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Politicians' hysteria over 'Russian disinformation' echoed by social media executives

Jacob Sullum
Reason
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 14:05 UTC
Facebook Twitter Google Counsel
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter's acting General Counsel Sean Edgett and Google's Director of Law Enforcement and Information Security Richard Salgado during a U.S. Senate Judiciary Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee hearing , U.S., October 31, 2017
Yesterday representatives of Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified before a Senate subcommittee about online "Russian disinformation," sounding a note of alarm that echoed legislators' concerns and therefore grossly exaggerated the threat. "When it comes to the 2016 election," said Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, "the foreign interference we saw is reprehensible and outrageous and opened a new battleground for our company, our industry, and our society. That foreign actors, hiding behind fake accounts, abused our platform and other internet services to try to sow division and discord - and to try to undermine our election process - is an assault on democracy, and it violates all of our values."

The idea that Russian ads on Facebook, Russian tweets on Twitter, and Russian videos on YouTube "undermine our election process" and constitute "an assault on democracy" (let alone that such propaganda "violates all of our values") is hard to take seriously given what we know about the nature and scale of this operation. Social media platforms have every right to insist that users follow their terms of service, which in Facebook's case ban phony source descriptions (falsely identifying a Russian's posts as an American's, for example). But the expectation that Facebook, Twitter, and Google will police political discourse to minimize "Russian influence" is not just impractical but, if backed by the threat of legislation, contrary to the First Amendment.

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

Panic hits Hollywood and media elite: Who's head will be next?

Mary Pilon, Marisa Guthrie
The Hollywood Reporter
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 13:51 UTC
Bill O'Reilly, Chris Savino and Leon Wieseltier
© From left to right: Sonia Moskowitz, Vivien Killilea, Brooks Kraft/Corbis, all Getty Images
From left: Bill O'Reilly, Chris Savino and Leon Wieseltier
Near-daily disclosures of misconduct from N.Y. and L.A. men - as outlined in a since-deleted spreadsheet of "Shitty Media Men" - have blanketed the landscape with a palpable unease: "We all wake up thinking, 'Who's next?'"

Dayna Evans, a freelance writer in Brooklyn, was working at her apartment on Oct. 11 when she received a link to a Google spreadsheet curiously titled "Shitty Media Men."

"When I first got it, there were 12 or so names on it, and you could see people editing it," says Evans. "I still remember even then thinking how few men there were on it considering how many of them have power." She left her computer for a few hours, and when she returned, the number had ballooned to more than 50 (a version obtained by The Hollywood Reporter includes 72 names), covering an array of outlets, including The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Times, Harper's, Mother Jones, BuzzFeed and New York.
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Megaphone

Agenda-pushing NYT columnist gets torched for tweeting gun control talking points after NYC terror attack

Matt Vespa
Townhall
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 07:30 UTC
home depot truck NYC terror attack
Nicholas Kristof stepped on a rake last night-and it wasn't pretty. The New York Times columnist decided to go there on gun control when it was wholly unnecessary to do so. On Tuesday, 29-year-old Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov drove a rented Home Depot pickup truck through a bike path in lower Manhattan and plowed through bystanders and cyclists. Eight people are dead, close to dozen more injured and you're going to give New York a pat on the back for having strict gun laws. This was possibly in response to Saipov exiting his truck holding fake guns. He was obviously trying to commit suicide by cop, but martyrdom was denied; the NYPD shot him but he's alive (via CBS News):

Comment: Nothing like a good old-fashioned terrorist attack to reignite the hysterical gun-control debate - even if it didn't involve guns! See:

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Family

DNC: 'Straight white males' need not apply for tech jobs

Barnini Chakraborty
Fox News
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 12:00 UTC
DNC tech jobs white males men need not apply meeting Tom Perez
© REUTERS/Chris Berry
Democratic National Chair candidate, Tom Perez, addresses the audience as the Democratic National Committee holds an election to choose their next chairperson at their winter meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. February 25, 2017.
That's the message from a Democratic National Committee data services manager, currently on the hunt to filll multiple vacancies in the tech department.

The political organization, which routinely makes grand statements about inclusion, recently sent an email to its employees looking to recruit people for eight open spots including IT Systems Administrator, Product Manager and Chief Security Officer.

Though the Oct. 30 email says that the DNC is looking for a "staff of diverse voices and life experiences," it apparently doesn't mean white men.

Comment: This is simply pathological negative selection, as described by Andrew Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology. Newsflash to Leader: Discriminating against a majority based on unimportant things like skin color and sexual orientation, means discriminating against a majority that includes the things that actually matter, like intelligence and competence. There are simply more straight white males than there are gay colored males. Therefore, there will also be more competent straight white males than competent gay colored males. The opposite would be true if gay colored males were more numerous than straight white males.

Enough with the identity politics. It only leads to disaster. How about just saying, "Hire whoever is best qualified for the job, whatever biological category they happen to fall under"?

See also:

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Attention

Smear-ad backfire: Virginia gubernatorial nominee sees donations triple after opponent's ad goes viral

Sarah Taylor
The Blaze
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 15:08 UTC
Ed Gillespie smear ad
© Twitter
Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie said he's "disgusted" by the inflammatory campaign ad against him, but campaign donations have tripled as a result of it.
Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie revealed Tuesday that his campaign donations have tripled since progressive political organization Latino Victory Fund released an inflammatory ad targeting his campaign.

The ad featured a white man driving a Ford pickup truck bearing a Gillespie bumper sticker and license plates reading "Don't tread on me."

