‘Russians killed Epstein’: Go home everyone, Alec Baldwin is on the case
Alec Baldwin, you are a talented and likeable actor, but why do so many of your political pronouncements sound like you are trying to sabotage your own side?
I mean why in the world would you just tweet, “The Russians killed Epstein. They’re in charge of everything now.”
If so, perhaps you would like to elaborate. You’ve definitely got our attention.
Or is this satire?
I won’t list your numerous comedy credits, you give a funny interview, and do a mean Trump impression.
Maybe, you are inhabiting the role of a paranoid Democratic conspiracy theorist who blames even the most random of unfortunate coincidences on the dark hand of the Kremlin.
If so, this is very convincing.
However, if you wrote this in earnest, and you think that you know this stuff just because you KNOW IT, then I am not just bemused. I am a little disheartened.
By Igor Ogorodnev
Facebook had human contractors ‘reviewing’ users’ Messenger voice chats
Facebook says it has stopped feeding users’ audio chats to human reviewers for transcription, similar to what other Big Tech were recently caught doing. Facebook’s contractors were reportedly kept in the dark about their job.
The company “paused human review more than a week ago,” Facebook said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that the audio being reviewed was from Messenger users who opted in to having their voice chats transcribed to text by AI. The human transcribers were merely checking whether the AI transcriptions were correct, the company said.
Monopoly? What monopoly? Facebook to consolidate empire by branding Instagram, WhatsApp
Contractors often caught snippets of intimate or “vulgar” chats, though the messages were anonymized, and they were not told why they were transcribing the audio, where it came from or how it was obtained, contractors told Bloomberg. Some said the uncertainty and apparent duplicity – Facebook doesn’t tell users third parties may review their audio – troubled them.
While the company admits it collects “content, communications and other information you provide [when you] message or communicate with others,” there is no mention in its data use policy of humans processing the information. Instead, it’s Facebook’s “systems” that are supposed to “automatically process content and communications you and others provide to analyze context and what’s in them.” Even the list of third parties who might potentially receive users’ information doesn’t explicitly include human transcription teams, only “vendors and service providers who support our business” by “analyzing how our products are used.”
Further adding to contractors’ concerns about eavesdropping on users’ private messages is the fact that Facebook forbids at least one outsourcing firm from referring to them by name. Santa Monica, California-based TaskUs instead refers to one of its largest and most important clients only by the code-name “Prism” – which is, ironically, also the name of the NSA initiative exposed by Edward Snowden that installed backdoors in popular online platforms like Google, Skype, Twitter, and…Facebook.
TaskUs contractors also moderate content for policy violations, screen political ads, and work on “election preparation,” an ominous term Bloomberg opts not to define but which has previously coincided with mass deplatforming of political accounts in the months preceding elections. Facebook’s content-moderation contracting practices were exposed earlier this year after ex-contractors from outsourcing firm Cognizant complained that the work was giving them PTSD, leading them to drown their traumas in drug use and casual sex, and shaking their beliefs in the “official” versions of historical events like 9/11 and the Holocaust. Those employees, too, were forbidden from referring to Facebook by its given name.
Facebook added the AI transcription function to Messenger in 2015 and claims it is switched off by default. Its documentation, however, reveals that only one participant in a chat needs to opt in for the audio to be transcribed.
After similar practices were exposed by Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Siri, all three have promised to end the human eavesdropping – or at least give users the option of avoiding it. Apple has reportedly ended human “grading” of Siri recordings until a future software update gives users the option of participating, while Amazon has added an opt-out setting and Google has promised to suspend human review…in Europe, for at least three months.
WOW! Joe Scarborough and Liberal Cranks and Conspiracy Nuts Blame RUSSIA after Epstein is Found Dead in Prison Cell
By Jim Hoft – August 10, 2019
ABC 7 says he died by SUICIDE!
The 66-year-old financier was hospitalized in July after he was found unresponsive in what appeared to be a possible suicide attempt.
In July Epstein was found injured and in a fetal position inside his cell at a New York City jail,
He was reportedly put under suicide watch.
On Saturday he reportedly hanged himself.
This came the DAY AFTER several top Democrats including Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Governor Bill Richardson were implicated in unsealed Epstein court documents.
Within an hour #ClintonBodyCount was trending on Twitter.
But the liberal mainstream media is pushing another conspiracy.
IT WAS RUSSIA!!
Joe Scarborough…
Russia offed Jeffrey Epstein to assist Donald Trump!
Seth Abramson…
‘Whatever happened to suicide watch?’ Suspicion reigns as Epstein’s secrets die with him
The death by apparent suicide of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein shocked few pundits. Given his previous attempt on his own life and powerful connections, how could Epstein have been left alone to kill himself?
Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell on Saturday morning, with law enforcement sources telling multiple media outlets his death was a suicide. The 66-year-old millionaire had been held in custody since his arrest last month on charges of child sex trafficking and conspiracy.
