…I get it…I guess…sorta

As the presidential campaign begins its final sprint, Donald Trump has made crystal clear how he will respond if he loses. He will refuse to accept the results; he will make baseless claims of voter fraud; and he will turn, with even more ferocity than he did in 2020, to the courts to save him.

Mr. Trump has made clear that he views any election he loses — no matter how close or fair — as by definition illegitimate. The question then is whether there will be lawyers willing to cloak this insistence in the language of legal reasoning and therefore to assist him in litigating his way back to the White House.

Republican lawyers have already unleashed lawsuits ahead of Election Day. These legal partisans have pursued their efforts across the country but have concentrated on swing states and key counties. The moves are clearly intended to lay the groundwork for Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in states where the margins of victory are close.
[…]
At least since 2000, every close presidential election has involved recounts or litigation. Both sides lawyer up, and a high-stakes game of inches ensues.

…a fair bit of it is a re-run, after all

But Mr. Trump has already effectively told us that his post-election efforts this year will be something else entirely. He has insisted that any loss he suffers will be attributable to fraud, despite national polls that have him either neck and neck with Kamala Harris or down by a few points. He has already told us, in other words, that his post-election activities will be a power play in search of a legal theory.
[…]
After the 2020 election, major law firms stayed conspicuously on the sidelines as Mr. Trump mounted his scorched-earth litigation campaign to subvert the election’s results. This was noteworthy: For years leading up to that election, prominent lawyers from firms like Jones Day and Consovoy McCarthy represented Mr. Trump in cases from battles over access to his financial records to litigation surrounding the emoluments clause. In 2020, those firms even facilitated pre-election efforts to limit absentee voting.

Yet for the most part, seasoned and well-credentialed attorneys were nowhere to be found in Mr. Trump’s post-election litigation. Instead he was represented by lone-wolf lawyers — many of whom have now been either criminally charged or disbarred. Indeed, the most recent filing by the special counsel Jack Smith suggests that Mr. Trump was forced to enlist these attorneys after the campaign staff members initially involved with Mr. Trump’s post-election challenges insisted on “telling the defendant the truth that he did not want to hear — that he had lost.” By contrast, the filing alleges, the outside attorneys Mr. Trump enlisted were, as the filing described one such individual, “willing to falsely claim victory and spread knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

Most of those efforts failed spectacularly. But not all. Mr. Trump’s Wisconsin lawsuit, which sought to throw out significant numbers of ballots from Democratic strongholds, came within a single vote of succeeding on the state’s Supreme Court.

…so…there’s certainly some shit anyone who could pass the bar ought to have managed to get their head around by now

In his criminal cases, Mr. Trump has a right to competent and effective counsel, and it is important that he be well represented. But the right to counsel guaranteed by our Constitution does not extend to efforts to subvert that very document.

Lawyers cannot, consistent with their ethical obligations, participate in devising litigation that is retrofitted to support the position Mr. Trump seems to hold — that the only “real” Americans are those who cast their ballots for him and that those who vote against him are by definition engaging in fraud.

Attorneys at prominent law firms should already know that they cannot defensibly assist in Mr. Trump’s specious efforts. If they waver, their corporate clients should make clear they do not want their attorneys associating with a candidate who has already told us he will not respect the will of the voters if they do not choose him. General counsels at the companies whose businesses employ these firms, who are also members of the bar and members of the electorate, must also make their objections known. Where appropriate, state bars should be aggressive in sanctioning egregious professional conduct.

There is growing evidence that prominent conservative lawyers understand the dangers Mr. Trump poses. The former George W. Bush attorney general Alberto Gonzales recently announced his support for Ms. Harris. And a group of conservative lawyers, including the former Trump attorney Ty Cobb, sent Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia a letter last month urging him to investigate and potentially remove highly partisan members of the state’s election board.

Other prominent conservative attorneys should add their voices to this chorus, helping to convey the message that it is inconsistent with the basic obligations of the legal profession to aid Mr. Trump in a potential power grab.

There are limits to what law can do to deliver the country from Trumpism. But in a close election, it is critical that members of the bar refuse to deploy the law in service of Mr. Trump’s efforts to win at all costs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/13/opinion/trump-lawyers-election.html

…but…I go back & forth

It’s generally not hard to read a politician. You instinctively know when they are being sincere and when they are bullshitting. When push comes to shove, they just aren’t as smart as they would like us to believe they are. They are inherently bad actors. The only people they ever fool are themselves. You know the form. We could all tell when [a particular politician] was lying. It was whenever his lips moved.

But there are the odd moments when they are impossible to read. When no one can really be sure what is going on. Are they playing a sophisticated triple bluff? Or have they entered a parallel universe where they are so detached from reality that even they have no idea what they are doing? Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions was a case in point. One for the connoisseur of madness.

…who’s this one about? the name I took out was a pretty big clue but for now you can just ponder the potentially universal applicability of the opener to that one

…speaking of imponderables…when they talk about “undecided voters” & take their pick between “swing” & “battleground” when they talk about “the only states that matter” on account of not being supposedly predetermined outcomes…it’s just too…surreal?

‘Malicious’ texts sent to Wisconsin youths to discourage them from voting [Guardian]

Election rules passed by Trump-backed board ‘illegal’, declares judge [Guardian]

An international network of “race science” activists seeking to influence public debate with discredited ideas on race and eugenics has been operating with secret funding from a multimillionaire US tech entrepreneur.

Undercover filming has revealed the existence of the organisation, formed two years ago as the Human Diversity Foundation. Its members have used podcasts, videos, an online magazine and research papers to seed “dangerous ideology” about the supposed genetic superiority of certain ethnic groups.

The anti-racism campaign Hope Not Hate began investigating after encountering the group’s English organiser, a former religious studies teacher, at a far-right conference. Undercover footage was shared with the Guardian, which conducted further research alongside Hope Not Hate and reporting partners in Germany.

