Category Archives: News

Mueller has enough evidence to bring charges in Flynn investigation

NBC News reports: Federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser and his son as part of the probe into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

Michael T. Flynn, who was fired after just 24 days on the job, was one of the first Trump associates to come under scrutiny in the federal probe now led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Mueller is applying renewed pressure on Flynn following his indictment of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

The investigators are speaking to multiple witnesses in coming days to gain more information surrounding Flynn’s lobbying work, including whether he laundered money or lied to federal agents about his overseas contacts, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. [Continue reading…]

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The wealthy men in Trump’s inner circle with links to tax havens

The Guardian reports: On the election trail in 2016, Donald Trump promised tax reforms to tempt major US companies back onshore and “bring back trillions of dollars from American businesses that is now parked overseas”.

As the first anniversary of his election victory looms this week, Trump and fellow Republicans are trying to drive those tax reforms through Congress.

On 1 November, Trump reiterated his commitment.

“Finally, our plan will bring back trillions of dollars from offshore … that will come pouring back into our country that will be put to work and will be spent by our companies that could never get the money back for many years. Bring the money back. We’re rebuilding America.”

But Trump is surrounded by wealthy individuals who have legally either sheltered their own investments or presided over policies to keep company profits or clients’ funds out of reach in tax havens. [Continue reading…]

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A resignation, detentions and missiles: 24 hours that shook the Middle East

CNN reports: When 32-year-old Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman rose to power two years ago, many predicted that change was afoot. The events of November 4 have shown that change would not just be swift, but also seismic, extending unremittingly beyond the kingdom’s boundaries.

A 24-hour sequence of political bombshells began on Saturday afternoon, when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, blindsiding his country’s political establishment. Hours later, Saudi Arabia’s official news agency reported that the country’s military had intercepted a Yemen-borne ballistic missile over Riyadh. Even as images of the blast were flashing on TV sets around the region, similarly dramatic news began to trickle in: Some of Saudi Arabia’s most high-profile princes and businessmen were being sacked and detained in an anti-corruption drive led by bin Salman.
The events serve as an opening salvo for a new period in the region’s crisis-ridden history, analysts say. They represent an escalation in a yearslong proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, threatening to activate new fronts in the region, with the Saudi show of force beginning with a sweeping consolidation of power from within.

On Friday, ISIS’ last strongholds in Iraq and Syria fell. It marked a major milestone in a fight that saw archrivals converge on the extremist group until its so-called caliphate was on its last legs. On Saturday, regional powerhouses appear to have trained their sights on one another.

“I think the end of ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, does not really mean the end of geostrategic struggles,” London School of Economics Professor Fawaz Gerges told CNN’s George Howell.

“On the contrary, the dismantling of the so-called caliphate will basically intensify the geostrategic struggles between the pro-Iranian camp led by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and its allies in the region, including the United States.” [Continue reading…]

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Autocracy: Trump finds no fault in Saudi crown prince’s power grab

The New York Times reports: President Trump has spoken with the king of Saudi Arabia to offer a wholehearted endorsement of a drive to modernize the kingdom, as the Saudi authorities arrested scores of prominent business people and ministers in a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown.

In an unusually lengthy and detailed readout of the call made on Saturday, the White House said that Mr. Trump had thanked King Salman for Saudi Arabia’s support in fighting terrorism and for its purchase of military equipment from the United States. And he praised the king’s favorite son and top adviser, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for his recent calls for tolerance and moderation in Saudi society.

“The king and crown prince’s recent public statements regarding the need to build a moderate, peaceful and tolerant region are essential to ensuring a hopeful future for the Saudi people, to curtailing terrorist funding, and to defeating radical ideology — once and for all — so the world can be safe from its evil,” the White House said in the statement.

The White House statement made no mention of the scores of arrests, including that of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a billionaire investor who has held stakes in an array of Western companies, including the News Corporation, Citigroup and Twitter. Prince Mohammed, who has already sidelined rivals to the throne, is viewed as the mastermind behind the crackdown.

