Feinberg's first attack on Savino is that the source of the graphic really is anti-Semitic because, this is another image from that source:
Hillary's face all over a swastika. What can that mean other than Hillary is a Nazi? If calling somebody a Nazi makes you anti-Semitic, then an awful lot of Trump's critics are anti-Semitic.
But Feinberg has another argument. She looks at the "shapes" tag in Microsoft Word and finds no 6-pointed star. She mocks: "There is, however, a triangle which can be used to create a six-pointed star—so maybe Dan was getting creative."
9 minutes later, she posts an update:
Update 10:38 p.m.: Some versions of Microsoft’s products do, in fact, carry the star. Dan, I would love to apologize to you personally. Please unblock me.Brilliant. The star? Generic now. You mean the Star of David? Or just some 6-pointed star, giving evidence that a 6-pointed star can be just a star, just as not every 5-pointed star is a Satanic pentagram.
Feinberg does avoid the specious argument I've seen elsewhere, that sheriff's badges have little circles on the points. Some do:
Some don't:
Those who make the little-circles argument ought to have to deal with the intersecting-triangles aspect of the Star of David. The clearly intentional Stars of David I am seeing — for example at the Wikipedia article — have lines separating the points into little triangles around a hexagram. Look at the flag of Israel:
The Nazi's crude patch did not omit those lines:
But what a distraction! This was the weekend after Hillary Clinton's interview with the F.B.I., and her supporters successfully jammed the American brainwaves with the loud message that Trump is a bigot. That's a message they're yelling over and over. It's what they've got. Is it even a message at all or just raw emotional manipulation?
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88 comments:
We are in an era when who shouts the loudest gets attention.
Hillary plus MSM is louder.
The six-pointed star is popular and easy to make because it is all symmetrical and evenly spaced and made up of isosceles triangles.
What do you think, Ann? I assume you're at least over the age of 12 and have an IQ at least marginally in double digits, so it should be intuitively obvious to you (and anyone else in that category) what the MSM is doing here..
All the work Trump did in the '90s to break down barriers to Jews and Blacks in Palm Beach when he arrived there? Gone in one possibly ambiguous tweet invidiously interpreted by Hillary's fifth column in the press.
I wouldn't unblock. Fuck her. Gawker is shit anyway.
The media is the enemy. Even more than radical Islam.
Islam will kill you. The media will explain why it wasn't Islam that killed you, allowing them to do it repeatedly.
"But what a distraction!"
Indeed! Usual Althouse gobbledygook aside, who needs Willie Horton/Swift Boaters when you have Microsoft. This is where Trump's money deficit will be a big negative. And just what Trump needs ~ higher negatives.
Trump's "campaign" lightness is showing. Hey, he's a rookie up against a huuuuge/well-oiled machine. Good luck w/that.
Somewhere Lee Atwater is smilin'.
PS: I waaaayyy misstated my comment. I should amend the "age of 12" bit to "at least a third-grader.."
Yah, we should all have an understanding of the MSM political strategy by now. It's not the content of the criticism that matters it's the volume. Equate enough negative with the opponent no matter how flimsy or unfair and hope enough voters forget how flimsy and unfair.
Trump is a bigot? So are they! For sheer, raw, visceral hatred nothing beats the Left's reflexive hatred of the American middle class and working poor.
The difference is that there is no evidence whatsoever, beyond the Left's "Big Lie" assertions that Trump is a bigot but all one has to do is listen to Charlie Rose or Mark Shields or David Brooks or Barack Obama talk, or read what Ezra Klein or Dana Milbank or Gene Robinson write to see the contempt and fear ooze out.
Not a Trump fan but his daughter is Jewish.
There's so much you could attack him on, weird that they feel the need to slander the guy.
Trump is anti-Jewish like Hillary is anti-money.
shiloh, the concern troll.
Thanks for setting Trump straight.
So it also appears that Paul Mirengoff's crude and disgusting post at Power Line was based on a falsehood as well, namely that the pic was sourced from an anti-Semitic site.
It's like Trump is coaxing the cobras out of the cave just by breathing.
It's a message. The message is Don't pay attention!
Shiloh, tell us again where the Swift Boaters were proven to be liars.
Tell us again why Mike Dukakis thought it was a great idea to let convicted murderers serving life sentences for heinous crimes "furloughs" from prison.
Tell us again some of Hillary's good qualities. Why you think she will be such a good president that she should get the Democrat nomination.
