Ever wonder what it would feel like to blow up Donald Trump? Thanks Alexa and Nancy

Giant inflatable rat bearing resemblance to Trump appears on Fifth Ave.
by Kerry Burke and Christopher Brennan
New York Daily News
August 14, 2017

New York City's rats have gotten much bigger ... and blond.

A giant inflatable of President Trump, in the style of labor unions' blow up rodents, is greeting Midtown residents and tourists Monday afternoon at Fifth Ave. and 59th St.

The grotesque model of Trump was claimed by gallery Bravin Lee, who said that the inflatable rat is "an enduring sign of resistance and ridicule."

“I was always passing by these non-union construction sites on my bike and I saw these inflatable rats. I was amazed at how effective they were. I marveled at how disgusting they were,” gallery owner John Post Lee told the Daily News.

The inflatable protest was funded through a Kickstarter, and Lee said that it was [designed by artist Jeffrey Beebe and] made in Brunwick, Ohio.

Gallery owner John Post Lee said that he was inspired by labor unions using inflatable rats.

Bravin Lee said they plan to keep the “rat” scurrying around to different events.

Activists sting James O’Keefe’s latest attempt at a 1960s FBI-style COINTELPRO.

COINTELPRO (an acronym for COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.

This is an unfolding story that needs more verification, but…

Is Project Veritas Conducting Political Hit Jobs for Donald Trump?
Rightwing operative caught offering money to protesters to stage violent disruption of the Trump inauguration, part of a pattern of attacks orchestrated against progressives by James O”™Keefe, in coordination with Breitbart News and with the support of Donald Trump.

Produced by Lauren Windsor and Peter James Callahan.

Learn more about this here: Counter-Sting Catches James O”™Keefe Network Attempting To Sow Chaos At Trump”™s Inauguration, by Ryan Grim, Huffington Post, January 9, 2017

and here:

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.
Project Veritas has been caught trying to pay liberal groups to break the law.

and…

A warning goes out to women attending the Women’s March on January 21, 2017

Update, August 1, 2015: A Los Angeles judge has placed a temporary injunction on the Center for Medical Progress, stopping them from issuing any further anti-Planned Parenthood videos they may have illegally obtained using fake IDs.

Huffington Post states that the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-abortion group behind the sting that has discredited Planned Parenthood by publishing a video about the organization selling fetal parts, is a sham non-profit. The Center, in turn, created a “shell” group called Biomax, calling it a “fetal tissue procurement company,” to entrap a Planned Parenthood executive into speaking casually over a meal with wine about procedures for shipping fetuses to laboratories for research.

The final video was edited to make it appear that Planned Parenthood sells fetuses from abortions, when in actuality, at the request of some women, they donate the fetuses for research. Reimbursements are to cover the cost of transportation. None of this is illegal. According to Slate.com, there appears to be a link between the head of the group David Daleiden and James O’Keefe, known for creating similar dishonest and inflamatory videos in support of hot right wing political issues.

Here’s the video in question. Watch carefully. Look for the numerous camera angles, as there are at least 2 if not 3 concealed cameras. And listen to the dialog to see how easy it is to take what someone says out of context, turning it into a story about something totally different.

Read more about this here:

From Concepta Cassar: Social media prank masquerading as news gets picked up as news…

A Prankster Convinced the Media that Glastonbury was 74% Tory
by Abi Wilkinson
VPoint News
July 1, 2015

The ‘fact’ that 74% of Glastonbury attendees voted Tory, and 13% voted Ukip, was shared widely on social media and printed in the Sunday Telegraph. However, these statistics are entirely false. They originate from a fake Guardian pie chart created by a Twitter prankster. It just shows how easy it is for lies to spread on social media.

On Friday evening, Twitter user @PrayForPatrick tweeted an infographic that claimed to show some surprising statistics about the voting preferences of Glastonbury attendees.

Allegedly, an on-site poll had found that 74% of Glastonbury-goers voted Conservative in the 2015 general election and 13% voted Ukip – making the festival more right-wing that the constituency of Chelsea and Fulham.

The graphic featured the Guardian’s logo and similar, though not identical, fonts to those commonly used by the newspaper. This was apparently enough to convince many people that the unlikely stats were authentic, even though the chart included a glaring spelling error: “attendeees”. The capitalisation of “UKIP” is also out of line with Guardian house style.

The myth took on a life of its own as other Twitter users began sharing the image independently as well as retweeting Patrick’s original post.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Police Raided My Friend’s House Over a Parody Twitter Account
by Justin Glawe
Vice
April 18 2014

Jon Daniel woke up on Thursday morning to a news crew in his living room, which was a welcome change from the company he had on Tuesday night, when the Peoria, Illinois, police came crashing through the door. The officers tore the 28-year-old”™s home apart, seizing electronics and taking several of his roommates in for questioning; one woman who lived there spent three hours in an interrogation room. All for a parody Twitter account.

