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Los vínculos entre Donald Trump y varios de sus asesores más cercanos con Vladimir Putin persiguen al actual gobierno de EE.UU.
De todas las controversias que han rodeado a Donald Trump desde su campaña electoral hasta su actual rol como presidente de Estados Unidos, hay una de la cual no consigue desmarcarse: Rusia.
La repentina renuncia del asesor de seguridad nacional Michael Flynn presentada este lunes fue la última de una serie de polémicas que vinculan al gobierno de Trump con aparentes intereses rusos.
Pero esa no esa la última “controversia rusa” del entorno de Trump: este martes el diario The New York Times reveló que, según llamadas interceptadas por los servicios de inteligencia del país durante la campaña, el equipo del magnate mantuvo repetido contacto con funcionarios rusos.
“Agentes de autoridad y de inteligencia interceptaron las comunicaciones más o menos cuando descubrieron que Rusia estaba intentando alterar la elección presidencial hackeando al Partido Demócrata”, afirma el diario.
Este miércoles, Trump volvió a responder a través de Twitter.
“La comunidad de inteligencia (¿NSA y FBI?) le está dando información de forma ilegal al fracasado @nytimes & @washingtonpost, Justo como Rusia”, escribió el mandatario, quien atribuyó la noticia sobre los contactos de su equipo con Rusia a intentos por ocultar las fallas en la campaña presidencial de Hillary Clinton.
“El verdadero escándalo aquí es que se está entregando información clasificada de forma ilegal por la “inteligencia” como si fueran caramelos”, agregó.
Pero hay más.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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Una semana después de asumir la presidencia de EE.UU., Trump habló por teléfono con Putin, rodeado de sus entonces principales asesores. Entre ellos está Flynn (derecha).
Primeras señales
En mayo de 2016 surgieron los primeros informes que señalaban que el Partido Demócrata había sido atacado por piratas informáticos.
Durante los siguientes dos meses se informó que las agencias de inteligencia de EE.UU. habían rastreado el origen de los ciberataques a Rusia.
En julio, en la antesala de la Convención Nacional Demócrata, el sitio de filtraciones WikiLeaks publicó 20.000 correos electrónicos internos de ese partido, que habían sido robados por hackers.
Agentes de inteligencia estadounidenses se mostraron “muy confiados” de que Rusia estaba detrás de la operación, pero Trump rechazó públicamente esos hallazgos.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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El gobierno de Barack Obama acusó a su contraparte rusa y en particular al presidente Putin de haber querido interferir en las elecciones de Estados Unidos.
Aunque lo que de verdad causó malestar fue que invitara públicamente a los piratas informáticos rusos a atacar el servidor de correos electrónicos privado de Hillary Clinton.
Su rival demócrata en la campaña electoral estaba siendo investigada por haber usado su cuenta personal para asuntos gubernamentales cuando era secretaria de Estado.
“Rusia, si me estás escuchando, espero que logres encontrar los 30.000 correos que están faltando“, dijo el entonces candidato republicano.
La primera víctima
Al mismo tiempo que transcurría el escándalo del hackeo, el entonces jefe de campaña de Trump, Paul Manafort, fue acusado de haber aceptado millones de dólares en efectivo para defender intereses rusos.
Concretamente, a Manafort se le habría pagado para representar los intereses de Rusia en Ucrania y en EE.UU.
También se lo acusó de haber hecho negocios con un oligarca muy cercano a Putin.
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Manafort se vio obligado a apartarse de la jefatura de la campaña de Trump.
Sospechosamente, mientras Manafort lideraba la campaña de Trump, el Partido Republicano modificó un manifiesto que había escrito sobre el conflicto en Ucrania y removió todo sentimiento antiruso.
Manafort fue investigado por el FBI y renunció a su puesto en la campaña de Trump.
Al igual que Flynn, Manafort -que tenía más de 40 años de experiencia como operador político- había sido contratado para ayudar a la lidiar con las controversias que rodeaban a Trump, pero al final sucumbió a una de ellas.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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Los enfrentamientos en el este de Ucrania entre los rebeldes separatistas apoyados por Rusia y las fuerzas del gobierno se renovaron tras la asunción de Trump.
Enfrentado con la inteligencia
En octubre de 2016, un mes antes de las elecciones, las agencias de inteligencia de EE.UU. emitieron un comunicado unánime acusando formalmente a Rusia de haber sido el responsable del hackeo al Comité Nacional Demócrata.
Trump siguió cuestionándolo, afirmando en un debate presidencial que “podría ser Rusia, pero también podría ser China o muchos otros“.
“Podría incluso ser una persona sentada en su cama, que pesa 180 kilos”.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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Los correos de Hillary Clinton y el Partido Demócrata robados y publicados por Wikileaks dañaron la campaña de la principal competidora de Trump a la presidencia.
En el mismo día que las agencias de inteligencia publicaron su comunicado, la cadena de televisión NBC dio el conocer la explosiva grabación de 2005 en la que se escucha a Trump presumiendo entre obscenidades de poder propasarse sexualmente con las mujeres.
Una hora más tarde, WikiLeaks empezó a publicar miles de correos nuevos de Clinton.
Trump siguió refutando el consenso de que Rusia estaba detrás de la filtración.
“¡Siempre supe que Putin era listo!”
En diciembre, tras la elección de Trump, el FBI y el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional publicaron un informe con las conclusiones que vinculaban a Rusia con el ciberataque al Partido Demócrata.
En respuesta, el presidente Obama expulsó a 35 diplomáticos rusos e impuso nuevas sanciones contra Rusia.
El mundo entero esperó la reacción de Putin, pero el líder ruso decidió no tomar represalias.
El presidente electo Trump apoyó al presidente ruso, afirmando en su cuenta de Twitter: “Gran movida lo del retraso (por V.Putin). ¡Siempre supe que era muy listo!“.
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Flynn estaba en contacto con la embajada rusa cuando Obama aprobó el último paquete de sanciones.
Muchos consideraron que la decisión de Putin fue una astuta maniobra de relaciones públicas, pero entre las agencias de inteligencia generó sospechas de si no tendría confianza en que las sanciones serían eliminadas en cuanto asumiera Trump.
Ahora sabemos que en ese momento, antes de que Trump asumiera la presidencia, Flynn estaba en contacto con la embajada rusa en Estados Unidos.
Flynn renunció luego de admitir que había dado “información incompleta” al presidente y al vicepresidente, Mike Pence, sobre conversaciones que mantuvo con el embajador ruso en EE.UU., Sergey Kislyak, antes de asumir su puesto.
El militar retirado, según versiones filtradas a los medios, habló telefónicamente con el diplomático ruso acerca de las sanciones que el gobierno del entonces presidente Barack Obama había impuesto ese mismo día a Rusia por los ciberataques ocurridos durante la campaña electoral estadounidense.
