Showing posts with label NOOSE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NOOSE. Show all posts
Friday, June 27, 2025
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Jimmy Carter Casts His Ballot for Harris in Georgia
The 39th president, who entered hospice care in February 2023, submitted an absentee ballot, according to a grandson. His family said he had been eager to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Former President Jimmy Carter emerged from hospice care to attend a memorial for his wife of nearly eight decades, Rosalynn Carter, in Atlanta last year. Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Oct. 16, 2024
The longest-lived president in American history has voted again.
Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 on Oct. 1 and has been in hospice care since February 2023, submitted his absentee ballot on Wednesday, according to Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson.
Jason Carter, the chairman of the Carter Center, said in a text message on Wednesday that his grandfather’s ballot had been deposited at a drop box at a courthouse in Americus, Ga. In Georgia, a relative may return a completed absentee ballot for a voter.
For weeks, according to the Carter family, the former president was privately playing down becoming a centenarian. Instead, Mr. Carter’s relatives said, he was most eager about voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Under Georgia law, Oct. 7 was the first day that county registrars could distribute domestic absentee ballots. Elections officials began mailing military and overseas ballots last month. Georgia’s in-person early voting period began on Tuesday, and regulators reported record turnout.
Elections officials said they were not certain when Mr. Carter, who spent many days of his post-presidency on Carter Center election-monitoring missions around the world, first cast a ballot of his own. But in 1943, Georgia became the first state to lower its voting age to 18; when Georgia voters decided to amend the state Constitution, Mr. Carter was months away from his 19th birthday.
Soon enough, though, he was in elected office himself. In 1962, he won a seat in the State Senate, after a chaotic scandal in which Mr. Carter’s opponent initially benefited from a ballot-stuffing scheme. (Decades later, Mr. Carter would recall that he was such an unknown then that a Georgia newspaper identified him as “Jerry Carter from Plains.”)
Mr. Carter cited the episode as a reason that he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, who died last year, founded the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization, after they left the White House in 1981. But before his defeat by Ronald Reagan, one of Mr. Carter’s earliest lobbying efforts as president focused on his ideas about voter registration and campaign finance.
State records show that Mr. Carter has been an especially reliable voter as a former president. He has routinely cast ballots in general elections, of course, but has also been a fixture of primary runoffs and special elections. For more than a decade, he has exclusively voted by mail in the elections tracked by the state.
Mr. Carter still lives in Plains — the tidy city in southwest Georgia that he turned into an outpost of presidential politics nearly a half-century ago — and votes in Sumter County, where plenty of people still know him as “Mr. Jimmy.” A Republican presidential nominee last carried Sumter in 2004, when George W. Bush won it by 126 votes.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a 586-vote margin of victory there in 2020.
The margins have come to matter in Georgia, one of the most closely contested states in presidential elections. Had Mr. Carter gotten his way in the 1970s, though, they would matter less: He recommended abolishing the Electoral College.
Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education. More about Alan Blinder
The longest-lived president in American history has voted again.
Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 on Oct. 1 and has been in hospice care since February 2023, submitted his absentee ballot on Wednesday, according to Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson.
Jason Carter, the chairman of the Carter Center, said in a text message on Wednesday that his grandfather’s ballot had been deposited at a drop box at a courthouse in Americus, Ga. In Georgia, a relative may return a completed absentee ballot for a voter.
For weeks, according to the Carter family, the former president was privately playing down becoming a centenarian. Instead, Mr. Carter’s relatives said, he was most eager about voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Under Georgia law, Oct. 7 was the first day that county registrars could distribute domestic absentee ballots. Elections officials began mailing military and overseas ballots last month. Georgia’s in-person early voting period began on Tuesday, and regulators reported record turnout.
Elections officials said they were not certain when Mr. Carter, who spent many days of his post-presidency on Carter Center election-monitoring missions around the world, first cast a ballot of his own. But in 1943, Georgia became the first state to lower its voting age to 18; when Georgia voters decided to amend the state Constitution, Mr. Carter was months away from his 19th birthday.
Soon enough, though, he was in elected office himself. In 1962, he won a seat in the State Senate, after a chaotic scandal in which Mr. Carter’s opponent initially benefited from a ballot-stuffing scheme. (Decades later, Mr. Carter would recall that he was such an unknown then that a Georgia newspaper identified him as “Jerry Carter from Plains.”)
Mr. Carter cited the episode as a reason that he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, who died last year, founded the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization, after they left the White House in 1981. But before his defeat by Ronald Reagan, one of Mr. Carter’s earliest lobbying efforts as president focused on his ideas about voter registration and campaign finance.
State records show that Mr. Carter has been an especially reliable voter as a former president. He has routinely cast ballots in general elections, of course, but has also been a fixture of primary runoffs and special elections. For more than a decade, he has exclusively voted by mail in the elections tracked by the state.
Mr. Carter still lives in Plains — the tidy city in southwest Georgia that he turned into an outpost of presidential politics nearly a half-century ago — and votes in Sumter County, where plenty of people still know him as “Mr. Jimmy.” A Republican presidential nominee last carried Sumter in 2004, when George W. Bush won it by 126 votes.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a 586-vote margin of victory there in 2020.
