It Gets Weirder

Via the Committee To Investigate Russia:

And a conversation with Clapper and Brennan:

"...precisely because we didn't have a pile of rubble..."

We're in a Cyberspace war, and we're still trying to fight it in Meatspace - at the insistence of Cult45. There's just no practical way to avoid the conclusion that our POTUS is corrupt and/or compromised enough to be working against us.

Amy's List

Amy Siskind

March 24, 2018

This week Cambridge Analytica became a full-blown UK and US scandal, as the company came under scrutiny for harvesting the data of 50 million Facebook users and using it to impact the 2016 US election, possibly in cooperation with Russia. British authorities raided the company late Friday, while back home, Facebook faced a backlash from users and Congress for mishandling the security of personal information and for the company’s flat-footed and weak response to the crisis.

This week Trump is increasingly ruling as a party of one, making decisions and taking actions on his own, without consultation or planning. After losing his national security advisor and lead attorney in the Mueller probe, Trump is leaving positions unfilled or filling them with sycophants and cable-tv personalities. This week, Trump heightened his attacks on Mueller, as he has shifted to a more aggressive stance in all matters, including the Russia probe. Trump is in danger from several looming threats including the Mueller probe, fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and women coming forward to tell their stories.

1. On Saturday, Axios reported Andrew McCabe met with Mueller’s team, and turned over memos, including information that will corroborate James Comey’s account of his firing by Trump.

2. On Saturday and Sunday, Trump sent a series of error-filled tweets blasting the Russia probe and familiar targets like Comey and Hillary Clinton, and for the first time, directly attacking Mueller.

3. As he had hours after the firing, Trump again attacking McCabe with false claims, “How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M,” adding “Comey knew it all.”

4. Trump also tweeted “The Mueller probe should never have been started,” saying there was “no collusion and there was no crime.” This is false. Four Trump aides and 13 Russians have been charged with crimes.

9. On Monday, Mississippi’s governor signed into law an abortion ban at 15 weeks, the earliest abortion ban in the country. On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the ban.

10. On Tuesday, Trump ally Rep. Louie Gohmert introduced a resolution in the House which would declare March 31st, Cesar Chavez’s birthday, “National Border Control Day.”

16. Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters quit as a Fox News analyst, saying the cable-tv network had degenerated into a “propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” adding, “now I am ashamed.”

26. On Sunday, a shocking exposé in The Guardian told the story of Christopher Wylie, and his role as an employee at Cambridge Analytica, where he used data hacked from Facebook to influence to target the US electorate.

27. The story also detailed Wylie’s meetings with Steve Bannon in 2013, who then booked him to meet with Robert and Rebekah Mercer. Wylie, who says he “made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool,” is now a whistleblower.

28. On Tuesday, WAPO reported Wylie also said Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s early efforts in 2014 to collect data to build detailed profiles on millions of American voters ahead of the 2016 election.

29. Bannon served as vice president and secretary from June 2014 to August 2016, when he joined the Trump campaign. Bannon okayed the $1 million expenditure to acquire the data, including Facebook profiles, in 2014.

60. On Thursday, WAPO reported Trump is having trouble finding top-notch lawyers to represent him in the Mueller probe. Several prominent white-collar lawyers have, like Olson and Emmet Flood, turned down offers.

61. Some law firms have signaled they don’t want the controversy of representing a unpopular and divisive leader, while others are claiming they have clients with conflicting interest.
154 total this week.

Are We Dead Yet?

I remain hopeful even as optimism is held at bay.

This Is Our World - animation by Steve Cutts

Today's Tweet

Follow the thread. There's a lot we still don't know. A lot that doesn't make enough sense yet.

And, as usual, it has everything to do with the money; and everything to do with the power that always goes with the money.

We ain't seen nuthin' yet.

(THREAD) New evidence suggests Rick Gates' plea has much more to do with Russia than we thought.

And that's because it may have more to do with Trump advisor Erik Prince and Trump fundraiser/RNC deputy finance chair Elliott Broidy than we thought.

Hope you'll read on and share. pic.twitter.com/TGqLdgXmx9

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 23, 2018

 

Yesterday

First this:

Then this:

NBC29 WVIR Charlottesville, VA  News, Sports and Weather

So maybe ol' Pete was just fuckin' with me - dunno - but at least he reported it pretty well once he got it on the air.

Today's GIF

Playing a team sport pays off later in life

Dangerously Online

If you buy into a poker game with 5 or 6 strangers, you don't have to wonder who the patsy is - because you're the patsy.

When you're part of a Social Media community that's free, you don't have to wonder how they make their money when their "product" is delivered at no cost - because you're the product.

