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Notes -
Should we discuss Signalgate? No, not the time Republican leaders embarrassed themselves by inviting a journalist into their private top secret (almost-literally) group chat. The new and improved Signalgate in Minnesota.
Many people have noted the coordinated nature of the "I'm-not-touching-you" mostly-non-violent stalking and harassing of ICE in Minnesota. I have also noted that included in their list of targets were just random people in the wrong kind of car.
Some conservative journalists and activists have been able gain access and insight to the method of coordination - a massive Signal chat where people divide into different roles and then join training sessions, read a manual, and then go off into the streets to take part in a coordinated effort to prevent ICE from arresting people and with the long term goal of ICE no longer enforcing bipartisan and popular federal law in the city of Minneapolis.
The roles are as follows:
Here's where it gets speculative: one of the admins on the group has the Username "Flan Southside" which many suspect is Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flannigan. I'm not sure if there is evidence beyond just the name similarity, but one member of the Signal chat seemed to think (after these rumors became wide spread) that "Flan has been exposed." and the Signal member was going to go to Cuba where they had friends. Of course, by this point, the entire chat could be filled with Right Wingers trolling.
Also, it seems like Good and Pretti (seriously, good and pretty? How does this happen?) were members of the Signal chat and were being coordinated by the Signal Dispatch during their fatal encounters with Homeland Security.
At what point is this no longer just people exercising their first amendment rights? At what point is this a conspiracy to undermine the laws of this country resulting in the deaths of two people ?
https://x.com/ericldaugh/status/2015237261164437504?s=42
Chicago police chief - clear it’s illegal to fight ICE. ICE is real Police
https://x.com/trippyliberty/status/2015159673029001545?s=42
Minnesota - Ice is Fake police. Go fight them.
This is like two armies deciding they agree on the field to fight on. Entirely preventable if Minnesota behaves like Illinois.
I did not expect to have on my bingo card “Illinois Well Governed”
Sidenote from the Walz clip: there is a fascinating trend of liberal sign language interpreters desperately trying to get their social media moment in the spotlight by making the facial expressions of a toddler eating a lemon. They have the plausible deniability of helping the disabled (despite live captioning being cheaper and more effective) but always make the politician they accompany look less like Che Guevara and more like Elmo.
Like @OracleOutlook said below, facial expressions are part of sign language. Not doing them, or doing them too subtly, is the literal equivalent of poor diction.
The hyper theatrical nature of the interpreters is largely due to the fact that they might not have the best camera angle on them. In ASL, squaring up to talk to whomever you are talking to is best practice. If the camera is often an angle, or there are multiple cameras and you are signing to the "primary" but maybe the broadcast jumps around to different camera angles, you have be extra demonstrative.
However, you're still right that it's in group virtue signaling. First because sometimes no one checks the credentials of the interpreter. And, second, because deaf people who do watch TV are going to used closed captions. Or they're going to read whatever the press release is five minutes after the press conference comes to its conclusion.
There's actually an interesting culture war going on within the deaf community. Cochlear implants are seen, by some deaf folks, as betrayals to the culture and they will not let their deaf children get them. You may have heard terms like "gold star" gays - men who have never had sex with a woman ever, only other men. There's a kind of equivalent for deaf families. When two deaf people have a baby, if that baby is deaf, in some circles, that's a special awesome superstar deaf baby. Dating outside of the community is sometimes looked at with suspicion. At all deaf events (parties and the like) if it is discovered that someone signing can hear (i.e. they learned ASL for some reason beyond necessity) they're often quite rudely booted from the party.
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