Can Twitter destroy a Presidential Statement? (UPDATED 1:32 am)

A tweeter asks, highlighting the story: "R.E.M.'s publisher asks Twitter to remove State of the Union video tweeted by Trump over use of the band's song"

The publisher of rock band R.E.M.'s music asked Twitter to remove a satirical video clip containing one of the band's songs that President Donald Trump's account tweeted Friday, CNBC has learned.

A lawyer for Universal Music Publishing Group reached out to the president's preferred social media platform asking that the video be removed, said a source familiar with the situation, who asked to remain anonymous.

Funny if the Streisand effect has the unintended consequence of further publicizing the satirical video. It's funnier when you find out somebody wants it censored.

Enjoy.

pic.twitter.com/BliAo5YDqb

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2019

Update:

Meme Maker @CarpeDonktum Video with R.E.M. is Disabled on Twitter

One thing is not like the other

Horseshoe Bend at Sunset 

Neon Blue Garter Snake

Cut & Paste: Plausible Denial aka We’re on Benghazi Committee to ‘Scream Bloody Murder’

ZeroHedge: No matter the headline, no matter the scandal, no matter how few or how many might be involved, one thing will become crystal clear: nobody that should have known – will have known.

MediaIte: Early this month, when Democrats still hadn’t made up their minds about participation in the Benghazi select committee, Congressman Adam Schiff said there’s no way Democrats would participate in that “colossal waste of time.” Well, funny story: Schiff is one of the five Democrats Nancy Pelosi picked yesterday to actually serve on that committee. And on Rachel Maddow‘s show last night, Schiff explained they decided to participate to keep the Republicans from making it a partisan, stunt-driven affair.

ZeroHedge: There was a time when this art form of creating circumstances as to protect people of influence had its place and was used sparingly and tactfully. However, as of today both the frequency along with how and where it is used has gone from “useful ruse” to a downright childish alibi. No one seems to be accountable today. And I mean nobody!

MediaIte: He (Congressman Adam Schiff) told Maddow that all the Republicans want to do here is “provoke a fight with the administration” they can exploit to their advantage during the midterms, and even though there was some fierce internal debate within the Democratic caucus, they eventually agreed it’s “important to have people in that room to contest the abuse of that kind of power and process.” 

And Schiff promised if the Republicans try to keep any information from them, they will “scream bloody murder” about it and expose them for the “sham” proceedings they’re orchestrating.

Cut and Paste: Cobalt Lemons and Released Illegals

"Long before the Chevrolet Cobalt became known for having a deadly ignition defect, it was already seen as a lemon. Owners complained about power steering failures, locks inexplicably opening and closing, doors jamming shut in the rain — even windows falling out."

 



The report, provided to Breitbart News ahead of its late Sunday evening release, reviews internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) metrics to conclude that the Obama administration released 35 percent—or 68,000—convicted criminal aliens back into the U.S. general population when they could have been deported. “The criminal alien releases typically occur without formal notice to local law enforcement agencies and victims,” CIS’s Jessica Vaughan, the report’s author, added.

“There were transmission issues, issues with the clutch, engine issues, air-conditioning issues,” James Gonzales of Riverview, Fla., said of his 2006 Cobalt, which G.M. repurchased under Florida’s lemon law. “Everything went wrong with that car, and everything that went wrong needed a big fix. Mechanically, it was a huge nuisance.”

By “criminal,” ICE means people who have been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony that is not a traffic violation. For instance, traffic violations like Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or even vehicular manslaughter do not count toward this description of “criminal alien.” As for the definition of “alien,” ICE mostly means illegal aliens, though some are legal aliens when they are considered deportable legal aliens—which is possible for legal immigrants who have committed a serious crime, like a felony.

"If We Can Pick Our Gender, Can We Pick Our Age? Our Race?

"The new news is that Maryland is next on the hit parade of states (it will be the 18th) to pass legislation claiming to protect transgendered individuals from discrimination. It’s due to happen today in fact (if it hasn’t already). If you haven’t yet heard about the Maryland law, that’s because there appears to have been a pretty strict media blackout on it."

Your gender identity – in case you didn’t know – is your perception of yourself as either “male, female, or something else.” And that’s official, according to the American Psychological Association. Many LGBT activists will say that gender identity means your perception of yourself as “male, female, both, or neither.” In any event, most such legislation, including the Maryland bill, define gender identity as: “the gender related identity, appearance, expression, or behavior of a person, regardless of the person’s assigned sex at birth.”