Denise Anthony and Luke Stark, The Conversation:

Is it time to give up on social media? Many people are thinking about that in the wake of revelations regarding Cambridge Analytica’s questionable use of personal data from over 50 million Facebook users to support the Trump campaign. Not to mention the troubles with data theft, trolling, harassment, the proliferation of fake news, conspiracy theories and Russian bots.

The real societal problem might be Facebook’s business model. Along with other social media platforms, it makes money by nudging users to provide their data (without understanding the potential consequences), and then using that data in ways well beyond what people may expect.

As researchers who study social media and the impact of new technologies on society in both the past and the present, we share these concerns. However, we’re not ready to give up on the idea of social media just yet. A main reason is that, like all forms of once “new” media (including everything from the telegraph to the internet), social media has become an essential conduit for interacting with other people. We don’t think it’s reasonable for users to be told their only hope of avoiding exploitation is to isolate themselves. And for many vulnerable people, including members of impoverished, marginalized or activist communities, leaving Facebook is simply not possible anyway.

- and -

Was users’ trust in Facebook misplaced in the first place? Unfortunately, we think so. Social media companies have never been transparent about what they’re up to with users’ data. Without full information about what happens to their personal data once it’s gathered, we recommend people default to not trusting companies until they’re convinced they should. Yet neither regulations nor third-party institutions currently exist to ensure that social media companies are trustworthy.

Today's Pix

And some signs of a growing sense of change

Today's Tweet

They're not making demands for some unattainable absolute safety - they want nothing more than to stop having to worry quite so much about being shot to pieces.

They want to be free.

"I'm supposed to be recovering ... and I can't do that if these things are still going to be happening."

Using cell phones, six Parkland survivors chronicled their lives in the weeks after the shooting. Their stories tonight, 9p ET on CNN #ParklandDiaries https://t.co/FHVLh5RY5K pic.twitter.com/7NBh50lY3Z

— CNN (@CNN) March 23, 2018

 

ProLeft Podcast

It takes a good billionaire with an open check book to stop a bad billionaire with an open check book.

THE PROFESSIONAL LEFT

Podcast

And get your swag on:

Today's Sweeping Generalization

Republicans are all crooked.

Sorry not sorry.

Patrick Marley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Dealing a setback to Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans, a judge ruled Thursday the governor must call special elections to fill two vacant seats in the Legislature.

Walker declined to call those elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down to join his administration in December.

His plan would have left the seats vacant for more than a year. Voters in those areas took him to court with the help of a group headed by Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama.
No, of course not all of them - just the ones who're in office now.

And the ones running for office.

And their donors.

And their Think Tanks

And their staffers.

And their voters.

Cuz y'know what? Seems like the decent folk have left the GOP. 

I think most Americans are fundamentally good people, so I think what's left of the GOP is whatever you get when you distill a political party down to its concentrated, extract form.

In this case, I think we can call it something like Essence of Asshole...

... or Eau DePlorable maybe.

As the Press Poodles keep insisting on being amazed at 45*'s popularity among Republicans, a couple of things may have popped up your brain.

1. Fewer Americans self-identify as Republican almost every day.

2. As the "GOP Cohort" shrinks, the percentages of that cohort who still support 45* almost have to hold steady or increase. Which means on the other side of that ledger, the "Not GOP Cohort" will increase, which accounts for a corresponding steadiness or decrease in percentages on that side.

I suck at math; and statistics flummox me to the point where I fear I'm about to have a stroke. So c'mon, guys.

Anyway, if we're going to talk about trends at all, then we have to consider the number of Shitty Things A Political Party Will Do To Stay In Power - and we get a pretty lopsided pie chart.

What we don't get is "Both Sides" and "Yeah but the Democrats".

Reshuffle

Chris Smith, Vanity Fair's Hive:

Representing President Donald Trump is not exactly a lawyer’s dream job. True, there are high stakes and lots of media attention. The downsides, though, include a slippery client who barely listens to your advice and who might not pay your bill. That combination has forced Don McGahn, Ty Cobb, and John Dowd to make some unusual strategic choices in trying to fend off Robert Mueller. The most recent was sending the special counsel a written summary of the White House version of key events in the Russia saga. The gambit is intended to get Mueller to narrow the range of a possible Trump interview. And it’s almost certainly doomed.

“I think it’s the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard,” says Solomon Wisenberg, the former federal prosecutor who elicited the damning “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” answer from President Bill Clinton during grand-jury testimony for the Monica Lewinsky investigation. “I’ve never heard of defense attorneys doing that. If you’re Mueller, it’s highly unlikely you accept what somebody’s lawyer said, when that somebody is a subject, at the least, of your investigation. It’s just so weird. It’s one thing to limit the amount of time, or the location. But when people are interviewed in a criminal investigation, they don’t get to narrow the topic.”

Enter Joe diGenova.

