Pugster
Pugster's JournalThe injured count in Catalonia includes "anxiety attacks"
I was reading this article about the number of people injured in Catalonia and something struck me as interesting. "Anxiety attacks" are being included as injuries. Regardless of what side you take in this conflict, please note this caveat when reporting injuries. Thank you very much.
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/10/01/catalunya/1506820036_546150.html
#CatalanReferendum tops list of Twitter hashtags used by Russian Twitter accounts in past 24 hrs
They're working overtime to try to break up Spain.
Source: http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/
Hurricane Maria's death toll in Puerto Rico is higher than official count, experts say
Source: Miami Herald
Leovigildo Cotté died after not receiving the oxygen he needed at the only shelter that exists in the town of Lajas on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, which has been without electricity since Hurricane Maria careened through a week ago.
Not even his connections to the government could save him.
“The generator never arrived,” said Lajas Mayor Marcos Turín Irizarry, who said he looked for oxygen for Cotté — father of the former mayor of that same town — “turning every stone” but could not find it.
Cotté is one of the unaccounted victims of Maria, the potent hurricane that devastated all of Puerto Rico with sustained winds and gusts of up to 200 miles per hour. On Wednesday, the Puerto Rico government, maintained that the official number of deaths as a result of the catastrophe was 16. But the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, for its initials in Spanish) has confirmed that there are dozens of hurricane-related deaths and the number could rise to the hundreds.
The storm-related fatalities are
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article175955031.html
Fake black activist accounts linked to Russian government
Source: CNN Money (via Clickondetroit.com)
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
The Twitter account has been handed over to Congress; the Facebook account is expected to be handed over in the coming days.
More Money Headlines
Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage. "Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read. "Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read. The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans.
The Blacktivist accounts provide further evidence that Russian-linked social media accounts saw racial tensions as something to be exploited in order to achieve the broader Russian goal of dividing Americans and creating chaos in U.S. politics during a campaign in which race repeatedly became an issue.
Read more: https://www.clickondetroit.com/money/fake-black-activist-accounts-linked-to-russian-government
Researchers: Russian government provided English training to online Russian trolls
Russian trolls were trained so that their tweets/Facebook fake news would appear as grammatically correct as possible in the english language, as part of their misinformation campaign aimed at boosting Donald Trump's chances to defeat Hillary Clinton.
Mother Jones (Sep. 28, 2017):
In studying Russia’s propaganda efforts targeting both domestic and international populations, the Oxford researchers found evidence of increasing military expenditures on social-media operations since 2014. They also learned of a sophisticated training system for workers employed by Putin’s disinformation apparatus: “They have invested millions of dollars into training staff and setting targets for them,” Bradshaw says. She described a working environment where English training is provided to improve messaging for Western audiences: Supervisors hand out topical talking points to include in coordinated messaging, workers’ content is edited, and output is audited, with rewards given to more productive workers.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/fake-news-including-from-russian-sources-saturated-battleground-states-trump-barely-won/
Lawmaker: Russian trolls trying to sow discord in NFL kneeling debate
Source: Washington Post
Russian Internet trolls are trying to gin up even more controversy over NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem, a senator said Wednesday — warning that the United States should expect such divisive efforts to escalate in the next election.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) made the assertion in a hearing with the heads of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center.
Russian trolls, he said, were cynically pushing both sides of the argument over whether players should take a knee at the playing of the national anthem before NFL games. Players have been doing so as a silent protest against police treatment of minorities, though critics — including President Trump — argue that doing so disrespects the American flag and members of the U.S. military.
“We watched even this weekend, the Russians and their troll farms, and their Internet folks, start hash-tagging out ‘take a knee’ and also hash-tagging out ‘Boycott NFL,’ ’’ Lankford said.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/world/national-security/lawmaker-russian-trolls-trying-to-sow-discord-in-nfl-kneeling-debate/2017/09/27/5f46dce0-a3b0-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html
They're everywhere.
Shocking revelation about the "Boston Antifa" Twitter account: (It's located in Russia)
The tweeters controlling this account forgot to turn the location feature. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Rob Tornoe posted a screenshot:
https://twitter.com/RobTornoe/status/913096160411361289
U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic attacks on American diplomats
Source: Mcclatchy
The White House does not believe the Cuban government is behind the mysterious sonic attacks against U.S. personnel but plans to pull American staff out of Havana as the number of cases climbs, according to multiple U.S. sources familiar with the investigation.
“No one believes that the Cubans are responsible,” said one source, echoing comments from others who are closely involved in the situation. “All of the evidence points that they’re not.”
Sources would not say who U.S. intelligence believes is responsible.
But the suggestion that Havana was not to blame struck some close Cuba watchers as inconceivable. “If the Cubans didn't do it, who could have without their knowledge?” said Brian Latell, former CIA senior analyst and now an adjunct professor at Florida International University in Miami. He said Washington seems to have decided to “believe Cuban denials.”
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article175493626.html#storylink=mainstage
Russia?
WaPo: Russia paid for Facebook ads encouraging Bernie supporters not to vote last November
The Bernie or Bust movement was (at least in part) fueled by Russian operatives in social media.
From today's Washington Post:
Watts said such efforts were most likely to have been effective in Midwestern swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, where Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders had beaten Clinton. Watts said the disinformation pushed by the Russians included messages designed to reinforce the idea that Sanders had been mistreated by the Democratic Party and that his supporters shouldn’t bother to vote during the general election in November.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-operatives-used-facebook-ads-to-exploit-divisions-over-black-political-activism-and-muslims/2017/09/25/4a011242-a21b-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_facebookads-519pm-winner%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.3ef862d75226
Voicemails from nursing home where 11 died after Irma were deleted by governors office
Source: Mcclatchy Newspapers
Voicemails left on Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s cellphone by employees of the Hollywood nursing home where 11 died in the post-Hurricane Irma heat have been deleted, according to the governor’s office.
Scott gave out his number to nursing homes and assisted living facilities ahead of the hurricane so administrators could report concerns, according to a timeline released by Scott’s office. In the days following Irma, the staff at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills called four times. But the messages they left the governor weren’t kept, as first reported by CBS4’s Jim DeFede.
“The voicemails were not retained because the information from each voicemail was collected by the governor’s staff and given to the proper agency for handling. Every call was returned,” Lauren Schenone, a spokeswoman for Scott, said in a statement on Sunday.
The calls would have provided critical evidence for what the nursing home told the governor’s office, which has repeatedly said wasn’t told residents there were in danger.
Read more: http://amp.mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/article175158966.html
The governor has argued that in those phone calls, nobody said that anyone's life was endangered.
But now we will never know.
I think Rick Scott should resign this instant.
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