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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/06/donald-trump-hitler-michael-bender-book

 

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On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.”

The remark from the former US president on the 2018 trip, which reportedly “stunned” Kelly, a retired US Marine Corps general, is reported in a new book by Michael Bender of the Wall Street Journal.

 

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Frankly, We Did Win This Election has been widely trailed ahead of publication next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

Bender reports that Trump made the remark during an impromptu history lesson in which Kelly “reminded the president which countries were on which side during the conflict” and “connected the dots from the first world war to the second world war and all of Hitler’s atrocities”.

Bender is one of a number of authors to have interviewed Trump since he was ejected from power.

 

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He reports that Trump denied making the remark about Hitler.

But Bender says unnamed sources reported that Kelly “told the president that he was wrong, but Trump was undeterred”, emphasizing German economic recovery under Hitler during the 1930s.

“Kelly pushed back again,” Bender writes, “and argued that the German people would have been better off poor than subjected to the Nazi genocide.”

Bender adds that Kelly told Trump that even if his claim about the German economy under the Nazis after 1933 were true, “you cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can’t.”

 

Spoiler

Trump ran into considerable trouble on the centennial trip to Europe, even beyond his usual conflicts with other world leaders.

A decision to cancel a visit to an American cemetery proved controversial. Trump was later reported to have called American soldiers who died in the war “losers” and “suckers”.

Kelly, whose son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, left the White House in early 2019. He has spoken critically of Trump since, reportedly telling friends the president he served was “the most flawed person I have ever met in my life”.

Bender writes that Kelly did his best to overcome Trump’s “stunning disregard for history”.

“Senior officials described his understanding of slavery, Jim Crow, or the Black experience in general post-civil war as vague to nonexistent,” he writes. “But Trump’s indifference to Black history was similar to his disregard for the history of any race, religion or creed.”

Concern over the rise of the far right in the US grew during Trump’s time in power and continues, as he maintains a grip on a Republican party determined to obstruct investigations of the deadly 6 January assault on the US Capitol by supporters seeking to overturn his election defeat.

Trump has made positive remarks about far-right and white supremacist groups.

During a presidential debate in 2020, Trump was asked if he would denounce white supremacists and militia groups. He struggled with the answer and eventually told the far-right Proud Boys group to “stand back and stand by”.

In 2017, in the aftermath of a neo-Nazi march in Virginia which earned supportive remarks from Trump, the German magazine Stern used on its cover an illustration of Trump giving a Nazi salute while wrapped in the US flag. Its headline: “Sein Kampf” – his struggle.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I really have no idea what legal basis under which such a lawsuit would proceed.

I suppose it might be some variant of "_______ is a de facto state actor."  

Doesn't really matter though. The whole point is to work his base into a frenzy and solicit millions in donations to help battle the socialist, big tech giants 

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4 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Doesn't really matter though. The whole point is to work his base into a frenzy and solicit millions in donations to help battle the socialist, big tech giants 

…whom they keep using to build their never-ending attempts at a conservative social media platform. 

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23 minutes ago, Pancho said:

 

My initial thought was “dude just needs to die” for America to start healing, but I’m not so sure if that happened we would go back to “normal.”

They have a lot more money than he does. They can play his game and bleed him dry in court. He knows that. This is just a bluff. 

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1 minute ago, WhatTheBuck said:

They have a lot more money than he does. They can play his game and bleed him dry in court. He knows that. This is just a bluff. 

Can’t bleed a guy dry with lawyering fees when he doesn’t pay his bills. He will just keep changing attorneys and claim he’s firing them for lack of results like he did with Giuliani. 

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2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Can’t bleed a guy dry with lawyering fees when he doesn’t pay his bills. He will just keep changing attorneys and claim he’s firing them for lack of results like he did with Giuliani. 

Well, the beauty here is that it's a class action.  That means Trump, for once, is actually representing the interests of his aggrieved base.  All the turds that have had their accounts suspended or terminated for spewing bullshit.

It also means that the attorneys rely on a class settlement or judgment for their attorneys fees.

I rather doubt a class even gets certified.

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3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Can’t bleed a guy dry with lawyering fees when he doesn’t pay his bills. He will just keep changing attorneys and claim he’s firing them for lack of results like he did with Giuliani. 

I think he actually pays when he’s the one bringing the lawsuit. That’s one thing he thinks his money is good for — inflicting pain on others. But he has historically done that against people with less money who can’t afford the legal fight. I believe he takes pleasure in that. That fits his character. That’s money well spent. 

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13 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


That’s something I will never, ever understand. To elevate a man to god is insane enough….to elevate the most pathetic public figure of our lifetime….I’ll never understand it.