Puzzlingly, Epstein had supposedly been placed on suicide watch since he was found “injured and in a fetal position”in the cell two weeks ago, after a suspected hanging attempt. “Logistically speaking how does a person hang himself in solitary confinement under suicide watch?”asked conservative commentator Matt Walsh.
Adding to the conspiracy, one of Epstein’s alleged victims claimed to have been trafficked by the financier to a ‘who’s who’ of the world’s rich and powerful, including British Prince Andrew, billionaire investor Glenn Dublin, “another prince,” a “foreign president,” a “well-known prime minister,” and the owner of a French “large hotel chain.” The alleged victim’s testimony was unsealed on Friday, hours before Epstein’s suicide.
Even mainstream media talking heads and their followers saw conspiracy. Within an hour of the news breaking, “Clintons” and “#ClintonBodyCount” – referencing a decades-old conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for a string of suspicious suicides – were also trending on Twitter behind “Epstein.”
Predictably, there were a few die-hard #resistance members who managed to involve Russia, somehow.
For now, the case against Epstein goes with him to the grave. Epstein was the only defendant indicted, and would have faced 45 years in prison if found guilty.
Hoax 4-Eva! Banks Give Congress Documents on Trump’s Interactions with Russians
By Joshua Caplan
A group of banks has turned over documents on Russians who may have done business with President Donald Trump following a request from Congress, a Thursday report states.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Deutsche Bank gave lawmakers thousands of documents as part of a joint investigation by the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees into possible foreign influence over President Trump and members of his family. The former committee is chaired by none other than impeachment crusaders Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). These financial institutions are expected to transfer more documents to congressional investigators in the coming weeks, the Journal said.
Lawmakers issued subpoenas for the information in April.
“Separately, Deutsche Bank, Mr. Trump’s primary bank, has turned over emails, loan agreements and other documents related to the Trump Organization to the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, in response to a civil subpoena sent earlier this year, according to people familiar with the New York investigation,” the newspaper reports.
In April, President Trump, his three oldest children, and the Trump Organization sued Deutsche Bank and Capital One to prevent them from handing over their financial records to Congress. The president and his former real estate company also filed a lawsuit to block a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee seeking financial documents from Mazars, an accounting firm.
Last month, President Trump filed a civil lawsuit to prevent the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns from New York state officials.
The lawsuit, which was filed July 23rd in Washington against the House panel, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and New York State Department of Taxation and Finance commissioner Michael Schmidt, seeks an injunction to block a new state law. The law would allow the Democrat-controlled House and Ways Means Committee to obtain the president’s tax returns.
“Once it became clear that Treasury would not divulge the President’s federal tax returns, New York passed a law allowing the Committee to get his state returns,” reads the court filing. “That hyper-specific condition was, not coincidentally, already satisfied for the intended target of the Act: President Trump.”
The committee sued the Treasury Department and IRS officials in an attempt to enforce a law that allows its chairman, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), to obtain any taxpayer’s returns.
CNN RELABELS GUEST AS “CONTROVERSIAL PASTOR” AFTER HE REFUSED TO CRITICIZE TRUMP
Watch corporate media scramble to control narrative in real-time
By Ben Warren
CNN altered the description of a guest mid-interview to “controversial pastor” after the guest refused to criticize Trump; his bio had originally described him as one of the “faith leaders.”
After interviewer Don Lemon had pressed Reverend Bill Owens multiple times if he or other faith leaders had anything to say about Trump’s “attacks on leaders of color” during their Monday White House meeting, the interview – along with Owens’ descriptor chyron – shifted to a grilling of Owens’ past remarks, his Christian faith, and if he could even be taken seriously.
See the change for youself below:
CNN Twitter screenshot“So I know it’s hard for you, you think it’s hard to believe that Trump is racist,” said Lemon. “But he’s repeatedly used racially charged language. He consistently attacks black and brown elected leaders.”
“So, why is that hard to believe? Pastor?”
Owens responded by saying Trump is a leader of all colors who doesn’t racially discriminate who he attacks.
“I find President Trump a leader of all colors,” said Owens. “He attacks who he will. He’s his own man. I can’t dictate what he should or shouldn’t do.”
“But he does not just attack black people. He attacks anybody. And you know it.”
Lemon then used that response to attack Owens’ faith.
“So as a man of faith, as a Christian he attacks anyone,” said Lemon “It sounds like you’re condoning attacks? Is that Christianly or Godly?”
Watch the full interview while keeping an eye on the 2:34 mark to note the chyron change and shift in tone:
A recent tweet from Owens explains his opinion on the encounter.
“When we heard from CNN, I weighed the costs and decided that I can’t carry out our ministry unless I’m willing to get out of my comfort zone and bring our message to Left-leaning media and the people who watch it.”
Limbaugh tears into 2020 Dems in ‘Hannity’ exclusive
Radio show host Rush Limbaugh reacts the the field of Democratic presidential candidates and their policies
UK ‘up to its neck’ in Russiagate affair, says George Galloway, as secret texts reveal British role
While hysteria raged about possible Russian “interference” in the 2016 US election, British intelligence officials were secretly playing a “key role” in helping instigate investigations into Donald Trump, secret texts have shown.