The margins have come to matter in Georgia, one of the most closely contested states in presidential elections. Had Mr. Carter gotten his way in the 1970s, though, they would matter less: He recommended abolishing the Electoral College.
Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education. More about Alan Blinder
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Monday, August 14, 2023
OUT OF SHADOWS THE OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARY 2020 with Mike Smith Liz Crokin (Explicit Language)
WARNING: Explicit Language
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Adventist LGBT+ Film “Philip & Alberto” Selected for the UnLonely Project Film Festival — and More News Shorts
Written by:
Published:
June 5, 2019In this week’s news round-up, the Adventist documentary “Philip & Alberto” is selected for a film festival, Muskogee SDA Academy receives over $50,000 from Oklahoma Scholarship Fund, community bikers help maintain Pacific Union College’s bike trails, and an Australian Adventist will serve four years for sexually abusing two boys.
Film “Philip & Alberto” Selected for the UnLonely Project Film Festival. Stephen Eyer and Daneen Akers are pleased to announce that their film “Philip & Alberto” has been selected for the UnLonely Project film festival, sponsored by the Foundation for Art and Healing. The short film, part of the seven-part Outspoken short documentary film series, tells the story of Philip and Alberto, who are deeply committed to their faith, their church, and their daughter Dalia, whom they are raising Adventist (in the same local church that Philip grew up in) even though that is not always easy. For the past 10 years, Eyer and Akers have focused on LGBTQ rights, creating multiple films that helped mitigate homophobia in religious communities. One of those films, a feature documentary called Seventh-Gay Adventists, was an official selection at the 2013 Frameline37 San Francisco Int’l LGBT Film Festival at the Roxie Theater where the film also was asked back as part of the Frameline Encore series. From The Foundation for Art & Healing, “Philip and Alberto — Outspoken” and the Seventh-Gay Adventists Facebook page. See also: “Second Installment in Adventist LGBT+ Short Film Series ‘Outspoken’ Released Today”
Friday, November 23, 2018
New climate change report...
Fox News
The White House on Friday released a federal report that found that the impacts of climate change are being felt across the country, and “extreme weather and ...
3 hours ago
At a time when many Americans are distracted on a long holiday weekend, the Trump administration released a federally mandated report on climate change ...
4 hours ago
Washington Times
As many as 9300 more people could die each year because of extreme heat or cold related to climate change by the end of this century, the Trump ...
4 hours ago
A firefighter hoses down a property engulfed in flames during the Woolsey Fire in Malibu, Calif., this month. (Gene Blevins/Reuters) Reuters
Scientists are more certain than ever that climate change is already impacting the United States, and that it is going to be very expensive.
5 hours ago
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Sunday, May 14, 2017
A Cynical media or a biased tit for tat?
Early this morning I looked for the latest news on the Google search engine, and unintentionally I found news stories regarding the United States. Boy, was I amazed by the cynicism, but not surprised.
This is what I found:
Salon
WATCH: What you need to know to survive in “the United States of Russia”
Salon - 11 hours ago
Authors Vicky Kuperman and Isabella Patrick, who wrote the recently released humor book “How to Spy On Your Neighbor: Your Survival Guide for the United States of Russia,” suggest that since last November 8, America has started on a new path towards ...
Parade
See realtime coverage
Photos: Meet the 2017 Miss United States Contestants
Parade - May 12, 2017
The 2017 MISS USA® pageant is taking place this Sunday live from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas with women from all 50 states plus the District of Columbia competing for the title.
Miss USA Home
Photos: Meet the 2017 Miss United States Contestants
Parade - May 12, 2017
The 2017 MISS USA® pageant is taking place this Sunday live from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas with women from all 50 states plus the District of Columbia competing for the title.
Miss USA Home
AlterNet
See realtime coverage
Donald Trump's America Is Showing the Telltale Signs of a Failing State
AlterNet - May 11, 2017
Only if a thorough investigation takes place that includes an examination of Trump family ties in Russia (and elsewhere) and how these may have compromised the United States will the message be sent that America is the nation that has for so long been ...
Donald Trump's America Is Showing the Telltale Signs of a Failing State
AlterNet - May 11, 2017
Only if a thorough investigation takes place that includes an examination of Trump family ties in Russia (and elsewhere) and how these may have compromised the United States will the message be sent that America is the nation that has for so long been ...
Related
Vanity Fair
Wikipedia:
James Comey »
Monday, February 22, 2016
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Vatican Newspaper Slams 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'
by CLAUDIO LAVANGA
ROME — It may have wowed audiences around the world breaking box office records in the process, but "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" found a tough audience at the Vatican.
Calling the movie "confused and hazy," a review in Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said that the film "fails most spectacularly" in its representation of evil. It added that the blockbuster "overdoes the darkness."
How to Spend A Pile of Money on 'Star Wars' Merchandise 1:47
Darth Vader and the Emperor Palpatine were "two of the most effective villains" in the sci-fi genre of American cinema, it suggested.
