Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy-one. Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset is 7:12 PM, for 12h 41m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 79.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1913, Oliver Hazard Perry achieves an American victory over Britain at the Battle of Lake Erie, capturing six British vessels. The victory “ensured American control of the lake for the rest of the war, which in turn allowed the Americans to recover Detroit and win the Battle of the Thames to break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh. It was one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812.” On this day in 1863, “Union forces, including 27th and 28th Wisconsin Infantry regiments, [win] engagements at Bayou Fourche and Little Rock, Arkansas.”
A tiny airport in central Wisconsin that’s seen an influx of private jets since a Republican donor’s world-class golf course opened nearby would get $4 million in improvements under funding slipped into the state budget this week.
The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee approved the funding after the developer of the Sand Valley Golf Resort, Michael Keiser, donated $25,000 to the state Republican Party in February, records reviewed by The Associated Press show.
That donation was three weeks after Gov. Scott Walker released his budget without funding for Wisconsin Rapids’ Alexander Field. Keiser has given at least $65,000 to Walker and Wisconsin Republicans since 2012….
….Moscow’s ties to the California secession movement, which received a boost following Donald Trump’s election, have seen the greatest coverage?—?understandably so, given the former #Calexit leader’s willingness to highlight his links to the Moscow-funded Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR) at every turn. Only so many people would be willing to open a “California Embassy” in Moscow, after all. (For my own writings on #Calexit’s myriad ties to Russia, in addition to the links above, click here, here, or here.) As Jonathon Morgan, the founder of Data for Democracy, noted a few months back in detailing the online footprint of Russia and California secessionists, the primary group pushing #Calexit was further “amplified by many of the same accounts that infiltrated conservative Twitter communities and promoted a pro-Trump, white nationalist agenda.” Not exactly an organic upswell.
#Calexit was further “amplified by many of the same accounts that infiltrated conservative Twitter communities and promoted a pro-Trump, white nationalist agenda.”
But for all of the egregious links between Russia and California separatists, the earliest foray into ties between Moscow-linked actors and American secession movements, per my research, was found in my former home: Texas. Back in 2015, I put together a piece for POLITICO Magazine detailing the ties between Lone Star secessionists and Russia, dovetailing off a recent visit from the Texas “foreign minister” to St. Petersburg, where the Texan turned to Russian media to fan the flames of secession. As local Russian officials were threatening to deliver arms to Mexico (and unidentified “guerrillas”) to allow Mexico City to reclaim Texas, Texas secessionists themselves were finding sympathetic ears in Moscow.
Then, in 2016, the same “foreign minister,” the Texas Nationalist Movement’s (TNM) Nathan Smith, returned to Russia, attending the same pro-secession conference as the California secessionists?—?and, this time, with the AGMR, the group behind the conference, receiving funding from the Kremlin. In the time since, it’s come out that the AGMR also helped fund the Texan’s travel to Russia….
A Facebook official on September 6 told The Washington Post there was evidence that fake accounts used to promote the Russian-bought Facebook ads were linked to the International Research Agency.
Past RFE/RL interviews with former employees of the Internet Research Agency’s operations paint a picture of a hard-charging operation that relies on a combination of methods — from generating fake news, disinformation, and memes to building up networks of fake social-media accounts run by “troll” employees who flood web forums with posts in an attempt to manipulate public opinion.
Lyudmila Savchuk told RFE/RL in 2015 that the firm was targeting Russian and English-language social-media sites at the time. “There are hundreds of people, operating around-the-clock, writing thousands of comments, texts, and posts on all social-media sites and blogs,” she recounted.
“They comment on media articles and write for social-networking sites, pretending to be ordinary people,” Savchuk said. “They run blogs under false pretenses. They promote ideas they were given through verbal or written instructions.”
As our society adapts to this new landscape —one the President aggravates by labeling any media that challenges him as “the enemy” or “fake news” — foreign adversaries look to spread their own propaganda. Their disinformation campaigns exploit our free and open media, sowing chaos and eroding democracy in the process.
When consuming media from any source, and in particular online, one must navigate our digital world carefully. Know what to look for, and help your family and friends avoid spreading misinformation too.
Here are four strategies to help you identify fake news:
1. Examine the source
First, look at the URL: have you ever heard of breakingnews365.net before? If you haven’t, be wary of the site’s contents….
2. Check your shock level
Did the article you just read shock you because it’s inconsistent with known facts? Did it seem designed to play on your emotions? If a claim or story seems outrageous, don’t take it at face value. It’s possibly twisted to confirm your worst fears and suspicions, or simply made up altogether….
3. Consult Google (or maybe Bing?)
….Example: Fox News, MSNBC and the New York Times each published an article about President Trump and Steve Bannon around August 15, 2017. While each source frames the story differently, it’s probably safe to conclude that this is real news….
4. Compensate for media bias
….Where do you gather your news, generally speaking? If it’s largely through TV, consider reading a newspaper. If you typically read Fox News articles online, consider watching CNN….
(On this last point, I’d suggest skipping Fox entirely; one can balance other networks adequately. Still, the point holds generally.)
