Big conspiracy theory right now is that NPR "mistakenly" published news on what conspiracy theorists believe was a planned faked invasion ahead of time. Just look at the time when this was published and look at the headline they are saying! Here's why that's idiotic.

Here's the URL to that story. Notice something about the end of it? https://t.co/KTpdsjl0Mz sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/ 2021/01/06/953616207/ diehard-trump-supporters-gather-in-the-nations-capital-to-protest-election-resul
The end of the URL often encodes a page's original headline. And in this case that looks like "diehard-trump-supporters-gather-in-the-nations-capital-to-protest-election-resul" not the violence piece.
Via the Wayback Machine we can get a snapshot of it from about when it was published, and yep, a different headline. https://t.co/38O7tynorf
Why is that? Well news organizations often run a story in the morning and update it throughout the day as events unfold. When events change substantially, they often change the headline as well.
But this is yet another reason relying on your own logical powers is a really bad idea. Critical thinking won't save you here, only someone that knows something about newspaper publishing or someone that has a habit of hitting the web archive will.
And it's yet another example on how conspiracy theories are not that creative. This "how did they publish it before it happened must be a conspiracy" is the oldest trope in the book, familiar to anyone who has looked at 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
Part of my recent interest in *tropes* rather than narratives is that the main tactic of these people when producing content is to know the tropes (reporting published before the event) and then just go out and look for media/events they can pair with the trope.
That's why they can create this stuff so quickly. They don't have to sit around and figure out original ways to connect events to narratives. They work from the tropes backwards.
It's also why so much of this is stunningly uncreative (same stories, again and again) but also stunningly effective (everyone knows the trope so you don't have to explain it).
Sharing the version of this false conspiracy theory here without a red line through it so that medialit people can run it as a prompt in their classrooms.
(Also note the questioning technique here in the snapshot, which is classic -- connect these dots I just gave you, and only these dots, and "come to your own conclusion")

More from Trump

It’s not clear how Dr. Sean Conley has determined Trump will no longer need to isolate only 10 days after symptom onset.

Looks like the CDC Guidelines say Trump should be in the category that needs to isolate for 20 days after symptom onset.👇

Plus ...



2. Fauci on Thursday used a (test-based) approach, in which case, per Fauci:

Trump needs to isolate for 10 days after symptoms RESOLVE (not symptoms onset) and then two negative tests.

Note: based on his coughing on Hannity last night, Trump’s symptoms haven’t resolved yet.


3. Here’s a longer quote from Fauci (via @MarionRenault):

https://t.co/oRdrtxQe80


4. Also noteworthy: on Hannity last night, Trump wouldn’t say he’s tested negative.👇

Thus failing one of the conditions required by Fauci for Trump to be considered no longer contagious.


5/5. This resource on coronavirus (UpToDate) has been specially made available to the public. It describes the test-based and non-test-based approaches.
Allow me to offer some commentary on several SCOTUS cases that are NOT the #moab, but which, considered in aggregate, will reveal my impressions on the #TRUMPSMASH #lawOfFunny

Can someone give me a google number or something? I want a party line.

https://t.co/SlJCsjWMUa


I'm sorry, but #lawOFFunny #nominologicaldeterminism.

#thomists


This one is important:
To those who want to actually help Claudia Conway after her mom (Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former aide) posted her underage daughter’s nudes to Fleets, fill out a report on the NCMEC CyberTipline.
CPS refused to help her.
#HelpClaudia


Kellyanne Conway has a well-documented history of verbally abusing, gaslighting, and threatening her daughter. It gets worse when highly public things go viral (such as exposing the truth about Trump and Conway catching COVID-19 last October). Kellyanne coerces false statements.

Insider did a thorough chronological background of the history of exposing her parents abuse and control of her here:
https://t.co/ncjaEyLOSC

We all know that “statement” last year was coerced. She talks constantly about being abused by them.


Personally? I suspect Kellyanne is a narcissist. From my own experience being sexually and emotionally abused by a narcissist, they are obsessed with controlling the narrative (coerced typed statement), discrediting their victim (posting her nudes) & gaslighting

If you haven’t experienced gaslighting or aren’t familiar with it, it’s when someone causing you harm (physical, emotional, sexual, financial, etc) twists the facts and asserts that reality is just you being delusional and you don’t actually understand what happened.

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"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".