Month: October 2020
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How a C.I.A. Coverup Targeted a Whistle-blower | The New Yorker
How a C.I.A. Coverup Targeted a Whistle-blower When a Justice Department lawyer exposed the agency’s secret role in drug cases, leadership in the intelligence community retaliated. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/09/how-a-cia-coverup-targeted-a-whistle-blower Before dawn on January 23, 2019, Mark McConnell arrived at the Key West headquarters of the military and civilian task force that monitors drugs…
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The Network: How a Secretive Phone Company Helped the Crime World Go Dark
The Network: How a Secretive Phone Company Helped the Crime World Go Dark Vince Ramos wanted Phantom Secure to be the Uber of privacy-focused, luxury-branded phones—flood the market with devices, and sort out the law later. Then the FBI investigated him. Link: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m4pj/the-network-vincent-ramos-phantom-secure “Sinaloa Cartel that’s what up,” Ramos said. “And my boy is Punjabi…
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Data Disappeared
Data Disappeared Over the past four years, the Trump administration has destroyed or distorted vast swaths of information vital to public life and safety. This is an account of the damage. via HuffPost Highline: https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/article/disappearing-data/#introduction Whenever President Donald Trump is questioned about why the United States has nearly three times more coronavirus cases than the…
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How America Escapes Its Conspiracy-Theory Crisis | The New Yorker
How America Escapes Its Conspiracy-Theory Crisis The Trump Presidency has taken us down the rabbit hole. A past era of reform suggests a way out. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-future-of-democracy/how-america-escapes-its-conspiracy-theory-crisis No consensus exists regarding how to counter the explosion of false information online, or its exploitation by politicians. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the…
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How Syria’s disinformation wars destroyed the co-founder of the White Helmets | News | The Guardian
How Syria’s disinformation wars destroyed the co-founder of the White Helmets The long read: In November 2019, James Le Mesurier, the British co-founder of the Syrian rescue group, fell to his death in Istanbul. What led an internationally celebrated humanitarian to take his own life? via the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/oct/27/syria-disinformation-war-white-helmets-mayday-rescue-james-le-mesurier The disinformation campaign quickly grew, its…
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Stranger Than Fiction — The Atavist Magazine
Stranger Than Fiction – The Atavist Magazine Inside the ‘Epoch Times’: How an aspiring poet in Brooklyn became a tool in a right-wing propaganda blitz linked to Falun Gong. via The Atavist Magazine: https://magazine.atavist.com/stranger-than-fiction-epoch-times-falun-gong-trump-election-2020 A few months later, NBC News published an online exposé about the Epoch Times’ rise as a right-wing media outlet. It…
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The Erasure of Arsenal’s Mesut Özil – The New York Times
The Erasure of Mesut Özil (Published 2020) A year ago, he was one of the Premier League’s highest-paid players. Now, after angering China and refusing a pay cut, he has simply vanished. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/sports/soccer/mesut-ozil-arsenal-china.html His avatar was removed from video games. Searching the internet for his name in China brought up error messages. (It was…
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Week Forty-Three
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Assignment: Police shooting two years later I’m sitting here thinking that I need to put something down under this photograph of Annie. I’ll never forget the moment, listening to her tell the story from a few feet away. So many mothers I have photographed. Posting this photo is not about showing off any photographic skills…
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Trump Had One Last Story to Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It. – The New York Times
Trump Had One Last Story to Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It. (Published 2020) Inside the White House’s secret, last-ditch effort to change the narrative, and the election — and the return of the media gatekeepers. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/business/media/hunter-biden-wall-street-journal-trump.html But the last two weeks have proved the opposite: that the old gatekeepers, like The Journal,…
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An Evening With Tim Heidecker | Stand-Up Special
An Evening With Tim Heidecker | Stand-Up Special Tim Heidecker, one of the country’s best stand-up comedians, is pleased to present his first-ever stand-up special, An Evening With Tim Heidecker, directed b… via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gnnFVRlucg&t=3032s
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Conservative News Sites Fuel Voter Fraud Misinformation – The New York Times
Conservative News Sites Fuel Voter Fraud Misinformation (Published 2020) Breitbart, The Washington Examiner and others amplify false claims of rampant cheating in what a new Harvard study calls a “propaganda feedback loop.” Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/business/media/voter-fraud-misinformation.html Breitbart, The Washington Examiner and others amplify false claims of rampant cheating in what a new Harvard study calls a “propaganda…
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I Miss You
I Miss You | Riz Ahmed I Miss You | Dedicated to the ones we miss and the ones we lost.Subscribe for new videos: https://smarturl.it/rizahmedyoutube-https://www.instagram.com/rizah… via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIkv4kApZYQ
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Be prolific – Chris Mytton
Be prolific Produce lots of stuff and share it. via Chris Mytton: https://www.chrismytton.com/be-prolific/ Being prolific doesn’t mean that everything you produce has to be absolute gold. But the process of producing large quantities of work ultimately leads to a higher quality of work.
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Meet Citizen Pain, the Most Self-Destructive Man in America – The Ringer
Meet Citizen Pain, the Most Self-Destructive Man in America Zacharias Holmes grew up idolizing the anarchy of ‘Jackass.’ Then he took their vision of chaos to a whole other level. This is the story of Zackass. via The Ringer: https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/10/21/21516074/zackass-zach-holmes-instagram He thought about this in November 2016. While he was fidgeting, half-naked, in his buddy…
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USC’s Dying Linebackers—Not So Much a Mystery – Sports Illustrated
In 1989, USC Had a Depth Chart of a Dozen Linebackers. Five Have Died, Each Before Age 50 None of them died on the field, but for each former Trojan, football was inextricably tied to mortality. These are their stories. via Sports Illustrated: https://www.si.com/college/2020/10/07/usc-and-its-dying-linebackers Scott tries to hang himself in the attic. He grabs his…
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Threats, Lies and Videotape: Prigozhin’s Long-Running War on Free Media – bellingcat
Threats, Lies and Videotape: Prigozhin’s Long-Running War on Free Media – bellingcat In our previous article from this investigation series, we described the origins and the state-run nature of Russia’s shadow military units, known collectively under the name “Wagner PMC” (private military company). We also identified the close collaborat via bellingcat: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/africa/2020/08/20/threats-lies-and-videotape-prigozhins-long-running-war-on-free-media/ In addition to…
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U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration Over Suspected Attacks – The New York Times
U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration Over Suspected Attacks (Published 2020) American officials in China, Cuba and Russia say U.S. agencies are concealing the true extent of the episodes, leaving colleagues vulnerable to hostile actions abroad. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/politics/diplomat-attacks-havana-syndrome.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage One of the biggest questions centers on whether Trump administration officials believe that Mr. Lenzi and…
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New York Post Published Hunter Biden Report Amid Newsroom Doubts – The New York Times
New York Post Published Hunter Biden Report Amid Newsroom Doubts (Published 2020) Some reporters withheld their bylines and questioned the credibility of an article that made the tabloid’s front page on Wednesday. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-post-hunter-biden.html The New York Post’s front-page article about Hunter Biden on Wednesday was written mostly by a staff reporter who refused to…
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As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place – The New York Times
As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place (Published 2020) A nationwide operation of 1,300 local sites publishes coverage that is ordered up by Republican groups and corporate P.R. firms. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/technology/timpone-local-news-metric-media.html Maine Business Daily is part of a fast-growing network of nearly 1,300 websites that aim to fill a void left…