RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
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So has Cheeto tweeted yet that Burr and Warner and the committee are fake news?
Or will he switch it up and say they "entirely exonerated" him.
No collusion. No puppet.
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
New York Magazine
3 mins ·
The Trump administration is pissed he never calls back.
Sorry, Rex Tillerson Can’t Come to the Phone. Why? Because He...Doesn’t Want To
The Secretary of State reportedly doesn’t return calls from the White House.
THECUT.COM
3 mins ·
The Trump administration is pissed he never calls back.
Sorry, Rex Tillerson Can’t Come to the Phone. Why? Because He...Doesn’t Want To
The Secretary of State reportedly doesn’t return calls from the White House.
THECUT.COM
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
New York Magazine
3 mins ·
The Trump administration is pissed he never calls back.
Sorry, Rex Tillerson Can’t Come to the Phone. Why? Because He...Doesn’t Want To
The Secretary of State reportedly doesn’t return calls from the White House.
THECUT.COM
This administration
It never ends 
Interior Department whistleblower resigns, calling Ryan Zinke’s leadership a failure
Play Video 2:12
From top climate policy official to accounting. Welcome to Trump's Department of Interior.
On July 19, the former top climate policy official at the Department of Interior filed a complaint and a whistleblower disclosure form with the Office of Special Counsel. The official, Joel Clement, says the Trump administration is threatening public health and safety by trying to silence scientists like him. (Adriana Usero, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)
An Interior Department executive turned whistleblower who claimed the Trump administration retaliated against him for publicly disclosing how climate change affects Alaska Native communities resigned Wednesday.
Joel Clement, a scientist and policy expert, was removed from his job by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke shortly after the disclosure and reassigned to an accounting position for which he has no experience. Clement was among dozens of senior executive service personnel who were quickly, and perhaps unlawfully, reassigned in June, but he was the only person who spoke out.
Interior’s inspector general is probing the reassignments to determine whether the process was legal. By law, executives are to be given ample notice of a job switch. Many of those reassigned say they were given no notice, according to attorneys who are representing some of the employees. The inspector general said Clement is on the list of employees being contacted, though Clement and his lawyer say that hasn’t happened in the more than two months since the evaluation launched.
Energy and Environment newsletter
The science and policy of environmental issues.
Clement is now the second reassigned Interior employee known to resign. He said he mulled over resigning for months before submitting a letter to Greg Gould, director of natural resources revenue, late Wednesday morning.
Keeping a job supervising accountants when they were far more experienced was “cheating the taxpayers,” Clement said. He was sent to training clinics and was treated well by his new colleagues, but, “I would feel just guilty stringing them along . . . as they tried to turn me into an audit specialist.”
Rather than accept a job and be “tucked in a corner,” Clement vowed to work instead toward Zinke’s ouster.
“Keeping my voice is more important than keeping my job,” he said. “I have not found another job yet. I have vast contacts inside the agency and outside. I do believe I can be a strong voice to resisting what the Zinke team is doing.”
Clement said workers at Interior are outraged by Zinke’s comment in a speech slightly more than a week ago that they are disloyal. “I got 30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag,” Zinke said, adding that policy-decision positions should be shipped from Washington to Western cities, such as Denver.
“Everyone is pissed here about his comments about loyalty. It’s the buzz in the building. You hear snide remarks all day long at how ludicrous that was. They clearly have lost respect for the leadership of that organization,” Clement said.
[Read Joel Clement’s resignation letter]
Zinke is on a mission to cut 4,000 jobs at Interior in accordance with President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget. In a Senate committee hearing, Zinke said attrition and reassignments would be used as tools toward that goal, and said layoffs are possible if they don’t work.
Clement said the disloyalty comment “was enough for people to feel the pressure and a chill.”
In his resignation letter, Clement was defiant, accusing Zinke and Trump of poor leadership.
“The investigations into my whistleblower complaints are ongoing and I hope to prevail.
“Retaliating against civil servants for raising health and safety concerns is unlawful, but there are many items to add to your resume of failure,” he said, listing several.
In a separate letter, former top Interior executives under Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama ripped Zinke for his comments about loyalty at Interior.