Prince Alwaleed sparred with Mr. Trump on Twitter during the presidential election, referring to him as a “disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America.” Mr. Trump fired back, also on Twitter, that he was a “dopey prince” trying to “control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money.”

White House officials had no immediate comment on whether Mr. Trump’s call should be interpreted as an endorsement of the arrests. But the statement made clear that the White House approved of everything else King Salman and Prince Mohammed were doing in Saudi Arabia. [Continue reading…]

Bloomberg reports: The two leaders did discuss Trump’s request, first issued in a late-night tweet, that the Saudis list the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. – better known as Aramco – on the New York Stock Exchange.

After speaking to Salman aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters on the plane that he was motivated to send the tweet because the Aramco initial public offering “will be just about the biggest ever” and the U.S. wants “to have all the big listings.” The Saudis were not currently looking at listing on a U.S. exchange “because of litigation risk, and other risk, which is sad,” he said.

The Aramco IPO could be the world’s largest, with the Saudi government hoping to raise $100 billion selling just 5 percent of the company. It is the centerpiece of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s “Vision 2030” reform plan, intended to diversify the kingdom’s economy and invest more heavily in infrastructure. [Continue reading…]

James M. Dorsey writes: The most recent crackdown breaks with the tradition of consensus within the ruling family whose secretive inner workings are equivalent to those of the Kremlin at the time of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the dismissals and detentions suggest that Prince Mohammed rather than forging alliances is extending his iron grip to the ruling family, the military, and the national guard to counter what appears to be more widespread opposition within the family as well as the military to his reforms and the Yemen war.

It raises questions about the reform process that increasingly is based on a unilateral rather than a consensual rewriting of the kingdom’s social contract. “It is hard to envisage MBS succeeding in his ambitious plans by royal decree. He needs to garner more consent. To obtain it, he must learn to tolerate debate and disagreement,” quipped The Economist, recently referring to Prince Mohammed by his initials. [Continue reading…]

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Pentagon says to eradicate North Korea’s nuclear weapons would require ground war (in which millions would die)

Newsweek reports: A ground invasion by the U.S. military is the only way to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In late September, Rep. Ted Lieu and Rep. Ruben Gallego, both Democrats and veterans of the U.S. military, sent a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis highlighting their concerns about the prospect of war with North Korea. They requested a detailed report on the potential consequences of such a conflict.

“We’re just trying to get the administration to explain to the American people what a war in North Korea would look like,” Lieu said. “People need to understand if there is military conflict in North Korea we would be going to war against a nuclear power.”

Mattis issued his response via the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was sent to Lieu on October 27 and obtained by Newsweek. “The only way to ‘locate and destroy — with complete certainty — all components of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs’ is through a ground invasion,” said the response, written by Rear Adm. Mike Dumont.

This is the first time the U.S. military has made this assertion, according to Lieu, who’s concerned too many are under the false impression the U.S. could easily neutralize North Korea’s nuclear arsenal via a military strike such as the one Trump ordered against the Assad regime in Syria back in April. [Continue reading…]

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Trump foolishly said ‘samurai’ Japan should have shot down overflying North Korean missiles

Japan Times reports: U.S. President Donald Trump has said Japan should have shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, diplomatic sources have said, despite the difficulties and potential ramifications of doing so.

The revelation came ahead of Trump’s arrival in Japan on Sunday at the start of his five-nation trip to Asia. Threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs were set to be high on the agenda in his talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday.

Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.

The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said. [Continue reading…]

Joe Cirincione writes: The number one reason we don’t shoot down North Korea’s missiles is that we cannot.

Officials like to reassure their publics about our defense to these missiles. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told his nation after last week’s test, “We didn’t intercept it because no damage to Japanese territory was expected.”

That is half true. The missile did not pose a serious threat. It flew over the Japanese island of Hokkaido, landing 3700 km (2300 miles) from its launch point near North Korea’s capital of Pyongyang.