However, the new film's counterpart Kylo Ren was called "insipid" while Supreme Leader Snoke was called "the most serious defect of the film."
The newspaper — which reports on the activities of the Holy See and events taking place in the Roman Catholic Church — suggested the the movie was more of a reboot than a sequel.
It added that the film was a "twisted updated which fits today's tastes and a public more accustomed to sitting in front of a computer than in a cinema," adding that it was influenced by the "sloppiest current action films derived from the world of video games."
A Vatican source told NBC News on Tuesday that it was unlikely that the review would have any impact on Pope Francis, because "he doesn't watch movies."
Kylo Ren at the European premiere of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in London on December 16. LEON NEAL / AFP - Getty Images
Source
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Perplexing Google Headlines
UN Security Council puts sanctions focus on Islamic State
Reuters - 2 hours ago
UNITED NATIONS The U.N. Security Council warned on Thursday that some countries are failing to implement long-standing sanctions against Islamic State, as an unprecedented meeting of finance ministers put the global focus on cutting off the militant ...
US Poised to Lift Sanctions on Iran Under Nuclear Deal
ABC News - 2 hours ago
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani addresses the nation in a televised speech after the closure of Iran's nuclear probe at the IAEA meeting, at his office in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015.
US-Cuba aviation deal allows 110 scheduled flights a day
OCRegister - 56 minutes ago
Backdropped by pictures of Cuba's President Raul Castro, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, center, and rebel leader Ernesto Che Guevara giving a speech at the United Nations in 1964, Josefina Vidal, director general of the U.S.
Reuters - 37 minutes ago
WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade on Wednesday, signaling faith that the U.S.
WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade on Wednesday, signaling faith that the U.S.
Reuters - 2 hours ago
U.S. stocks dropped Thursday on persistent concern over faltering global economic growth, led by declines in energy and materials shares, a day after shares had rallied on the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates.
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Tuesday, September 02, 2014
The Dubious Sources of Some Supreme Court ‘Facts’
Politics
Seeking Facts, Justices Settle for What Briefs Tell Them
SEPT. 1, 2014
Justice Antonin Scalia has criticized the court's acceptance of data found in amicus briefs. Credit Haraz N. Ghanbari/Associated Press
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court received more than 80 friend-of-the-court briefs in the Hobby Lobby case. Most of these filings, also called amicus briefs, were dull and repetitive recitations of familiar legal arguments.
Others stood out. They presented fresh, factual information that put the case in a broader context.
The justices are hungry for such data. Their opinions are increasingly studded with citations of facts they learned from amicus briefs.
But this is a perilous trend, said Allison Orr Larsen, a law professor at the College of William and Mary.
“The court is inundated with 11th-hour, untested, advocacy-motivated claims of factual expertise,” she wrote in an article to be published in The Virginia Law Review.
Some of the factual assertions in recent amicus briefs would not pass muster in a high school research paper. But that has not stopped the Supreme Court from relying on them. Recent opinions have cited “facts” from amicus briefs that were backed up by blog posts, emails or nothing at all.
Some amicus briefs are careful and valuable, of course, citing peer-reviewed studies and noting contrary evidence. Others cite more questionable materials.
Some “studies” presented in amicus briefs were paid for or conducted by the group that submitted the brief and published only on the Internet. Some studies seem to have been created for the purpose of influencing the Supreme Court.
Yet the justices are quite receptive to this dodgy data. Over the five terms from 2008 to 2013, the court’s opinions cited factual assertions from amicus briefs 124 times, Professor Larsen found.
The phenomenon is novel. “The U.S. Supreme Court is the only American judicial entity that depends so heavily on amicus briefs to educate itself on factual matters,” Professor Larsen wrote.
The trend is at odds with the ordinary role of appellate courts, which are not supposed to be in the business of determining facts. That is the job of the trial court, where evidence is submitted, sifted and subjected to the adversary process.
Appellate courts traditionally take those facts, fixed in the trial court record, as a given. Their job is to identify and apply legal principles to those facts.
Justice Antonin Scalia made this point in a 2011 dissent chastising the majority for its blithe acceptance of “government-funded studies” that “did not make an appearance in this litigation until the government’s merits brief to this court.”
But “Supreme Court briefs are an inappropriate place to develop the key facts in a case,” Justice Scalia wrote. “An adversarial process in the trial courts can identify flaws in the methodology of the studies that the parties put forward; here, we accept the studies’ findings on faith, without examining their methodology at all.”
The net result, he said, is “untested judicial fact-finding masquerading as statutory interpretation.”
At least the studies that Justice Scalia complained about were submitted by a party to the case and thus were likely to be closely examined by the other side.
Most of the information from the amicus briefs recently cited by the justices was not subjected to even that level of adversary scrutiny. Only 28 percent of the cited materials drew a response from one of the parties in the case.
In the Hobby Lobby case, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. pushed back against the recent trend, refusing to consider “an intensely empirical argument” in an amicus brief. “We do not generally entertain arguments that were not raised below and are not advanced in this court by any party,” he wrote.
