Zitat:Musk-backed conspiracy theory made it into the new defense bill

A House Republican succeeded in adding an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that targets entities that combat the spread of misinformation.

With conspiratorial attacks on federal disinformation experts, independent researchers and media watchdogs, conservatives have been on a quest to quash efforts to help stop the spread of false and manipulative information online. And it seems Republicans have now succeeded in tying that crusade to the $886 billion defense bill that was just passed by Congress.

On Tuesday, Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., touted an amendment he succeeded in adding to the National Defense Authorization Act that appears to bar the Pentagon from using NewsGuard — an independent organization that rates news websites — or similar entities to help the military determine where to place recruitment ads. In a tweet, McCormick proclaimed he was preventing the federal government from “censoring speech they don’t like.” [...]

But Republicans — who often use misinformation to push their messaging to the public — seem to have an obvious and self-serving incentive in fighting efforts to suppress it. Elon Musk, in particular, has placed NewsGuard in his crosshairs while promoting conspiracy theories about its purported bias. [...]

As advertisers have fled the site formerly known as Twitter over bigoted and inflammatory content on the platform, Musk has angrily targeted those who track how these views spread. Now, the billionaire’s conspiratorial thinking is set to officially be reflected in the U.S. military’s policies. [...]

Zitat:Das ist halt Culture War.
Aber ist es denn eine reine Verschwörungstheorie, das NewsGuard eine gehörig linkslastigen Bias hat?

Zitat:Hohe Strafe für Verleumdung

Trumps Kettenhund Giuliani muss Wahlhelferinnen Millionen zahlen [...]

Der frühere New Yorker Bürgermeister Rudy Giuliani muss wegen der Verleumdung von zwei ehemaligen Wahlhelferinnen 148 Millionen US-Dollar (knapp 137 Millionen Euro) Schadenersatz zahlen. Eine Geschworenenjury in der US-Hauptstadt Washington sprach Ruby Freeman und Shaye Moss nun die Millionensumme zu, wie US-Medien übereinstimmend berichteten.

Freeman und Moss, die Mutter und Tochter sind, waren Wahlhelferinnen im US-Bundesstaat Georgia bei der Präsidentenwahl 2020. Giuliani, Verbündeter von Ex-Präsident Donald Trump, behauptete fälschlicherweise nach der Wahl, dass Helfer wie sie Wahlzettel für Trump weggeworfen und gefälschte Zettel für den Demokraten Joe Biden gezählt hätten. Dabei gerieten Moss und ihre Mutter ins Visier von Trump-Anhängern, weil sie auf einem Video zu sehen waren, das in Umlauf gebracht wurde.

Beide Frauen bekamen im vergangenen Jahr nationale Aufmerksamkeit, als sie vor dem Untersuchungsausschuss zur Attacke auf das Kapitol im Kongress aussagten. "Ich will nirgendwo mehr hingehen. Ich stelle alles infrage", sagte Moss damals etwa. Menschen hätten sie bedroht, ihr den Tod gewünscht. Die beiden Frauen klagten schließlich auf Schadenersatz und warfen Giuliani vor, dass seine Behauptungen ihren Ruf zerstört und zu zahlreichen auch rassistischen Drohungen gegen sie geführt hätten. Die beiden Frauen sind schwarz.

(16.12.2023, 11:48)Schneemann schrieb: Gleichwohl muss ich aber auch sagen, unter Bezugnahme auf den Artikel, dass Musk derzeit meine Sympathien - auch wenn ihm diese herzlich egal sein dürften - bis zur Schmerzgrenze ausreizt. Sicher, er ist ein milliardenschwerer Exzentriker, ein Visionär und Pionier etc. pp. - aber was er teils so von sich gibt, ist langsam nicht mehr zu tolerieren. Zumindest fällt es mir zunehmend schwer.

Schneemann schrieb:Ich frage mich nur, wie jemand, der zweifelsohne nicht dumm ist, so aufs falsche Pferd setzen und vom Kurs abkommen kann...