Now imagine they are your parents. 😥🔫

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Just now, wildcat09 said:

So we’re all already just past his “Hitler did good things” news that came out today?

The dude wrote a love letter to Kim Jong-Un, why would that be a surprise? 

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44 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, the beauty here is that it's a class action.  That means Trump, for once, is actually representing the interests of his aggrieved base.  All the turds that have had their accounts suspended or terminated for spewing bullshit.

It also means that the attorneys rely on a class settlement or judgment for their attorneys fees.

I rather doubt a class even gets certified.

This.  The conduct of every "banned user" is unique, and has to be evaluated independently.  Nope, not gonna clear the launch pad.

Also....as for the various state laws to require private companies to host your posts (no matter how awful they are)......good luck with that.  Because the SCOTUS literally just issued an opinion 2 weeks ago in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid that establishes a pretty clear rule: a government regulation requiring a private property owner to allow third parties access to its property functions as a taking.  Whether I have to allow you to physically step onto my property, or to electronically step on and use my property (depriving me of my core property right -- the right to exclude), the regulation works a taking.

So, when DeSantis and Abbott sign their bills requiring all social media hosts (including Surly, by the way) to host all content and not ban any content.....the government is taking that private property, and the owners of those platforms are entitled to compensation -- the SCOTUS says so.

This is aside and apart from the First Amendment problems with those laws.  Require me to dedicate my private property to someone ELSE'S occupation?  Cool.....you gotta pay me for that taking.  Ready to write some multi-billion dollar checks, Texas and Florida?

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First Amendment, huh?

So, when that is laughed out of court, Trump will yell and scream that the First Amendment needs altered, or eliminated. It's not his first time suggesting this, but he will do it with more gusto this time around.  And his followers will all agree that the First Amendment needs stricken.  So will the rest of the GQP.

 

 

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Trump has a much greater chance of being installed as president this August than he does of winning that lawsuit. Apparently Trump is unaware how difficult his party has made it to get a class certified much less one supposedly based on the first amendment. As already said it’s just a grift anyway. 

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More info:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/07/07/trump-lawsuit-social-media/

 

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Former president Donald Trump on Wednesday filed class-action lawsuits targeting Facebook, Google and Twitter and their CEOs, escalating his long-running battle with the companies following their suspensions of his accounts.

The suits were filed in the Southern District of Florida, and Trump said at a news conference in Bedminster, N.J., that they would call for the court to issue an order blocking the companies’ alleged censorship of the American people.

 

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“We’re demanding an end to the shadowbanning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well,” Trump said.

The suits allege that the companies violated Trump’s First Amendment rights in suspending his accounts and argues that Facebook, in particular, no longer should be considered a private company but “a state actor” whose actions are constrained by First Amendment restrictions on government limitations on free speech. Traditionally, the First Amendment is thought to constrain only government actions, not those of private companies.

 

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It also called for the court to strike down Section 230, a decades-old Internet law that protects tech companies from lawsuits over content moderation decisions.

The suits seek unspecified punitive damages.

Legal and tech experts immediately criticized the claims, warning they had little chance of succeeding. Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University Law School in California, said dozens of similar lawsuits have failed in court. He said Trump is “playing a standard media game. It fits into a broader pattern of the former president bringing lawsuits and then not vigorously pursuing them."

 

Spoiler

“There’s no way a plaintiff has been able to get traction in the past, and there’s no way that Trump is going to be able to get traction either,” he said.

Paul Barret, the deputy director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, said the lawsuits were dead on arrival.

“Trump has the First Amendment argument exactly wrong,” he said in a statement. "In fact, Facebook and Twitter themselves have a First Amendment free speech right to determine what speech their platforms project and amplify —and that right includes excluding speakers who incite violence, as Trump did in connection with the January 6 Capitol insurrection.”

The lawsuit is the latest chapter in Trump’s tumultuous relationship with the social media companies, which helped fuel his political rise and served as critical megaphones during his presidency until both platforms suspended his account, citing incitement of violence, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Since then, Republicans have been escalating their political attacks on the Silicon Valley giants calling the move censorship.

Trump will face an uphill battle in court, under Section 230. The lawsuit also is likely to face claims that any action against the platforms violates their First Amendment rights; just last week, a federal judge cited the Constitution in blocking a Florida social media law from taking effect. The law would have levied fines against the tech companies if they suspended politicians in the run-up to an election.