I heard an NPR report a day or two ago about Obama's Presidential Library. The report was all about the architecture, how Barack wanted one thing and Michelle favored another, and the big question was whether it should go in this part of Chicago, or that one.
Bill Clinton already has a library.
What are these people doing? They are atheists, of course. Why do they care?
Shill-oh is now defending Hillary's complete sell-out of all of the values she preaches publicly to the big money interests. That's her "good quality," her shamelessness. It allows her to rake in the big bucks one needs to run for president. What a joke that Trump is trying a different path.
I am thinking that if Bernie were running against Trump, we could get the first publicly financed campaign, and it would be great for America. But no. Hillary's personal ambition is more important people!
Indict her already so that America can move on. Her brand of Democrat is as dead as Romney's brand of Republican.
Kerry would have made as great a President as he had a SoS.
Darrell
Concern troll = a person who participates in a debate posing as an actual or potential ally.
Please point out where I said something positive/nice about the laughable, train wreck Trump. Indeed as Trump is a low-life scumbag on a good day.
Apologies to low-life scumbags ...
Thanks, shitlow!
Tell me about crossing the International Date Line again--the highlight of your life . . .
Twitter is like tuning into a conversation dominated by the stupidest people in the world.
Apologies to low-life scumbags - Shilloh
Wouldn't want to offend the Clintons! Good CYA there!
I just checked on my laptop MS-Office 2007.
Word - No 6 pointed star, only a 5 pointed and a many pointed (like a sunburst) star
Power Point has many more shapes available under "Insert" than Word, including a 6 pointed star.
John Henry
The time to start worrying is when either candidate begins using a seven-pointed star.
"Shiloh, tell us again where the Swift Boaters were proven to be liars. "
Don't confuse him/her with facts.
Lefty Hillary trolls are about as thoughtful as the Rockettes in their prime. Kick higher is reflex, not thought.
You never realize you've jumped the shark while jumping it. Fonzi sure didn't. This racism smear, which has reached world-wide fever pitch, has jumped it. Brexit is the proof.
And when Trump wins, American media and elites will look at the gun in their hands and discover it has fired a small "Bang!" banner. The joke will be on them.
Twitter is like tuning into a conversation dominated by the stupidest people in the world.
Twitter was always that. Worst concept for communication ever devised.
I think a second sequel to The Davinci Code is in order.
"In this thrilling follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, expert symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) follows ancient clues on a heart-racing hunt through Microsoft's clip art package versions and the darker corners of the internet to get to the bottom of one of the greatest scandals of the modern age!"
I left "symbologist" in there rather than replacing it with "semiotician" because it humors me, like having my espresso be called "expresso" at a coffee shop. Maybe it's a real word, too lazy to check.
But Twitter makes a lot of money. Sky-high profit margin.
All that they have is screaming that their opponents are racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. all right thinking people oppose this, so you had better vote Democratic so you can be a right thinking person. Except that the racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, etc comes primarily from the left. Always has, and likely always will. I have always wondered whether it was always projection on their part on a massive basis. Why do racists, sexists, etc tend so strongly to be Democrats? Maybe for the same reasons that terrorists and mass murderers do. First, for most of its existence, the purpose of the party was to oppress blacks, first with slavery, then with Jim Crow, and most recently with LBJ's War on Poverty. But maybe more importantly, the party is urban centric, and composed of competing factions. The Blacks hate the Hispanics because they take their jobs, and hate Asians and esp Jews because they are the shop keepers and have the money. In fact, most of the Dem part constituencies hate the Jews because they buy their way to the table with their money. Currently, roughly 10% of the Senate is Jewish, and 2% Black, while 4/9 of the Supreme Court is Jewish, and only 1/9 is Black, and he doesn't count because he is a Republcan who may have told a dirty joke around Anita Hill, and married a white woman. In a party that tries to allocate power based on the number of votes delivered, of course most of the Dem constituencies hate the Jews.
So, what happened here? The usual Dem dog whistle politics. They know that they are haters, are mostly antisemitic, and so see antisemitism where it isn't. The only people who actually hear the dog whistles that we are always hearing about are on the left. They hear them because they are the real racists, sexists, etc, and project their personal prejudices onto the right, who mostly believe in melting pot America. Sometimes a star is only a star, and was used to reflect a sheriff's badge, and not the Star of David. And, again, the left be clowns itself with projecting its own prejudices on their opponents.
As somebody pointed out, had he used a five pointed star, it would be called a pentagram and he would be accused of sexism for calling her a witch.
John Henry said...
I just checked on my laptop MS-Office 2007.