(16.12.2023, 20:06)Nightwatch schrieb: Er ist 79, versteht die Welt zunehmend nicht mehr, hat sich im Altersstarrsinn verrannt und agiert immer hilfloser. Tragischer Fall eigentlich.
Mal davon abgesehen, dass diese ganzen juristischen Verfahren politisch viel zu aufgeladen sind.

(14.11.2023, 12:08)Schneemann schrieb: Der aktuelle Nahost-Konflikt beschäftigt massiv die US-Bildungseinrichtungen.

(17.12.2023, 15:58)Nightwatch schrieb: https://twitter.com/USA_Polling/status/1735878363913334981/photo/1

(18.12.2023, 10:14)Nightwatch schrieb: Harvard-Harris
https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf

Zitat:More than 400 Jewish facilities received false bomb threats this weekend, non-profit says

CNN - More than 400 Jewish facilities across the US have received false bomb threats over email since Saturday, according to the Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish non-profit organization.

Oren Segal, Vice President of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, told CNN they believe one person or a small number of individuals were behind the series of threats. The email messages contained several similarities, Segal – who had seen the messages – told CNN, including the nature of the alleged threats, and variations in the name of a group claiming to be responsible for them. While the threats were all deemed to be hoaxes, Segal added, “the Jewish community doesn’t take any threat lightly. We don’t have the luxury to ignore them.” [...]

The FBI is aware of the hoaxes and is assisting local law enforcement in the investigations, the agency said in a statement to CNN, noting there is no information to suggest a current, credible threat. “The FBI is aware of the numerous hoax incidents wherein a bomb threat at a synagogue is made. The FBI takes hoax threats very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,” the agency said. [...] The bomb threats and swatting incidents made against Jewish institutions saw a 541% increase this year over 2022, according to the Secure Community Network.

(18.12.2023, 14:34)lime schrieb: Und ich dachte eine Wald- und Wiesenumfrage. Da bin ich schon bestürzt wie antijüdisch die Jugend in den USA tickt

Zitat:While today’s dominant progressive narrative is one of “intersectionality”, acknowledging how privilege and oppression factor in one’s race, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other factors, it would appear that when push comes to shove, some progressives divide the world into just two kinds of people: Oppressed and Oppressor, groups that are often ethno-racially defined. [...]

Oppressor groups are today’s strong, wealthy ethno-racial groups, in particular whites and Jews who are often “coded” as white, as American author Thomas Chatterton-Williams has noted. These groups are seen as having become powerful as a result of their exploitation of, and violence against, others. According to this ideology, oppressed groups are the weaker, poorer groups who have little or no power because they have been deprived of this by the Oppressors. Oppressed groups are fundamentally noble while Oppressor groups are fundamentally not so.

Perhaps the most eloquent articulation of this moral framework was Paulo Freire’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed - the third most-cited social science text in history according to a 2016 study. Freire argued that “with the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun …Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed…Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.”

Under thig logic, Hamas could never be blamed for an attack on Israel. Because it was the Israelis who initiated the violent relationship of oppression with the Palestinians. In this worldview, the moral evaluation of an act is dependent not on the characteristic of the act itself but on who perpetrated the act: Oppressed or Oppressor? The Oppressed hold the moral high ground by virtue of being oppressed.

Zitat: Silence, being “violence”, is never an option: on all sorts of issues, you need to have a view. Here, “intersectionality” provides a solution: instead of going through the laborious effort of selecting your stance on each issue à la carte, you can opt instead for the set menu: climate justice is racial justice is LGBTQ justice is reproductive justice is Palestinian justice. But “intersectionality” breeds conformity. If you dissent on any one of these issues, you risk suggesting to your peers that you dissent on the others — marking you out as a bad person.

And not just bad, but gullible, too. Supporting Israel, or simply having a more nuanced position than “From the River to the Sea”, is proof that you’re a brainwashed rube. TikTok is awash with videos promising to tell you what the conflict really means, and what’s being kept from your eyes by the powers that be. “‘Israel’ isn’t a country,” one of the more infamous infographics patronisingly explains. (Note the scare quotes.) “They are a settler colony.”

Zitat:Ramaswamy wird in meinen Augen sehr eindeutig das Erbe von Trump antreten und in vier Jahren die MAGA Fraktion der Partei hinter sich haben.