Not so, Professor Larsen wrote in a recent blog post. “This descriptive statement by Justice Alito about Supreme Court practice is simply incorrect,” she wrote.
Consider these examples.
In a 2011 decision about the privacy rights of scientists who worked on government space programs, Justice Alito cited an amicus brief to show that more than 88 percent of American companies perform background checks on their workers.
“Where this number comes from is a mystery,” Professor Larsen wrote. “It is asserted in the brief without citation.”
In a 2012 decision allowing strip searches of people arrested for even minor offenses as they are admitted to jail, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy cited an amicus brief to show that there are an “increasing number of gang members” entering the nation’s prisons and jails. The brief itself did little more than assert that “there is no doubt” this was so.
And in a 2013 decision, Justice Stephen G. Breyer cited an amicus brief to establish that American libraries hold 200 million books that were published abroad, a point of some significance in the copyright dispute before the court. The figure in the brief came from a blog post. The blog has been discontinued.
In an interview, Professor Larsen said she was struck by how often justices cited the amicus briefs themselves as sources of authority, as opposed to the materials collected in the briefs. “It really makes you wonder how much digging the justices are doing,” she said.
Kannon K. Shanmugam, a lawyer with Williams & Connolly who argues frequently before the court, said the justices’ quandary was a common one.
“The Supreme Court has the same problem that the rest of us do: figuring out how to distinguish between real facts and Internet facts,” he said. “Amicus briefs from unreliable sources can contribute to that problem.”
Source
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Related
.Adventist Church files amicus brief for workplace religious freedom case at top U.S. court
Church hopes Supreme Court will take case of Muslim girl who was denied job
August 27, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Ansel Oliver/ANN
The Seventh-day Adventist Church filed an amicus brief today urging the United States’ top court to accept the case of a Muslim girl who was denied a job because her hijab—a head-covering—violated a company’s policy.
The Adventist Church’s “friend-of-the-court” brief is joined by seven other faith groups for the case Equal Employment Opportunity Commission vs. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in October whether to accept the case.
The Church’s move follows a decision last year by a federal appeals court that ruled against the girl and created additional statutes that violate protections of the U.S. Civil Rights Act. That ruling, by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, said the religious observance or practice in question must be mandatory, not just encouraged by the employee’s religious beliefs.
The brief claims last year’s ruling also mandates undue responsibility on applicants to raise concerns over religious observance. Applicants might not always know the employer’s requirements.
Church legal counselors said the ruling then allows an employer’s ignorance to eliminate protections for religious-observant applicants, which violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Read more
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P.S.
The real fact about the honorable U.S. Supreme Court in 2014, is that 6 out of the 9 "justices" are Roman Catholic.
There is nothing 'DUBIOUS' about that!
The rest of the faux-facts are gibberish.
Arsenio
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Sunday, July 27, 2014
Under Spain's 'Google fee' law, news aggregators must pay publishers
July 28, 2014 - 12:20PM
Mariana Marcaletti
The new Spanish law has been nicknamed the "Google Fee". Photo: Reuters
Spain was where the "right to be forgotten" began, with the European Commission recently ruling that individuals can demand Google remove unfavourable links about them from search results. Now a new copyright law is stirring controversy in the country.
Last week, Spain passed a law requiring news aggregators such as Google News to pay publishers a fee if they link to their content. Supporters of the law, nicknamed the ''Google Fee'', say it will prevent copyright infringements. But opponents argue that it limits freedom of expression.
Aggregators that don't compensate publishers for using their content could be fined €30,000 to €300,000 euros ($43,000 to $430,000). Spanish websites risk being blocked if they do not comply with the law, even if they are hosted in other countries.
In their blog, the local news aggregation site Meneame said that although it makes money by linking to news stories published by others, it's not enough to cover the fees required under the law. The publishers, meanwhile, make much more from their relationship, the site said. ''Every unique visit derived from Meneame drives revenue for the linked news site that is almost 20 times more than the revenue perceived by Meneame,'' it says.
It is unclear whether the law applies only to news aggregators such as Google News, or whether social networks such as Facebook and Twitter could also be affected. Spain's culture, education and sports ministry said in a statement that social networks won't be affected by this law, as it targets commercial companies such as Google.
But lawyer and blogger Carlos Sanchez Almeyda argues that the law could affect social networks. The biggest in Spain are Facebook and Tuenti, where users spend an average of more than four hours a day, Comscore Spain reported. Mr Almeyda also said that blogs, forums and Wikipedia might also be charged for uploading or linking to copyrighted content.
Bloggers and social media fans protested online with the hashtags #EnlaceLibre (Free links) and #Todoscontraelcanon (Everybody against the fee). Many of them warned that this is may be ''the end'' of the free internet and that social media may disappear in Spain if users are no longer allowed to share stories produced by somebody else.
Some reporters also joined the debate, arguing that media outlets won't benefit from link removals as news sites are likely to see less traffic referred from aggregators.
''The fact that an aggregator links to our stories, whether they are charged or not for doing so, always benefits us," freelance journalist Carlos Otto said.