Word - No 6 pointed star, only a 5 pointed and a many pointed (like a sunburst) star
Power Point has many more shapes available under "Insert" than Word, including a 6 pointed star.
John Henry
7/5/16, 7:18 AM
Paint has a six-pointed star and is more likely to be used for a quick edit to a picture.
Funny how Trump is so unfamiliar with the semiotics of anti semitism that he only sees a sherrif's star, but that makes him even more of an anti semite!
The "distraction" point seems to be a part of a pattern. Trump and his campaign, intentionally or negligently, seems to keep steering the conversation away from what should be mortal wounds of Hillary's campaign.
There is no way the Bubba/Lynch meeting could not be a total mess for Hillary--Lynch now has to completely recuse herself from the e-mail probe (and thus abdicate her duty as Attorney General) or she's going to have to recommend indictment (even if she personally believed indictment was unwarranted, no one would believe her meeting with Bill did not influence her). And once again, the Trump campaign to the rescue, getting the conversation turned on its association with white supremacist elements. (Pro-tip--when using any star in a campaign ad, avoid any six pointed star--even if it never occurred to you that it resembled a Star of David, and even if you want to fight political oversensitivity, this would be a good time to let the conversation about Hillary's corruption and attempt to subvert the AG fester a bit).
Trump could probably win this thing if he fired his entire campaign staff and went into a four month coma, and let the American people have a referendum on Hillary. Instead, he seems determined to pull her out of harm's way at every turn. If she limps past the finish line, she'll have him to thank.
"Twitter is like tuning into a conversation dominated by the stupidest people in the world."
Trump ~ Tweets = 32.5K / Followers = 9.5M
Indeed!
Talk about anything but why you think Hillary should be president, shill-o!
Wasn't that the strategy revealed in the DNC leak? "Muddy the waters around Hillary's ethical lapses"?
Shiloh
Wasn't the Willie Horton Ad dreamed up by Al Gore? Whose hometown still had, at that time, a city park named after the founder of the KKK.
re Swift boaters: as I recall they made 4 claims:
Kerry was not in Cambodia on Christmas Eve
Kerry did not carry a special operator into Cambodia. (But he has the hat!!!!)
He did not throw his own medals over the White house fence
300 or so of his shipmates from the Swiftboats did not think he was qualified to be president
Kerry has admitte that the first 3 were untrue. There doesn't seem to be any dispute about the 4th.
So what did the Swiftboaters lie about?
John Henry
I still say the star and controversy were purposeful. How many people have seen the "Crooked Hilary"? How many would have seen it had it been a circle or some other shape?
This is just another ploy in so baking the crooked Hilary meme into people's heads that even TV newscasters see it even when it is not there.
Seems to me to be close to genius level on Trump's part.
John Henry
Any statement that diverges from Democrat orthodoxy is lying, as it is the "One True Ideology!"
Defenders of the faith like Shill-o will always be on your case if you stray! Next she will be sewing scarlet letters on our shirts.
John Kerry, the tax dodger, would be the perfect Democrat president.
re mortal wounds (per Brando)
Is now really the time to incur mortal wounds on Hilary? Seems to me that now is the time to make a thousand small cuts. If Hilary gets taken out now, with a truly mortal wound, the Demmies have a couple weeks to get their ducks in a line for the convention. They might recover.
Seems to me a better strategy, for Trump, is to wait until after they are truly locked in with a candidate to go for the kill shot. (Metaphorically speaking, of course)
If Hilary gets taken down in late August or September, how does the party recover? Ballots are already printed, advertising done and so on. How do they switch to Slow Joe or someone else at that point?
It is why I am in no hurry for the FBI to finish its investigation. The later the results, especially if bad, the better. Even a clean bill of health in August/September would harm Hilary. People would think, and Trump would claim, that the fix was in. Harder to claim but not hard for people to think, would be that if Hilary was really clean, there would not have been all this hoorah.
Gotta go to Sam's today and get more popcorn.
John Henry
Do you know what's anti-Semitic?
The "New" Arab World Hillary created during her tenure as Sec. of State.
This has to be one of the dumbest media created controversies I've ever seen. I can't believe Althouse was originally taken in by this scam but I'm glad to see she finally figured it out.
I would unblock her only if she posted an apology with a picture of her with a Hitler mustache.
I see no reason to unblock her. Why give toxic people MORE access to you?
The apology is for him, not her. If he doesn't want to hear it, well, she'll just have to accept that sometimes the victims of bullying do not want or need to interact with their bullies again. My understanding was that victims have the right to reject being forced to interact with the people who wronged them.
