBY you will put everyone on WELFAIR even Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos who owns the failing Washington Post and the failing Canada.
“Okay, that’s about it. You may have noticed certain problems with your ‘transition’ including that some pens smell funny. Don’t worry about it. I definately did not do anything bad with them, and also your bed. I definitely did not hire any professionals to do anything on them.
“In closing let me note that my signature is bigger than your signature.”
Comments
I'm pretty sure they don't know who landed the blows, but had our former president upheld his oath of office and told the truth about the election, Officer Sicknick would still be alive.
If there are no consequences for what Trump did, it will only happen again.
Spoiler: There won't be, and it will.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I never thought NEWSMAX would have credibility but here ya go.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/03/newsmax-anchor-leaves-interview-with-my-pillows-mike-lindell/
newsmax has a desire to not get sued
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Defamation is the reason for the lawsuit.
Why wouldn’t anyone acquitted of a crime not go that legal route and claim defamation afterwards?
Reason for asking is that people really believed that there was evidence of voter fraud so that is why they ran with it. Same goes for being committed of a crime. There was evidence there but can you claim libel after acquittal? The people accusing were obviously wrong.
Curious.
If the local news runs a story about someone getting arrested & accused of murder who eventually gets acquitted, that isn't a malicious lie, they're just reporting the news. I had a friend back in the day who's father, a high school principal was arrested for DUI. The local paper reported it, he sued for libel, and lost. Their reporting wasn't untrue, nor was it malicious. He was arrested and charged with DUI. The results of the court case were irrelevant to his lawsuit, the newspaper did nothing wrong.
If Newsmax / Fox etc simply reported on the fact that people believed the election was stolen that would have been fine. Even if they reported rumors about the machines being faulty, I don't know that would fall under libel either had they clarified that they were reporting rumors (this paragraph is pure speculation).
I am not familiar with the specifics about the right wing media reporting on Dominion, but I do know this: Newsmax seems scared shitless, so I infer that Dominion's lawsuit is no joke and there's something there.
Someone who knows law better than I, please feel free to correct or clarify as needed.
Insurrection Timeline — First the Coup and Then the Cover-Up
https://billmoyers.com/story/insurrection-timeline-first-the-coup-and-then-the-cover-up-updated/
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
j/k pop...it was the funniest line in that letter, don't ya think?
I was taught to never use contractions in formal letters. He's a neanderthal.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
makes me curious, are formers allowed to use the seal?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
TheDonald’s owner speaks out on why he finally pulled plug on hate-filled site
The Army veteran, a site moderator who owned its domain, watched with growing alarm as racism, threats and QAnon references flourished on the pro-Trump site. His former co-moderators called him a ‘sellout’ who went ‘rogue’ after internal schism.
Jody Williams knew things had gotten out of hand early last month, when a post on the pro-Trump message board TheDonald included a detailed diagram of how to tie a “hangman’s knot” on a noose.
Williams was a moderator for the board and owner of its Web address, so he removed the noose instructions. But within an hour, he said, another moderator quietly restored it near the top of the site. Three days later, on Jan. 6, a real noose was hung on makeshift gallows on the National Mall, amid a violent siege on the U.S. Capitol.
The battle over the noose diagram was just one of many over a site so infested with racist, anti-Semitic and violent content that Williams, 41, an Army veteran who lost a leg in a noncombat accident, often recoiled at what his fellow Trump supporters said and did.
“You might be happy being some ethno-nationalist, but I’m not,” said Williams, recalling his exchanges with a handful of particularly hardcore moderators. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”
The story of TheDonald, a furiously pro-Trump forum that became an online staging ground for the Capitol assault, is a cautionary tale about the Internet’s dark side. What began on Reddit as an online political rally for an upstart presidential candidate turned increasingly foul as Williams fought — and often lost — against what he said were “nefarious forces” determined to advance the most extreme ideologies, including white supremacy.
Williams — who controlled the Web address where the forum moved after Reddit expelled it last year — finally took decisive action on Jan. 21, two weeks after the Capitol assault, after waking to news that a group of other moderators had started their own site and used it to attack him. Soon, Williams used his power as the Web address owner to knock TheDonald offline.
Then he defended himself publicly against his former compatriots, who had criticized him as a “rogue” and a selfish coward. Williams, who lives in Texas and has three young children, also endured death threats, online harassment and FBI questioning, he said.
Moderators at Patriots.win, where some of TheDonald community moved after it went dark, did not respond to requests for comment this week. On their new spinoff site, they have labeled Williams a “sellout” who “betrayed the community … [of] hundreds of thousands of loyal patriots.”
The schism that fractured TheDonald offers a potent symbol of the increasingly tense battles over free speech and extremism on the Web. Online communities that frame themselves as refuges for free expression often find themselves pulled to the fringes, forcing members to either confront the shift or tolerate increasingly radical ideas.
Such dynamics have played out on Facebook and other mainstream social media sites, but they have been supercharged on niche forums such as Gab, 8kun, Parler and TheDonald, which promoted themselves as free-speech zones but ended up trafficking in the worst of the Web.
TheDonald, which Williams said generated more than a million visits a day in December, was perhaps the most popular pro-Trump stand-alone site, and it offered his supporters a gleefully uninhibited forum where followers could laugh about conservative memes and troll liberals without worrying about the content-moderation rules of mainstream social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
But as Jan. 6 approached, online discussions of potential violence alarmed FBI officials, especially on TheDonald, according to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. Some of the violent and incendiary comments posted on the site were quoted in an internal FBI report issued a day before the riot, though the report, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, does not mention TheDonald by name, these people said.
