Archived threads in /news/ - Current News - 89. page

>Voting in the French presidential runoff has begun in France's overseas territories amid a nationwide blackout on campaigning and media coverage that could sway voters' views. It moves to the mainland on Sunday.
The first French territory involved in the early voting was Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago located near the Canadian island of Newfoundland, where polling stations opened Saturday morning.
Early voting in other far-flung French overseas territories and French embassies abroad was expected later in the day.
In the presidential runoff, voters are choosing between centrist Emmanuel Macron's business-friendly, pro-European vision and far-right Marine Le Pen's protectionist, closed-borders view that resonates with workers left behind by globalization.

>10 a.m.

>France's election campaign watchdog is investigating a hacking attack and document leak targeting presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron that his political movement calls a last-ditch bid to disrupt Sunday's tense runoff vote.
Fears of hacking and campaign interference have simmered throughout France's high-stakes, closely watched campaign — and boiled over Friday night as Macron's team said it had been the victim of a "massive and coordinated" hack.
His political movement said the unidentified hackers accessed staffers' personal and professional emails and leaked campaign finance material and contracts — as well as fake decoy documents — online.
The perpetrators remain unknown. It's unclear whether the document dump would dent Macron's large poll lead over far-right rival Marine Le Pen going into the vote.

>6 a.m.

>The French presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television — a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics.
Marine Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses in Sunday's runoff, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in France's parliamentary election in June.
On Sunday she faces 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron, who also helped upend France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Le Pen said, win or lose, "we changed everything."
Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections.

>6 a.m.

>The hacking attack and leak of both fake and real documents from Emmanuel Macron's campaign began late Friday, just before France's required campaign news blackout descended at midnight.
Someone on 4chan — a site known for, among other things, cruel hoaxes and political extremism — posted links to a large set of data which the poster claimed had come from Macron's campaign. Macron's campaign swiftly confirmed it had been hacked some weeks ago, and that at least some of the documents were genuine.
Macron's team is slamming the hack as an effort to "seed doubt and disinformation" and destabilize the French presidential vote on Sunday where he faces Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party.
A top National Front official, Florian Philippot, asked in a tweet, "will the #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism deliberately buried?"
The French election commission is meeting Saturday on the hack and the leak.
A voting watchdog urged the French Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that some of her ballot papers were being tampered with to benefit Macron.

>>137214
Hopefully chris hasen will be there to meet him.

>>137215
who?

that the gay trumpkin that let his friends get away with diddling kiddies?
let them be associated with him; their loss.

>atheist group
Why not just call it what it is, Atheist Church.

>>137221
It needs to be registered as a church to be called a church.

>>137222
Can't they? The bar to register is ridiculously low.

>On the other hand, the messages' release just before France's political machinery shuts down for the weekend might mean that talk of the leak - regardless of its veracity - will dominate dinner table conversations as French voters make up their minds Saturday.

>The candidates stopped campaigning at midnight Friday to give voters a day of reflection before the election. It's a stark choice: Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-European Union platform, or Macron's progressive, pro-EU stance.

>Tensions marred the race right to the end.

>France's presidential voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that ballot papers are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballot "systematically torn up."

>Earlier in the day, anti-Le Pen crowds disrupted her visit to a renowned cathedral in Reims.

>The presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television — a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics as usual.

>Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in French politics in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign.

>In an interview with The Associated Press in the final hours of a hostile, topsy-turvy campaign, Le Pen said that win or lose, "we changed everything." She claimed an "ideological victory" for her populist, anti-immigrant worldview.

>"Even if we don't reach our goal, in any event there is a gigantic political force that is born," she told AP in her campaign headquarters. Her party "imposed the overhaul" of French politics and set the tone of the election, she said.

>The 39-year-old Macron, too, played a key role in upending France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign.

>Voters liked the idea, and chose Macron and Le Pen in the first-round vote, dumping the traditional left and right parties that have governed modern France. Le Pen said those parties have been "blackballed."

>Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande.

>Students protested both presidential candidates Friday by blocking high schools and marching through Paris.

>Le Pen, who was pelted with eggs Thursday in Brittany, was met by hecklers Friday at the Reims cathedral. She left via an unmarked door, putting her arms over her head as if to protect herself and diving into a black car.

>Le Pen denounced her critics for disrupting a sacred place during her final campaign stop. The site has special meaning for her National Front party because it's the cathedral where Charles VII was crowned in the presence of Joan of Arc — the party's icon — at a time of war and division.

