We’re Winning, Say Russia’s Fake News Manufacturers; Center for European Policy Analysis, October 16, 2024

Olga Lautman, Center for European Policy Analysis; We’re Winning, Say Russia’s Fake News Manufacturers

"Did you see the German woman complaining on social media that her country’s industry is suffering and needs cheaper energy? Or the American woman of the same age arguing that Israel and Ukraine are wasting US taxpayer’s money?

Both were crafted in Russia, according to a huge trove of documents leaked to Western media in September, and published by the VSquare investigative site among others. They were just two of 33.9 million social media comments fabricated by the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Kremlin disinformation subcontractor, in the first third of 2024 alone.

If anyone thought wartime Russia might lose focus in its truth-twisting campaigns against Ukraine and the liberal democratic states, think again. Putin and his aides still see disinformation as a key element of the colonial endeavor against Ukraine and the embitterment and fractiousness of Western voters.

Faced with international sanctions, military setbacks, significant losses, and growing isolation, Russia has increasingly ramped up its disinformation operations, political subversion, and the manipulation of public opinion in the West — echoing the KGB’s tactics of psychological warfare and subversion."

Trump Knows His Only Legal Hope Is to Win in the Court of Public Opinion; Slate, December 18, 2018

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate; Trump Knows His Only Legal Hope Is to Win in the Court of Public Opinion

"Watch for the pattern: The president is both too big and too small to be held to legal account. He is too busy and too important. But also, he doesn’t understand, and he cannot recall. The crimes weren’t “big.” The president—in this conception—exists on some astral plane that courts, and facts, cannot touch. It’s as if we’ve arrived at a point in the Mueller probe where all of federal law must be reduced to something a small child could color over a long car ride for Trump to be expected to understand it. This is a PR play that works only as long as we all accede to the central principle that this one man is above—or below—the law. That isn’t something the courts, or Bob Mueller, or Rudy Giuliani can adjudicate. It’s the thing we’ll at some point have to determine for ourselves."

Chimpanzees are not ‘persons,’ appeals court says; Washington Post, June 10, 2017

Karin Brulliard, Washington Post; Chimpanzees are not ‘persons,’ appeals court says

"Chimpanzees are not legal persons who have a right to be free, a New York state appeals said in a ruling Thursday that denied a request to move two captive apes to a sanctuary.

The unanimous decision was another setback for the Nonhuman Rights Project, a group that for several years has sought to persuade New York courts to grant writs of habeas corpus to chimpanzees. A court that agreed would be allowing the animals to challenge the legality of their “detention” — like human prisoners can do — and would also be acknowledging that the apes are not things but rather are legal persons entitled to bodily liberty...

The Nonhuman Rights Project said in a statement that it was reviewing the decision, but it made clear that it would continue in its quest.

“For 2,000 years, all nonhuman animals have been legal things who lack the capacity for any legal rights. This is not going to change without a struggle,” Wise said. “Public opinion has begun to tilt in our favor since we started filing these lawsuits, likely as a result of them.”"

‘Post-truth’ named 2016 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries; Washington Post, 11/16/16

Amy B. Wang, Wahington Post; ‘Post-truth’ named 2016 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries:

"Oxford Dictionaries has selected “post-truth” as 2016's international word of the year, after the contentious “Brexit” referendum and an equally divisive U.S. presidential election caused usage of the adjective to skyrocket, according to the Oxford University Press.

The dictionary defines “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”"