Thread by @MollyMcKew

Last time I was at the Gaylord was during a cosplay convention and turns out that isn't very different from CPAC.

Some kid talking to his friend about being at Charlottesville stops to look on as some other kid trips and spills a bag of buttons reading "socialism sucks".

Each one wears the blue shirt/red tie uniform.

Meanwhile any drag queen would kill for these stilettos, and yes, the guy in motion next to her is wearing a Wild Wild West style fringe buffalo jacket, and is being stopped every few feet for fan selfies.

Nigel Farage is on stage railing against Michael Cohen, Mueller, the NY Times, WaPo, and generally behaving like the carnie he is, trying to say Trump = Brexit, UK oppo = Marxists just like AOC = socialism, yada yada Venezuela --

-- and like the Russians, for whom operations now follow information, this obsession with Venezuela as the need to justify domestic political decisions raises many questions.

Venezuela is the absent mistress of the day.

"Make the democrats look like hard left socialists," Farage says, and 2020 is yours.

There is a standing ovation for the UK leaving the European Union, as if anyone understands what this means for our alliances.

In another life, Farage was a tent revival preacher pulling vipers from the mouths of sinners.

How is it that so many British grifters have become enmeshed in this stupid era of American politics?

Let's send them all home. There's a reason we fought this revolution, people.

A section of the press box is hooting for Farage. He is now ranting against Facebook and Zuckerberg, which is funny since Brexit would have failed without it, and now he is spinning conspiracies about the death of Andrew Breitbart and conservative media oppression, or whatever.

Press box:

I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to bring a flask to this but I feel all my Irish ancestors are mocking me from the grave.

A breakout on Venezuela seemed not terrible, focusing a lot on the role of Russia, China, Iran in weird global conflicts -- but now someone is claiming that American adversaries are "waiting out Trump" which is 100% the opposite of how they are pressing ahead while US walks away.

A panel conflating cyberattacks, psyop, and information operations just claimed that the election of Donald Trump was a defensive action against a Russian attack.

Nope. Nope.

Something at CPAC is skimming data off phones. Fun times.

Panel: Russia as a threat is insanity, but China is the only threat.

Sigh.

"Do we have any reason to believe a single mind was changed by Russian interference?"

Moderator very focused on saying sockpuppets didn't matter bc ad buys so low -- which of course ignores sockpuppets are not paid content.

Moderator now claims that US interferes in more elections than Russia, which is a Kremlin propaganda line.

Guys -- the shoes. The shoes.

Panelist tries to describe how bad it is that RT is common in Europe, and audience member offers it isn't worse than CNN (har har).

I had a very trippy dream during a day-nap today about a zebra-striped goat knocking on my door and some sort of illicit affair in a suburb on a lake that looked kind of like my grandparents old house.

All of that made more sense than this carnival.

As I fled into the rain, I walked by blast-from-2016-past Scott pressler flipping his vampirian locks for cos-fans chuckling about libs.

No wonder this thing has been moved from downtown to out beyond the sewage reclamation facility.