I love that Obama, Clinton and Bush are "hanging out"
I hope they rub it in to Cheeto that "you can't sit with us"
RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
- Start date
I hope they rub it in to Cheeto that "you can't sit with us"
Since Cheeto will be in jail.
Almond Joy is shytting all on him tho
I reported that tweet. Muthafukka should be kicked outta Twitter for that bullshyt
..
Trump signed presidential directive ordering actions to pressure North Korea
Early in his administration, President Trump signed a directive outlining a strategy of pressure against North Korea that involved actions across a broad spectrum of government agencies and led to the use of military cyber-capabilities, according to U.S. officials.
As part of the campaign, U.S. Cyber Command targeted hackers in North Korea’s military spy agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, by barraging their computer servers with traffic that choked off Internet access.
Trump’s directive, a senior administration official said, also included instructions to diplomats and officials to bring up North Korea in virtually every conversation with foreign interlocutors and urge them to sever all ties with Pyongyang. Those conversations have had significant success, particularly in recent weeks as North Korea has tested another nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles, officials said.
[The message behind the murder: Assassination sheds light on North Korea’s chemical arsenal]
So pervasive is the diplomatic campaign that some governments have found themselves scrambling to find any ties with North Korea. When Vice President Pence called on one country to break relations during a recent overseas visit, officials there reminded him that they never had relations with Pyongyang. Pence then told them, to their own surprise, that they had $2 million in trade with North Korea. Foreign officials, who asked that their country not be identified, described the exchange.
Play Video 1:18
Tillerson: U.S. 'probing' to see if North Korea interested in dialogue
During his visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept. 30, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the U.S. has multiple direct channels of communication with North Korea. (Reuters)
The directive also instructed the Treasury Department to outline an escalating set of sanctions against North Korean entities and individuals, and foreigners who dealt with them. Those instructions are reflected in a steady stream of U.S. and international sanctions in recent months.
The directive was not made public at the time it was signed, following a policy review in March, because “we were providing every opportunity as a new administration to North Korea to sit down and talk, to take a different approach,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door policy decisions.
“We made clear the door was open for talks before the president had even signed off on this strategy, but North Korea continued to launch missiles, continued to kidnap Americans to keep as hostages . . . all the things they did when we were early in the administration and sending signals that the door was open to talks.”
That door remains open, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Saturday in Beijing. Speaking to reporters following talks with Chinese officials, Tillerson for the first time acknowledged that the United States was in direct communication with North Korea.
“We are probing, so stay tuned,” he said. “We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three, channels open. . . . We can talk to them; we do talk to them.”
[The secret to Kim’s success? Some experts see Russian echoes in missile advances]
In Washington, however, officials quickly played down any idea that negotiations were underway or that anything had yet come of the talks. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert issued a statement saying that “North Korean officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization.”
The senior administration official said it would be wrong to “read too much into” Tillerson’s remarks. “The U.S. has always maintained some kind of channel, kept some channel open even in the darkest days of previous administrations.”
Those channels include conversations between the State Department’s special representative for North Korea, Joseph Yun, and Pak Song Il, a senior member of Pyongyang’s delegation to the United Nations. They have met several times this year to discuss American prisoners being held by North Korea, among other matters. Other contacts have taken place through the “track two” process, which regularly brings together nongovernmental U.S. experts — and occasionally U.S. officials — and North Korean officials.
Tillerson’s remarks Saturday came after a day of meetings with top Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, which saw both sides strike a careful, conciliatory tone following a new North Korean nuclear test and missile launches, and weeks of insults and threats between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
In brief formal statements before their meetings, Chinese leaders — who have repeatedly called for restraint — did not mention North Korea. Instead, they tried to keep the focus on Trump’s upcoming Asia visit, which Xi promised would be a “special, wonderful and successful” event.