The assertion is that even though the slam on Andy McCabe has nothing to do with an "anti-Trump bias", diGenova says that's what he should be held responsible for.

So again, "never mind the facts - listen to what I'm telling you"

This isn't even within the parameters of Spin. This is fairly typical of DumFux News Myth-Making which allows them to take whatever license they want to take in order to fit the facts to a favorable narrative.

"McCabe is guilty of this thing here, and even though he's not guilty of the thing I need him to be guilty of, I'm going to say he's guilty of this other thing so I can pin something on him that serves my purpose. After all, what's the difference? Guilty is guilty."

DumFux News Logic String:
If, A = B
and B = Flapjacks
and Flapjacks = Q
and J = Unicorns
Then,  Deep State!

DiGenova's been all over DumFux News, and so when 45* thought he needed another lawyer, of course he picked a TV personality.

Today's Tweet

Now there's a whole new meaning for "Sled Dog".

This is the best thing you'll see all day. 😍🐕
This Dog figures out how to carry his sled up the hill in order to sled for hours & hours & hours. #snow #sledding #dogs #blizzard2018 #cyclonebomb #philly #dog pic.twitter.com/7qhZ3Km9jw

— Chris Strider (@stridinstrider) January 4, 2018

 

Sam Bee

"...Trump combined two of his favorite things - firing people, and screwing them out of their money. If Andrew McCabe were a porn star, Trump would've scored a hat trick."

Samantha Bee - Full Frontal:

And Women's History Month:

A Profile

Some good stuff from Luke O'Brien at The Atlantic:

The calls marked the start of a months-long campaign of harassment orchestrated by Andrew Anglin, the publisher of the world’s biggest neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer. He claimed that Gersh was trying to “extort” a property sale from Sherry Spencer, whose son, Richard Spencer, was another prominent white nationalist and the face of the so-called alt-right movement.

The Spencers had long-standing ties to Whitefish, and Richard had been based there for years. But he gained international notoriety just after the 2016 election for giving a speech in Washington, D.C., in which he declared “Hail Trump!,” prompting Nazi salutes from his audience. In response, some Whitefish residents considered protesting in front of a commercial building Sherry owned in town. According to Gersh, Sherry sought her advice, and Gersh suggested that she sell the property, make a donation to charity, and denounce her son’s white-nationalist views. But Sherry claimed that Gersh had issued “terrible threats,” and she wrote a post on Medium on December 15 accusing her of an attempted shakedown. (Sherry Spencer did not respond to a request for comment.)

Andrew Anglin

-and -

Anglin is an ideological descendant of men such as George Lincoln Rockwell, who created the American Nazi Party in the late 1950s, and William Luther Pierce, who founded the National Alliance, a powerful white-nationalist group, in the 1970s. Anglin admires these predecessors, who saw themselves as revolutionaries at the vanguard of a movement to take back the country. He dreams of a violent insurrection.

But where Rockwell and Pierce relied on pamphlets, the radio, newsletters, and in-person organizing to advance their aims, Anglin has the internet. His reach is exponentially greater, his ability to connect with like-minded young men unprecedented.

He also arrived at a more fortuitous moment. Anglin and his ilk like to talk about the Overton Window, a term that describes the range of acceptable discourse in society. They’d been tugging at that window for years only to watch, with surprise and delight, as it flew wide open during Donald Trump’s candidacy. Suddenly it was okay to talk about banning Muslims or to cast Mexican immigrants as criminals and parasites—which meant Anglin’s even-more-extreme views weren’t as far outside the mainstream as they once had been. Anglin is the alt-right’s most accomplished propagandist, and his writing taps into some of the same anxieties and resentments that helped carry Trump to the presidency—chiefly a perceived loss of status among white men.

If there's a Saving Grace here, it's the fact that these assholes talk big and deliver little.

Yes, I know, being inspired to kill somebody with a car or with a bomb or whatever is, by definition, a big thing. 

What I'm saying is that these guys like to whip each other into a rich creamy lather, but so far, they've been way short when it comes to being able to deliver on their threats. 

The anonymity of the intertoobz is a lot like having Invisibility as your super power.  You can "do" practically anything with near-perfect impunity in cyberspace. But when it's time to translate that video gamer shit into meatspace action, they seem reluctant to show up.

So far, it's just been a few crazies - which I think is pretty much the point. Anglin wants to motivate. He wants to spur others into taking the risks - funny how the Anglins and the Zawahris of the world say it's everybody's sacred duty to sacrifice for the noble cause, but they have important shit to do, so they'll have to stay back here in the rear with the gear.

Anyway, these worm cocks are plenty dangerous, but so far, their numbers are low when it comes to taking action - nowhere near the level needed for critical mass.

BTW - Is it just me, or has anybody else noticed what seems to be the usual pattern of the projection of self-loathing with these jagoffs?