De esta forma, violó una ley que prohíbe a civiles intervenir en disputas diplomáticas de EE.UU. con otros países.
Derechos de autor de la imagen AP
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Rex Tillerson, jefe de la diplomacia de Estados Unidos, fue condecorado por Putin en 2013 con la “orden de la Amistad”.
Ese mismo mes, Trump eligió como su secretario de Estado (el puesto más importante en su gabinete) a Rex Tillerson, presidente de la petrolera ExxonMobil.
¿La principal objeción que enfrentó Tillerson? Sus vínculos cercanos con Putin.
Como ejecutivo petrolero, Tillerson cultivó una relación personal con el líder ruso, llevando a muchos a cuestionar si estaba calificado para servir como el principal representante diplomático de EE.UU.
Tillerson juró en su cargo el pasado 2 de febrero.
En enero, el sitio Buzzfeed publicó un documento compilado por Christopher Steele, un exagente de inteligencia británico y experto en Rusia, que sostenía que Moscú tenía información comprometedora sobre Trump, que lo podría hacer susceptible al chantaje.
Entre los varios memos del expediente había uno que afirmaba que las agencias de seguridad rusas habían filmado a Trump con prostitutas en un hotel de la capital rusa.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Getty Images
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Un hombre toma fotos de un mural en Vilna, la capital de Lituania, en el que se ve a Putin y Trump besándose.
El presidente electo refutó las afirmaciones, asegurando que era información falsa.
El canal CNN reveló que tanto Trump como el entonces presidente Obama habían sido informados por agentes de inteligencia sobre la existencia del documento.
El informe cayó como una granada en medio de un escenario político ya caldeado y generó una respuesta negativa contra Buzzfeed por haber publicado lo que en esencia eran afirmaciones no confirmadas.
La evidencia contra Flynn
No obstante, el escándalo más concreto y dañino en torno al tema de Rusia surgió en febrero, después de meses de especulación sobre el tema.
Un informe del diario The Washington Post reveló que el asesor de seguridad nacional Michael Flynn había discutido con el embajador ruso sobre la posibilidad de levantar las sanciones impuestas por el gobierno de Obama a Rusia, antes de que Trump asumiera la presidencia.
Flynn, quien había aparecido varias veces en el canal de televisión internacional del gobierno ruso RT e incluso fue retratado en 2015 cenando con Putin, renunció a su cargo este lunes.
Derechos de autor de la imagen AP
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Flynn fue visto en diciembre de 2015 en Moscú, en una cena a la que asistió el presidente Putin.
Al día siguiente, el portavoz de la Casa Blanca, Sean Spicer, aseguró que Flynn no hizo nada ilegal y que su renuncia fue producto de la “erosión” de la confianza del presidente y no por las conversaciones con Kislyak en sí.
De todos modos, según medios estadounidenses, este y otros vínculos del gobierno de Trump están siendo investigados por el FBI, al tiempo que varios legisladores están solicitando que se estudie el tema también en el Congreso.
En su campaña y sus semanas como presidente, Trump no ha escondido su aprecio por Putin y su deseo de establecer vínculos más cercanos con Rusia.
La pregunta que muchos se hacen -y la polémica de la que no logra desprenderse Trump- es cuán cercanos ya eran y siguen siendo esos vínculos.
Activists of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and other peace initiatives staged a protest in Berlin in January.Credit…Tobias Schwarz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
As President Biden and his NATO counterparts focus on nuclear-armed Russia at their summit meeting on Monday, they may also face a different sort of challenge: growing support, or at least openness, within their own constituencies for the global treaty that bans nuclear weapons.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Geneva-based group that was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work to achieve the treaty, said in a report released on Thursday that it had seen increased backing for the accord among voters and lawmakers in NATO’s 30 countries, as reflected in public opinion polls, parliamentary resolutions, political party declarations and statements from past leaders.
The treaty, negotiated at the United Nations in 2017, took effect early this year, three months after the 50th ratification. It has the force of international law even though the treaty is not binding for countries that decline to join.
The accord outlaws the use, testing, development, production, possession and transfer of nuclear weapons and stationing them in a different country. It also outlines procedures for destroying stockpiles and enforcing its provisions.
The negotiations were boycotted by the United States and the world’s eight other nuclear-armed states — Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and Russia — which have all said they will not join the treaty, describing it as misguided and naïve. And no NATO member has joined the treaty.
Nonetheless, an American-led effort begun under the Trump administration to dissuade other countries from joining has not reversed the treaty’s increased acceptance.
“The growing tide of political support for the new U.N. treaty in many NATO states, and the mounting public pressure for action, suggests that it is only a matter of time before one or more of these states take steps toward joining,” said Tim Wright, the treaty coordinator of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons who was an author of the report.
Timed a few days before the NATO meeting in Brussels, the report enumerated what it described as important signals of support or sympathy for the treaty among members in the past few years.
In Belgium, the government formed a committee to explore how the treaty could “give new impetus” to disarmament. In France, a parliamentary committee asked the government to “mitigate its criticism” of the treaty. In Italy, Parliament asked the government “to explore the possibility” of signing the treaty. And in Spain, the government made a political pledge to sign the treaty at some point.
There is nothing to prevent a NATO country from signing the treaty. And the bloc’s solidarity in opposing the accord appears to have weakened, emboldening disarmament advocates.
NATO officials have been outspoken in their opposition to the treaty. Jessica Cox, director of nuclear policy at NATO, said “nuclear deterrence is necessary and its principles still work,” in an explanation of NATO’s position posted on its website less than two months ago.
“A world where Russia, China, North Korea and others have nuclear weapons, but NATO does not, is not a safer world,” she said.
Entre las noticias más leídas del día, fue publicada información en la que se reveló que los periodistas, Carmen Aristegui y Carlos Loret de Mola, fueron sólo dos de los 11 nuevos objetivos descubiertos por Citizen Lab, que fueron espiados por el gobierno de México. El gobierno mexicano posee tecnología que permite infiltrarse en los teléfonos móviles de sus ciudadanos para espiarlos desde el bolsillo en donde se almacenan. El precio de las gasolinas bajó poco, pese a la recuperación del peso y te damos algunos consejos para que no pagues tanto en tu recibo de luz si tienes un auto eléctrico.
1. Aristegui, Loret de Mola y el IMCO, entre los espiados por el gobierno
Desde el 2015, algunos periodistas entre los que se destacan, Carmen Aristegui y Carlos Loret de Mola, han recibido una serie de mensajes sospechosos y apócrifos. Estos mensajes, en realidad, tienen el objetivo de infectar los teléfonos celulares para rastrear sus comunicaciones a través de Pegasus, un malware de espionaje electrónico desarrollada y vendida por la firma israelí NSO Group vendida exclusivamente a gobiernos.
