Wednesday, September 20, 2017
September 20, 2017
News and Views
THIS STATEMENT BY REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA ED GILLESPIE IS UP THERE WITH THE BEST OF YOGI BERRA AND GEORGE W BUSH.
“THESE NEO NAZIS, THESE WHITE SUPREMACISTS, THESE KKK MEMBERS WITH THEIR SHIELDS AND THEIR TORCHES — IF ‘1’ WERE THE MOST LIBERAL ON THE SPECTRUM AND ‘10' WERE THE MOST CONSERVATIVE, THESE PEOPLE ARE A YELLOW,” GILLESPIE SAID. “THEY'RE NOT ON THE SAME CONTINUUM.” YES, WELL, I SEE, SIR. WHEN ASKED WHETHER OR NOT HE WOULD ASK TRUMP TO COME AND CAMPAIGN FOR HIM, HE DECLINED TO ANSWER.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/confederate-monuments-health-care-trump-highlight-virginia-debate-n802851
POLITICS SEP 19 2017, 10:52 PM ET
Confederate Monuments, Health Care and Trump Highlight Virginia Debate
by KAILANI KOENIG
MCLEAN, Va. — As the two major party candidates in the competitive race for governor of Virginia faced off in their second debate Tuesday night, neither could escape the national issues tugging at them, including President Trump, health care, and the ongoing disputes over confederate monuments in the state.
Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, the Democratic candidate seeking to keep the seat in his party's hands this November, faced off against Republican nominee Ed Gillespie, a former RNC chairman and onetime counselor to President George W. Bush, in a spirited yet civil debate moderated by NBC’s Chuck Todd.
In the wake of racially-motivated protests and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia last month, the local dilemma over whether confederate monuments should be removed became a national flashpoint, and both candidates were pressed on solidifying where they stood on Tuesday.
Confederate Monuments Become Flashpoint At Virginia Governor Debate
Confederate Monuments Become Flashpoint At Virginia Governor Debate 1:33
“You know, Virginia and Virginians have always been at the forefront of American history from our very founding, literally, at Jamestown,” Gillespie said.
“But our history is our history,” he continued. “And I believe that we need to educate about it, and that we need to teach about it. And so my view is that the statues should remain, and we should place them in historical context so that people can learn.”
Northam reiterated that he wants to see local governments maintain control of the decisions over statues, but he added that if “these statues give individuals, white supremacists like that, an excuse to do what they did, then we need to have a discussion about the statues."
"Personally, I would think that the statues would be better placed in museums with certainly historical context,” Northam added.
Gillespie specifically pointed to the marchers who gathered in Charlottesville last month for what was dubbed the “Unite the Right” rally, arguing they shouldn’t be tied to any partisan viewpoints, despite what the rally was called.
“These Neo Nazis, these white supremacists, these KKK members with their shields and their torches — If ‘1’ were the most liberal on the spectrum and ‘10' were the most conservative, these people are a yellow,” Gillespie said. “They're not on the same continuum.”
The battle to be governor of Virginia is the marquee race of the nation this year. Virginia only allows their governors to serve one four-year term, so the state’s current Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is prevented from running again.
Gillespie narrowly lost to Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in a very close Senate race in 2014, and this year's gubernatorial race is also expected to be very close. Recent polls show the race evenly split or with Northam in a slight lead.
Throughout the race, Gillespie has attempted to walk a delicate line when it comes to his fellow Republican in the White House, President Donald Trump.
A once-reliable Republican stronghold, Virginia has trended Democratic in statewide elections in recent years, fueled by growth in the suburbs across the river from Washington, D.C. Democrat Hillary Clinton beat Trump here by 5 points in the 2016 election, though Trump dominated in most of the state’s rural areas.
At the debate Tuesday night, Gillespie attempted to veer away from Trump when directly asked about him, instead trying to drive the conversation to the state's economic issues, while Northam multiple times tried to tie Gillespie to a number of the president’s policies.
When asked whether he’d welcome the president coming to Virginia to campaign for him, Gillespie said, “I will take help from anybody anywhere. This is going to be a very close race.”
But after the debate, when a reporter asked him whether he would specifically invite Trump to come and campaign for him, Gillespie declined to take his initial answer any further.
Image: Virginia Governor's Debate
In this frame grab, Republican Ed Gillespie (L) debates Democrat Ralph Northam on September 19, 2017 for the Virginia governor's race in Virginia. NBC News
Northam, a long-time doctor and U.S. Army veteran who previously voted for George W. Bush before his political career began, was asked where he could work with the president if elected, and he said that they could agree on putting an end to sequestration and avoiding government shutdowns.
