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US' anti-Kremlin plan "vicious anti-Russia propaganda" & "voice from Cold War era" - Moscow


RT
Sat, 06 Jul 2019 15:10 UTC
Russian Foreign Ministry
© Sputnik
Russian Foreign Ministry building
The Russian Foreign Ministry calls Washington's plan to counter "Kremlin influence" a "voice from the Cold War era" aiming to harvest European markets while planting "vicious anti-Russia propaganda."

On Friday, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) presented a strategy called the 'Countering Malign Kremlin Influence (CMKI) Development Framework.' It humbly aims to free Europe from Russia's alleged meddling and aggression, while injecting American companies into the local market.

In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry questioned the sanity of those who came up with the doctrine which "tries to terrify the rest of the world with the threat of Russia allegedly trying to undermine democracy everywhere."

Comment: The US' new doctrine attempts to do exactly what they're accusing Russia of doing. It also goes to show that, despite the fact that Trump may prefer to have good relations with Russia and others, as evidenced by the display at the G20, this sentiment isn't shared by the unipolar warmongers controlling the US:

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HAL9000

It's not just Google's algorithms that are manipulating search results

Mike Wacker
Medium
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 06:15 UTC
google
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was summoned to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee on December 11, 2018. This hearing spanned many topics, including Google's alleged bias against conservative content. In response to one such question about manipulation of search results, Sundar said, "We don't manually intervene on any particular search result."

Sundar Pichai did not tell the truth when he made this statement.

"Just Go Talk to the Engineers"

In the introductory chapter of How Google Works, "Introduction — Lessons Learned from the Front Row," the very first lesson reads, "Just go talk to the engineers." Few quotes embody the ethos of Google as much as this one. Google's ethos eschewed traditional business plans and traditional corporate hierarchies in favor of a structure that granted more freedom and autonomy to its engineers, engineers who were not just technically gifted, but who also displayed intelligence and creativity in other domains.

Back then, the tech industry was treated as one of the prize jewels of the American economy, and it enjoyed unwavering support from both political parties. However, by the time Sundar testified in front of Congress, those golden days were long gone. On top of that, Google's problems have only intensified since that visit to Capitol Hill. Stories from multiple sources have since alleged manipulation of search results, manual blacklisting of sites, and even election interference. These stories have called into the question the sacred reputation of Google's search results.

Comment: Another thing that is clear is that Sundar doesn't trust their algorithms to capture everything they want to suppress, so they need to manipulate things manually as well. However, it looks like Google's latest change to their algorithm is aimed at furthering their efforts to control the narrative the way they want (big surprise). As offGuardian reports:
Google has changed their algorithm so that it actively suppresses "misinformation" when "bad events" are taking place. This is pretty big news if you're interested in free speech or the free flow of information. Nobody in the media treated it that way.

In fact, you probably didn't see it at all. Almost no papers covered it - and the major one that did, The Guardian, buried back in the "science and technology" section.

The idea that Google suppresses "misinformation", and boosts "authoritative voices" is not new. We already know they do that. The new part is that they will do it in real-time, they will respond to "tragic events" by focusing more on blocking "misinformation" at "criticial times".

Pandu Nayak, the Google representative interviewed for the article, summed it up thus:
...we have developed algorithms that recognise that a bad event is taking place and that we should increase our notions of 'authority', increase the weight of 'authority' in our ranking so that we surface high quality content rather than misinformation in this critical time here."
He is directly referencing mass shootings in the Sandy Hook vein, but he could just as well be talking about terrorist attacks, natural disasters, election results or war.

When he says "high quality content" (sic) he means corporate media. When he says "authority", he means government sources.

Essentially, Google - the most powerful company on Earth - is going to be tightening its control on the flow of information when important news is breaking.


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Vader

We'll keep you safe: US unveils new anti-Russia plan to shield Europe from Kremlin's 'malign influence'


RT
Sat, 06 Jul 2019 19:02 UTC
Russian bear Russia Moscow
The US Development Agency (USAID) has released a new strategy for freeing its European allies from Russia's alleged grip. It involves showering local media with US money and injecting American businesses into the local market.

The plan, called the 'Countering Malign Kremlin Influence (CMKI) Development Framework' and unveiled by the agency on Friday, has four stated goals: to help European countries protect their political systems from outside meddling, counter disinformation campaigns, and reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy and mutual trade.

Comment: The proposed targets of the new US program, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia should take a long look at Ukraine. Their fate is written there.