HDF received more than $1m from Andrew Conru, a Seattle businessman who made his fortune from dating websites, the recordings reveal. After being approached by the Guardian, Conru pulled his support, saying the group appeared to have deviated from its original mission of “non-partisan academic research”.

While it remains a fringe outfit, HDF is part of a movement to rehabilitate so-called race science as a topic of open debate. Labelled scientific racism by mainstream academics, it seeks to prove biological differences between races such as higher average IQ or a tendency to commit crime. Its supporters claim inequality between groups is largely explained by genetics rather than external factors like discrimination.
[…]
In one conversation, HDF’s organiser was recorded discussing “remigration” – a euphemism for the mass removal of ethnic minorities – saying: “You’ve just got to pay people to go home.” The term has become a buzzword on the hard right, with Donald Trump using it in September to describe his own policies in a post on X that has been viewed 56m times.

In Germany, protesters took to the streets in February after it emerged politicians had attended a conference on “remigration” in Potsdam. Among the delegates was an activist called Erik Ahrens.

Already notorious in Germany, he has been designated a “rightwing extremist” by authorities, who have concluded he poses an “extremely high” danger, particularly in regard to the radicalisation of young people.

This investigation reveals Ahrens spent months working with members of HDF.
[…]
Unknown to Ahrens, his speech at the Little Ship was being recorded. A researcher for Hope Not Hate spent more than a year undercover posing as a would-be donor, covertly filming a wide circle of activists and academics with an interest in race science and eugenics.

Also present at the event was Matthew Frost. A former teacher at a £30,000-a-year private school in London, Frost was until recently editor of the online magazine and podcast Aporia. He publishes under the name Matthew Archer.

Between October and November last year, Frost and Ahrens were filmed pitching plans for what they called a “gentlemen’s club”, with members paying for networking and training courses. While the plan now appears to have been abandoned, Ahrens seemed to suggest that recruits could be transformed into an elite group modelled on the SS, the Nazi party’s paramilitary wing. On his phone screen, he pulled up a video of muscular men punching each other in a field, overseen by a drill instructor. “This is what we want to build as well,” he said.
[…]
Frost began publishing on Substack in April 2022. Since his first post – titled “The Smartest Nazi”, about IQ tests administered at the Nuremberg trials – his newsletter, Aporia, has become one of the platform’s most popular science publications, with more than 14,000 subscribers and hundreds of posts and podcasts.

“We’d rather be read by a few billionaires than 10,000 new normies,” Frost said. “Judging by our email lists, this is already happening. I can look down, I can see academics, entrepreneurs, journalists … I can see very important people, and that’s what we want to grow further.”

The blog was sold to HDF early in its development, and was the key part of its media arm, Frost said.

Aporia presents its output as impartial exploration of controversial ideas. However, some of its content appears to have gradually become more nakedly political, with headlines such as “What is white identity?” and “America must have race realism”.

Frost described his goal as to influence wider society, saying he wanted to “become something bigger, become that policy, front-facing thinktank, and bleed into the traditional institutions”. Mainstream writers had been commissioned by Aporia for “legitimacy via association”.

Trump, who has promised mass deportations should he win a second term as US president, told an interviewer last month: “We got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” In June Steve Sailer, credited with rebranding scientific racism as “human biodiversity”, was given a platform by the former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson on his podcast.
[…]
The language of race science is filtering into UK politics. A candidate for Nigel Farage’s Reform party was disavowed this summer after he was discovered to have claimed: “By importing loads of sub-Saharan Africans plus Muslims that interbreed the IQ is in severe decline.”

In addition to Aporia, Frost claimed the group controlled output from a YouTuber called Edward Dutton, the keynote speaker at October’s Little Ship event, who has more than 100,000 subscribers to his channel.

Known for diatribes on “dysgenics”, a term for the supposed deterioration of genetic stock, Dutton’s recent videos include one titled: “You’re more related to a random white person than your half-African child.” In another, he toured Clacton-on-Sea wearing a cravat, describing it as “one of the most dysgenic towns in the UK”.

Dutton said he did not support eugenics and had never signed any contract with HDF. He suggested it was using his name to impress others.

Frost told the Guardian he did not hold far-right views. He announced his departure from Aporia in August. The newsletter continues to be published under a new editor.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/revealed-international-race-science-network-secretly-funded-by-us-tech-boss

…wanna bet they’d also say they were “undecided voters” who need to be pandered to? …it’d be…on brand…not least on account of the spectacular way that formulation appears to disenfranchise the overwhelming majority of the citizenry in a way that penalizes anything approaching taking your voting responsibilities seriously, let alone dilligently…while prizing such an overwhelming lack of due dilligence as to purportedly lack the necessary information all the way down to the wire…while insisting that counterfactuals be given primacy over substantive & objective realities…&…if that’s your real deal…then sure…you’re a punchline…& you should absolutely do what the man says

…but…most of those assholes clearly don’t actually have to make their minds up…becuase either they already did or they don’t have the necessary brain in the first place…so…it’s tempting to make fun of what that looks like

…so…while the type of people still showing up in focus groups of self-identified “undecided voters” might really mean “voters who want to be told their vote counts more than everyone else’s exactly the way it’s not supposed to be because they always knew they were special”…that’s…not really what all the places referencing them all the damn time mean when they use them as a workaround for saying “everything we’ve been saying for years in defiance of the wealth of readily available information that paints this as a choice between an option you may or may not like…& an option that emphatically would make pretty much everything pretty much everywhere definitively worse for pretty much everyone – but for a variety of reasons from the contrived to the systemic to a few that are actually by design the truth is that the outcome is not, in point of fact, predetermined…& hence what we’re saying, when you get down to it, is we don’t know but we’re paid to guess & after the last few of these our guess is…nobody knows”…& offering up people prepared to say with a straight face that they don’t know is way less work than breaking down the shocking difference it makes if you imagine a scenario in which all the ways one side is furiously straining to stack the deck in their favor…&…the one that isn’t trying to get a felon to never go to jail…so…real talk…europeans don’t get to pretend it’s all the yanks’ fault

HDF’s owner, Emil Kirkegaard, has made similar comments about “remigration”, saying of families settled for two or three generations: “I generally support policies that pay them to leave.”

