ancianita
ancianita's JournalCLINT WATTS' LATEST -- THE KREMLIN PLAYBOOK 2020
Clint Watts is solid.
DU needs to review his latest advice for the Primaries and General.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-kremlins-strategy-for-the-2020-us-election-secure-the-base-split-the-opposition
I urge DU and beyond to read the whole article. When it comes to Truth manipulation, Putin and Kremlin are chess players.
Modified Excerpts
1. Their troll farm and state-sponsored news outlets won’t need to make “fake news”; America’s candidates and political parties will make plenty for American audiences.
2. Most American discussions of Kremlin influence see Putin's stance as pro-Republican and anti-Democrat.
That’s not correct.
The formula is pro-populist, anti-establishment.
On the whole, populist movements may be healthy injections of political participation...But for the Kremlin, they offer a disorganized, easily infiltrated counter to establishment governments that check Putin’s power.
Why? Because Populists often lack sufficient foreign policy knowledge; so their inexperience leaves them ill-equipped to react to Putin maneuvers.
3. In 2020, Kremlin propagandists will seek to connect populist right and populist left audiences through shared narratives designed to
-- normalize Russia’s agenda in America,
-- demoralize democratic constituents and
-- neutralize political establishment counters to Russian advances abroad and inroads into American society.
The Kremlin wants Americans on both sides of the political spectrum -- far right, far left -- using the same talking points even if they have drastically different ideologies:
-- America should withdraw from foreign battlefields and global markets, and
-- democracy is a corrupt sham that can’t be trusted.
Putin’s propagandists will employ the “Five R’s” on American conservatives:
-- remind Americans of their missteps,
-- repost (reshare & retweet) organic American content supporting Russia’s agenda,
-- repurpose vitriolic American narratives to manipulate unwitting audiences,
-- repeat White House attacks on other Americans, and
-- route conspiracies and alternative content through fringe populist information sources.
for US right wing media.
To start: It's FRAME Russian Innocence, then FLOOD American Perfidy and Doubt.
In April, when no Mueller Report had reached Congress, Putin, echoing Barr andTrump, told an audience in St. Petersburg, which got reported by both left and right media here:
-- “We said from the start that this infamous commission of Mr. Mueller’s would not find anything because
-- nobody knows this better than us.
-- Russia did not meddle in any elections in the United States.
-- There was no collusion, as Mr. Mueller said, between Trump and Russia.”
Breitbart, Fox News, the One America News Network and the Daily Caller echo Putin. Oleg Deripaska gets some op-ed space, too.
More surprising and striking success for Russia’s disinformation are the machine repeats of Kremlin narratives by the White House itself. President Trump repeated on at least three occasions highly specific pieces of Russian propaganda alleging
-- Polish aggression toward Belarus,
-- claiming Montenegro to be an aggressive country and offering
-- that the Soviet Union went to war in Afghanistan to stop terrorists. These claims are not only false positions crafted by the Kremlin, but Trump is taking Putin’s side against U.S. allies and America’s own previously held positions.
With this many conservatives mainlining Russian thinking into American minds, the Kremlin won’t have to do much with them in 2020.
In 2020, this formula will likely reverse.
...identify, highlight and empower the unwitting and the like-minded on the political left. (Relevant examples of their engagement from 2016: the open courting of former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and pursuit of the NRA and Christian communities...)
Tulsi Gabbard fell into this crossfire with her meeting with and support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. It situated her as a bridge between anti-Israel activists of the political left and white supremacists like former KKK leader and GOP Louisiana state representative David Duke, who tweeted, “Tulsi Gabbard is currently the only Presidential candidate who doesn’t want to send White children off to die for Israel.” Alt-right leader Richard Spencer and the nationalist Mike Cernovich also fanned support for Gabbard in January 2019. We shouldn’t forget Steve Bannon sought Gabbard out for a meeting with President-elect Trump in November 2016.
Online and on-the-ground convergence between the populist right and the populist left is happening in plain sight—all the Kremlin has to do is help it grow.