Yes, the cops raided Daniel”™s home because they wanted to find out who was behind @peoriamayor, an account that had been shut down weeks ago by Twitter. When it was active, Daniel used it to portray Jim Ardis, the mayor of Peoria, as a weed-smoking, stripper-loving, Midwestern answer to Rob Ford. The account never had more than 50 followers, and Twitter had killed it because it wasn’t clearly marked as a parody. It was a joke, a lark””but it brought the police to Daniel’s door. The cops even took Daniel and one of his housemates in for in-depth questioning””they showed up at their jobs, cuffed them, and confiscated their phones””because of a bunch of Twitter jokes.

Now Daniel”™s panicking. Read the rest of this article here.

via: Peoria Mayor and Police Violate The 1st Amendment Over Twitter Parody; Twitter image: TheStoopKids

Over the last two decades, kids in the U.S. have grown up never not having had the internet. Plumbing the culture they’re maturing in and exploring the places they hone their ideas and social skills can lead to some interesting clues about the future. This is the second in a series of reports on contemporary American pranksters from Emerson Dameron, a writer, storyteller, and humorist searching for signs of life in a world plastered with ads.

4Chan v. Tumblr: Young Idealists at War
by Emerson Dameron
September 6, 2014

This summer, some of the most extreme personae on the internet celebrated their constitutional freedom of association by going to war.

Various self-contained hives of the internet give its users thousands of targeted factions to join. Over time, these sub-communities foster their own in-jokes, jargon, and culture that defies penetration by outsiders. They can be maddeningly complex. Asking their denizens the most basic of questions pegs one as impossibly square, an easy mark for mockery that strengthens the group.

These subcultures sometimes compete with each other. It can look silly from the outside, but the stakes can be quite high for those involved.

In the last few years, the blogging platform Tumblr, with its emphasis on sharing and community rather than high-effort original content, has become a hub for young outsiders looking for very specific places to belong. It may be eroding Facebook’s dominance among teenagers and college students, quite a few of whom seem to be in the early stages of embracing feminist theory, questioning their sexuality, and performing fraught public experiments with personal identity, gender, and politics. Because they feel so ostracized in “real life,” these Tumblr users can be intensely protective of each other and hostile toward anyone who may be antagonizing them in their safe spaces. (more…)

From Concepta Cassar:

Dutch ‘gay-only village’ hoax fools press
The Guardian
19 June 2014

Dutch and foreign media taken in by gay rights group’s hoax plan for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-only community

Dutch media have hit out after the authorities in a southern city took part in an elaborate hoax announcing the construction of a “gay-only” village.

The state broadcaster NOS and the national daily newspaper NRC reacted angrily on Thursday after they fell for the hoax a day earlier by publishing stories about plans for a community outside Tilburg specifically for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents.

The hoax also caught out several international news outlets.

The plan for the “GayVillage”, which had a slick website and promotional videos, was cooked up by the Pink Monday Foundation, which organises a gay festival with the same name during Tilburg’s summer festival.

Endorsed by the city’s mayor and a developer to give it more authenticity, “GayVillage” was supposedly a “protected” community to be built on land north of in Tilburg. Read more here.

Inside a Hollywood Hit Job: How Sting Artist James O”™Keefe Tried to Set His Latest Trap – And Got Stung Himself
U.S. News
May 22, 2014

On Wednesday, conservative activist and controversial video sting artist James O”™Keefe made an appearance in Cannes during the Film Festival with a new, secretly recorded 20-minute video that he said exposes the hypocrisy of two environmentalist documentarians and two Hollywood actors. At the end of the clip, after Josh and Rebecca Tickell, Mariel Hemingway, and Ed Begley Jr. appear to have unwittingly agreed to accept financing for an anti-fracking film from Middle East oil interests, O”™Keefe claims he”™s caught other allegedly altruistic actors and filmmakers in his trap, teasing a clip of a phone conversation with filmmaker Josh Fox.

But this time, O”™Keefe wasn”™t the only one making secret recordings.

Read the rest of the story here.

Last Week Tonight, John Oliver’s soon-to-debut new comedy show, took aim at the GOP’s new ad campaign aimed at “hip” young Republicans on their YouTube channel. Here are two videos parodying their look-alike counterparts, which can be seen here and here.

Watch the videos:

More info:

Update: Checkout Joey Skaggs’ Facebook Page to see the event invitation and photos.