Kirkegaard, who also appears to use the name William Engman, is an author of more than 40 papers published by Mankind Quarterly, a British race science journal established in the 1960s.

Originally from Denmark and now living in Germany, he heads what Frost described as an “underground research wing” for HDF consisting of about 10 hobby researchers and academics.

Ongoing HDF projects, discussed in a video call between the group last year that was led by Kirkegaard, included studies into “international dysgenics”, whether dating apps alter human breeding, whether people with progressive opinions are mentally ill or whether Wikipedia editors are too leftwing.

Kirkegaard responded by saying: “The HDF is not involved in politics. It’s not affiliated with any political party or group. If one must attribute some company values to the HDF, these are those of the Enlightenment: reason, science, open mindedness, and free speech.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/revealed-international-race-science-network-secretly-funded-by-us-tech-boss

…you know…I’m not “involved in politics”…beyond paying a modicum of attention because I don’t like taking tests I haven’t studied for & it’s not actually difficult so much as distasteful…like…eating your vegetables if you’re a certain sort of kid…that to be honest I don’t meet as many of as I did when I was one of them…but that’s probably not the point…or maybe it is…if I’m right that enough vegetarians could neutralize the carbon-footprint required to keep steak in my dietary rotation until I get around to shuffling off this mortal coil…but…I’m also not “affiliated with any political party or group”…in the sense that guy has to mean that…which is a pretty narrow definition if they can escape its local gravity…hell, the US dem platform conforms to where I land on a bunch of stuff a lot less well than the other side of that divide maps onto their whole deal from soup to nuts…so I’m in international waters while they’re hugging the coast…which must make me more open minded & with even free-r speech…because…that’s how this works, apparently?

Kamala Harris faced a grilling on Fox News, with host Bret Baier pressing the vice-president on immigration, the economy and the Biden administration in a 30-minute interview on Wednesday night.

The Democratic candidate’s first appearance on the conservative network formed part of a direct appeal to right-leaning voters, after she was joined by more than 100 Republicans at a campaign event in Pennsylvania earlier in the day.

The interview was combative, with Harris, towards the end, speaking over Baier as she asked him to interview her “grounded in full assessment of the facts”, while calling him out for playing clips that she said were not relevant to what they were discussing.

Here are the key takeaways:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/17/kamala-harris-fox-news-interview-key-takeaways

[…well…the guardian’s, anyway…YMMV]

…so…look…I get it…what’s going on surrounding israel is up there with being about as not-ok as it seems plausible for things to get even in the context of a nation state the existence of which is predicated on shit so not-ok that enshrining its denizens as immune to genocide on a sort of global “scout’s honor” basis…which is saying something…albeit something that implies more than it seems to effect

Britain is considering imposing sanctions against far-right Israeli ministers, Sir Keir Starmer has said, as pressure grows on Israel over its conduct in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

Lord David Cameron, the former Tory foreign secretary, had been planning to blacklist Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir before the UK’s general election, he revealed this week.

Asked about the Labour government’s view on the proposal by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, the UK prime minister told MPs on Wednesday: “We are looking at that.”

Davey drew attention to Smotrich’s remarks this summer, in which the far-right minister suggested it might be “justified and moral” to starve 2mn people in Gaza. Ben-Gvir also praised settlers suspected of murdering a teenage Palestinian in the West Bank last year as “heroes”.

Starmer condemned the “abhorrent” comments by the Israeli ministers and highlighted “really concerning activity” in the West Bank. He added: “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire. The death toll has passed 42,000 and access to basic services is becoming much harder.

“Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes and provide the UN humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively.”

…& maybe I’m just bitter & cynical & I’ve watched one too many clips with lewis black or doug stanhope in

…but if they thought that doing it would have made a difference that would have saved countless lives & not made them look impotent rather than being able to claim the people who took their jobs are inneffective…that would have less of a sure-jan-dot-gif ring to it…

Cameron said earlier this week that he had been “working up” plans to impose sanctions on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in the days before the general election was called in May.

The proposal was then considered “too much of a political act” to pursue during the six-week purdah period before British voters headed to the polls, Cameron added.

Speaking to the BBC, he branded the two Israeli ministers “extremist” and urged Starmer to consider hitting them with sanctions to put pressure on Israel to comply with international law.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson declined to provide further details on the sanctions under review, but said: “We will continue to take action to challenge those responsible for illegal settlement and violence.”

Starmer tells MPs that government is ‘looking at’ imposing curbs over ‘abhorrent’ comments on Gaza [FT]

…so…something’s better than nothing…but might still leave a lot to be desired

The US has demanded proof on the ground that Israel does not have a policy of starvation in northern Gaza as it turned up the pressure on the Netanyahu government to allow more aid into the territory.

The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the security council on Wednesday at a meeting convened by France UK and Algeria that such a policy “would not just be horrific and unacceptable” but also had “implications under international and US law”.

“The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this statement,” she added.

