White House Labels Altered Photo of Arrested Minnesota Protester a 'Meme' (thehill.com)
- Reference: 0180645236
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/01/23/1928230/white-house-labels-altered-photo-of-arrested-minnesota-protester-a-meme
- Source link: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5703042-minnesota-protester-arrest-photo/
> The statement came after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem [4]posted a photo of Armstrong's arrest Thursday showing Armstrong with what appears to be a blank facial expression. However, the White House later posted an altered version of the same photo that shows Armstrong crying.
>
> Armstrong's attorney Jordan Kushner said in an interview with CNN that an agent was recording Armstrong's arrest on their cellphone. "I've never seen anything like it. It's so unprofessional," Kushner said. "He was ordered to do it because the government was looking to make a spectacle of this case. I observed the whole thing. She was dignified, calm, rational the whole time." Kushner went on to call the move to alter the photo "a hallmark of a fascist regime where they actually alter reality."
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/22/white-house-ice-protest-arrest-altered-image
[2] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5703042-minnesota-protester-arrest-photo/
[3] https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2014365986388951194?s=20
[4] https://x.com/KristiNoem/status/2014358158588723399?s=20
White House twitter account (Score:1, Insightful)
is fast becoming a meme in its own right: Dumb Shit Americans Say.
yow. this is getting dystopian... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot of hyperbole (imo) about Trump and adjacent stuff.
But this one strikes me as particularly Orwellian / post-truth / straight out of Idiocracy etc
The government running public disinformation campaigns against individual defendants ... and modifying pictures... idk.
Too close to Soviet times [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
Re: (Score:1)
Dumb Republican No Brains tricked by lies again.
wadabout (Score:1)
what a surprise drnb is the first person to play whatabout when his team is caught in a blatant lie
Re:Nah, its post 2016 turnabout (Score:5, Insightful)
1. There were no fakes, cheap or otherwise, posted by the Biden administration.
2. Unless you are saying that this woman was a top-ranking official in the Biden administration, then it is not "turnabout", it is orchestrated violence against someone who has not wronged you or been involved in any activity you believe (falsely, as it turns out) of having wronged you. Unless you are proposing that any time a Republican insults a Democrat governer, any innocent Republican can be arrested completely at random under a "turnabout seems fair" doctrine, then you don't believe turnabout is fair in the slightest.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
> There were no fakes, cheap or otherwise, posted by the Biden administration.
Biden personally misrepresented Charlotte, Maga, Jan 6, etc. All involved bad things, but Trumps words or actions or inactions were intentionally misrepresented for political gain.
And Biden's supporter, allies, and employees, did so too. Often taking things to extremes.
The Dems defined the new normal at a very low level. That Repubs joined them there is hardly surprising. Its turnabout.
Re: Nah, its post 2016 turnabout (Score:2)
Charlottesville, not "Charlotte," dumbass, and organizer Richard Spencer throwing Sieg Heils on camera there shows that it wasn't misrepresented at all.
Some statues just honor the dead (Score:1)
> Charlottesville, not "Charlotte," dumbass, and organizer Richard Spencer throwing Sieg Heils on camera there shows that it wasn't misrepresented at all.
Trump's position on Charlottesville was intentionally misrepresented by Biden and others down the line. Trump did not support the neonazis. His good people on both sides comment was about those debating whether to remove confederate statues. Transcripts show this, the misrepresentation was intentional and political.
Regarding the statues debate, some statues just honor the dead, and the ordinary soldiers who fight wars often have totally different motivations than the political class that decides to go to
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't to support drnb in the slightest, but it's pretty factually established that Trump's squirrel-brained dumbshit responses to the Charlottesville tragedy were, in fact, very much taken out of context by a good bit of the media.
If memory serves, Biden kinda jumped in, but not that badly.
Either way- you can go find the transcript, what the guy said wasn't that bad at all, and he certainly did not draw an equivalence between neonazis, white supremacists, et al, and those who wanted the statue down
Re:Nah, its post 2016 turnabout (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll await all the links you're not going to post.
Re: (Score:2)
> Actually it's straight out of the cheap fakes we've been bombarded with since 2016. Turnabout seems fair. Admittedly childish, but fair nonetheless.