‘Santa Claus’ At United Nations: Prankster Joey Skaggs Demands Nuclear Disarmament
by Michael McLaughlin
The Huffington Post
November 14, 2012

Joey Skaggs, dressed as Santa Claus, worries that a nuclear apocalypse is a serious threat overlooked by the mainstream media.

NEW YORK — Doesn’t it seem like the holiday protest season starts earlier and earlier every year?

A protesting Santa on an adult-sized tricycle pedaled up First Avenue Tuesday, dragging an 8-foot missile to the United Nations. His message to world leaders: “Peace on Earth — Or Else.”

Nobody ran for cover. The comically fake bomb was a dud. And this St. Nick was the legendary media prankster Joey Skaggs, accompanied by six performance artists serving as elves.

Given that New York suffered the worst hurricane in its history just two weeks ago, perhaps it’s little surprise that this Santa and his giant toy explosive were overlooked.

Skaggs didn’t care. He just wanted to kick off the holiday season with a not-so-gentile reminder about “the absurdity of nuclear Holocaust and the direction we’re going with North Korea, Iran and Israel.

“Everyone wants a missile,” Skaggs told The Huffington Post.

“If you don’t do it now, when do you do it?,” he said, “after the Holocaust?”

(more…)

From Anonymous:

Instructions: (more…)

Russian prosecutors ask for 3 years in punk case
by Nataliya Vasilyeva
August 7, 2012
Associated Press

Moscow (AP) – Prosecutors on Tuesday called for three-year sentences for the members of a feminist punk band who performed an anti-Vladimir Putin stunt in Moscow’s main cathedral, ignoring demands by human rights groups that the three women be set free.

Defense lawyers and an influential Russian Orthodox cleric warned that jail time for the women could backfire by severing trust between ordinary Russians and the country’s institutions.

Prosecutor Alexander Nikiforov portrayed his request as lenient, saying the recommendation takes into account the fact that two of the defendants are young mothers and that they have good character references.

The hooliganism charges the three women of the Pussy Riot band face can carry a sentence of up to 7 years in prison.

The three women – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Maria Alekhina, 24; and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 – have been in custody for five months following the February stunt, in which they took over a church pulpit in Christ the Savior cathedral for less than a minute, singing, high-kicking and dancing.

Their case is part of a widening government crackdown on dissent that followed Putin’s election in March and caused strong protests in Russia and abroad. Musicians including Madonna, the Who’s Pete Townshend and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys have urged their release.

The verdict is expected this week. Read the rest of this article here.

Submitted by Mike I:

Egyptian Celebs React Violently When Told They Are On Israeli TV

Published on Jul 24, 2012 by iraqisolder:

A video featuring scenes from an Egyptian candid camera series is garnering attention on the Internet. The show, created by Memri TV, includes clips of Egyptian celebrities being told they are appearing on an Israeli channel.

The video starts with an interview between a female host and actor Ayman Kandeel “Tuhami.” Kandeel is friendly at first but grows angry as a caller tells him he’s being featured on an Israeli program. The actor gets into an argument with a producer, ultimately assaulting the original woman he was speaking with.

(more…)

Submitted by Ivan Petrovic: Perfect prank/activism from Serbia

The Art of Joining the Party
Balkan Insight
Nemanja Cabric BIRN Belgrade
April 13, 2012

Two playwrights who joined a number of political parties, using a modified speech by Goebbels as their agenda, have turned their experience into a performance called Oni Zive, (They Live).

Annoyed by unsolved burning issues in Serbian cultural policy as well as in society in general, Maja Pelevic and Milan Markovic, artists with no permanent job, came up with an unusual idea – to become members of almost all political parties at once and tackle them from the inside.

Their artistic performance resulted in a dramatic text, audio-visual materials, and a blog.

“Our main thesis is that political parties have taken over the space for performing arts and have contributed to the fact that there is almost no budget for culture. In these circumstances, when theatres face bankruptcy, and the independent scene lacks financial support – we decided to turn political parties into our space for performing arts,” Maja Pelevic told Balkan Insight. (more…)

Submitted by ABOVE:

Blood Diamond

Africa has had a devastating history of blood diamond wars. Blood diamond refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and then sold to finance an invading army’s war efforts, usually in Africa where more than two-thirds of the worlds diamonds are extracted. This site specific social / political word play was painted on the exterior wall of Johannesburg’s largest diamond trader Jewel City. Jewel City is a six-block mega-precinct that serves as a base for some 300 diamond traders as well as South Africa”™s Diamond Board and State Traders Association. Jewel City is the largest diamond exporter in the southern hemisphere with over R7-Billion worth of Diamonds being exported every year.

I was able to get away with this diamond wall heist because I told the owners I would paint in big letters “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” on the exterior of their building.

(more…)