I forget, do we have a general HurricaneDitka Pit thread?

[madmonk28]

@Aspenglow

…Ditka follows a very predictable way of engaging. He will always try to define the framework within which he wishes to have the discussion. (Guys!! What about the quid pro quo? What about the crime?) Bricker used to do this, too, although with a little more finesse than Ditka.

I hate to give him credit of any kind, but he’s really good at pulling people into his distorted world view. That makes him dangerous, and sometimes worth arguing against…

QFT. HIs suspension made it clear how much his trolling has come to dominate the Dope. During his absence, threads were allowed to happen, people were allowed to have arguments that weren’t about whatever distraction he set up.

[Ludovic]

@Larry_Borgia

Russian troll factories do not give a single solitary shit about the SDMB. I would give even odds whether or not they are even aware of it. They have too much to do on Facebook and Twitter to worry about a tiny dying message board.

The SDMB makes its own trolls, better and cheaper than you can buy in Russia.

There are 3 broad possibilities as I see it:

1. Long-term Dope trolls decide to come in and troll the Dope to defend Ukraine Clown Posse. I’m not sure that this is a high probability because it would require them to be dedicated enough to increase their numbers well beyond the normal white noise, and be clever enough to imitate a Russian troll, and there are not enough of them with those skills to deliver the necessary volume and different speaking voices IMO.

2. As with #1, an organized right-wing amateur trolling group from elsewhere decide to troll the dope for lulz. It would still require them pretending to make characteristically Russian grammatical mistakes but they might have honed that ability in previous board invasions.

3. Russian trolls. Yes, it would require them giving a shit about the Dope, but it would explain the timing and the writing style.

[Gyrate]

I must admit though, his comparing Trump’s actions with regards to Ukraine with a president wearing the “wrong-colored tie” as both being impeachable offenses has really put the whole “Obama’s tan suit” scandal into perspective for me.

[Mundane_Super_Hero]

@QuickSilver

They had to try. How could they resist? One way or another, it was going to come out their ass.

I only came here to say this, but in a slightly different way. I’ve noticed in the past few weeks that the Alt-Right Brownshirts as well as Trump himself, are becoming less and less coherent in their claims and responses. Goebbels now fumbles.

While I may be wrong, I strongly believe that this is visible evidence of desperation setting in, because even they can now see the signs that the end of their reign is near.
They can hide behind semantic lies and throw mud from one candidate at all candidates… but their smirk is breaking and they know that it’s only a matter of time before
[del]The Allies reach Berlin and Hitler’s Bunker[/del] they totally lose Congress as well as The Presidency.

[QuickSilver]

@BobLibDem

Holy fuck. As if Zelensky didn’t know exactly what he had to do if he wanted to see that military assistance materialize. I’m not sure if HD can be that stupid, or if he can be that much of a troll, or if he really is that much of an asshole. I think all three.

This morning during an interview with NPR the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. admitted that when Trump trash talked the former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was caught off guard was not so stupid as to contradict Trump with hundreds of millions of aid at stake. Zelensky agreed that Yovanovitch was a “problem” because that’s what Trump wanted to hear.

[Ravenman]

Trump complains about lack of transparency in the investigation.

So, uh, is this a good time to ask how the White House is doing with collecting all the documents under subpoena? Well, I assume, in the name of transparency?

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Ravenman

Trump complains about lack of transparency in the investigation.

So, uh, is this a good time to ask how the White House is doing with collecting all the documents under subpoena? Well, I assume, in the name of transparency?

“transparency” means “give us the names of the witnesses so we can intimidate/smear them.”

In order to understand Trump and his minions, you have to think like a stereotypical mob boss.

[QuickSilver]

@Euphonious_Polemic

“transparency” means “give us the names of the witnesses so we can intimidate/smear them.”

In order to understand Trump and his minions, you have to think like a stereotypical mob boss.

Director Scorsese mocked Roger Stone, and related Trump minion, for their wannabe emulation of the mobsters in the Godfather trilogy. He commented about how absurd it was that grown men acted out in life like fictional characters.

[racepug]

@Aspenglow

I tend to agree with ThelmaLou most of the time that Ditka is not worth engaging. He is so boringly transparent. However, there are times when I feel it’s necessary, and today is one of those times.

The entire Trump cabal is hanging its hat on the “no quid pro quo!” argument, and when I see people getting sucked into this disingenuous line of discussion, I feel the need to point out that “quid pro quo” is not required for either the crime or for impeachment – only the “quid.” To allow Ditka’s line of thinking to propagate is to allow Trumpians to control the narrative. This we cannot do.

