Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Of course there are those who will say "1984" is "woke"...

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Dan Gillmor‬
‪@dangillmor.bsky.social‬
· 1m
This post by
@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
...She doesn't use the expression "media literacy" here, but it's embedded in her writing -- and should be embedded in every person's media use.
(I removed his endorsement of her newsletter)



https://bsky.app/profile/dangillmor.bsk ... fiydghxb23

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Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize
US president told Norway’s finance minister he wants the Nobel peace prize, according to the Norwegian press

Maya Yang
Thu 14 Aug 2025 16.15 EDT
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Donald Trump cold-called Norway’s finance minister last month to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian press reported on Thursday.

The Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, citing unnamed sources, reported: “Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called … He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”

The outlet added that it was not the first time that Trump had raised the question of a Nobel peace prize nomination to Stoltenberg.

In a statement to Reuters, Stoltenberg, the former Nato secretary-general, said the call focused on tariffs and economic cooperation ahead of Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister.

“I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” Stoltenberg said, adding that several White House officials including the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, were on the call.

Each year, the five-member Norwegian Nobel committee reviews hundreds of candidates before choosing laureates. The committee members are appointed by Norway’s parliament according to the will of Alfred Nobel, a 19-century Swedish industrialist. Laureates are announced in October.

Trump has previously complained multiple times about not receiving the Nobel peace prize, an award which four of his predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.

In his most recent tirade, Trump took to Truth Social in June, saying: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ize-norway

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Government papers found in an Alaskan hotel reveal new details of Trump-Putin summit
Updated August 16, 2025 1:56 PM ET

Chiara Eisner

Papers with U.S. State Department markings, found Friday morning in the business center of an Alaskan hotel, revealed previously undisclosed and potentially sensitive details about the Aug. 15 meetings between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Anchorage.

Eight pages, that appear to have been produced by U.S. staff and left behind accidentally, shared precise locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of U.S. government employees.

At around 9 a.m. on Friday, three guests at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel located 20 minutes from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage where leaders from the U.S. and Russia convened, found the documents left behind in one of the hotel's public printers. NPR reviewed photos of the documents taken by one of the guests, who NPR agreed not to identify because the guest said they feared retaliation.


Pictures of two documents about the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska that were found in a public hotel printer in Anchorage.

NPR

The first page in the printed packet disclosed the sequence of meetings for August 15, including the specific names of the rooms inside the base in Anchorage where they would take place. It also revealed that Trump intended to give Putin a ceremonial present.

"POTUS to President Putin," the document states, "American Bald Eagle Desk Statue."

On Saturday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the papers as a "multi-page lunch menu" and suggested leaving the information on a public printer was not a security breach. The U.S. Department of State did not respond to requests for comment.

Pages 2 through 5 of the documents listed the names and phone numbers of three U.S. staff members as well as the names of 13 U.S. and Russian state leaders. The list provided phonetic pronouncers for all the Russian men expected at the summit, including "Mr. President POO-tihn."

Pages 6 and 7 in the packet described how lunch at the summit would be served, and for whom. A menu included in the documents indicated that the luncheon was to be held "in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin."

A seating chart shows that Putin and Trump were supposed to sit across from each other during the luncheon. Trump would be flanked by six officials: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to his right, and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff to his left. Putin would be seated immediately next to his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, and his Aide to the President for Foreign Policy, Yuri Ushakov.

During the summit Friday, lunch was apparently cancelled. But it was intended to be a simple, three-course meal, the documents showed. After a green salad, the world leaders would dine on filet mignon and halibut olympia. Crème brûlée would be served for dessert.

Jon Michaels, a professor of law at UCLA who lectures about national security, said that the documents found in the printer of the Alaskan hotel reveal a lapse in professional judgement in preparation for a high-stakes meeting.

"It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration," said Michaels. "You just don't leave things in printers. It's that simple."

The printed papers are the latest example of a series of security breaches by officials of the Trump administration. Earlier this week, members of a law enforcement group chat that included members of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) added a random person to a conversation about an ongoing search for a convicted attempted murderer. In March, U.S. national security leaders accidentally included a journalist in a group chat about impending military strikes in Yemen.

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/16/nx-s1-55 ... eft-behind

[dryrunguy]

Oh, come on... The documents were obviously printed from Hunter Biden's laptop after everyone had already left...

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Trump Cuts Off Medical Visas from Gaza After Laura Loomer Meltdown
The move comes after Loomer, the right-wing provocateur, freaked out over a video of children from Gaza coming to the U.S. for medical care
By Naomi LaChance, Asawin Suebsaeng
August 16, 2025

Donald Trump’s administration stopped all visitor visas from Gaza — including those for humanitarian and medical aid — on Saturday after far-right provocateur and Trump friend Laura Loomer posted about several Palestinian children being allowed into the U.S. for medical care amid Israel’s relentless siege and blockade.

The State Department said it will “conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,” in a post on X.

“It’s amazing how fast we can get results from the Trump administration,” Loomer wrote on X, adding an applause emoji.”

Loomer posted a video Friday showing children from Gaza arriving in San Francisco for treatment, greeted by a cheering crowd. Loomer called the video an “exclusive,” posting it to X with her watermark on it, despite it being posted on Aug. 6 by the nonprofit HEAL Palestine, which provides medical care to Palestinians.