The lieutenant governor also specifically pointed to funding for the armed forces, a large and importan economic driver in the state, saying, “if we can build up the military in this country, I will do everything I can to work with our president.”
Both candidates were also pressed on where they stand in the current debates on health care dividing both of their parties.
While Republicans in the U.S. Senate move closer to looking at the latest attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare — a proposal introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and Bill Cassidy, R-La. — Northam repeatedly tried to tie Gillespie to the measure.
Gillespie indicated that he was not a fan of the legislation, saying he believes it “falls short” of not punishing the commonwealth for not expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
But Gillespie’s position on the bill was further muddled while he spoke to reporters after the debate, repeating his earlier concerns but saying, “I’m not endorsing or opposing any specific legislation.”
Northam on the other hand blasted the Graham-Cassidy bill, but after the debate he was asked about where he stands on “Medicare For All” legislation like the proposal recently introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders and supported by numerous Democrats.
He noted that he would like to see some kind of public option installed, but also took a stand against the idea, telling reporters, “this country is not ready for single-payer.”
TWO STORIES OF TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ARE BELOW. I THINK WE SHOULD LOWER ALL FLAGS TO HALF MAST WORLDWIDE, OR SOMETHING EQUALLY RESPECTFUL, BECAUSE THIS IS TOO INTENSELY PAINFUL TO WATCH ON THE NEWS AND BE PERSONALLY UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING, EXCEPT TO GIVE MY WIDOWS’ MITE TO THE RED CROSS, WHICH I DID AFTER THE TEXAS STORM JUST LAST WEEK. HAVING TWO SUCH CATASTROPHIC EVENTS HAPPENING IN ONE DAY MAKES ME REALLY SAD. BETTER STILL, PERHAPS WE SHOULD MAKE THAT A UNITED NATIONS HOLIDAY LIKE MEMORIAL DAY. AND, YES, THERE ARE UN HOLIDAYS, SO ONE FOR GLOBAL HUMAN SUFFERING WOULDN’T BE A RIDICULOUS IDEA. FOR A LIST OF EXISTING HOLIDAYS, GO TO : HTTP://AFGHANISTAN-UN.ORG/2009/02/PUBLIC-OFFICIAL-HOLIDAYS-AT-THE-UNITED-NATIONS-HEADQUARTER/.
TWO MEXICAN EARTHQUAKES – GO TO WEB SITES FOR WHOLE ARTICLES.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/200-dead-magnitude-71-earthquake-strikes-mexico/story?id=49958650
More than 200 dead after magnitude 7.1 quake strikes Mexico; 'death toll will rise'
By JULIA JACOBO MORGAN WINSOR M.L. NESTEL Sep 20, 2017, 1:46 PM ET
ANOTHER HUGE HURRICANE. I’M AFRAID THIS IS GOING TO BE THE PATTERN OF THE FUTURE, AS THE REPUBLICANS STEADFASTLY REFUSE TO ALLOW RESTRICTIONS ON THE CO2 EMISSIONS IN POWER PLANTS, BECAUSE THE KOCH BROTHERS WOULDN’T GET AS RICH AS FAST.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41340392
Hurricane Maria has knocked out power to the entire island of Puerto Rico, home to 3.5m people, emergency officials have said.
Abner Gómez, head of the disaster management agency, said the hurricane had damaged "everything in its path".
THIS IS A CUTE AND YET TOO TRUTHFUL ARTICLE ABOUT THE WAY THE MEDIA, ESPECIALLY CABLE TV, FINDS A PERSON OR A SUBJECT AND GRINDS THE STORY DOWN INTO A NON-DISCERNIBLE POWDER. IN THIS CASE, THE SUBJECT IS DONALD TRUMP. I AM LIKE THIS WRITER, I WANT ALL THE NEWS, NOT ONE STORY. I REMEMBER THE HORRIFIC TWO WEEKS OF MURDER AND THE TV COVERAGE IN 2002, WHEN TWO SICK AND SADISTIC KILLERS RODE UP AND DOWN THE BELTWAY KILLING PEOPLE WITH A RIFLE FOR NO REASON AT ALL. I HAD LIVED SOME 20 YEARS IN DC, SO IT WAS JUST LIKE BEING THERE TO SEE IT ON THE NEWS, AND IT WAS DISTURBING TO ME. WHEN THEY FINALLY WERE CAUGHT, IT TURNED OUT TO BE A 35 YEAR-OLD BLACK MAN AND A YOUNGER ONE, MAYBE IN HIS EARLY 20S.