In its official blog, Google Spain said that publishers can choose not to appear on Google News.
''In spite of this, it is worth mentioning that we received much more requests [from publishers] to be included in Google News instead of to be excluded, because many publishers can tell the advantage of having their content discovered by new readers or members of the audience.''
The company also noted that Google News is ad-free.
Supporters of the Spanish law, including government and large publishers, say that the law only targets major corporations that make a profit from linking to content. Most of the revenue from online advertising goes to Google, rather than to publishers that create the content, they say.
''This [law] won't affect the end user or the blogger, but big search engines that make a commercial use,'' said the Association of Spain's Newspapers.
Without this law, aggregators could deprive citizens of ''free, high-quality information online'', said Jose Maria Bergareche, president of the association, which brings together Spain's largest publishers.
Over the past few years, European countries, including France, Germany and Belgium, have also been debating copyright regulations, the Global Cybersecurity website reported, with varying results. In Germany, aggregators can link to news stories for free but must pay a fee for displaying a significant amount of the content. In France, publishers last year reached an agreement with Google: The tech giant created a €60 million fund to help news companies expand their digital units. Belgium was more drastic: Google was forbidden to distribute written stories and photographs created by media companies.
Washington Post
Thursday, July 10, 2014
US Military Admits Spending Millions to Study Manipulation of Social Media
Posted on July 10, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog
Part of a Long-Term Effort to Spread Propaganda Through the Internet
The Guardian reports:
The activities of users of Twitter and other social media services were recorded and analysed as part of a major project funded by the US military, in a program that covers ground similar to Facebook’s controversial experiment into how to control emotions by manipulating news feeds.
Research funded directly or indirectly by the US Department of Defense’s military research department, known as Darpa, has involved users of some of the internet’s largest destinations, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Kickstarter, for studies of social connections and how messages spread.
***
Several of the DoD-funded studies went further than merely monitoring what users were communicating on their own, instead messaging unwitting participants in order to track and study how they responded.
***
The project list includes a study of how activists with the Occupy movement used Twitter as well as a range of research on tracking internet memes and some about understanding how influence behaviour (liking, following, retweeting) happens on a range of popular social media platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Kickstarter, Digg and Reddit.
***
Unveiled in 2011, the SMISC [Social Media in Strategic Communication] program was regarded as a bid by the US military to become better at both detecting andconducting propaganda campaigns on social media.
“Through the program, Darpa seeks to develop tools to support the efforts of human operators to counter misinformation or deception campaigns with truthful information.” ["Truthful" as in government-approved? ]
***
Studies which received military funding channeled through IBM included one called “Modeling User Attitude toward Controversial Topics in Online Social Media”, which analysed Twitter users’ opinions on fracking.
***
“As another example, when anti-government messages are spread in social media, government would want to spread counter messages to balance that effort and hence identify people who are more likely to spread such counter messages based on their opinions.”
***
A study at Georgia Tech … concluded: “Breaking news stories and world events – for example, the Arab Spring – are heavily represented in social media, making them susceptible topics for influence attempts via deception.” [We can't tell if the researchers were pro or anti-deception; but given that the U.S. and Britain have used Twitter to intentionally spread falsehoods in other countries, we can take a wild guess.]
***
One of multiple studies looking into how to spread messages on the networks, titled “Who Will Retweet This? Automatically Identifying and Engaging Strangers on Twitter to Spread Information” did just this.
The researchers explained: “Since everyone is potentially an influencer on social media and is capable of spreading information, our work aims to identify and engage the right people at the right time on social media to help propagate information when needed.”
This story can only really be understood with a little context:
- We noted 6 years ago that the Pentagon is using artificial intelligence programs to try to predict how people will react to propaganda
- We’ve documented for 5 years that the Defense Department uses disinformation and disruption (andhere) on the web to discredit activists and manipulate public opinion, just like it smears traditional television and print reporters who question the government too acutely
- We’ve long reported that the government censors and manipulates social media. More proof here
- Edward Snowden revealed NSA documents showing that the U.S. government is attempting tocontrol, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and that spy agencies manipulate and disrupt web discussions to promote propaganda and discredit government critics
Postscript: We explained one aspect of this story – the importance of controlling which stories “go viral” – in February:
The government spends a great deal of manpower and money to monitor which stories, memes and social movements are developing the momentum to actually pose a threat to the status quo. For example, the Federal Reserve, Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies all monitor social media for stories critical of their agencies … or the government in general. Other governments – and private corporations – do the same thing.
Why?
Because a story gaining momentum ranks high on social media sites. So it has a high probability of bursting into popular awareness, destroying the secrecy which allows corruption, and becoming a real challenge to the powers-that-be.
“Social proof” is a related concept. Social proof is the well-known principle stating that people will believe something if most other people believe it. And see this. In other words, most people have a herd instinct, so if a story ranks highly, more people are likely to believe it and be influenced by it.
That is why vested interests go to great lengths – using computer power and human resources – to monitor social media momentum. If a story critical of one of these powerful entities is gaining momentum, they will go to great lengths to kill its momentum, and destroy the social proof which comes with alot of upvotes, likes or recommendations in social media.
