Right Wing Friend From High School Shuts Down Democratic Party With Comey Tweet.

It proved to be a sad day for liberal lawmakers as Democrat Maxine Waters stood solemnly at the
podium to offer a brief statement before she stepped down and renounced the Democratic Party.  Complete transcripts are unavailable as most of her staff had quit after last night's tweet in reference to former Director of the FBI James Comey.

Right Wing Friends From High School to receive new presidential medal...

It seems that Republicans are touting an exchange that Comey had with Representative Hirono of Hawaii (where ousted former President Barack Obama claims to be from).  Below:

HIRONO: So if the Attorney General or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation, can they halt that FBI investigation?

COMEY: In theory yes.

HIRONO: Has it happened?

COMEY: Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that — without an appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don’t see a case there and so you ought to stop investing resources in it. But I’m talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason, that would be a very big deal. It’s not happened in my experience.

Right wing friend from high school then posted the last paragraph on his Facebook page and this led to the collapse of the Democratic party and the liberal media elites, contending without comment, that this statement proves without a doubt that Donald Trump is innocent of everything ever.

Robert Mueller, newly appointed special council (we are now obligated to spell it "council" instead of "counsel") was quoted as saying that "...In my many years of service in the Marines, my time as a lawyer, litigator, and as Director of the FBI, I have never been so thoroughly "owned" as the kids say.  I hereby resign as independent COUNCIL."  With that and what appeared to be a tear in his eye, he walked away, flinging a stack of papers in the air.

Comey, when asked for comment, state simply, "You got me."

Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway stood, embracing, in the White House Press room where confetti and balloons dropped from the ceiling.  On the balloons were stamped the words "Suck it, bitches, ---DJT"

Legal scholars are bewildered at the simplicity of the post and how Right Wing Friend From High School was able to so adroitly state the case.

"The problem with our legal system is too many words.  What Right Wing Friend From High School was able to do was take a comment, REMOVE context entirely and brilliantly whittle the comment down to its base argument thus proving his point.  The legal community and the "elites" have been doing too much "reading" and attempting to get meaning from words.  This FEELS like a point and that being said, once you get to the point where something FEELS like what you want it say, can no longer argue." said one legal historian.

The fallout continues as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the other justices on the Supreme Court make only sporadic public appearances.  We caught now former Justice Ginsburg sobbing on the steps of the Supreme Court building muttering incoherent phrases about a "wasted life" while Neil Gorsuch was spotted on a corner of Pennsylvania Avenue holding a sign that said "Will Judge For Food"

Right wing friend from high school could not be reached for comment.  Rumors abound and many are wondering how often he checks his Facebook account or if it is even his full time Facebook account or just one that he keeps so that he can make comments.  We will keep up with this story as developments unfold.

Mike Flynn as FBI Director. Who is the joke really on?

I am going to be teaching a class on Politics and Media this summer at a university in D.C. and I thought I would talk a little about it here.

So I posted a little piece, out of anger, posing that Mike Flynn had been chosen to replace James Comey as director of the FBI.  I thought it was funny.  Many other people thought it was funny.  Many people did not find it all amusing.
As quickly as a half an hour after posting, it had nearly 1000 page views and people had begun to sound off in the comments section (and still are).

 The breakdown was pretty much as follows...
About 70 percent thought it was funny and took it as the joke that it was.  About 10 percent did not think it was funny at all.  What about the other 20 percent?

That 20 percent explains a lot about who we are as a country.  Most of the time this blog serves as a place where I and others can voice my opinions on politics and elaborate with just a little depth.  This one time, when I had an idea, born of frustration, I wrote something that I thought would be funny and lighten the mood about Comey being fired.

Several people sounded off with the comment that it was not "productive".  I beg to differ. Some read it and thought it was just not funny, but as I said, about 20 percent wondered whether or not it was real and began to go off on other tangents.  Within that 20 percent were people who did not read the comments above theirs and did not read the blog post itself.

Trump has often said that even if Putin interfered with the election (he did) it did not change a single vote.  With an off hand joke, about 20 minutes of thought and writing, I was able to untintentionally get about 3000 people to think differently about something and essentially fool them with a free account.  A few people said that is how they recognized it as a fake post was the fact that this is a blogspot account, not the fact that I said that Sean Spicer threw a smoke bomb after the press briefing and exited the briefing room via a cable in the ceiling.

Also wrapped up in that 20% were the Trump supporting trolls who enter these groups so that they can undermine them from within.  The post was used in some circles to show that we liberals were making stuff up despite, I say again, that it was obviously fake to anyone who took the time to read it.  To people who fell for it, I apologize but I also ask a very big "what if".

Some people say that Vladimir Putin is worth about 70 billion dollars and other reports estimate $200 billion.  So at a minimum, he is one of the richest people in the world if not the richest person in history.  So if a person could do something like this in a matter of minutes, what if a billionaire decided to engage in something of the sort full time?

Also something to consider is that this is a process that refines itself.  What worked, what did not work?  Many people recognized it as a joke right off the bat and pointed out the flaws.  First, that it was a blogspot post.  Easy fix, pay $20 for a web domain.  Done.  Second, the piece led with a comment that "Trump tweeted..." and many people noted that there was not a picture of the tweet and that there were too many characters in the comment.  Got me.  Third, was the fact It became apparent that too many people did not actually click on the post, they just read the headline and blurb beneath it.  In literature, it is called a narrative hook.  So, the takeaway is that if there is a good picture, a grabbing headline and a blurb beneath that is intriguing enough, the rest of the article is irrelevant for many.

In the coming days, if I can, I am going to post this piece in some right wing groups and see how it goes over.  The objective is the same, though.  How hard is it to fool someone?  How difficult is it to engage someone in a narrative that simply ramps up what they wanted to believe in the first place?  Cast your mind back to a year ago when people were saying that Hillary Clinton was on the verge of death and that in her spare time she was raping children in the basement of pizza shop that has no basement and wonder whether or not Putin's antics had an impact on the election.  Take a moment also to think about how easy it was and how much of that is on us.

There are two components at play, the trick and our willingness to be tricked.  I have written my opinion about injustices and the work we do in inner cities, immigration, etc. etc. etc. but by far the greatest response I have ever gotten is over a fake post.

Elijah Montgomery

We tweet at WritLarge
Contact at 9of9productions@gmail.com

Mike Flynn being considered for FBI Director.

In a tweet today, Donald Trump suggested that he might bring back Mike Flynn to be FBI director
now that James Comey is out, having apparently happily resigned from the postion. Trump stated,"Let's be honest, no one knows more about the inner workings of the Russia investigation than Flynn, aside from Jeff Sessions and the two will be working closely together, bigly."

Flynn is reportedly considering the offer saying that there is someone he has to check with first, but he is nearly certain there will be no problems with the appointment.

Republicans on the hill are saying that this is a stunning show of leadership from the President and given that Flynn was vetted by the Obama administration, there should be no problem with him taking the office.

When asked about Flynn's dismissal as NSA director and whether or not it should be considered when choosing him for the FBI position, Sean Spicer said, "No, next question."

When pressed for further comment, Spicer said, "I find it interesting...I'm answering your question...I'm answering your question!  I find it interesting that a hero that was vetted by the Obama administration would all of the sudden be "unqualified" now that he is being considered for a position for which he alone is uniquely qualified."

Spicer then threw a smoke bomb and exited the press room via a cable in the ceiling.  He was spotted later hiding in the bushes as many in the press exited the building.

Is this out of the realm of possibility?  Given everything that has been happening lately, I would say no.