Facebook. Russia. Ad buys. Bot accounts. Business Insider:

Facebook on Wednesday said it has found evidence that fake accounts “likely operated out of Russia” bought thousands of ads during the US presidential election that were designed to amplify divisive political messages.

Facebook said the ads were part of elaborate “information operations” in which “organized actors,” including governments, use social media to deceive the public and distort political sentiment.

The social network discovered roughly $100,000 in ad buys between June 2015 and May 2017 “associated with roughly 3,000 ads” and connected to nearly 500 affiliated fake accounts.

“Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia,” Facebook’s chief security officer, Alex

Grady Judd, Florida’s Joe Arpaio.

Florida sheriff is telling certain members of the population in Polk County that they won’t be welcome at shelters in the area, and his statement has spurred controversy as Hurricane Irma barrels towards the state.

The Polk County Sheriff Twitter account tweeted Wednesday that law enforcement officers would be checking IDs at every shelter in the county. The purpose, the account said, was to turn away sexual predators.

The sheriff of Polk County, whose photo is on the Twitter account, is Grady Judd.

Of course sexual predators aren’t the only people who will be scared off by that announcement.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida spoke out against his language, saying Judd was

Rush Limbaugh is telling his listeners that Irma is fake news, faked in a plot to get people to go out and stock up on batteries.

“These storms, once they actually hit, are never as strong as they’re reported,” Limbaugh claimed on his syndicated radio show. He added that “the graphics have been created to make it look like the ocean’s having an exorcism, just getting rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff.”

Why would the media exaggerate the threat of a hurricane? Here’s Limbaugh’s theory:

There is symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and it’s related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses

Lindy West on the feminist awesomeness of Ivanka Trump:

Ivanka Trump, first daughter, strode into Washington back in January with big promises: She was passionate about helping “working women,” she said, and she was going to close the gender wage gap even if it killed her.

Well, not if it killed her, not literally, but even if it mildly inconvenienced her, she was on it 110 percent, for the women. Well, not if it mildly inconvenienced her, she’s very busy, but definitely if there was a wage transparency policy already in place, she would not openly and glowingly support overturning it.

Well, unless her dad wanted to overturn it because doing so satisfied two of his top 10 vindictive

You’ve probably seen the video of the Salt Lake City cop losing his temper when a burn unit nurse explained why she couldn’t give him a blood sample from an unconscious patient. You’ve probably seen how he arrested her with considerable violence because she was doing her job.

Salt Lake City cops now have to stay out of patient contact areas and away from nurses at that hospital.

Gordon Crabtree, interim chief executive of the hospital, said at a Monday news conference that he was “deeply troubled” by the arrest and manhandling of burn unit nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26. In accord with hospital policy and the law, she had refused to allow a Salt Lake City police

The Guardian has more on the murder of Gauri Lankesh.

Gauri Lankesh was the editor of a Kannada-language tabloid that has frequently been critical of Hindu extremists.

Police said Lankesh, who was in her 50s, was shot by three assailants as she was entering the property on Tuesday evening and died shortly after. Officers said it was too early to speculate on the motive.

A small group of protesters formed outside her home as news of the killing spread.

Lankesh was known as a fierce critic of Hindu nationalist organisations in her state and was convicted of defamation last year for a piece accusing members of the Bharatiya Janata party of theft. She was appealing against the decision.

She

Trump went ahead with ending DACA, of course – because if there’s a mean thing to do and Trump has the choice, he’ll do it.

President Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to the Obama-era executive action that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, calling the program an “amnesty-first approach” and urging Congress to replace it with legislation before it begins phasing out on March 5, 2018.

“I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents,” Mr. Trump said in a written statement. “But we must also recognize that we are nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”

The statement was released shortly after Mr. Trump, who

An Economist writer tells us the historiography of Gettysburg the site has changed.

