Trump: 'I wouldn't be surprised' if Soros were paying for migrant caravan

[Charlemagne]

October 31, 2018 - 05:34 PM EDT

Trump: 'I wouldn't be surprised' if Soros were paying for migrant caravan

BY BRETT SAMUELS

President Trump said Wednesday that he "wouldn't be surprised" if billionaire philanthropist George Soros or someone else is funding the caravan of Central American migrants moving toward the U.S.

"I wouldn’t be surprised," Trump told reporters outside the White House when asked if "someone" is paying for the caravan.

"George Soros?" a reporter interjected.

"I don’t know who, but I wouldn’t be surprised," Trump said. "A lot of people say yes.”

The unfounded conspiracy theory that Soros, a Democratic megadonor, may be providing financial support for the group of migrants has steadily spread among conservatives in recent weeks, The Washington Post reports.

Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham, Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs have all raised the idea that the group was receiving outside funding from Soros or politically motivated groups, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) suggested in a tweet that Soros was paying the migrants without elaborating any further.

The president, who suggested at a campaign rally in Houston that the migrants were being paid to come to the U.S., later shared a video that accompanied that Gaetz tweet.

Robert Gregory Bowers, the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue over the weekend, echoed Trump's rhetoric on the migrant caravan, calling it a group of "invaders" in a social media post before the shooting.

Bowers additionally railed against HIAS, a Jewish refugee resettlement organization he accused of helping bring people to the United States to carry out violence.

Days before the shooting, Soros, who is Jewish, was one of several prominent Democrats targeted by a series of mail bombs.

Trump on Wednesday denied that he was "fear mongering" about the caravan, which he has painted as an imminent threat to national security and claimed is filled with "thugs," "criminals" and "unknown Middle Easterners."

The group is largely made up of residents of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and includes many women and children.

"Immigration is a very, very big and very dangerous — a really dangerous topic," Trump told reporters. "And we're not going to allow people to come into our country that don't have the well-being of our country in mind."

He went on to describe the caravan as a "dangerous group of people," and said he might deploy up to 15,000 service members to the U.S. southern border to stop the migrants from entering the country.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/414171-trump-i-wouldnt-be-surprised-if-soros-were-paying-for-migrant-caravan

 

[Frankfooter]

Trump says he doesn't tell the truth.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/414229-trump-when-i-can-i-try-to-tell-the-truth

 

[bver_hunter]

The Republicans probably bribed the mob to carry out those violent acts against the fence so that they could film it and then Trump could use it as fodder for the cattle that are his cult followers. This is far more likely than Soros "funding" the Migrant Caravan!!

 

[Big Sleazy]

The Republicans probably bribed the mob to carry out those violent acts against the fence so that they could film it and then Trump could use it as fodder for the cattle that are his cult followers. This is far more likely than Soros "funding" the Migrant Caravan!!

This is too stupid. Go back to hunting beaver.

 

[bver_hunter]

This is too stupid. Go back to hunting beaver.

Now you realize how stupid the blame game on Soros was with zero proof. Especially how the right wing media and your cult follower Trumpty Dumpty even blamed Soros for sending those pipe bombs to himself. But they went hush hush, hush after it was discovered that it was one of your fellow right wing morons who did so.

However, with comments like that, no wonder you are the sleaziest dude on this Board!!

 

[Darts]

"Jewish groups have been at the forefront of support for the entire illegal immigrant population as well as for the sanctuary city movement, with some houses of worship even declaring that they are “sanctuary synagogues.”"

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-jews-illegal-immigration-muddle/

There is a perception that Jews encourage, support and assist illegal immigrants and that they advise illegal immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers on how to game the system.

 

[Frankfooter]

"Jewish groups have been at the forefront of support for the entire illegal immigrant population

Funny, that's exactly what that bomber in the US said.
You haven't been mailing packages lately, have you?

 

[wigglee]

I figure Trump is paying for the caravan and will probably send some buses to get them north by election day to justify his attempt to rally the illegal immigration paranoia vote . "They are BAD!"

 

[basketcase]

This is too stupid. Go back to hunting beaver.

This post is amazing, BS accusing people of stupid conspiracy theories (and being incapable to see the irony in the post).

 

[basketcase]

Funny, that's exactly what that bomber in the US said.
You haven't been mailing packages lately, have you?

And the guy in Pittsburgh .

(and you with anything related to Israel where you automatically dismiss any opinion you don't like if the source is Jewish).