But a big part of the audacity of the legislation is that it goes by the devious name “Fairness for All Marylanders Act.” What it really means is “Fairness for Some Marylanders,” only those who perceive themselves to be a different gender from the sex “assigned” to them on their birth certificate. (read more)

The Federalist

Cut-up and Paste-up: The First Lady's Praise Non-Praise of America

In another installment, where I take/cut different texts and put it back/paste together, in an attempt to... irritate and confuse you, says the George Costansa, Oppositarian, tyrannous (small t) Magnus in me (small m). I took the fist lady's statements in China, a Jezebel Post called Sorry not Sorry: How to Non-Apologize and ...

And my story isn’t unusual in America. Some of our most famous athletes, like LeBron James, and artists, like the singer Janelle Monae, came from struggling families like mine, as do many business leaders -- like Howard Schultz. He’s the head of a company called Starbucks, which many of you may have heard of. When Mr. Schultz was a boy his father lost his job, leaving their family destitute. But Mr. Schultz worked hard. He got a scholarship to a university, and eventually built the largest coffeehouse company in the world.

Being called out on your shit is the worst. It can be humiliating, frustrating, and hurtful. When it happens, the natural reaction is often to be dismissive, defensive, or to complain that the other party just "doesn't get it/you/jokes". I say, go with that feeling. Because if lots of people are telling you that you're dead wrong, you definitely don't want to stop and examine why that is... 

And then there’s this other guy I know who was raised by a single mother who sometimes struggled to afford food for their family. But like me, this guy got scholarships and loans to attend universities. He became a lawyer and a professor, and then he was a state senator and then a national senator. And then, he became President of the United States. This guy I’m talking about is my husband, Barack Obama. (Applause.)

If you want to issue an effective non-apology, it's not that hard. Actually, it's the easiest and fastest thing to do in a difficult situation. Like Robert Frost said*, fuck a road less traveled — let's take the easy way out!
Since authentic apologies are direct, specific, and truthful, your non-apology should be obscure, unclear, and completely miss the point.
1. Quick tip: if "sorry" is immediately followed by the word "if", "you", or "you're", then you are most likely not apologizing.

But warned that not everything is perfect. "Now of course, living up to these ideals isn’t always easy.  And there have been times in our history where we have fallen short.  Many decades ago, there were actually laws in America that allowed discrimination against black people like me, who are a minority in the United States.  But over time, ordinary citizens decided that those laws were unfair.  So they held peaceful protests and marches.  They called on government officials to change those laws, and they voted to elect new officials who shared their views," she said.

Isn't it funny how the pain and misery causers, the one percent, like LeBron James and Starbucks Howard Schultz, millionaresandbillionares, not paying their fair-share, are also, at the same time, an inspiration, what America represents for the first lady. I want to tell her to stop shifting scripts, at home, and abroad. Is that too much to ask?

Cut-up Fold-in Paste-up Atempt

"The cut-up technique is an aleatory literary technique in which a text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to at least the Dadaists of the 1920s, but was popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by writer William S. Burroughs, and has since been used in a wide variety of contexts."

My plunge into poverty happened in an instant. I never saw it coming.

Imagine this was your job: you had to wake up every morning, read and watch what was going on in the world, and then, even if you didn’t actually feel this way — in fact, in spite of the fact that you didn’t feel this way—react with outrage about all of it.

There is nothing journalists and pundits love discussing more than each other, so predictably the launch of the “Explanatory Journalism” site Vox.com has been accompanied by a vapor trail of commentary, ranging from serious analysis of its news-delivery style, to discussions of staff diversity, to snark, envy, and mockery of Matt Yglesias’ hipster suit in the launch video.

Then again, there was no reason to feel particularly vulnerable. Two years ago, I was a political reporter at Politico, and I spent my days covering the back-and-forth of presidential politics. I had access to the White House because of my reporting beat, and I was a regular commentator on MSNBC. My career had been on an upward trajectory for 30 years, and at age 50 I still anticipated a long career.

Increasingly, this is the life of the blogger. Despite all the attention and traffic of Upworthy gets for being “positive” these days, outrage and indignation are and always will be pageview magnets. “Outrage porn,” as we’ve come to call it, checks all the boxes of compelling content—it’s high valence, it drives comments, it assuages the ego, projects guilt onto a scapegoat and looks good in your Facebook Feed.

There are indeed many interesting angles here, both serious and snarky. But maybe the most interesting of all is the trend of young and young-ish liberal journalists abandoning posts at legacy mainstream media institutions to go run their own sites. That trend is the reverse of the career pattern most of these journalists began with.

Sources making the cut - The Atlantic, Beta Beat and The Federalist

Turnarounds

Please pay close attention to the explanation of turnarounds, this is a very important concept in industry. This video details how to use turnarounds properly for maximum profit during routine periodic halts in operation. A few important details here I want to make sure you do not miss so three questions after the line down there.