Trump is suspended from Facebook for 2 years and can’t return until ‘risk to public safety is receded’

Twitter in January permanently suspended Trump’s account, citing the risk of further violence in the wake of the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol. Facebook has suspended the former president for two years, and has said it will only reinstate him if “the risk to public safety has receded.” Trump has had a dramatically lower reach online since. He recently shut down his blog after just 29 days following reports by The Washington Post and other outlets highlighting its underwhelming traffic.

Trump made clear that the lawsuits were retaliation for those moves.

“Of course there’s no better evidence that Big Tech is out of control than they banned the sitting president of the United States earlier this year,” he said at the news conference. “If they can do it to me they can do it to anyone.”

Facebook and Twitter declined to comment. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But even before those dramatic rebukes, Trump railed against social media companies for allegedly censoring him and other conservatives. In May 2020, he signed an executive order that took aim at Section 230. President Biden revoked that order in May.

Trump accuses social media companies of ‘terrible bias’ at White House summit decried by critics

He also rallied his online allies at a “Social Media Summit” at the White House two years ago, where he railed against the tech companies for exhibiting “terrible bias” and silencing his supporters. That same year, the Trump administration launched a campaign to collect stories of alleged instances of political bias on social media.

Meanwhile, House Republicans on Wednesday also stepped up their attacks on Big Tech amid a bipartisan push to overhaul U.S. competition laws. Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee released a plan calling for an overhaul of Section 230 and faster court consideration of antitrust cases.

 

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2 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

The suits allege that the companies violated Trump’s First Amendment rights in suspending his accounts and argues that Facebook, in particular, no longer should be considered a private company but “a state actor” whose actions are constrained by First Amendment restrictions on government limitations on free speech. Traditionally, the First Amendment is thought to constrain only government actions, not those of private companies.

Lulz. "Well your honor, we would like to pretend that facebook is actually an arm of the government. So if you look at it that way....". 

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First Amendment, huh?
So, when that is laughed out of court, Trump will yell and scream that the First Amendment needs altered, or eliminated. It's not his first time suggesting this, but he will do it with more gusto this time around.  And his followers will all agree that the First Amendment needs stricken.  So will the rest of the GQP.
 
 

I could see it as an antitrust violation. Twitter and Facebook clearly have unique media networks with unprecedented access and reach. Save some federal legislation, courts arent buying that because there are tons of other media outlets online.
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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, the beauty here is that it's a class action.  That means Trump, for once, is actually representing the interests of his aggrieved base.  All the turds that have had their accounts suspended or terminated for spewing bullshit.

It also means that the attorneys rely on a class settlement or judgment for their attorneys fees.

I rather doubt a class even gets certified.

Can he get a chunk of the attorneys fees as the lead plaintiff?

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39 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This.  The conduct of every "banned user" is unique, and has to be evaluated independently.  Nope, not gonna clear the launch pad.

Also....as for the various state laws to require private companies to host your posts (no matter how awful they are)......good luck with that.  Because the SCOTUS literally just issued an opinion 2 weeks ago in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid that establishes a pretty clear rule: a government regulation requiring a private property owner to allow third parties access to its property functions as a taking.  Whether I have to allow you to physically step onto my property, or to electronically step on and use my property (depriving me of my core property right -- the right to exclude), the regulation works a taking.

So, when DeSantis and Abbott sign their bills requiring all social media hosts (including Surly, by the way) to host all content and not ban any content.....the government is taking that private property, and the owners of those platforms are entitled to compensation -- the SCOTUS says so.

This is aside and apart from the First Amendment problems with those laws.  Require me to dedicate my private property to someone ELSE'S occupation?  Cool.....you gotta pay me for that taking.  Ready to write some multi-billion dollar checks, Texas and Florida?

Oh you sweet summer child, this SCOTUS wouldn't hesitate for a single second to distinguish that shit from Cedar Point Nursery. That was a "fuck unions" case. The law is different for unions, because of SCOTUS's definitely-grounded-in-the-text-of-the-Constitution "fuck unions" stance. 

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Oh you sweet summer child, this SCOTUS wouldn't hesitate for a single second to distinguish that shit from Cedar Point Nursery. That was a "fuck unions" case. The law is different for unions, because of SCOTUS's definitely-grounded-in-the-text-of-the-Constitution "fuck unions" stance. 

Oh, I know they’d WANT to. But the problem is that they wrote a pretty unambiguous opinion and rule. They (and the SCOTX) have a habit of doing that: in their zeal to fuck over a particular interest, they end up writing a solid rule of broad application (an unintended consequence).
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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I really have no idea what legal basis under which such a lawsuit would proceed.

I suppose it might be some variant of "_______ is a de facto state actor."  

