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Number of users warned by Twitter about 'Russian trolls' has now doubled to 1.4 million people


RT
Thu, 01 Feb 2018 04:56 UTC
tweets twitter
© Regis Duvignau/Illustration / ReutersA man reeds Tweets in front of a Twitter logo
Twitter says it has messaged some 1,4 million people that might have been targeted in the alleged Russian propaganda effort. Even those who had switched off email notifications have now received the warning.

On Wednesday, Twitter updated the number of people it believes may have fallen for the "propaganda" generated by 3,814 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA). The social media platform accuses the IRA of being behind attempts to influence the US presidential election.

The new figure is more than a two-fold increase from the 677,775 users Twitter said it began notifying on January, 19. It includes those who replied to, mentioned or quoted the now suspended accounts. As part of its "transparency" policy, Twitter said it's now sending notifications even to those who "opt out of receiving most email updates from Twitter and would not have received our initial notice based on their email settings."

Comment: Thank you Twitter, for reminding us that your message is NOT propaganda and that the Russians are the only ones in the whole word that do it - never the USA, where only the truth be told. See also:

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TV

"BBC has become a supporter of a foreign organization called the EU": Tory lord hits out at "systematic biased" Brexit coverage


RT
Thu, 01 Feb 2018 09:54 UTC
BBC sign
© Peter Nicholls / Reuters
A Tory lord has accused the BBC of Brexit bias after it was revealed two-thirds of guests on its flagship shows are against leaving the bloc. Lord Tebbit branded the broadcaster a "supporter of a foreign organization."

Analysis by the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) shows two-thirds of guests on BBC Question Time and Any Questions over the past two years have been against Brexit. The report describes the bias as "substantial."

Speaking in the House of Lords, Lord Tebbit said: "Quite frankly the BBC has become a supporter of a foreign organization called the European Union.

Comment: The BBC is the only channel directly funded by the tax payer under guise of the 'TV license' where citizens are forced to pay for their services even if they never watch the channel, and so one would expect impartiality, which is also their mandate. However, the BBC is renowned for being a mouthpiece of the government and an all round propaganda outlet:

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Dollar

Trump's CDC director resigns after report reveals investments in tobacco, pharmaceuticals and healthcare


RT
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:17 UTC
Brenda Fitzgerald Centers for Disease Control / Reuters
© Centers for Disease Control / ReutersBrenda Fitzgerald
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned after it was revealed she had purchased stock in a tobacco company a month after taking the job, which oversees smoking-cessation programs, among other things.

Newly sworn-in Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar accepted Brenda Fitzgerald's resignation on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported citing the agency spokesman.

"Dr. Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as the CDC Director," HHS spokesman Matt Lloyd said. "Due to the nature of these financial statements, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period."

Comment: Well, it wouldn't be the first time:

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Blackbox

BBC puzzled, "Isn't there somebody better than Putin? Why would you vote for him again?" Margarita Simonyan explains


Fort Russ News
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 10:09 UTC
Margarita Simonyan
- M-simonyan.livejournal, translated by Tom Winter -

Margarita Simonyan ...

A BBC-nik asked me:
- Among the 150 million Russians is there really no one better than Putin? How can it be understood that you would vote for him again?
I explained it for him something like this:

- To understand this, you had to live here before Putin. Just picture it, you live in a country where a civil war has going on long since, which has no end and no end in sight. Where a crisis has just struck, which has nullified all your money, again.

Comment: A very good point and something that is usually overlooked. Western society generally being ego-centric (to put it nicely), won't take a moment to put themselves in someone else's shoes. If they could see how bad things were before Putin and seeing how things are now, would you take a chance on an unknown when the known is so good? See also:

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Eye 2

Pentagon stokes fear of anti-satellite weapons: "great-power competition - not terrorism - is now the primary focus of US national security"


Sputnik
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 23:29 UTC
Pentagon Fears Rapid Advancement of Chinese, Russian Anti-Satellite Weapons
© Live Journal
Kessler Syndrome, here we come! The Pentagon has fretted that China and Russia are developing anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles that could shoot US low Earth orbit (LEO) objects out of the stars within the next two years.

The intelligence directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, designated J-2, told the Washington Free Beacon that these missiles are currently in development and will be combat-capable as early as 2020.

In May, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said that Moscow and Beijing were "increasingly considering attacks against satellite systems as part of their future warfare doctrine."

Comment: This isn't the first time the US has hyped the need for countering imaginary enemies satellite sabotage. Though China and Russia has a variety of defensive tactics up their sleeve, it seems the US repeatedly goes for the more aggressive strategy: Also See:

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Phoenix

Kremlin to train falcons that can hunt down and intercept drones


The Moscow Times
Mon, 29 Jan 2018 11:01 UTC
kremlin falcon
© Pixabay / MT
The Kremlin possesses hawks and falcons that can hunt down and intercept drones that threaten the airspace of its heavily-fortified complex in central Moscow, a source in the security forces told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency Monday.

The government's 45-year-old ornithology service employs falcons, hawks and eagle-owls to protect against crows.