The Cyber Command operation, which was due to end Saturday, was part of the overall campaign set in motion many months ago. The effects were temporary and not destructive, officials said. Nonetheless, some North Korean hackers griped that lack of access to the Internet was interfering with their work, according to another U.S. official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a secret operation.
Cyber Command and the White House had no comment. But the senior administration official said, “What I can tell you is that North Korea has itself been guilty of cyberattacks, and we are going to take appropriate measures to defend our networks and systems.”
Eric Rosenbach, who led the Pentagon’s cyber-efforts as assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration, said the operation “could have the advantage of signaling to the North Koreans a more aggressive posture. However, there’s accompanying risk of an escalation and a North Korean cyber-counterattack.”
Checkpoint newsletter
Military, defense and security at home and abroad.
Rosenbach, now co-director of the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, said that he was not aware of the actual operation but that if it is “truly a military operation,” he sees no reason to hide it. “The Department of Defense should probably own it,” he said.
Aaron Hughes, a former senior cyber-official in the Obama administration, said he, too, was not aware of the actual operation. But “if I was still in my [Pentagon] seat, I would actively be advocating we do these types of things. . . . We should be using all elements of national power to deter and message the North Koreans, to include our military, including cyber,” Hughes said.
Others said they would be cautious about using even minor cyber-capabilities against North Korea and doing it openly because of the risk of retaliation.
“I wonder what the disruptive payoff is that we’re getting that’s worth even a marginal extra chance of nuclear war?” said Jason Healey, a former military cyber-operator and now a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Rauhala reported from Beijing.
Supercoolmayo
Superstar
Yall should check this out, this is a trump poltical cartoon made in 1990, it crazy how it resembles today
This Comic From 1990 Accidentally Predicted Trump’s Wall
This Comic From 1990 Accidentally Predicted Trump’s Wall
PlayerNinety_Nine
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by....
Was it really an accident or was predicted? That ain't no accident
Washington Post dropping more hints 
Getting ready for the pitch...
Laying the ground for the real bomb shell
Russian Facebook ads showed a black woman firing a rifle, amid efforts to stoke racial strife
One of the Russian-bought advertisements that Facebook shared with congressional investigators on Monday featured photographs of an armed black woman “dry firing” a rifle -- pulling the trigger of the weapon without a bullet in the chamber, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Investigators believe the advertisement may have been designed to encourage African American militancy and, at the same time, to stoke fears within white communities, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the probe. But the precise purpose of the ad remains unclear to investigators, the people said.
The apparent tactic underscores how the Russians used U.S.-based technology platforms to target Americans with highly tailored and sometimes-contradictory messages to exploit divisions in American society over the past two years.
Tech News Alerts
Breaking news about technology and tech companies.
The ad was among more than 3,000 Facebook ads delivered to Congressional investigators that the company says were bought by 470 accounts and pages controlled by a Russian troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg.
The full universe of words and images in those ads has not yet been made public, but early glimpses reported in The Washington Post and other news outlets showed that the Russian campaign frequently sought to widen existing fractures in American society, while also helping to boost Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Among the other Facebook ads shared with lawmakers are those featuring photos of Hillary Clinton behind what appear to be prison bars. This echoed calls by Trump and his supporters during campaign events to “Lock Her Up” — imprison Clinton for using a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.
The Russian disinformation campaign included ads with harsh language and imagery about illegal immigrants. Others highlighted civil rights groups such as Black Lives Matter and support among Muslim voters for Clinton.
“These ads are racist propaganda, pure and simple,” said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, Calif., and executive director for the nonprofit Center for Media Justice. “Whether they appear to be in support or in opposition to black civil rights is irrelevant. Their aim is to subvert democracy for everyone by using anti-black stereotypes -- an idea as old as America.”
The tools developed by Facebook and other American companies in recent years have given advertisers unprecedented power to identify people susceptible to their messages and to repeatedly deliver targeted advertisements to them over weeks or months as they browse the Internet.