The key word here is “over.” Like way over. Like 770 kilometers (475 miles) over Japan at the apogee of its flight path. Neither Japan nor the United States could have intercepted the missile. None of the theater ballistic missile defense weapons in existence can reach that high. It is hundreds of kilometers too high for the Aegis interceptors deployed on Navy ships off Japan. Even higher for the THAAD systems in South Korea and Guam. Way too high for the Patriot systems in Japan, which engage largely within the atmosphere.

All of these are basically designed to hit a missile in the post-mid-course or terminal phase, when it is on its way down, coming more or less straight at the defending system. Patriot is meant to protect relatively small areas such as ports or air bases; THAAD defends a larger area; the advanced Aegis system theoretically could defend thousands of square kilometers.

But could we intercept before the missile climbed that high? There is almost no chance of hitting a North Korean missile on its way up unless an Aegis ship was deployed very close to the launch point, perhaps in North Korean waters. Even then, it would have to chase the missile, a race it is unlikely to win. In the only one or two minutes of warning time any system would have, the probability of a successful engagement drops close to zero. [Continue reading…]

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A year after his election, Donald Trump is as unpopular as Hillary Clinton

ABC News reports: A year after his surprise election victory, President Donald Trump is underperforming expectations and lagging behind his predecessors, with the lowest job approval of any postwar president at this point in office, broad distrust across a range of issues and majority belief that he’s not delivering on his campaign promises.

Yet for all his shortcomings, Trump runs a dead heat with Hillary Clinton among 2016 voters in a hypothetical rematch in this ABC News/Washington Post poll, underscoring Clinton’s own enduring unpopularity. Ninety-one percent of Trump voters say they’d support him again (albeit down from 96 percent in April). And marking a still-struggling opposition, 61 percent of Americans say Democratic leaders are mainly criticizing Trump, not presenting alternatives.

Democratic disarray, though, doesn’t negate Trump’s own challenges. Just 37 percent of Americans approve of his job performance, the lowest for any president at nine months in office in polling dating to 1946. Fifty-nine percent disapprove, numerically a new high for this president, but essentially unchanged since summer. Half disapprove “strongly,” another high — twice as many as strongly approve. [Continue reading…]

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Mueller braces for challenges to his authority

Politico reports: Robert Mueller is on an early winning streak.

Stacked with some of the country’s premier prosecutors, the special counsel has beaten back a pair of preliminary attempts to block his subpoena power and limit who he can question as a potential witness. In July, Mueller’s team also managed to win approval to execute a no-knock search warrant—unusual in a white-collar case.

But as the criminal case against former Donald Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates speeds toward a possible spring 2018 trial, Mueller’s team is bracing for an array of challenges to its authority.

The battle lines are already taking shape.

Kevin Downing, Manafort’s lead attorney, submitted a document Friday indicating that he anticipates filing pre-trial motions that question “the legal basis for and sufficiency of the charges, the suppression of evidence improperly obtained by search warrant, subpoena or otherwise.” Downing also said he may try to prevent Mueller’s prosecutors from presenting some of their evidence during the criminal trial.

Mueller’s team responded to the court Friday with a brief note saying they would need three weeks to present their case, side stepping what will be an intense round of legal jockeying and attempts to undermine the way the special counsel has conducted its investigation.

“’Distort, detract, deny’ is a common playbook for defense lawyers,” said Julie Myers Wood, a former Whitewater prosecutor. “And if the allegations are serious here, I wouldn’t expect the lawyers to sit back or withhold any tool in a quest to undermine the perception of Mueller’s legitimacy.” [Continue reading…]

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Lindsey Graham’s ‘religious war’

Peter Beinart writes: On Tuesday night, hours after the terrorist attack in New York City, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham went on Fox News to express his gratitude that, at times like these, Donald Trump is president. “The one thing I like about President Trump, he understands that we’re in a religious war,” Graham declared. “Here’s what I like about President Trump,” he added later, “the gloves are off.” Trump, Graham explained, “is right to make sure when somebody comes into the country from a place where radical Islam [flourishes] … we’re going to ask extra hard questions.” And Trump is—you guessed it—“right to slow down who comes into this country.” When the Fox anchor turned to Robert Mueller’s indictment of two former Trump campaign officials, Graham’s enthusiasm didn’t flag. “If I’m the Trump team,” Graham declared, “I’d rest pretty good tonight.”