 

[jsanchez]

...However, with comments like that, no wonder you are the sleaziest dude on this Board!!

No one takes BS seriously.

 

[jsanchez]

...
There is a perception that Jews encourage, support and assist illegal immigrants and that they advise illegal immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers on how to game the system.

Nope, only Skyrider and his bigoted ilk got that perception.

 

[Frankfooter]

And the guy in Pittsburgh .

(and you with anything related to Israel where you automatically dismiss any opinion you don't like if the source is Jewish).

Keep it on topic, basketcase, not everything is about your favourite country.

 

[PornAddict]

The Republicans probably bribed the mob to carry out those violent acts against the fence so that they could film it and then Trump could use it as fodder for the cattle that are his cult followers. This is far more likely than Soros "funding" the Migrant Caravan!!

Soros Partners With Mastercard To Hand Out Money To Migrants


Sat, 11/03/2018
Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Billionaire investor George Soros has repeatedly denied rumors that he is helping to finance the migrant caravans making their way up from Honduras and Guatemala through Mexico with the ultimate aim of reaching the US.

But that's about to change, as the "Open Society" founder - who famously financed much of the opposition to Trump SCOTUS pick Brett Kavanaugh - is now partnering with Mastercard to hand out money (in the form of 'investment capital') to migrants, refugees and "others struggling within their communities worldwide," according to Reuters. Through their partnership, Soros is effectively providing open financial support for migrants and refugees seeking to enter the US and Europe.

Soros

The partnership between Soros and Mastercard, which they are calling Humanity Ventures, is the result of a pledge that Soros made in September to spend $500 million to address "the challenges facing migrants and refugees."

In a statement, Soros and Mastercard declared that government aid programs haven't been enough to solve the issues facing refugees, suggesting that this is a problem that only the private sector can solve.

"Migrants are often forced into lives of despair in their host communities because they cannot gain access to financial, healthcare and government services," Soros said.

"Our potential investment in this social enterprise, coupled with Mastercard’s ability to create products that serve vulnerable communities, can show how private capital can play a constructive role in solving social problems," he added.

Right away, Soros plans to spend $50 million to provide "scaleable" health-care and education solutions. He intends to 'invest' the money in businesses founded by migrants.

"Humanity Ventures is intended to be profitable so as to stimulate involvement from other businesspeople," Soros said.

"We also hope to establish standards of practice to ensure that investments are not exploitative of the vulnerable communities we intend to serve."

Soros has said that he would prefer 'Humanity Ventures' to be profitable to attract "other businesspeople", it's unclear how, exactly, he plans to earn anything approaching a reasonable rate of return by handing out risk free loans to migrants and refugees.

This comes after Master Card back in 2016 admitted that it has handed out prepaid debit cards to migrants and refugees traveling through Europe, something the company did with the explicit blessing of the European Union and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Mastercard

Perhaps MSNBC and other liberals who blindly claim that Soros and his network of non-profits aren't providing financial assistance to migrants approaching the US should consider this before they continue with their denials.

 

[bver_hunter]

Soros Partners With Mastercard To Hand Out Money To Migrants


Sat, 11/03/2018
Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Billionaire investor George Soros has repeatedly denied rumors that he is helping to finance the migrant caravans making their way up from Honduras and Guatemala through Mexico with the ultimate aim of reaching the US.

But that's about to change, as the "Open Society" founder - who famously financed much of the opposition to Trump SCOTUS pick Brett Kavanaugh - is now partnering with Mastercard to hand out money (in the form of 'investment capital') to migrants, refugees and "others struggling within their communities worldwide," according to Reuters. Through their partnership, Soros is effectively providing open financial support for migrants and refugees seeking to enter the US and Europe.

Soros

The partnership between Soros and Mastercard, which they are calling Humanity Ventures, is the result of a pledge that Soros made in September to spend $500 million to address "the challenges facing migrants and refugees."

In a statement, Soros and Mastercard declared that government aid programs haven't been enough to solve the issues facing refugees, suggesting that this is a problem that only the private sector can solve.

"Migrants are often forced into lives of despair in their host communities because they cannot gain access to financial, healthcare and government services," Soros said.

"Our potential investment in this social enterprise, coupled with Mastercard’s ability to create products that serve vulnerable communities, can show how private capital can play a constructive role in solving social problems," he added.

Right away, Soros plans to spend $50 million to provide "scaleable" health-care and education solutions. He intends to 'invest' the money in businesses founded by migrants.

