Press Statement of Kim Yo Jong, Vice Department Director of C.C., WPK

Pyongyang, October 18 (KCNA) -- The following is the press statement of Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, titled "Do not spout absurd remarks":

We cannot but call the clan of the ROK as a really weird one.

The head of the information office of its Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a regular news briefing on Thursday, talked about "copyright" all of a sudden while grumbling about the measure taken by us to completely block the roads and railways connected to the ROK near the southern border of the DPRK physically.

He asserted that one of the three photos of explosion released by KCNA was the one taken by the ROK and we disregarded the copyright by using it without permission.

The ROK seemingly doesn't know what the blasting carried by us means and what imminent severe security crisis it faces, ignorant of the essence of the current situation. No wonder, it has gone as foolish as to hype a "rumor about photo," something completely irrelevant to the matter.

Dancing to that tune, media and so-called experts are busy with a detailed analysis, talking about "camera angle" and "shape of smoke".

They have nothing to do more significant, haven't they?

Their behavior makes even a cat laugh.

I would like to inform those idiots of the fact that the photo is a screenshot from one of the video clips released by NBC, Fox News, Reuters and other foreign media.

We cannot take a photo at that angle. So we used that photo, finding that it met our intention, being visually good and excellent in composition.

Is it problematic?

Hasn't the ROK used the photos and video clips released by KCNA when airing the news about us?

Then a question arises as to whether the ROK thought about a violation of international law and copyright when reporting the news about us with our photos and video clips.

It is their unreasonable criterion that nothing matters when they do so but when we do it, it is a violation of international law and copyright. I would like to make them unable to say anything more at once.

According to our initial investigation, Yonhap News, Kyunghyang Daily News and other media of the puppet ROK all abused the two photos of explosion opened to public by us for their news report.

It seems that it is necessary to probe into whether our approval was secured in the ROK where international law is allegedly well observed.

This is just chicanery peculiar to the ROK, the country without a parallel in the world in abusing international law, international standard, principle and generally accepted value for their benefits and hurting others.

Its Joint Chiefs of Staff in charge of defending security of its country should properly investigate the grave violation of the sovereignty and security of our Republic first, instead of disgracing itself by engaging in such a deed unbecoming to its position as photo assessment.

They will be watched until they refrain from dodging and feigning ignorance.

Explicitly speaking once again, we are clearly aware that the ROK has severely violated our sovereignty.

Curiosity arises as to how much they will get for shirking responsibility and letting out nonsense.

They are, indeed, weird ones. -0-
www.kcna.kp (Juche113.10.18.)

http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/2d225905d5bac2262656e300e9493762.kcmsf
https://archive.is/eqYbb

TIL - Advertising jargon has a phrase also used in prisons. The general population is “gen pop”.

Inside the Secretive $700 Million Ad-Testing Factory for Kamala Harris

Future Forward has ascended to the top of the Democratic political universe, but it has also drawn suspicion and second-guessing.

[...]

Future Forward’s advertising strategy can be summed up in four words: Reserve early, spend late. The group began booking fall ads in January to secure the best prices. The most intense spending is occurring now, guided by an unswerving belief that the persuasive effect of ads decays quickly.

[...]

The group is, in some ways, an ad-making laboratory masquerading as a super PAC, testing thousands of messages, social media posts and ads in the 2024 race, ranking them in order of effectiveness and approving only those that resonate with voters. Ad makers produce roughly 20 potential commercials for every spot that ever airs.

[...]

Future Forward’s belief in designing digital and television advertising to appeal to the general population — “gen pop” ads, in industry shorthand — has also worried strategists who want more messages tailored to people of color.

[...]

The most intense friction between Democratic groups and Future Forward has concerned issues of race. Future Forward opened October spending $35 million to broadcast a single advertisement that juxtaposes Mr. Trump telling his “rich as hell” supporters that he will cut their taxes with a Black voter supporting Ms. Harris because he is “not rich as hell.”

The idea is to target everyone at once, and Future Forward found in testing that the spot was in the 95th percentile for effectiveness with white, Black, Asian and Hispanic voters — as well as the electorate overall. But the approach has skeptics among party strategists who believe Ms. Harris needs to specifically mobilize key Democratic constituencies in other ways.

[...]

Founded by a group of wonkish Obama campaign veterans, Future Forward is animated by the idea that a blend of data science, political science and testing can usher in a new era of rigor in advertising. The group’s ads were widely praised in 2020, and Future Forward earned the coveted designation as the official super PAC first for President Biden and then for Ms. Harris.

But throughout the year, some top party strategists have worried about the consolidation of so much money and decision-making in a single group. They warn of succumbing to what some describe as a tyranny of testing and about what they see as an almost dogmatic belief by Future Forward in the power of late advertising — to the detriment of other methods of reaching voters.

In September, the Harris campaign made an unusual public statement suggesting donors back other groups devoted to get-out-the-vote operations.

