chocolatpi
chocolatpi's JournalThe Resistance, Raising Big Money, Upends Liberal Politics
https://www.nytimes.com/by/kenneth-p-vogelBy KENNETH P. VOGEL
OCT. 7, 2017
WASHINGTON — It started as a scrappy grass-roots protest movement against President Trump, but now the so-called resistance is attracting six- and seven-figure checks from major liberal donors, posing an insurgent challenge to some of the left’s most venerable institutions — and the Democratic Party itself.
The jockeying between groups, donors and operatives for cash and turf is occurring mostly behind the scenes. But it has grown acrimonious at times, with upstarts complaining they are being boxed out by a liberal establishment that they say enables the sort of Democratic timidity that paved the way for the Trump presidency.
The tug of war — more than the between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — foreshadows a once-in-a-generation reorganization of the American left that could dictate the tactics and ideology of the Democratic Party for years to come. If the newcomers prevail, they could pull the party further to the left, leading it to embrace policy positions like those advocated by Mr. Sanders
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/us/politics/democrats-resistance-fundraising.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fkenneth-p.-vogel&action=click&contentCollection=undefined®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
On Rosh Hashanah: Recommitting to Solidarity in the Face of White Supremacy
Thursday, September 21, 2017
By Brant Rosen, Truthout | Op-Ed
When Temple Beth Israel -- a large Reform synagogue in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia -- opened for Shabbat morning services on August 12, 2017, its congregants had ample reason to be terrified. Prior to the "Unite the Right" rally held in town by white supremacists and neo-Nazis that weekend, some neo-Nazi websites had posted calls to burn down their synagogue.
The members of Beth Israel decided to go ahead with services, but they removed their Torah scrolls just to be safe. When services began, they noticed three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles standing across the street from their synagogue. Throughout the morning, growing numbers of neo-Nazis gathered outside their building. Worshippers heard people shouting, "There's the synagogue!" and chanting, "Sieg Heil!" At the end of services, they had to leave in groups through a side door.
Of course, this story did not occur in a vacuum. It was but a part of a larger outrage that unfolded in Charlottesville that day, and part of a still larger outrage has been unfolding in our country since November. I think it's safe to say that many Americans have learned some very hard truths about their country since the elections last fall. Many -- particularly white liberals -- are asking out loud: Where did all of this come from? Didn't we make so much progress during the Obama years? Can there really be that many people in this country who would vote for an out-and-out xenophobe who unabashedly encourages white supremacists as his political base? Is this really America?
Yes, this is America. White supremacy -- something many assumed was relegated to an ignoble period of American history -- is, and has always been, very real in this country. White supremacists and neo-Nazis are in the streets -- and they are being emboldened and encouraged by the president of the United States.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/42017-on-rosh-hashanah-recommitting-to-solidarity-in-the-face-of-white-supremacy
If this has already been posted, please ignore the repeat. The outrageous candidates in Alabama "are being emboldened and encouraged by" it (that shall have no name).
With Germany's Election Around The Corner, What's Putin's Play?
The article continues from the excerpt below with the claim that Germans rely on their news media, not facebook, for real news.
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/21/551023135/why-arent-the-russians-doing-more-in-germanys-election
With Germany's Election Around The Corner, What's Putin's Play?
September 21, 2017 5:00 AM ET
MILES PARKS
.....
"No one in Germany, if you ask the question, 'do you think that Russia is trying to intervene with the German election in a certain way' would say no," said Fricke, who also served in the legislature from 2002-13. "The only question is how are they going to do it."
Strangely, to the surprise of democracy-watchers everywhere, the answer has been: lightly.
There's evidence that Russian intelligence officers have been up to some of their now-familiar tricks in Germany — including cyberattacks, spreading disinformation and other strategies — but nothing has happened on the scale of other elections elsewhere, German politicians and other experts say.
"We have problems with wrong information and right-wing propaganda, but all of them are coming from inside the country," said Alexander Sängerlaub, who leads a program called Measuring Fake News at the think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung in Berlin.
Warren Buffett's Favorite Market Indicator Says Stocks Are in Trouble
Source: MSN Money
Paul J. Lim 6 hrs ago
Forget trying to run complicated calculations or read the stock market’s tea leaves. Warren Buffett says the “single best” way to tell if stocks are too expensive is to look at two simple numbers: the total value of all equities in the market and the total size of the economy.
Then compare them.
When the value of all stocks is 80% or less than the size of the economy, “buying stocks is likely to work very well for you,” Buffett wrote in an article for Fortune back in 2001. But when total equity value exceeds the size of the economy and then some, it’s a sign that investors are getting too giddy — and greedy.
Today, Buffett’s favorite market indicator is flashing its biggest warning sign yet.
The value of all the equities in the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Full Cap Index (a proxy for the entire domestic market) stands at $26 trillion. That’s 135% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), according to figures tracked on a quarterly basis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/warren-buffetts-favorite-market-indicator-says-stocks-are-in-trouble/ar-AAsgyph?li=BBnbfcN
Revenge Hacking, should it be legal?
Revenge Hacking Is Hitting the Big Time
Companies are hacking back against cybercriminals to try to prevent—or at least limit the damage of—Equifax-style disasters. One problem: It’s not all that legal.
JOSEPH COX
09.19.17 1:00 AM ET
The plan was to hack the hackers. Cybercriminals had targeted a global bank’s customers with phishing emails to break into their accounts. The legal option—waiting for law enforcement to investigate and perhaps apprehend the hackers—would have taken too long. So the bank was willing to try something else, and a team of security consultants offered to strike back.