“As former Interior political appointees who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, we strongly disagree,” the writers said. “The department’s career employees swear to defend the Constitution; they do not swear personal allegiance to individual secretaries or to anyone else.”
They said the comment was remindful of a time “when the infamous Boss Tweed doled out jobs in New York City government to his friends in Tammany Hall.”
“These employees are dedicated to public service and to advancing the public good, and many work for salaries considerably lower than they could earn in the private sector,” the letter said. “In our experience, these employees fully grasp that elections have consequences, and that new administrations, priorities and policies may shift,” but they base their work on policies that is “wise, scientifically sound and legally defensible.”
The letter was signed by a dozen former executives, including Jamie Rappaport Clark, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under Clinton; Michael Brennan, a former executive assistant to the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service under George H.W. Bush; Nathaniel Reed, a former Fish and Wildlife secretary under Nixon and Ford; and Jonathan Jarvis, a former director of the National Park Service under Obama.
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
Interior Department whistleblower resigns, calling Ryan Zinke’s leadership a failure
Play Video 2:12
From top climate policy official to accounting. Welcome to Trump's Department of Interior.
On July 19, the former top climate policy official at the Department of Interior filed a complaint and a whistleblower disclosure form with the Office of Special Counsel. The official, Joel Clement, says the Trump administration is threatening public health and safety by trying to silence scientists like him. (Adriana Usero, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)
An Interior Department executive turned whistleblower who claimed the Trump administration retaliated against him for publicly disclosing how climate change affects Alaska Native communities resigned Wednesday.
Joel Clement, a scientist and policy expert, was removed from his job by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke shortly after the disclosure and reassigned to an accounting position for which he has no experience. Clement was among dozens of senior executive service personnel who were quickly, and perhaps unlawfully, reassigned in June, but he was the only person who spoke out.
Interior’s inspector general is probing the reassignments to determine whether the process was legal. By law, executives are to be given ample notice of a job switch. Many of those reassigned say they were given no notice, according to attorneys who are representing some of the employees. The inspector general said Clement is on the list of employees being contacted, though Clement and his lawyer say that hasn’t happened in the more than two months since the evaluation launched.
Energy and Environment newsletter
The science and policy of environmental issues.
Clement is now the second reassigned Interior employee known to resign. He said he mulled over resigning for months before submitting a letter to Greg Gould, director of natural resources revenue, late Wednesday morning.
Keeping a job supervising accountants when they were far more experienced was “cheating the taxpayers,” Clement said. He was sent to training clinics and was treated well by his new colleagues, but, “I would feel just guilty stringing them along . . . as they tried to turn me into an audit specialist.”
Rather than accept a job and be “tucked in a corner,” Clement vowed to work instead toward Zinke’s ouster.
“Keeping my voice is more important than keeping my job,” he said. “I have not found another job yet. I have vast contacts inside the agency and outside. I do believe I can be a strong voice to resisting what the Zinke team is doing.”
Clement said workers at Interior are outraged by Zinke’s comment in a speech slightly more than a week ago that they are disloyal. “I got 30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag,” Zinke said, adding that policy-decision positions should be shipped from Washington to Western cities, such as Denver.
“Everyone is pissed here about his comments about loyalty. It’s the buzz in the building. You hear snide remarks all day long at how ludicrous that was. They clearly have lost respect for the leadership of that organization,” Clement said.
[Read Joel Clement’s resignation letter]
Zinke is on a mission to cut 4,000 jobs at Interior in accordance with President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget. In a Senate committee hearing, Zinke said attrition and reassignments would be used as tools toward that goal, and said layoffs are possible if they don’t work.
Clement said the disloyalty comment “was enough for people to feel the pressure and a chill.”
In his resignation letter, Clement was defiant, accusing Zinke and Trump of poor leadership.
“The investigations into my whistleblower complaints are ongoing and I hope to prevail.
“Retaliating against civil servants for raising health and safety concerns is unlawful, but there are many items to add to your resume of failure,” he said, listing several.
In a separate letter, former top Interior executives under Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama ripped Zinke for his comments about loyalty at Interior.
