Tag: hoax

Satchuel Cole, leader in the fight for racial equality in Indianapolis, lied about own race

Satchuel Cole, a highly visible community leader advocating for racial and social justice in Indiana, has apologized for misleading people about Cole’s own race, saying “I have taken up space as a Black person while knowing I am white.”

Cole — who uses pronouns they/them — worked with Indy10 Black Lives Matter and Indy SURJ, apologized and admitted lying in a social media post. Cole, who also was active in the LGBTQ community, did not respond to multiple phone messages and emails from IndyStar this week.

“Friends, I need to take accountability for my actions and the harm that I have done. My deception and lies have hurt those I care most about. I have taken up space as a Black person while knowing I am white. I have used Blackness when it was not mine to use. I have asked for support and energy as a Black person. I have caused harm to the city, friends and the work that I held so dear,” Cole posted on a Facebook page under the name Satch Paige.

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DARK WEB VOTER DATABASE REPORT CASTS NEW DOUBTS ON RUSSIAN ELECTION HACK NARRATIVE

A new report showing that US state-level voter databases were publicly available calls into question the narrative that Russian intelligence “targeted” US state election-related websites in 2016.

A September 1 report in the Moscow daily Kommersant on a “dark web” site offering a database of personal information on millions of registered American voters undermines one of the central themes of the Russia hysteria pervading US politics.

Democratic politicians and corporate media pundits have long accepted it as fact that Russian intelligence “targeted” US state election-related websites in 2016. But the Kommersant report shows that those state registered voter databases were already available to anyone in the public domain, eliminating any official Russian motive for hacking state websites.

Kommersant reported that a user on a dark web Forum known as Gorka9 offered free access to databases containing the information of 7.6 million Michigan voters, along with the state voter databases of Connecticut, Arkansas, Florida and North Carolina.

There are differences between the Michigan database described by Gorka9 and the one that the State of Michigan releases to the public upon request. Tracy Wimmer, the spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State, said in an e-mail to Grayzone that when the Michigan voter registration database is released to the public upon request, the state withholds “date of birth (year of birth is included), driver’s license number, the last four digitals of someone’s social security number, email address and phone number….”  However, Gorka9’s description of the Michigan data includes driver’s license numbers, full dates of birth, social security numbers and emails.

In fact both un-redacted and redacted state voter files are obviously widely available on the dark web as well as elsewhere on the internet. Meduza, a Russian-language news site based in Riga, Latvia, published the Kommersant story along with an “anonFiles” download portal for access to the Michigan voter database and a page from it showing that it is the officially redacted version. The DHS and the FBI both acknowledged in response to the Kommersant story that “a lot of voter registration data is publicly available or easily purchased.” 

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Tennessee woman who passed away 6 months ago gets letter saying she is COVID-19 positive

A Shelby County man questions what is going on at the Shelby County Health Department. 

His mother died six months ago, but the health department just sent her a letter saying she is COVID-19 positive.

Troy Whittington said he was surprised when he opened the letter this week from the Shelby County Health Department. He knew what was in that letter was false.

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Scientist says she made up Twitter account for Arizona State prof who ‘died’ of COVID-19

The account claimed to be an anthropology professor who had grown up in Alabama and “fled the south because of their oppression of queer folk,” according to the Times.

It also made pointed references to being Native American and began to identify as Hopi earlier this year.

And it was active in the career of McLaughlin, a neuroscientist, even promoting a petition for her to receive tenure Vanderbilt University, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

In April, @Sciencing_Bi announced its coronavirus diagnosis and then documented the symptoms including a loss of language fluency, according to Buzzfeed News.

The account blamed ASU for her condition, tweeting in June that the school “forced me to teach 200 person lectures instead of closing” in April.

She also claimed the university cut her salary by 15 percent while she was in the hospital.

Then, a seemingly distraught McLaughlin wrote in a lengthy, mournful Twitter thread on Friday that the anonymous professor had died.

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Georgia student expelled for racist social media reinstated, school finds she didn’t post it

Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, said Tuesday a student expelled for racist social media was reinstated after an appeal revealed the woman did not post the content.

“We received new information showing that the student did not post the racist content in early June,” the school said in a statement. “We will ensure she transitions seamlessly back into campus life when the fall semester begins. She has our full support.”

The expulsion was announced by the school June 4 after the college, the first in the world chartered for women, was made aware of the postings that morning, according to Tuesday’s statement as well as one made June 4.

On that day, multiple accounts on social media highlighted Instagram posts by a woman purporting to be a Wesleyan student. One photo features a woman and a statement about Black Americans that uses the n-word.

Two Halloween posts shared that day include a photo of a woman in a green “Border Patrol” t-shirt holding handcuffs and posing with a man in a serape and sombrero, paired with the words, “border?…secured. found him, met him & and just had to get a pic.”

While the institution said it cleared the student because she did not post the content, it did not say if the content in question showed the student using racist language and imagery. It did not reveal the student’s name, nor did it refer directly to the Instagram posts described by critics.

