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oleworm · 4 years

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Review: “Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union” by Robert Robinson

Yesterday I finished Black on Red: My 44 Years in the Soviet Union, a memoir by Robert Robinson, a Jamaican-born African American man who went to the Soviet Union to work as a toolmaker on a one-year contract. Suffice to say, this is not how it transpired.

Robinson credits his faith in God with maintaining his resolve to leave the Soviet Union. Guilelessly, he accepts the Soviet citizenship and becomes unable to renew his American papers. Except for God, he is entirely alone, fear of espionage and prosecution precluding the possibility of speaking openly with another person, be they Western or Soviet, foreign or Russian, black or white.

For decades, he does not fail to submit an application for permission to vacation abroad, only to be prevented or denied on a technicality. The fact that he survived to escape, let alone published this book is a testament to his resilience, and a worthy culmination to his work.

The book is decidedly biased against the Soviet system, understandable considering the author’s experiences and the context of its publication — the decade of 1980, with the Cold War still ongoing.

Though not expecting a post-racial paradise as other African Americans had upon leaving the United States, he was disappointed to find that racism was alive and well among the Soviets. Like others, he had imagined that he would find better opportunities for success, but despite his hard work and skill was denied them for being foreign-born and American at that, as well as for being black.

In a later chapter, Robinson relates how the Soviet-born children of migrants of African descent, just like their parents, were prevented from succeeding in their careers in order to favour their Slavic compatriots. Furthermore, the racial incidents suffered by Robinson and other black people were initially exploited in anti-American propaganda to demonstrate how primitive was their system of segregation. This is still without going into the discrimination inflicted upon the non-Slavic peoples that are native to the territories of Russia.

His disillusionment reached the point that he went on to say that racism was worse in the Soviet Union than in the States. The Soviet Union’s claims of anti-racism — officially, racism did not exist there — had given false hopes to black migrants, whereas in the United States anti-black racism was institutionalised and, already being expected, allowed a person the knowledge to navigate a segregated society.

On this point I have to disagree with Robert Robinson — while in the United States, people were being lynched for the colour of their skin, in the Soviet Union persons of every background were purged without distinction. (Small comfort to be had in this equality.)

Robert Robinson could not have known what has happening in his home country during the half century that he was abroad. Near the end of the book, he reunites with his brother, who is living in the predominantly African American neighbourhood where they grew up. Against all expectations, with all things being better in the West, he finds the neighbourhood and its inhabitants diminished and impoverished since the time that he left it. He does not expand on the reasons that might have caused this.

With veiled threats, acquaintances revealed to be spies and friends and co-workers disappearing without a warning, disenfranchisement for being foreign-born as well as having to face a bureaucratic nightmare every time he made an attempt to change his life, Soviet Russia had not an environment conducive to life, either. I found this to be a strengthening book. The ordeals that he went through gave me a great anxiety, I’m not going to deny it. But at the same time I found myself thinking, If Robert Robinson could face all of this, and he could face it alone, who am I to despair at my situation? I recommend anyone to read it.

#book review #book talk #black on red: my 44 years inside the soviet union #robert robinson #if anyone wishes to read it #it might be available at a certain archive :-)#writing tag #my writing

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armeniaitn · 4 years

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Each drop of Armenian blood hurts us all: PM Pashinyan addresses the nation

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/each-drop-of-armenian-blood-hurts-us-all-pm-pashinyan-addresses-the-nation-63058-14-10-2020/

Each drop of Armenian blood hurts us all: PM Pashinyan addresses the nation

Dear people, Proud citizens of the Republic of Armenia, Proud citizens of the Artsakh Republic Proud Diaspora Armenians,

The terrorist war unleashed by Turkey and Azerbaijan against Artsakh has been going on for 18 days now. Before referring to the situation on the battlefield, I consider it crucial to emphasize that today we need to understand the military-political situation, but we first must understand the reasons and conditions behind the war.

In the process of negotiations over the Karabakh issue, step by step Azerbaijan reached a point where it insisted that the Armenians of Karabakh should renounce their rights. Their demand consisted in the following: Immediately hand over 5 out of 7 territories to Azerbaijan, develop a clear-cut timetable for handing over the remaining 2 territories and state that any status of Nagorno-Karabakh implied being part of Azerbaijan. Moreover, the status of Nagorno-Karabakh was supposed not to be associated with the transfer of territories. In other words, territories had to be handed over not for status but for peace, otherwise Azerbaijan threatened to resolve the issue through war.

Our government, which had inherited the current framework of negotiations, refused to discuss the issue in this way because it was unacceptable. Under these circumstances, as we tried to state clearly that the settlement of the issue without defining the status of Artsakh was impossible, Azerbaijan gave up any serious discussion on the status, stating in fact that the only status that Artsakh could have was autonomy within Azerbaijan, which in fact was meant to build up an institutional framework that would pave the way for ethnic cleansing in Artsakh. At the same time, Azerbaijan was developing military rhetoric and anti-Armenian propaganda.

Over the past two and a half years, we implemented reforms to upgrade our army in a bid to provide real preconditions for the premise that “the Karabakh issue has no military solution.” The victorious battles waged in Tavush in July 2020 came to evidence a reality, which was unexpected for many, namely that the Azerbaijani army is actually unable to resolve the Karabakh issue through military means. This fact was shocking not only for Azerbaijan, but also for other countries, especially for Turkey.

Unprecedented Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises were launched shortly after the July battles; a large number of Turkish troops and military equipment were transferred to Azerbaijan. The exercises once again testified that Azerbaijan’s armed forces were unable to fulfill specific tasks in the foreseeable future, and Turkey decided that it is up to them to deal with the Karabakh issue.

Something unprecedented happened at that point: Turkey started to openly and publicly threaten Armenia, with a large number of terrorists and mercenaries being transported from Syria to the Karabakh conflict zone, realizing that the Azeri forces could not tackle the problem on their own.

In this situation, we tried to implement strategic containment mechanisms, considering that if Turkey achieved its goals in the South Caucasus, it would inevitably lead to a chain reaction of events, involving regional and extra-regional stakeholders, which could result in specific restraining measures.

At this stage, however, we recorded a strange circumstance: A number of countries, capable of taking strategic deterrence measures, failed to properly assess the threat. They continued to view the issue in the context of the Karabakh conflict, considering that the “territories for peace” formula could save the situation. This unacceptable formula is similar to the 1938 Munich Agreement, when the European powers allegedly surrendered Czechoslovakia to Germany for the sake of peace. We all know what happened next. Now the question is whether the world will allow the emergence of a new Hitler in Asia Minor.

The war against Artsakh did not come as something unexpected for us. We were prepared and only wondered when and from where the enemy was going to attack.

Artsakh’s Defense Army has been waging a heroic battle since the outbreak of the hostilities. The Turkey-Azerbaijan-terrorist-mercenary military alliance launched the strongest-ever attack on Artsakh: tanks, armored vehicles, missiles, artillery, military planes, helicopters, drones, a huge number of combatants, including several thousand special troops from Turkey and reportedly from Pakistan, as well as mercenaries and terrorists from Syria.

The adversary did not record any strategic or territorial gains during the first week, when it faced no supply and manpower restrictions whatsoever, while Artsakh and Armenia were operating in midst of a standing blockade. During this time, the adversary lost a huge amount of military hardware, suffered a large number of casualties, including mercenaries.

While each drop of Armenian blood hurts us all, not to mention the enormous number of victims we already have at the moment. In order to prevent further losses, we joined the process launched and the statement adopted in Moscow last Friday, which provided for a humanitarian ceasefire, full exchange of corpses, prisoners and detainees, return to the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing format with the logic of resolving the issue as soon as possible. However, Azerbaijan did not adhere to the ceasefire agreement for a second and carried on the attacks, simultaneously hindering the establishment of a ceasefire monitoring mechanism.

This means that Azerbaijan continues to adhere to the policy line adopted originally and has set itself the task of full occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. At this point, however, we can record the following fact: the Turkish-Azerbaijani terrorist plan to occupy Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent territories with a blitzkrieg has failed owing to the joint efforts of our army of heroic generals, officers, non-commissioned officers, sergeants, volunteers, soldiers, our public administration system – the leaders of Artsakh and Armenia, the governments, the national assemblies, local self-government and state agencies.

We have suffered numerous casualties. I mourn for our brave martyrs who fell defending the Homeland, protecting our people’s right to live, safeguarding the Armenian identity, dignity and Armenia’s future. And I bow to all our victims, martyrs, their families, their parents and especially their mothers, and I consider their loss my loss, my personal loss, the loss of my family.

Dear people, Proud citizens of the Republic of Armenia, Proud citizens of the Artsakh Republic Proud Diaspora Armenians,

During the past 18 days of the war, our heroic troops retreated to the north and south. In recent days, the adversary changed its tactics trying to start a mess in the rear with subversive groups. Nevertheless, at the cost of heavy fighting, losses of manpower and equipment, the Artsakh Defense Army keeps the situation under control, inflicting numerous losses of manpower and equipment on the enemy.