“As former Interior political appointees who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, we strongly disagree,” the writers said. “The department’s career employees swear to defend the Constitution; they do not swear personal allegiance to individual secretaries or to anyone else.”
They said the comment was remindful of a time “when the infamous Boss Tweed doled out jobs in New York City government to his friends in Tammany Hall.”
“These employees are dedicated to public service and to advancing the public good, and many work for salaries considerably lower than they could earn in the private sector,” the letter said. “In our experience, these employees fully grasp that elections have consequences, and that new administrations, priorities and policies may shift,” but they base their work on policies that is “wise, scientifically sound and legally defensible.”
The letter was signed by a dozen former executives, including Jamie Rappaport Clark, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under Clinton; Michael Brennan, a former executive assistant to the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service under George H.W. Bush; Nathaniel Reed, a former Fish and Wildlife secretary under Nixon and Ford; and Jonathan Jarvis, a former director of the National Park Service under Obama.
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Russian soldiers face ban on selfies and blog posts
Russian soldiers face ban on selfies
Russian soldiers face ban on selfies
LIttle late
Russian soldiers face ban on selfies
Russian soldiers face ban on selfies
LIttle late
PUTIN BACKS AWAY FROM TRUMP 
Putin: I have 'zero personal relationship' with Trump
NOLAN D. MCCASKILL10/04/2017 10:04 AM EDT
“We have zero personal relationship,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow. | Alexander Zemlianichenko/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin distanced himself from President Donald Trump on Wednesday, dismissing the U.S. president as a man he’s met once but has no personal relationship with.
“We have zero personal relationship,” Putin said Wednesday at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow, according to Bloomberg Politics. “We’ve met only once.”
Trump has sought to establish warmer ties with Russia, apparently to little avail. He met privately with Putin for two hours at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in July. And even after publicly accepting the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the aim of boosting Trump, the president has continued to downplay the Russia-cyberattack narrative and ensuing investigations into whether his associates colluded with Russian agents as a “hoax.”
Putin did praise Trump as someone who will “never be anybody’s hostage” but indicated that relations between Moscow and Washington, D.C., have been soured by domestic political fighting in the U.S.
Putin also insisted that Iran is complying with a nuclear agreement the U.S., Russia and other world powers agreed to in 2015 — Trump may decertify the Iran deal — and warned that Trump’s fiery rhetoric toward North Korea is leading to a “very dangerous end.”
“Those who try to speak to North Korea from a position of strength only shore up the North Korean regime,” Putin said.
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Show Comments
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
Putin: I have 'zero personal relationship' with Trump
NOLAN D. MCCASKILL10/04/2017 10:04 AM EDT
“We have zero personal relationship,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow. | Alexander Zemlianichenko/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin distanced himself from President Donald Trump on Wednesday, dismissing the U.S. president as a man he’s met once but has no personal relationship with.
“We have zero personal relationship,” Putin said Wednesday at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow, according to Bloomberg Politics. “We’ve met only once.”
Trump has sought to establish warmer ties with Russia, apparently to little avail. He met privately with Putin for two hours at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in July. And even after publicly accepting the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the aim of boosting Trump, the president has continued to downplay the Russia-cyberattack narrative and ensuing investigations into whether his associates colluded with Russian agents as a “hoax.”
Putin did praise Trump as someone who will “never be anybody’s hostage” but indicated that relations between Moscow and Washington, D.C., have been soured by domestic political fighting in the U.S.
Putin also insisted that Iran is complying with a nuclear agreement the U.S., Russia and other world powers agreed to in 2015 — Trump may decertify the Iran deal — and warned that Trump’s fiery rhetoric toward North Korea is leading to a “very dangerous end.”
“Those who try to speak to North Korea from a position of strength only shore up the North Korean regime,” Putin said.
POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox.
Show Comments
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
An estimated 340,000,000+ people were exposed to Russian propaganda:
Russian propaganda may have been shared hundreds of millions of times, new research says
Russian propaganda may have been shared hundreds of millions of times, new research says
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
Facebook has said ads bought by Russian operatives reached 10 million of its users.
But does that include everyone reached by the information operation? Couldn’t the Russians also have created simple — and free — Facebook posts and hoped they went viral? And if so, how many times were these messages seen by Facebook’s massive user base?
