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Title is obviously not word for word quote due to title length reqs.

HNers of the USA - How can we just... Let this happen? It falls within free speech AFAIK. Is free speech a bad thing then? I really have no answers.

I hope some of you find this at least slightly thought provoking, whatever those thoughts may be.

Would it be wrong for me to print and sell 'ANTIFA provocateur' shirts?
Just be careful about wearing them in the wrong neighborhood
Let what happen?
He's asking how we can let the president knowingly lie and spread misinformation on a public platform.

Misinformation and "lie" are not strong enough words. This is horseshit.

Free speech is like air, bad guys use it too. As for compassion and conscience, these things seem to have died in political discourse quite a while ago.
Free speech is protection from the government. This is libel, the victim could take POTUS to civil court over this.
This discussion is probably going to be flagged for being political, but I'll comment while it's here.

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I find it difficult to believe that the White House administration has any kind of expert opinion backing up this particular tweet.

I really hadn't intended it to be political. I guess I can understand how it would easily be seen that way though.

I'm just in complete awe of

"appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment."

Coming from the leader of a developed country. Absolutely in awe of the magnitude of... trolling old people, I think. He's trolling old people, SO damn hard.

Edit: Has The Onion truly ever posted anything more hilarious than this tweet? Like, I'm a serious fan of The Onion. But man... this is up there

Regarding your edit: you should look into the r/nottheonion subreddit.
Oh, I'm well aware. It's just, this is literally the POTUS on his national broadcast system.
Everything is political. Tech is built by people to be used by people, therefore it's as political as it gets.

And yes, that tweet is ridiculous - as is the current iteration of the White House.

That doesn't count anymore. We had expert opinions on Russians for three years and it was pure horseshit. We had innocents slandered as racists, sexists and generally deplorable. Trump just uses lies like that against political enemies. While it is not really viable to reciprocate this for a longer time, it is what it is and seems to work.

On the other hand, I need a 4th estate critical about a president. I never heard anything critical about Trumps competitors, so it might indeed be advantageous to vote for him as long as there is no critical press available.

> I never heard anything critical about Trumps competitors

Can you expand on this? I'm pretty sure, for example, that 2016 was -quite- critical about Trump's competition.

Ok, specifically Hillary as the main candidate. The others got their flak indeed.
Just to clarify, you think the media was uncritical of Clinton in 2016?
The 4th estate crying bloody murder is what got him elected. Instead of ignoring him, they gave him all the press, and every person ready to put a shiv in the DNC voted for him, knowing he was exactly the kind of torment the DNC couldnt handle.

In the specific case of a wrecking ball, a candidate elected to purposely be a forest fire, any amount of press fans the flame.

https://nypost.com/2016/11/20/keep-crying-wolf-about-trump-a...

> The 4th estate crying bloody murder is what got him elected.

And it doesn't look like they've learnt any lessons in the interim, sadly.

He thinks we're all fucking stupid.
No, he doesn't.

He literally knows of just how many people around the U.S., regardless of age - though definitely pointing towards the older internet-illiterate, will literally take the word of the POTUS without a second thought or fuck to their grave.

about 34%, right now.

“a bigger and bigger share of a smaller and smaller market is a death spiral”

No, because those 34% vote a lot more and much of the rest doesn't give a fuck and is too lazy to vote. That's how he got elected and how the UK got Brexit.
As comments from raxxorrax exemplify, for the most part his supporters aren't stupid. They know he's lying, they understand it's bullshit. But since the lies and bullshit help their cause and make their enemies apoplectic, they support him and amplify the bullshit. By repeating the bullshit to each other, they demonstrate loyalty to strengthen identity and in-group cohesion.
These tweets need to stay up (perhaps marked as fact-free) so we can all see that the POTUS has a very strong case of narcissistic personality disorder and is most likely a sociopath.
Wow, what a difference that would make. If everyone knew that he was a narcissist and sociopath, they might just promote him to emperor.