In the video, the vehicle's driver drove the truck directly at a group of fleeing minority children.
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Cloud Precipitation

Majority of Americans say that now is the worst point in US history that they can remember

Julia Conley
Common Dreams
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
lowest point in U.S. history
© NoHoDamon/Flickr/cc
Fifty-nine percent of Americans surveyed in a new poll say the present-day is the lowest point in U.S. history, with many pointing to issues impacted by the Trump administration.
In new poll, a majority say they can't remember a time when their levels of stress over healthcare, the economy, and social divisions were higher

A majority of Americans surveyed in a study of stress levels, released on Wednesday, said they consider the present day to be the lowest point in U.S. history, and indicated that the future of the nation is a major source of stress in their lives.

Out of 3,440 respondents surveyed in August by the American Psychological Association, fifty-nine percent said they can't remember a worse time in the nation's history. The people surveyed included Americans who had lived through World War II, the Vietnam War, the September 11 attacks, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Poll-takers asked respondents to describe the issues that have caused them to feel this way, and found that 59 percent were most anguished about "divisiveness" in U.S. society.

Comment: Though this article has an 'anti-Trump' slant, it's clear that most Americans correctly perceive that things are wildly off kilter in the US, and not likely to get any better. What does make matters worse, however, is that many don't know that they are being gaslighted by pathological people in positions of power - through many different spheres of influence. It's very difficult to solve the many serious problems of the US if you don't know what the real problem is and suffering from cognitive dissonance.

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Eye 2

Horrific: Mexican cartel dismembers, grills innocent civilians

José Luis Lara
Breitbart
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 12:48 UTC
Mexico murder cartel
© Breitbart Texas / Cartel Chronicles
MORELIA, Michoacán - One of the Mexican cartels fighting for control of this state escalated their terrorist activities by dismembering innocent victims and roasting their body-parts to leverage local support. Such tactics are becoming a part of everyday life in this state while officials continue to minimize regional safety concerns.

This week, members of the Nueva Familia Michoacana Cartel carried out a series of gory executions in the rural areas between Apatzingán and La Ruana. Operatives kidnapped 11 victims from which the remains of only three were recovered. The victims were not rival cartel members-only local residents who refused to support the Nueva Familia Michoacana. Cartel gunmen severed the heads from their bodies and then cut various body-parts off. The cartel placed some of the human remains on a grill and cooked them.

Comment: Mexico is paying the price of years of condoning corrupt practices that have allowed crime to flourish to insane extremes. What future is there for a country when its population is faced with such horrors?

The original article contains pictures of the remains of the victims. Be warned, they are graphic and disturbing.

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USA

Times of terror demand greater situational awareness (of the true source of terror)

Armstrong Williams
Townhall
Thu, 02 Nov 2017 12:42 UTC
tiroteo Las Vegas
You see the truck barreling toward you and bodies and bicycles flying through the air. You hear the screeching of metal on metal, and the shards of shattered glass tinkling to the pavement. You smell the diesel fumes, you feel the surge of adrenaline and taste dry copper on the dry roof of your mouth.

Time stands still. It's a moment of truth. What do you do?

It's a question that every one of us needs to be asking ourselves today, tomorrow and every single day in this perplexing and violent world.

Americans are tough. We show resilience. Americans know when to unite as one. It has been more than 16 years since the savage terrorist assaults of 9/11, and yet yesterday's attack in New York and the recent Las Vegas massacre remind all of us how vulnerable we can feel at times.


Comment: Actually, Americans, in general, are not tough, and they're not resilient. They're extremely hystericizied. Which is something that those Americans who are paying attention need to remember at all times.


Comment: Americans cannot "move forward" as long as the true source of "these barbarisms" remains unseen.

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Bizarro Earth

#EFFMarch: 'Israel is not the same as the Israel in the Bible', 'is using name to murder Palestinians'

Rapula Moatshe
IOL
Thu, 02 Nov 2017 12:51 UTC
Free palestine rally EFF south africa apartheid
© Kathrada Foundation
"Free Palestine; End Israel ethnic Cleansing of Gaza; Break the Siege on Gaza; Shut down apartheid Israel Embassy"
A picket by the EFF supporters outside the Israel embassy on Kings Highway Street in Pretoria continued on Thursday amid the presence of the SAPS officers and Tshwane metro police.

Dressed in their red traditional colours, party supporters said they picketed to express their solidarity with the Palestinians. They also called for the embassy to shut down.

Other people held up placards bearing the anti-Israel messages such as "Free Palestine; End Israel ethnic Cleansing of Gaza; Break the Siege on Gaza; Shut down apartheid Israel Embassy".
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Light Sabers

Dem Rep Calls Black Pro-life Woman Ignorant When She Pushes Back on His Argument about Abortion

Lauretta Brown
Townhall
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 12:36 UTC
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) became very angry Wednesday during a hearing about a bill that would prohibit abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. He called Star Parker, a pro-life advocate and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), ignorant because she told him it was "disingenuous" to equate abortion with other challenges facing poor communities as he did in his earlier questioning.

"If you believe in life you should believe in Medicaid, healthcare, nutrition for people who are here," Cohen asserted during the hearing, "and preventing the eventuality of backroom abortions and where only the wealthy can afford to go where they may be legal, making poor women even more poor."

"When it comes to mixing the abortion issue with the challenges that we face in many of our hard-hit communities," Parker said later in response, "I feel it disingenuous that the issues of Medicaid would come up and other opportunities for us to readdress what has happened and broken down in our most distressed zip codes, the way that Planned Parenthood specifically targets these particular zip codes with abortion."

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