Aristegui y Loret de Mola son sólo dos de los 11 nuevos objetivos descubiertos por el instituto de investigación Citizen Lab de la Universidad de Toronto, que fueron espiados presuntamente por el gobierno de México.
Aristegui, Loret de Mola y el IMCO, entre los espiados por el gobierno. Ver nota.
2. Precio de gasolinas baja poco, pese a recuperación del peso
Entre febrero y mayo del 2017, los precios de las gasolinas a los consumidores mexicanos registraron en promedio bajas consecutivas cada mes. La gasolina Magna al 16 de junio se ubicó en 15.89 pesos por litro, 41 centavos (2.54%) por debajo de lo que costaba el primer día de enero, la Premium se ubicó ese día en 15.92 pesos por litro, 40 centavos (2.18) también por debajo del primer día del año y el diesel en esa misma fecha se cotizó en las gasolinerías en 16.53 pesos por litro, 52 centavos (3.03%) menos que al iniciar el 2017.
El tipo de cambio del peso respecto al dólar, un componente fundamental en la determinación diaria en el precio de los carburantes, en dicho lapso ha dibujado la misma tendencia que han registrado día a día los precios en las gasolineras de la Ciudad de México y la zona conurbada, aunque en una magnitud mucho menor.
Precio de gasolinas baja poco, pese a recuperación del peso. Ver nota.
4. Si tienes un auto eléctrico, evita que el recibo de luz llegue más caro
Sabemos que la idea de cargar un auto eléctrico de la misma manera en que cargamos nuestro smartphone puede resultar una práctica muy atractiva pero que podría aumentar entre 40 y 300% el costo en el recibo de luz si no se realiza antes una conversión en el tipo de voltaje para tener dos medidores: uno para el consumo de la energía en casa y otro exclusivo para la energía del auto.
Al ser propietario de un auto ecológico, una persona puede olvidarse del gasto de la verificación cada seis meses y del impuesto por la tenencia, por ocho años; asimismo, tendría un descuento de 20% en los costos de las autopistas urbanas del valle de México operadas por OHL. ¿Suena atractivo, no?, si quieres saber más del tema, entra a la nota completa.
Si tienes un auto eléctrico, evita que el recibo de luz llegue más caro. Ver nota.
5. Tecnología permite a gobierno mexicano espiar desde los bolsillos
La tecnología obtenida de una empresa israelí ha permitido al gobierno mexicano espiar a sus ciudadanos desde el bolsillo en donde se guarde la herramienta tecnológica al infectar sus teléfonos móviles con software malicioso, reveló John Scott Rialton de Citizen Lab.
En conferencia de prensa para presentar el informe titulado “#GobiernoEspía: vigilancia sistemática a periodistas y defensores de derechos humanos en México”, el investigador estadounidense detalló el funcionamiento de “Pegasus”, un software de la compañía israelí NSO Group, adquirido por el gobierno mexicano para espiar.
Tecnología permite a gobierno mexicano espiar desde los bolsillos. Ver nota.
A powerful storm making its way east from California is causing major disruptions during the year’s busiest travel weekend, as forecasters warned that intensifying snow and ice could thwart millions of people across the country hoping to get home after Thanksgiving.
The storm caused the death of at least one person in South Dakota and shut down highways in the western U.S., stranding drivers in California and prompting authorities in Arizona to plead with travelers to wait out the weather before attempting to travel.
The storm was tracking into the Plains Friday and expected to track east through the weekend — into the Midwest by Saturday and the Northeast on Sunday — pummeling a huge portion of the country with snow, ice or flash flooding.
The National Weather Service said travel could become impossible in some places.
The weather could be particularly disruptive on Sunday, when millions of holiday travelers head home. Airlines for America, the airline industry’s trade group, expects 3.1 million passengers during what could be the busiest day ever recorded for American air travel.
The weather service issued storm warnings Friday for a swath of the country stretching from Montana to Nebraska to Wisconsin, with heavy snow anticipated in parts of Utah, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming.
Gusts up to 90 mph (144.8 kph) were possible in mountains and foothills, and could reach 65 mph (104.6 kph) in the Plains, creating poor visibility.
One hopeful traveler asked the weather service Friday on Twitter whether it would be advisable to drive to Duluth, Minnesota, over the weekend. The agency warned: “If you are in Duluth by tonight, you will likely be stuck there until at least Sunday afternoon due to heavy snow and blizzard conditions.”
Northern Michigan University reopened its residence halls, two days earlier than normal for a Thanksgiving weekend, to give students more options as forecasters predicted a foot or more of snow.
“We want to make people aware of what they could be driving into,” campus police Chief Mike Bath said.
The airline industry group estimated a record 31.6 million people will travel over a 12-day holiday period. Airlines on Friday said they were so far operating as usual as they monitored the weather.
Delta said inclement weather could disrupt travel at airports in the upper Midwest on Saturday and the Northeast on Sunday and Monday. It offered to let customers reschedule or cancel flights. American Airlines issued similar waivers for Rapid City, South Dakota.
Sections of South Dakota were under a blizzard warning and could see howling winds and as much as 2 feet (0.6 meters) of snow. Authorities reported a fatal crash in the state after a driver lost control of his pickup on an ice-covered road. A 37-year-old passenger died after the truck slid into a ditch and rolled.
The South Dakota Highway Patrol posted a photo on Facebook of another crash — a semi-truck that veered from Interstate 90 near Rapid City. “Do not travel if you don’t have to!” the agency wrote. Transportation officials said later Friday that much of I-90 throughout the state would shut down at midnight. Interstate 90 was also closed on the Montana and Wyoming border and roads throughout Wyoming were also shut down. Widespread freezing drizzle was causing icy roads across much of western and central North Dakota, the National Weather Service said.
Utah Highway Patrol troopers were dealing with a “huge smattering” of wrecks across the state starting Friday afternoon, Sgt. Brady Zaugg told the Salt Lake Tribune.
The National Weather Service announced on Friday evening that three tornados had hit parts of the Phoenix area early Friday. Bianca Hernandez, a meteorologist, said tornado warnings are highly unusual for Arizona any time of the year.
Fog forced delayed flights and cancelations at Denver International Airport Friday.
Karlee Wilkinson, a 22-year-old college student in Long Beach, California, missed a Thanksgiving weekend gathering entirely because of snow on the way to her destination.
She, her girlfriend and her roommate left Thursday for what was supposed to be a two-hour drive. But the snow started falling in flakes bigger than she’d ever seen, the highway became gridlocked, and their car kept overheating.
At first it seemed like an adventure: They made snowmen in the highway median. But when the sun set, the temperature dropped, and they decided to turn around and head home. Their Thanksgiving dinner was chicken nuggets from a fast food drive-thru.