Graham’s comments illustrate one of the most fascinating dynamics of the Trump era: Trump exposes the character of the politicians around him. As a political force, anti-Trump conservatism is dead. That means GOP members of Congress who consider Trump an ignorant, narcissistic, lying, authoritarian bully (and according to Bob Corker, many do) face a choice between their principles and their jobs. Corker and Jeff Flake have chosen the former. Most of their colleagues have chosen the latter. But none has done so as loudly as Lindsey Graham. [Continue reading…]

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Both Bush presidents worry Trump is blowing up the GOP

The New York Times reports: President Trump is not a favorite in the extended Bush household. Former President George Bush considers him a “blowhard,” only interested in feeding his own ego. Former President George W. Bush, his son, thinks Mr. Trump fans public anger and came to office without any understanding of the job.

And both worry that Mr. Trump has blown up a Republican Party that they spent two lifetimes building, a party that was once committed to removing boundaries to trade and immigration, promoting democracy and civil society and asserting a robust American leadership role in the world, according to an author who has interviewed them.

A new book on the two Bushes who served in the White House provides a glance at their apprehension over Mr. Trump’s rise to power and what it means for the country. The first book ever written with their cooperation about their relationship, it also opens a window into the only father-and-son tandem to hold the presidency since John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

In “The Last Republicans,” Mark K. Updegrove chronicles an era that feels almost dated in today’s reality-show politics, when the Republican establishment controlled the party and Washington, and when a single family could occupy the presidency and vice presidency for a combined 20 years. [Continue reading…]

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Donna Brazile: I considered replacing Clinton with Biden as 2016 Democratic nominee

The Washington Post reports: Former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile writes in a new book that she seriously contemplated replacing Hillary Clinton as the party’s 2016 presidential nominee with then-Vice President Biden in the aftermath of Clinton’s fainting spell, in part because Clinton’s campaign was “anemic” and had taken on “the odor of failure.”

In an explosive new memoir, Brazile details widespread dysfunction and dissension throughout the Democratic Party, including secret deliberations over using her powers as interim DNC chair to initiate the process of removing Clinton and running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) from the ticket after Clinton’s Sept. 11, 2016, collapse in New York City.

Brazile writes that she considered a dozen combinations to replace the nominees and settled on Biden and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), the duo she felt most certain would win over enough working-class voters to defeat Republican Donald Trump. But then, she writes, “I thought of Hillary, and all the women in the country who were so proud of and excited about her. I could not do this to them.”

Brazile paints a scathing portrait of Clinton as a well-intentioned, historic candidate whose campaign was badly mismanaged, took minority constituencies for granted and made blunders with “stiff” and “stupid” messages. The campaign was so lacking in passion for the candidate, she writes, that its New York headquarters felt like a sterile hospital ward where “someone had died.” [Continue reading…]

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A billionaire destroyed his newsrooms out of spite

Hamilton Nolan writes: Reporters, for all their flaws, tend to understand what’s happening in their own newsrooms. It’s their job to try to see things clearly. Often, what they see in their workplaces is low salaries, inept management and poor communication — ills that plague many workplaces across America. For more than two years now, online media outlets have been unionizing as a way to make our industry better. This week, we learned just how horrifying some rich people find the idea of employees coming together to improve their workplace.

Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, is worth more than $2 billion. He is the owner of DNAinfo, a local news site that covered New York City and Chicago with unparalleled skill, as well as Gothamist, a network of city-oriented websites that DNAinfo bought this year. He is also a major right-wing political donor of rather flexible morality. During the last presidential primaries, Mr. Ricketts spent millions of dollars funding ads that portrayed Donald Trump as an untrustworthy, dangerous misogynist. Once Mr. Trump secured the nomination, Mr. Ricketts spent a million dollars to support him.

One might think that such flexibility would allow Mr. Ricketts to bend but not break when faced with every plutocrat’s worst nightmare: a few dozen modestly paid employees who collectively bargain for better working conditions.

