propaganda

Senate Intelligence Committee hearing: Russia’s ‘active measures’ are ongoing

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The Senate Intelligence Committee held its first hearing on Russian interference in the U.S. election on Thursday. The committee heard from a series of expert witnesses on Russia’s use of “active measures” and manipulating social media with “fake news” (propaganda) and “bots,” and an army of trolls to influence media narratives and voters.

One of the more compelling witnesses was former FBI special agent Clint Watts, who testified that “part of the reason active measures worked in this U.S. election is because the Commander-in-Chief [Trump] has used Russian active measures at times, against his opponents.” Think Progress reports, Former FBI agent details how Trump and Russia team up to weaponize fake news:

During the first public Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about Russia’s meddling in the presidential election on Thursday, former FBI special agent Clint Watts explained how Russia and the Trump campaign team up to weaponize fake news.

Asked by Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) about why Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to make more of an effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election than in years past, Watts, who is now a a fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, said, “the answer is very simple and it’s what nobody is really saying in this room.”

“Which is, part of the reason active measures have worked in this U.S. election is because the Commander-in-Chief [Trump] has used Russian active measures at times, against his opponents,” Watts continued.

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McClatchy News: Russia uses ‘bots’ and trolls for information war against U.S.

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For those of you who live on social media sites and believe just about anything you see posted there (don’t deny it, I can tell from the comments and links I see posted), this latest report from McClatchy News should cause you to question your faith in social media and embarrass you for having been an “unwitting agent” or “useful idiot” of the Russians. Some of our blog trolls may not be who they claim to be. Just sayin’.

But first, make no mistake: we are engaged in a cyber war with Russia, in a new strategy for information warfare:

Andrey Krutskikh, a senior Kremlin adviser, made the startling comments at the Russian national information security forum, or “Infoforum 2016,” held Feb. 4 and 5.

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Krutskikh as a “senior-level adviser” to President Vladimir Putin and “a long-standing player in cyber issues” at the foreign ministry. The official said he couldn’t confirm the details of Krutskikh’s remarks, but that “they sound like something Andrey would say.”

According to notes of Krutskikh’s speech, he told his Russian audience: “You think we are living in 2016. No, we are living in 1948. And do you know why? Because in 1949, the Soviet Union had its first atomic bomb test. And if until that moment, the Soviet Union was trying to reach agreement with [President Harry] Truman to ban nuclear weapons, and the Americans were not taking us seriously, in 1949 everything changed and they started talking to us on an equal footing.”

Krutskikh continued, “I’m warning you: We are at the verge of having ‘something’ in the information arena, which will allow us to talk to the Americans as equals.”

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Get to know the ‘de facto president’ Stephen K. Bannon

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Screen Shot 2017-01-30 at 7.57.21 AMThe other day I posited the possibility that “Stephen K. Bannon may be more than just ‘Trump’s Brain.’ It is becoming increasingly evident that he is the ‘power behind the throne’ so to speak, a ‘shadow president’ who is pulling the strings of his puppet. And that should deeply concern all Americans.”  ‘Trump’s brain’, Stephen K. Bannon, elevated to National Security Council.

Shortly thereafter the New York Times in an editorial asked, President Bannon?

Plenty of presidents have had prominent political advisers, and some of those advisers have been suspected of quietly setting policy behind the scenes (recall Karl Rove or, if your memory stretches back far enough, Dick Morris). But we’ve never witnessed a political aide move as brazenly to consolidate power as Stephen Bannon — nor have we seen one do quite so much damage so quickly to his putative boss’s popular standing or pretenses of competence.

Mr. Bannon supercharged Breitbart News as a platform for inciting the alt-right, did the same with the Trump campaign and is now repeating the act with the Trump White House itself. That was perhaps to be expected, though the speed with which President Trump has moved to alienate Mexicans (by declaring they would pay for a border wall), Jews (by disregarding their unique experience of the Holocaust) and Muslims (the ban) has been impressive. Mr. Trump never showed much inclination to reach beyond the minority base of voters that delivered his Electoral College victory, and Mr. Bannon, whose fingerprints were on each of those initiatives, is helping make sure he doesn’t.

But a new executive order, politicizing the process for national security decisions, suggests Mr. Bannon is positioning himself not merely as a Svengali but as the de facto president.

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The media is being played by Trump’s ‘executive orders’

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Last week there was a blizzard of “executive orders,” mostly hatched by White House political director Stephen K. Bannon’s team and the White House policy adviser, Stephen Miller, aimed at disorienting the “enemy” — the mainstream media — and fulfilling campaign promises, or at least creating the appearance of fulfilling campaign promises, designed for consumption by the conservative media entertainment complex.

As the Washington Post’s conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin notes, Trump’s base-pleasing antics create firestorm:

This was a campaign stunt turned into a cruel and destructive [Muslim travel ban] policy with no forethought or planning. (“Coming in the late hours of Friday, and with little apparent consultation with other agencies and groups prior to its publication, the order created havoc and confusion among those tasked with overseeing entry into the country.”) The ban goes so far as to include green card holders. [The Trump administration is now trying to walk this back.]

The sheer recklessness and lack of planning should be deeply disturbing. Those closest to Trump seem oblivious to the fact that they are no longer just putting out white papers to please anti-immigrant fringe groups as they did in the campaign.

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We see here a perfect demonstration of what happens when demagogues, with no experience in the White House and no input from serious professionals, take a dubious campaign promise and instantly turn it into policy. (Rex Tillerson, if he had a hand in this, should not be confirmed as secretary of state; if he was excluded, he might rethink his participation in the administration.) Anti-immigrant zealots close to Trump (Stephen K. Bannon, Stephen Miller) have zero understanding of the international ramifications of their irrational and unnecessary schemes (both regarding the wall and on immigration). If Trump is to avoid becoming a failed president and doing immense harm to the country even before he gives his first State of the Union address, he should banish the ignoramuses and find some qualified help.

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Trump’s first act as president: declare war on the media and the truth

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On his first full day in office, the always insecure egomaniac Twitter-Troll-in-Chief declared war on the media, and the truth. With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift:

President Trump used his first full day in office on Saturday to unleash a remarkably bitter attack on the news media, falsely accusing journalists of both inventing a rift between him and intelligence agencies and deliberately understating the size of his inauguration crowd.

In a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency intended to showcase his support for the intelligence community, Mr. Trump ignored his own repeated public statements criticizing the intelligence community, a group he compared to Nazis just over a week ago.

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He also called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” and he said that up to 1.5 million people had attended his inauguration, a claim that photographs disproved.

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 6.40.11 AMAn estimated 1.8 million attended President Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Crowd scientists estimated that 160,00o people attended Trump’s inauguration.

By the way, the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday also was yuuuge compared to Trump’s puny little crowd. Crowd Scientists Say Women’s March in Washington Had 3 Times More People Than Trump’s Inauguration.

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