Her warning came after a US government letter sent to Israel privately on Sunday, warning it would partly cut off arms supplies unless the supply of aid was permanently transformed within 30 days.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/urgent-un-security-council-meeting-called-amid-pressure-on-israel-to-allow-aid-into-gaza

…so…I get how there’s a pretty obvious demographic that want the leverage that comes from making a point about how their vote isn’t something they feel she’s done enough to deserve…& they get thrown into that “undecided” basket you can call anything so long as it isn’t deplorable

Let’s review the latest headlines: The United States is sending an advanced antimissile system to Israel, along with U.S. troops to operate it. Iran’s foreign minister says there will be “no red lines” governing Iran’s retaliation for any Israeli retaliation for Iran’s latest missile retaliation. And reports from the Persian Gulf say Iran has quietly told Arab gulf states that if Iran is hit by Israel, Tehran may respond by striking Arab oil fields. If all of this does not terrify you, you are not paying attention.

May I make a suggestion?

How about sending our savvy C.I.A. director, Bill Burns, to meet his Iranian counterpart on neutral turf in Muscat, Oman, with a real strategy for coercive diplomacy vis-à-vis Iran that might actually work to change the Tehran regime’s behavior? Burns could say to the Iranian intelligence chief something like the following:

“Let me tell you how your country looks from C.I.A. headquarters: You are infiltrated, exposed and isolated.

“Infiltrated? We heard that the latest joke going around Tehran is that your supreme leader is in hiding and the only ones who know where he is are the Israelis. Israel’s intelligence is very good, but the only reason it could have penetrated your leadership and Hezbollah’s so deeply is that so many Iranian and Lebanese Shiites hate both regimes and are ready to spy for Israel. So, you have no idea today when you talk to one another or to Hezbollah whether the person you’re talking to is working for Israel or you.

“Exposed? You, Iran, have fired nearly 500 rockets at Israel since April and did not destroy a single military target or kill a single Israeli soldier. I don’t have to tell you that on April 19, an Israeli airstrike on Iran damaged an S-300 air defense system at the Eighth Shekari Air Base in Isfahan. It was reported that Israel had deployed aerial drones and fired at least one missile from a warplane with stealth technology — and you never saw them coming. You are N-A-K-E-D.

“And finally, you are isolated. Israel has badly damaged your Hezbollah militia, in which you have invested billions of dollars, so it is no longer your protection against an Israeli strike on your nuclear facilities. We have inflicted heavy damage on your Houthi militia in Yemen. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is fed up with you and wants you out of his country, and the Arab gulf states are now doing all they can to woo Assad away from Iran. The mainstream Iraqi Shiite party led by Muqtada al-Sadr hates you for the way your regime and militias have stolen so much oil revenue from Iraq and dragged your Iraqi proxies into your fight with Israel. Polls show how unpopular your regime is across the Arab world. Even Vladimir Putin does not want to see you get a nuclear bomb. A nuclear-armed Iran to his south? He’s not that crazy.

“So this is a moment of truth for Iran. You have two paths: Either change your behavior or risk collapsing under the weight of your own recklessness. But when I say change your behavior, this time I mean something different from when we negotiated the nuclear agreement with you during the Obama administration.

“We made a mistake back then. We were obsessed with curbing the weapon you were never likely to use — a nuclear bomb, if you could even make one — while ignoring the weapon you were using every day to undermine our interests, the interests of our Arab allies, indeed the interests of most citizens in the region craving stability, not to mention Israel. And that was your implantation of militias armed with increasingly more precise and longer-and-longer-range rockets in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Your proxies crippled those states from the inside and threatened Israel and our Arab allies on the outside.

“We are not playing that game anymore. If you continue using your regional militias to attack Israel and you get into a no-holds-barred missile shootout with Tel Aviv, we are going to protect the Israelis, and you are going to get absolutely hammered. And if you carry out your threat to attack Saudi or U.A.E. oil fields to deter us, or close the Strait of Hormuz, your oil industry will be crushed. And your people will not forgive you. No wonder our intel tells us that you are panicked about an Israeli strike.

[…] We also need to sharpen the choices for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel: We must not be in the business of making Israel safe so that a radical messianic government can annex the West Bank. If we are going to keep resupplying Israel with missiles and even dispatch U.S.-run missile systems, Bibi needs to purge the settler lunatics from his cabinet, forge a national unity coalition and agree to open talks with a reformed Palestinian Authority — with a new technocratic cabinet led by credible leaders like former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad — on a two-state solution.

That would pave the way for the U.A.E. and other moderate Arab states to deploy troops to Gaza and for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel and forge a security agreement with Washington.

Let me put this as clearly as I can: This crisis in the Middle East will not end until Israel clearly defines its eastern border and declares that everything beyond it is reserved for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, once Palestinians meet the legitimate security requirements Israel needs to accept a two-state solution. Israel needs to be out of the Jewish settlements business — now. Israel’s creeping West Bank annexation is destroying its legitimacy as a democracy, when its self-defense requires all the friends it can get in the region and beyond.

Even more important, though, this crisis in the Middle East will not end until Iran, in effect, defines its western border and declares that everything beyond that is for the Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis, Israelis and Palestinians to decide — so long as they respect Iran’s legitimate security needs. Iran needs to be out of the Islamic imperialism business.

In short, we really need some creative, coercive U.S. diplomacy right now to finally put an end to both Israel’s and Iran’s colonial projects, which feed each other. That is the necessary but not sufficient condition for defusing the madness in this region. Israel cannot afford to be in a long-term, large-scale missile war with Iran. It is too small. Iran is too big and the United States is running low on interceptors to protect Israel — should Iran and all its proxies fire on Israel at once. And Iran cannot afford to be in a large-scale missile war with Israel because the United States and its allies have run out of patience with its reckless adventurism that is destabilizing the whole region.

It’s Time for America to Get Real With Iran and Israel [NYT]

…&…opinion & all…much in the way that tommy “middle initial” friedman’s might represent a relative value of “getting real” & such…but also…isn’t that a big part of the problem…because campaign season for the presidential race has been a constant since drumfty-trumpty shot his load the first time…since when a subjective century has passed in the space of less than a decade & covid made us lose time like alien abductees &…not to put to fine a point on it…we’ve kinda been in limbo?