“This is not how this is supposed to go, this is not what an American Thanksgiving is supposed to be,” Wilkinson said. “It can only get better than this. I’ll never have a worse Thanksgiving, knock on wood.”
(Bloomberg).- Facebook presentó en detalle su plan para combatir las noticias falsas. En la práctica, tercerizará la revisión de la veracidad de aquellas noticias identificadas por los usuarios como posiblemente falsas con grupos que deberían, como mínimo, ser signatarios de un código desarrollado en el Poynter Institute, una organización de capacitación periodística con sede en Florida.
Pero al convertir un pequeño grupo de inspectores en los árbitros de la “verdad”, Facebook socava su propia imparcialidad y podría allanar el camino para la censura en las redes sociales.
En una publicación, Adam Mosseri, el vicepresidente de Facebook responsable de la sección de noticias, explicó cómo funcionará el esquema. Los usuarios podrán identificar una noticia falsa, que luego Facebook enviará a un grupo que haya firmado el Código de Principios Internacionales de Verificación de Hechos.
Si el grupo decide que la noticia es en efecto falsa, Facebook la marcará como “disputada” con un enlace a la explicación de los verificadores. La gente todavía podrá compartir las noticias tras leer la advertencia de que son polémicas, pero Facebook “podría” ponerla más abajo en la sección de noticias y las volverá inelegibles para promociones pagas.
En un principio, se probará el sistema en Estados Unidos, donde solo un puñado de organizaciones —ABC News, Associated Press, Climate Feedback, Factcheck.org, PolitiFact, Snopes y The Washington Post Fact Checker— han firmado el código. El Poynter Institute ha aclarado que no admitirá así sin más a más firmantes: la “función filtradora” que ahora tendrá el código, exige, según el instituto, “un mecanismo de verificación más formal detrás del código de principios”.
El socio elegido por Facebook ya descarta inmediatamente a una gran franja de lectores conservadores. La International Fact-Checking Network de Poynter, sede del código de principios, está financiada, entre otros donantes, por las Open Society Foundations de George Soros, suficiente como para que muchos de los que comparten noticias de Breitbart News y sitios conservadores más extremos la vean como parte de una conspiración globalista.
Además, esa gente —o incluso conservadores menos virulentos— tampoco va a tomar como la verdad revelada las evaluaciones de, digamos, PolitiFact. Este último es el blanco favorito de los blogueros conservadores; incluso hay un sitio llamado PolitiFact Bias (El sesgo de PolitiFact) que cuestiona regularmente el trabajo de los que verifican hechos, muchas veces con argumentos válidos.
Por ejemplo, hace poco explicó que examinar la veracidad de la descripción que hizo un republicano de la victoria de Trump en el Colegio Electoral como “arrasadora” no tiene sentido porque una “victoria arrasadora” es cuestión de opinión, no de hechos. El sitio también afirmó que detectó inconsistencias en los miembros del equipo de PolitiFact.
Breitbart también se mete en peleas con PolitiFact. En julio, discutieron el análisis de cómo Donald Trump utilizó una historia de “Clinton Cash”, un best seller de Peter Schweizer, sobre la venta de una empresa de uranio con minas en Estados Unidos a una compañía estatal rusa. Schweizer ayudó a Breitbart a armar su refutación. PolitiFact publicó una réplica punto por punto en la que afirmó repetidamente que el contexto aportado por Schweizer no era relevante para la revisión específica. El ida y vuelta podría haber continuado si Breitbart hubiera señalado que cualquier contexto podría ser relevante para una historia compleja.
Si Facebook se tomara en serio la solidez de su esquema tercerizado para examinar la veracidad, tendría que poner enlaces para cada parte polemizada en su marca de “noticia disputada”.
¿Ayudaría esto a los lectores a determinar la verdad? Yo sé que yo estaría más confundido que iluminado. ¿Cuántos lectores tienen el tiempo, el interés o, de hecho, las habilidades periodísticas para examinar la fuente de la noticia y seguir investigando?
Incluso sin tener en cuenta la posibilidad de sesgos, a veces los signatarios del código de principios del Poynter pueden discrepar sobre la veracidad de una misma afirmación. En un artículo sobre el análisis de realidades polémicas publicado en 2015, Morgan Marietta, de la Universidad de Massachusetts, y sus colaboradores mencionan tres casos específicos de discrepancias.
Por ejemplo, en 2012, Factcheck.org describió la afirmación del senador Dick Durbin de que “el Seguro Social no suma un centavo a nuestra deuda” como falsa, pero The Washington Post Fact Checker la calificó como “en gran parte verdadera”. En 2013, el presidente Barack Obama dijo que los déficits estaban cayendo al ritmo más veloz en 60 años. PolitiFact estuvo de acuerdo, pero Factcheck.org calificó la afirmación de falsa.
“Examinándolos desde la perspectiva de las realidades discutidas de nuestra política, los verificadores no se ponen de acuerdo sobre las preguntas hechas o las respuestas ofrecidas”, escribieron los investigadores, que les dieron a los tres principales grupos de verificación de hechos de Estados Unidos —PolitiFact, Factcheck.org y The Washington Post Fact Checker— “dos o tres Pinochos” según la escala del Washington Post, o “media verdad/en gran parte falsa”. En realidad, un país políticamente polarizado no está en la postverdad, sino que a veces la verdad es complicada e intrincada.
La comunidad cada vez más grande de verificadores de hechos, alentada por instituciones como Poynter, surgió en respuesta a reducciones de costos en los medios dominantes. Muchas organizaciones de noticias no pueden permitirse hacer revisiones meticulosas; incluso evitan a los correctores que podrían quitar errores de tipeo.
Sin embargo, al fin y al cabo, los verificadores de veracidad sólo son periodistas, con sus propios sesgos y defectos profesionales. Su trabajo resulta útil para la comunidad periodística como servicio público que sustituye la atención rigurosa que se dedicaba al detalle dentro de las organizaciones de noticias, pero no puede funcionar como base para “degradar” ciertas historias y aprobar otras. Sin embargo, es precisamente así que Facebook quiere usarlos.
Las banderillas de “disputado” no son particularmente preocupantes. Algunas fuentes de noticias de derecha probablemente las usarían como insignia de honor y sus lectores estarían de acuerdo, si bien a algunos adictos a las noticias podría interesarles el contexto más amplio que aportan los que verifican la veracidad. Es bueno ver una noticia y su crítica juntas. Pero si Facebook realmente degrada el contenido “polémico” y hace imposible que se promocione, eso restringiría la distribución de ciertas noticias legítimas. E incluso las falsas pueden tener su valor. Como alguien que sigue a Rusia, debo ver qué noticias comparten y discuten los miembros de sitios propagandísticos del Kremlin en Europa y Estados Unidos. La nueva política de Facebook podría dificultarlo, porque los enlaces quedarán más abajo en mi sección de noticias.