The answers to those questions, which social media analyst Jonathan Albright studied for a research document he posted online Thursday, are: No. Yes. And hundreds of millions — perhaps many billions — of times.
The Switch newsletter
The day's top stories on the world of tech.
“The primary push to influence wasn’t necessarily through paid advertising,” said Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. “The best way to to understand this from a strategic perspective is organic reach.”
In other words, to understand Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election, the frame should not be the reach of the 3,000 ads that Facebook handed over to Congress and that were bought by a single Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency. Instead, the frame should be the reach of all the activity of the Russian-controlled accounts — each post, each “like,” each comment and also all of the ads. Looked at this way, the picture shifts dramatically. It is bigger — much bigger — but also somewhat different and more subtle than generally portrayed.
Albright, who also is a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, has been studying fake news and Russian propaganda for months. And over the past week, as the names of some of the 470 Russian-bought pages and accounts have trickled out in news reports, he has been using a Facebook-owned analytics tool, called CrowdTangle, to measure the Russian campaign and also has downloaded the most recent 500 posts for each of them.
For six of the sites that have been made public — Blacktivists, United Muslims of America, Being Patriotic, Heart of Texas, Secured Borders and LGBT United — Albright found that the content had been “shared” 340 million times. That’s from a tiny sliver of the 470 accounts that have been made public. Even if those sites were unusually effective compared to the 464 others, Albright’s findings still suggest a total reach well into the billions of “shares” on Facebook.
The terminology is important here. For the purposes of these metrics, a “share” is essentially how often a post may have made its way into somebody’s Facebook “news feed” — without determining whether any of these users actually read the post. Another metric, called “interactions,” counts something narrower but more important -- the number of times individual users acted on what they had read by sharing a post with their Facebook “friends,” hitting the "like" button, making a comment or posting an emoji symbol.
That measurement for those six accounts, Albright's research showed, was 19.1 million. That means that more people had direct “interactions” with regular posts from just six accounts than saw the ads from all 470 pages and accounts that Facebook has identified as controlled by the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, called the Internet Research Agency.
Facebook had no immediate comment on Albright’s research. The company has shut down all 470 pages and accounts it has identified as controlled by the Internet Research Agency.
In a blog post on Monday, Elliot Schrage, vice president of policy and communications, wrote, "We’re still looking for abuse and bad actors on our platform — our internal investigation continues. We hope that by cooperating with Congress, the Special Counsel and our industry partners, we will help keep bad actors off our platform."
The other revelation in Albright’s download, including thousands of posts he has put online in an interactive graphic, is that most of them have nothing to do with the Nov. 8 election. Instead they are tailored to fit seamlessly into the ordinary online conversation of their particular audiences — politically activated African Americans, gay women, Muslims and people concerned about illegal immigration, Texan heritage or the treatment of veterans. There is talk of political issues, but relatively little about voting for Republican Donald Trump or against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
That suggests that the Facebook part of the Russian disinformation campaign consisted of at least two steps: The first was to identify voters and sort them into buckets based on the issues they responded to. This was done through the organic posts. The second step was to target voters in these buckets with Russian- bought political ads shaped to their interests, with the intention -- in at least some cases -- of affecting voting behavior.
“They were working to lead people along and develop a sense of trust,” Albright said.
The tone of the posts varies strikingly by the page. The one seemingly managed by a lesbian is intimate, confidential and chatty, with complaints about parents and teachers not understanding the challenges of being young and gay. The English is nearly flawless. One popular post said simply, "Bi and proud!" with a thumbs-up emoji attached to the end.
The United Muslim posts take pride in their religion, demand respect and seek to distance their faith from terrorism and ISIS. "Share if you believe Muslims have nothing to do with 9/11. Let's see how many people know the truth!," said one that reached 35,275 news feeds.
The Blacktivist posts are assertive and often angry, with many references to police violence against African Americans. Several urge the sharing of a video. One that reached 68,000 news feeds said, "There is a war going against black kids."
The other pages are conservative and anti-immigrant, with particular complaints about the treatment of U.S. veterans.