They may choose to flood social media with comments supporting the entities, usingarmies of sock puppets, i.e. fake social media identities. See this, this, this, this and this.
Source
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Tuesday, June 24, 2014
The New News Media
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Al Jazeera, also known as Aljazeera and JSC, is a Doha based broadcaster owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is funded by the House of Thani, the ruling family of Qatar.
Wikipedia
Which brings to mind a phenomenon that I have been pondering upon for some time...
- A Handful of News Media entities have burst upon the scene out of the blue, as if by magic.
- How did these new news sources wind up in our land?
- Is there a shortage of news coverage that would warrant it?
Al Jazeera is the one currently in the headlines. Well, Al Jazeera English is one of the new news sources that I am perplexed by. Besides Al Jazeera's amazing acceptance as a credible news source there is RT (Russia Today), also Press TV (Iran), and lastly Xinhua (People's Republic of China).
They have an internet presence
Some of these news sources have a YouTube Channel like RT does.
I sometimes stumble upon Xinhua when I look for news on Google.
Others are regularly quoted on the radio on NPR or FOX: According to Al Jazeera....
We have come a long way when we are being provided news by countries that have no history of journalism or freedom of the press. Am I wrong here? Was TASS and Pravda the basis for this new found affinity for impartial news reporting from the ex-Soviet Union? These folks only see things from the perspective of the politburo, the gang of four or the Ayatolla in the case of Persia (The Islamic Republic of Iran).
Just thinking out loud here, and I hope someone can identify with the point I am trying to make.
Spasibo
Spasibo
Arsenio.
Friday, October 04, 2013
Pelosi: Dem spending concessions ‘lost in the news’ on shutdown
By Jonathan Easley - 10/04/13 08:57 AM ET
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday dismissed the notion Democrats have been unwilling to negotiate with Republicans in the government shutdown fight, saying President Obama’s concessions have been “lost in the news.”
“The president of the United States has gone forward extending the hand of friendship over and over. I think that has been lost in the news,” Pelosi said on CBS’s This Morning. “But if you say to the president, we only will open the government if you eliminate the Affordable Care Act, that’s just a non-starter.”
Pelosi argued that the clean continuing resolution – one that doesn’t defund ObamaCare – was already at levels Democrats were unhappy with because it’s at sequester levels mandated after the 2011 debt ceiling fight. The Democratic leader said this was a point that had been lost on the media in the back and forth between the two parties.
“We don’t like the [spending] bill … it is not adequate to do the job we’re supposed to do for the American people, but we will accept that in order to go forward,” Pelosi said. “But [Republicans] do not have within their own ranks the ability to take yes for an answer.”
“We agreed to their number, which we don’t like,” she added. “We’ve always said to them 'We’ll help you procedurally, we’ll help you substantively.'”
The House minority leader said the only way out is for Republicans to “take their party back” from the Tea Party wing.
“It will take some coming together on the Republican side,” she said. “It’s very hard to negotiate with Republicans when they can’t negotiate with themselves.”
She added: “If you don’t believe in a government role, then it’s easy for you to say, in order to lift the debt ceiling we want to eliminate all [Environmental Protection Agency] rules for clean air, clean water and the rest.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), a Tea Party favorite, helped initiate the government shutdown fight by demanding the president’s healthcare law not receive any appropriations in a continuing resolution. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) took up the fight in the House, although Republicans have since pivoted away from the demand.
“Here’s what the president has said – the full faith and credit of the government is non-negotiable. Everything else in the budget is [negotiable],” Pelosi continued. “But they can’t say – our first premise is you have to overturn the Affordable Care Act.”
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Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/326553-pelosi-obamas-concessions-lost-in-the-news#ixzz2glZT7dYe
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
Susan Rice: Snowden leaks haven't weakened Obama
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In this June 25, 2013 photo provided by the United Nations, outgoing U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice speaks to reporters at her final news conference at the U.N. headquarters. Rice, who will start her new job as U.S. national security adviser on July 1, said the U.N. Security Council's failure to take action to stop the conflict in Syria is "a moral and strategic disgrace that history will judge harshly." (AP Photo/United Nations Photo, Devra Berkowitz)
EDITH M. LEDERER 29 minutes ago PoliticsForeign PolicyBarack ObamaUnited States
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice dismissed claims that Edward Snowden's highly classified leaks have weakened the Obama presidency and damaged U.S. foreign policy, insisting that the United States will remain "the most influential, powerful and important country in the world."
Rice's remarks were her only public ones on Snowden and came in an interview with The Associated Press as she prepared to leave the U.N. post and start her new job Monday as President Barack Obama's national security adviser.
She said it's too soon to judge whether there will be any long-term serious repercussions from the intelligence leaks by the former National Security Agency contractor who fled to Hong Kong and then Russia after seizing documents disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs in the U.S. and overseas, which he has shared with The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.
"I don't think the diplomatic consequences, at least as they are foreseeable now, are that significant," she said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have called Snowden's leaks a serious breach that damaged national security. Hagel said Thursday an assessment of the damage is being done now.