The source told RIA that the birds of prey have the capacity to take down unmanned aerial vehicles over the Kremlin, but that it was "better to use falcons instead of hawks."

Comment: Ever the innovators, next thing you know they'll be weaponizing sheep!

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USA

Trump stresses unity and declares 'a new American moment' during first State of the Union

Marisa Schultz and Bob Fredericksr
New York Post
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:34 UTC
trump SOTU
© Getty Images
President Trump declared "a new American moment" in his first State of the Union address Tuesday - touting his tax cuts and the booming US economy and vowing to work with Democrats to reform the nation's immigration policies and crumbling infrastructure.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people," Trump said to Congress and the nation at the Capitol. "This in fact is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream."

The speech, which went for 80 minutes, had some 150 applause lines, including when Trump said "the state of our union is strong because our people are strong."

The president focused on many of the same themes on which he campaigned - keeping Americans safe, cutting regulations and stimulating the fossil fuel industry - but also struck a conciliatory tone.

Comment: See also:

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Info

Russian FSB eliminates ISIS member who plotted terror attack on Russian presidential election day


RT
Thu, 01 Feb 2018 09:18 UTC
FSB Special Forces
© Igor Zarembo / SputnikFSB Special Forces
Russia's FSB security agency has eliminated a terrorist suspect in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, who plotted a high-profile attack during the 2018 presidential election.

An FSB Special Forces team has foiled "the activities of an Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS] member who planned a terrorist attack in Nizhny Novgorod," the agency said in a statement on Thursday.

"According to the intelligence collected, the terrorist - a citizen of a neighboring state - was preparing the attack on the day of [the] Russian presidential election," it added.

Comment: See also: Russia's FSB has foiled ISIS-linked bomb plot targeting New Year celebrations and Russian 2018 presidential election

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Cloud Grey

Will Congress confront the Deep State?

Ray McGovern
Consortium News
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
Congress
The House Intelligence Committee's vote on Monday to release a memorandum describing alleged malfeasance at the DOJ and the FBI could test constitutional principles, writes Ray McGovern.

With the House Intelligence Committee vote yesterday to release its four-page memorandum reportedly based on documentary evidence of possible crimes by top Justice Department and FBI leaders, the die is cast. Russia-gate and FBI-gate are now joined at the hip.

The coming weeks will show whether the U.S. intelligence establishment (the FBI/CIA/NSA, AKA the "Deep State") will be able to prevent its leaders from being held to account. Past precedent suggests that the cabal that conjured up Russia-gate will not have to pick up a "go-to-jail" card. This, despite the widespread guilt suggested by the abrupt way that several senior-echelon DOJ and FBI rats have already jumped ship. Not to mention the manner in which FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was unceremoniously pushed overboard yesterday, after Director Christopher Wray was given a look at the extra-legal capers described in the House Intelligence Committee memorandum.

Granted, at first glance Deep State's efforts to undercut candidate Donald Trump at first seem so risky and audacious as to be unbelievable. By now, though, Americans should be able to wrap their heads around, one, the dire threat that outsider Trump was seen to be posing to the Deep State and to the ease with which it held sway under President Barack Obama; and, two, expected immunity from prosecution if Deep State crimes were eventually discovered after the election, since "everybody knew" Hillary Clinton was going to win. Oops.

Comment: The war for the 'Russia Collusion' narrative and the political stranglehold held on Trump continues apace. Watch outlets like the NY Times, Wa Po and others spin - spin - spin the way the Deep State wants them to as the contents of the FISA memo seep into public consciousness.

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Eye 1

The alphabet agencies: Mass surveillance and the memory hole

Ted Snider
Consortium News
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 22:49 UTC
CIA FBI NSA
The NSA's recent destruction of evidence in contravention of a court order follows a long-established pattern of intelligence abuses.

Though it received disturbingly little attention - perhaps a symptom of desensitization to news that we are constantly being surveilled - it was recently revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) destroyed data about some of its surveillance activity that it was under court order to preserve. The NSA was ordered to save the data in 2007 because of pending lawsuits over the questionable legality of Bush ordered warrantless wiretaps of American digital and telecommunications. The data was evidence, and the NSA destroyed evidence.

It seems that the NSA not only destroyed evidence but serially mislead the courts by claiming that it was complying with court orders while it simultaneously was not in compliance: the NSA was not preserving internet communications that were intercepted for several years between 2001 and 2007. Though as late as 2014, the NSA was assuring the court that it was "preserving magnetic/digital tapes of the Internet content intercepted under the [Presidential Surveillance Program] since the inception of the program," the NSA has now confessed that assurance "may have been only partially accurate."

The NSA claims that the destruction of data happened unintentionally during a general cleaning undertaken to "free-up space." It is remarkable that the NSA has managed to save virtually every communication that every one has made in case it could be used against him but was not competent enough to avoid accidentally deleting data that could be used against them.

Comment: CIA, NSA and FBI are the personification of rogue agencies. As JFK found out, woe betide any mere president that tries to get in their way. Trump must step very carefully.

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