Beyond Tulsi Gabbard, Russia’s propagandists will seek agents-of-influence, individuals inside the American government and media able to influence national policy. The agents they seek this time around will largely be across the political left, seeking to amplify and connect their preferred Kremlin message with that of the right.
Putin wants Americans to hear from Americans
-- that America is littered with infighting and violence between identity groups;
-- that capitalism a corrupt system empowering elites over the people;
-- that the U.S. an imperialist war mongering country,
-- that democracy is a fraud perpetrated by competing elitist factions and
-- that the nation is destined for a divided dystopian future.
Dystopia and its people:
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Supreme Court Passes Up a Chance to Reconsider Roe
Source: Mother Jones
Tuesday, the court declined to hear the Indiana case. The per curiam opinion explaining the court's reasoning for the denial didn't reveal the vote breakdown, but the decision was supported by at least one of the court's most conservative members: Clarence Thomas.
Tuesday's decision in favor of Planned Parenthood wasn't rooted in any sort of desire to preserve abortion rights, but rather in procedural issues.
Both Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote separately to say they would have blocked the fetal remains law. "This case implicates 'the right of [a] woman to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State,'" Ginsburg wrote, arguing that Indiana's petition should have been denied completely.
Indiana has one more controversial abortion case still pending before the court, involving a state law that would require women to undergo an ultrasound at least 18 hours before receiving an abortion. The 7th Circuit held that the law created an undue burden on a woman's right to have an abortion, without any "known benefits," and blocked its implementation. Indiana appealed to the Supreme Court, which will consider the petition again on Thursday.
Read more: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/supreme-court-passes-up-on-a-chance-to-reconsider-roe/?fbclid=IwAR2yCX7UrEsjsEC_gkfhGwxyOfNV9caCOKaxtpXHIMn_fvHm5qKlGlPQPWg
A cynical take is that SCOTUS realizes that a total reversal of Roe at this point would be a disaster for the GOP, and that the conservative wing of the court serves the GOP more than it serves the Constitution.
A Roe reversal at this point would not only deprive the GOP of one of their two favorite wedge and fundraising issues before the 2020 election (the other one being guns)
A more constitutional take is that, since 70% of Americans support Roe, it would create a nightmarish backlash, propelling the abortion issue toward the top of the list of issues influencing people's votes.
Until SCOTUS shows a pattern of refusing to hear state-generated cases, it can't yet be clear to half the public that Roe is, indeed, settled.
Long term, if half the country doesn't stay vigilant, SCOTUS could well be content to chip away at Roe a little at a time, while states unduly burden women legally to the point where a Roe reversal would scarcely be noticed.
Jay Inslee's Washington Ranks #1
If this news doesn't prove the makings of a great president, I don't know what would!
From US News and World Report
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington
https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/q6Hq6_VukvpnnsK_Of6KVQ--~B/aD0xMDgwO3c9MTA4MDtzbT0xO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/
Inslee's Washington state Ranked Number One
From US News and World Report
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington
https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/q6Hq6_VukvpnnsK_Of6KVQ--~B/aD0xMDgwO3c9MTA4MDtzbT0xO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/
Been drinkin' and thinkin' about Game of Thrones' finale. I loved it. Here's why.
Just thought I'd put this out there, for better or worse...
Game of Thrones' ending is what life actually is -- not everyone gets exactly what they want for all their suffering, but everyone gets equality of free will and peace through compromise.
Expecting storybook ending, or one of "blood, drama and tears" is a child's view of story endings. Life isn't neatly wrapped up as are stories for children, and neither is the future. Adults realize that the best stories help them cope with life.
GOT's ending shows that the Game of Thrones was one of blood revenge for previous wrongs, crimes and betrayals, and Loyalty as the highest good. GOT showed the morality of old world kingdoms, even of those who wanted to "liberate" good people who'd follow them.
Drogon melted the symbol of all that.
The finale made sure the following were resolved from old testament-style "justice" to new testament-style mercy and forgiveness:
1. What Danaerys' told Jon Snow of the future -- her idea of "liberation" by death for "good people" who "don't get to choose" -- her destruction of Kings' Landing was the 'tell.'