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USA

Denial? An American pastime. Real patriotism? Requires honesty.

Helen Buyniski
RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 02:21 UTC
boy and mom
© WeAreChange.org
Anti-patriotism is trendy thanks to the popular depiction of Trump as Antichrist, but the US' decline has been a long time coming. Truly Making America Great Again requires dismantling the Potemkin village erected to hide the rot.

Trump seems convinced that the job of restoring America's Greatness is mostly done, and even his detractors don't seem aware of the very serious problems the country faces, instead shrieking about social issues and self-flagellating over assumed privilege. Historical or economic understanding is largely absent from the current "woke" critiques of America.
As its economic fortunes began to decline in the latter half of the 20th century, the US government threw its considerable weight behind keeping up appearances, prioritizing maintaining the facade of a prosperous nation ahead of fixing the problems keeping prosperity at bay. Disciples of Milton Friedman's neoliberal economics convinced the government that their only hope was to keep cutting taxes on the rich and hope they would eventually trickle a little down on everyone else. Admitting that this system had failed would betray weakness that would surely be leveraged into a full-fledged communist takeover. As a result, Americans have become shockingly adept at lying to themselves, and even the Trump era's trendy antipatriots are defiantly setting off their fireworks, convinced that everything will be just fine once they get rid of that nasty old president.
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Pyramid

The Kolomoisky Pyramid: Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland and Christine Lagarde

John Helmer
johnhelmer.net
Sun, 30 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
ClintonNewlandKolomoisky
© Unknown
Doing the heavy lifting: Hillary Clinton, Victoria Newland, Igor Kolomoisky
When Igor Kolomoisky financed anti-Russian units operating with the Ukrainian Army in the Ukrainian civil war, he was a staunch ally of Petro Poroshenko's government in Kiev and the Obama Administration's chief Ukraine policymakers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland.

They in turn dominated the voting on the board of directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by managing director Christine Lagarde. Following the US regime change which installed Poroshenko's regime in the spring of 2014, the IMF voted massive loans for the Ukraine to replace the Russian financing on which the regime of Victor Yanukovich had depended. More than a third of the fresh IMF money was paid out by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the state's central bank, into PrivatBank controlled by Kolomoisky and his partner, Gennady Bogolyubov.

At the time, investigations of Kolomoisky's business and banking practices, and the special relationship he cultivated with the NBU, reported he was stealing the money through a pyramid of front companies lending each other the IMF cash which was not intended to be repaid. Clinton, Nuland, Lagarde and the IMF staff and board of directors ignored the evidence, as they continued to top up Kolomoisky's pyramid. Criminal investigations by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were also reported at the time; they were neutralized by their superiors.

Comment: See also: Who will have the power in Ukraine? Gangster mayors, oligarch's dirty money and criminals?

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Arrow Down

Elijah Magnier: Iran, cheated by the JCPOA, heads towards full withdrawal

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
EU/Iran flag, rig
© Iran Review
For more than 14 months now, Europe has offered no solution to ease the crippling US sanctions on Iran, giving the "Islamic Republic" no valid reason to hold on the JCPOA nuclear deal. The Leader of the Revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei advised Iranian officials to trust neither the US nor Europe. From Iran's point of view, the US is honest in revealing is animosity to Iran, showing its bad intentions and plans to corner the country. It is playing - in Iran's view - "the bad cop role". Europe, on the other hand "is worse, taking upon itself the good cop role, offering nice phrases, a pretense of care and concern, but with no intention of buying Iranian oil". Iran believes today it has been cheated and gave up a high degree of uranium enrichment and the many centrifuges it possessed in 2012, in return for unprecedented sanctions. This is what is pushing Tehran towards a "gradual partial withdrawal, every few months until reaching total withdrawal and a request for the IAEA to leave the country sometime next year". That will enable Iran to regain its full nuclear capability, irrespective of US and EU concerns, without necessarily heading towards producing nuclear bombs.

Iranian officials said that "President Vladimir Putin advised Iran to stay within the nuclear deal, against Iran's inclination to partially withdraw from it. Putin believed Europe, by joining China and Russia, would be in a position to meet Iran's demands and soften the heavy US unilateral sanctions. Today the Russian President is aware that Europe has little to offer except for asking for more time and further delays. Europe is in no position to exchange its commerce with the US for its Iranian trade. Whatever European leaders might like to do, they are in no position to compensate for the US sanctions on Iran".