"Humanity Ventures is intended to be profitable so as to stimulate involvement from other businesspeople," Soros said.

"We also hope to establish standards of practice to ensure that investments are not exploitative of the vulnerable communities we intend to serve."

Soros has said that he would prefer 'Humanity Ventures' to be profitable to attract "other businesspeople", it's unclear how, exactly, he plans to earn anything approaching a reasonable rate of return by handing out risk free loans to migrants and refugees.

This comes after Master Card back in 2016 admitted that it has handed out prepaid debit cards to migrants and refugees traveling through Europe, something the company did with the explicit blessing of the European Union and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Mastercard

Perhaps MSNBC and other liberals who blindly claim that Soros and his network of non-profits aren't providing financial assistance to migrants approaching the US should consider this before they continue with their denials.

Your zero hedge conspiracy theories know no bounds:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-soros-migrant-caravan/

 

[bver_hunter]

Another BS concocted by the right wing media including Project Veritas and Zero Hedge where they infiltrated the O'Rourke Campaign to record the conversations about funding the Migrants and then releasing everything out of context:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...sted-funneling-caravan-funds-undercover-sting

Then that nutcase Cruz whose wife and Family were not only insulted but down right abused by Trump in the 2015 Republican nominations and who has become a Trump Asskisser, now uses the fake evidence of these videos to accuse O'Rourke of the misuse of Campaign Funds:

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/201...nds-migrant-caravan-democrats-see-desperation

These right wingers buy all the BS from the alt right website and the very corrupt Republicans!!

 

[PornAddict]

Your zero hedge conspiracy theories know no bounds:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-soros-migrant-caravan/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevl...fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/#749d3cb1227f

Dec 22, 2016, 12:37pm
The Daily Mail Snopes Story And Fact Checking The Fact Checkers
Kalev Leetaru
I write about the broad intersection of data and society.

Yesterday afternoon a colleague forwarded me an article from the Daily Mail, asking me if it could possibly be true. The article in question is an expose on Snopes.com, the fact checking site used by journalists and citizens across the world and one of the sites that Facebook recently partnered with to fact check news stories on its platform. The Daily Mail’s article makes a number of claims about the site’s principles and organization, drawing heavily from the proceedings of a contentious divorce between the site’s founders and questioning whether the site could possibly act as a trusted and neutral arbitrator of the “truth.”

When I first read through the Daily Mail article I immediately suspected the story itself must certainly be “fake news” because of how devastating the claims were and that given that Snopes.com was so heavily used by the journalistic community, if any of the claims were true, someone would have already written about them and companies like Facebook would not be partnering with them. I also noted that despite having been online for several hours, no other major mainstream news outlet had written about the story, which is typically a strong sign of a false or misleading story. Yet at the same time, the Daily Mail appeared to be sourcing its claims from a series of emails and other documents from a court case, some of which it reproduced in its article and, perhaps most strangely, neither Snopes nor its principles had issued any kind of statement through its website or social media channels disclaiming the story.

On the surface this looked like a classic case of fake news – a scandalous and highly shareable story, incorporating official-looking materials and sourcing, yet with no other mainstream outlet even mentioning the story. I myself told my colleague I simply did not know what to think. Was this a complete fabrication by a disgruntled target of Snopes or was this really an explosive expose pulling back the curtain on one of the world’s most respected and famous fact checking brands?


In fact, one of my first thoughts upon reading the article is that this is precisely how the “fake news” community would fight back against fact checking – by running a drip-drip of fake or misleading explosive stories to discredit and cast doubt upon the fact checkers.

In the counter-intelligence world, this is what is known as a “wilderness of mirrors” – creating a chaotic information environment that so perfectly blends truth, half-truth and fiction that even the best can no longer tell what’s real and what’s not.


Thus, when I reached out to David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, for comment, I fully expected him to respond with a lengthy email in Snopes’ trademark point-by-point format, fully refuting each and every one of the claims in the Daily Mail’s article and writing the entire article off as “fake news.”

It was with incredible surprise therefore that I received David’s one-sentence response which read in its entirety “I'd be happy to speak with you, but I can only address some aspects in general because I'm precluded by the terms of a binding settlement agreement from discussing details of my divorce.”

This absolutely astounded me. Here was the one of the world’s most respected fact checking organizations, soon to be an ultimate arbitrator of “truth” on Facebook, saying that it cannot respond to a fact checking request because of a secrecy agreement.

In short, when someone attempted to fact check the fact checker, the response was the equivalent of “it's secret.”

