It's fake news folks.
Bigly fake.
There's a rather dodgy tale going around that US President Donald Trump's lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to a website featuring his face being pawed by kittens. The unbelievable yarn was picked up this week by The Hollywood Reporter and the New York Observer. The story goes that a San Francisco 17-year-old called Lucy …
It is getting a bit of a fishy stink to it as according to domaintools the site is rather new and was never registered before. It's looking a lot like a PR stunt.
edit: The other site kittenfeed.com has been around a lot longer and actually predates trumpscratch. How could Lucy change the name from trumpscratch to kittenfeed? Going back in time perhaps.
Domain tools aren't quite the clincher they're being presented as.
Looking at the linked page: domain registered 22 March. But the story was being discussed before then (see here, for example). That means this registration didn't even exist at that time.
Looking a little further down the record, I see: "1 record has been archived since 2017-03-21". What did that record say? Well, it'll cost you at least US$49 to find that out. I'm actually tempted to spend it.
It is getting curious but a C&D letter would take at least a few days in the mail unless sent express. It would also be fairly easy to mock up a fake letter so I'd really want to see the envelope with the postmark. Sure, it could have been an email but most folks wouldn't call that a letter. Also it seems that kittenfeed now redirects to facescratch which goes back six years but was last registered today and appears to be down.
Definitely seems to be past its smell by date.
edit: Sorry for the duplication, diodesign just beat me to it. ;)
When I kindly ask ICANN, they always end the reply with this disclaimer (their caps): "LACK OF A DOMAIN RECORD IN THE WHOIS DATABASE DOES NOT INDICATE DOMAIN AVAILABILITY"
In other words, when the info is present it's more or less reliable, but absence of data does not indicate absence of registration, imminence of a zombie alien Elvis invasion, or ongoing communist conspiracy.
edit: The other site kittenfeed.com has been around a lot longer and actually predates trumpscratch. How could Lucy change the name from trumpscratch to kittenfeed? Going back in time perhaps.
Well, your own link to the page at Domaintools has this little bit of text : "Created on 2017-03-02"
It also has :
IP History 27 changes on 17 unique IP addresses over 8 years
And
Hosting History 14 changes on 6 unique name servers over 8 years
The Wayback machine (aka archive.org) shows some more answers for you as well. At this page it shows that in 2014 the site was a Sedo parking page : http://web.archive.org/web/20140105090653/http://kittenfeed.com/
And this one shows that 3 years before that (Jan 2011) it was a GoDaddy parking page : http://web.archive.org/web/20110129055350/http://kittenfeed.com/
And in may 2010 the page got a Google 404 error : http://web.archive.org/web/20100513030413/http://kittenfeed.com/
I don't know. I might be crazy but.. I wonder if it is possible for, oh, I dunno, ownership of URL's to be transferred? Perhaps even dropped? Perhaps some people even register pages thinking they could make some money from the domain but don't get round to it? Nah. That'd be crazy. Why would someone go to all the 2 minutes of trouble to register a domain and let it go some time later? That'd never happen, no one would ever drop a domain nor would Sedo etc put up a "parking page" on something. Would never happen, would it?
It does look too good to be true, however: The Hollywood Reporter and the New York Observer both say they have been in contact with Lucy, a kid who is learning basic web dev skills in a coding bootcamp, apparently. THR and NYO aren't really the sort of publications to make up quotes separately and independently about the same person. I'll be very disappointed in THR if this turns out to be fake.
Crucially, NYO says it has seen the C&D letter. The WHOIS records also suggest TrumpScratch.com predates kittenfeed.com. I've added a link to the NYO story and some more info about the domains.
If there is a PR viral marketing thing behind this, it's not clear who the beneficiary is - it's a long-winded way of touting a porno website, which we spotted and isn't mentioned in the THR and NYO reports.
One odd thing is that NYO is owned by the family trust of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, also an advisor to the president. You'd have thought that may have put off NYO from running anti-Trump news, but OTOH perhaps the title has proper independence (which is a good thing). It did publicly back Donald as the Republican candidate, though.