The idea, one member of the team said, “was full breach. Collect intel on suspects; who possibly had been caught [by the hackers’ attacks],” and then destroy any stolen data. The Daily Beast granted anonymity to the source, who worked with the hacking team on behalf of the bank, to discuss sensitive industry practices. They did not name the bank.
The bank’s team broke into the hackers’ infrastructure on a selection of overseas servers, and found a list of who exactly the attackers had phished, as well as clues on their location.
Rather than attackers quietly stealing information from, say, Equifax, imagine if a group of counter-hackers caught them in the act? What if they then struck back—and deleted the siphoned data before more damage could be done?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-shadowy-world-of-revenge-hackers
Revenge Hacking Brings Daylight or a Slippery Slope?
Revenge Hacking Is Hitting the Big Time
Companies are hacking back against cybercriminals to try to prevent—or at least limit the damage of—Equifax-style disasters. One problem: It’s not all that legal.
JOSEPH COX
09.19.17 1:00 AM ET
The plan was to hack the hackers. Cybercriminals had targeted a global bank’s customers with phishing emails to break into their accounts. The legal option—waiting for law enforcement to investigate and perhaps apprehend the hackers—would have taken too long. So the bank was willing to try something else, and a team of security consultants offered to strike back.
The idea, one member of the team said, “was full breach. Collect intel on suspects; who possibly had been caught [by the hackers’ attacks],” and then destroy any stolen data. The Daily Beast granted anonymity to the source, who worked with the hacking team on behalf of the bank, to discuss sensitive industry practices. They did not name the bank.
The bank’s team broke into the hackers’ infrastructure on a selection of overseas servers, and found a list of who exactly the attackers had phished, as well as clues on their location.
Rather than attackers quietly stealing information from, say, Equifax, imagine if a group of counter-hackers caught them in the act? What if they then struck back—and deleted the siphoned data before more damage could be done?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-shadowy-world-of-revenge-hackers
Hurricane Jose Watch begins
At least a week away, and as we have seen even a day can make a difference. Jose approaches with strong winds on a N to NW direction.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?cone
Record-breaking Hurricane Irma wreaks havoc across Caribbean: 'It's apocalyptic'
Source: Guardian UK
....snip
Next in its path on Thursday are the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and the southern Bahamas. In its 5pm advisory Wednesday, the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) in Miami warned that Irma was then expected to take a hard turn to the north, lining up an increasingly likely strike on southern Florida, home to 7 million people, by Sunday afternoon.
“Irma is a very powerful, very dangerous storm,” said Michael Brennan, a senior hurricane specialist at the NHC. “It’s a scary sight to see this kind of system affecting people.
“It’s a very dangerous situation for the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and much of the Bahamas, and everyone on the Florida peninsula and in the Florida Keys will want to keep an eye on this.”
...snip
By late afternoon on Wednesday, more than 25,000 people had responded to a mandatory evacuation of the Florida Keys, the 100-mile chain of low-lying islands that lies south of the mainland. On Wednesday evening, officials said that all hospitals in the Keys would close by 7 am Friday.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/06/hurricane-irma-storm-damage-caribbean-florida
Breitbart, other 'alt-right' websites are the darlings of Russian propaganda effort
Source: USA Today
Amid an investigation into Russian meddling in the last U.S. presidential election, a Russian propaganda Twitter network aimed at American audiences consistently spreads links to Breitbart and other right-wing or conspiracy theory websites that boost President Trump and bash Democrats.
The websites — which include True Pundit, the Gateway Pundit and Imperialist U — are regular features on the list of “Top Domains” pushed by a network of 600 Twitter accounts followed by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, which tracks a Russian disinformation and propaganda campaign focused on U.S. voters.
On Thursday, the most popular domains mentioned by the network in the previous 48 hours, according to the tracker, included True Pundit, the Russian government-controlled television network RT, the Gateway Pundit, Fox News, Russian government news agency Sputnik News and Breitbart.
The network’s main role is to amplify messages deemed to benefit the Kremlin, but that doesn’t mean the websites' authors share the same goals, said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which created the monitoring project for the fund.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/08/24/breitbart-other-alt-right-websites-darlings-russian-propaganda-effort/598258001/
A black man went undercover online as a white supremacist. This is what he learned.
Source: Washington Post
As soon as Theo Wilson started making YouTube videos about culture and race, trolls using racial slurs started flocking to his page.
After engaging in endless sparring matches in the comments section, Wilson began to notice something curious: His trolls seemed to speak a language unto themselves, one replete with the same twisted facts and false history. It was as if they had all passed through some “dimensional doorway,” arriving from an alternative universe where history, politics and commonly accepted facts had been turned inside out.
...snip
We spoke with the poet about his experience, whether white supremacists are redeemable and why he believes liberals should listen to the far-right. The interview has been edited for length.
...snip
You mention that in their forums they're also seeking “answers” to questions. What are they trying to resolve?
In today's America, they're struggling to understand why they'll have less opportunity than their father's generation. They also want answers to basic questions about race in America, such as: What's the point of multiculturalism? Why can only black people say the “N” word? How is racism not over when LeBron James and Oprah have huge bank accounts? How is affirmative action anything other than reverse racism? Why shouldn't I be proud to be white if someone else is proud to be black?
Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-black-man-went-undercover-online-as-a-white-supremacist-this-is-what-he-learned/ar-AAqEnFo
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