What?
Re:Nah, its post 2016 turnabout (Score:4, Interesting)
>> But this one strikes me as particularly Orwellian / post-truth / straight out of Idiocracy etc
> Actually it's straight out of the cheap fakes we've been bombarded with since 2016. Turnabout seems fair. Admittedly childish, but fair nonetheless.
If activists and commentators are doing this kind of thing... or putting it on campaign posters then MAYBE (but still not editing a picture and passing it off as real).
But "the government" AS the state has to show some damn restraint. As optics this level of punching down by high officials is demeaning: it's literally "ha ha ha, look we made her cry!" i mean ... come on!
But even more this is in a situation where they're literally wielding the state monopoly on force against citizens. It's a right/duty that has to be taken and exercised seriously and soberly. it's a big f'in deal... esp for the Right.
Re:yow. this is getting dystopian... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a "meme". This is an effort at public humiliation before sentencing.
One need not "reflexively defend perpetrators" in order to be interested in objective truth. Blurring out an image to protect identity is one thing. Outright altering it like this shows events that didn't happen. It's an outright lie.
Re: (Score:2)
The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this? Like the guy who was acquitted at throwing a sandwich at ICE agents.
Re: (Score:2)
> The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this?>
Performative intimidation. Doesn't have to stick, adherents will have forgotten about it and the pundits won't bring up a fail.
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect that they don't really care. There are ways to add a little, um, 'tilt' to actual law enforcement(perhaps the most common involving the case where the number of violations exceeds the time available to process them all; so you can do entirely legitimate prosecutions and still be selective); but it's ultimately limited by the fact that you are forced to refrain from some of the more overt and egregious unprofessionalism where the judges can see you; and people can avoid your reach by being genuinel
Re: (Score:2)
> The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this? Like the guy who was acquitted at throwing a sandwich at ICE agents.
Furthermore, it makes one wonder why they're doing this. There's no legal or even legitimate reason. I don't know if this will actually hurt their case in court / before a judge, but it certainly can't help - at all. Trolling a defendant makes no sense, unless you've got no case and are planning on dropping the charges, or believe you're going to lose anyway, and this sort of childish act is all you really have. Which, ya, I know is par for the course with this administration. It's just dumb.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think they care about the eventual disposition of the case.
It is more of a " you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride " kind of a deal. You can clearly see that punishment has already been delivered. A warning to any who step out of line.
Re: (Score:2)
> The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this? Like the guy who was acquitted at throwing a sandwich at ICE agents.
The judge didn't throw that one out, though. He should have, but the jury took care of it.
Sentencing (Score:2)
Sentencing? This is her initial arrest. She's charged with violating the FACE act, which prohibits interfering with church services.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Access_to_Clinic_Entrances_Act
Re: (Score:2)
> There's a lot of hyperbole (imo) about Trump and adjacent stuff.
On the contrary. They're doing so much evil that the media don't have the time to get most of them to the people.
Although possibly right now, that's intentional to move the news cycle on from the fact that they're not releasing the Epstein files, and the likely reason that Trump has raped trafficked kids.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]I'll just leave this right here. [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone
Go look up his posts about Renee Good (Score:2)
It makes this stuff seem tame. They repeatedly made the most baseless and obvious lies. They only stopped when too many people had seen the video.
We are absolutely at the point where Trump is been increasing chocolate rations. Forget being creeped out we should be frightened. This is Soviet era grade crap. The kind of stuff Stalin did.
Speaking of Stalin he famously had his enemies committed to mental institutions. It's a big part of why Reagan shut down the institutions although in typical Reagan fa
When the evidence doesn't support you... (Score:1)
You're supposed to pound the table, not make shit up.
Don't tread on me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is the don't tread on me crowd silent now? This is what you've been warning us about all along. Masked and armed federal agents are taking people away without warrants or due process. You certainly talk a big game about your numerous firearms and readiness. Wait, what's that you say? Being tread on gives you a boner?
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I equate ICE thinking they can break into homes without a judicial warrant to... that.
