A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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Facebook Manipulated the News You See to Appease Republicans, Insiders Say
Sources tell us the platform tweaked its code to help right-wing publishers and throttle sites like Mother Jones.
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2020/10/facebook-mother-jones/
Near the close of the first year of the Trump presidency, executives at Facebook were briefed on some major changes to its News Feed—the code that determines which of the zillions of posts on the platform any one of us is shown when we look at Facebook. The story the company has publicly told is that it was working to “bring people closer together” by showing us more posts from friends and family, and to prioritize “trusted” and “informative” sources of news. The changes would also reduce how much news most people see, and therefore decrease revenue for many publishers.
What wasn’t publicly known until now is that Facebook actually ran experiments to see how the changes would affect publishers—and when it found that some of them would have a dramatic impact on the reach of right-wing “junk sites,” as a former employee with knowledge of the conversations puts it, the engineers were sent back to lessen those impacts. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, they came back in January 2018 with a second iteration that dialed up the harm to progressive-leaning news organizations instead.
In fact, we have now learned that executives were even shown a slide presentation that highlighted the impact of the second iteration on about a dozen specific publishers—and Mother Jones was singled out as one that would suffer, while the conservative site the Daily Wire was identified as one that would benefit. These changes were pushed by Republican operatives working in Facebook’s Washington office under Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan (who later made headlines for demonstratively supporting his friend Brett Kavanaugh during confirmation hearings).
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The 3-way fight among Republicans runs deeper than Trump and will outlast him
Whatever happens on Nov. 3, the three-cornered fight on the American right over who owns conservatism will go on. You don’t have to be part of the fight to have a stake in the outcome. Until the right sorts itself out, gridlock and bad government in Washington will continue.
The contest among Republicans involves market liberals, one-issue crusaders, and a nation-first hard right. Each has its own vision of conservatism’s ideals and priorities. Each thinks its vision the true one. Each believes it alone best able to face down conservatism’s common enemy, the left.
It’s an old fight, and not unique to the U.S., although the anger and intensity have lately hit new heights. The fight is not about Donald Trump, the hard right’s current champion. It’s deeper than Trump and will outlast him.
At issue is who Republicans want to be. Do they want to be Grown-Ups, a Tribe, or One-Issue Crusaders?
The Grown-Ups are business-friendly, broadly moderate Republicans in descent from Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan. On campaign, they can turn up the partisan gas. In office, they will work with Democrats at the center and with foreign allies abroad.
In what feels long ago, the Grown Ups were in charge. They are mostly now retirees or political has-beens: George W. Bush, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, former Maine Sen. William Cohen, former South Dakota Sen. Larry Pressler, former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. In the media, they include eminent but bewildered conservatives who have lost a party home: George Will, David Brooks, Bill Kristol.
The Tribe is conservatism’s second choice. It is the U.S. version of a nation-first hard right that is also eating into the center-right parties of Europe. The Tribe combines rich donors and disaffected white voters. The donors want low taxes and small government. The disaffected want government help but think too much of it goes to the wrong people. Trump did not create the Tribe. It adopted him.
The trouble with the Tribe is that it turns politics into low-grade civil war.
More at www.marketwatch.com/story/the-3-way-fight-among-republicans-runs-deepe
r-than-trump-and-will-outlast-him-2020-10-20
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Trump wants to cancel another nuclear arms treaty:
Trump urges nations to withdraw support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)
Beatrice Fihn dismissed Trump's claim that the TPNW interferes with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as "straightforward lies, to be frank."
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition whose work helped spearhead the nuclear ban treaty, told The Associated Press Tuesday that several diplomatic sources confirmed that they and other states that ratified the TPNW had been sent letters by the U.S. requesting their withdrawal.
"They {Trump} have no actual argument to back that up," she said. "The Nonproliferation Treaty is about preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eliminating nuclear weapons, and this treaty implements that. There's no way you can undermine the Nonproliferation Treaty by banning nuclear weapons. It's the end goal of the Nonproliferation Treaty."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-urges-nations-to-withdraw-support-for-
un-nuclear-weapons-prohibition-treaty-ap/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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It is close to being over reaver. Then things will change.
T
Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.
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Considering Musk's behavior, it works on at least 2 levels!
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Trump Exposes Himself as Whiner-in-Chief in Leaked ‘60 Minutes’ Interview
SELF-OWNED
The president released his apparently unedited ‘60 Minutes’ chat on Thursday, thinking it was a dunk on Lesley Stahl—but it only made himself look worse.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-exposes-himself-as-whiner-in-chief
-in-leaked-60-minutes-interview-with-lesley-stahl?ref=home
Over the past couple days, President Donald Trump has been repeatedly threatening to release his entire, unedited interview with 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl before an edited version airs on this coming Sunday’s episode. Well, he finally did it and it may have the exact opposite effect he was hoping for.
“Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS,” Trump posted on Facebook the morning of his final debate with Joe Biden. He then added, for good measure, “Tonight’s anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse!”
But what anyone who watches all 38 minutes will see is that the president spent the bulk of his time openly whining about how “tough” the questions were while refusing to actually answer any of them in a coherent manner.
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Trump is 
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