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Month: December 2018

What we now know about Russian disinformation

What we now know about Russian disinformation

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Renée DiResta writes: The Russian disinformation operations that affected the 2016 United States presidential election are by no means over. Indeed, as two new reports produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee make clear, Russian interference through social media — contrary to the suggestion of many prominent tech executives — is a chronic, widespread and identifiable condition that we must now aggressively manage. The Senate committee asked two research teams, one of which I led, to investigate the full scope of…

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Russia’s support for Trump’s election is no longer disputable

Russia’s support for Trump’s election is no longer disputable

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In an editorial, the Washington Post says: Two reports prepared for the Senate on Russian disinformation unfold a now-indisputable narrative: The Kremlin engaged in a coordinated campaign to elevate Donald Trump to the presidency, and this country’s technology companies were central to its strategy. The Russia operation is staggering in its scale, precision and deceptiveness. Pages generated by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency elicited nearly 40 million likes and more than 30 million shares on Facebook alone, reeling in susceptible…

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Trump’s fake charity is dissolved, but lawsuit alleging fraud continues

Trump’s fake charity is dissolved, but lawsuit alleging fraud continues

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Timothy L. O’Brien writes: The Trump Foundation, a tiny New York outfit masquerading as a philanthropy but operating, essentially, as a personal piggy bank for the president of the United States, is no more. Barbara Underwood, the New York state attorney general, announced on Tuesday that her office and the foundation signed a stipulation agreeing to dissolve Donald Trump’s long-standing but chronically underfunded gesture toward charitable giving. Trump launched his foundation in 1988 as a vehicle, he claimed, for distributing…

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Britain should downgrade its ties to the U.S. because of Trump’s policies, say peers

Britain should downgrade its ties to the U.S. because of Trump’s policies, say peers

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The Guardian reports: Britain must downgrade its “bedrock” reliance on the US and recognise that the Trump administration is seeking to undermine British efforts to tackle the most critical challenges facing the world, a committee of peers has said. The Lords international relations committee said the Trump administration’s actions on issues including the Paris climate change deal, the Iran nuclear accord and steel tariffs had been “contrary to the interests of the UK”. After taking evidence over the past year…

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Russian disinformation campaign targets Syria’s beleaguered rescue workers

Russian disinformation campaign targets Syria’s beleaguered rescue workers

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The Washington Post reports: A Russian disinformation campaign has pushed Syria’s best-known civilian rescue group into the crosshairs of President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces, turning its volunteers into hunted prey, according to a team of open-source researchers and the organization itself. With the help of Western funding, the Syrian Civil Defense group — more commonly known as the White Helmets — has rescued tens of thousands of civilians from the rubble of Syrian and Russian airstrikes. More than 250 volunteers…

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In Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, no refuge on land or sea

In Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, no refuge on land or sea

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The New York Times reports: The first sign of trouble was the helicopter that hovered over the small Yemeni fishing trawler as it cut across the Red Sea. Then a warship appeared, its guns pointed at the boat. Bullets thumped into the water around the boat, the Afaq, then rippled through its flimsy wooden hull. One fishermen was shot in the eye, another in the head. The engine caught fire. Crew members leapt overboard, including Bashar Qasim, 11. Moments earlier,…

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The oil industry’s covert campaign to rewrite American car emissions rules

The oil industry’s covert campaign to rewrite American car emissions rules

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The New York Times reports: When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them. But it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation’s oil industry. In Congress, on Facebook and in statehouses nationwide, Marathon Petroleum, the country’s largest…

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The Southwest may be deep into a climate-changed mega-drought

The Southwest may be deep into a climate-changed mega-drought

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Robinson Meyer reports: Every so often, the American West seems to lurch into something called a “mega-drought.” The rains falter, the rivers wither, and the forests become tinder boxes waiting for a spark. Mega-droughts are notoriously hard to study—the last one happened in the 16th century—but what we do know is worrisome. In the 1540s, a few wet years in the middle of a mega-drought may have triggered one of the worst disease epidemics ever recorded. According to research unveiled…

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Russian effort to influence 2016 election targeted African-American

Russian effort to influence 2016 election targeted African-American

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The New York Times reports: The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of posts on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its Facebook operations, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy…

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Trump sounds ‘more like a mob boss than president’

Trump sounds ‘more like a mob boss than president’

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Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s use of the word “rat” to attack his former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen is more evocative of a “mob boss” than a president, a Democratic senator said Monday. Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, painted Trump’s claims that the FBI “broke into” Cohen’s office earlier this year — the bureau had a warrant to do so — as a clear attempt to undermine law enforcement and mislead Americans about…

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How Trump made war on Angela Merkel and Europe

How Trump made war on Angela Merkel and Europe

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Susan B. Glasser writes: On November 16, 2016, eight days after Trump was elected, Barack Obama flew to Berlin to meet with Merkel; it was the last foreign trip of his Presidency. Obama and Merkel had not started out as good friends, but they had become as close as two public figures could be. Over dinner in the Adlon Hotel, they discussed the shocking events of the previous few months, particularly Great Britain’s referendum to leave the European Union and…

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Why are Labour’s leaders so quiet on Europe? Maybe it’s the lure of disaster

Why are Labour’s leaders so quiet on Europe? Maybe it’s the lure of disaster

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Nick Cohen writes: For readers bewildered by the indifference of Labour’s leaders to Brexit, let me offer a suggestion: you cannot understand British politics until you grasp that the party has been taken over by men (and the occasional woman) who spent their lives around the fag ends of the 20th-century Marxist-Leninist movement. It’s not that Labour now has a communist programme. Revolutionary socialism is as dead as any idea can be. Rather, Labour has inherited the mental deformations of…

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Texas elementary school speech pathologist refused to sign pro-Israel oath — so she got fired

Texas elementary school speech pathologist refused to sign pro-Israel oath — so she got fired

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Glenn Greenwald writes: A children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation. A lawsuit…

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A complete guide to all 17 (known) Trump and Russia investigations

A complete guide to all 17 (known) Trump and Russia investigations

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Garrett M Graff writes: While popular memory today remembers Watergate as five DNC burglars leading inexorably to Richard Nixon’s resignation two years later, history recalls that the case and special prosecutor’s investigation at the time was much broader; ultimately 69 people were charged as part of the investigation, 48 of whom pleaded guilty or were found guilty at trial. After three weeks of back-to-back-to-back-to-back bombshells by federal prosecutors and special counsel Robert Mueller, it’s increasingly clear that as 2018 winds…

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