>In the AP interview, Le Pen said she was confident she can bring the divided country together if elected.

>"Yes. I want most of all to put democracy back in place ... we must re-weave the links among people." She said.

>Macron would worsen divisions, she claimed.

>The pro-business Macron, who topped all vote-getters in the first-round, also has been booed and heckled frequently as he visited blue-collar workers.

>Violent protests erupted in Paris earlier this week against both candidates, with several police officers injured. And critics decried the bitter tone of Wednesday night's presidential debate.

>Le Pen acknowledged to AP that she became angry at the debate but said she was merely channeling the mood of France.

>Macron acknowledged the French are exasperated by the government's ineffectiveness, but he dismissed Le Pen's vision of an infuriated country.

>She "speaks for no one. ... Madame Le Pen exploits anger and hatred," Macron told RTL radio.

Republicans really want America to have it's own French revolution huh?

Single payer coming in 2020 if this passes the senate

>>136803
>biggest tax cut in history for the upper class
>slashes healthcare funding
>will still probably maintain their majorities in 2018
The democrats need to make some fundamental changes to their branding.

>Mr. Stone says that he has had no communications with Russian officials other than previously disclosed communications with Guccifer 2.0, the online persona that officials believe was a front for Russian intelligence. Mr. Stone has acknowledged trading messages with Guccifer on Twitter, though he has repeatedly dismissed allegations from the intelligence community that Guccifer was a Russian front.

>“I recognize that the reputation I have cultivated as an extreme partisan and a rogue make me a convenient fall guy for the Democrats, but I refuse to play the patsy role they have in mind for me,” said Mr. Stone, a self-professed dirty trickster.

>“I had no contact with the Russians or their cutout at any time and the idea that my tweets prove otherwise is ludicrous,” he added.

>Mr. Page was more circumspect about whether he would cooperate. In an email, he said, “Although I will help in any way that I can, please note that any records I may have saved as a private citizen with limited technology capabilities will be minuscule in comparison to the full database of information which has already been collected under last year’s completely unjustified FISA warrant.”

>He was referring to a warrant issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that allowed the Justice Department to secretly wiretap his communications. The warrant was issued after investigators concluded that Mr. Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign, and it was based on evidence that he might have been operating as a Russian agent, officials have said.

>“As a lone individual, I can assure you that my personal administrative capabilities pale in comparison to those of the numerous staff in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government,” Mr. Page added.

>Mr. Page, Mr. Stone and Mr. Manafort are all under scrutiny in an F.B.I. investigation into Russian election meddling and allegations of collusion by Trump associates. There are two other separate congressional investigations — one by the Senate panel and the other by the House intelligence committee.

>President Trump has dismissed talk of Russian election interference as “fake news” meant to undermine his presidency.

>The letters from the Senate committee were jointly signed by Senator Richard M. Burr, the North Carolina Republican, and Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat, who are the committee’s two senior members. The letters instruct recipients to list all the meetings they had with Russian officials or Russian businesspeople from June 16, 2015, through Jan. 20, 2017. It set a May 9 deadline for a response.

>The committee also requested that, by May 19, the recipients hand over records of all communications — including emails, text messages and phone logs — with Russian officials or businesspeople from the same period. It also asks them for information on any of their financial or real estate holdings related to Russia and to list any meetings they know of between other Trump campaign associates and Russians.

>Both Mr. Burr and Mr. Warner declined to comment on the requests, which officials said went to a number of other people associated with the Trump campaign and presidential transition.

>In February, the White House sought to enlist Mr. Burr to refute news stories about ties between Trump associates and Russia. The senator characterized his conversations with reporters as an appropriate part of his job as the chairman of the intelligence committee.

>Yet in public comments since then, he has committed to following the intelligence wherever it leads, including examining any links between Trump associates and Russia. Officials say that, in private, Mr. Burr has expressed no qualms about pressing forward with the investigation and has told Mr. Warner that he is ready to issue subpoenas if necessary.

>In recent weeks there have been reports that Mr. Warner and other Democrats on the committee were frustrated with the pace of the investigation, and were pressing Mr. Burr to send letters requesting emails, memos, phone records and other materials from the Trump campaign and transition.

>Late last month, the Democrats on the committee hired April F. Doss, a former associate general counsel at the National Security Agency, to serve as a special counsel on the Russia investigation.

Correction: May 5, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated the surname of a former associate general counsel at the National Security Agency. She is April F. Doss, not April F. Dawes.

>The digital call to arms came shortly after the first round of the French presidential election.