"There will always be difficult issues of the day," Rice said, "and frankly this period is not particularly unique."
"I think the Snowden thing is obviously something that we will get through, as we've gotten through all the issues like this in the past," she said in the interview Thursday before heading to a lunch in her honor hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The United States has charged Snowden with espionage and demanded his extradition, but China and Hong Kong let him fly to Moscow and the Russians have so far refused. The Snowden case has not only raised tensions with Moscow and Beijing but with many Americans concerned about the NSA collecting their Internet and phone data.
Rice dismissed commentators who say Snowden's disclosures have made Obama a lame duck, damaged his political base, and hurt U.S. foreign policy, saying: "I think that's bunk."
"I think the United States of America is and will remain the most influential, powerful and important country in the world, the largest economy, and the largest military, (with) a network of alliances, values that are universally respected," she said.
Rice said Obama has "significant ambitions and a real agenda" for his second term, pointing to major speeches last week on disarmament and nonproliferation and this week on the impact of climate change.
As for Snowden, she said, "It's often, if not always something, and U.S. leadership will continue to be unrivaled, demanded, expected — and reviled and appreciated around the world."
Rice, 48, is expected to bring her outspoken and aggressive negotiating style to her new, higher-profile job.
At the United Nations, she has been a bold and blunt ambassador, successfully pushing for tougher sanctions against Iran and North Korea and international intervention in Libya. But Libya ultimately caused her greatest professional disappointment when she became the face of the administration's bungled account of the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.
The furor scuttled Rice's long-held hopes of becoming secretary of state when it became clear she would not gain Senate confirmation to that post, which went to John Kerry.
Rice has called her 4 1/2 years at the U.N. "the best job I ever had," and told The AP she would be "hard-pressed" to think of any better place to prepare for her new post.
"You get to deal with ... literally every country under the sun, and I think you get a unique feel for the orientations, interests, styles, of a wide, wide range of countries," she said.
To succeed at the U.N., Rice said, it's crucial to form alliances and coalitions, which change depending on the issue, so a friend one day can be an opponent the next day.
Rice has sparred repeatedly with Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who can be equally blunt. But despite being on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, which has paralyzed council action to end the fighting, Rice said they agree perhaps 85 percent of the time.
"I like and respect him," she said. "I think he likes and respects me, and it's been a good relationship. That's why I asked him to speak at my farewell. I asked people who were important to me. He's a very smart and a very funny guy and he can be a pain in the butt, too — and I tell him that to his face!"
At the farewell, Churkin delivered an off-the-record roast of Rice, without notes, that had some 300 diplomats, U.N. officials and journalists doubled-over in laughter.
The Syrian conflict will be near the top of Rice's agenda in Washington as will the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.
Rice said the result of Iran's presidential election earlier this month, a victory for Hasan Rouhani, a moderate who supports direct talks with Washington, "was a dramatic demonstration of the Iranian peoples' dissatisfaction with the status quo."
"To the extent that the leadership feels obliged to heed popular opinion — obviously we would hope they would — it may perhaps signal a readiness to move in a different direction, and if so, we would welcome it," she said.
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P.S.
*Susan Rice (CFR, Trilateral Commission Executive Committee)
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Sunday, June 16, 2013
Mainstream media losing all credibility as it fails to break any news on exploding government scandals
Friday, June 14, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) In another sign of the weakening "influence" of the mainstream media, not one of the major scandals currently swirling around the Obama Administration were broken by what you could fairly call the establishment press.
Fact: Over the past few weeks, three major scandals have broken over the Obama Administration, and it is a very sad (and frightening) truth that our pathetic, American, lapdog mainstream media are not responsible for breaking even a single one," writes John Nolte in Breitbart News' Big Journalism section.
He goes onto note that the three scandals - involving the IRS; NSA/Verizon phone records; the Justice Department's improper seizure of Associated Pressphone records; and Benghazi - were either broken by foreign media or the so-called U.S. alternative media (of which NaturalNews is a proud member).
Thank goodness for the alternative press
The Verizon story was broken by The Guardian, a British newspaper (the whistleblower in this case, 29-year-old Edward Snowden, an NSA analyst, probably didn't trust anyone in the U.S. with this story).
How about the IRS' improper targeting of conservative political action groups? Again, that story was broken "with a planted question," Nolte points out.
In the case of the Justice Department's targeting of AP reporters and editors, even The Associated Press failed to break that story; it only emerged after the Justice Department notified the AP what had occurred, so essentially, the department tattled on itself.
And Benghazi? Again, nope. Even though there was plenty of smoke there, the mainstream media - which has been in bed with Obama since day one of his initial campaign - took a pass en mass. There were a few exceptions, most notably Jake Tapper and Sharyl Attkission, but other than that, only Republican members of Congress and Fox News have been aggressively seeking the truth about what actually took place there when our ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was killed and brutalized.