“How did Palestinians get Visas under the Trump administration to get into the United States? Did @StateDept approve this? How did they get out of Gaza? Is @SecRubio aware of this?” she asked Friday.

The caption of the Aug. 6 video reads, “Leyan, Ghazal, and their siblings will [begin] medical treatment and school as soon as possible under the care of HEAL.”

Loomer messages Rolling Stone on Saturday afternoon: “The MAGA base didn’t vote for more Islamic immigration into the United States. I applaud Secretary of State Marco Rubio for halting the Visas of Gazans from a HAMAS hot zone and look forward to seeing the State Department’s review of the rogue State Department employees who signed off on visas for Gazans who have shown a disrespect for American life as Hamas continues to hold hostages.”

According to NBC Bay Area, Leyan is a 14-year-old who was burned and injured by shrapnel in an explosion at her school. Ghazal, 6, was also hurt in an explosion. Another child who arrived, 8-year-old Anas, was hurt in an explosion that killed his entire family. There were 11 children in total evacuated, the largest medical evacuation of injured children from Gaza to the U.S.

“The logistics of getting them out is also a nightmare,” Talha Baquar of HEAL Palestine told NBC Bay Area. “The Israeli government has to approve of their release. One of the children who’s coming today, he’s been on a waitlist to get out. He’s had his medical visa since November of last year.”

“These children could not wait,” Dr. Zeena Salman, pediatric oncologist and co-founder of HEAL Palestine, said in a statement. “Their lives are at stake, and this mission is about giving them a future.”

After the children receive medical care, they will go to Egypt, where HEAL will continue to support them, the organization said. HEAL has evacuated 63 injured children and 148 people total as of August 4, according to its website.

Andrew Miller, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, posted on X that the State Department’s move reflected “prejudice.”

“I dealt with such cases during the Biden admin. No one leaves Gaza w/o Israel’s approval & everyone’s vetted through U.S. databases. Any security risk is negligible. This is rank ethnic/religious prejudice. Denying sick people critical medical care is cowardly & depraved.”

Loomer declared victory after the State Department announced it would stop visas from Gaza.

“This is fantastic news,” she posted on X. “Hopefully all GAZANS will be added to President Trump’s travel ban. There are doctors in other countries. The U.S. is not the world’s hospital!”

“Thank you for bringing attention to this matter, @LauraLoomer,” Jan. 6 rally organizer Caroline Wren wrote on X.

Islamophobic Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) applauded Loomer for posting the video. “Massive credit needs to be given to @LauraLoomer for uncovering this and making me and other officials aware. Well done, Laura,” he posted on X.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement that the State Department’s move seemed “intentionally cruel.”

“Blocking Palestinian children injured by American weapons from coming to America for medical treatment is the latest sign that the intentional cruelty of President Trump’s ‘Israel First’ administration knows no bounds,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.

Israel has led a brutal onslaught and near-total blockade in Gaza since October 7, 2023, following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel. More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at the end of July. More than 50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or injured during this period, according to UNICEF, and more than one child has been killed per hour, according to The Washington Post. In April, an Israeli airstrike destroyed part of the last fully functional hospital in Gaza. Israel has tightly restricted food and humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza, creating widespread famine throughout the strip.

Trump previously called Loomer a “free spirit” when the two traveled together last September, and she continues to privately advise him and others in the administration.

After Trump won in November, various Gazan families and immigration attorneys — who were already largely sickened by the Biden administration’s actions during this conflict — were in panic mode, fearing the worst for how any slivers of relief and options they were offered under the Democratic presidency would evaporate under a second Trump government.

Those fears are being realized, and then some.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... 235410184/

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More of the documents left on the printer by WH staff

Also listed on the documents are the names of Russian leaders with phonetic spellings for their names, such as “Mr. President POO-tihn,” NPR reported.









Diving deeper into the logistics of the summit, the pages also included a seating chart for lunch, with Trump joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on his right and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff on his left.

Similarly, according to pages 6 and 7, Putin would be flanked by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and Aide to the President for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov.

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NPR posted a menu that included a “green salad” with “champagne vinaigrette” paired with surf and turf consisting of a filet mignon with “brandy peppercorn sauce” and “buttery whipped potatoes and roasted asparagus” with halibut, a fish found in Russia’s arctic waters.

For something sweet, crème brûlée was reportedly planned for dessert. Yet in a sour turn of events, the lunch was for some reason called off.


Trump-Putin Summit Document
Office of the Chief of Protocol


(...)

Nonetheless, the scandal has eroded trust in the administration’s abilities, said UCLA professor and lecturer on national security Jon Michaels.

“It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration,” Michaels told NPR. “You just don’t leave things in printers. It’s that simple.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House to verify the authenticity of the documents and has not received a reply.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dumbest-l ... nor-putin/

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https://people.com/trump-orders-whole-m ... ntent=post

[ponchi101]

A black wall that will get hot in the day, and then, after sunset, gets cold.
A great way for it to expand and crack again and again. It will last a long time.

[ti-amie]

Every day that goes by I appreciate the work of the professionals in his first occupation of the WH who would ignore things like this. It's telling that none of them wanted to work for him again.