But we all need to know that we are facing a difficult situation. This is not a statement of despair or desperation. I provide this information because I am committed to tell our people the truth, unlike Azerbaijan, which conceals the fact of thousands of victims from its own people and, according to our estimates, the loss of more than USD 1 billion in military equipment. But the main purpose of my message today is to talk about what we have to do and our strategy, as well as to rally our national unity around that goal. Therefore, it is necessary to state that the Turkish-Azerbaijani terrorist alliance will not stop its attack on Artsakh and Armenia.

These days the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs – Russia, France, the United States – have endeavored and continue to work for a ceasefire. The statement of the presidents and foreign ministers of the three countries and the October 10 statement of Moscow were adopted.

I would like to thank the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs for their efforts.

I am grateful to the United States Administration for all the efforts that have been made so far.

I wish to thank France and President Emmanuel Macron for his determination to name things from the very first days of the war and for his willingness to make further efforts.

Special thanks to President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, with whom we have been in close contact during all this time. Russia has been able to fulfill its role of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair and Armenia’s strategic ally at a high level, and I am convinced that Russia will implement this role unequivocally in accordance with the best traditions of friendship between the Armenian and Russian peoples.

Committed to the logic of a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, I would like to emphasize that we will be highly constructive in making our diplomatic efforts effective.

However, these efforts have so far not been enough to curb the Turkish-Azerbaijani terrorist bloc, because the task that they have set is not only to resolve the Karabakh issue, but also to continue the traditional Turkish genocidal policy towards our people.

But at this crucial moment we will not back down, because this is a crucial war for our people. In this situation, the Armenian people have only one thing to do: unite, mobilize all the potential we have, halt the enemy with a decisive blow and achieve a final victory, that is, the final settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the recognition of the right of the Nagorno-Karabakh people to self-determination.

The souls, spirit and strength of our other great martyrs and heroes, King Artashes, Tigran the Great, Ashot Yerkat, Aram Manukyan, Hovhannes Baghramyan, Monte Melkonyan, Vazgen Sargsyan, are with us today. Today, the Armenians are united more than ever. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians are providing financial, economic, media-borne and political support to Armenia and Artsakh.

In hundreds of Diaspora-based communities our compatriots are holding peaceful rallies of solidarity, protest and support, with two specific issues on the agenda: international recognition of Artsakh’s independence and condemnation of the Turkish-Azerbaijani terrorist aggression.

This is the culmination of our national unity, and this culmination must be crowned with the realization of our specific national goals.

No one can break the will of the Armenian people, it is impossible to intimidate the Armenian nation, it is impossible to defeat the Armenian people. We will stand up to the last, we will fight to the last, and the name of that end is Free and Happy Artsakh, Free and Happy Armenia.

Today, at this crucial moment, each and every one of us must focus on achieving this goal. This is what we should be focused on both in the Diaspora and in Armenia. We must turn our mourning into anger, our fears into determination, our doubts into action.

We must win, we must live, we must build our history, and we are building our history, our new epic, our new heroic battle, our new Sardarapat.

And therefore, Long live Freedom! Long live the Republic of Armenia! Long live the Artsakh Republic! Long live the Armenian Army! Long live the Armenian volunteers, Long live the Armenian Diaspora! Long live the Armenian people! And long live our children who will live in a free and happy Armenia, in a free and happy Artsakh.

Glory to the heroes!

Read original article here.

#Armenia #Armenians #Artsakh #Caucasus #Karabakh #Politics

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gibsongirlselections · 4 years

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Trump and the Troops: The Media’s Latest Self-Satisfied Grift

Watch how this is done: Joe Biden plans to resign after only one year in the White House, according to someone with direct knowledge of the Bidens’ plans.

A senior official at Northern Virginia Community College confirmed that Jill Biden reached out recently to see if she could resume teaching if her husband was elected—Dr. Biden famously taught there while her husband served as vice president and had befriended the official. The College immediately offered her a four-year cycle of classes. She wanted, however, to make only a one-year commitment. “We won’t be in Washington for the full term,” Biden reportedly explained. “Joe’ll stay in office for a year and work on some signature issues like cancer research, but Kamala will be doing the heavy lifting from day one. Joe will quietly resign and give her plenty of time to make the job her own. It’s set in stone I’m afraid. I wouldn’t let him run any other way given his health.”

I made that up. See how easy it is? Start with a known bias, that many people believe Joe Biden won’t serve his whole term. Play off the fear that he’s a Trojan Horse. Tell people what they already believe: Harris is selected, not elected. Include some truth (Dr. Jill Biden did teach at Northern Virginia Community College during the Obama administration). And then take advantage of the magic of anonymous sources.

This comes in the context of an article in The Atlantic by Jeff Goldberg, where anonymous sources claim the president disrespected America’s military. Goldberg’s piece was followed by former Russiagate FBI agent Peter Strzok telling another Atlantic writer that Trump is controlled by the Russians. Then came the return of Alexander Vindman (powered by an anonymous source, er, “whistleblower”) and excerpts from Bob Woodward’s book Rage claiming without details that Dan Coats and Jim Mattis planned “collective action” against the president.

Those are only a few recent examples. Amid a four year tantrum, the media has recklessly published anything anti-Trump without concern for truth, little better than the minor celebs who take to Twitter to announce #TrumpisaPedo. Journalism has become farce, its purpose not to inform but to advocate. Influence ops. Propaganda.

It’s worth making an example out of Goldberg’s article because of its exclusive use of anonymous sources in pursuit of advocacy, in this case, trying to chip away at Trump’s pro-military base. Though Goldberg talks about events from as long as four years ago, the actual article was released alongside a Military Times poll showing Biden gaining some support among service members, and dovetailed with fuzzy reporting that Trump ignored Russian bounties on Americans in Afghanistan.

The questions of timing and motive make the validity of the sources ever more important. How do we know Goldberg didn’t make things up, or at least allow himself to be used for a partisan end as he did in advocating for the whole false narrative of WMDs in Iraq? Unless you’re Goldberg’s mother or the town mayor from Jaws, credibility comes from sources, not a writer’s inner soul. Goldberg is lacking.

As a diplomat, I staffed overseas presidential visits from Reagan to Obama. I sat in on planning meetings and got a pretty close-up view of the Secret Service. The president exists inside a series of bubbles, like Russian nesting dolls (forgive me). The innermost bubble, the one where someone might hear his personal thoughts, is reserved for very, very few people. The universe of those who could have been physically close enough to Trump (or any president) to overhear such sensitive remarks is tiny.

So if we know the names of the sources, it will be easy to place them in that special group, or not. It will be easy to check photos to see if they were where they would have needed to be to overhear. Fact-checkers could determine who else was around to confirm or deny the story (11 Trump officials deny it by name, zero confirm). Knowing the names resolves the risk. Trust but verify.

Goldberg’s sources say Trump remarked to former White House chief of staff and retired Marine General John Kelly, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” A real reporter would also provide context (Bob Woodward in Rage is also guilty of this, dropping a turd quote in the public punch bowl and then moving on), asking what was said before and after the damning remarks. It is not uncommon for civilians to respectfully inquire as to what motivates men to run into fires, to sacrifice themselves for a buddy, to stand in harm’s way.

Trump supposedly said this at the Arlington National Cemetery gravesite of Kelly’s son, a Marine killed in Afghanistan. This photo shows who was there—Kelly, two family members, Trump, and Pence. This would have been the moment when Trump would have made his remark, and those are the only five people on earth who would have heard it. Trump and Pence deny it; the Kelly family has been silent. The same photo set shows Trump meeting later with other Gold Star families, none of whom claim he made any disparaging remarks.

There is also a sniff test to be applied. The credibility of journalism should not depend on the reader’s biases; that’s the domain of late-night Trump Sucks You Guys comedy. Trump mocking Kelly’s son at graveside would be among the most horrible things anyone could do to a parent. Who would say such a thing? There is no record of the worst humans in history, men like Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, saying such things. There is no record of concentration camp guards, men capable of killing children, saying such things. Would Kelly, a blooded Marine, stand silently with his family as accomplices in their humiliation, then release the information only years later while hiding behind the skirt of a journalist to score a glancing political point?

Though it got much less attention, The Atlantic followed up Goldberg with a piece that included a named source and allowed him to list out baseless accusations of treason. Former FBI agent Peter Strzok sees grassy knolls everywhere. The Atlantic helps him along, introducing a back-and-to-the-left theory by saying, “Despite multiple investigations by the FBI, Congress, and Mueller’s team, Americans have still never learned the full story about the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia.” Like what?

Well, Strzok says he doesn’t really know, but it must be hidden in Trump’s taxes (which the IRS has reviewed for decades). The writer feels it in her ample gut, too, stating in her best Kevin Costner voice, “Strzok was getting too close to the truth.” Ah, from Strzok: “I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.” That is a straight-up accusation of treason.

And there both the writer and the source leave it, no specifics, no follow-up questions, not even a pee tape. We’re left to infer that They Are All In On It, everyone who could have blown this wide open is dummied up—FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ. Remember Mr. X, the character in JFK played by Donald Sutherland? Strzok wants to be him. Problem is he’s not good enough for an Oliver Stone film, so he’s just out there pimping his book.