2. The deaths of all the revenge driven leaders, who lived by the "Game" ended their game.
3. The decision that no more leaders existed by accident of birth but by the free will decisions of representatives of The People created a transition away from 'the game.'
4. Tyrion's claim that powerful stories never die, and that Bran had the best story and knowledge of the kingdoms, reassured that visionary leadership can guide power.
It was Bran who knew that free will had to rule at the end. Because Bran knew freedom across the kingdoms would have to be based on that, my interpretation stands that this ending was best.
The finale made sure to show that the story, "Game of..." history wasn't just old history, or the end of history, but the beginning of a new world herstory of rule by respect for everyone's free will and equality.
Bran's assent to Sansa and Grey Worm was given out of respect their free wills, and a model of keeping peace through compromise. So was Jon Snow's compromise.
The whole "wheel is broken" thing, along with Tyrions's speech about the power of story, were the two keys to understanding how the morality of free will, mercy and forgiveness are better than the "game" morality of force and revenge.
This story, going forward -- of a new, "broken" king who transitions six kingdoms away from the old morality of 'born' leadership -- is a great ending. The real drama of life is governing oneself wisely, not dramatically.
I thought GOT was emotional, powerful, and thoughtful -- Game of Thrones itself was part and parcel of Tyrion's speech about the power of story.
Humans really prefer stories -- lies that tell the truth -- over straight truth. This is what Game of Thrones did.
It's up to the followers of that story to finally "get it."
THE REDACTED MUELLER REPORT IS READ INTO THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.
I'm spending the next few days listening to this.
The list of names of Russian-based IRA-controlled accounts on Facebook and Twitter,
and the list of Russian organized pro-Trump rallies are particularly galling.
IRA cyberwar units that targeted the Clinton campaign were Russian military units 26165 and 74455.
Over two dozen states were hacked for their election data, and targeted companies handling electronic voting, inserting malware and trojans enabling the GRU to gain access to state and county governments.
"Harm to ongoing matters" are read as labels for some redactions on the report pages.
While Amazon offers various print editions of the redacted report,
and while some here might doubt that DU needs it, I still it's important that that our party has attempted to make public any version of the Mueller Report for The People's official record.
FWIW, until the unredacted Mueller Report comes out,
we DU members have some record of our party's public congressional reading.
Alabama passed it. Alabama's gonna pay for it -- more than it does for its 6,000 foster children.
“Legislators in Alabama have wasted millions of dollars on trying to get involved in a woman’s personal healthcare decisions. They stand to lose millions more if they pass this patently unconstitutional attempt to ban abortion,” said Dillon Nettles, policy analyst for the ACLU of Alabama.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-alabama-responds-possible-abortion-ban-bill?redirect=news/aclu-alabama-responds-possible-abortion-ban-bill
Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky and Mississippi passed fetal heartbeat laws this year, banning abortions at around 6 weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.
Similar motions have been introduced in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, West Virginia, Missouri and Tennessee, the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute notes.
Why it matters: Supreme Court rulings have been cited to allow abortions up to 24 weeks during pregnancy when the fetus is not viable — or when a woman's health or life is at risk.
But conservatives have been advancing much more restrictive policies in the past few years, hoping to spark a fresh Supreme Court case now that Justice Brett Kavanaugh has replaced Anthony Kennedy.
These are the likely arenas for appeals.
Thank you, Utah Phillips. Now, who's going to surround their buildings and homes.
“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.” – Utah Phillips
Jordan Engels' map is on the Decolonial Atlas site:
https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/names-and-locations-of-the-top-100-people-killing-the-planet/
The world's 100 top Earth killers, by name and location.
These 32 are in North America.
?w=723
18 are in Europe.
?w=723
Google Images shows map variations from other sites.
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayHometown: New England, The South, Midwest
Home country: USA
Current location: Sarasota
Member since: Sat Mar 5, 2011, 12:32 PM
Number of posts: 36,041