…so…all due respect to georgie boy “middle-initial” will…but…either we’re not there yet…or he’s late to acknowledging this part his ownself

With hindsight, it is apparent that World War II, a cascade of crises initiated by the coalescing Axis of Japan, Germany and Italy, began with Japan’s 1931 occupation of Manchuria. Posterity might conclude that World War III began before Russia’s renewed aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, and no later than Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea.
[…]
On Monday, the Financial Times reported that the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service said that this year a parcel burst into flames before it was to be loaded on a plane at a DHL freight center in Leipzig. The official said that if the fire had started in flight, the plane would have crashed. He described this episode while detailing a dramatic increase of “aggressive behavior” by Russian agents.

The Wall Street Journal said the head of Britain’s domestic security agency MI5 reported a “staggering rise” in attacks in Europe, coordinated by Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. They are aimed at disrupting arms production, intimidating politicians and sowing panic in the streets:

“This summer seven people were accused by U.K. authorities of setting fire to a London warehouse owned by Ukrainian businessmen. … Russian saboteurs are also suspected of being behind a fire at a Berlin factory that builds air-defense systems. In France, prosecutors are investigating a possible Russian connection after two people were found spray painting more than 200 Star of David symbols on buildings. … There has also been a spate of arson attacks in the Baltics and Eastern Europe.”

The MI5 head also said, according to the Journal, that Russia and Iran are using criminals in targeted nations to commit arson, sabotage, and attack Russian and Iranian dissidents abroad. The paper noted that a Spanish politician who supports an Iranian opposition group “was shot in the face in broad daylight late last year.”

North Korean military engineers are assisting Russian launches of ballistic missiles at Ukrainian targets. This month, North Koreans reportedly were killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on Russian territory. Russia’s arsenal includes North Korean missiles and large-caliber ammunition.

From Russia’s western border to the waters where China is aggressively encroaching on Philippine sovereignty, the theater of today’s wars and almost-war episodes spans six of the globe’s 24 time zones. This is what “the gathering storm” (the title of the first of the six volumes of Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs) of a world war looks like.

The U.S. presidential campaign is what reckless disregard looks like. Neither nominee has given any evidence of awareness of, let alone serious thinking about, the growing global conflagration.

…the willster chooses to end on an ominous note about what happens when storms quit gathering & get to raging…right after this part

This world disorder, more than spending extravaganzas (defense not included), will define the Biden-Harris administration’s reputation. And this year Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Putin-adjacent prime minister, who opposes aiding Ukraine, visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago twice in 125 days.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/16/world-war-presidential-election-harris-trump/

…but I’d quibble…I don’t think there’s a shortage of evidence that either have thought about that stuff…or easy ways to distinguish whose contribution might be in the wider interests of any citizens of the globe who might like not to be living through world war III (the fuckwittening)

Bret Baier, Fox News’s chief political anchor, is seen as a straight news counterbalance to the vitriol of Fox News’s evening shows, but still came with a laundry list of rightwing topics, including immigration, the rights of transgender people and Joe Biden’s performance, as Harris attempted to sell herself to the channel’s older, largely Republican, audience.

Harris was asked if there was anything she “would do differently” from Joe Biden, as Baier played a clip of the vice-president, in a previous interview, saying there is “not a thing that comes to mind” that she would have changed. That response has become an attack point among Republicans as they seek to tie Harris to the unpopular Biden administration.

“Let me be very clear. My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership,” Harris said.

“For example, as someone who has not spent the majority of my career in Washington DC, I invite ideas: whether it be from the Republicans who are supporting me, who were just on stage with me minutes ago, and the business sector and others, who can contribute to the decisions that I make.”

Baier pointed to polling which shows a majority of Americans believe the country is “on the wrong track”, and asked Harris why they were saying that when she has been vice-president since January 2021. Harris suggested the polls show a fatigue with Biden and Trump, given the latter has “been running for office” since 2016.

Harris noted that several high-profile former members of the Trump administration now believe “that he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader, who spends full time demeaning and engaging in personal grievances”.

Baier asked why, given those criticisms, Trump has support of “half the country”. He added: “Are they stupid?”

“I would never say that about the American people. And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean, and belittle, and diminish the American people,” Harris said.

“He’s the one who talks about an enemy within. An enemy within, talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.”
[…]
Trump had appeared on a Fox News town hall episode which aired earlier on Wednesday, where he doubled down on his comments about “the enemy from within”. He characterized this alleged internal enemy, which he has said should be “handled by” the military, as “the Pelosis” and his other political opponents.

The former president had reacted furiously to the news that Baier would be interviewing Harris, posting on social media that the anchor was “often very soft to those on the ‘cocktail circuit’ left” and falsely claiming that Fox News “has grown so weak and soft on the Democrats”.
[…]
Polls show Harris and Trump effectively tied in most swing states, as both campaigns seek to convince voters before 5 November. Harris’s appearance on Fox News came amid a raft of interviews over the past week. She was interviewed on CBS’s prestigious 60 Minutes news show, sat down with the crowd from The View talkshow, appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast, and on Tuesday spoke with radio host Charlamagne tha God.

Harris is also reportedly in negotiations to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast – the most popular podcast in the US, which has a large following among young men. Trump, who refused to take part in a second debate on CNN with Harris, has said he will appear on Rogan’s podcast.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/16/kamala-harris-fox-news-interview

…rogan’s said…more than once I think I’ve seen…that he’s turned down that guest repeatedly…but maybe he will…& how many times he’s spoken to elon leaves me well short of having any belief it’s a meaningful line even in hypothetical sand…but…there we all are, stuck in the realpolitik middle with…who…still?