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ICE has documentation saying they're allowed to enter homes without warrants. [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
Posting this before it's deleted. [2]https://constitution.congress.... [congress.gov]
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2026/01/22/vance-defends-ice-memo-telling-agents-they-can-raid-homes-without-a-judges-warrant/
[2] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/
Re:Don't tread on me! (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Would you like me to list the people who were taken away by the Republican junta without warrants or due process? The list is rather long and I don't know if Slashdot has the disk capacity for it.
2. Deliberate perversion of evidence for the explicit purpose of damaging a defendent is denying them due process. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. That is what due process is.
Re: (Score:1)
Not much overlap with the foreign child molesters being picked up. It would have been a better question when the January 6th people were so easily picked up with government agents not even breaking a fingernail, and the courts and prisons not even losing a chip of paint.
Re: (Score:2)
> Memes are alway modified version of images.
Not even mostly, in by experience. They're generally unaltered photos that portray an emotion or environment that are applied to various situations by text or context.
> Or are they not only when Trump does it?
This isn't a meme. It's propaganda. It is further to the harassment of people exercising their first amendment rights to protest, in an effort to make first amendment rights harder to exercise. Much like the abductions, beatings, property damage, and murder of protesters that has been going on in recent weeks.
> Al together, TDS sufferers: "WAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
Being concerned about the removal
Re: (Score:2)
Errr who makes the modified image has nothing to do with whether it is a meme or not. Simply declaring one as such doesn't make it so either regardless of who makes the declaration.
Do you even know what a meme is? Why is it that the people who label others with "TDS" also make the dumbest posts.
\o/ (Score:1)
Has anyone tested the water pipes at the white house for some kind of hallucinogenic mold?
That's not the only dumbfuckery (Score:1)
It seems the official White House account also thinks there are [1]penguins in the Arctic. [instagram.com]
Honestly, what saves the world from the fascist Trump regime is the staggering stupidity and incompetence of the clowns running it.
[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DT3oQDIj5j-/
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the Biden administration did this to a Jan 6th rioter I'll bet you'd be mortified.
But you're a fascist. Fairness, truth and morality arn't things you consider important anymore.
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah... Goverment is corrupt
So you're celebrating a protestor being arrested for protesting and then her photo being digitally altered to shame her by the goverment.
Of course the arguement "Ooh goverments are all corrupt so you shouldn't take sides" means nothing to you. You don't really belive that, you belive nothing. You have no values, just like most trump supporters. You argue in bad faith because there is no good faith for you anymore.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A quote from Treebeard seems appropriate here:
"I am not altogether on anybodyâ(TM)s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me...[but] there are some things, of course, whose side I am altogether not on."
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
You choose your politicians. If you vote for a lizard to prevent the wrong lizard getting in, then you are part of the precipitate, not the solution.
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:5, Informative)
> Your Government, BOTH SIDES, is corrupt, contaminated, and being repurposed to end your life as slowly, and as profitably, as possible.
This outright lying about people arrested by ICE, the colluding with despots to send people to Argentina for torture, and lying to the courts about it, the co-opting of the justice department to attack us citizens who protest, the kleptocracy, hiding the Epstein files in violation of the law passed by the congress, hiding of Jack Smith's report on the classified documents case, the sending of masked troops into US cities to intimidate, harass, beat and murder US citizens. The support of Russia's invasion, the threats of invading NATO allies, the ignoring of orders of the courts.
These things are not on both sides. This is Trump and his republicans.
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>> Your Government, BOTH SIDES, is corrupt, contaminated, and being repurposed to end your life as slowly, and as profitably, as possible.
> These things are not on both sides. This is Trump and his republicans.
There are two key strategies that many autocrats utilize to control the masses. The first is to divide the people by demonizing a party or demographic. The second is to claim that there are no sides, arguing that whatever evil is done by the autocrat is the same as what is done by the opposition.
Re: AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:3)
The saddest thing about your post is that it was likely paid for by American taxpayers.
Re: (Score:1)
What do you think ICE will start doing once they run out of people to kidnap? It's coming down to a MAGA purity test. Do you back cheeto 100%? Oh you disagree on a particular point? Uh oh here comes meal team six.