“Turns out it was Britain that was the foreign country interfering in American affairs,” former MP George Galloway told RT, speaking about the new revelations published by the Guardian about early British involvement in the ‘Russiagate’ investigation.
The Guardian reported on texts between former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and Jeremy Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, who now heads GCHQ. The two men met in 2016 to discuss “our strange situation” – an apparent reference to Russia’s alleged interference in US domestic politics.
British intelligence “appears to have played a key role in the early stages,” the report said.
Galloway said the revelation was not surprising because people “already knew” that British intelligence had played a part in the Russia-related investigations in the US. He recalled that it was former British spy Christopher Steele who drew up the now-infamous Steele dossier, which made multiple unverifiable and salacious claims about Trump and has since been largely discredited. Britain is “up to its neck in the whole Russiagate affair,” he said.
The texts also reveal that the Brexit vote was viewed by some in the FBI as something that had been influenced by Russia.
Fear behind fury: As DNI, Ratcliffe could expose FISA files that Russiagaters hope stay buried
Asked what the UK stood to gain by trying to implicate Russia in a US election scandal at a time when then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson was dismissing baseless claims of Russian interference in the Brexit campaign, Galloway noted that Johnson’s comments on Russia have appeared to strangely sway between friendly and antagonistic.
Johnson is like “a sofa that bears the impression of the last person to sit upon him,” the former MP quipped. What happens next will depend on who is leading the tango, “the orange man in Washington or the blonde mop-head in London.”
In June 2016, the FBI opened a covert investigation codenamed ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ into Trump’s now disproven collusion with Moscow, which was later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Ultimately, the two-year-long probe that followed came up short, producing no evidence to prove a conspiracy or collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia.
Russiagate queen reigns no more: Rachel Maddow ratings tank after collusion narrative implodes
Once a shining beacon of hope for Russiagate true believers, it looks like Rachel Maddow has left her best days behind her; MSNBC’s conspiracy queen has seen her show plummet to fifth place in cable news ratings. What happened?
You rise fast and fall hard in the fickle world of television. Just last April, Maddow overtook Fox News’ Sean Hannity to claim the title of most-watched host across cable news. She had become a reliable source for Russigate aficionados to get their daily dose of crazy.
Sadly for Maddow, the latest data released by Nielsen shows her show in fifth place with a total audience of 2.4877 million viewers for July – behind Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and The Five (all Fox News shows).
Top 5 Russia-conspiracy fails of Rachel ‘highest-ratings-ever’ Maddow
For context, in January this year, Maddow still boasted an audience of nearly 3.3 million, which means she shed around 800,000 viewers in just six months. Maddow was also in fifth place among viewers in the 25-54 age range – the group most-favored by advertisers.
Ouch.
Once dubbed “the smartest person on TV” by Forbes (really), this is certainly not the big payoff Maddow was expecting, having dedicated three years of her career to breathlessly covering every twist and turn in the anticlimactic Trump-Russia “collusion” drama.
There’s no question that Maddow lost a major component of what had made her show so popular when former special counsel Robert Mueller showed up in March having found no evidence of conspiracy or collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
As former MSNBC host Krystal Ball noted last week in candid criticism of her former network colleague, Maddow had “built segment after segment, show after show, on building anticipation for a big reveal” that never materialized. Indeed, Maddow became something of an expert at promising her audience bombshells that never amounted to anything.
Recall the dramatic teaser tweet she sent out in March 2017 one hour before her show, claiming: “We’ve got Trump tax returns. (Seriously).” When the story turned out to be a big nothingburger (all she had was one boring form which revealed nothing particularly interesting), Maddow lashed out at her own viewers, saying people had “leapt” to conclusions.
Ball also accused Maddow of doing damage to the left, having become “swept up in the ratings bubble” that was being sustained by “feverish Russian conspiracy theories.”
It’s true. Seemingly convinced that the Russiagate story would end with Donald Trump being dragged from the White House in a dressing gown with shackles around his feet, Maddow had abandoned major issues that are important to the American left and trafficked in mental conspiracies and outright fear-mongering instead.
How about that time she suggested that Russia might kill the power in Fargo during a polar vortex and let everyone freeze to death? Or the time she spent three whole minutes dramatically building up to ‘reveal’ that Russia and North Korea share a border – followed by 15 more minutes trying to prove that Vladimir Putin had orchestrated and secretly controlled the Singapore summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un.
A study of her coverage by the Intercept last year showed that 53 percent of Maddow’s segments focused only on Russia over a six-week period between February and March.
Of course, there were no slaps on the wrist for Maddow at MSNBC HQ for getting stories drastically wrong or failing to deliver on her promises of Trump-destroying bombshells. In fact, it seemed the more dramatic and off-the-wall her coverage became, the more she was celebrated for it. This staggering fall from ratings grace can be her comeuppance.
Boo hoo, Rachel. If you need to cry, you could always use the piles of money you made from lies as tissues.
Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer based in Dublin. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, teleSUR, RBTH, The Calvert Journal and others.
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