You’d never know it but everything Donald Trump has done in office thus far hasn’t been stupid; just really bad for the country. He’s had some successes but most of them are not his doing. Mitch McConnell set him up to make a GOP decision in the Supreme Court that will play well for conservatives. The GOP sold the tax bill, to those ignorant enough to not understand it. That will come back to bite Trump in the ass, maybe sooner than expected, but for now, it is still considered a win by his base. He has been very successful in the appointment of Right Wing judges throughout the federal system. This will be a problem long after Trump has left the White House. He has also been somewhat successful in deregulating legislation having to do with our banking and business related systems. This has been something of a spur to business in general but most of these regulations have had to do either with tearing down the banking regulations aimed at keeping the greedy banks from causing another crash as they did in 2007or keeping workers safe from the ravages of industrial accidents.
When the banks and mortgage companies, as they inevitably will, find a new way to steal from the public, thereby weakening the entire financial structure, we will have another crash and then, too late, the public will realize that all the GOP rhetoric about helping business was just more of the bullshit that justified the money they got in bribes from business lobbyists.
Meanwhile the Mueller investigation picks up speed despite Trump firing Andrew McCabe because of his role in starting the Russian probe. Now let’s be clear, there is both evidence and conjecture that McCabe was in trouble with the Inspector General even before Trump decided to fire him. But the Inspector General had not published evidence about McCabe’s potential sins when Trump had him fired. Under normal conditions, with a normal, rational President the firing would not have been done until after the results of that investigation had been published. But that wasn’t good enough for Trump. He thought McCabe was at least partially responsible for starting the Mueller probe so in a fit of petty revenge he fired McCabe before he could collect the pension he’d earned over twenty years of loyal service to the FBI.
Trump has tried, from its very instigation, to shut down the Mueller investigation. There’s no argument about that. So now it’s time to stop that obstruction of justice by congress passing a Special Prosecutor Law to protect Mueller, and those that follow him, from meddling or outright interference by rogue presidents under investigation. Even such Trump loyalists as Chris Christie admit that Mueller’s probe is of the highest quality and that Mueller is unassailable in his approach go the job. They further say that he is moving the needle ahead as fast as possible and what is even more important is, his office has, unlike any other office in our current government, been leak proof.
The GOP congressmen interviewed have, almost unequivocally said Trump will not fire Mueller but their avoidance of the question, “Will you vote for a Special Prosecutor’s protection bill?” indicates that they are whistling in the wind. No one knows what The Maniac-in-Chief will do from one moment to the next. They’re all scared shitless of Trump and his army of ignorance. Don’t forget, Trump’s war on the FBI stems solely from the fact that James Comey wouldn’t swear allegiance to him personally. Comey understood that his allegiance was to the American people, not some would-be dictator who was still insecure about his election numbers. Another thing to remember is that Comey is a Republican whose actions regarding Clinton’s emails was at least partially responsible for putting Trump in office. But the Liar-in-Chief is such a shallow, feckless clown that his sycophant’s don’t just have to kiss his ass,, they have to do it with gusto.
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An interesting discussion between Chuck Todd and Sherrod Brown on Meet the Press about the wave of conjecture concerning Hillary’s reasons why she should have won the 2016 elections and Trump’s reasons why she lost. Brown pointed out, and it’s a very important point, that we should forget that discussion; ignore it, because it is no longer relevant. Figuring out what went right or wrong at an event that took place 18 months ago in a world that is moving at light speed is no longer relevant. What politicians should be considering, if they really want to win in 2018 is what is happening now and what will happen in the next six monhs. What are the needs of their constituents now? How can they solve their voter’s problems now? If the Democrats don’t figure this out fast, there is still a chance that despite Trump’s pathological behavior he could retain enough loyalty to survive in 2020.
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The discussion of what the hell is going on with Facebook, Twitter and the other social media platforms continues. Those of us who think that social media must be constrained, at least as much as the journalistic media and publishing, feel the way to achieve that is to stop the unlimited use of our private information for the sake of commercial or political aims and we want that to happen now.
The revelation that some sleazy operation called Cambridge Analytica has sold private information on millions of Facebook subscribers to those who were infecting the 2016 election process seems to be a tipping point that is forcing this whole subject to be addressed and more importantly, to be dealt with. Right now the sale of private information to commercial sources for the goal of pinpointing buyers of specific goods and services has run amok. Information is being gathered without the knowledge or permission of those on whom it is relevant. That’s a violation of every concept of privacy known to man. The wild west of the Internet has led to a situation whereby anyone can steal your private information from you or anyone else and just sell it.
A recent article by Dylan Curran in the Guardian explains in great and shocking detail the almost unbelievable information that Google has already collected on every single person who has ever used a computer. It’s stunning and disgusting. If you have any sense of personal privacy it makes you want to destroy the entire structure of Google and all its competitors because they all have done the same thing.
Curran explains how they did this but even more shocking lists in minute detail all the stuff they know about us complete with charts and sample pages about himself. This makes 1984 look like a kids cartoon. Google and all social media must be stopped and all these records destroyed.
The information stealing process, as it now exists is not only dangerous but also immoral and it has to stop, but for that to happen we must take some responsibility ourselves.
Right now people openly reveal information about themselves, which in a previous era would have been unthinkable. They do it mostly for convenience because the Internet has become an easy platform for exchange on which a marketer can now tell our likes, our dislikes, our sizes, our location, our financial information and how to access our most intimate and personal details. It’s bad enough that they use this information to sell us junk we neither want nor need but they are also reselling all this information to outfits that make it available to the people like Cambridge Analytica, who are influencing our elections. That’s what happened in 2016. That’s what is happening all across Europe now, and that’s what will happen again here in 2018 if we don’t stop it.