The Atlantic articles are sucked oranges. Writing this after the hot takes have faded, it’s clear they had little lasting effect and thus weren’t even decent propaganda. Goldberg’s article got far too much attention for how little it had to say. But it has not gotten enough review as a marker, the place we had to end up when the media wholeheartedly advocated for the Iraq war based on lies, literally rewrote history with the 1619 Project for political ends, buried things of concern with Hillary, helped create Russiagate, and used its own freedom of speech to quash dissenting voices as unpatriotic in 2003 and as “useful idiots” and Russian bots since.

In defense of what they call advocacy, crappy journalists often cite Walter Cronkite’s late opposition to the Vietnam War or Ed Murrow’s shaming of Joe McCarthy. Not only are such gold-standard examples rare enough that the list often ends there, they ignore the negative examples above. They also ignore how Cronkite’s and Murrow’s advocacy came at the end of dispassionate study and deep introspection. Cronkite and Murrow broke the objectivity wall not for a favored candidate, but over issues of deep national importance. And they understood the difference before acting.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent.

The post Trump and the Troops: The Media’s Latest Self-Satisfied Grift appeared first on The American Conservative.

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technato · 6 years

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AI-Human Partnerships Tackle “Fake News”

Facebook, Google, and smaller tech companies are now using machine learning to flag misinformation—but automated systems aren’t reliable enough on their own

Photo-illustration: iStockphoto

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, inaccurate and misleading articles burned through social networks. Since then, tech companies—from behemoths like Facebook and Google to scrappy startups—have built tools to fight misinformation (including what many call “fake news,” though that term is highly politicized). Most companies have turned to artificial intelligence (AI) in hopes that fast and automated computer systems can deal with a problem that’s seemingly as big as the Internet.

“They’re all using AI because they need to scale,” says Claire Wardle, who leads the misinformation-fighting project First Draft, based in Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. AI can speed up time-consuming steps, she says, such as going through the vast amount of content published online every day and flagging material that might be false.

But Wardle says AI can’t make the final judgment calls. “For machines, how do you code for ‘misleading’?” she says. “Even humans struggle with defining it. Life is messy and complicated and nuanced, and AI is still a long way from understanding that.”

Facebook, which was widely criticized for failing to take action against false content in 2016, says it will use AI to do better in the U.S. midterm elections this November—and in other elections around the world. Jim Kleban, a Facebook product manager who works on reducing misinformation in the site’s news feed, explains that Facebook now uses AI to augment human intelligence. The AI goes through the millions of links shared on Facebook every day to identify suspect content, which is then sent to human fact-checkers. “For the foreseeable future, all these systems will require hybrid solutions,” he says.

When fact-checkers rate a piece of content as false, Facebook places it lower in users’ news feeds. Kleban says this method reduces future views of that content by 80 percent.

Facebook’s AI is trained via machine learning, a technique in which an AI system takes in a vast data set of labeled material and independently finds patterns. For example, an image-sorting AI might look at millions of photos labeled either “cat” or “dog” and learn the distinguishing characteristics of felines and canines. But training an AI to recognize false content is much trickier.

Kleban says the Facebook AI uses a variety of signals to pick out articles that contain misinformation, starting with the source of the content: “Knowing that a page or a website has shared false content in the past is a good predictor that it will happen again,” he says. There may also be a discernable pattern in how false content propagates across the Web; Kleban says that’s an active area of research. As for the text itself, the AI isn’t equipped to evaluate statements for their truthfulness, but it can find signals, such as expressions of disbelief in the comment section.

“Knowing that a page or a website has shared false content in the past is a good predictor that it will happen again.” —Jim Kleban, Facebook

The London-based startup Factmata, whose high-profile investors include Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, is developing an AI system with a different approach. It specifically does not look at the content’s publisher or their reputation, says Factmata founder Dhruv Ghulati. “We want to judge content based on content itself,” he says.

Factmata’s system is also a hybrid of human and machine, though in a different configuration: The humans are experts who label content used for the AI’s training. “Things like fake news and propaganda are inherently nuanced and subjective,” Ghulati says. “It does require expertise to understand the nature of the content and tag it appropriately.” With that proprietary data set, Factmata is training its AI to recognize politically biased content, false content, and hate speech.

The company is currently working on the “back end” of the Internet, helping advertising exchanges avoid placing ads on problematic content, and it may work with social networks in the future. Factmata’s system flags suspect content and explains what makes it suspicious, but the company leaves it up to the client to decide whether to steer clear of or moderate that material.

Some companies that began with other journalistic purposes have joined the fray. NewsWhip, based in Dublin, sells an AI-powered tool to news organizations that finds hot content and predicts its spread, enabling news teams to jump on stories that are going viral. In recent elections in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, journalists used its tool to spot and debunk false stories that were gaining traction on social networks.

“The risk is that you try to get the perfect definition of fake news and never reach an answer.” —Dhruv Ghulati, Factmata

Krzana, a London-based company, helps journalists find breaking news with a customized real-time news feed. Reporters use Krzana’s AI-enabled tool to discover content across four languages (with more languages to come) based on keywords and search terms they’ve selected. In recent elections in Mexico, a media coalition used Krzana to quickly find stories that might contain misinformation.

“Rather than waiting for these stories to be shared by a lot of people, journalists were among the first to read them,” says Krzana cofounder Toby Abel. “If they were fake, they could be countered very quickly.”

Abel says an AI misinformation detector can’t yet be reliable on its own, and he agrees that there needs to be a “human in the loop.” He cites an example from the 2018 Mexican election, in which a political candidate responded to accusations of Russian ties with a playful stunt: He went down to the docks and pronounced that he was waiting for his Russian submarine. “If someone had read that without outside context and understanding, it would sound like fake news—but it’s not,” Abel says.

Satire is one of the toughest problems for AI systems that try to identify false content. Companies are also grappling with misinformation in images, videos, graphs, and other nontextual content. The possibilities for deception seem endless: A photograph might be legitimate, for example, but its caption may be misleading.

Full Fact, a nonprofit fact-checking organization based in London, is trying to steer clear of the gray areas. It’s using machine learning to improve a tool that scans text and video transcripts, looking for factual claims on topics such as economic trends and legal proceedings that can be verified by human fact-checkers. Mevan Babakar, Full Fact’s head of automated fact-checking, says its tool also clusters together similar claims from many different news sources. “So at the beginning of each editorial day, I can say to my fact-checkers, ‘Here are the top five [claims] that are spreading like wildfire.’”

Today’s AI systems may not be ready to parse complicated claims independently or to make sophisticated decisions about truth, says Ghulati of Factmata, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be deployed now. “The risk is that you try to get the perfect definition of fake news and never reach an answer,” he says. “The important thing is to build something.”

An abridged version of this article appears in the September 2018 print issue.

AI-Human Partnerships Tackle “Fake News” syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

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sarcasticcynic · 6 years

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Every intelligence agency in the United States agrees that, although Russia definitely interfered with the 2016 presidential election, there is really no way to prove how it affected the result. And I’ve long maintained that Russia’s actions couldn’t have affected the legitimacy of the outcome, because misleading voters isn’t a valid reason to discount their votes:

“U.S. citizens voted for Trump in sufficient numbers in sufficient states for the Electoral College to vote him into office. That’s all that matters. The reasons for their votes are immaterial. A conspiracy to influence voters by making Trump’s opponent look bad is not a valid ground for changing the result of the election. Hacked emails, leaks, innuendo, manipulated timing, foreign intervention, fake news–none of it matters (in this particular limited context). People voted how they voted. Just imagine the chaos that would result if every candidate who lost an election could challenge the result by complaining that the other candidate told lies and misled the American people!”

I’ve also, however, been clear that my opinion is based on the assumption that Russian hackers didn’t actually go into machines and change votes:

“Russia spread fake news and propaganda in an attempt to turn voters against Hillary Clinton, in the hope of helping Donald Trump win the election. And likely succeeded. But all Russia did was change voter’s opinions. Not their physical votes. Russia did not successfully hack voting machines or computers to delete votes for Clinton or change them to votes for Trump. Everyone who voted for a candidate, regardless of reason, had their vote counted for that candidate. That’s why nothing Russia did affects the validity of the election or its outcome.”

One conspiracy theorist has put together an intriguing case suggesting that the Russians did, in fact, hack into voting machines and change votes to favor their candidate (Trump). We can’t prove it--because there were no audits or recounts despite multiple requests--but he argues that it defies credibility to think that the Russians successfully hacked into our election infrastructure and then randomly decided not to change any votes.

And I’d love to share his analysis with you.

Unfortunately I can’t, because he appears to have been talking through his hat:

“A number of statements in the piece are disputed by experts. As a result, we have pulled it down for editorial review, and will update it once that review is completed.”

UPDATE: The author consulted with multiple cybersecurity experts, concluded that his initial piece was wrong, and published a detailed correction.

“Each one of them agreed that my opinion wasn’t backed up by any definitive proof. More importantly, they each said there is no proof to support my belief that votes were changed. At best, they would only say that it is possible. ... Basing my argument on the intelligence community’s vague statements mirrors the rhetoric used in conspiracy theories. If a Trump supporter had based an argument on this, I would have dismissed him as a crackpot. ... There is no definitive proof votes were altered in the 2016 election. Full stop.”

