DragonI

• Averaging more than 20.9 per day
• 3,036 lies about the election. 119 in one day. #IMPOTUSx2 #Sedition #Insurrection 
• How many more lies could Trump have spewed if Twitter had not permanently suspended Trump’s account @realDonaldTrump on Jan. 8, 2021?

• Joe Biden took control of @POTUS Twitter account after being sworn in as 46th president  @POTUS  #POTUS #POTUS46
• President Biden got 5 million followers in less than 24 hours after the @POTUS account was purged of everyone who followed it under Trump

“Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie.”

The White House’s LGBT rights page has disappeared

And so the transition of power begins. First up is the WhiteHouse.gov site where several pages are now changing or altogether disappearing -- including a page..

techcrunch.com|Sarah Buhr

It’s just been over an hour since Trump took office and whitehouse.gov/lgbt has now been replaced by a Trump “transitionsplash” page.

James Clapper Says That America Needs a New Propaganda Agency to Fight Russia

During the Cold War, the United States fought a war of information (and disinformation) against Communism. The lead agency of that war was the United States Information Agency (USIA), the propaganda arm of the US government, which was dissolved in 1999. But now James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, says we need that group again. Actually, he just told Congress that we need a “USIA on steroids.”

gizmodo.com|Matt Novak

“The Russians have a long history of interfering in elections—theirs and other peoples,” Clapper told Congress, citing Cold War disinformation campaigns of the 1960s and the alleged funding provided to American candidates that the Soviets supported during that era.

“I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we’ve seen in this case,” Clapper said.

“Without getting too far in front of the headlights of our rollout next week to the Congress, this was a multifaceted campaign,” Clapper said. “The hacking was one part of it, but it also entailed classical propaganda, disinformation, fake news.”

“The Russians are bent on establishing both a presence in the Western Hemisphere and they’re looking for opportunities to expand military cooperation, sell equipment, air bases, as well as intelligence gathering facilities,” Clapper said. “So it’s just another extension of their aggressiveness in expanding those interests.”

As head of the USIA, legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow said in 1962, “I don’t mind being called a propagandist, so long as that propaganda is based on the truth.”

House GOP Passes New Rules to Punish Livestreaming Protests from Congress

Voting largely along party lines, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved new fines on Tuesday against lawmakers who use electronic devices to take pictures or broadcast from the chamber, prompting a barrage of flashes as Democrats snapped photos in defiance of the rules.

gizmodo.com|Hudson Hongo

Voting largely along party lines, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved new fines on Tuesday against lawmakers who use electronic devices to take pictures or broadcast from the chamber, prompting a barrage of flashes as Democrats snapped photos in defiance of the rules.

According to the new rules, representatives who use electronic devices on the House floor “for still photography or for audio or visual recording or broadcasting” will be fined $500 by the sergeant-at-arms for their first offense and $2,500 for any subsequent offense. At that rate, the fines are largely symbolic and Democrats vowed to defy the rules one lawmaker denounced as “unprecedented and unconstitutional.”

“I’m not afraid. I’ve been fined before. Many of us have been fined before,” said Representative John Lewis, a former Freedom Rider who organized last year’s sit-in, according to Politico. “We cannot and will not be silenced.”

“The unprecedented delegation of the House punishment power to an administrative officer is designed to restrict activity that is at the core of the First Amendment freedom of speech,” wrote the scholars affiliated with universities like Harvard and Georgetown. “The rules would sharply limit the ability of Members to video record proceedings on the House floor, offending the spirit if not the text of these constitutional requirements. In this regard, we would note that federal courts have previously held there is a First Amendment right to video record city council proceedings.”

Trump takes credit for '$1 trillion' holiday shopping boom — but Americans haven't spent close to that yet

Holiday spending is on track to reach $656 billion during the months of November and December, according to the NRF.

www.businessinsider.com|Hayley Peterson

There's no evidence that spending has already hit that level.

Despite Trump's tweet, the NRF says it's sticking to its estimate of $656 billion in spending for the holiday period ending in December and said that projection would "either be met or exceeded."

"We can't compare our forecast with theirs since ours is only for November and December — it's like comparing apples with oranges," NRF spokeswoman Ana Smith said Tuesday of the Deloitte study.

“A more positive story is consumer spending, which remains robust and is the strongest contributor to GDP. Much of the rise in the preliminary Q2 2016 GDP came from 4.2% growth in consumption.”, Deepika Sharma