Global internet freedom took another step backward this year as more than half the world’s population headed to the polls, with over two dozen countries imposing restrictions on the web, according to an annual report on free expression online.

Protections for human rights online declined for the 14th straight year and many elections were undermined by government censorship, the Freedom House nonprofit found in its latest review of the state of internet freedom.

“So many elections over the past year deepened the crisis for human rights online that we’ve been tracking,” said Allie Funk, who leads the Washington-based group’s technology and democracy initiative.

In 25 of the 41 countries that held or prepared for elections and were assessed by Freedom House, governments blocked websites, restricted social media access or shut off internet connectivity, according to the report. And in 21 of the countries, pro-government commentators manipulated content online or promoted falsehoods about the electoral process, the group found.

…&…yes…some of that is sketchy

Researchers said the findings highlight how government leaders around the world continue to perceive the internet as a threat to their power and seek to curtail it, particularly in election years when political rivals challenge their standing.

“Often the goal of this censorship was to suppress independent reporting or limit opposition parties’ ability to reach supporters,” Funk told the Tech Brief.

In a huge year for global elections, internet freedom took another hit [WaPo]

…but…if there’s one place where WWIII has been well under way arguably since its inception it’s all things www

Much remains unknown about Storm-1516 — one prong of Russia’s propaganda operation — but it has produced some of the country’s most far-reaching and influential disinformation.

The Storm-1516 campaigns rely on faked primary sources — audio, video, photos, documents — presented as evidence of the claims’ veracity. They are then laundered through international news sources and influencers to reach their ultimate target: a mainstream Western audience.

How Russian disinformation is reaching the U.S. ahead of the 2024 election [NBC]

…& maybe he’s making headlines about door-knocking

Inside Elon Musk’s plan to trigger a ‘red wave’ for Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/15/musk-america-pac-door-knocking/

…that’s new…while this part is old (& repeatedly-shown-to-be-fake) news

An AI-powered bot army on X spread pro-Trump and pro-GOP propaganda, research shows

…&…that’s time

…so…if only to get around to revealing which country that unattributed block quote paints in the least flattering light…I’m going to need injury time

An army of political propaganda accounts powered by artificial intelligence posed as real people on X to argue in favor of Republican candidates and causes, according to a research report out of Clemson University.

The report details a coordinated AI campaign using large language models (LLM) — the type of artificial intelligence that powers convincing, human-seeming chat bots like ChatGPT — to reply to other users.

While it’s unclear who operated or funded the network, its focus on particular political pet projects with no clear connection to foreign countries indicates it’s an American political operation, rather than one run by a foreign government, the researchers said.

As the November elections near, the government and other watchdogs have warned of efforts to influence public opinion via AI-generated content. The presence of a seemingly coordinated domestic influence operation using AI adds yet another wrinkle to a rapidly developing and chaotic information landscape.

The network identified by the Clemson researchers included at least 686 identified X accounts that have posted more than 130,000 times since January. It targeted four Senate races and two primary races and supported former President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. Many of the accounts were removed from X after NBC News emailed the platform for comment. The platform did not respond to NBC News’ inquiry.

The accounts followed a consistent pattern. Many had profile pictures that appealed to conservatives, like the far-right cartoon meme Pepe the frog, a cross or an American flag. They frequently replied to a person talking about a politician or a polarizing political issue on X, often to support Republican candidates or policies or denigrate Democratic candidates. While the accounts generally had few followers, their practice of replying to more popular posters made it more likely they’d be seen.

Fake accounts and bots designed to artificially boost other accounts have plagued social media platforms for years. But it’s only with the advent of widely available large language models in late 2022 that it has been possible to automate convincing, interactive human conversations at scale.

“I am concerned about what this campaign shows is possible,” Darren Linvill, the co-director of Clemson’s Media Hub and the lead researcher on the study, told NBC News. “Bad actors are just learning how to do this now. They’re definitely going to get better at it.”
[…]
The researchers determined that the accounts were in the same network by assessing metadata and tracking the contents of their replies and the accounts that they replied to — sometimes the accounts repeatedly attacked the same targets together.

Clemson researchers identified many accounts in the network via text in their posts that indicated that they had “broken,” where their text included reference to being written by AI. Initially, the bots appeared to use ChatGPT, one of the most tightly controlled LLMs. In a post tagging Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, one of the accounts wrote: “Hey there, I’m an AI language model trained by OpenAI. If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask!” OpenAI declined to comment.

In June, the network reflected that it was using Dolphin, a smaller model designed to circumvent restrictions like those on ChatGPT, which prohibits using its product to mislead others. In some tweets from the accounts, text would be included with phrases like “Dolphin here!” and “Dolphin, the uncensored AI tweet writer.”
[…]
The researchers only found evidence of the campaign on X. Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, pledged upon taking over in 2022 to eliminate bots and fake accounts from the platform. But Musk also oversaw deep cuts when he took over the company, then Twitter, which included parts of its trust and safety teams.

It’s not clear exactly how the campaign automated the process of generating and posting content on X, but multiple consumer products allow for similar types of automation and publicly available tutorials explain how to set up such an operation.

…which…actually

The report says that part of the reason it believed the network is an American operation is because of its hyper-specific support of some Republican campaigns. Documented foreign propaganda campaigns consistently reflect priorities from those countries: China opposes U.S. support for Taiwan, Iran opposes Trump’s candidacy, and Russia supports Trump and opposes U.S. aid to Ukraine. All three have for years denigrated the U.S. democratic process and tried to stoke general discord via social media propaganda campaigns.

“All of those actors are driven by their own goals and agenda,” Linvill said. “This is most likely a domestic actor because of the specificity of most of the targeting.”

If the network is American, it likely isn’t illegal, said Larry Norden, a vice president of the elections and government program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit group, and the author of a recent analysis of state election AI laws.