Good for him for admitting his errors and withdrawing his hyperbolic conclusion!

“But there’s even more we don’t know. ‘We truly do not know, and we are making no attempt to find out.’ ... Believing that it’s likelier than not that votes were changed or voter rolls were altered is fine, but it’s important to be clear that there’s just no proof for it. ... Robert DeMillo [Distinguished Professor of Computing at Georgia Tech University, former Chief Technology Officer at Hewlett Packard, and one of the most respected elections systems experts in the world] explained that he doesn’t deal with ‘belief’ but, given the available facts, wondered why anyone would assume a person with bad intentions wouldn’t carry out those intentions. Greg Miller [founder of the OSET Institute, a nonprofit advocating for open-source election software, whose organization, Trust the Vote, has gathered Silicon Valley’s best minds to build a secure and verifiable voting system, and who has testified before Congress and worked with the Obama White House on election cybersecurity] wouldn’t give odds. Instead, he said this: ‘Guided by what I’ve learned in my vast, 38-year career, without the deep digital forensic analysis to prove otherwise, I can’t say that it’s safe to assume vote tallies weren’t altered in the 2016 election. The people who contradict you are right—there’s not a single shred of proof to support your statement. But the absurd thing is, that those people, the ones who don’t seem to care that the very fabric of this entire country has been compromised; that we can’t have faith in the most important national security asset in America—election systems—those people actually have less evidence than you do.’”

Well, there is that, I suppose.

#2016 election #voting #election fraud #Russia #Russian interference #Russian hackers #conspiracy theories #Harriot #Michael Harriot

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

President Donald Trump has picked a Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, who doesn’t think presidents should have to spend their time on pesky criminal investigations.

Perhaps not coincidentally, President Trump has been spending a lot of time dealing with a pesky criminal investigation.

Kavanaugh wrote in an article for the Minnesota Law Review from 2009 that Congress should pass a law “exempting a President—while in office—from criminal prosecution and investigation, including from questioning by criminal prosecutors or defense counsel.”

“I believe that the President should be excused from some of the burdens of ordinary citizenship while serving in office,” Kavanaugh wrote. “We should not burden a sitting President with civil suits, criminal investigations, or criminal prosecutions.” Furthermore, Kavanaugh opined that the “indictment and trial of a sitting President” would “cripple the federal government.”

Now, this is in the context of calling for Congress to change existing law — not for the Supreme Court to interpret it differently. However, these beliefs and opinions could well influence how Kavanaugh would rule on the major topics related to civil or criminal investigations that do end up reaching the Supreme Court.

And these are topics of enormous importance to Trump, who’s facing not just the Mueller probe over Russian interference with the 2016 election, but a civil suit over his foundation and a defamation suit from Summer Zervos, who has said Trump sexually assaulted her.

The Mueller probe has captured most of Trump’s attention, and he has endlessly complained about it. So no doubt he was thrilled to learn that Kavanaugh believed that similar investigations tend to be burdens on the presidency. Indeed, CNN’s Jim Acosta reported that the Trump team reviewed these comments by Kavanaugh before choosing him.

Trump SCOTUS team has looked at Kavanaugh’s past comments on indicting a sitting president, we’ve confirmed. In 2009, Kavanaugh wrote: “The indictment and trial of a sitting President, moreover, would cripple the federal government…” https://t.co/rDHJs5RiUY

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 9, 2018

“I’m a little sort of stunned at the way this has all played out,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said on MSNBC Monday night. “If you look at the entire list of 20 or so people that he had, the one person the president could find on that list that would be most assured to rule in his favor should many of the things you’re describing come before the Supreme Court, is this guy.”

From 2001 to 2006, Kavanaugh worked in George W. Bush’s White House, first in the White House Counsel’s office and then as White House Staff Secretary. In 2006, he was confirmed to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, and then in 2009, he wrote an article that would be published in the Minnesota Law Review.

The article addressed several issues related to the presidency and separation of powers, but the most relevant section comes right after the introduction, and focuses on criminal and civil investigations of sitting US presidents:

Kavanaugh opens here by describing his work for President Bush and how he learned to appreciate “how complex and difficult that job is,” and continues (emphasis added):

I believe it vital that the President be able to focus on his never-ending tasks with as few distractions as possible. The country wants the President to be “one of us” who bears the same responsibilities of citizenship that all share. But I believe that the President should be excused from some of the burdens of ordinary citizenship while serving in office.

He calls on Congress to consider passing a law that would relieve some of those burdens — and expresses his doubt that investigations of a sitting president can rise above politics.

In particular, Congress might consider a law exempting a President—while in office—from criminal prosecution and investigation, including from questioning by criminal prosecutors or defense counsel. Criminal investigations targeted at or revolving around a President are inevitably politicized by both their supporters and critics.

As I have written before, “no Attorney General or special counsel will have the necessary credibility to avoid the inevitable charges that he is politically motivated—whether in favor of the President or against him, depending on the individual leading the investigation and its results.”

Kavanaugh goes on to bemoan the consequences if the sitting president were to be indicted.

The indictment and trial of a sitting President, moreover, would cripple the federal government, rendering it unable to function with credibility in either the international or domestic arenas. Such an outcome would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis.

This is a genuinely unsettled legal question — Justice Department opinions have tended to state that a sitting president can’t be indicted, but some experts have argued otherwise. The question has never been tested in the courts, but it was revived last year with the scandal over Trump, Russia, and possible obstruction of justice. Mueller seems unlikely to defy Justice Department policy with a legally questionable indictment of Trump, but if that were to take place, the matter would surely be decided by the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh continues:

Even the lesser burdens of a criminal investigation—including preparing for questioning by criminal investigators—are time-consuming and distracting. Like civil suits, criminal investigations take the President’s focus away from his or her responsibilities to the people. And a President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President.

This will also likely resonate with Trump, who’s spent an enormous amount of time on the Mueller probe and has been plagued by other lawsuits as well. Indeed, one current topic of discussion is whether Trump should have to sit for “questioning” by Mueller. If Trump were to refuse to be questioned, Mueller could subpoena him, and that battle would likely rise to the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh concludes by briefly trying to address two possible critiques of his arguments. First, he says that the president could always be prosecuted after he leaves office. Second, he says that if the president were to do anything really bad, Congress has the impeachment process.

One might raise at least two important critiques of these ideas. The first is that no one is above the law in our system of government. I strongly agree with that principle. But it is not ultimately a persuasive criticism of these suggestions. The point is not to put the President above the law or to eliminate checks on the President, but simply to defer litigation and investigations until the President is out of office.

A second possible concern is that the country needs a check against a bad-behaving or law-breaking President. But the Constitution already provides that check. If the President does something dastardly, the impeachment process is available. No single prosecutor, judge, or jury should be able to accomplish what the Constitution assigns to the Congress. Moreover, an impeached and removed President is still subject to criminal prosecution afterwards.

Yet Kavanaugh doesn’t address the question of what happens when it’s not clear and disputed whether or not the president has done “something dastardly” — such as, colluding with Russia to intervene in the 2016 election, or obstructing justice. It appears he would be happy to leave that up to Congress to determine, without any investigation from the executive branch.

He concludes the section:

In short, the Constitution establishes a clear mechanism to deter executive malfeasance; we should not burden a sitting President with civil suits, criminal investigations, or criminal prosecutions. The President’s job is difficult enough as is. And the country loses when the President’s focus is distracted by the burdens of civil litigation or criminal investigation and possible prosecution.

What’s particularly odd about this coming from Kavanaugh is the fact that, in the 1990s, he worked on independent counsel Ken Starr’s extremely zealous team of prosecutors pursing what they believed to be wrongdoing from President Bill Clinton.

The independent counsel investigation into Clinton began with a land deal in Arkansas and eventually ended with a report recommending his impeachment for lying under oath and obstructing justice over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

According to Ken Gormley’s book The Death of American Virtue, Kavanaugh was a particularly committed member of the team. At one point, he wrote a memo to Starr that included the following:

“After reflecting this evening, I am strongly opposed to giving the President any “break”… unless before his questioning on Monday, he either i) resigns or ii) confesses perjury and issues a public apology to you [Starr]. I have tried hard to bend over backwards and be fair to him… In the end, I am convinced that there really are [no reasonable defenses]. The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is abhorrent to me…

“[T]he President has disgraced his Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles—callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. He has committed perjury (at least) in the Jones case… He has tried to disgrace [Ken Starr] and this Office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush.”

Per Gormley, Kavanaugh’s memo went on to propose asking President Clinton questions such as the following:

Kavanaugh seems to have completely changed his mind on the topic after later working for a president of his own political party. Indeed, he obliquely admits this in the 2009 Minnesota Law Review Article, writing:

This is not something I necessarily thought in the 1980s or 1990s. Like many Americans at that time, I believed that the President should be required to shoulder the same obligations that we all carry. But in retrospect, that seems a mistake.

