Today's Tweet

Because it always ends up being about the voters - Republican's efforts to the contrary notwithstanding.

Well said: “They sold their souls for political power — and the check bounced.” @jmeacham on @JoeNBC, commenting on how Pennsylvania went for Trump in 2016.

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) March 27, 2018

 

Today's Pix

Always a big crop when a movement gets up a little steam

Eerie Parallel

From Wonkette:

Sixteen-year-old Jaelyn Rose Willey was taken off life support last night after having been shot in the head by Austin Rollins, a boy described by police as a “lovesick teen.”

Police described Austin Bomber Mark Anthony Conditt as a “very challenged young man” who was dealing with “challenges” in his personal life. “Challenges” that he was unable to find a way to deal with that did not involve killing two people and injuring five others. People he’d never met, who very likely did not have a thing to do with his “challenges.”

Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz was abusive to his girlfriend and was so obsessed with her that he threatened to kill her new boyfriend. He killed 17 people.

Guns are a problem. I’m not saying they’re not. We need gun control. But what we also need is for men, as a people, TO STOP FUCKING MURDERING PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY CAN’T GET LAID.

Women are also rejected. Women also spend their teen years pining after dreamy boys who will never love them back. You don’t see us going around murdering people over it. You don’t see us setting up internet communities for the purpose of talking about how evil and shallow men are for not taking us to pound town.
It suddenly occurs to me that sometimes, this American shooting shit looks a little too much like the "Honor Killings" that everybody loves Islam for.

Something To Remember

Median Net Worth in USAmerica Inc last year was about $80,000.

Average Net Worth was about $180,000.

There are about 550 billionaires, and something like 10 million millionaires up in this joint.

Some basic arithmetic makes it pretty easy to imagine how fucked up American Wealth Distribution has become.

Bill Gates walks into a soup kitchen, and the average net worth of the people in that room goes up into the hundreds of millions.

But you've still got Bill Gates and about 100 stone broke homeless people.

This is not a particularly rich country when 99% of the people are doing all the work while the other 1% get all the goodies.

Today's Tweet

There'll be some changes made.

Risk-averse corporate entities making highly visible contributions to formerly controversial causes is exactly what profound cultural change looks like https://t.co/J1RnXbKCxY

— David Frum (@davidfrum) March 24, 2018

Sam Cooke - A Change Gonna Come

Man In The Mirror -(cover) Joyful Noise

What's Goin' On -(cover) Playing For Change

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

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