I live in NYC. The most immediate association I have with a red star is a Macy's sale. Next would be maybe the Red Star of China or the Soviet Union. I'm not particularly Jewish or anti-Semitic so I didn't see the reference at all, but maybe Jews and anti-Semites are more sensitive to the shapes rather than the color of stars. At any rate, it does seem contradictory to accuse the Trump campaign of being both heavy handed and using delicately subliminal imagery.
"Seems to me a better strategy, for Trump, is to wait until after they are truly locked in with a candidate to go for the kill shot. (Metaphorically speaking, of course)"
The only problem with this is a few months from now the press is already on to something else, and timing is crucial with these scandals. And most of this year, each time something new with the e-mail scandal (or the Clinton Foundation scandal) emerged, Trump jumped in with some new nonsense to get the conversation back to him (and usually on shaky ground that hurt him among the people he needs). Holding any punches now (which I doubt is actually what Trump is doing, so much as not being able to help himself getting in the news) is a bad idea when dealing with someone this slippery.
Also, I can't imagine any scenario where the Dems pick another candidate at this point short of indictment (and even then). Hillary EARNED this, and will not step aside. Even dropping in the polls (which is all the media-pile on would do at this stage) would not be enough to switch candidates. Voter opinions are already starting to solidify, and anything that could weaken some of their support should be taken advantage of.
I'd think this "star" thing was clever if it was taking attention away from a recent Trump scandal (let's say, dead hooker found in his bathroom) so it'd be a helpful distraction. But this week it was Hillary taking the hit.
Re: John Kerry
He has yet to release his DD214 as he promised so many years ago.
And in this case I think whoever approved the ad never considered its similarity to the Jewish star--it's solid red, without the interlocking lines. But campaign staffs generally are supposed to pore carefully over every bit of placement in their ads to make sure there's no inadvertent messages in there (e.g., an unattributed Mussolini quote, or a crowd scene that has a serial killer's face in there). You only want distractions when they help you, and when the opposition is hammering you 24/7 about your ties to white supremacist groups there's no point in giving them more fuel.
Is it even a message at all or just raw emotional manipulation?
I dunno, Althouse. Maybe you should ask Scott Adams.
I think the majority of Americans see through the media's obvious attempts to enable Hillary at this point
Brando,
Comey is going to hold a presser at 11.
Maybe you'll get your wish?
And I'll be wrong?
John Henry
Brando, the press invented "Romney bullied a gay kid in high school" stories even though the "victim" said they weren't true.
They'd find a distraction no matter what.
Likely one of the considerations was the number of words they wanted to put in the star. The six-pointed star (and stars with more points) allows for more words to be embedded. Some ads use 8 or more pointed stars for this purpose.
Even the WaPo had to cover Hillary's time before the FBI.. Then on Monday they admitted that it, and Bill's antics, were causing Hillary problems with the "Trust" issue. Keep reminding yourself that very few are paying attention to politics right now. Terrorist attacks - maybe.
NY Times has a prominent article in which Hilary calls the ad anti-semitic.
AND, for bonus points the article features the ad prominently displaying "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever"
How many people will read the article?
How many people will see the Most corrupt candidate ever in the picture of the ad?
I bet a lot more of the second, than the first.
"Comey is going to hold a presser at 11.
Maybe you'll get your wish?"
I'll try not to get my hopes up--but it'd be nice to see how Clinton reacts to an indictment. I'm guessing it'll be their usual playbook of (1) this is old news! (2) this is a right wing hack job! and (3) everyone else does the thing Hillary is being accused of, this is really no big deal! How that would work on Obama's DOJ would be the real test.
"They'd find a distraction no matter what."
Oh, they will, at least the pro-Clinton press would--but why keep feeding them? Republicans have a long habit of doing the Dems' political work for them.
Squirrel!!!
I want to point out that I ran control-f squirrel before I posted this.
We unwashed masses have to maintain our integrity, unlike the future President of the U.S.
The MSM will find 'distractions' regardless. But Trump not being so paranoid as to avoid everything that could possibly, slightly, infinitesimally offend anyone gets the MSM into a feeding frenzy, and they attack over much stupider things than usual.
Which benefits Trump by making his opponents look like total morons. If they're going to attack you anyway, let them make themselves look like idiots.
Hey Hegelian, still think it's a 'Star of David'? It doesn't fit the definition of one. You've outed yourself as a Hill shill, too. Shame.