Very odd, and a bit of pre-Friday fun. It's not exactly Watergate. Take it with a pinch of salt if you wish.
Update: We've seen the DNS records - the domain was registered on March 22, weeks after "Lucy" claimed to have received the C+D demand so it's pretty much Fakey McFake Fakeface. Sorry. Lessons learned.
C.
One odd thing is that NYO is owned by the family trust of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, also an advisor to the president. You'd have thought that may have put off NYO from running anti-Trump news, but OTOH perhaps the title has proper independence (which is a good thing). It did publicly back Donald as the Republican candidate, though.
The conspiracy theorist would expect the NYO in the next day or two to publish something along the lines of how all this fake news is ruining the good name of the guy in the White House and how they'd been taken in (alternatively, either made it up themselves or didn't spend five minutes to research it the way the comments section here has done). It is quite possible that someone did come up with the C&D letter in the correct format, which was presented to the NYO in support of an otherwise unverified claim.
Assuming NYO and HR interviewed "Lucy" by phone, or better yet Skype - she could be anyone, anywhere. They may have reported the story in "good faith" (setting aside for the moment that they really should have checked the domain record).
Since trumpscratch.com "now" belongs to a soft porn site, she might just be one of its "models". Or some random actress hired for the part.
A bit more fact checking on stories like this would be nice. C'mon, surely someone can claim $49 for expenses?
Even the Hollywood Reporter is questioning the story.
> Even the Hollywood Reporter is questioning the story.
So if EVEN THR is questionning the story (based solely on the rebuttal from Trump Co's head shark, also mentionned by pretty much every source), then that's sorted. Fake news it is then. Because the Hollywood Reporter is a paramount of unbiased, investigative journalism. I also heard that Springfield News has expressed doubts. Unfortunately I can't post a link to the story as the journal consists entirely of 2 photocopied pages distributed in the neighbourhood by owner, editor-in-chief, and columnist Leonard "Lenny" Rump IV, whenever he is sober enough to find the keys for his truck (which, we learn by reading the editorials, may or may not be hidden by his wife on occasion, the bitch; proof that he should use the belt -the heavy one, with the eagle buckle- more often).
It's not even like it's a big issue, corporate landsharks send this kind of letters by the hundred every day, just in case. That is very litterally what they are paid for.
That Wikipedia article you linked to says, " failure to actively use the mark in the lawful course of trade, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement, may also expose the registration itself to become liable for an application for the removal".
Certainly the enforcement requirement is "a thing" in England* (it's even in one of my course texts from my UG degree...).
* Yeah, I know, the article's about the US, therefore England's laws are irrelevant, although possibly relevent to the cause of confusion in the discussion.
I see C&D letters being sent to the owners of the 'Trumpton' series any day now.
Then next will be banning bridge players from bidding '7NT' (seven No Trumps).
Then they'll have a go at 'Nellie the elephant' who packed her 'Trump' at least that is how my granddaughter sings it.
You gotta protect that name not haven't you?
The name Trump is already verging on being an object of derision already. I'd hate to think what it will be like by the time he gets booted from office.
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
He should have more sense than have people threaten kids in his name.. but he don't ..
One thing he is though is totally lacking any of the skillset required for a head of state.
An incompetent liar that will be remembered as the " most unqualified for the position " president ever AD
How the hell did the USA sink so low ?
Of course they've been voting Republican for generations despite knowing how badly Republicans treat them and despite knowing that Democrats would treat them better. The thing is, they know that Republicans treat blacks even worse and they know that not only would Democrats treat them better but (and this is the important bit) the Democrats would treat blacks equally.
It's OK to be treated like shit as long as blacks get treated even worse. Because that disparity really is all they care about.
It's OK to be treated like shit as long as blacks get treated even worse. Because that disparity really is all they care about.
That, and the fact that democrats want to take away their assault rifles (I suppose they have to hunt, don't they? - too poor to buy food, and you can't rely on WIC and SNAP programs - those are guvment HANDOUTS!).
And that democrats support abortion.