Facebook está presionada para hacer algo con las noticias falsas: la International Fact Checking Network, los demócratas en Estados Unidos y políticos europeos que pronto enfrentarán sus propias elecciones están en pie de guerra contra las noticias engañosas. De aplicarse con coherencia, el nuevo procedimiento probablemente le saque los críticos de encima a Zuckerberg. Sin embargo, también devaluará a Facebook como plataforma omnívora e imparcial de distribución de noticias, hará que algunos lectores se encierren más en sus opiniones y que otros salgan a buscar otras formas de recibir contenidos de varias fuentes. Twitter parece ser una buena alternativa hasta que ceda a la presión como Facebook.
Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey have led tributes from across US society to the civil rights leader and Georgia congressman John Lewis, who died on Friday evening at the age of 80.
Lewis, who had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, dedicated his life to the fight for racial equality and justice and worked closely with Dr Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s, the high water mark of the civil rights movement in the US. He became a congressman in 1987.
“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise,” Obama wrote in a Medium post. “And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”
Winfrey released footage of Lewis speaking during a recorded conversation between the two last week. Posting the footage, Winfrey wrote: “He sounded weak but was surprisingly more alert than we expected. I had a final chance to tell him what I’ve said every time I’ve been in his presence: ‘Thank you for your courage leading the fight for freedom. My life as it is would not have been possible without you.’
“I know for sure he heard me. I felt good about that. He understood and was so gracious.”
In the interview, shot to mark a CNN documentary entitled John Lewis: Good Trouble, the congressman said: “I tried to do what was right, fair and just. When I was growing up in rural Alabama, my mother always said, ‘Boy, don’t get in trouble … but I saw those signs that said ‘white’, ‘colored’, and I would say, ‘Why?’
“And she would say again, ‘Don’t get in trouble. You will be beaten. You will go to jail. You may not live. But … the words of Dr King and the actions of Rosa Parks inspired me to get in trouble. And I’ve been getting in trouble ever since. Good trouble. Necessary trouble.”
Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah)
Last week when there were false rumors of Congressman John Lewis’ passing, Gayle and I called and were able to speak with him. He sounded weak but was surprisingly more alert than we expected. pic.twitter.com/8kRRDMTvFm
Lewis was a prominent figure in many key events of the civil rights era, prominent among them the March on Washington in 1963 and a voting rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 on what would come to be known as Bloody Sunday.
State troopers attacked peaceful protesters with clubs and tear gas. A police officer knocked Lewis to the ground and hit him in the head with a nightstick, then struck him again as he tried to get up, he would later testify in court.
Images of Lewis being beaten are some of the most enduring of the era. Film of events in Selma was shown on national television, galvanizing support for the Voting Rights Act.
Pettus, for whom the bridge is named, was a slaveholding member of the Confederate army, a leader in the Klu Klux Klan and a man “bent on preserving slavery and segregation”, Smithsonian Magazine wrote.
A petition to change the name of the bridge to memorialize Lewis now has more than 400,000 signatures.
Lewis was the son of sharecroppers in Alabama but represented a Georgia district for 33 years in the US House of Representatives. In one of his last public appearances, he walked a street in front of the White House in Washington painted with a Black Lives Matter mural, a tribute to a movement he saw as a continuation of his fight for racial equality.
Politicians paid tribute on Saturday, among them former presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and George W Bush, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and, with a tweet and an order for flags to fly at half-staff, Donald Trump.
Ava DuVernay, the academy award-nominated director of the historical drama film Selma, a retelling of the 1965 march, wrote that she would “never forget what you taught me and what you challenged me to be”.
“Better. Stronger. Bolder. Braver. God bless you, Ancestor John Robert Lewis of Troy, Alabama. Run into His arms.”
Viola Davis, the first black actress to win a Tony, an Emmy and an Oscar, thanked Lewis for his “commitment to change” and “courage”. In one of Davis’s most famous roles, in the 2011 film The Help, she portrayed a maid in the Jim Crow south, a role she has since said catered to a white audience not “ready for the truth” about the black experience.
Stacey Abrams, who lost a race to become Georgia’s first black female governor after voting rolls were purged by her Republican opponent, called Lewis “a griot of this modern age”. Abrams’ organization Fair Fight continues to work to secure voting rights, a central demand of marchers in Selma.
Minister Bernice A King, the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King, said Lewis “did, indeed, fight the good fight and get into a lot of good trouble”, thereby ensuring he “served God and humanity well”.
Drop-off voting sites around the Twin Cities reported heavy turnout and in some cases long lines Saturday after the website Minnesotans use to track their absentee ballots experienced hardware problems.
A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Steve Simon said access to the public-facing tools were restored midmorning, after an apparent “hardware issue impacting the online tools for voters.” The problem also affected the Statewide Voter Registration System. By late afternoon, all systems were restored.
Spokeswoman Risikat Adesaogun said voters were still able to cast absentee ballots during the outage thanks to a backup process for administering ballots when the voter registration system is down.
Given the uncertainty, state officials are now urging voters who have not submitted their absentee ballots to drop them off or vote in person.
Saturday’s problem created longer-than-normal wait times for voters dropping off ballots in some parts of the metro area, while hardly affecting voting in others.
At the Carver County government centers, voters had to wait from 1½ to four hours depending on what time they showed up, said Kendra Olson, the elections manager.
“We always have a high turnout before the election,” she said. “What was unusual was the long line,” she said, that got longer due to social distancing.
Normally, she said, election workers check whether a voter is preregistered against a computerized state list. The computer then generates a label with a bar code that is affixed to the absentee ballot application.
But with the glitch, names had to be checked by election workers against a master list that the county generated, and the information then was filled out by hand.
Voters had to wait up to an hour at the Hennepin County Government Center, said Ginny Gelms, the county’s elections manager. She said the county had a “virtual queue” for voters to wait, and they were sent a text when they were next in line so they did not have to stand in an actual physical line.
Once the state system came back up, labels were generated and put on envelopes to ensure that people don’t vote twice.
Andy Lokken, elections director for Dakota County, said waits at the county administration center in Hastings were no more than 20 minutes. Dakota County has 14 locations to vote, he said. That compares to two in Carver County.
Lokken said only three sites will be open in Dakota County on Sunday: Apple Valley, West St. Paul and Hastings. Election workers will spend part of the day catching up by generating labels from the state website to affix to outer envelopes containing ballots.
Facebook is facing increasing blowback over its policy that allows politicians to lie in ads on its platform, and critics have been urging the company to stop running political ads. So far, the company hasn’t backed down. But on Wednesday, fellow social media company Twitter announced it will stop all political advertising on its platform worldwide.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey made the announcement in a series of tweets on Wednesday afternoon. “We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” Dorsey wrote.