It is impossible to understate how antithetical this is to the fact checking world, in which absolute openness and transparency are necessary prerequisites for trust. How can fact checking organizations like Snopes expect the public to place trust in them if when they themselves are called into question, their response is that they can’t respond.

When I presented a set of subsequent clarifying questions to David, he provided responses to some and not to others. Of particular interest, when pressed about claims by the Daily Mail that at least one Snopes employee has actually run for political office and that this presents at the very least the appearance of potential bias in Snopes’ fact checks, David responded “It's pretty much a given that anyone who has ever run for (or held) a political office did so under some form of party affiliation and said something critical about their opponent(s) and/or other politicians at some point. Does that mean anyone who has ever run for office is manifestly unsuited to be associated with a fact-checking endeavor, in any capacity?”

That is actually a fascinating response to come from a fact checking organization that prides itself on its claimed neutrality. Think about it this way – what if there was a fact checking organization whose fact checkers were all drawn from the ranks of Breitbart and Infowars? Most liberals would likely dismiss such an organization as partisan and biased. Similarly, an organization whose fact checkers were all drawn from Occupy Democrats and Huffington Post might be dismissed by conservatives as partisan and biased. In fact, when I asked several colleagues for their thoughts on this issue this morning, the unanimous response back was that people with strong self-declared political leanings on either side should not be a part of a fact checking organization and all had incorrectly assumed that Snopes would have felt the same way and had a blanket policy against placing partisan individuals as fact checkers.

In fact, this is one of the reasons that fact checking organizations must be transparent and open. If an organization like Snopes feels it is ok to hire partisan employees who have run for public office on behalf of a particular political party and employ them as fact checkers where they have a high likelihood of being asked to weigh in on material aligned with or contrary to their views, how can they reasonably be expected to act as neutral arbitrators of the truth?

Put another way, some Republicans believe firmly that climate change is a falsehood and that humans are not responsible in any way for climatic change. Those in the scientific community might object to an anti-climate change Republican serving as a fact checker for climate change stories at Snopes and flagging every article about a new scientific study on climate change as fake news. Yet, we have no way of knowing the biases of the fact checkers at Snopes – we simply have to trust that the site’s views on what constitutes neutrality are the same as ours.

When I asked for comment on the specific detailed criteria Snopes uses to screen its applicants and decide who to hire as a fact checker, surprisingly David demurred, saying only that the site looks for applicants across all fields and skills. He specifically did not provide any detail of any kind regarding the screening process and how Snopes evaluates potential hires. David also did not respond to further emails asking whether, as part of the screening process, Snopes has applicants fact check a set of articles to evaluate their reasoning and research skills and to gain insight into their thinking process.

This was highly unexpected, as I had assumed that a fact checking site as reputable as Snopes would have a detailed written formal evaluation process for new fact checkers that would include having them perform a set of fact checks and include a lengthy set of interview questions designed to assess their ability to identify potential or perceived conflicts of interest and work through potential biases.

Even more strangely, despite asking in two separate emails how Snopes assesses its fact checkers and whether it performs intra- and inter-rater reliability assessments, David responded only that fact checkers work together collaboratively and did not respond to further requests for more detail and did not answer whether Snopes uses any sort of assessment scoring or ongoing testing process to assess its fact checkers.

This raises exceptionally grave concerns about the internal workings of Snopes and why it is not more forthcoming about its assessment process. Arguing that because multiple fact checkers might work on an article, reliability is not a concern, is a false argument that shows a concerning lack of understanding about reliability and accuracy. Imagine a team of 50 staunch climate deniers all working collaboratively to debunk a new scientific study showing a clear link between industrial pollution and climate change. The very large team size does not make up for the lack of diversity of opinion. Yet, David provided no comment on how Snopes does or does not explicitly force diversity of opinion in its ad-hoc fact checking teams.

 

[PornAddict]

A robust human rating workflow must regularly assess the accuracy and reproducibility of the scores generated by its human raters, even when they work collaboratively together. Typically this means that on a regular basis each fact checker or fact checker team is given the same article to fact check and the results compared across the groups. If one person or group regularly generates different results from the others, this is then evaluated to understand why. Similarly, an individual or group is also periodically given the same or nearly identical story from months prior to see if they give it the same rating as last time – this assesses whether they are consistent in their scoring.

