Even if you subpoena us, we won't turn up on the Trump threads

[PerkingFaintly]

Oh whoops, here we are.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3180160-Trump-talk-HOW-MUCH-for-that-inauguration?pg=1

Would this, from the Former Senior advisor to President Obama, were true, but hoping against hope that it will all be over before November!

Dan Pfeiffer
‏Verified account @danpfeiffer

Stopping the Chaos and Corruption's of Trump's Washington is such an obvious and easy platform for Democrats to run on in 2018 and 2020
6:35 PM - 16 Mar 2018
122 replies 899 retweets 4,430 likes

This makes me uneasy

Andrea Mitchell
@mitchellreports
Right now: Former (disgraced) National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is campaigning at a rally in Southern California against @RepMaxineWaters for Republican Omar Navarro. I thought he was being kept busy cooperating with Bob Mueller...

Ezekiel Mose Mosee
@Ezekielmose
Cambridge Analytica responds to Facebook suspension in new statement, claims that it did not violate any terms

I so appreciate all of the contributors to these threads, I read them all (although not all the links!) and it's the place I head to first when trying to make sense of what is going on.

I do sense a shift, perhaps not a beginning of the end quite yet, but an end of the beginning.

bore I don’t know if it’s the fug of a hangover clouding my questionable judgement but I’m feeling that way about Brexit this morning!

I think it might be quite a news-heavy weekend

Thank you Bore and I tentatively agree - I feel a shift too. Whether it’s things have sped up somewhat, and that is Trump’s doing as his anxiety increases over the Mueller investigation; or if we are coupling it with the Russian events in Britain that throw a fresh light on all political arenas. I don’t know if the outcome will be positive or not, though.

Oh, I do hope you are right Pain!

I know several thoughtful people - not Little Englanders - who did vote for Brexit who now say they would not do so again and would welcome the opportunity to row back.

The world has changed since in ways no one could have imagined.

I am cautiously optimistic, TheClaws

Some Brexit bits:

JBCE and Keidanren Joint statement on the Brexit

www.jbce.org/brexit/jbce-keidanren-joint-statement-brexit/

Nicolai von Ondarza
Nicolai von Ondarza
@NvOndarza
Japanese Business Represenation have today released a statement on #Brexit that is quite remarkable.

Very direct calls to UK and EU-27 on transition, future relationship and third party agreements

On transition, they echo EU call for full single market and customs union participation of the UK.

Even more, they call for a long transition and clear extension mechanism.

Otherwise, Japanese companies would need to trigger 'do deal' contigency planning.

Equally blunt are their positions on the future relationship, incl calls for

• no tarriffs
• the UK to remain within a customs regime with the EU
• regulatory coherence
• UK participation in EU programmes

In short, please don't change anything that might rock the boat.

Finally, on third party agreements they not only demand that they remain applicable during transition

Most importantly for them, the EU-Japan FTA currently in negotiation should also apply to the UK during transition, with an UK-Japan FTA to follow immediately after transition

And

Pro-Brexit JD Wetherspoon issues profit warning after being hit by rising costs

metro.co.uk/2018/03/16/pro-brexit-jd-wetherspoon-issues-profit-warning-hit-rising-costs-7391959/amp

And

Brexit: Most Conservative voters who backed Theresa May in 2017 would favour second referendum

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservatives-poll-second-brexit-referendum-spring-conference-survation-theresa-may-a8259966.htm

The Cambridge Analytica ban from Facebook is quite complicated. It seems it's about Dr Aleksandr Kogan, who now calls himself Aleksandr Spectre.

He worked at Cambridge University but was not a Professor there (it's US usage to describe lecturers as professors).