THE TWENTY-YEAR OLD SEEMED TO BE A HERO WORSHIPPER, THOUGH ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE CITED BELOW, HE SAID THAT HE WAS “SEXUALLY MOLESTED” BY MUHAMMAD – THE PATTERN OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP WAS ONE OF AN UNUSUAL EMOTIONAL BOND OF SOME KIND – AND THEY WENT, JUST LIKE BONNIE AND CLYDE, ON THE LONGEST CRIME SPREE I’VE SEEN IN MY LIFE, A KILLING EVERY DAY OR SO. THE BOOTLEGGER GANGSTERS LIKE JOHN DILLINGER, OF THE 1920S AND 30S, MAY HAVE DONE AS MUCH KILLING WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT, ALSO.
WELL, WHEN THEY WERE FINALLY TRACKED DOWN TO THE OLDER MAN’S HOUSE IN THE SOUTH – NEW ORLEANS MAYBE – AN FBI HELICOPTER HUNG OVER THE HOUSE FOR HOURS WITHOUT MUCH OF A VISIBLE NATURE REALLY OCCURRING. HATING MYSELF FOR DOING IT, I WATCHED IT FOR SOMETHING IN THE RANGE OF HALF A DAY, OFF AND ON. IT WAS TANTALIZING AND ANNOYING ALL AT ONCE. MEANWHILE, WE THE WATCHERS ALL HOPED AT ANY MOMENT TO SEE THEM COME OUT AND BE BROUGHT DOWN.
I’M NOT SADISTIC, BUT THE BUILDUP OF INTEREST WAS REALLY INTENSE, AND AFTER ALL THEY HAD DONE, I WAS WILLING FOR THE LAW TO JUST SHOOT THEM. THEY WERE, HOWEVER, ARRESTED INSTEAD. MUHAMMAD WAS EXECUTED IN 2009 AND MALVO, THE YOUNGER MAN, IS STILL ALIVE IN A SUPERMAX IN VIRGINIA. SEE THESE ARTICLES BELOW.
HTTPS://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/JOHN_ALLEN_MUHAMMAD; AND HTTPS://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/LEE_BOYD_MALVO.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/trump-news-media-ignore.html?_r=0
TECHNOLOGY
I Ignored Trump News for a Week. Here’s What I Learned.
Farhad Manjoo
STATE OF THE ART FEB. 22, 2017
IMAGE: President Trump has taken up semipermanent residence on every media outlet of any kind, political or not. Credit Doug Chayka
I spent last week ignoring President Trump. Although I am ordinarily a politics junkie, I didn’t read, watch or listen to a single story about anything having to do with our 45th president.
What I missed, by many accounts, was one of the strangest and most unpredictable weeks of news in modern political history. Among other things, there was the resignation of the national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, and an “Oprah Winfrey Show” tape that led to the downfall of the nominee for secretary of labor, Andrew F. Puzder.
It wasn’t my aim to stick my head in the sand. I did not quit the news. Instead, I spent as much time as I normally do online (all my waking hours), but shifted most of my energy to looking for Trump-free zones.
My point: I wanted to see what I could learn about the modern news media by looking at how thoroughly Mr. Trump had subsumed it. In one way, my experiment failed: I could find almost no Trump-free part of the press.
But as the week wore on, I discovered several truths about our digital media ecosystem. Coverage of Mr. Trump may eclipse that of any single human being ever. The reasons have as much to do with him as the way social media amplifies every big story until it swallows the world. And as important as covering the president may be, I began to wonder if we were overdosing on Trump news, to the exclusion of everything else.
Photo
An image from 84 Lumber’s Super Bowl commercial. The original version featured a mother and a daughter confronting a border wall between the United States and Mexico, which Mr. Trump has pledged to build.
President Trump is inescapable.
The new president doesn’t simply dominate national and political news. During my week of attempted Trump abstinence, I noticed something deeper: He has taken up semipermanent residence on every outlet of any kind, political or not. He is no longer just the message. In many cases, he has become the medium, the ether through which all other stories flow.
Obviously, just about every corner of the news was a minefield, but it was my intention to keep informed while avoiding Mr. Trump. I still consulted major news sites, but avoided sections that tend to be Trump-soaked, and averted my eyes as I scrolled for non-Trump news. I spent more time on international news sites like the BBC, and searched for subject-specific sites covering topics like science and finance. I consulted social news sites like Digg and Reddit, and occasionally checked Twitter and Facebook, but I often had to furiously scroll past all of the Trump posts. (Some news was unavoidable; when Mr. Flynn resigned, a journalist friend texted me about it.)
Even when I found non-Trump news, though, much of it was interleaved with Trump news, so the overall effect was something like trying to bite into a fruit-and-nut cake without getting any fruit or nuts.