More troubling is that we simply don’t know who contributed to a given fact check. David noted that Snopes’ “process is a highly collaborative one in which several different people may contribute to a single article,” but that “the result is typically credited to whoever wrote the initial draft.” David did not respond to a request for comment on why Snopes only lists a single author for each of its fact checks, rather than provide an acknowledgement section that lists all of the individuals who contributed to a given fact check.

One might argue that newspapers similarly do not acknowledge their fact checkers in the bylines of articles. Yet, in a newspaper workflow, fact checking typically occurs as an editorial function, double checking what a reporter wrote. At Snopes, fact checking is the core function of an article and thus if multiple people contributed to a fact check, it is surprising that absolutely no mention is made of them, given that at a newspaper all reporters contributing to a story are listed. Not only does this rob those individuals of credit, but perhaps most critically, it makes it impossible for outside entities to audit who is contributing to what fact check and to ensure that fact checkers who self-identify as strongly supportive or against particular topics are not assigned to fact check those topics to prevent the appearance of conflicts of interest or bias.

If privacy or safety of fact checkers is a concern, the site could simply use first name and last initials or pseudonyms. Having a master list of all fact checkers contributing in any way to a given fact check would go a long way towards establishing greater transparency to the fact checking process and Snopes’ internal controls on conflict of interest and bias.

David also did not respond to a request for comment on why Snopes fact checks rarely mention that they reached out to the authors of the article being fact checked to get their side of the story. Indeed, Journalism 101 teaches you that when you write an article presenting someone or something in a negative light, you must give them the opportunity to respond and provide their side of the story. Instead, Snopes typically focuses on the events being depicted in the article and contacts individuals and entities named in the story, but Snopes fact checks typically do not mention contacting the authors of the articles about those events to see if those reporters claim to have additional corroborating material, perhaps disclosed to them off the record.

In essence, in these cases Snopes performs “fact checking from afar,” rendering judgement on news stories without giving the original reporters the opportunity for comment. David did not respond to a request for comment on this or why the site does not have a dedicated appeals page for authors of stories which Snopes has labeled false to contest that label and he also did not respond to a request to provide further detail on whether Snopes has a written formal appeals process or how it handles such requests.

Putting this all together, we simply don’t know if the Daily Mail story is completely false, completely true or somewhere in the middle. Snopes itself has not issued a formal response to the article and its founder David Mikkelson responded by email that he was unable to address many of the claims due to a confidentiality clause in his divorce settlement. This creates a deeply unsettling environment in which when one tries to fact check the fact checker, the answer is the equivalent of “its secret.” Moreover, David’s responses regarding the hiring of strongly partisan fact checkers and his lack of response on screening and assessment protocols present a deeply troubling picture of a secretive black box that acts as ultimate arbitrator of truth, yet reveals little of its inner workings. This is precisely the same approach used by Facebook for its former Trending Topics team and more recently its hate speech rules (the company did not respond to a request for comment).

From the outside, Silicon Valley looks like a gleaming tower of technological perfection. Yet, once the curtain is pulled back, we see that behind that shimmering façade is a warehouse of good old fashioned humans, subject to all the same biases and fallibility, but with their results now laundered through the sheen of computerized infallibility. Even my colleagues who work in the journalism community and by their nature skeptical, had assumed that Snopes must have rigorous screening procedures, constant inter- and intra-rater evaluations and ongoing assessments and a total transparency mandate. Yet, the truth is that we simply have no visibility into the organization’s inner workings and its founder declined to shed further light into its operations for this article.

Regardless of whether the Daily Mail article is correct in its claims about Snopes, at the least what does emerge from my exchanges with Snopes’ founder is the image of the ultimate black box presenting a gleaming veneer of ultimate arbitration of truth, yet with absolutely no insight into its inner workings. While technology pundits decry the black boxes of the algorithms that increasingly power companies like Facebook, they have forgotten that even the human-powered sites offer us little visibility into how they function.

At the end of the day, it is clear that before we rush to place fact checking organizations like Snopes in charge of arbitrating what is “truth” on Facebook, we need to have a lot more understanding of how they function internally and much greater transparency into their work.

Based in Washington, DC, I founded my first internet startup the year after the Mosaic web browser debuted, while still in eighth grade, and have spent the last 20 years working to reimagine how we use data to understand the world around us at scales and in ways never before... MORE

 

[Frankfooter]

Soros Partners With Mastercard To Hand Out Money To Migrants

OMG!

Soros is acting charitable!
Where are those tiki torches, it's time to march!

 

[Knuckle Ball]

It’s funny how people who have issues with fact checking sites are inevitably the biggest consumers of fake news and conspiracy theories.