In other words, politicians can still organically tweet but they can’t pay to promote those tweets as advertisements.
Dorsey laid out Twitter’s reasoning, explaining that political messages earn reach when people decide to follow or retweet an account. “Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money,” he wrote.
He warned that internet advertising’s power “brings significant risks to politics” — a dig at Facebook, which doesn’t fact-check ads from politicians.
These challenges will affect ALL internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well, and harms our credibility.
For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well…they can say whatever they want! ”
“We’re well aware we’re a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem,” Dorsey concluded. “Some might argue our actions today could favor incumbents. But we have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow.”
Twitter’s definition of a political ad will align with how it defines political content, a spokesman for the company told Recode.
This puts pressure on other social media companies to make a move
Twitter is a relatively small player in the online political advertising space, which is largely dominated by Facebook and Google. Nevertheless, its decision puts pressure on competitors that are already under heavy scrutiny over their policies. It’s probably not by accident that Twitter announced its decision at the same time Facebook announced its quarterly earnings.
Facebook specifically has been widely criticized for its policy of not fact-checking ads run by politicians. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken a hard line on his defense of Facebook’s approach, sticking by it in the face of criticism from reporters, lawmakers, and his own employees, who are all pressuring him to rethink his decision.
The potential ramifications of Facebook’s policies have been evidenced by Democratic efforts to test its limits. First, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) ran an ad falsely claiming Zuckerberg had endorsed President Donald Trump, then first-term Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) got Zuckerberg to admit at a House hearing that he would “probably” let her run ads saying Republicans supported the Green New Deal. And then, a progressive strategist named Adriel Hampton filed to run for California governor as part of a stunt campaign, saying the plan was to run fake ads. Facebook decided to clamp down on him, adding more confusion into the mix.
But taking down the ad would have created two problems for Facebook. First, it would set a precedent that Facebook is responsible for policing every false political ad on its platform. That would be a challenging but not impossible task. The company has effectively addressed terrorist content and gotten better at combating election interference. It could undertake similar efforts on fake political ads.
The second and bigger complication: taking down the ad could also have caused just as much controversy as leaving it up. Trump and his supporters would likely have cried foul. Facebook and other social media companies are already dogged by unfounded accusations by Republicans that their algorithms contain anti-conservative bias, and they have done a lot of legwork to try to prove they’re not.
To be sure, none of this is to say that Twitter has resolved all criticisms and questions about the health of its platform, or even how it moderates political tweets that aren’t paid advertisements. Some people continue to call for Twitter to censor or take down Trump’s account when he tweets out particularly threatening or offensive content that seemingly violates the platform’s rules.
“MURIENDO POR CRUZAR,” AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INCREASING NUMBER OF IMMIGRANT DEATHS ALONG THE BORDER, THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 AT 6 P.M./5 C
Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval present the Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production
Miami – July 31, 2014 –Telemundo presents “Muriendo por Cruzar”, a documentary that investigates why increasing numbers of immigrants are dying while trying to cross the US-Mexican border near the city of Falfurrias, Texas, this Sunday, August 3 at 6PM/5 C. The Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production, presented by Noticias Telemundo journalists Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval, reveals the obstacles immigrants face once they cross into US territory, including extreme weather conditions, as they try to evade the border patrol. “Muriendo por Cruzar” is part of Noticias Telemundo’s special coverage of the crisis on the border and immigration reform.
“‘Muriendo por Cruzar’” dares to ask questions that reveal the actual conditions undocumented immigrants face as they try to start a new life in the United States,” said Alina Falcón, Telemundo’s Executive Vice President for News and Alternative Programming. “Our collaboration with The Weather Channel was very productive. They have a unique expertise in covering the impact of weather on people’s lives, as we do in covering immigration reform and the border crisis. The result is a compelling documentary that exposes a harrowing reality.”
“Muriendo por Cruzar” is the first co-production by Telemundo and The Weather Channel. Both networks are part of NBCUniversal.
La cadena de supermercados Tienda Inglesa atraviesa una “reestructura” que, para sus empleados, supone dos alternativas: el recorte de beneficios o la pérdida de puestos de trabajo.
Así explicó a El País la situación el presidente de la Federación Uruguaya de Empleados de Comercio y Servicios (Fuecys), Favio Riverón. Ayer hubo una asamblea general de delegados, que resolvió realizar reuniones de este tipo en todos los locales de la empresa la semana próxima, para definir los pasos a seguir de ahora en más.
Los nuevos dueños de Tienda Inglesa —que pasó de manos de la familia Henderson a un grupo de capitales nacionales y extranjeros liderado por el banco estadounidense Goldman Sachs el año pasado por alrededor de US$ 120 millones— plantearon al sindicato que “las ventas no condicen con los egresos” y que esta es una situación que se ha reiterado a lo largo de los años, explicó Riverón. “El nuevo directorio tiene claro que tiene que corregir eso rápidamente”, agregó el presidente de Fuecys.
Un grupo de trabajadores de la cadena —extraoficialmente se manejan unos 400— aceptó la oferta de la empresa de “despido voluntario”, indicó Riverón. El grueso de los que se inclinó por esta opción tenía salarios altos, agregó.
Ahora, en función de los planteos que surjan en las asambleas que se realizarán en cada una de las sucursales —tiene 10 en Montevideo, Canelones y Maldonado— el sindicato elevará una “contrapropuesta” a los responsables de la compañía. La fórmula a la que busca llegar Fuecys, dijo Riverón, contemplará “cómo hacer para no perder puestos de trabajo”.
Según la Central de Riesgos del Banco Central, Tienda Inglesa tiene calificación 4 (deudor con capacidad de pago muy comprometida), de acuerdo al último dato disponible de abril. Asimismo, posee una deuda con el sistema financiero que ascendía a esa fecha a US$ 28,1 millones.
Officials in Iran are plotting its response after scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed. Trey Yingst reports.
The New York Times was accused of “carrying water for Iran” over the weekend for echoing the nation’s talking point that its “nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes” after the leader of Tehran’s military nuclear program was killed in a shooting.
State TV on Friday cited sources confirming the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was dubbed the leader of Tehran’s military nuclear program until it was ended in the early 2000s.
“Iranian officials, who have always maintained that their nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes, not weapons, expressed fury and vowed revenge over the assassination, calling it an act of terrorism and warmongering,” the New York Times World tweeted from its verified account to accompany an article headlined “Gunmen Assassinate Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist in Ambush, Provoking New Crisis.”
The tweet was quickly ridiculed, and human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky responded, “NY Times, ‘Paper of Record’ for … the #Iran regime.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. — who caused chaos inside the paper earlier this year when he penned an op-ed that offended liberals — slammed the Times as propaganda.