One on "Being Patriotic," said, "At least 50,000 homeless veterans are starving dying in the streets, but liberals want to invite 620,000 refugees and settle them among us. We have to take care of our own citizens, and it must be the primary goal for our politicians!" That post reached the news feeds of 724,323 Facebook users.
The most explicitly political of the posts may be from Secured Borders, which routinely refers to Clinton as “Killary” instead of Hillary.
Many of the posts Abright collected went viral, reaching tens or hundreds of thousands of Facebook news feeds, often by posing a question or calling for a response — tools known to people savvy in the use of social media.
“Issues that divide and outrage tend to spread the most, which is a common theme in social networks,” he said.
One final insight from Albright’s research: To the extent there is a discernible political motive in them, the goal seemed less to inspire enthusiasm for one candidate than to dampen support for voting at all. This fits with what many other researchers and investigators have said about the Russian disinformation campaign, that it drove directly at the fractures in American society and sought to widen them.
“A lot of these posts had the intent to get people not to vote,” Albright said. “This is a concerted effort of manipulation. Based on the engagement and reach and the outcome of the election .. I’d say it’s been fairly successful, sadly."
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
Russian propaganda may have been shared hundreds of millions of times, new research says
Russian propaganda may have been shared hundreds of millions of times, new research says
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
Facebook has said ads bought by Russian operatives reached 10 million of its users.
But does that include everyone reached by the information operation? Couldn’t the Russians also have created simple — and free — Facebook posts and hoped they went viral? And if so, how many times were these messages seen by Facebook’s massive user base?
The answers to those questions, which social media analyst Jonathan Albright studied for a research document he posted online Thursday, are: No. Yes. And hundreds of millions — perhaps many billions — of times.
The Switch newsletter
The day's top stories on the world of tech.
“The primary push to influence wasn’t necessarily through paid advertising,” said Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. “The best way to to understand this from a strategic perspective is organic reach.”
In other words, to understand Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election, the frame should not be the reach of the 3,000 ads that Facebook handed over to Congress and that were bought by a single Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency. Instead, the frame should be the reach of all the activity of the Russian-controlled accounts — each post, each “like,” each comment and also all of the ads. Looked at this way, the picture shifts dramatically. It is bigger — much bigger — but also somewhat different and more subtle than generally portrayed.
Albright, who also is a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, has been studying fake news and Russian propaganda for months. And over the past week, as the names of some of the 470 Russian-bought pages and accounts have trickled out in news reports, he has been using a Facebook-owned analytics tool, called CrowdTangle, to measure the Russian campaign and also has downloaded the most recent 500 posts for each of them.
For six of the sites that have been made public — Blacktivists, United Muslims of America, Being Patriotic, Heart of Texas, Secured Borders and LGBT United — Albright found that the content had been “shared” 340 million times. That’s from a tiny sliver of the 470 accounts that have been made public. Even if those sites were unusually effective compared to the 464 others, Albright’s findings still suggest a total reach well into the billions of “shares” on Facebook.
The terminology is important here. For the purposes of these metrics, a “share” is essentially how often a post may have made its way into somebody’s Facebook “news feed” — without determining whether any of these users actually read the post. Another metric, called “interactions,” counts something narrower but more important -- the number of times individual users acted on what they had read by sharing a post with their Facebook “friends,” hitting the "like" button, making a comment or posting an emoji symbol.
That measurement for those six accounts, Albright's research showed, was 19.1 million. That means that more people had direct “interactions” with regular posts from just six accounts than saw the ads from all 470 pages and accounts that Facebook has identified as controlled by the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, called the Internet Research Agency.
Facebook had no immediate comment on Albright’s research. The company has shut down all 470 pages and accounts it has identified as controlled by the Internet Research Agency.
In a blog post on Monday, Elliot Schrage, vice president of policy and communications, wrote, "We’re still looking for abuse and bad actors on our platform — our internal investigation continues. We hope that by cooperating with Congress, the Special Counsel and our industry partners, we will help keep bad actors off our platform."