I'm not sure if we're still supposed to think Scott Adams is a political guru genius (or if Ann is still under Adams' hypnosis) but his recent post about repeated allegations sticking and the Clintonites associating Trump with the "crazy racist" label would be a case in point for where this doesn't help. They were already calling Trump a Nazi and bigot, and pointing out how much white supremacist groups were supporting him. If Adams is to be believed, and you were Trump's social media director, and deciding whether to use a six-pointed sheriff's star or an eight-pointed one, which would you have chosen?
I don't care for hypersensitivity any more than the next guy, but we already know the games the Clintons play and they've already been somewhat successful at it. Why not give them a few months without feeding that narrative? And maybe keep Hillary's corruption in voters' minds?
Holy Shit! Referring for Prosecution!
I think semiotics just took a back burner
Get muddying, the waters are getting a little too clear! What a liar the FBI has found her to be!
I don't know much about anti-Semitism. I suppose there's an entire section of the library dedicated to it but it seems like one of the many subjects I don't need to know much about.
That said, I tend to doubt that many people who might qualify as anti-Semitic are of the Jews-are-inferior-sub-humans variety.
I should think that what qualifies as anti-Semitism, today, is of the they're-beating-us-by-cheating variety.
Progress.
It was desperation! And all of this time we assumed the Clintons were operating from a position of power!
The first thing he said was "referring for prosecution" the quotelet on NBC "No intentional misconduct"
Associated email accounts were hacked.
No prosecution!
She got off scott free. Son of a bitch!
Let the celebrations begin Hillary trolls.
"Only facts matter." What a fucking load of shit.
What poor judgement she has shown, and enumerated.
I told you the fix was in.
People have gotta know whether their president is a crook. Well, she's not a crook. The FBI says so.
Shiloh is right. The republic is dead. It's all about power now, not justice, and Hillary has the power.
Bob Ellison said...
What are these people doing? They are atheists, of course. Why do they care?
That's an idiotic statement. Are you an idiot?
All of you people who thought it mattered that she was so careless with classified information! You are fools, like that "hick lawyer" what's his name? "You will never get it!" - Hillary Clinton
Our new master.
Deliberate ignorance is a substitute for criminal intent.
Remember when it mattered with Valerie Plame? Fools! All that mattered was the D or the R! Same with Ted Stevens. Prosecuted maliciously, and what did the "Justice Department" lawyers who did that to him, cost him his Senate seat get? A letter in their file that was supposed to be a reprimand, but is more like a letter of recommendation for their future endeavors.
Ding dong, justice is dead! Hurray! Yippee! She was only grossly negligent! I don't see how he could ignore the fact that she committed all of the negligence in order to hide her personal business from the prying eyes of her many enemies, but then, I am not a highly credentialed prosecutor!
Weee! Hillary skates! It's great! First she rigged the whole nominating process to block out Bernie before the process even started! Whoopee! Now she skates because the FBI couldn't think of a motivation for her to have committed all of this neglegence! Wahoo! Hillary is so great!
Guilty as sin free as a bird
It's the Chicago way
The people sitting in jail for mishandling a single classified document and sobbing a little now.
The FBI ignored all sorts of warning signs from Omar Mateen, too.
But they're both protected classes, Muslims and Democrats. No wonder they like each other so much. They share the same goal: Destroying the integrity, structure, and culture of the United States of America.
Remember Fitzmas? This seems like an equal-opposite event.
So is Trumpnbsaying he's not antisemitic, he"s antisheriffic? Does he support BLM?
It doesn't help his campaign has admitted it lifted the graphic off a white supremaciustvsite without attribution. #VoteDrunk
Bob Ellison said...
Remember Fitzmas? This seems like an equal-opposite event.
In so many ways!
Scooter Libby and Martha Steward likely do not recognize this version of James Comey.
The first sheriff's badge you show is a 5-pointed star, which is more common.
By the way, has anyone checked into that anti-Hillary site it was lifted from? Is it really anti-Hillary, or only carefully anti-Hillary?
I think Hillary hasn't retracted that anti-Semitic accusation but has continued with it, even though a reasonable explanation is possible AND the Trump campaign has given an explanation of where they got it from (unfortunately without a link) and it's not at all obvious that this resenmbked a Star of David because there are no internal lines in it and you really need that fror Star of David. (two Greek letter deltas one inside the other, used, I think, by the Maccabees on their shields, where there wasn't room even for two complete letters. The D..D stood for David.)
Note the six pointed red stars on the Chicago City flag. The red six pointed star is clearly the sign of a crook-- crooked Hillary...or something.
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