It’s easy to stop the Russians or anyone else from getting into our voting machines but it’s a hell of a lot harder to stop them from using targeted lies, posted on social media, to influence the people who will be voting with that equipment. That’s where some kind of controls of social media must happen. If you were smart enough to invent Facebook you are smart enough to figure out a way to keep it honest. Mark Zuckerberg admitted as much in a recent interview when he stated that they are already putting limitations in place. If they can’t, then the control of social media must be taken from their hands just like one takes matches from the hands of children. The only reason why the owners of Facebook don’t want to control what is said and done on their media platforms is because that act of control will cost them money. That’s why they haven’t already done anything about it. For us to have expected them to introduce protocols that would limit their income before anyone forced them to is just naïve. But that’s over. We know the problem now and the big Internet companies have already indicated that they know how to fix it. So now it’s time for Congress to pass legislation that holds the owners of public media platforms responsible for the content that they display. If Rusky Intel or anyone else publishes material on Facebook, then Facebook must be responsible for the content that Rusky Intel is publishing and if it is false or in any way misleading, especially for political purposes, than Facebook should be held accountable for that content. No one is accusing Facebook of having any disreputable political motives. But what they do have are uncontrolled financial motives and for those billions they are making by deceiving the American public, they must be held accountable and their leadership, through the passing of new legislation, must do time.
There is really no practical way to stop the kind of Russian attack that took place in our voting districts in 2016 other then paper ballots. Paper ballots will stop the voting machine problem in its tracks. Stopping the deceit is a far bigger problem and a far harder one to solve. The social media outlets do have the ability but not the motivation to solve it. That motivation must be supplied by legislation that dictates jail terms for the corporate officers of Facebook, Goggle, Twitter, Snap Chat and any number of other platforms.
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One of Donald Trump’s most bizarre fantasies is about The Deep State. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. What I am saying is that it bears no correlation to Trump’s picture of it. Trump, because he’s a paranoid sociopath sees the Deep State as an accumulation of Federal Justice related employees, members of the military and unelected insiders who have banded together to attack his pristine leadership. Sure it is, and I now have another bridge to sell you.
Look, Trump’s model is certainly accurate and it should be, because it’s the model he and his henchmen have been operating under since he first met with Cambridge Analytica. It’s a decades old model of everything that has been going on in the offices of multi-billionaires all over the country who have gotten behind Trump and the Republican Party to move their financial and social agendas to the fore through their contributions to easily bribed legislators.
Yes, there is a Deep State, but in this case it’s got nothing to do with the FBI or the Generals. It’s all about the Koch brothers, the Mercer’s, the DeVos’, Sheldon Adelson and billionaires all over the country like them, who want to move opinion and legislation on the kinds of energy we produce, the regulations we place on banks and businesses and the size of the military budget, social justice platforms, in fact just about any area you can think of that affects life in this country. Yes, the Deep State exists but it has nothing to do with what Trump is trying to sell.
Consider this. If this Deep State didn’t exist all rational legislation would immediately make its way to the floors of the two houses, where it would he debated and moved to a vote. The fact that this doesn’t happen in our current government is a testimony to the existence of the Deep State, just not Trump’s Deep State. When a piece of legislation aimed at protecting the Mueller investigation into Russia’s influence in our elections can’t even make it to the Senate floor, that is a screaming accusation of Mitch McConnell as a tool of the Deep State. When the United States government no longer debates the importance of climate change that is a direct proof of the existence of a Deep State that is ruled by the Koch’s and their fossil fuel business partners through their financial control of Congress. So when Trump talks about The “Deep State,” he absolutely knows whereof he speaks. It’s just that the one he’s babbling abut is something that comes from his diseased mind and has no basis in reality while the actual “Deep State” is something in which he is completely involved.
If anything proves the reality of a Trumpian Deep State, it’s the revelation of the part played by Cambridge Analytica in the last election. These guys were hired by Trump, as well as, Tom Tillis, Ted Cruise and Ben Carson to name just a few of the Republican politicians running in the last election. They were hired specifically to taint the information available to the public and to do it by, at best, nefarious, quasi-legal means.
So where did Cambridge come from? Well, it seems that in 2013 GOP mega donor Robert Mercer partnered with a British behavioral research company, the SCL Group. It started with a $1.5million dollar research grant cadged from Mercer by a Brit named Alexander Nix. Thus the idea of Cambridge Analytica was born. A year later Facebook allowed apps on its site to start collecting data on subscribers, but only with user permission. The need for that permission soon disappeared and in 2014 Mercer added $15 million to the pot and Cambridge was officially born with the help of Steve Bannon. Hello! How many bells does that name ring? But Nix was not a U.S. citizen and so he had to be dumped and replaced by Corey Lewendowski, another familiar name.
In 2014 Facebook gathered data from 50 million subscribers and sold it to Cambridge. Cambridge claims that they destroyed the data but it was discovered still whole and still on their severs this year.
In 2016 the Trump campaign hired Brad Pascal to work under Jared Kushner in their digital shop. Pascal, Kushner and Paul Manafort hired Cambridge to create the lies and false election information published on the Internet in 2016.That same month The Times reports that Nix was in touch with Wikileaks about publishing emails stolen from the DNC. Julian Assange claims he refused but the emails were published a few months later on his site.
This weekend Facebook suspended Cambridge’s profile supposedly as a punishment for what Cambridge did three years ago. I guess Zuckerberg agrees with that old saw, “better late than never.” It is far more important that he agree to formal controls on what is published on his site and to accept responsibility for the veracity of that information. If he doesn’t, congress should move to indict Facebook and Zuckerberg for election fraud.