Soon after, Billy Wimsatt, who runs a donor group called the Movement Voter Project, warned in a memo to Democratic donors, Future Forward and the Harris campaign last month that get-out-the-vote operations were “dangerously underfunded” — to the tune of $165 million, mostly affecting groups that turn out Black, Latino, Asian and young voters.

“It seems like a ton of money is going to paid media and not enough to the ground game,” Mr. Wimsatt warned. More recently, the Harris headquarters has been frustrated by a lack of mailers being sent by allies.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5977980

We are constantly told that solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing poor and working class people in the U.S. do not exist. Meanwhile, billions taxpayer dollars are being used to fund the genocide of Palestinians.

That very money could have ended homelessness in the United States.

Money for our needs, not the U.S.-Israeli war machine!

he's increasingly unstable and unhinged folks

he's cornered

the walls are closing in

he's gone too far

he's really done it this time

his comments are worrying democrats

By Ezra Klein

[...]

Back in 2016, Harry Enten, then at FiveThirtyEight, calculated the final polling error in every presidential election between 1968 and 2012. On average, the polls missed by two percentage points. In 2016, an American Association for Public Opinion Research postmortem found that the average error of the national polls was 2.2 points, but the polls of individual states were off by 5.1 points. In 2020, the national polls were off by 4.5 points and the state-level polls missed, again, by 5.1 points.

You could imagine a world in which these errors are random and cancel one another out. Perhaps Donald Trump’s support is undercounted by three points in Michigan but overcounted by three points in Wisconsin. But errors often systematically favor one candidate or the other. In both 2016 and 2020, for instance, state-level polls tended to undercount Trump supporters. The polls overestimated Hillary Clinton’s margin by three points in 2016 and Joe Biden’s margin by 4.3 points in 2020.

And I'm not

Word salad word salad nothing meaningful blah blah blah

Who Lives Well in Russia?

Practice shows that in Russia, those who live well are often the ones who know how to please those in power. There are various ways to do this, of course. For example, I watched and listened to how Mr. Mikhalkov criticized someone named Bykov, who, they say, is a writer. I haven’t read his work. Bykov claims that Putin’s changes to the constitution are just a power grab to stay president forever. As Putin himself said with some regret, this is his “destiny.” Well, you can’t argue with destiny, can you?

Mikhalkov’s Defense of Putin

Mr. Mikhalkov shouted at Bykov, accusing him of not understanding how much Putin cares about the people. After all, he included pension indexing in the constitution, which, according to Mikhalkov, is a sign of concern. He also included a mention of God and made sure that future presidents can’t give away Russian territory. Sure, some land was handed to China, but that was just a border adjustment. Besides, why give away the forest when the Chinese are already taking millions of cubic meters of timber without any permits? They already consider it their forest, much like the Finns do with Karelia.

What’s Missing from the Constitution

The updated constitution contains many new things, but it doesn’t mention anything about eliminating poverty or stopping the need for crowdfunding to treat sick children. There’s no mention of free and quality healthcare for all citizens. Mikhalkov highlights Putin’s concern for pension indexing, but pensions were indexed even without this being in the constitution, back in the Soviet Union and early Russia. It didn’t need to be written into the constitution at all.

Mikhalkov’s Loyalty to Putin

Mikhalkov defends Putin, of course. Under Putin, he has become one of the wealthiest people in the country, owning a massive estate like a true nobleman. Naturally, he supports Putin staying president forever. I sometimes wonder — both Putin and Mikhalkov grew up in the Soviet Union. They were raised as pioneers, Komsomol members, and even joined the Communist Party. Why did they turn their backs on the Soviet Union, the Communist Party, and everything tied to socialism?

A Generational Divide

I think this negative attitude toward socialism isn’t unique to their generation. We, the pre-war generation, were raised under different circumstances. We were taught that we lived in the best country in the world, but we had no idea how people lived elsewhere. We were brought up with patriotism and internationalism. During the war, I believed that the German working class wouldn’t fire on our soldiers. But they did, and quite fiercely, without a hint of international solidarity.

Post-War Disillusionment

The post-war generation, like Mikhalkov and Putin, experienced a different ideological environment than we did. They grew up after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party when Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s cult of personality, trying to save his own skin. This speech marked the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The young generation of Putin and Mikhalkov were exposed to the wave of literature, documentaries, and journalism that criticized the old regime. They were influenced by works like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and later authors like Grossman and Yevtushenko.

Putin’s Cultural Awareness

Watching Putin, I’m convinced of how significant childhood is in shaping a person. A child absorbs the dominant ideology of the time. Based on Putin’s jokes, his humorous remarks, and his comments about historical figures, I get the impression that he is not a particularly cultured individual. He seems to have a poor grasp of his country’s history and appears to be unfamiliar with classic literature, both Russian and international. His speeches are often simplistic and lack depth, though he tries to present himself as an intellectual leader. However, what isn’t there can’t be faked.