2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Funny thing, those pesky Terms of Service that Trump (and his legion of suspended/deleted users) all agreed to.

So if I go into a bar, get drunk, start screaming the n-word, and get thrown out, can I sue them for censorship?

And if a business requires you to be wearing shoes and a shirt, and I wear neither, can I sue them?

Because that seems like something Trump and his victim culture would believe.

 

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3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

So if I go into a bar, get drunk, start screaming the n-word, and get thrown out, can I sue them for censorship?

If you ask a bakery to decorate a cake that says “Happy Anniversary, Julio and Steve,” can they refuse?

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53 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

I could see it as an antitrust violation. Twitter and Facebook clearly have unique media networks with unprecedented access and reach. Save some federal legislation, courts arent buying that because there are tons of other media outlets online.

The problem is there is absolutely nothing stopping anybody from creating their own social media platforms and twitter and Facebook cannot stop them from becoming big.

Facebook and MySpace came up at nearly the same time, but it wasn't Facebook's fault that MySpace crashed and burned. MySpace ultimately ended up a shit product.

Google's run at a social media platform didn't fail because they didn't have the resources of Facebook, it failed because it ended up a shit product (although some of the individual pieces were solid).

For $5 a month worth of hosting, you could get access to web hosting hardware to get you started, and for free, you can download and install your choice of web frameworks/CMSes/etc. that you can use to build a social media platform.  You can sell your own advertising, and you can scale everything up as demand increases.

For every Parler or GETTR we hear about, there's hundreds you never hear about that crash-and-burn every year, because they are shit products, or have shit marketing, or are run poorly.

Donald Trump, using a free product (Facebook, twitter) has millions of followers that he decided not to capitalize on when he got banned.  He certainly had the resources to start his own social media program.  He could drop a million or two bucks on developers and easily have a basic twitter clone put together fairly quickly (from peaking at Parler and GETTR, they went cheap as possible and it shows).  He would control the revenue, he would control the advertising.

But Donald Trump doesn't want to spend his own money (and I think that if Parler really took off, he would have joined it for a cut, maybe even less than 40%).

 

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6 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

The problem is there is absolutely nothing stopping anybody from creating their own social media platforms and twitter and Facebook cannot stop them from becoming big.

Facebook and MySpace came up at nearly the same time, but it wasn't Facebook's fault that MySpace crashed and burned. MySpace ultimately ended up a shit product.

Google's run at a social media platform didn't fail because they didn't have the resources of Facebook, it failed because it ended up a shit product (although some of the individual pieces were solid).

For $5 a month worth of hosting, you could get access to web hosting hardware to get you started, and for free, you can download and install your choice of web frameworks/CMSes/etc. that you can use to build a social media platform.  You can sell your own advertising, and you can scale everything up as demand increases.

For every Parler or GETTR we hear about, there's hundreds you never hear about that crash-and-burn every year, because they are shit products, or have shit marketing, or are run poorly.

Donald Trump, using a free product (Facebook, twitter) has millions of followers that he decided not to capitalize on when he got banned.  He certainly had the resources to start his own social media program.  He could drop a million or two bucks on developers and easily have a basic twitter clone put together fairly quickly (from peaking at Parler and GETTR, they went cheap as possible and it shows).  He would control the revenue, he would control the advertising.

But Donald Trump doesn't want to spend his own money (and I think that if Parler really took off, he would have joined it for a cut, maybe even less than 40%).

 

Or he likely doesn't have the money to being with.

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3 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Or he likely doesn't have the money to being with.

He could easily partner with somebody, like it sounded like he was doing with Parler, for a cut of their revenue, without putting any money in.  All he had to do was bring his followers.

The problem is we will never know the exact amount, but a shitload of his twitter followers were bots.

The thing is, when he had his Creed Thoughts website where somebody posted his ramblings, it sounded like it wasn't getting much traffic, which could have made his people skittish about putting a lot of money into something. 

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36 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

And if a business requires you to be wearing shoes and a shirt, and I wear neither, can I sue them?

 

The court has established precedent on this in the case of Spicoli v. Hamilton, where they sided squarely with businesses. 

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33 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Can your business wholesale discriminate against somebody because they are black or brown?

No, but that would seemingly weigh against the point you were trying to make (and for which I was offering further support).

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Guest Lobo

His attorney is John Coale, the scientology guy?  Jesus Trump, really putting together the all-star team.  

And then the other guy from New Orleans is a Civil Code practitioner from Loyola, which should come in real fucking handy when taking on Big Tech/1st Amendment Law.  

This is the most insane legal team I've ever seen assembled.  and I interned with Jackie Chiles.  

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