Alas, no.

Six months ago, reporters and editors at DNAinfo-Gothamist announced their intent to join the Writers Guild of America, East. This is the union that my colleagues and I at Gawker Media joined in 2015, and the union that has organized major online media companies like HuffPost, Vice Media, Slate and Thrillist in the past two years. In that short amount of time, unionized “new media” workers have won substantial raises, editorial protections and other improvements that writers at more mature companies take for granted. In defiance of the conventional wisdom that unions are outdated, this young, high-tech industry has been one of the most visible recent successes for organized labor in America.

The DNAinfo-Gothamist announcement sparked a zealous anti-union campaign: Management threatened employees by saying that Joe Ricketts might shut the whole place down if it unionized. Nevertheless, employees last week voted 25-2 in favor of unionization. And on Thursday, Mr. Ricketts abruptly shut the whole place down. [Continue reading…]

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Suspected cholera cases in crisis-torn Yemen near 900,000

UN News Centre reports: Already struggling to cope with a dire humanitarian crisis, war-torn Yemen is now facing the fastest-growing cholera epidemic ever recorded, with some 895,000 suspected cases as of 1 November, the United Nations relief wing reported Thursday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that nearly have the suspected cases are children. Overall, there have been nearly 2,200 associated deaths since 27 April.

The outbreak is affecting over 90 per cent of districts across 21 of the country’s 22 governorates. Despite the enormous challenges, humanitarian partners have established 234 Diarrhoea Treatment Centres and 1,084 Oral Rehydration Corners in 225 affected districts in 20 governorates, according to OCHA.

Some 3.6 million people have been connected to disinfected water supply networks in 12 governorates. Over 17 million people in all governorates were reached with cholera prevention messages.

OCHA warned today that Yemen is also facing the world’s largest food emergency and widespread population displacement. After more than two years of war, nearly 21 million people need urgent humanitarian assistance, seven million of whom are severely food insecure, staving off the threat of famine. [Continue reading…]

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Lebanese PM Hariri resigns, attacking Iran, Hezbollah

Reuters reports: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned on Saturday, saying he believed there was an assassination plot against him and accusing Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world.

His resignation, a big surprise to Beirut’s political establishment, brought down the coalition government and plunged Lebanon into a new political crisis.

It thrust Lebanon into the front line of a regional competition between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi‘ite Iran that has also buffeted Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain. A Saudi government minister said Hariri was in Riyadh to ensure his safety.

Hariri, who is closely allied with Saudi Arabia, alleged in a broadcast from an undisclosed location that Hezbollah was “directing weapons” at Yemenis, Syrians and Lebanese. [Continue reading…]

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Republican mayor transforms California city into ‘the solar capital of the universe’

ThinkProgress reports: Some cities were hit hard by the Great Recession. Lancaster, California was positively clobbered. In the summer of 2009, the unemployment rate reached 17 percent, housing prices bottomed out, and foreclosures were rampant.

Since then, the city has turned things around, thanks in part to the efforts of three-time Republican mayor Rex Parris, who transformed Lancaster into a clean energy powerhouse. Parris has been described by critics as “an arrogant bully and an unstoppable control freak,” according to the Los Angeles Times, but he gets results.

Today, the city produces more solar power per capita than any other city in California, and it is close to producing more renewable energy than it uses — a milestone on its way to becoming “the solar capital of the universe,” as Parris says.

“Had it not been for his leadership, we would not be on this journey,” said Lancaster city manager Mark Bozigian.

The solar boom has given a jolt of energy to the local economy. Housing prices have rebounded and the unemployment rate has dropped to less than 6 percent. Lancaster says its clean energy policies have created more than 1,000 jobs — no small feat in a city of just 160,000 people. [Continue reading…]

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Trump campaign adviser met with Russian officials in 2016

The New York Times reports: Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, met Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip he took to Moscow, according to testimony he gave on Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee.

Shortly after the trip, Mr. Page sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide describing insights he had after conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives during his time in Moscow, according to one person familiar with the contents of the message. The email was read aloud during the closed-door testimony.