"Left up to the media, we wouldn't know anything about Libya. All of the media's energy was collectively poured into ensuring the truth was never discovered," Nolte wrote. "And do you want to know what makes this realization especially pathetic? In three of the four scandals (the AP being the exception), had our media been less interested in protecting Power and more interested in holding Power accountable, these huge, career-making stories were right there for the taking."
What's more, the media has been extremely hypocritical (no kidding) on some of these scandals. Take the IRS' targeting of Tea Party groups.
In early June an editorial published by the editorial staff at The New York Times was highly critical of the president over his administration's targeting of the phone records of millions of Americans, all in the name of protecting national security. And rightfully so; it is an abuse of the Fourth Amendment like no other in the history of the country.
There is no media in the Old Media
How about the IRS' improper targeting of conservative political action groups? Again, that story was broken "with a planted question," Nolte points out.
In the case of the Justice Department's targeting of AP reporters and editors, even The Associated Press failed to break that story; it only emerged after the Justice Department notified the AP what had occurred, so essentially, the department tattled on itself.
And Benghazi? Again, nope. Even though there was plenty of smoke there, the mainstream media - which has been in bed with Obama since day one of his initial campaign - took a pass en mass. There were a few exceptions, most notably Jake Tapper and Sharyl Attkission, but other than that, only Republican members of Congress and Fox News have been aggressively seeking the truth about what actually took place there when our ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was killed and brutalized.
"Left up to the media, we wouldn't know anything about Libya. All of the media's energy was collectively poured into ensuring the truth was never discovered," Nolte wrote. "And do you want to know what makes this realization especially pathetic? In three of the four scandals (the AP being the exception), had our media been less interested in protecting Power and more interested in holding Power accountable, these huge, career-making stories were right there for the taking."
What's more, the media has been extremely hypocritical (no kidding) on some of these scandals. Take the IRS' targeting of Tea Party groups.
In early June an editorial published by the editorial staff at The New York Times was highly critical of the president over his administration's targeting of the phone records of millions of Americans, all in the name of protecting national security. And rightfully so; it is an abuse of the Fourth Amendment like no other in the history of the country.
There is no media in the Old Media
But more than a year before the IRS scandal broke, the Times was all about having the nation's tax collection agency target those very same groups.
"But because Obama told them to, the media hate the Tea Party. So in the face of these complaints and even a few Congressional inquiries, the media either ignored the harassment reports or openly sided with the IRS," wrote Nolte.
The same thing can be said about what happened in Libya. Because Barack Obama was in reelection mode; and because the mainstream media was all-in to help him get reelected; and because the president's reelection narrative on terrorism in general was that al Qaeda was on the run - the mainstream press willingly went along and refused to dig deeper on Benghazi. Had that failed operation been scrutinized, many more Americans would have known before Election Day that the administration essentially sacrificed Stevens and three other Americans for the sake of political expediency.
"Our media are not only biased; it is an utter and complete failure and embarrassment. And although there are plenty of remaining table scraps to make meals out of, the media are already losing interest in the IRS, Libya, and AP scandals, but for only one reason - they are absolutely terrified of where they might lead," Nolte writes.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.breitbart.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk
http://cnsnews.com
http://washingtonexaminer.com
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/040774_media_bias_breaking_news_mainstream.html#ixzz2WPll3x5e
....
"But because Obama told them to, the media hate the Tea Party. So in the face of these complaints and even a few Congressional inquiries, the media either ignored the harassment reports or openly sided with the IRS," wrote Nolte.
The same thing can be said about what happened in Libya. Because Barack Obama was in reelection mode; and because the mainstream media was all-in to help him get reelected; and because the president's reelection narrative on terrorism in general was that al Qaeda was on the run - the mainstream press willingly went along and refused to dig deeper on Benghazi. Had that failed operation been scrutinized, many more Americans would have known before Election Day that the administration essentially sacrificed Stevens and three other Americans for the sake of political expediency.
"Our media are not only biased; it is an utter and complete failure and embarrassment. And although there are plenty of remaining table scraps to make meals out of, the media are already losing interest in the IRS, Libya, and AP scandals, but for only one reason - they are absolutely terrified of where they might lead," Nolte writes.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.breitbart.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk
http://cnsnews.com
http://washingtonexaminer.com
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/040774_media_bias_breaking_news_mainstream.html#ixzz2WPll3x5e
....
Monday, June 10, 2013
Bill Cosby: We Should All Be More Like Muslims
Comedian Bill Cosby is no stranger to the culture wars.
The iconic stand-up and star of the beloved sitcom The Cosby Show routinely weighs in on cultural matters.
This past weekend, Cosby penned an op-ed for The New York Post in which he detailed some of the flaws in modern society. He also suggested we should take a page out of the Koran if we want to have healthier families, less crime and more productive people.
I’m a Christian. But Muslims are misunderstood. Intentionally misunderstood. We should all be more like them. They make sense, especially with their children. There is no other group like the Black Muslims, who put so much effort into teaching children the right things, they don’t smoke, they don’t drink or overindulge in alcohol, they protect their women, they command respect. And what do these other people do?
They complain about them, they criticize them. We’d be a better world if we emulated them. We don’t have to become black Muslims, but we can embrace the things that work.
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