Facebook suspends controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica
www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43440043

Facebook’s deputy legal counsel Paul Grewal wrote at length about the decision in a blog post.
"In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr Aleksandr Kogan... violated our platform policies..."
Prof Kogan is said to have created an app called “thisisyourdigitallife”. It was accessed by approximately 270,000 people, Facebook said.
"In so doing, they gave their consent for [Prof] Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it.”
Users who downloaded it were told they were taking a personality prediction test that was part of a "research app used by psychologists”.
While that was initially true - Prof Kogan is a psychologist - Facebook said the data was then kept and sold on to third-parties including Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories. Another recipient was said to be an employee at Eunoia Technologies.
Mr Grewal claimed: "Although Kogan gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels that governed all developers on Facebook at that time, he did not subsequently abide by our rules."
Facebook told the companies which bought the data to delete it immediately, and said it was given assurances the information would be destroyed.
"Several days ago, we received reports that, contrary to the certifications we were given, not all data was deleted," Mr Grewal said.
"We are moving aggressively to determine the accuracy of these claims. If true, this is another unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments they made.”
The firm said it would not rule out legal action over the incidents.
In a statement, Cambridge Analytica said it deleted "all the data it had received" when it was told the information was obtained in breach of Facebook's terms of service.
"For the avoidance of doubt, no data [from Prof Kogan] was used in the work we did in the 2016 US presidential election," it added.

More on Kogan / Spectre's data harvesting here:

Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/11/senator-ted-cruz-president-campaign-facebook-user-data

And here.

FACEBOOK FAILED TO PROTECT 30 MILLION USERS FROM HAVING THEIR DATA HARVESTED BY TRUMP CAMPAIGN AFFILIATE
theintercept.com/2017/03/30/facebook-failed-to-protect-30-million-users-from-having-their-data-harvested-by-trump-campaign-affiliate/
In late 2015, the turkers began reporting that the Global Science Research survey had abruptly shut down. The Guardian had published a report [linked above] that exposed exactly who the turkers were working for. Their data was being collected by Aleksandr Kogan, a young lecturer at Cambridge University. Kogan founded Global Science Research in 2014, after the university’s psychology department refused to allow him to use its own pool of data for commercial purposes. The data collection that Kogan undertook independent of the university was done on behalf of a military contractor called Strategic Communication Laboratories, or SCL. The company’s election division claims to use “data-driven messaging” as part of “delivering electoral success.”

SCL has a growing U.S. spin-off, called Cambridge Analytica, which was paid millions of dollars by Donald Trump’s campaign. Much of the money came from committees funded by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, who reportedly has a large stake in Cambridge Analytica. For a time, one of Cambridge Analytica’s officers was Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s senior adviser. Months after Bannon claimed to have severed ties with the company, checks from the Trump campaign for Cambridge Analytica’s services continued to show up at one of Bannon’s addresses in Los Angeles.

Cambridge Analytica denies... something.

But the company is very slippery when it comes to discussing data collection. My memory of Alexander Nix's interview for the BBC/OU programme is that he kept going "Look! A fish!" before eventually agreeing that CA had used data from Facebook.

And same again in front of the DCMS committee last month (I've now found the transcript):

Q682 Rebecca Pow: Does any of the data come from Facebook? I have read that you have said that within so many “likes” you can almost predict what somebody is going to think about something, or indeed possibly how somebody might vote, and that you might know more about them than, say, their partner or spouse or work colleague does within a few simple steps. Is that right?

Alexander Nix: I have read a similar article. It was not published by us or written by us, I should say. It was written by an academic active in the space, so I cannot comment on whether that is true or not. We do not work with Facebook data, and we do not have Facebook data. We do use Facebook as a platform to advertise, as do all brands and most agencies, or all agencies, I should say. We use Facebook as a means to gather data. We roll out surveys on Facebook that the public can engage with if they elect to.
data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/fake-news/oral/79388.html

It's possible Nix means two (more?) different things when he says he gathers data from Facebook, but doesn't use Facebook data. But he hasn't exactly clarified the situation with the statement above.

