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10,000 People Showed Up for Trump’s Pre-Inauguration Concert. 400,000 Showed Up for Obama’s.

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40 Times More People Came for Obama 

Thursday afternoon Donald Trump held a concert to kick off his inauguration and a weekend of celebration at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The president-elect tried to spin it, suggesting that maybe no one had ever held a concert there, pretending there were “tens of thousands of people” there, filling the space, “all the way to the back.”

Trump told attendees, “This started out tonight being a small little concert, and then we had the idea maybe we’ll do it in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I don’t know if it’s ever been done before,” he said, according to Buzzfeed. “But if it has, very seldom. And the people came by the thousands and thousands, and here we are tonight, all the way back. All the way back.”

Later, at a donors’ dinner, Trump tried to spin a bit harder.

“We thought it would be a small concert and tens of thousands of people were there,” the president-elect said. “It went all the way to the back. They never had so many people. And very few people ever had a concert at the Lincoln Memorial.”

None of his remarks were true.

According to an MSNBC crowd estimate, 10,000 people showed.

Meanwhile, eight years ago, Barack Obama held a pre-inauguration concert at the National Mall. 

“Rap fans danced to country music, elderly white men high-fived with young African Americans and tears mixed with laughter as a varied lineup of A-list stars and an equally diverse crowd jammed the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the nation and its historic president-elect yesterday,” The Washington Post reported Jan. 19, 2009.

“By some estimates, more than 400,000 people filled the western end of the Mall for the official start of a three-day jubilee of prayers, parades and parties. They endured long security lines and chilly weather for a two-hour salute to the man who will be America’s first black president and to the nation that elected Barack Obama to the White House despite centuries of racial divisiveness.”

This tweet sums it up:

The photo above, a screenshot from CNN, was taken at 4:44 PM ET. Here’s video of Trump and his family arriving at 4:13 PM ET:

Many noted it didn’t help Trump wasn’t able to attract well-known talent:

Friday doesn’t appear to be much different. D.C. should be packed. Trump and his team have been falsely claiming dress shops and hotels are sold out but according to many, including one New York Times reporter, the city is conspicuously empty:

UPDATE:
Buzzfeed editor tweets there’s a light crowd out Friday AM: 

 

 

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THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE

‘Show Us the Flynn Tapes or Buzz Off’: Dem Rep. Swalwell Destroys Trump’s Former DNI in Epic Twitter ‘Bloodbath’

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May 28, 2020

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Right now there an online Twitter battle between California’s Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell and President Donald Trump’s former acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell. Swalwell is winning, handily.

It all started last week when Rep. Swalwell said he didn’t trust Grenell, who was stepping down both as Trump’s Ambassador to Germany and as his acting DNI, after the Senate confirmed now-former Congressman John Ratcliffe. (Ratcliffe is legally ineligible to hold that position, but Senate Republicans confirmed him anyway.)

Grenell fought back:

And Swalwell slammed him for not doing his job, and taunted him for not releasing trump’s first National Security Advisor Mike Flynn’s transcripts/calls with Russian agents.

Grenell insisted the transcripts/calls would be released.

Swalwell waited. Grenell is no longer DNI (although he is joining the Trump re-election campaign.) Swalwell slammed Grenell. “Tick tock.”

And Swalwell hit back again, accusing Grenell of enabling the guy who spread “Russian propaganda” and “asked Russia to hack his opponent,” Donald Trump:

And then Swalwell schooled Grenell on actual facts, like Democrats were in the minority during the Russia investigations, and hit him with “show us the Flynn tapes or buzz off.”

More facts from Swalwell, facts the right likes to forget:

And this:

And more facts:

The battle is still going on.

Here’s what some are saying now that “Swalwell” is the top trending topic on Twitter right now:

 

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FIRST AMENDMENT? WHAT FIRST AMENDMENT?

Draft of Trump Executive Order Would Have Barr and White House Collect Information on Social Media Users: Reports

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May 28, 2020

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A draft of President Donald Trump’s social media executive order shows it would create disturbing structures that could allow the President of the United States to personally target social media companies he feels are taking action against his supporters, enable his supporters to report that action directly to the White House, and empower the Attorney General of the United States to collect publicly available “watch-lists” of social media users that monitor not only their online activities but their offline activities as well.

The draft is not final, but both the speed with which it will be signed and reports show it likely has not gone through interagency review, as CNN’s Brian Fung, who calls it “hastily conceived,” notes.

Reuters has confirmed a draft of the executive order, which President Trump has promised he will sign today.  They report it “requires the Attorney General to establish a working group including state attorneys general that will examine the enforcement of state laws that prohibit online platforms from engaging in unfair and deceptive acts.”

The order directs the White House Office of Digital Strategy to turn back on the White House Tech Bias Reporting Tool, which the Trump administration created in 2019. It is currently dormant. The tool would be used to collect complaints of what social media users feel is online censorship by tech companies. Those complaints would be submitted by the White House to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

The White House Office of Digital Strategy was not designed for that purpose. It was created for the sole purpose of crafting and promoting the President’s agenda online, not for acting as a conduit to enable spying. The Office of Digital Strategy is headed by a former Heritage Foundation employee.

Reuters also reports Barr is to create “working group” that “will also monitor or create watch-lists of users based on their interactions with content or other users.” That reporting appears to be inaccurate, based on NCRM’s reading, and reporting by other outlets.

NBC News technology correspondent Jacob Ward reports the draft “directs the White House Office of Digital Strategy to collect publicly available information regarding ‘watch-lists’ of users based on their interaction with content or users’ and ‘monitoring users based on their activity off the platform.'”

An ABC News report appears to confirm that reading.

But Barr would be directed to create the group, which would include hand-picked state attorneys general.

The mere existence of any such lists, whether or not they are created by Barr or identified by the DOJ, can easily be politicized.

Stanford Cyber Policy Center’s Platform Regulation Director says this is a copy of the draft. She has annotated it as well:

 

 

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AMERICAN IDIOT

Trump Promises to Sign Executive Order Today to Punish Tech Firms After Twitter Fact-Checked Two of His Tweets

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May 28, 2020

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President Donald Trump on Thursday will sign an executive order in retribution for Twitter appending a “get the facts” label on two of his tweets that were not only false but designed to suppress the vote. On Wednesday Trump responded to the new labels by tweeting, “Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices,” which is false, and promising tech companies he would “strongly regulate, or close them down.”

That seeds of that promise will be sown today with an executive order that would lay the groundwork to make tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google legally liable for content posted to them by users. The Washington Post reports the order “could roll back the immunity that tech giants have for the content on their sites.”

Ironically, if implemented, it would force Twitter to delete many of the President’s own tweets. For example, he is currently engaged in an online smear campaign against Joe Scarborough, accusing the MSNBC host of murdering an intern who died of natural causes in 2001.

Just last night Trump posted a link to a video from a supporter that begins, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” The speaker is reportedly an Otero County, New Mexico Commissioner and the head of Cowboys for Trump. President Trump tweeted his thanks:

Trump’s executive order would direct the federal government to reinterpret a law called Section 230, which “spares tech companies from being held liable for the comments, videos and other content posted by users on their platforms.”

The President’s intended changes “could mean potentially dramatic free-speech implications and wide-ranging consequences.”

Trump gleefully hinted at the executive order Thursday morning.

 

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