Pro-Trump forums erupt with violent threats ahead of Wednesday’s rally against the 2020 election
One of the comments cited in the FBI memo declared Trump supporters should go to Washington and get “violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.”
Some of those watching TheDonald from afar argue that if the site had grown so obviously repugnant, Williams should have acted sooner — before the FBI came calling, before the site’s domain registrar demanded it be cleaned up, before TheDonald played a role in instigating an attack that left four rioters and a police officer dead and the seat of American democracy ransacked.
Whether or not Williams condones racism and anti-Semitism is irrelevant. His site helped incite and facilitate one of the most egregious assaults on American democracy,” said Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism. “He doesn’t get to pretend he wasn’t part of the problem.”
In response to such critiques, Williams said he wanted Trump to win and stay in the White House. He didn’t want to destroy something he had spent so long growing. He didn’t think, until the very end, that it was necessarily his call whether to blow it all up. He thought his actions as a moderator, part of a team that removed 3,500 problematic posts and comments on an average day, helped keep the worst stuff at bay — while also helping Trump.
“Did I compromise some of my principles to do so? Without a doubt,” Williams acknowledged. “Sometimes you swallow pills you don’t like to get things done. That’s the world we live in. … That’s politics.”
House Oversight Committee chairwoman requests FBI probe of Parler, including its role in Capitol siege
However observers come down on how Williams handled the situation, he has troubling things to report from the front lines of the Internet.
Williams saw, up close, the QAnon extremist ideology, Holocaust denial and unalloyed racism. He witnessed repellent people spreading images of child sexual exploitation, flooding an affiliated image board so thoroughly that it had to be shut down.
And then, perhaps most unnervingly for Williams, he watched terrifyingly extreme online actors playing a very long game of grooming, seeking to recruit the disaffected to their causes.
“They’re like any far-flung terrorist group,” Williams said. “They think they’re going to win eventually, and they just need to slowly drive a wedge in there.”
Still a fan of Trump’s policies
Williams is no liberal, nor even a moderate.
In since-deleted tweets, he said that Democratic “communists” were screaming “for war,” and he defended a post on TheDonald showing a box of bullets as a response to the “rigged ballot box.” Days before Jan. 6, Williams tweeted that Trump supporters going to D.C. should “siege the corrupt Federal Apparatus that seeks to chain you all up,” including the hashtag “#DCMustFall.”
Continues.............
TheDonald founder Jody Williams says hate, QAnon, extremism went too far on the pro-Trump site - The Washington Post
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Campaign finance filings follow concerns among watchdogs over former president’s self-dealing while in office
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
By tradition, outgoing American presidents leave handwritten letters to their successors, in an envelope in the Resolute Desk. These have always been gracious, encouraging, and even conciliatory, especially when the new president defeated the old one. George H.W. Bush’s letter to Bill Clinton, after a particularly contentious campaign, was moving: “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
Donald Trump had indicated he would not leave a note for Joe Biden, but as I write this, just before the inauguration, the White House reveals that he did. They did not disclose what it said. I think I know. Others might speculate on this, but only I can truly channel Trump, since only I possess the requisite degree of infantilism:
“Dear Sleepy Joe, Crazy Joe, Quid Pro Joe, Joe Hidin’, Joe Blow, Joey Baloney, Joseph Corrosive, Skinny Joe Pipsqueak, Jojo Rabbit Poop, Joey Hairplugs, Squinty Joe, Joe the Dumber, Dela-Where-The-Heck Am-I Joe, Ernesto ‘Joe’ Guevara, Joe Zedong, Joe Bidet, Kamala Harris Jr., Joey No-Cojone, Mr. Pale Fail, The Schmoozer Loser, Metamucil Joe, Twenty-Fifth Joemendment, The Senile Implant, Four-Toed-Cane Joey, Coma Joe, Joe Feeb, Joe Dillweed, Hairsniff S. Truman, Joe Doodyhead, Joe Dork, Mister Doctor Jill Biden, Joe Yellow Dentures, Clueless Joe Jackson:
“Congradulations. Melania said I had to right this letter myself in my own handwritting and I have to be nice even though this is the GREATEST FRUD in the History of Human Elections. You are BAD.
“Melania said I have to say you are ‘good,’ but I won’t capitolize it, so you be the judge of what I think. Also I forgot some nicknames up above. You are also Joe JustBidenTimeTillTrumpReturns. And Joe Mama So Fat. You are a FAKE PRESIDENT, and everyone knows it. Suitcases full of ballots, polling places swarmed by ZOMBIES and ghosts, ballots mailed in from Kenya by Obama, people voting 12 times in different costumes with fake noses, believe me the most UNFAIR AND CORRUPT election EVER! I won by 220 million votes, MINNIMUM.
“Okay, Melania says to calm down and she will hand-write the next paragraph. So here she goes:
“Bill, your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
“Okay, I am back and have calmed down. I don’t want to make this all negative so let me just say in the noble tradition of former Republican presidents who won but got the election stolen from them by Democraps I want to say sincerely that I wish you good luck, which you will really need because your brain rot is so BAD you can SMELL it coming from your ears and you will BE SO NAMBYPAMBY you will put everyone on WELFAIR even Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos who owns the failing Washington Post and the failing Canada.
“Okay, that’s about it. You may have noticed certain problems with your ‘transition’ including that some pens smell funny. Don’t worry about it. I definately did not do anything bad with them, and also your bed. I definitely did not hire any professionals to do anything on them.
“In closing let me note that my signature is bigger than your signature.”
Gene Weingarten: Trump left a letter for Biden. Here’s what I think it said. - The Washington Post
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