Looking back to the late 1990s, for example, the nation certainly would have been better off if President Clinton could have focused on Osama bin Laden without being distracted by the Paula Jones sexual harassment case and its criminal investigation offshoots. To be sure, one can correctly say that President Clinton brought that ordeal on himself, by his answers during his deposition in the Jones case if nothing else.

Kavanaugh seems to be suggesting that his years on the Starr investigation actually made the country worse off and perhaps even helped prevent President Clinton from catching Osama bin Laden.

Luckily for Kavanaugh, however, the opinion about presidential investigations that he ended up at nearly a decade ago has likely turned out to be one that President Trump finds quite congenial.

Original Source -> Kavanaugh wrote that presidents shouldn’t be “distracted” by criminal investigations

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes

clubofinfo · 7 years

Text

Expert: On January 22, BBC News at Ten carried a piece by ‘defence’ correspondent Jonathan Beale reporting a speech by General Sir Nick Carter, the British Army’s Chief of General Staff. Carter gave his speech, pleading for more resources in the face of the Russian ‘threat’, at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), an establishment thinktank with close links to the military and corporate media. Beale began his BBC News piece with a prologue of raw propaganda, delivered in an urgent and impassioned tone: Russia’s building an increasingly modern and aggressive military. Already tested in battle in Syria, using weapons Britain would struggle to match – like long-range missiles. In Ukraine, they’ve been using unconventional warfare, electronic cyber and misinformation. And they’re even on manoeuvres on Europe’s doorstep, with large-scale exercises near Nato’s borders. Enough to worry the head of the British army who tonight gave this rare public warning. The essence of Carter’s ‘rare public warning’ was that: Russia was building an increasingly aggressive expeditionary force and the potential military threats to the UK “are now on Europe’s doorstep”… the Kremlin already boasted an “eye-watering quantity of capability” – a level the UK would struggle to match… Britain “must take notice of what is going on around us” or… the ability by the UK to take action will be “massively constrained”. Carter continued: Rather like a chronic contagious disease, it will creep up on us, and our ability to act will be markedly constrained – and we’ll be the losers of this competition. The army chief’s warning had been approved by the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson. On News at Ten, Beale’s reporting of the speech amplified the army chief’s message – in other words, the Defence Secretary’s stance – by deploying such key phrases as: ‘Increasingly aggressive’, ‘tested in battle’, ‘Britain would struggle to match’, ‘manoeuvres on Europe’s doorstep’, ‘near Nato’s borders’. There was, of course, no mention of US/Nato encroachment towards Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union (contravening assurances given to Gorbachev), or the US bases and military exercises close to Russia’s borders as well as globally, or the long history of US threats and major crimes around the world. Nor was there any reference to Ukraine which has routinely been reported as an example of Russian ‘aggression’. John Pilger observes that the BBC along with others, including CNN, the New York Times and the Guardian: played a critical role in conditioning their viewers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia when, in fact, the coup in Ukraine in 2014 was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and Nato. Beale’s credulous reporting of the army chief’s speech was an exemplar of ‘public broadcast’ media whipping up fear to promote state interests. Later, standing outside the Ministry of Defence, Beale said: This intervention by the head of the army is as much an appeal for more money for defence as it is a warning about the threat posed by Russia. And yet Beale had earlier dramatically highlighted the ‘worrying’ facts, asserting they were ‘enough to worry the head of the British army’ – in other words, that the army chief really was worried; not dissembling. Beale’s subsequent comment was a token, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it acknowledgement of the reality: that Carter’s speech was aimed at propping up UK military power. Note that Beale’s ‘neutral’ reporting was not about an ‘alleged threat posed by Russia’; simply the ‘threat posed by Russia’. This subtly insidious use of language occurs daily on ‘impartial’ BBC News. And, as ever, such a report would be incomplete without an establishment talking head from a ‘defence and security’ think tank. Professor Michael Clarke, a senior RUSI fellow, was on hand to perform the required role. This was BBC News in standard establishment/state/military/corporate mode. Beale was duly confronted by several people on Twitter about his promotion of UK state and military propaganda on the Russian ‘threat’. One Twitter user put to the BBC journalist: The only thing the MSM [mainstream media] is good for is fake news, falsification and manipulation of truth & propaganda. Ask yourself for whose benefit? This is a reasonable starting point for a debate about the major news media. Beale did not distinguish himself with the quality of his response: What a load of tosh. In contrast, Beale’s ‘opinion-free’ response to the army chief’s propaganda speech was: Coherent, detailed and impressive speech by @ArmyCGS @RUSI_org tonight making the case for investment in #defence. CDS [Chief of Defence Staff] in waiting? Imagine if the BBC man’s observations had been reversed. It is, of course, completely unthinkable that a BBC reporter would respond to a major military or political speech with: What a load of tosh. It would be equally unthinkable for a BBC journalist to respond to a speech by, for example, Noam Chomsky with: Coherent, detailed and impressive speech tonight exposing Western war propaganda. And likewise, a dissident expert would never be invited to respond scornfully, or even sceptically, to a speech by the likes of Sir Nick Carter on the BBC’s News At Ten. Further examples are pumped out daily by this ‘globally respected’ broadcaster. On January 8, Fiona Bruce introduced an item about Syria on BBC News at Ten with the phrase: ‘Syrian government forces, backed by Russia’. Why does BBC News not regularly use the phrase, ‘Saudi government forces, backed by the United States and the UK’ when reporting on bombs dropped on Yemen? The answer should be obvious. On January 29, Huw Edwards announced on BBC News at Ten: We talk exclusively to the head of the CIA about the threat from Russia. Note the duplicitous wording once again. Not ‘alleged’ threat or ‘claimed’ threat, far less ‘hyped-up’ threat. BBC correspondent Gordon Corera‘s ‘interview’ of the CIA’s Mike Pompero was a travesty of journalism, with no meaningful challenge or context. That the US is regularly regarded by global public opinion as a major threat around the world was totally off the agenda. You will wait in vain for an exclusive interview on BBC News at Ten with a senior figure about the ‘threat from the United States’. Ironically, just the previous day, Piers Morgan had conducted a sycophantic ITV ‘interview’ with Donald Trump. The object of the exercise was clearly to garner high viewer ratings, and thus boost advertising revenue; not to challenge the US president in any meaningful way. Afterwards, the BBC’s John Simpson, the epitome of ‘serious’ BBC News journalism, mocked Morgan: The art of the political interview, Piers, is to push your interviewee hard – not let them spout self-evident tosh. That’s just showbiz. But when it comes to a showbiz-style BBC News interview with the head of the CIA? A convenient silence. When one of our readers, Steve Ennever, uploaded the BBC’s CIA interview to YouTube, complete with Huw Edwards’ introduction, it was swiftly removed – within an hour or so – under pretence of a ‘copyright claim‘. What is the publicly-funded BBC so afraid of? The clip of the interview does appear on the BBC News YouTube channel. But why should they have a monopoly on it? Are they actually fearful of public-interest media activism that focuses on BBC News clips? It is notable that all the brave BBC News voices go quiet at times like this. As far as we could tell, there was not a single dissenting voice about the BBC ‘exclusive’ interview plugging CIA propaganda. The conformity is remarkable and yet systemic. The uncomfortable truth for the BBC is that the gap between showbiz and BBC ‘news’ is narrow. In fact, there is a significant overlap. Worse than that, BBC News is all too often a conduit for propaganda that promotes wars, corporate interests, ‘patriotism’, military pageantry, excessive consumerism and calamitous inaction on climate. As we have previously noted, a persistent feature of BBC News reporting on Yemen, for instance, is that the UK’s complicity in Saudi war crimes and Yemen’s humanitarian disaster is buried. To take another example, this BBC News headline is permissible: Taliban threaten 70% of Afghanistan, BBC finds But these are not: US threatens 100% of Afghanistan, BBC finds US threatens 100% of Iraq, BBC finds Global opinion finds US a major world threat, BBC finds And when the BBC takes a rare look at propaganda, it only does so in order to examine the propaganda of Official Enemies. Thus, BBC News will robustly critique Russian propaganda in a way it never does with the West’s. In summary, it does not take extensive observation to discern the general pattern of BBC News ‘journalism’ on matters of great significance: 1. Western military or political leader says something. 2. BBC News provides headline coverage. 3. Policy ‘expert’ from a right-wing or ‘centrist’ think tank is quoted in support. 4. BBC correspondent provides supportive ‘analysis’. 5. Token sceptical voice is briefly quoted.* 6. Extensive follow-up; talking points on BBC programmes such as Newsnight, Daily Politics, etc. *Optional When Eleanor Bradford, a former BBC Scotland health correspondent, rightly drew attention to the corporation failing women over the issue of pay equality, British historian Mark Curtis added an important corollary: It’s true. Why should women be paid less than men for conveying state propaganda under the guise of news? It’s only fair they should receive same salaries as all male govt employees. Curtis has published several books revealing the UK’s real role in world affairs, based on diligent research of previously secret government records. He is currently releasing declassified documents that reveal the reality of post-WW2 British policy towards numerous countries, as opposed to the propaganda version of events that has filled books, newspapers, magazines, television and radio programmes, and even infected academia. Curtis explains the rationale for his project: The British public has little idea what has been done, and is being done, in their names. I want everyone to be able to see at least some of the documents that I have seen because they tell a much truer story of this country’s real role in the world than they will hear on the BBC or read in The Telegraph. Curtis is addressing some of the most ‘ignored episodes’ in British foreign policy – such as the UK’s support for the Idi Amin coup in Uganda in 1971, and for the welcoming of the Pinochet military takeover in Chile, the covert operation to overthrow Sukarno in Indonesia in the late 1950s, and the covert UK war in Yemen in the 1960s. Curtis notes that now-released internal files reveal that: there is no interest in the human rights of the people that live in regions like the Middle East, Africa or Asia – British policy is all about geopolitics, promoting commercial interests and upholding Britain’s power status. Moreover, the files show that: the British public is largely viewed as a threat and they therefore shouldn’t be allowed to know what is being done in their names…The danger is that the public might deflect elites from their policy course – this is unacceptable to Whitehall. Curtis rightly points to the need to challenge traditional sources of ‘news’ which keep the public ignorant of crucial facts and context. Non-mainstream sources should be encouraged and supported: Social and alternative media is very encouraging – this is where people should be getting more and more of their information, bypassing mainstream sources. Ironically, it was a ‘renegade producer’ from the BBC who encouraged newspaper journalist John Pilger to start making documentaries. Charles Denton taught Pilger that: facts and evidence told straight to the camera and to the audience could indeed be subversive. Pilger encourages young journalists today to ‘make a difference’ by breaking the silence surrounding the reality of Western foreign policies. He adds a warning: The moment they [young journalists] accept, say, the BBC view of the world, that there are only two sides to an argument, and both those sides are on what we call the establishment side, then it’s over. http://clubof.info/