When war memories were still fresh, that Pennsylvania town was a shrine to Union suffering. Confederate troops under Robert E. Lee invaded Pennsylvania to bring terror to Union territory. They seized farmers’ property and—in a monstrous touch—kidnapped free blacks and escaped slaves, sending scores southward into captivity. The war was still raging when Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg address to dedicate a Union cemetery there, months after the pivotal battle outside town. So eager were locals for martyrs that Virginia “Jennie” Wade, a young seamstress shot by a stray bullet while baking for Union soldiers and the only civilian casualty of the battle, was pressed into

Outlook India reports:

Senior journalist Gauri Lankesh has been shot dead at her residence in Bengaluru.

NDTV reports that unidentified men shot at her seven times from close range and that three bullets hit her on the neck and chest, following which she collapsed on the spot.

“There has been a shootout at  Gauri Lankesh’s house this evening; she is no more. Her body was found in her veranda,” said M.N. Anucheth, DCP, West Bengaluru according to ANI.

…

Lankesh was the editor of the weekly ‘Gauri Lankesh Patrike’ and had been under attack for her views on communalism. She had been convicted in two defamation cases for articles critical of the Bharatiya Janata Party written in January 2008.

Shermer is trolling again.

Which is worse, Alt-Right or Alt-Left, Neo-Nazis or Antifa? Wrong question. Is violence a practical or moral means of social change? No.

Wrong question according to whom, bub? In what conversation? In order to discuss what issue?

Of course it’s not the wrong question. It’s a goddam urgent question right now, with Mr “on many sides, on many sides” in the White House. Racism is worse than anti-racism, even when some anti-racists get violent. Resistance to racism and fascism is better than racism and fascism even though many of the resisters are bullies and egotists. You can’t have a large political movement with no assholes in it, that’s just not an option, but … Read the rest

… Read the rest

The EPA press release attacking the AP reporters is also, in addition to the authoritarian aspect and the lying aspect, strikingly amateurish. It does not read like something you would expect to see from a federal agency staffed by grownups.

I mean really –

Good afternoon –

Yesterday, the Associated Press’ Michael Biesecker wrote an incredibly misleading story about toxic land sites that are under water.

That sounds like a couple of teenagers gossiping, not a civil servant informing the public about emergency pollution management.

Despite reporting from the comfort of Washington, Biesecker had the audacity to imply that agencies aren’t being responsive to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey. Not only is this inaccurate, but it creates panic and

More authoritarian excess:

President Donald Trump’s habit of singling out reporters for attacks is being adopted by his federal agencies, with the Environmental Protection Agency excoriating an Associated Press reporter in unusually personal terms on Sunday after the reporter wrote a story that cast the agency in an unfavorable light.

“Yesterday, the Associated Press’ Michael Biesecker wrote an incredibly misleading story about toxic land sites that are under water,” the statement began. “Despite reporting from the comfort of Washington, Biesecker had the audacity to imply that agencies aren’t being responsive to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey. Not only is this inaccurate, but it creates panic and politicizes the hard work of first responders who are actually in the

Houston’s always been soggy. It probably wasn’t a very good place to build an enormous city, when you get right down to it.

No city could have withstood Harvey without serious harm, but Houston made itself more vulnerable than necessary. Paving over the saw-grass prairie reduced the ground’s capacity to absorb rainfall. Flood-control reservoirs were too small. Building codes were inadequate. Roads became rivers, so while hospitals were open, it was almost impossible to reach them by car.

…

Harvey is a humanitarian disaster. Ordinary Texans were defenseless against rising waters contaminated by sewage and dotted with floating colonies of fire ants. The confirmed death toll, 20 as of Aug. 30, is expected to rise as rescuers

Hey if you’re going to write a piece attacking feminism in a major newspaper, at least get the author details right.

Serbia’s [well known] daily newspaper, Politika, has been accused of using made-up commentators to promote misogyny after publishing an anti-feminist article allegedly written by a scientist, but illustrated with the photograph of a German actor.

The commentary accused feminists of using the recent murders of two women at the hands of their ex-husbands to spread “propaganda”.

“Agressive feminists came to the fore in order to abuse the tragedies for their political agenda,” the article said, also reminding the readers that “almost all infanticides in the world are committed by women”.

The women in question were murdered at social