The release to Congress is part of a widening government probe into how Russian operatives used Facebook, Twitter, Google and other technology platforms. Those companies have come under increasing pressure from Capitol Hill to investigate Russian meddling and are facing the possibility of new regulations that could affect their massive advertising businesses.
In addition to sharing the ads, Facebook is providing information to lawmakers about which users those ads targeted, the views and clicks the ads received, and the methods of payment used by the Russian operatives, said people familiar with the investigation. The ads were viewed tens of millions of times, people familiar with the investigation said.
“The big picture is that we’re stepping up tomorrow to help Congress understand foreign interference on the ad platform and to make improvements to the ad platform to enhance transparency,” said Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president for U.S. public policy, in an interview Sunday. “We’re committed to doing our part to prevent this type of malicious interference.”
The company has acknowledged that many of the ads posted by the Russian operatives to sow cultural divisions would not be covered by new safeguards that would apply to ads that mention candidates.
Facebook has said most of the ads bought by the 470 pages and accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency focused on social issues and did not name candidates.
The company also said it would disclose more information about political ads on Facebook, and was adding security measures to crackdown on foreign meddling in its ad systems. Facebook provided few details on what those security measures would entail, except to say that it was adding new documentation requirements in which advertisers will have to certify that they are legitimate political organizations before they buy ads. Facebook also said it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 ad reviewers in the coming months (Facebook is also in the process of hiring thousands of reviewers to examine other types of content, such as hate speech and live video).
Facebook will now require every group that runs political ads on the social network to publicly post copies of all the ads they have purchased. This change, which Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier, is one that open government advocates have long clamored for.
Those advocates have said it is unfair that, unlike broadcasters, Facebook and other online companies are not subject to federal requirements that they disclose the names of groups that are buying political ads on their platforms and the amount they spend, even as social media occupies a growing share of advertising budgets for political campaigns and political advertisers become some of the largest advertisers on Facebook.
Facebook’s decision to disclose the actual content of the ads goes further than the requirements for broadcasters.
Political campaigns currently spend about 25 to 35 percent of their ad budgets online, with most going to Google and Facebook, said Zac Moffatt, chief executive of the Republican-leaning digital strategy firm Targeted Victory. Moffatt said that Facebook’s decision to publish the content of ads will push other online companies to do the same, and could also help Facebook’s profits because giving political advertisers visibility into spending online will encourage them to make bigger purchases in order to match their rivals.
The move by Facebook is a departure from its standard practice, in which Facebook users can only see ads and posts the company’s software algorithm targets directly to them.
Twitter said last week that it had also shut down 201 accounts that were tied to the same Russian operatives who posted thousands of political ads on Facebook. Google is conducting its own internal investigation into Russian meddling.
Matea Gold and Greg Miller contributed to this report. Dwoskin reported from San Francisco.
Follow The Post’s tech blog, The Switch, where technology and policy connect.
Getting ready for the pitch... Laying the ground for the real bomb shell
Russian Facebook ads showed a black woman firing a rifle, amid efforts to stoke racial strife
One of the Russian-bought advertisements that Facebook shared with congressional investigators on Monday featured photographs of an armed black woman “dry firing” a rifle -- pulling the trigger of the weapon without a bullet in the chamber, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Investigators believe the advertisement may have been designed to encourage African American militancy and, at the same time, to stoke fears within white communities, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the probe. But the precise purpose of the ad remains unclear to investigators, the people said.
The apparent tactic underscores how the Russians used U.S.-based technology platforms to target Americans with highly tailored and sometimes-contradictory messages to exploit divisions in American society over the past two years.
Tech News Alerts
Breaking news about technology and tech companies.
The ad was among more than 3,000 Facebook ads delivered to Congressional investigators that the company says were bought by 470 accounts and pages controlled by a Russian troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg.