“There’s really not a lot of regulation in this space, especially at the federal level,” Norden said. “There’s nothing in the law right now that requires a bot to identify itself as a bot.”

If a super PAC were to hire a marketing firm or operative to run such a bot farm, it wouldn’t necessarily appear as such on its disclosure forms, Norden said, potentially coming from a staffer or a vendor.

While the United States government has taken repeated actions to neuter deceitful foreign propaganda operations aimed at swaying Americans’ political opinion, the U.S. intelligence community generally does not plan to combat U.S.-based disinformation operations.

Social media platforms routinely purge coordinated, fake personas they accuse of coming from government propaganda networks, particularly from China, Iran and Russia. But whereas those operations have at times hired hundreds of employees to write fake content, AI now allows most of that process to be automated.

Often those fake accounts struggle to gain an organic following before they are detected, but the network detected by Clemson’s researchers tapped into existing follower networks by replying to larger accounts. LLM technology also could aid in avoiding detection by allowing for the quick generation of new content, rather than copying and pasting.

While Clemson’s is the first clearly documented network that systematically uses LLMs to reply and shape political conversations, there is evidence that others are also using AI in propaganda campaigns on X.

In a press call in September about foreign operations to influence the election, a U.S. intelligence official said that Iran and especially Russia’s online propaganda efforts have included tasking AI bots to reply to users, though the official declined to speak to the scale of those efforts or share additional details.

Dolphin’s founder, Eric Hartford, told NBC News that he believes the technology should reflect the values of whoever uses it.

“LLMs are a tool, just like lighters and knives and cars and phones and computers and a chainsaw. We don’t expect a chainsaw to only work on trees, right?”

…feels appropriate?

“I’m producing a tool that can be used for good and for evil,” he said.

Hartford said that he was unsurprised that someone had used his model for a deceptive political campaign.

“I would say that is just a natural outcome of the existence of this technology, and inevitable,” he said.

An AI-powered bot army on X spread pro-Trump and pro-GOP propaganda, research shows [NBC]

…remind you of anyone…or anything…say…a thing that used to go by another name & is now synonymous with a lot of things you’d think it wouldn’t want to be but the asshole that nominally owns the operation has a thing for…or indeed…against?

We turn to social apps for news, political discussions and up-to-date information, but much of what we see is decided by sets of algorithms that try to prioritize the content we like while showing us ads at regular intervals.

How those algorithms make decisions is largely a black box, and critics have long called on social media companies to be more transparent. Major political figures have accused the companies of using algorithms to censor speech, while regular users worry their posts are being suppressed based on biased criteria.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/16/shadowban-social-media-algorithms-twitter-tiktok/

…& behind the curtain

The role of cybersecurity leaders has never been more vital—or more stressful. A new study from BlackFog reveals that nearly a quarter of CISOs and IT Security Decision Makers are actively considering leaving their roles, with 93% citing overwhelming stress as the key driver. As organizations face mounting pressure from increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats, including AI-powered attacks, ransomware, and data exfiltration, CISOs are working longer hours with fewer resources. This growing cybersecurity burnout crisis has a direct impact on organizations, and highlights the urgent need for businesses to better support their security teams.
[…]
The stress driving these leaders to the brink isn’t solely due to heavy workloads. The nature of the cyberthreats they face has changed dramatically. Traditional threats like phishing and malware are still prevalent, but today’s attackers are leveraging cutting-edge technologies to launch more advanced, AI-driven assaults. The BlackFog research found that 42% of respondents are most concerned about the rise of AI-enabled cyberattacks​. These attacks, which use machine learning to evade detection, have increased in frequency and sophistication, making them more difficult to defend against.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2024/10/15/the-cybersecurity-burnout-crisis-is-reaching-the-breaking-point/

…so you can come at it from all manner of…err…vectors?

Would banning ransomware insurance stop the scourge? [The Register]

…but…we kinda don’t have a choice other than to get at it

More than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action is taken to conserve water resources and end the destruction of the ecosystems on which our fresh water depends, experts have warned in a landmark review.

Half the world’s population already faces water scarcity, and that number is set to rise as the climate crisis worsens, according to a report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water published on Thursday.

Demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of the decade, because the world’s water systems are being put under “unprecedented stress”, the report found.

The commission found that governments and experts have vastly underestimated the amount of water needed for people to have decent lives. While 50 to 100 litres a day are required for each person’s health and hygiene, in fact people require about 4,000 litres a day in order to have adequate nutrition and a dignified life. For most regions, that volume cannot be achieved locally, so people are dependent on trade – in food, clothing and consumer goods – to meet their needs.

Some countries benefit more than others from “green water”, which is soil moisture that is necessary for food production, as opposed to “blue water” from rivers and lakes. The report found that water moves around the world in “atmospheric rivers” which transport moisture from one region to another.

About half the world’s rainfall over land comes from healthy vegetation in ecosystems that transpires water back into the atmosphere and generates clouds that then move downwind. China and Russia are the main beneficiaries of these “atmospheric river” systems, while India and Brazil are the major exporters, as their landmass supports the flow of green water to other regions. Between 40% and 60% of the source of fresh water rainfall is generated from neighbouring land use.

“The Chinese economy depends on sustainable forest management in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Baltic region,” said Prof Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the co-chairs of the commission. “You can make the same case for Brazil supplying fresh water to Argentina. This interconnectedness just shows that we have to place fresh water in the global economy as a global common good.”

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the president of Singapore and a co-chair of the commission, said countries must start cooperating on the management of water resources before it was too late.

