Gilding, albeit more toilets than lilies, is on the up and up.
If there was any standardized measure, a Grift Index if you will, then that would surely be showing exponential growth for certain players.
The Trump grab for an airport named after him is just the latest grift in a presidential term that experts so far estimate has enriched the Trump family by at least $4 billion.
Trump’s Claim to Venezuelan Oil Money Draws Scrutiny in Congress - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/us/politics/trumps-claim-... | https://archive.today/xhNT9 - January 7th, 2026 (“President Trump’s declaration that he would personally control the proceeds from oil produced in Venezuela drew instant condemnation on Wednesday from Democrats in Congress who noted that the president had no constitutional authority for such an undertaking.”)
Facebook did nothing to assist in narrowing a search area.
What Facebook actually did was host images .. so that after the team narrowed a list down to under 100 people they could look through profiles by hand.
It may as well have been searching Flickr, Instagram, Etsy, etc. profiles by hand.
Yes, and if Facebook didn't exist, presumably these images connecting the abuser to the victim wouldn't have been available anywhere for the investigators to find.
If Facebook didn’t exist, they would’ve found the photos on MySpace. Come on.
All Facebook likely did here that was any different than any other social media platform would have done, was gather Sandberg, Zuck and a cadre of snotty, sniveling engineers in a conference room and debate whether this was good engagement for the platform.
The photo nerd hacking tweak of note here was the pushing of the stock to 200 and using uniquely crafted NASA lenses built to photograph the dark side of the moon with not seen before aparture.
Arguably a youtube rending of a compressed digital source viewed on a computer screen falls short of a 1970s full cinema via film live viweing.
The lede from techdirt from their article on this matter:
DHS Is Hunting Down Trump Critics. The ‘Free Speech’ Warriors Are Mighty Quiet.
For years, we’ve been subjected to an endless parade of hyperventilating claims about the Biden administration’s supposed “censorship industrial complex.” We were told, over and over again, that the government was weaponizing its power to silence conservative speech. The evidence for this? Some angry emails from White House staffers that Facebook ignored. That was basically it. The Supreme Court looked at it and said there was no standing because there was no evidence of coercion (and even suggested that the plaintiffs had fabricated some of the facts, unsupported by reality).
But now we have actual, documented cases of the federal government using its surveillance apparatus to track down and intimidate Americans for nothing more than criticizing government policy. And wouldn’t you know it, the same people who spent years screaming about censorship are suddenly very quiet.
Addendum, just for fun; Ghanaian-Australian Genesis Owusu teaming up with The Chats to cover Talking Heads' classic Pyscho Killer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTmGpJJsQEU
It's very much the same thing, there is no single unifying "Alt-Right" central headquarters, subscription fees amd newsletter, just as there is no specific Antifa organisation, just many people and a few groups that self identify as being against facism.
On the AltRight side people might point to, say, Steven Miller and his Nazi adjacent statements, or to Nick Fuentes and the Groypers, or to Andrew Anglin and The Daily Stormer for more trad. Nazi views.
To be honest I'm not entirely sure what the leading antifa groups in central north america might be.
FWiW I come from a large extended family that racked up a lot of time on the pointy end of much of this; Desert Rats, Japanese PoW camps, jungle fighting, and a good deal of the post WWII ground work.
So I really do have to ask you, when you spoke of:
> The problem is the repeated use of Nazi analogies and grossly inflammatory language,
What, exactly, is up with the current US administration, Trump, Miller, clear throws to Blood Tribe language, veiled messages of racial purity and all that .. is it all "just a joke" ?
The early moves of both Stalin and Hitler, before either became the world villians we all know, was to extend their borders within their own countries so that they could sidestep "the law" of the land with their own personal squads of intesticial vagueness.
The administration is unquestionably veering unilateral and authoritarian and can no longer be trusted by allies.
mad game.
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