0 notes

ariaanna27 · 7 years

Text

THE DONALD TRUMP JR. PILE ON

(By Roger Stone) There is nothing illegal or improper with someone having contact with Julian Assange or WikiLeaks. Julian Assange is not a Russian asset and WikiLeaks is not a Russian propaganda organization. I understand that the US intelligence agencies insist otherwise but they are utterly unable to prove it. It’s true in their minds because they wanted to be.

Contact between Donald Trump,jr.. and Julian Assange certainly does not constitute collusion with the Russians!

In fact Assange is a journalist publishing information given to him by sources just as they do at the Washington Post and the New York Times but Wikileaks record for accuracy and authenticity is far better.

Neither Donald Trump Jr. or Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica did anything inappropriate. Having tried so hard to drive the phony Russian collusion narrative to distract from their own Russian profiteering (Uranium One, Gazprom, Joule) they make casual contact with a first rate Journalist muckraker treason.

Did Donald Trump Jr. Cross the Line With WikiLeaks?

(TheAtlantic.com) Messages between the president’s eldest son and the radical transparency organization don’t reveal evidence of any clear-cut crimes.

Donald Trump Jr.’s private exchanges with WikiLeaks on Twitter during the 2016 campaign raise a host of new questions about the Trump team’s communications with foreign entities before the election. But the messages alone don’t appear to cross any clear-cut legal lines.

“I certainly didn’t see anything that looks like a smoking gun in the descriptions that we were given,” Rick Hasen, a University of California, Irvine, law professor who specializes in election law, told me.

My colleague Julia Ioffe reported Monday that Trump Jr. exchanged multiple private messages on Twitter with the radical transparency organization before the election. In some cases, Trump Jr. appeared to act on requests from the group. In one instance, for example, he tweeted a link it had sent his way. A message posted by his father’s account soon after the group contacted Trump Jr. also mentioned WikiLeaks. The messaging, which WikiLeaks initiated during the election and continued as recently as July, was not previously known to the public.

The earliest known conversations came as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his organization were under immense scrutiny for their role in disseminating stolen Democratic emails. U.S. intelligence agencies later concluded that Russian government hackers laundered the emails through Assange’s website to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and bolster Donald Trump’s chances.

Most of the public discussion about the Russia investigation centers on the question of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign to undermine Clinton. But “collusion” isn’t a specific crime under federal law. Instead, legal experts have questioned whether any Trump campaign officials may have violated a campaign-finance statute that bars foreigners from donating money or any other “thing of value” to a campaign. That same provision also forbids campaign officials from soliciting such a donation.“If I’m a foreign citizen and I give a thousand dollars to the campaign, then that’s a thing of value,” Hasen explained. “If I provide a dossier, that also could be [a thing of value]. And so the question that came up during the last Don Jr. controversy was whether providing dirt on Hillary Clinton—opposition research—could be a thing of value for purposes of the statute.”That debate first arose in July when The New York Times revealed that Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, and then-campaign Chairman Paul Manafort met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower in June 2016 after she promised “information helpful to the campaign” about Clinton. Trump Jr. denied any wrongdoing and said that Veselnitskaya, who has ties to the Kremlin, provided no such information to them.

The Twitter conversations made public so far don’t show deliberate solicitation of WikiLeaks’s help on the part of Trump Jr. The closest he came to such a request was on October 3, 2016, when he asked WikiLeaks, “What’s behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?” (Roger Stone, an occasional Trump adviser, had tweeted “Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #WikiLeaks.” the day before.) Indeed, it was WikiLeaks that solicited from Trump Jr. throughout the exchanges—asking for his father’s tax returns, highlighting links for Trump Jr. to tweet, and even suggesting that the elder Trump publicly float Assange as a possible Australian ambassador to the United States.

Even if the exchanges did show Trump Jr. soliciting damaging information from WikiLeaks, federal prosecutors could run into difficulty pursuing charges for violating foreign-spending rules. “Assange is or could be considered a journalist, and we might have different rules for foreign-news media,” Hasen explained. “Certainly that’s how domestic campaign-finance law works, where we treat media differently than others.” And while he believes that a “thing of value” under the statute can include opposition research or stolen emails, that view isn’t unanimous among legal experts. He cited arguments made in July by Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor, that such a broad interpretation of the term could run afoul of the First Amendment.

“If anyone actually entered in the username and password or entered in the password to the website, that’s a federal crime.”

Trump Jr.’s messages also show WikiLeaks providing him with the login information of an anti-Trump website. “A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” the account wrote to Trump Jr. “The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have guessed the password. It is ‘putintrump.’ See ‘About’ for who is behind it. Any comments?” Trump Jr. replied that he would “ask around” about the website’s provenance.

But Trump Jr. doesn’t indicate whether he actually used the password. Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who specializes in computer-crime law, said that doing so would violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. “If anyone actually entered in the username and password or entered in the password to the website, that’s a federal crime,” he said. “And whoever would have passed on the email with the intent that someone else use it is committing a crime.”

Prosecutions under the CFAA are relatively uncommon. Kerr estimated that federal prosecutors use it to bring charges between 100 and 120 times a year. Using a stolen password to gain unauthorized access can be a felony if it’s used to further another crime, he added. But what matters under the statute is a potential defendant’s intent when accessing a computer system without permission.

“The criminal law is very focused not just on what somebody did, but on what they were thinking and what they wanted to achieve,” Kerr explained. “That could be established by the emails and messages associated with it from the context. You don’t need him saying, ‘I have an intent to further this.’ It could be, ‘Hey can somebody check into this?’ or ‘Can somebody try this out?’”

Even if the messages don’t directly show criminal behavior, Hasen said he found their contents troubling. On Election Night, when Clinton still seemed likely to prevail, WikiLeaks encouraged Trump Jr. to urge then-candidate Trump to cast doubt on the electoral outcome “if your father ‘loses.’” The elder Trump had spent the weeks before Election Day claiming without evidence that the vote was rigged, only to drop the allegations after he won. “We think it is much more interesting if he DOES NOT conceed [sic] and spends time CHALLENGING the media and other types of rigging that occurred—as he has implied that he might do,” WikiLeaks wrote. Trump Jr. did not respond.

“We were already worried that Trump wouldn’t concede if he lost and that this could undermine the legitimacy of our democracy and the electoral process, and here’s a foreign citizen egging him on,” Hasen said. “That’s very disturbing.”

from Roger Stone – Stone Cold Truth https://stonecoldtruth.com/the-donald-trump-jr-pile-on/

from Roger Stone https://rogerstone1.wordpress.com/2017/11/15/the-donald-trump-jr-pile-on/

0 notes

milaleah · 7 years

Text

THE DONALD TRUMP JR. PILE ON

Contact between Donald Trump,jr.. and Julian Assange certainly does not constitute collusion with the Russians!

Did Donald Trump Jr. Cross the Line With WikiLeaks?

(TheAtlantic.com) Messages between the president’s eldest son and the radical transparency organization don’t reveal evidence of any clear-cut crimes.

“If anyone actually entered in the username and password or entered in the password to the website, that’s a federal crime.”

from Roger Stone – Stone Cold Truth https://stonecoldtruth.com/the-donald-trump-jr-pile-on/ from Roger Stone https://rogerstone12.tumblr.com/post/167525186723

0 notes

rogerstone12 · 7 years

Text

THE DONALD TRUMP JR. PILE ON

Contact between Donald Trump,jr.. and Julian Assange certainly does not constitute collusion with the Russians!