Comment: See also:

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Vader

Who will have the power in Ukraine? Gangster mayors, oligarch's dirty money and criminals?


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 19:40 UTC
Odessa graffiti
© RIA Novosti
Graffiti on the streets of Odessa, Ukraine
As Ukraine braces for an early parliamentary vote, its political elites are desperately looking for ways to forge alliances that would be of benefit in the new political environment. Some deals, however, look shadier than others.

While Ukraine's major political parties led by former President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are preparing to face off, as well as the newly formed party of current President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a parliamentary election, some political figures with a long criminal history also want a piece of the pie.

One of the leaders of the newly formed 'Opposition Bloc' who made it to the top of its election list, Gennady Trukhanov, appears to have a particularly gruesome criminal history behind him.

Comment: See also:

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Magnify

Juncker: EU top jobs nomination process 'not very transparent'

Alice Tidey
Euronews
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 14:57 UTC
Jean-Claude Juncker
© Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
Outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday criticised as "not very transparent" the way European Union leaders selected the nominee to replace him.

After three days of marathon talks, the European Council rejected the Spitzenkandidat system to nominate German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen to replace Juncker when his term expires on November 1.

Under this system — through which Junker himself had been appointed — each group in the European Parliament had nominated a lead candidate during the election campaign, who was meant to assume the Commission presidency should they end up with the largest number of seats.

During a joint press conference with Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne in Helsinki on Friday, Juncker said the nomination process "was not very transparent", adding that "it's a vision to come back to what unfortunately didn't become a tradition." He then joked: "I said in the European Council the other day that I always had the impression that I would add to history. But not like that, because I am a very unique guy. I was the first and the last Spitzenkandidat."


Comment: See also:
Galloway: Does anyone seriously expect Von der Leyen and Lagarde to change the neo-liberal status quo?

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Attention

Right to Information: Epstein documents may expose powerful politicians, businessmen

Lisette Voytko
Forbes
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 02:31 UTC
Jeffrey Epstein
© Corbis/Getty Images
Sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein
A federal appeals court Wednesday ordered that 167 documents in a lawsuit that alleges famously well-connected financier Jeffrey Epstein participated in a sex-trafficking ring should be unsealed — and that many of his powerful friends could be named.
  • In its 27-page decision, the court cited the public's right to access the case information outweighed the privacy of certain individuals, "including numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well‐known Prime Minister, and other world leaders."
  • Virginia Guiffre (now Roberts) filed the lawsuit against Ghislane Maxwell, alleging that she had used her as part of a sex trafficking network of underage girls to Epstein and a number of his famous friends, including his lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew. Both men denied the accusations.
  • Dershowitz has supported unsealing the documents, according to the Daily Beast.
  • The documents will not be immediately available, as anonymous individuals involved in the case have two weeks to file appeals.
  • The court advised the documents be read carefully. "We therefore urge the media to exercise restraint in covering potentially defamatory allegations, and we caution the public to read such accounts with discernment," wrote the court in its decision.
Key background: Epstein had previously been charged in 2007 in a 53-page indictment. As the Miami Herald revealed in its investigative series "Perversion of Justice," Epstein managed to escape all federal charges through a plea deal that gave him and all of his coconspirators immunity, with all documents being sealed. Epstein ended up pleading guilty to one state prostitution charge in Florida. He then registered as a sex offender and paid unspecified restitution to three dozen victims identified by the FBI.

Comment: See also:

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Health

Biden to revive Obamacare's individual mandate penalty for not having insurance - that everyone hated

Jessica Bursztynsky
CNBC
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 09:24 UTC
SpookyJoeB
© Scott Olson/Getty Images
Former US VP Joe Biden
Joe Biden, former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, said Friday he would bring back the individual mandate, the penalty for not having health insurance, which was a pillar of the Affordable Care Act.

"Yes, I'd bring back the individual mandate," Biden said in an interview on CNN. The individual mandate would be popular now, "compared to what's being offered," he added.

Biden played an integral part in crafting the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare. However, President Donald Trump eliminated the individual mandate in 2017 by signing the Republican tax bill, effective the 2019 tax year.

Nearly all of the Democratic presidential hopefuls support some kind of government health-care plan. While he does not support of "Medicare for All," Biden said people should have the option to buy into Medicare if they want it. "If you provide an option for anybody who in fact wants to buy into Medicare for All, they can buy in," the Democratic presidential front-runner said.

Comment: See also:

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