In particular, it's not clear whether CA has ever used data scraped from publicly visible parts of Facebook (or parts visible to Friends, as described in The Intercept article). The term "Facebook data" might be used to mean data acquired by rocking up to Facebook HQ and legit buying their data; and all other data might be "data gathered from Facebook" in the CA lexicon. Can't tell from here.

I sense a shift too, even if it's small. I think 45 is coming across as increasingly desperate

Rep. Eric Swalwell
✔
@RepSwalwell
We have to fight back. This is @realDonaldTrump punishing anyone involved with #TrumpRussiaInvestigation. It’s how guilty people act. And shame on Sessions. In Trump’s presence he cowers like a boy, but to sing for his supper he thinks he’s acting like a man doing this.

The left-wing is often stated to be supportive of the Muslim and Black communities.

Jews, Indians and East Asians are right-wing voters in Western Europe and the Commonwealth Realms, also in the US until the Democrats were markedly more socially liberal.

The right-wing often acts to balance out the racism from the left-wing and protect minority groups.

Racism = discrimination plus power. Please explain how communities that have been shat on for their entire histories use their race to subjugate others and how they aren't in fact still battling systemic and institutional oppression because I would love to be able to find this kryptonite and maybe use it for my own nefarious purposes.

'I will not hide from Putin', vows last man standing from band of Russian exiles

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/16/will-not-hide-putin-vows-last-man-standing-band-russian-exiles/

A decade ago a band of Russian exiles opposed to Vladimir Putin gathered together in the offices of London law firm to swear witness statements about corruption in their homeland.

Now, as the Metropolitan Police launch an investigation into the suspected murder of Nikolai Glushkov, only one of the four men is left standing.

Yuri Dubov has seen the untimely death of his friends Badri Patarkatsishvili, Boris Berezovsky and now Mr Glushkov, but refuses to be afraid.

He remained defiant on Friday, telling the Telegraph that the oligarchs in Britain had always been a target of the Russian state.

Police have reportedly started contacting a number of Russian exiles to discuss their safety, according...

[rest behind the paywall]

Brennan has been vocal but these are the strongest words I think I've heard him use

John O. Brennan
@JohnBrennan
More John O. Brennan Retweeted Donald J. Trump
When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you.

Ryan Grim
@ryangrim
A White House aide left his protonmail address with both his passwords on White House stationary at a DC bus stop.

DEMOCRATS WANT TO SUBPOENA APPLE TO FIND OUT WHEN KEY ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS DOWNLOADED ENCRYPTED MESSAGING APPS

theintercept.com/2018/03/17/trump-russia-apple-whatsapp/

As a career Fed, I want to say that timing of the firing of McCabe is almost unprecedented. Most, if not all, high level officials close to retirement are allowed to retire with their pension rather than being fired EVEN under the most egregious circumstances. I've seen lower level people get 'fired out of their pensions', but never someone as high up as McCabe. Never.

But remember, nothing is going to be done UNLESS the GOP members of the House decide to begin impeachment proceedings and they have no interest or intention of doing so. Y'all remember Scrotus' comment "I could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Ave and nothing would happen to me"? Looks like he was right.

What wonderful words he uses. I've always liked turpitude because it sums up 45 but throw in venality, demagogue and dustbin and that's a very fine tweet !

So, Acrossthe Pond55, from your point of view this latest is definitely not the beginning of the end, or Trump's last gasp?

I’m not really following the infighting between wigmore, banks, nix etc but glad to see they’re happy to keep using twitter so publically for those that are capable of untangling the threads

Carole Cadwalladr
@carolecadwalla
Why now Facebook?? Almost everything you read today, reported one year ago here. #FacebookFail

Andy Wigmore
@andywigmore
17m
Replying to @carolecadwalla
Good question - @facebook out to destroy their own business #FacebookFail #FacebookFucked

Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach
Whistleblower describes how firm linked to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon compiled user data to target American voters

amp.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election

Re: McCabe
"The axe forgets; the tree remembers.” - African proverb
twitter.com/samanthajpower/status/974837763639054338?s=21