Did Donald Trump Jr. Cross the Line With WikiLeaks?

(TheAtlantic.com) Messages between the president’s eldest son and the radical transparency organization don’t reveal evidence of any clear-cut crimes.

“If anyone actually entered in the username and password or entered in the password to the website, that’s a federal crime.”

from Roger Stone – Stone Cold Truth https://stonecoldtruth.com/the-donald-trump-jr-pile-on/

0 notes

ruglen-holon · 7 years

Text

Homosexuality in the USSR

The fact that homosexuality was criminally sanctioned under Soviet law is something that is often thrown in the face of communists in general, and used to “discredit” Comrade Stalin in particular. Indeed, “Stalin hated gays” is something I’ve seen posted online numerous times by trots and anarchists. I doubt Stalin ever wrote or spoke a single public word on the matter. In any event, such an accusation is by, its very nature, decontextualized and misleading. What needs to be stated is that Soviet legal and medical opinion on this question was no different than what was generally accepted in the world at large, namely, that homosexuality was a psycho-sexual disorder, a form of mental illness. Additionally, there were arguments made that attempted to tie homosexuality to fascism – especially considering that many of Hitler’s Brownshirts were homosexual.

Bad as this may seem, it needs to be seen in historical context. Science advances, knowledge grows and deepens. The science of human sexuality was in its infancy for all of Stalin’s life. Stalin died in 1953. He died before the ‘sexual revolution’, and he never heard of Alfred Kinsey, Masters and Johnson or the ‘Hite Report.’ In fact, it was only in 1975 that the American Psychological Association itself ceased to classify homosexuality as a mental disorder. To expect that Stalin, and Soviet Russia in the 1930s, would foresee the advances in medical and psychological science that would occur forty years in the future is either naïve or malicious. It should be noted, by comparison, that the GDR had a much more open and positive policy with respect to homosexuality. This can be explained by the fact that studies in sexology were more advanced in Germany than in any place else in the world. But this too has to be seen in historical context, as part not only of the deepening of scientific knowledge, but the spread of such knowledge throughout the society in general. By 1987, GDR law stated that “homosexuality, just like heterosexuality, represents a variant of sexual behavior. Homosexual people do therefore not stand outside socialist society, and the civil rights are warranted to them exactly as to all other citizens.”

So, here is the real answer. As Marxist-Leninists, we are scientists. As scientists we seek to advance human knowledge and understanding. And, as our knowledge and understanding grows, so does our ideology. Today, there is not a single communist worthy of the name who does not whole-heartedly support gay rights.

Moreover, I think it should also be pointed out that, despite the view that homosexuality was a mental disorder, the actual law in question, Article 121 of the Soviet Criminal Code, was pretty much only enforced in cases of pedophilia, with some 800 – 1000 prosecutions annually.

Wikipedia (everyone’s quick go-to) quotes the 1930 “Great Soviet Encylopedia” as follows:

Soviet legislation does not recognize so-called crimes against morality. Our laws proceed from the principle of protection of society and therefore countenance punishment only in those instances when juveniles and minors are the objects of homosexual interest … while recognizing the incorrectness of homosexual development … our society combines prophylactic and other therapeutic measures with all the necessary conditions for making the conflicts that afflict homosexuals as painless as possible and for resolving their typical estrangement from society within the collective —Sereisky, Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1930, p. 593

Actually, Communists were MORE progressive on the question of gay rights than was the bourgeois society of the time. Once again, the important thing here is the level of scientific understanding and the extent to which that knowledge has been spread throughout society at large. Germany had the longest history of psychological and medical research on human sexuality. The was an Institute of Sexology as early as the 1920s. The Nazis closed it down when they came to power. Leading medical researchers at the Institute of Sexology were affiliated with the KPD. That’s right, the KPD, the “STALINIST” German Communist Party. Many German Communists were not only supportive of gay rights, but were pioneers of sexual liberation. In fact, a number of them sang the health praises of nudism. This includes Markus Wolf’s father and family. Markus Wolf would later become the head of foreign intelligence for the GDR; the man the CIA would call “the man without a face” because they didn’t possess a photograph of him.

Furthermore, “Lenin decriminalized homosexuality” is a much beloved trotskyite trope that they love to throw at Marxist-Leninists. The facts, are a little different:

“The initiative for revocation of antihomosexual legislation, following the Revolution of February 1917, had come, not from the Bolsheviks but from the Cadets (Constitutional democrats) and the anarchists (Karlinsky, 1989). Nevertheless, once the old criminal code had been repealed after the October Revolution, the antihomosexual article also ceased to be valid. The Russian Federation criminal codes for 1922 and 1926 did not mention homosexuality, although the corresponding laws remained in force in places where homosexuality was most prevalent – in the Islamic republics of Azerbaijan, Turkmenia, and Uzbekistan, as well as in Christian Georgia.”

“Soviet medical and legal experts were very proud of the progressive nature of their legislation, lnl930, the medical expert Sereisky (1930) wrote in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia: “Soviet legislation does not recognize so-called crimes against morality. Our laws proceed from the principle of protection of society and therefore countenance punishment only in those instances when juveniles and minors are the objects of homosexual interest” P. 593).

“As Engelstein (1995) justly mentions, the formal decriminalization of sodomy did not mean that such conduct was invulnerable to prosecution. The absence of formal statutes against anal intercourse or lesbianism did not stop the prosecution of homosexual behavior as a form of disorderly conduct. After the 1922 Penal Code was published there were in that same year at least two known trials for homosexual practices. The eminent psychiatrist Vladimir Bekhterev testified that “public demonstration of such impulses … is socially harmful and cannot be permitted” (Engelstein, 1995, p. 167). The official stance of Soviet medicine and law in the 1920s, as reflected by Sereisky’s encyclopedia article, was that homosexuality was a disease that was difficult, perhaps even impossible, to cure. So “while recognizing the incorrectness of homosexual development … our society combines prophylactic and other therapeutic measures with all the necessary conditions for making the conflicts that afflict homosexuals as painless as possible and for resolving their typical estrangement from society within the collective” (Sereisky, 1930, p. 593).”

“The precise number of persons prosecuted under Article 121 is unknown (the first official information was released only in 1988), but it is believed to be about 1000 a year. Since the late 1980s, according to official data, the number of men convicted under Article 121 has been steadily decreasing. In 1987, 831 men were sentenced (this figure refers to the entire Soviet Union); in 1989, 539; in 1990, 497; in 1991, 462; and for the first 6 months of 1992, 227, among whom all but 10 were sentenced under Article 121.2 (figures are for Russia only) (Gessen, 1994). According to Russian lawyers, most convictions have indeed been under Article 121.2, 80 percent of cases being related to the involvement of minors up to 18 years of age (Ignatov, 1974). In an analysis of 130 convictions under Article 121 between 1985 and 1992, it was found that 74 percent of the accused were convicted under 121.2, of whom 20 percent were for rape using physical force, 8 percent for using threats, 52 percent for having sexual contact with minors and 2 and 18 percent, respectively, for exploiting the victims dependent or vulnerable status (Dyachenko, 1995). ”

SOURCE: http://www.gay.ru/english/history/kon/soviet.htm

So, in conclusion: Lenin DID NOT specifically decriminalize homosexual activity. The Tsarist criminal code was declared null and void, the anti-homosexual statutes along with all the others. The 1922 and 1926 Soviet criminal codes did not mention homosexuality, but anti-homosexual laws remained on the books in the Islamic republics and Georgia. When homosexuality does re-enter the Soviet criminal code, prosecutions are relatively rare (1,000 per year out of a population of 200 million) and those that were prosecuted targeted instances of rape, child abuse, and abuse of dependent and vulnerable persons.

Was the law perfect? Of course not! Was it a good law or something to be admired or replicated? No. Was the law abused and innocent people sanctioned? Likely, as in all legal systems. But, the intent and extent of the law was far different from what anti-Stalin and ‘left anti-communist” propaganda would have one believe.

- Alfonso Casal, Stalin Society of North America (source used FWIW)

#Homosexuality in the USSR #communism #homophobia #Stalin #Marxism-Leninism

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addcrazy-blog · 8 years

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New Post has been published on Add Crazy

New Post has been published on https://addcrazy.com/how-the-net-threatens-democracy/

How the Net Threatens Democracy

Because the forces of reaction outpace moves predicated on the correct of progress, and as conventional norms of political competition are tossed apart, it’s clean that the Net and social media have succeeded in doing what many feared and some hoped they might. They have got disrupted and destroyed institutional constraints on what can be said, when and wherein it may be said and who can say it.

Even though in one sense President Trump’s victory in 2016 fulfilled traditional expectancies — as it avoided a 3rd immediately Democratic term in the White House — it additionally revealed that the Internet and its offspring have overridden the conventional American political machine of alternating left-right benefit. They are contributing — perhaps irreversibly — to the decay of traditional ethical and moral constraints in American politics.

Matthew Hindman, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University and the author of “The myth of Virtual Democracy,” said in a telephone interview that “if you took the label off, a person searching at the united states might must be concerned approximately democratic failure or transitioning closer to a hybrid regime.”

