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Donald Trump's Attacks Against the Media

Submitted by Robin Messing on Sun, 10/12/2025 - 6:54pm

Every dictator wants to undermine confidence in a free press because an informed public can act as a check on government corruption. Dictators can do this in several ways. They have often done this in the past by arresting or assassinating journalists. But that approach is more difficult to implement in a society where everyone has a smartphone to record what is happening and everyone has access to the internet. The opposite approach is to discredit truthful stories and flood the internet with so many false reports and lies that the public is no longer able to tell what is true and what is false--or as Steve Bannon put it, to "flood the zone with shit." Those who are interested in taking a closer look at how the "flooding the zone with shit" strategy actually works and why it is so effective should read the Rand Corporation's report on The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model.

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Dominion Voting System Catches a Fox and Exposes a Kraken

Submitted by Robin Messing on Fri, 08/18/2023 - 5:11pm

Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell (Team Kraken) and various “reporters/analysts” in the right-wing media pushed wild, unfounded theories about Dominion Voting System and Smartmatic voting machines. They claimed, among other things, that their machines cancelled Trump votes or switched Trump votes to Biden, and that they used software originally developed under Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez to help him steal Venezuela’s election.

Here is the short version of Team Kraken's claims.

 

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Can Donald Trump and Tom Reed Block Their Constituents On Social Media?

Submitted by Robin Messing on Sat, 08/26/2017 - 7:51pm

Can Tom Reed Legally Block His Constituents On Facebook?

 

My Congressman, Tom Reed, has two Facebook accounts. The first is his “Politician” Facebook page.  The second is his official government Facebook page.  Tom Reed (or an assistant) blocked me from posting on his “Politician” page well over a year ago and all my comments on that page have been deleted.  I am not sure exactly why he blocked me.  It might be because I have posted a comment or two that he didn’t like about the Iran nuclear deal.  I imagine he didn’t appreciate my column in the Ithaca Journal last year that criticized his bashing of the deal.

Or it might be because he made a post saying something that was bashing President Obama (I forget what it was, probably something about ObamaCare) and then said something like “Everyone who agrees with me, like this post.” I responded by saying, "I wish Facebook had an Unlike button".

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The Hamilton Electors Must Be Freed To Help Us Avoid A Suicide Pact

Submitted by Robin Messing on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 7:20am

The Role Of The Electoral College As Envisioned By The Founding Fathers

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper No. 68 that the purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent the elevation of those who only have "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" and to ensure  "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications" .

Hamilton also wrote that the Electoral College should serve as an obstacle to

cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? (emphasis added)
 

In other words, the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for the express purpose of ensuring, among other things, that the President wouldn't be a puppet of a foreign government (like say, Russia). Clearly, the Founding Fathers wanted the Electors to be free to follow their consciences and vote against those who posed a threat to our national survival. Unfortunately, thirty states have, in effect, said "screw you" to the Founding Fathers by enacting laws that attempt to force electors to vote for the candidate that won the states' election.

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