And democrats believe that being gay isn't a mortal sin against the almighty.
"I really just want people to be aware that this is a president who's clearly more concerned about what people think of him than doing things of substance,"
I think people who made even a small effort to investigate Donald are relieved that he is more concerned about what people think of him than doing things of substance. Douglas Adams caught on years before the rest of us.
The USA sank so low precisely the same way the UK did.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin."
Before you scream "Fake news!" you need to ask yourself how plausible it is. This should have been the first question anyone asked, rather than knee-jerking themselves in the balls. And you all deserve a kick in the balls for tagging this 'fake news'. Let's start with what the man has said, in front of fifty cameras and a dozen microphones -- which is that he wanted to "open up" libel laws so he could sue newspapers and pretty much anyone who disagrees with him. And he's not exactly a stranger to throwing sueballs at people for this -- he's been doing it his entire life.
What, exactly, makes you think this story about a teen getting a C&D for an anti-trump website is "fake" news, but not the other, er, fifty or so examples in the past couple of years? Or perhaps you believe there is a giant liberal conspiracy, complete with Elvis flying around in a UFO, and it's all just made up. I've gotten REALLY tired of this "Fake news" rhetoric, so I'm going to lay it out on anyone who uses that phrase -- Dig your head out of your back side. The letter is *very* likely legitimate. A zebra doesn't change its stripes. This isn't just in-character for the man, it's central to the definition of him. He wouldn't be our Snowflake in Chief if he wasn't busy sitting in a golden throne at the top of his dick-shaped tower, with his name stamped on the side, in gold letters, posting defamatory and denegrating tweets at all hours of the night about anyone who disagrees with him. This is a man who believes Obama is hiding under his bed, watching him masturbate.
Here are just a few examples, brought to you by a google search...
--
Club for Growth gets C&D.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/22/donald-trumps-cease-and-desist-letter-annotated/
New York Times gets C&D
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/breaking-trump-sends-cease-desist-letter-nyt-demand-retraction/
Co-author of Trump's "Art of the Deal" book gets C&D
http://abovethelaw.com/2016/07/biglaw-partner-eviscerates-trumps-cease-and-desist-letter/
Clothing retailer gets C&D
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-lawsuit-shirts_us_5602b000e4b0fde8b0d085c6
And another
http://www.alleghenyfront.org/pittsburgh-company-gets-cease-and-desist-letter-over-anti-trump-t-shirt/
Here's one he sent to Ted Cruz
http://www.hannity.com/articles/election-493995/watch-ted-cruz-responds-to-donald-14392135/
And here's Spicer, the spokesperson for Trump, mentioning in passing how many people present had received C&Ds...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/sean-spicer-paul-manafort-donald-trump-russia
Those weren't denied, this one was. Then there's this minor issue.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Trump isn't frequently an asshat but in this particular instance the asshats are elsewhere.
Then there's this minor issue.
Interesting. Archive.org shows nothing before 22 Mar BUT a site I know started in Jan 2014 wasn't snapped by them until Jun 2014. The site also was last snapped in October last year despite still being active. whois on my system also shows nothing before 22/03/17.
Guess I should've looked closely at trumpscratch when I was looking at kittenfeed :)
Many Trump supporters love to label anyone who hates Trump a 'snowflake' whilst chanting their mantra "You lost get over it", but shouldn't the fact so many supporters react so quickly and angrily to any behaviour they deem 'lefty' mean they're the real 'snowflakes' with Trump being the head 'snowflake' due to how badly he reacts to people saying negative things about him?
The Trump Organization's chief legal officer says no such letter was ever sent. "This is completely false," Alan Garten said
Now, if a genuine C&D letter is shown to exist, then this guy has lied - not told an alternative truth - lied. Is that something that their Bar Association (or whatever it is) needs to be looking at? Can he be struck off?
Allowed? It's compulsory.
Who the fuck would employ a lawyer that couldn't lie?
Now - getting caught in a lie without plausible reason (i.e. "I was reliably informed by .....presented the facts as they were known to me at the time etc") - that's a bit of a no-no.
As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26 1920