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The Ledes

Saturday, May 18, 2024

Washington Post: “Paul D. Parkman, a scientist who in the 1960s played a central role in identifying the rubella virus and developing a vaccine to combat it, breakthroughs that have eliminated from much of the world a disease that can cause catastrophic birth defects and fetal death, died May 7 at his home in Auburn, N.Y. He was 91.”

New York Times: “Dabney Coleman, an award-winning television and movie actor best known for his over-the-top portrayals of garrulous, egomaniacal characters, died on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 92.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Friday, May 17, 2024

AP: “Fast-moving thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas for the second time this month, killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings, downing trees and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area.”

Public Service Announcement

The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705

Marie: BTW, if you think our government sucks, I invite you to watch the PBS special "The Real story of Mr Bates vs the Post Office," about how the British post office falsely accused hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of subpostmasters of theft and fraud, succeeded in obtaining convictions and jail time, and essentially stole tens of thousands of pounds from some of them. Oh, and lied about it all. A dramatization of the story appeared as a four-part "Masterpiece Theater," which you still may be able to pick it up on your local PBS station. Otherwise, you can catch it here (for now). Just hope this does give our own Postmaster General Extraordinaire Louis DeJoy any ideas.

The Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron. Washington Post: A “group of amateur archaeologists sift[ing] through ... an ancient Roman pit in eastern England [found] ... a Roman dodecahedron, likely to have been placed there 1,700 years earlier.... Each of its pentagon-shaped faces is punctuated by a hole, varying in size, and each of its 20 corners is accented by a semi-spherical knob.” Archaeologists don't know what the Romans used these small dodecahedrons for but the best guess is that they have some religious significance.

"Countless studies have shown that people who spend less time in nature die younger and suffer higher rates of mental and physical ailments." So this Washington Post page allows you to check your own area to see how good your access to nature is.

Marie: If you don't like birthing stories, don't watch this video. But I thought it was pretty sweet -- and funny:

If you like Larry David, you may find this interview enjoyable:


Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Allison Hope comments in a CNN opinion piece:

~~~ Here's Chapman singing "Fast Car" at the Oakland Coliseum in December 1988. ~~~

~~~ Here's the full 2024 Grammy winner's list, via CBS.

He Shot the Messenger. Washington Post: “The Messenger is shutting down immediately, the news site’s founder told employees in an email Wednesday, marking the abrupt demise of one of the stranger and more expensive recent experiments in digital media. In his email, Jimmy Finkelstein said he was 'personally devastated' to announce that he had failed in a last-ditch effort to raise more money for the site, saying that he had been fundraising as recently as the night before. Finkelstein said the site, which launched last year with outsize ambitions and a mammoth $50 million budget, would close 'effective immediately.' The New York Times first reported the site’s closure late Wednesday afternoon, appearing to catch many staffers off-guard, including editor in chief Dan Wakeford. As employees read the news story, the internal work chat service Slack erupted in what one employee called 'pandemonium.'... Minutes later, as staffers read Finkelstein’s email, its message was underscored as they were forcibly logged out of their Slack accounts. Former Messenger reporter Jim LaPorta posted on social media that employees would not receive health care or severance.”

Contact Marie

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Page Links
Tuesday
May302017

The Machinations of the "War Room" Disinformation Campaign

This video with Joy Reid is a perfect example of Bannon's Putinesque disinformation campaign that was so hyped upon Trump's return from dancing with autocrats and sowing distrust with our allies. Trump's "War Room" to push back against the Russian probe was widely reported four days ago. Since then, we're seeing signs of its awakening. It offers a perfect, real-time study in the Art of Deception by some of the slyest artisans in the business.

The disinformation pipeline is clear: Dig up dirt in the corners of the internet, spread the filth among the bottom feeders, then use its rising "popularity" as proof it deserves attention by the MSM. Here, it's the Wall Street Journal's columnist and Trump propagandist Kimberely Strassel who tries to smokebomb viewers' thoughts re: Kushner by hyping an obscure Breitbart (Bannon) article claiming alleged false equivalencies from the Obama administration (thanks, Obama!).

Here, Joy Reid and the other guests push back on the disinformation and try to set the conversation back on track. But the Trumpers and GOP loyalists settling in to Fox & Friends are getting 5 Kimberely Strassels all chumming the waters with actual fake news. Since the administration can't be honest and claim the damaging stories are factually false, their master strategy is blatantly lie, obfuscate, and cry "Fake News" until the news cycle (hopefully) moves on....

...Trumpist Twitter Bots Awaken. Travis Gettys of RawStory: "A two-year-old report on 'Obama's secret outreach to Russia' hit the top spot on the conservative Drudge Report after hundreds of bot accounts flooded Twitter with links to the article.... The original Bloomberg report largely disappeared from Twitter after interest died down a few weeks after its publication, but it began recirculating over the weekend. Two posts appeared to have been shared directly from the Bloomberg site early Saturday morning and Sunday evening, but then a deluge of posts using the same phrasing and tags burst forth starting at 12:48 a.m. and continuing every two or three minutes for the next 11 hours. Many of those accounts, at least in the early hours of the social media push, display the distinctive traits of bots -- with highly unbalanced posting-to-followers ratios, inscrutable account names, few public interactions and almost no original content phrasing." --safari (Also linked yesterday)...

...The initial revealings of the War Room's "Alternative Facts" campaign bring to mind the Steve. M. post linked earlier by Marie about Steve Bannon's supposed "messaging savviness": "Bannon might not actually change what most Americans are talking about. What he's skilled at doing is changing what right-wingers are talking about. And maybe that's worth it to Trump, because he seems to believe he can save his presidency as long as 80+ percent of Republicans still support him without question."...

...Trump's administration and the GOP in general have moved so far right (just look at all the legislation they're proposing) that they seem incapable of messaging to the center or 'independents', let alone the scary lefty communists. Democrats don't even merit conversation (again, look at Congress). So the question remains: Can this obfuscation campaign endure for years on end, only messaging to the Loyalists who hold the keys to their reelection? Bannon, et al. are one trick ponies. Seems like we're going to find out. --safari

Comment2 Comments

Reader Comments (2)

Regarding the Fake News onslaught from the Trump WH, it seems Trump has no other choice than to scream that every new revelation of wrongdoing and criminality on the part of himself and his cronies/family members/apparatchiks is a lie. For a while he was screeching about leaks but that made it sound like whatever was oozing out from under his desk was true and he was now engaged in hanging the leaker out to dry. But tacit admissions of guilt aren't the best way to run a counterintelligence campaign, thus the bellowing about fake news.

Since Trump is the source of so much fake news, it really is counter intelligence, or, rather, contra intelligence.

May 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Regarding the Begley, "Stat" piece on Drumpf's linguistic deterioration: you pointed out the characteristics of dementia he expressed before the election, to no avail; now we have him and imo the line of succession is equally, if not more, fraught with danger. The only way out I envision is Mueller's investigation causing such turmoil that any substantive actions are virtually impossible until at least the 2018 elections. My sense is that Drumpf's executive orders will be mired in the courts; damage will be done for sure, but if the Democrats get their act together and begin representing their entire constituency there is still hope. owen

May 30, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterOwen Cox

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