Ditka follows a very predictable way of engaging. He will always try to define the framework within which he wishes to have the discussion. (Guys!! What about the quid pro quo? What about the crime?) Bricker used to do this, too, although with a little more finesse than Ditka.

As noted above, Ditka usually accomplishes the hijack with his “what-about, what-about, what-about-bout-bout?” tactic as represented above (hummed in my mind to the William Tell Overture).

Try not to fall for it. If you’re going to engage him, make sure you do it on an accurate basis and not his dishonest reframing of any narrative. In other words, make sure you don’t become another turd in his Trumpian kitty litter box.

I hate to give him credit of any kind, but he’s really good at pulling people into his distorted world view. That makes him dangerous, and sometimes worth arguing against.

Ditka himself is a lost cause. But others are reading and forming opinions. It is to them I feel we must direct our discussions.

In trying to be “nice” I prefer to think of HD as “intentionally obtuse” but I refuse to have any more to do with him after I got in trouble the last time I tried. Those of you who say that he does as much as he can to get under other people’s skin w/o getting in trouble himself are, as far as I’m concerned, absolutely correct. What a pitiful way to lead one’s life.

[k9bfriender]

@racepug

In trying to be “nice” I prefer to think of HD as “intentionally obtuse” but I refuse to have any more to do with him after I got in trouble the last time I tried. Those of you who say that he does as much as he can to get under other people’s skin w/o getting in trouble himself are, as far as I’m concerned, absolutely correct. What a pitiful way to lead one’s life.

HD is what happens when one is incapable of defining winning in any other terms than other people losing.

[KarlGauss]

Until very recently I had never even heard the term ‘sealioning’.

Having even more recently participated in certain threads with our friend, I can now spot a sea lion a mile away.

[Voyager]

@Euphonious_Polemic

“transparency” means “give us the names of the witnesses so we can intimidate/smear them.”

In order to understand Trump and his minions, you have to think like a stereotypical mob boss.

We should invite Trump to a clam house, if you ask me. We should be seeing mattresses in the White House windows any time now.
Comey noted this in his book. Don Don is acting just like a gangster.

[wguy123]

@KarlGauss

Until very recently I had never even heard the term ‘sealioning’.

Having even more recently participated in certain threads with our friend, I can now spot a sea lion a mile away.

This is true for me as well. Now that I have finally read that cartoon, I understand the term and it is very aptly applied.

[madmonk28]

@Euphonious_Polemic

“transparency” means “give us the names of the witnesses so we can intimidate/smear them.”

In order to understand Trump and his minions, you have to think like a stereotypical mob boss.

And let’s not forget that the White House almost certainly knows the name of the whistleblower, there are enough details out there. But, they need someone else to get the name out there so that they can destroy the whistleblower’s reputation. If they leak the name, it’s another crime on the list.

[wevets]

@Larry_Borgia

Russian troll factories do not give a single solitary shit about the SDMB. I would give even odds whether or not they are even aware of it. They have too much to do on Facebook and Twitter to worry about a tiny dying message board.

This kind of misses the point - paid trolls, whether Russian, Chinese, Turkish, or North Korean, don’t care about any of the sites they post on. It’s just a metric they need to meet - post X number of times on Y subject, plus Z number of times on unrelated subjects to make it seem like the online identity is not a single-subject hobbyhorse.

@New York Times Magazine[/quote

While other workers churned out blandly pro-Kremlin comments, her department created appealing online characters who were supposed to stand out from the horde. Savchuk posed as three of these creations, running a blog for each one on LiveJournal. One alter ego was a fortuneteller named Cantadora. The spirit world offered Cantadora insight into relationships, weight loss, feng shui — and, occasionally, geopolitics. Energies she discerned in the universe invariably showed that its arc bent toward Russia. She foretold glory for Vladimir Putin, defeat for Barack Obama and Petro Poroshenko. The point was to weave propaganda seamlessly into what appeared to be the nonpolitical musings of an everyday person.

The Agency (Published 2015)

These are people who have both sufficient time to have LiveJournal blogs, and to set up a reporter meeting with a neo-Nazi and have someone surreptitiously photograph that meeting.