>On an online message board frequented by extremists in the United States, an anonymous user last month urged others to bombard social media sites in France in support of Marine Le Pen, the far-right French candidate, by using memes, hashtags and other digital tricks that they successfully employed during last year’s American presidential election. Within days, the online thread — and similar discussions across the internet — was flooded with hundreds of users in the United States offering to help the digital campaign.

>But the American tactics have not translated overseas.

>Despite such efforts, the far right in the United States and elsewhere has so far failed to reach much of the French electorate ahead of the country’s vote this weekend, according to a review of social media activity done for The New York Times. The analysis, which was based on a review of millions of Twitter messages related to the election since last summer, showed that more than one-third of posts linked to certain political hashtags originated from the United States, although few went viral in France.

>“There’s a big cultural gap that these groups have to jump over to expand their message,” said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, who has studied the far right’s recent efforts in France. “The language and iconography of the alt-right is pretty specific. Most of it just isn’t going to translate well.”

>The French presidential election is the latest front in the digital assault by the American far right or alt-right, a diverse and loosely connected group of internet-based radicals who have garnered attention by using memes — online satirical photographs with often biting captions — and other tactics to further their views worldwide.
...

>The activists, a combination of white supremacists, anti-Semitic campaigners and other far-right types, were closely linked to the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, although the extent of their influence remains unclear.

>Their efforts have fallen flat in France, with memes often written in English and extremist photos and images that do not resonate with the French electorate. American-style fake news and other digital misinformation have also failed to gain traction in France, where its own domestic issues and ways of campaigning still dominate.

>The muted response in France could portend a similar response by voters in Britain and Germany when they head to the polls later this year in their own national elections.

>“There has been an effort to spread fake news, but not to the same extent as what we saw in the U.S. campaign,” said Tommaso Venturini, a researcher at the médialab of Sciences Po Paris. “So far, it’s hard to see any evidence of the impact of fake news on the potential outcome.”

>While international activists have found it difficult to break into the French political discourse, local campaigners, often from the country’s own far right, have had more success.
...

>Ms. Le Pen’s social media team has fought a guerrilla-style war to spread its message online, including a dedicated group that shares videos and photos online that attack her political foes. A loose network of Facebook and Twitter users has similarly backed her campaign while disparaging Emmanuel Macron, Ms. Le Pen’s opponent and the front-runner to be France’s next president. Many of these social media messages have been shared by the supporters of more traditional politicians, including those of François Fillon, a right-wing candidate who finished third in last month’s first-round election.

>While muted, American-style fake news has also made an appearance.

>Ahead of last month’s vote, for instance, a fake news site masquerading as Le Soir, a Belgian newspaper, tried to spread rumors that Saudi Arabia was financing Mr. Macron’s campaign. Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a niece of Ms. Le Pen, posted the piece on Twitter before quickly removing the link after local media outlets debunked the claim.

>Still, for many in France, such outright fake news stories have been met merely with Gallic shrugs. And the digital tactics of international campaigners have been even less effective.

>In part, that is because alt-right activists from the United States and beyond have copied the movement’s American extremist images and language without tweaking them to entice the French electorate.
...

>>137018
How about you quote the article so I don't have to give Rupert Murdoch more adsense money?

>>137019
Oh never mind, that's probably why you posted a sensationalist clickbait source like the NYpost to begin with.

>the hottest opinion of the week coming from a deranged trumpanzee conspiratard who suffers from schizophrenia

No, thanks.

>Smith chairs the Media Fairness Caucus, which his office describes as meant to “examine the causes of one-sided reporting” and “develop strategies to combat media bias.”

>Smith urged people in a January House floor speech to “get your news directly from the president” because “it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.”

>>136585
>trumpfags are this tsundere for CNN

>I-It's not like I watch you anyway b-baka.

>Free Speech means we get to tell you what to say

>>137172
>bogustimes
Did you look at the source?

is supposed to be a coded slur or threat or something?

>>137177
Just prank bro.

“Fundamental revenue drivers (subscribers, advertising supply and demand) are incontrovertibly getting worse,” Todd Juenger, an analyst at Bernstein, said in a note Friday.

This week, the media industry reported a record first-quarter decline in pay-TV subscribers, and executives made cautious forecasts on advertising spending. The S&P 500 Media Index, which includes giants such as Disney and Comcast Corp., fell 2.2 percent this week, the worst since September. Time Warner Inc. and Viacom Inc. warned that second-quarter advertising sales are likely to be down.


