Trumpwatch: Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere

[lionheart]

Let's hope he is done soon.

Maddow draws the T./Foxy Friends/Cohen threads together with her usual careful deftness.

Thanks ohmy.

This extract from Chris Matthews' 'Hardball' covers some interesting ground re. the Comey memos/T. Russia overnighter, particularly the points ex US Atty. Joyce Vance makes:

Thanks Pain.

I think that thread from Greg Greene in your post at 06:49:01 is important. To repeat part of it:

The institutions I've mentioned above — scientists, academia, and, yes, the press — are in the business of helping people understand the world as it is.

To judge from its behavior for a quarter-century now the American right has come to see knowledge of the world as it is as intolerable — as a threat to the movement's power to do as it wishes.

I don't expect CNN to come right out and say that. But it should recognize that as an institution dedicated to explaining the world as it is, war is being made on it — and made on it precisely for that reason.

And the least it can do in response — not as a political act, but in its own defense — is give up the pretense of balance (i.e., a little from the left, a little from the right, dust hands, job done!) to focus instead on objectivity: on explaining the world as it is.

Panels that pit three traditional reporters against a conservative sloganeer fail miserably at doing that. In fact they're acts of self harm because they create precisely the impression of traditional outlets as political opponents of the right that the press ostensibly wants to avoid.

Putting reporters in front of political operatives to be lectured for their 'tone,' as CNN's @Acosta was scolded yesterday, also permits the right to position the media as a political opponent — while delivering nothing of actual substance.

Sarah Kendzior is doing a few media appearances to promote her book and she's been talking about this as well - how institutions such as academia, journalism, policy and even entertainment have been eroded.

She says that the recession of 2008 allowed for companies to set the expectation that there was no money so nonsalaried internships/hours became the norm even though it wasn't necessary. This has resulted in people being locked out of industries and a false meritocracy has arisen which actually promotes mediocrity because talented people can't get a foothold if they're not well-connected or financially secure. I think she talks about it in the Meyers interview. It's interesting, if depressing.

And that the false meritocracy eventually it turns kleptocratic, which is what we're seeing large scale globally.

Extraneous "it" in that sentence

Again, thank you all for the abundance of links and thoughts. I'm Trumped out for the moment.
I'm off to read about a truly great American, who may not have been the best president, but, IMHO, is a far, far better man than many who have sat in the Oval Office:
President Carter: The White House Years, by Stuart E. Eizenstat
www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/05/14/carter-from-the-inside/

From Pain's Julia Davis article (undated but cites Tweets from 2018), with my bolding:

As the Kremlin increases its info-war operations, another English-language “media” company is about to appear on the Western front. “USA Really” was created by Russia’s Federal News Agency, linked to the IRA troll factory operations. The stated goal of “USA Really” is to spread “information and problems that are hushed up” by the American mainstream media. It is essentially the same model that has proven to be quite effective for RT and Sputnik.

www.juliadavisnews.com/articles-about-russian-propaganda/russia-boasts-it-is-winning-info-wars-against-the-west/

So keep an eye out for that.

So what do we make to the current NK situation? Many saying it is all down to Trump and his diplomacy skills. Others saying NK, SK and China are all banding together in horror at what Trump is doing. I know where I sit on his one!

This one ffs. Not his one. Bleaugh.

The two premiers stepping across the border together is historic, so I'm hopeful for real progress in Korea.

Don't expect the Trumpettes to continue claiming it was Donald wot dunnit if the talks fall apart though. It's the political version of privatise profit, socialise risk.

Facebook Says There May Be More Cambridge Analytica-Sized Leaks
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/facebook-says-there-may-be-more-cambridge-analytica-sized-leaks

Facebook Inc. is on the hunt for other Cambridge Analytica-sized data leaks, and the company warned Thursday that users and investors might not like what it finds.

A few years ago, 270,000 people used a personality quiz app on the social network and shared information on their Facebook friends. That added up to as many as 87 million people. The data was later passed to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, without users’ consent. After public uproar, Facebook announced it would audit all popular apps from when its data rules were looser.

Facebook said it expects to discover and announce more “instances of misuse of user data or other undesirable activity by third parties,” according to a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The media may uncover foul play before Facebook does, the company also said. Either way, “the discovery of the foregoing may negatively affect user trust and engagement, harm our reputation and brands, and adversely affect our business and financial results,” the social-media giant said in the filing.

This could also expose Facebook to more regulatory risk, fines and penalties, beyond the scrutiny that’s already led Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to testify to Congress, it warned in the filing covering results from the first quarter of 2018.

All public companies list potential risks in regulatory filings, often repeating the same ones from quarter to quarter. Facebook updated its risk section as the company audits how outside developers use its social network and cuts off some access to data. The ongoing process is testing Facebook’s developer relationships.

The filing came a day after Facebook announced its earnings, passing expectations for sales and user growth, and showing that its advertising machine is so far unscathed. The shares soared.

Didn't realise this would be a consequence

Ted Lieu
‏*@tedlieu*
Formally ending the Korean War is an important first step to achieving peace on the Korean peninsula.

It also eliminates any argument that @POTUS could strike North Korea without Congressional authorization because the war technically was not over.

Well yeah. Mike Schroepfer, the Facebook CTO, was dancing on a pinhead in front of the DCMS committee yesterday answering questions about whether Facebook "gave" data to CAnalytica or Aleksandr Kogan.

The point is, Facebook stored user data in a big bucket on its front lawn with a "Help Yourself" sign above it. So it didn't have to carry out the action of "giving" the data to a particular organisation – they all just made free.

For Facebook to now do [sadface] and pretend to be shocked that organisations took the data for their own purposes is pure cant.

I thought it was interesting that they have basically signposted that the media have got hold of stories that are likely to break soon. It makes an improvement from trying to sue them into submission!

Wall St is worried. Read between the lines in this CNN piece?

US economic growth

Mr Noah has the floor.

[Our GDP is looking pretty dicey too

Faisal Islam
@faisalislam
GDP shock: UK economic growth almost grinds to halt in first three months... 0.1% GDP growth in Q1 2018 - worst figure for six years

And

Robert Peston
@Peston
Seems to have been a jaw-dropping £300bn swing in foreign investment flows to and from UK, in a negative sense, between 2016 and 2017 according to latest OECD figures. Nothing to do with Brexit, of course ]

Renato Mariotti
@renato_mariotti
Manafort’s civil lawsuit challenging Mueller’s authority to conduct his investigation is dismissed. The judge concluded that the appropriate way for him to challenge Mueller’s actions is in his criminal cases. assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4448651/Manafort-Order-20180427.pdf

This is not a surprising result. Manafort’s civil lawsuit against Mueller was very unusual and he could raise the same issues by filing motions in the criminal cases brought by Mueller.

Trump about to hold joint news conferences with Merkel. Will be waiting to see if he picks off any dandruff!

Thanks Pain.

I've had a few days away and don't know how to begin to catch-up. Still reeling at the images of Trump treating Macron like a toddler with a new toy.

Quantam welcome back... I've just been watching Merkel and Trump with him rambling on and on and on

In case you've been wondering what Bannon has been up to. In Europe.

It's not a pleasure but someone (Samantha Bee) has to do it.