Its lead image was a photo of a skinhead giving an enthusiastic Nazi salute. But it was not just any skinhead. It was the skinhead whom Katarina Aistova brought to our meeting and introduced to me as her brother. As I learned from reading the article, Aistova’s “brother” was in fact a notorious neo-Nazi named Alexei Maximov.

(source: same article as above)

The idea that neither these trolls nor the ideas they promote show up on the SDMB is naïve. There doesn’t have to be a poster X on the board directly posting from Russia, although there could be, and no one would ever know. Since these trolls are on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LiveJournal, Wikipedia, etc. the ideas promoted by the trolls are here anyway. The key is in recognizing that some ideas are being promoted out of proportion to their actual popularity regardless of which internet forum you encounter them on.

[Ravenman]

@wevets

This kind of misses the point - paid trolls, whether Russian, Chinese, Turkish, or North Korean, don’t care about any of the sites they post on. It’s just a metric they need to meet - post X number of times on Y subject, plus Z number of times on unrelated subjects to make it seem like the online identity is not a single-subject hobbyhorse…

The idea that neither these trolls nor the ideas they promote show up on the SDMB is naïve. There doesn’t have to be a poster X on the board directly posting from Russia, although there could be, and no one would ever know. Since these trolls are on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LiveJournal, Wikipedia, etc. the ideas promoted by the trolls are here anyway.

But I think the point being made is that foreign trolls probably aren’t very interested in maintaining a presence on the SDMB, because their posts: (a) probably need to be longer than a typical shit-stirring tweet or Facebook post, thus taking more time and effort; and (b) are probably influencing maybe at most 50 posters here, given that users here aren’t actually that numerous and don’t read every thread.

Contrast that to a troll using Twitter and Facebook, where they can post a meme or two lines of bullshit, and amplify it using retweets and reposts, generating thousands upon thousands of views with very little effort. Those posts then enter the mainstream because (mostly right-wing) idiots see them and assume they are true because they so want them to be true – and then those idiots sometimes introduce those ideas to the SDMB.

So I don’t think it’s too likely that Putin has some drone in St. Petersburg assigned to the SDMB. But because the Russian influence campaign spreads misinformation rather efficiently through social media, some of those ideas surely end up here, just like they can end up in newspapers and conversation and whatever.

[wevets]

@Ravenman

But I think the point being made is that foreign trolls probably aren’t very interested in maintaining a presence on the SDMB, because their posts: (a) probably need to be longer than a typical shit-stirring tweet or Facebook post, thus taking more time and effort; and (b) are probably influencing maybe at most 50 posters here, given that users here aren’t actually that numerous and don’t read every thread.

Contrast that to a troll using Twitter and Facebook, where they can post a meme or two lines of bullshit, and amplify it using retweets and reposts, generating thousands upon thousands of views with very little effort. Those posts then enter the mainstream because (mostly right-wing) idiots see them and assume they are true because they so want them to be true – and then those idiots sometimes introduce those ideas to the SDMB.

I mostly agree with this, but I think it makes 4 mistaken assumptions: that there’s only one kind of troll, that there’s already maximized efficiency - Twitter didn’t even exist 14 years ago, and as social media evolves I suspect the tactics evolve as well, and that trolls are “assigned” to particular places rather than roaming around and trying things out, and lastly that trolls need to “maintain” a presence; since this isn’t facebook, it’s not immediately obvious what a poster’s history is. If they can have LiveJournal blogs, the idea that they can’t post on the SDMB is something I would be skeptical of.
But it’s not terribly important whether a Russian or Turkish government troll, or a freelance Macedonian one, is posting on the SDMB - as I see it, there are four possible cases:

1. A paid troll posts here and gets their ideas heard
2. No paid troll posts here, but troll ideas get heard
3. No paid troll posts here, and troll ideas don’t get heard
4. A paid troll posts here, and troll ideas don’t get heard

#1 and #2 are indistinguishable because we can’t expect to see evidence of each poster here, and it’s not even clear what evidence we could expect to see.

#3 and #4 are just insipid due to the connection of the SDMB to the rest of the internet and the motive the troll has in the first place.

[Skywatcher]

His distraction about F-35s didn’t get the intended result so now, of course, he wants to end his own distraction.

Already reported for violating Bone’s instructions to stop sealioning.

[Skywatcher]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

He’s learned nothing.

Not at all.

[Thing_Fish]

Good God. Now Jonathan Chance is threatening to close the impeachment thread if people don’t stop being mean to Liar McTrollerstein. WTF is wrong with these moderators?