In addition to the declining viewership, advertisers have gotten more cautious about spending because they’re even less sure than normal about how the economy is going to fare this year, given the volatile climate in Washington. John Martin, chief executive officer of Time Warner’s Turner cable unit, said on an earnings call that advertisers are “holding back a little bit” because of “some uncertainty in the economy.”

“They’re taking a little bit more of a wait-and-see approach,” Martin said. He also cited fewer product launches in categories like technology, cars and drugs.

There is some evidence to support the idea that advertisers are holding back spending. Major ad agencies like WPP Plc and Omnicom Group Inc. recently posted their lowest organic sales growth in seven years, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Another problem: TV networks and advertisers still haven’t agreed on a way to measure audiences on other platforms besides TV, like tablets and phones. Nielsen says it’s working on a solution, but programmers say many of their viewers are still not being counted in negotiations with advertisers, hurting their ad sales.

Turner, Viacom and Fox recently unveiled their own targeted advertising platform to better compete with digital video companies.

TV networks will also try capitalize on recent concerns about brands appearing next to offensive YouTube videos and remind brands that TV is a “safe” place to advertise.

But the pitch is wearing thin. On Thursday, CBS Corp. said advertising dropped less than 1 percent from a year earlier, leaving out last year’s Super Bowl and another playoff football game. Ad sales at Comcast’s NBCUniversal cable networks, which include CNBC and USA, slumped 3 percent in the first quarter due to lower ratings.

It’s possible that advertisers are putting media companies through some pain ahead of the big upfront meetings in New York later this month, when TV networks showcase their upcoming programming to try to snag big commitments from ad buyers.

“Agencies try to project a softer market than there is,” Viacom CEO Bob Bakish said in an interview. He called it “posturing.”

Yet Bakish and his peers know they need to improve the performance of many of their networks, with a few exceptions like VH1 and Fox News.

No network needs more help than Viacom’s MTV, the once-great cable channel that has surrendered its grip on young viewers to YouTube and Snapchat. New MTV boss Chris McCarthy has scrapped his predecessors’ scripted programs to focus more on reality series and live shows filmed in Viacom’s Times Square offices. The channel will air eight new series in the coming weeks.

Earlier this week at a conference in Beverly Hills, California, CBS CEO Les Moonves expressed confidence that ad rates will continue to climb.

“I say the same thing I say every year,” he said. “It’s going up. It’s great.”

Kill the beast and another will just rise in its place

>In Lincolnshire, where UKIP leader Paul Nuttall is standing in the general election in Boston and Skegness, the party went from being the official opposition to having no seats at all as the Tories gained 23 seats.

>It also lost eight seats in Hampshire, two seats on the Isle of Wight and eight in East Sussex. However, senior UKIP figures sought to put a brave face on the performance.

>The "people's army" has deserted its leaders. After years building its strength in local government, UKIP seems to be collapsing as its former supporters abandon the party for the Conservatives.

>UKIP lost all its seats in Hampshire, Essex and Lincolnshire. The east coast county was once a purple bastion and is where Paul Nuttall will try and win a parliamentary seat. The party's failure there encapsulates its demise.

>Will UKIP do better at the general election? Possibly. But these results mirror its slide in recent opinion polls. It now has no MPs, and when Britain leaves the EU it will lose all its MEPs too. The future for UKIP looks bleak.

>And of course it's easy to see why. The party's core purpose was to campaign for Britain to leave the EU. Now Brexit is happening, UKIP voters are walking away.

>But what is significant is how they are turning to the Tories in huge numbers.

>For more than a decade the eurosceptic right of British politics has been fractured. David Cameron saw UKIP eating into the Tory vote and promised an EU referendum to try to halt the march.

>Labour too lost many of its traditional working-class supporters to UKIP. But by embracing Brexit and squaring up to Brussels, it's Theresa May's Conservative Party reaping the reward.

>Mr Nuttall said it had been a "difficult night" but there was little the party could have done in the face of a "big national swing" to the Conservatives.

>"Mrs May's public dispute with the EU in recent days - which led to her speaking about standing up to Brussels in an eve-of-poll statement in Downing Street - was particularly fortuitously timed for the Conservatives," he said.

>"If the price of Britain leaving the EU is a Tory advance after taking up this patriotic cause, then it is a price UKIP is prepared to pay.

>"We are the victims of our own success and now we pick ourselves up and go on to further success in the future."

>>136515
With all of those disorders and a criminal record why was he not in a mental ward?