The other revelation in Albright’s download, including thousands of posts he has put online in an interactive graphic, is that most of them have nothing to do with the Nov. 8 election. Instead they are tailored to fit seamlessly into the ordinary online conversation of their particular audiences — politically activated African Americans, gay women, Muslims and people concerned about illegal immigration, Texan heritage or the treatment of veterans. There is talk of political issues, but relatively little about voting for Republican Donald Trump or against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
That suggests that the Facebook part of the Russian disinformation campaign consisted of at least two steps: The first was to identify voters and sort them into buckets based on the issues they responded to. This was done through the organic posts. The second step was to target voters in these buckets with Russian- bought political ads shaped to their interests, with the intention -- in at least some cases -- of affecting voting behavior.
“They were working to lead people along and develop a sense of trust,” Albright said.
The tone of the posts varies strikingly by the page. The one seemingly managed by a lesbian is intimate, confidential and chatty, with complaints about parents and teachers not understanding the challenges of being young and gay. The English is nearly flawless. One popular post said simply, "Bi and proud!" with a thumbs-up emoji attached to the end.
The United Muslim posts take pride in their religion, demand respect and seek to distance their faith from terrorism and ISIS. "Share if you believe Muslims have nothing to do with 9/11. Let's see how many people know the truth!," said one that reached 35,275 news feeds.
The Blacktivist posts are assertive and often angry, with many references to police violence against African Americans. Several urge the sharing of a video. One that reached 68,000 news feeds said, "There is a war going against black kids."
The other pages are conservative and anti-immigrant, with particular complaints about the treatment of U.S. veterans.
One on "Being Patriotic," said, "At least 50,000 homeless veterans are starving dying in the streets, but liberals want to invite 620,000 refugees and settle them among us. We have to take care of our own citizens, and it must be the primary goal for our politicians!" That post reached the news feeds of 724,323 Facebook users.
The most explicitly political of the posts may be from Secured Borders, which routinely refers to Clinton as “Killary” instead of Hillary.
Many of the posts Abright collected went viral, reaching tens or hundreds of thousands of Facebook news feeds, often by posing a question or calling for a response — tools known to people savvy in the use of social media.
“Issues that divide and outrage tend to spread the most, which is a common theme in social networks,” he said.
One final insight from Albright’s research: To the extent there is a discernible political motive in them, the goal seemed less to inspire enthusiasm for one candidate than to dampen support for voting at all. This fits with what many other researchers and investigators have said about the Russian disinformation campaign, that it drove directly at the fractures in American society and sought to widen them.
“A lot of these posts had the intent to get people not to vote,” Albright said. “This is a concerted effort of manipulation. Based on the engagement and reach and the outcome of the election .. I’d say it’s been fairly successful, sadly."
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
6
I love that they only met once when in 2013 trump admitted on letterman that they had met before, now they've only met once at the g-20 summit
PUTIN BACKS AWAY FROM TRUMP
Putin: I have 'zero personal relationship' with Trump
NOLAN D. MCCASKILL10/04/2017 10:04 AM EDT
“We have zero personal relationship,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow. | Alexander Zemlianichenko/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin distanced himself from President Donald Trump on Wednesday, dismissing the U.S. president as a man he’s met once but has no personal relationship with.
“We have zero personal relationship,” Putin said Wednesday at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow, according to Bloomberg Politics. “We’ve met only once.”
Trump has sought to establish warmer ties with Russia, apparently to little avail. He met privately with Putin for two hours at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in July. And even after publicly accepting the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the aim of boosting Trump, the president has continued to downplay the Russia-cyberattack narrative and ensuing investigations into whether his associates colluded with Russian agents as a “hoax.”
Putin did praise Trump as someone who will “never be anybody’s hostage” but indicated that relations between Moscow and Washington, D.C., have been soured by domestic political fighting in the U.S.
Putin also insisted that Iran is complying with a nuclear agreement the U.S., Russia and other world powers agreed to in 2015 — Trump may decertify the Iran deal — and warned that Trump’s fiery rhetoric toward North Korea is leading to a “very dangerous end.”
“Those who try to speak to North Korea from a position of strength only shore up the North Korean regime,” Putin said.
POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox.
Show Comments
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
I love that they only met once when in 2013 trump admitted on letterman that they had met before, now they've only met once at the g-20 summit