“What was once the self-styled newspaper of record is now just a well-funded left-wing blog, relentlessly hostile to America and Israel, and always ready to propagandize for their enemies,” Cotton wrote.
Journalist Shiri Moshe added, “Iranian officials also maintain that their regime doesn’t subjugate women or massacre political dissidents — is the NYT going to prominently and uncritically feature those lies in their coverage as well?”
Many others condemned the Times for the tweet:
Fakhrizadeh led Iran’s so-called “Amad,” or “Hope,” program, which Israel and the West described as a military operation to build a nuke. The U.N. atomic agency said the program ended in the early 2000s.
Fakhrizadeh’s death will be another major blow to the Tehran regime, which has struggled amid “maximum pressure” from the Trump administration and saw the U.S. leave the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and impose waves of sanctions on the Islamic dictatorship.
In January, the U.S. took out Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a strike in what the Trump administration described as an act of self-defense against an “imminent” attack.
The Associated Press and Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report
Top row from left, Luciana Fuller, Carla Damian-Gomes and Renata Barros were the first Brazilians to enroll in MVRHS. Also pictured, Simonica Oliveira, bottom right, and Lilian Macedo, center. — Juliana Germani
Starting with this column, I would like to begin introducing some members of the Brazilian community, in addition to writing about events, opportunities, and other pertinent topics. This week, meet Carla Beatriz Damian-Gomes, the first Brazilian to attend the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) and the first female Brazilian court officer in Dukes County.
Where did you live in Brazil?
I lived in Santa Catarina, one of the three states in south Brazil.
How was MVRHS when you enrolled in 1994? How was your first day?
I was so scared on my first day because I didn’t know the language. I was in a private school in Brazil, and when I did a placement test [at MVRHS], I did really well, and the school offered me to be a sophomore instead of a freshman, but we ultimately decided that it was best to remain a freshman, as it was the best option because I didn’t speak English. Back in 1994, I felt a little lonely because I didn’t have anyone since I was the first Brazilian.
There were no apps to translate among all of the other technology that makes our lives easier nowadays. I had a dictionary. People didn’t really talk to me, but we got the point across. It took me six to seven months to begin to feel comfortable speaking in English. My ESL teacher, Jacquie Callahan, helped me a lot in the first year. She had books, little kids’ books, that she used to help me. She had only me as a Brazilian student among her American students. The second year got better because two other Brazilians joined the high school. I believe it was Genaina Pereira and Renata Barros.
How would you say that the Island has changed regarding the Brazilian community? In your opinion, what have been the big changes?
There weren’t as many options as far as Brazilian stores and restaurants. Helio da Silva had a little store we used to go to for all things Brazilian and to rent Brazilian soap opera tapes, because at that time Comcast didn’t offer Brazilian channels, as they do now. We had to put our names on a waiting list to have access to these tapes and had two days to watch and return them. I don’t know exactly how many Brazilians lived on the Island back then, but not as many as today. They didn’t own houses or anything. If two Brazilians back then owned houses, that was a lot.
What happened after you graduated high school in 1998?
I was not legal when I graduated high school, and despite having a full scholarship to college through a lady who lives in Chilmark (her name is Ms. Steiner), I couldn’t attend because I didn’t have a social security number. I had to accept that as difficult as it was, that was my reality at the time. I tried to change that though. I took the ferry and a bus by myself and went to the immigration office in Boston and explained my situation, and the opportunity I had, and asked if they could do anything to help me. However, they laughed at my face and told me to go home, that no one was going to bother me as long as I didn’t do anything wrong. I had to, at the very least, try to do something about it. I remember thinking that it just wasn’t my time. God knew when my time would be.
What did you do after high school?
I worked as a dental assistant for 10 years and as a counter person at a no longer existing deli on the Island. Ultimately, I got my papers through one of the last immigration reforms that opened in the U.S., the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act of 2000 (the LIFE Act), but actually ended up finalizing the process through marriage, and now I am a naturalized American citizen.
Where is home for you?
It is so strange the feeling of not truly being able to answer that question. Sometimes I am in the U.S., and it doesn’t feel like home, and I feel the same when in Brazil. It is as if I am perpetually lost between both worlds and cultures.
How does it feel to be Brazilian on the Island?
Well, I believe that when you move out of your country in pursuit of a better life, you have the responsibility to live your life in a way that doesn’t jeopardize other members of your community. Sometimes it can be hard because I feel that if something bad happens on the Island, some people say that it is probably a Brazilian, and that is challenging. I understand some frustrations expressed regarding immigration, fairness, and so forth. However, one thing that concerns me is the lack of something to allow immigrants to have a driver’s license in a way that other states have done it. For me, it is a way to provide public safety. As of now, because the state refuses to do something about it, the state doesn’t really know or control anything regarding the immigrants living in Massachusetts. To me it makes no sense. All cars would have insurance, and people would be accountable for maintaining their license, perhaps preventing some behaviors that right now clog our court system.
Why did you become a court officer?
I had always wanted to be a police officer because of the way things are in my country. I wanted to feel less powerless. I became a court officer in 2011.
Why do you love the Island? What makes this place so special for you?
The Island’s landscape is similar to where I come from, and this is such a beautiful and safe place, especially for my kids. I would have stayed here even if I couldn’t live here legally. That would have been a sacrifice worth making for the safety of my family as well as my own.
How do you feel about the current state of immigration in the U.S. right now?
We never stop being an immigrant, regardless of becoming a naturalized citizen. It is so sad because there are so many great people from all over the world just trying to make a good living for their kids; the American dream is an idea that will never die. The lack of a reform hurts everyone. People tend to forget that they will become responsible for costs associated with trying to send people home when, in reality, immigrants, since the birth of this nation, have only made this country better. I hope that eventually a bipartisan bill reaches the Congress. It is needed because we, as a country, would only benefit for that to become a reality.
The total damages of nearly $50 million was significantly less than the $150 million in damages Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis were seeking.
Jones faces two more Sandy Hook trials to determine damages later this year: One for parents of a 6-year-old boy in an Austin court, and another for eight families in Connecticut.
Heslin and Lewis have testified that Jones’ constant push of false claims that the shooting was a hoax or staged made the last decade a “living hell” of death threats, online abuse and unrelenting trauma inflicted by Jones and his followers.
But the bombastic version of Jones was always lurking under the surface — or even on full display away from the courthouse.
During a break on the first day, he held an impromptu news conference just a few feet from the courtroom doors, declaring the proceedings a “kangaroo court” and “show trial” railroading his fight for free speech under the First Amendment. On the first day, he arrived at the courthouse with “Save the 1st” written on silver tape over his mouth.
When he came to the courthouse, it was always with a security detail of three or four guards. Jones, who wasn’t in court for the verdict, often skipped testimony to appear on his daily Infowars program, where the attacks on the judge and jury continued. During one show, Jones said the jury was pulled from a group of people who “don’t know what planet they live on.”