>>136515
>along with exposing himself in public.
Diddling a chicken isn't why he's going to jail.

Most transients have this same list of disorders. Social justice regards closed the mental wards citing violation of human rights. So now they roam free.

>The investigation is being conducted by two prosecutors assigned to the securities fraud unit in the office of Joon H. Kim, the acting United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.

>James M. Margolin, a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office, declined to comment. Lawyers for Mr. Lewis and Mr. Kranz declined to comment. News of the subpoena for Mr. Lewis was earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal.

>Fox News has said in a statement that it had been in communication with federal prosecutors for months, and would cooperate with the inquiry.

>Already facing several lawsuits, Fox News was hit with another one on Thursday, a Fox News Radio reporter filed a state lawsuit asserting that she was subjected to gender discrimination over several years by two supervisors and that, less than 24 hours after reporting the problem, she was told the company was eliminating her position.

>In one instance, the woman, Jessica Golloher, said Fox sent a male colleague in London to join her in Russia for coverage of the 2014 Sochi Olympics. She was instructed to serve as his Russian translator, according to the lawsuit, and told to “piggyback” onto and “defer” to his actions. When she complained, a supervisor told her “this is how we are doing this,” according to the lawsuit.

>Ms. Golloher also said that her supervisors failed to take meaningful action after she complained about a male colleague based in New York who she said made rude and disparaging remarks and treated her as incompetent, often dictating word for word what he wanted her to say on air.

>Ms. Golloher also accused her supervisors of regularly denying her requests to report on the ground in foreign countries, even though, in some cases, male colleagues were sent on similar reporting trips. The supervisors requested photos of her on reporting trips, according to the suit, and made comments on her appearance.
...

>Early last month, a Fox News human resources executive emailed employees encouraging them to contact one of several individuals with complaints about workplace behavior. Less than two weeks later, on April 17, Ms. Golloher emailed one of the contacts, Michele Hirshman, a lawyer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The firm followed up, but before she had a chance to reply, and less than 24 hours after she sent the email, the suit said, Ms. Golloher was told her position was being eliminated because of budget concerns.

>Saying that assignments in Ms. Golloher’s area of expertise were being given to freelancers instead, the suit calls the reason for her dismissal “entirely pretextual, as it is apparent that Fox will replace Ms. Golloher.’’

>Fox News said in a statement: “Jessica Golloher’s claims are without merit. Her allegations of discrimination and retaliation are baseless. We will vigorously defend the matter.”

>Ms. Golloher is represented by the Wigdor law firm, which also represents two employees of The New York Times in a pending federal lawsuit against the company, alleging age, race and gender discrimination.

>On Monday in London, Wendy Walsh, a former guest on Mr. O’Reilly’s Fox News show, and her lawyer Lisa Bloom will meet with the regulatory group, the Office of Communications, or Ofcom.

>The meeting is a sign that the sexual harassment scandal that has tarnished Fox News and its parent company, 21st Century Fox, in the United States could be taken into consideration by British regulators as they weigh whether to approve the Sky deal. 21st Century Fox currently owns 39 percent of Sky, and acquiring full ownership has long been a goal of the entertainment company’s executive chairman, Rupert Murdoch.

>Ms. Walsh has said that Mr. O’Reilly did not follow through on an offer to make her a network contributor after she declined an invitation to his hotel suite in 2013.
...

>Ms. Walsh has said that she is not seeking a settlement, enabling her to publicly discuss her accusations against Mr. O’Reilly and her views about sexual harassment issues at Fox News.

>Ms. Walsh’s account of the episode was included in a New York Times investigation published last month, which revealed that Mr. O’Reilly or the company had reached settlements with five women who had accused him of inappropriate behavior toward them. Mr. O’Reilly was ousted by the company on April 19.

>In April, Ms. Bloom wrote Ofcom officials. “The similarities between the current harassment scandal and the phone-hacking scandal reveal the company’s approach to business and management — a lack of oversight, intervention, and decency,” she said in the letter, referring to the 2011 scandal involving the Murdoch-owned News of the World.

>This week, the Wigdor firm also outlined its clients’ complaints against Fox News in a letter to Ofcom. Wigdor has represented women in sexual harassment complaints against Fox News and is representing several current and former Fox News employees in a racial discrimination suit against the network.

related:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/arts/television/fox-news-tucker-carlson-donald-trump.html?ribbon-ad-idx=12&rref=business/media

Check the catalogue before making a thread to avoid duplicate posts.

>>137036
Dang you're right. Sorry about that.