The full universe of words and images in those ads has not yet been made public, but early glimpses reported in The Washington Post and other news outlets showed that the Russian campaign frequently sought to widen existing fractures in American society, while also helping to boost Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Among the other Facebook ads shared with lawmakers are those featuring photos of Hillary Clinton behind what appear to be prison bars. This echoed calls by Trump and his supporters during campaign events to “Lock Her Up” — imprison Clinton for using a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.
The Russian disinformation campaign included ads with harsh language and imagery about illegal immigrants. Others highlighted civil rights groups such as Black Lives Matter and support among Muslim voters for Clinton.
“These ads are racist propaganda, pure and simple,” said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, Calif., and executive director for the nonprofit Center for Media Justice. “Whether they appear to be in support or in opposition to black civil rights is irrelevant. Their aim is to subvert democracy for everyone by using anti-black stereotypes -- an idea as old as America.”
The tools developed by Facebook and other American companies in recent years have given advertisers unprecedented power to identify people susceptible to their messages and to repeatedly deliver targeted advertisements to them over weeks or months as they browse the Internet.
The release to Congress is part of a widening government probe into how Russian operatives used Facebook, Twitter, Google and other technology platforms. Those companies have come under increasing pressure from Capitol Hill to investigate Russian meddling and are facing the possibility of new regulations that could affect their massive advertising businesses.
In addition to sharing the ads, Facebook is providing information to lawmakers about which users those ads targeted, the views and clicks the ads received, and the methods of payment used by the Russian operatives, said people familiar with the investigation. The ads were viewed tens of millions of times, people familiar with the investigation said.
“The big picture is that we’re stepping up tomorrow to help Congress understand foreign interference on the ad platform and to make improvements to the ad platform to enhance transparency,” said Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president for U.S. public policy, in an interview Sunday. “We’re committed to doing our part to prevent this type of malicious interference.”
The company has acknowledged that many of the ads posted by the Russian operatives to sow cultural divisions would not be covered by new safeguards that would apply to ads that mention candidates.
Facebook has said most of the ads bought by the 470 pages and accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency focused on social issues and did not name candidates.
The company also said it would disclose more information about political ads on Facebook, and was adding security measures to crackdown on foreign meddling in its ad systems. Facebook provided few details on what those security measures would entail, except to say that it was adding new documentation requirements in which advertisers will have to certify that they are legitimate political organizations before they buy ads. Facebook also said it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 ad reviewers in the coming months (Facebook is also in the process of hiring thousands of reviewers to examine other types of content, such as hate speech and live video).
Facebook will now require every group that runs political ads on the social network to publicly post copies of all the ads they have purchased. This change, which Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier, is one that open government advocates have long clamored for.
Those advocates have said it is unfair that, unlike broadcasters, Facebook and other online companies are not subject to federal requirements that they disclose the names of groups that are buying political ads on their platforms and the amount they spend, even as social media occupies a growing share of advertising budgets for political campaigns and political advertisers become some of the largest advertisers on Facebook.
Facebook’s decision to disclose the actual content of the ads goes further than the requirements for broadcasters.
Political campaigns currently spend about 25 to 35 percent of their ad budgets online, with most going to Google and Facebook, said Zac Moffatt, chief executive of the Republican-leaning digital strategy firm Targeted Victory. Moffatt said that Facebook’s decision to publish the content of ads will push other online companies to do the same, and could also help Facebook’s profits because giving political advertisers visibility into spending online will encourage them to make bigger purchases in order to match their rivals.
The move by Facebook is a departure from its standard practice, in which Facebook users can only see ads and posts the company’s software algorithm targets directly to them.
Twitter said last week that it had also shut down 201 accounts that were tied to the same Russian operatives who posted thousands of political ads on Facebook. Google is conducting its own internal investigation into Russian meddling.
Matea Gold and Greg Miller contributed to this report. Dwoskin reported from San Francisco.
Follow The Post’s tech blog, The Switch, where technology and policy connect.