The new details of the trip present a different picture than the account Mr. Page has given during numerous appearances in the news media in recent months and are yet another example of a Trump adviser meeting with Russians officials during the 2016 campaign. In multiple interviews with The New York Times, he had either denied meeting with any Russian government officials during the July 2016 visit or sidestepped the question, saying he met with “mostly scholars.”

Mr. Page confirmed the meetings in an interview on Friday evening, but played down their significance. [Continue reading…]

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‘It’s every man for himself,’ says one target of Mueller investigation

CBS News reports: Less than a week after two top former Trump campaign officials were indicted and another adviser to the campaign had already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, the pressure on others under scrutiny appears to be growing. One source whose actions during the 2016 election are being examined by the special counsel’s office and who is reluctant to talk publicly tells CBS News, “It’s every man for himself.”

That remark suggests that some of the former campaign officials and associates in legal jeopardy may be rushing to offer their cooperation in an effort to get a better deal from prosecutors. The source maintains that he is innocent and is frustrated that he has so far failed to clear his name in the ongoing probe. Over the last few months the source seems to have evolved in his thinking about Russian involvement in the presidential election.

Earlier this year this individual dismissed any suggestion that there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Now, days after former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates were indicted, the source acknowledged to CBS News something he’d been reluctant to admit in the past: “I do believe the Russians interfered or tried to interfere,” he said. But he pointed to others associated with the campaign, “I don’t know what they were doing” and “whatever those people did, that’s on them.” [Continue reading…]

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Bots stoke racial strife in Virginia governor’s race

Politico reports: Twitter bots are swarming into the Virginia governor’s race and promoting chatter about a racially charged Democratic ad days before Election Day, according to a report commissioned by allies of Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam’s campaign.

The activity centers on an ad from Latino Victory Fund, depicting a child’s nightmare in which a supporter of Republican Ed Gillespie chases immigrant children in a pickup truck bearing a Confederate flag. Gillespie’s campaign reacted furiously to the ad, which barely ran on TV but got major attention online, and has made backlash to the Democratic ad a major part of its closing message.

That backlash erupted quickly, and Latino Victory Fund later retracted the ad. But the reaction has been amplified on Twitter by automated accounts. Out of the 15 accounts tweeting most frequently about the Latino Victory Fund ad, 13 belong to fully or partially automated bots, according to an analysis from Discourse Intelligence. (The other two accounts are Republican political operatives.)

“Highly scripted, highly robotic accounts are being used to boost this message into the Twitter conversation,” said Tim Chambers, the report’s author and the U.S. practice lead for digital at the Dewey Square Group. The firm was retained by the National Education Association, whose Virginia affiliate has endorsed Northam.

Of the 15 accounts most frequently sending out messages about the ad from Latino Victory Fund, just two accounts belonging to GOP operatives were human, while 13 belonged to either fully or partially automated bots, according to the report from Discourse Intelligence. The National Education Association, whose Virginia affiliate backs Northam, paid for the report.

The 15 accounts highlighted in the report have the potential to reach 651,000 people, the report says. It notes these accounts just make up less than 1 percent of the nearly 3,000 accounts with tweets including both “Latino victory” and either “Gillespie” or “Northam.”

A spokesman for Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who is helping lead the congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, said the incident mirrors past bot attempts to “manipulate” social media conversations. Warner and other senators, including Republicans like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, have also warned during their investigation about attempts to interfere in future American elections as well. [Continue reading…]

While this report may be used to highlight the ever-present threat of foreign interference in U.S. elections, what it really underlines is the corrosive effect on democracy presented by the existence of social media.

Twitter and Facebook weren’t created to damage democracy, so this isn’t an issue of malevolent intent. But given that social media has already become — globally — the preeminent instrument for manipulating public opinion, at some point attention needs to turn away from Russia’s opportunistic use of social media and the internet to further its national interest, and focus more intently on the broad political repercussions of the digital age and the extent to which connectivity, far from creating a global village, has become the most effective means for promoting division. This doesn’t simply result in online spats — it can lead to ethnic cleansing and a refugee crisis.

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