That clip was shown to the jury. So was a snapshot from his Infowars website showing Judge Maya Guerra Gamble engulfed in flames. She laughed at that.
Jones was only slightly less combative in court. He was the only witness to testify in his defense. Gamble warned Jones’ lawyers before it even started that if he tried to turn it into a performance, she would clear the courtroom and shut down the livestream broadcasting the trial to the world.
When Jones arrived for Lewis’ testimony, Gamble asked if he was chewing gum, a violation of a strict rule in her courtroom. She’d scolded his attorney Andino Reynal several times already.
That led to a testy exchange. Jones said he wasn’t chewing gum. Gamble said she could see his mouth moving. Jones opened wide and leaned over the defense table to show her a gap in his mouth where he’d had a tooth extracted. Jones insisted he was only massaging the hole with his tongue.
“Don’t show me,” the judge said.
Some legal experts said they were surprised by Jones’ behavior and questioned whether it was a calculated risk to boost his appeal to fans.
“It’s the most bizarre behavior I have ever seen at a trial,” said Barry Covert, a Buffalo, New York, First Amendment lawyer. “In my opinion, Jones is a money-making juggernaut — crazy like a fox,” Covert said. “The bigger the spectacle, the better.”
Kevin Goldberg, a First Amendment specialist at the Maryland-based Freedom Forum, said he found it hard to imagine what Jones might be thinking and what benefit he could derive from his behavior.
“I don’t know what it is designed to accomplish other than being on brand for Alex Jones,” said Goldberg. “This seem to be a man who has built his brand … on disrespecting the institutions of government … and this court.”
Defendants at trial are often given some leeway because they have so much at stake — prison in criminal cases and, in Jones’ civil trial, potential financial ruin. Monetary sanctions or even post-trial contempt charges are also a possibility.
Gamble had to be careful how she handled it all, Covert said.
“Jones’ bizarre behavior is putting the judge in a very difficult box,” said Covert. “She doesn’t want to appear to put her finger on the scales of justice.”
Jones skipped Heslin’s testimony when he described for the jury holding his dead son in his arms with a “bullet hole through his head.”
Heslin said he wanted to confront Jones face-to-face and called his absence that day “cowardly.” Jones was instead appearing on his daily broadcast.
Jones was in the room when Lewis took the stand, sitting barely 10 feet (3 meters) away as she looked directly at him.
When Lewis asked Jones if he thought she was an actor, Jones answered, “No,” but was cut off by Gamble, who scolded him for speaking out of turn.
At the end of that day, Jones and the parents shook hands. Lewis even handed Jones a sip of water to help calm a persistent cough Jones said was caused by a torn larynx. Her attorney Wesley Ball quickly stepped in to break it up.
“No,” Ball snapped at Jones, “You are NOT doing this.”
Jones was the only witness in his defense. His testimony pushed the rules of the court so often that the plaintiffs openly questioned whether Jones and his attorneys were trying to sabotage the proceedings and force a mistrial. They filed a motion for sanctions against them after Jones claimed he was bankrupt, which attorneys dispute and was off limits in testimony.
At one point, Jones appeared flabbergasted when the family’s attorneys announced that Jones’ legal team had mistakenly sent them two years’ worth of data from his cellphone — a massive data dump they said should have been produced in discovery but wasn’t. They said it proved he’d been receiving texts and emails about Sandy Hook and his media company’s finances that he hadn’t turned over under court orders.
“This is your Perry Mason moment,” Jones snapped.
Plaintiff’s attorney Mark Bankston said Thursday that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol had requested those materials and that he intended to give it to them.
The Jan. 6 committee first subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding a deposition and documents related to his efforts to spread misinformation about the 2020 election and a rally on the day of the attack.
During the trial, Jones often spoke out of turn, and was cut off when he veered into conspiracies, ranging from the Sept. 11 terror attacks being staged to a fake effort of the United Nations on world depopulation. He continued to call into question some of the biggest events and significant government institutions in American life.
El CEO de Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, brindó una charla en North Carolina A&T State University donde habló sobre la importancia de construir comunidad. Los alumnos de esta casa de estudios realizaron varias preguntas al fundador de la red social sobre este y más temas.
“Necesitamos construir diferentes cosas que haga que la gente se una para trabajar junta (…) y así resolver juntos en comunidad diferentes problemas que nos aquejan” señaló Zuckerberg en una trasmisión en vivo desde su cuenta de Facebook. Así se refirió a problemas globales como el cambio climático y otras dificultades, que a su juicio, pueden ser resueltas en colectivo.
Entre las preguntas que los alumnos de la universidad estadounidense formularon, se habló de las noticias falsas. Zuckerberg aceptó la responsabilidad de la red social frente a este contenido e incluso aceptó que la empresa, muchas veces, es engañada por este tipo de noticias. Se trata de un trabajo constante de Facebook y un problema con el que aún está lidiando.
“Estamos realmente en contra de las noticias falsas y la falta de información, hay algunas acusaciones que dicen que realmente queremos este tipo de contenidos y servicios. Pero eso no es cierto. Nadie en nuestra comunidad quiere información falsa. Lo que todo el mundo quiere es información real. Si alguien tiene una mala experiencia en Facebook, ya no confiará en este ni en sus contenidos y eso no es bueno para nosotros”, dijo.
Dentro de este debate, Zuckerberg enfatizó la importancia que tiene la veracidad de un contenido ante la posibilidad de que se trate en realidad de un desacuerdo de opiniones. “Así que antes de retirar algún contenido tenemos que estar seguros de que se trata de falsedad y no de una opinión que hiere los sentimientos de algunas personas y por ello es catalogado como tal”, señaló. Cabe mencionar que para este tipo de situaciones Facebook maneja otro tipo de mecanismos.
Zuckerberg también habló en esta reunión sobre algunas anécdotas como padre de familia y lo feliz que se encuentra de recibir a su próxima hija. Según el CEO de Facebook, la experiencia de cambiar pañales le dio una nueva perspectiva del mundo.
El fundador de la red social más grande e importante del mundo hizo un especial énfasis en la importancia que hay en tener más ingenieros y profesionales creativos que logren conectar con el mundo. “Creo que este es un tiempo único en la historia de la humanidad (…) podemos ir juntos a construir y dar herramientas suficientes para empoderar”.
A esta asamblea de 50 minutos asistieron 200 alumnos de dicha casa de estudios. Zuckerberg instó a los jóvenes a finalizar sus estudios superiores. Como se recuerda, hace algunos días anunció que volvería a Harvard. “Estoy seguro que esto se será lo que hará a mis padres los seres más orgullosos del mundo. Sé que no soy el mejor mensajero para esto, pero: sigan en la universidad”, señaló el CEO de Facebook.
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