“We have to think radically about how we are going to preserve the sources of fresh water, how we are going to use it far more efficiently, and how we are going to be able to have access to fresh water available to every community, including the vulnerable – in other words, how we preserve equity [between rich and poor],” Shanmugaratnam said.
[…]
Every 1C increase in global temperatures adds another 7% of moisture to the atmosphere, which has the effect of “powering up” the hydrological cycle far more than would happen under normal variations. The destruction of nature is also further fuelling the crisis, because cutting down forests and draining wetlands disrupts the hydrological cycle that depends on transpiration from trees and the storage of water in soils.

Harmful subsidies are also distorting the world’s water systems, and must be addressed as a priority, the experts found. More than $700bn (£540bn) of subsidies each year go to agriculture, and a high proportion of these are misdirected, encouraging farmers to use more water than they need for irrigation or in wasteful practices.

Industry also benefits – about 80% of the wastewater used by industries around the world is not recycled.
[…]
More than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion people – 44% of the population – lack access to safe sanitation. Every day, 1,000 children die from lack of access to safe water. Demand for fresh water is expected to outstrip its supply by 40% by the end of this decade. This crisis is worsening – without action, by 2050 water problems will shave about 8% off global GDP, with poor countries facing a 15% loss. Over half of the world’s food production comes from areas experiencing unstable trends in water availability.
[…]
The impacts of the climate crisis are felt first on the world’s hydrological systems, and in some regions those systems are facing severe disruption or even collapse. Drought in the Amazon, floods across Europe and Asia, and glacier melt in mountains, which causes both flooding and droughts downstream, are all examples of the impacts of extreme weather that are likely to get worse in the near future. People’s overuse of water is also worsening the climate crisis – for instance, by draining carbon-rich peatlands and wetlands that then release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
[…]
Subsidies to agriculture around the world often have unintended consequences for water, providing perverse incentives for farmers to over-irrigate their crops or use water wastefully. Industries also have their water use subsidised, or their pollution ignored, in many countries. Meanwhile, poor people in developing countries frequently pay a high price for water, or can only access dirty sources. Realistic pricing for water that removes harmful subsidies but protects the poor must be a priority for governments.
[…]
All of human life depends on water, but it is not recognised for the indispensable resource it is. The authors of the report urge a rethink of how water is regarded – not as an endlessly renewable resource, but as a global common good, with a global water pact by governments to ensure they protect water sources and create a “circular economy” for water in which it is reused and pollution cleaned up. Developing nations must be given access to finance to help them end the destruction of natural ecosystems that are a key part of the hydrological cycle.

Global water crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 years [Guardian]

…so…no pressure

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/17/global-fresh-water-demand-outstrip-supply-by-2030

…anyway…to get back to the name I left out way up near the top…& because if you got this far you deserve a treat…here’s a clue

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/07/boris-johnson-unleashed-memoir-digested-read-john-crace

…& the thing the quote came from goes on like this

But instead of addressing any of that, what we got were six questions on China. WTF?? No one could quite work out what was going on. Tory backbenchers looked pained. A rare feelgood opportunity had gone begging. Labour MPs couldn’t believe their luck. In a way it was quite reassuring to see that Sunak had a serious side. After all, he had never shown much interest in international relations when he was prime minister.

More likely, though, Rish! has entirely disengaged. Not just as leader of the opposition but from politics completely. Can’t even bring himself to do a couple of hours preparation for what would be his penultimate PMQs. He’s already checked out. Not long to wait until he can put his feet up for good on a California beach. A chance to enjoy all that money that someone else has earned for him. Nice work if you can get it.

Keir just looked more startled than usual. He would have to wing this one as no one had briefed him on anything to do with China. Just remember to say that China was bad without promising to do anything that might annoy the Chinese. That’s about the full extent of our diplomacy with President Xi.

“Chinese activity near Taiwan is not conducive to peace and stability,” Starmer said. No shit. This was international relations for dummies. Would he condemn the Chinese for clamping down on democracy in Hong Kong? Mmm. Yes, on balance he thought he just might.

We all kept on waiting. Waiting for the killer question. The one that would make sense of Sunak’s sudden interest in China. But it never came. There was even less to see than met the eye.

Why had the government cancelled the registration scheme for foreign spies? “We haven’t,” said Keir tersely. He just hadn’t implemented the one that the Tories had also failed to implement. Both Labour and the Conservatives have come to the conclusion that the best move in international relations is often to do nothing.

And that was pretty much that. Keir didn’t want to waste his pre-cooked signoff so he just shoe-horned it in regardless. Nothing to do with China or anything that Sunak had asked. Just a tirade about every Tory failure of the past 14 years. Sad face from Rish!. He didn’t know what he had done to cop all that abuse. Come the end, Starmer could only keep saying how shocked he was by everything, while the rest of us wondered what had just taken place. Nothing, probably.

So the Tory party retreated yet again into irrelevance for another week. They are finding opposition tougher than expected. No one is even really that bothered who becomes the next leader of the opposition. Mainly because with the choice narrowed down to KemiKaze and Honest Bob they are screwed whatever they do.

Sunak has checked out, leaving Starmer looking even more startled than usual [Guardian]

…but…let’s not start about china, eh?

Deciphering the obscure machinations of elite politics is a pursuit that western China-watchers are all too familiar with. But as the US election approaches, it is analysts in China who are struggling to read the tea leaves on what differentiates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump when it comes to their stance on the US’s biggest geopolitical rival.

Taiwan and trade: how China sees its future with the US after the election [Guardian]

…for surely that way, madness lies?

The real problem with China’s economy, though, is the same one that economists, diplomats and government officials have been warning about for nearly two decades: China invests too much, and Chinese people spend too little. China’s leaders have been talking for years about the need to shift to a consumer-led economy — more like the United States, Japan and Europe. But they’re still only talking about it.

China is trying to fix its economy — except the real problem [WaPo]

…but then…it’s not like that just goes for china, is it?

…so…enough already with the unequal struggle…gimme something I can whistle past the graveyard