This type of regime, in his view, would maintain the trimmings of democracy, together with reputedly unfastened elections, while leaders might manage the election procedure, the media and the scope of permissible debate. “What you get is a rustic this is de facto much less unfastened.”

Hold analyzing the principle story

a brilliant element for purchasing extra layers of transparency. It changed into actual for Donald Trump as it became for Bernie Sanders; the Net ended smoke-filled back rooms, deal-slicing moved from again room to a true campaign, with an Extra widespread populace. Perhaps an unwashed populace, however, that’s the beauty of Yankee politics with 350 million human beings.

Goodstein noted, however, “a terrible improvement at the Net” remaining year:

On this cycle, you saw hate speech retweeted and echoed, via partisan hacks, the Jewish star used in neo-Nazi posts. There is no governing body, so I assume it’s going to get worse, Greater people jumping into the gutter.

Using Digital technology in the 2016 election “represents the brand new chapter in the disintegration of legacy institutions that had set bounds for American politics within the postwar Technology,” Nathaniel Persily, a regulation professor at Stanford, writes in a coming near near paper, “Can American Democracy Continue to exist the Net?”

In line with Persily, the Trump marketing campaign was “totally extraordinary in its breaking of set up norms of politics.” He argues that

this sort of marketing campaign is most effective successful in a context in which certain established institutions — in particular, the mainstream media and political celebration businesses — have misplaced most in their electricity, each within the U.S. and around the sector.

The Trump campaign is handiest the newest beneficiary of the fall apart of as soon as dominant groups:

The void those eroding establishments have left changed into crammed through an unmediated, populist nationalism for the Internet age. We see it in the upward push of the 5 famous person Movement in Italy and the Pirate celebration in Iceland. We see it in the success use of social media in the Brexit referendum, in which supporters have been seven times More severe on Twitter and Five instances More energetic on Instagram. And we see it in the pervasive fears of government leaders for the duration of Europe, who involved well before the American election that Russian propaganda and other Internet tactics would possibly sway their electorates.

The have an impact on of the Internet is most effective the maximum Recent manifestation of the weakening of the 2 predominant American political events over the last century, with the Civil Carrier undermining patronage, the rise of mass media altering communication, campaign finance regulation empowering donors unbiased of the events, and the ascendance of direct primaries gutting the strength of party bosses to pick nominees.

In a telephone interview, Issacharoff mentioned the emergence of Internet-based methods of communication as a primary contributing aspect inside the deterioration of political events.

“generation has overtaken one of the basic capabilities you wished political events for in the past, verbal exchange with voters,” he stated. “Social media has changed all of that, applicants now have direct get admission to thru electronic mail, blogs, and Twitter,” together with Fb, Instagram, Snapchat and different platforms.

Two trends within the 2016 marketing campaign provided strong proof of the vulnerability of democracies within the age of the Net: the alleged effort of the Russian government to secretly intrude on behalf of Trump, and the discovery with the aid of Net profiteers of a way to monetize the distribution of fake news testimonies, especially stories unfavourable to Hillary Clinton.

In an email, Samuel Greene, the director of the Russia Institute at King’s University London, defined his “best estimate” of Russian cyber hacking underneath Putin’s guidance:

Groups of hackers, running with various levels of resources and at diverse distances from the central chain of command, had a number of licenses to poke and prod and spot what they may give you. A number of those human beings found it less complicated to do sure types of things — like spoil into Podesta’s emails — than they’d predicted. Having obtained a windfall, they were then given license to push it even similarly.

Poisonous Plutocracy Pushes Economic Inequality

The largest political issue receiving no interest from the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates is the effective plutocracy that has captured the government to provide growing Economic inequality.

Both primary events have enabled, promoted and supported this Top Magnificence plutocracy. Myriad federal rules make the wealthy notable-wealthy and the effective dominant in Both proper and terrible Financial instances. In the meantime, in spite of elections, the middle Class sinks into one massive Decrease Magnificence as the plutocracy guarantees that national prosperity is unshared.

Why no attention? Why no explicit reference to a plutocracy that makes a mockery of yank democracy? Simple answer: due to the fact Both major events and their applicants are subservient to numerous company and different special pastimes that use their money and impact to make sure that their elitist priorities succeed. Make no mistake. Barack Obama with all his slick rhetoric is just as a lot a supporter and benefactor of this Higher Class plutocracy as Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

Anybody that is not in the Top Class who votes for any of those presidential applicants is vote casting against their personal pursuits. They had been hoodwinked, conned, brainwashed, exploited and manipulated by using campaign propaganda. They pick people for the seen authorities even as they continue to be oblivious to the name of the game government – the powerful pulling the strings at the back of the degree. cash makes more money, financing extra political influence.

One in all The largest delusions of American citizens is that if they retain their constitutional rights that they nonetheless stay in a rustic with an operating democracy. Wrong. American democracy is delusional because the 2-celebration plutocracy makes citizens Financial slaves. This represses political dissent. It’s far twenty-first century tyranny. Two-party presidential candidates, unlike our country’s Founders, lack braveness to combat and rebellion in opposition to domestic tyranny. Placebo balloting distracts citizens from the political necessity of preventing the plutocracy.

Financial records show the plutocracy’s attack on American society. Recall these examples.

The pinnacle 20 percentage of households earned extra, after taxes than the final 80 percent in 2005, whilst the topmost 1 percentage took home extra than the bottom forty percentage.

No American state has visible the gap between rich and terrible widen faster than Connecticut. From 1987 through 2006, the top 5th of the state’s households noticed their earning growth by means of 44.8 percent, after inflation. earning for the lowest fifth fell 17.four percent. On the opposite coast, just 3 of each 1,000 Californians in 2005 reported at least $1 million in profits. However they were given $213 of every $1,000 Californians earned in 2005 profits. The kingdom’s pinnacle 1 percentage – average income $1.6 million – pay 7.1 percent in their earning in income, sales, belongings, and gasoline taxes. The poorest 5th of California families pay 11.7 percentage.

Actual hourly wages for maximum employees have risen most effective 1 percent seeing that 1979, at the same time as the ones people’ productiveness has expanded with the aid of 60 percentage. Better efficiency has rewarded business executives, proprietors, and buyers, But no longer workers. What is greater, American people now paintings extra hours in keeping with 12 months than their opposite numbers in absolutely every other advanced financial system, even Japan, and without regularly occurring health care.

A normal hedge fund manager makes 31 times more in one hour than the everyday American own family makes in a yr. In 2007, the top 50 hedge fund earnings-earners collected $29 billion – a mean of $581 million every. John Paulson took domestic $3.7 billion from his hedge fund labors. those figures do now not count number profits from promoting shares of their corporations. Importantly, hedge fund gamers contributed 9 times extra to the Senate Democratic fundraising arm than they gave to Senate Republicans in 2007.

In 2009, Americans who make over $1 million a yr will store a median $32,000 from the Bush tax cuts on capital gains and dividends. The common American household will keep $20.

between 1986 and 2005, the income of America’s top 1 percentage of taxpayer jumped from 11.3 to 21.2 percent of the country wide overall. Their federal earnings taxes dropped from 33.13 percentage of overall non-public profits in 1986 to 23.13 percent in 2005. From 2001 to 2008, the internet well worth of the wealthiest 1 percent grew from $186 billion to $816 billion.

Monetary inequality and injustice mirror a political catastrophe, despite regular elections. It has resulted from authorities choices on tax cuts, spending, alternate agreements, deregulatory measures, hard work unions, company handouts, and regulatory enforcement. All crafted to gain the wealthy and effective and depart the relaxation people in the back of. It has occurred below Democratic and Republican presidencies and congresses. Bipartisan domestic tyranny propels greed pushed plutocracy.

What do we desperately want? A country-wide discussion and referendum on inequality-pumping plutocracy, that none of the most important presidential applicants suggests any interest in having. Truely now not Barack Obama with his vacuous communicate of trade (But no longer about the political gadget) and John McCain’s incredulous speak of reform.

And It is delusional to think that populist global Net connectivity generating what is called personal sovereignty threatens plutocracy. Networking most of the wealthy and effective strengthen the global plutocracy, setting it above country wide sovereignty. more than producing a military of revolutionaries to overturn the machine, the Net has fragmented every conceivable motion. Individuals indulge themselves with their personal or social web sites or fall victim to conventional politicians. Era and media owned and controlled by way of plutocrats serve them whilst it shackles and deceives the multitudes.

https://addcrazy.com/

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technato · 6 years

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AI-Human Partnerships Tackle “Fake News”

Facebook, Google, and smaller tech companies are now using machine learning to flag misinformation—but automated systems aren’t reliable enough on their own

Photo-illustration: iStockphoto

When fact-checkers rate a piece of content as false, Facebook places it lower in users’ news feeds. Kleban says this method reduces future views of that content by 80 percent.

“Knowing that a page or a website has shared false content in the past is a good predictor that it will happen again.” —Jim Kleban, Facebook

“The risk is that you try to get the perfect definition of fake news and never reach an answer.” —Dhruv Ghulati, Factmata

An abridged version of this article appears in the September 2018 print issue.

AI-Human Partnerships Tackle “Fake News” syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

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