Jan Lawrence, a member of the school’s board of managers, said on Facebook that the student argued convincingly at a “Faculty Student Judicial Board” hearing “she did not make the racist post.”

The imagery examined by the school was from the student’s high school days, Lawrence said, and was created during school activity. The student’s argument “supposedly includes proof that the words were added by someone who downloaded her photo and then reposted it,” she said.

The college did not immediately respond to an NBC News inquiry.

“Even though we erred in judgment in the case of this particular student, that will not deter us from doing our part to denounce racism and hate and build an environment where mutual respect and understanding can flourish,” Fowler said.

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German Scientist Werner Von Braun Warned Not To Believe Terrorism, Iran and Coming HOAXED Alien Invasion

Dr. Carol Rosin first met Dr. Wernher von Braun in February of 1974. It was at this time, shortly before his death in 1977, that von Braun confided to Dr. Rosin the details of this secret space agenda.

Inviting her into his office, Von Braun stunned Dr. Rosin by describing this plan, point for point, as well as describing in detail exactly where it was all leading: planetary control under an oppressive One World Government.

According to Dr. Rosin, von Braun then gave her one supreme assignment to thwart this plan: to stop the weaponization of space.

Failure to do so would lead to calamity for the human race as a secretive trans-national power, already in existence, would move to permanently take control of this planet thru a hoaxed alien invasion from outer space.

According to von Braun, space based weapons, later known as the “Star Wars” program, were to be publicly promoted as our space “shield” against the evil Russians. Then they would be promoted as our defense against terrorists from Third World countries (‘rogue’ nations or ‘nations of concern’). Then their necessity would be justified as protection against asteroids and meteors, and the “last card,” the final justification according to von Braun, would be their installation in orbit against an extraterrestrial threat from outer space.

Von Braun told Dr. Rosin that she would begin to notice a certain “spin” on the news, which would illustrate the need to build space-based weaponry because our enemies “might” have these weapons, so our intelligence community would proceed on the assumption that they DO have these weapons. As we now know, this is exactly how the Star Wars program transpired.

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New FBI Notes Re-Debunk Major NYT Story, Highlight Media Collusion To Produce Russia Hoax

The FBI official who ran the investigation into whether the Donald Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election privately admitted in newly released notes that a major New York Times article was riddled with lies, falsehoods, and “misleading and inaccurate” information. The February 2017 story was penned by three reporters who would win Pulitzers for their reporting on Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia.

The FBI’s public posture and leaks at the time supported the now-discredited conspiracy theory that led to the formation of a special counsel probe to investigate the Trump campaign and undermine his administration.

“We have not seen evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump team in contact with [Russian Intelligence Officials]. . . . We are unaware of ANY Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials,” former FBI counterespionage official Peter Strzok wrote of the Feb. 14, 2017 New York Times story “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.” That story, which was based on the unsubstantiated claims of four anonymous intelligence officials, was echoed by a similarly sourced CNN story published a day later and headlined “Trump aides were in constant touch with senior Russian officials during campaign.”

Strzok’s notes are the latest factual debunking of these stories, which were previously shown to be false with the release of Robert Mueller’s special counsel report finding no evidence whatsoever in support of the Hillary Clinton campaign assertion that Trump affiliates colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. A report from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General on just one aspect of the investigation into Russia collusion — FBI spying on Trump campaign affiliates — also debunked these news reports.

Former FBI Director James Comey admitted under oath in June 2017 that the reporting was “false,” something his deputy director Andrew McCabe privately acknowledged to the White House earlier that year but refused to admit publicly. Efforts by the White House to get the FBI to say publicly what they were admitting privately were leaked to the media in order to suggest the White House was obstructing their investigation. “Obstruction” of the Russia investigation would form a major part of the special counsel probe, and media and Democrat efforts to oust the president.

As for the merits of the explosive New York Times story alleging repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials before the election, Strzok said it was “misleading and inaccurate… no evidence.” Of the unsubstantiated claim that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was on the phone calls with Russian intelligence officials, Strzok said, “We are unaware of any calls with any Russian govt official in which Manafort was a party.” And of the New York Times claim that Roger Stone was part of the FBI’s inquiry into Russian ties, Strzok said, “We have not investigated Roger Stone.”

The Times report, which came hours after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was ousted due to criminal leaks against him, was one of the most important articles published by major media as part of their campaign to paint Trump as a Russian operative. Widely accepted by the media and political establishment, it did as much to cement the false and damaging Russia conspiracy theory as CNN’s story legitimizing the now-discredited Christopher Steele dossier or the Washington Post’s now-discredited suggestion that Flynn was a secret Russian operative who was guilty of violating an obscure 1799 law called the Logan Act.

The New York Times declined to retract or correct the article three years ago, even after Comey testified it was false, on the grounds that the anonymous sources who fed the false information remained pleased with the initial story.

The damage this false story caused the Trump administration can not be underestimated. It’s a story worth recounting here.

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