It wasn’t just news. Mr. Trump’s presence looms over much more. There he is off in the wings of “The Bachelor” and even “The Big Bang Theory,” whose creator, Chuck Lorre, has taken to inserting anti-Trump messages in the closing credits. Want to watch an awards show? Say the Grammys or the Golden Globes? Trump Trump Trump. How about sports? Yeah, no. The president’s policies are an animating force in the N.B.A. He was the subtext of the Super Bowl: both the game and the commercials, and maybe even the halftime show.
Where else could I go? Snapchat and Instagram were relatively safe, but the president still popped up. Even Amazon.com suggested I consider Trump toilet paper for my wife’s Valentine’s Day present. (I bought her jewelry.)
Photo
It is possible that no living person in history has ever been as famous as Mr. Trump is right now. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Trump’s fame may break all records.
All presidents are omnipresent. But it is likely that no living person in history has ever been as famous as Mr. Trump is right now. It’s possible that not even the most famous or infamous people of the recent or distant past — say, Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali or Adolf Hitler — dominated media as thoroughly at their peak as Mr. Trump does now.
I’m hedging because there isn’t data to directly verify this declaration. (Of course, there are no media analytics to measure how many outlets were covering Hitler the day he invaded Poland.) But there is some pretty good circumstantial evidence.
Consider data from mediaQuant, a firm that measures “earned media,” which is all coverage that isn’t paid advertising. To calculate a dollar value of earned media, it first counts every mention of a particular brand or personality in just about any outlet, from blogs to Twitter to the evening news to The New York Times. Then it estimates how much the mentions would cost if someone were to pay for them as advertising.
In January, Mr. Trump broke mediaQuant’s records. In a single month, he received $817 million in coverage, higher than any single person has ever received in the four years that mediaQuant has been analyzing the media, according to Paul Senatori, the company’s chief analytics officer. For much of the past four years, Mr. Obama’s monthly earned media value hovered around $200 million to $500 million. The highest that Hillary Clinton got during the presidential campaign was $430 million, in July.
Photo
President Trump has taken up semipermanent residence on every media outlet of any kind, political or not. Credit Doug Chayka
It’s not just that Mr. Trump’s coverage beats anyone else’s. He is now beating pretty much everyone else put together. Mr. Senatori recently added up the coverage value of 1,000 of the world’s best known figures, excluding Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump. The list includes Mrs. Clinton, who in January got $200 million in coverage, Tom Brady ($38 million), Kim Kardashian ($36 million), and Vladimir V. Putin ($30 million), all the way down to the 1,000th most-mentioned celebrity in mediaQuant’s database, the actress Madeleine Stowe ($1,001).
The coverage those 1,000 people garnered last month totaled $721 million. In other words, Mr. Trump gets about $100 million more in coverage than the next 1,000 famous people put together. And he is on track to match or beat his January record in February, according to Mr. Senatori’s preliminary figures.
How do we know Mr. Trump is more talked about than anyone else in the past? There are now more people on the planet who are more connected than ever before. Facebook estimates that about 3.2 billion people have internet connections. On average, the people of Earth spend about eight hours a day consuming media, according to the marketing research firm Zenith. So almost by definition, anyone who dominates today’s media is going to be read about, talked about and watched by more people than ever before.
“From a media perspective, it’s pretty clear,” Mr. Senatori said. “The sheer volume, and the sheer amount of consumption, and all the new channels that are available today show that, yeah, he’s off the charts.”
But shouldn’t we all be thinking about Trump?
Mr. Trump is a historically unusual president, and thus deserves plenty of coverage. Yet there’s an argument that our tech-fueled modern media ecosystem is amplifying his presence even beyond what’s called for.
On most days, Mr. Trump is 90 percent of the news on my Twitter and Facebook feeds, and probably yours, too. But he’s not 90 percent of what’s important in the world. During my break from Trump news, I found rich coverage veins that aren’t getting social play. ISIS is retreating across Iraq and Syria. Brazil seems on the verge of chaos. A large ice shelf in Antarctica is close to full break. Scientists may have discovered a new continent submerged under the ocean near Australia.
There’s a reason you aren’t seeing these stories splashed across the news. Unlike old-school media, today’s media works according to social feedback loops. Every story that shows any signs of life on Facebook or Twitter is copied endlessly by every outlet, becoming unavoidable.
Scholars have long predicted that social media might alter how we choose cultural products. In 2006, Duncan Watts, a researcher at Microsoft who studies social networks, and two colleagues published a study arguing that social signals create a kind of “inequality” in how we choose media. The researchers demonstrated this with an online market for music downloads. Half of the people who arrived at Mr. Watts’s music-downloading site were shown just the titles and band name of each song. The other half were also shown a social signal — how many times each song had been downloaded by other users.
Mr. Watts and his colleagues found that adding social signals changed the music people were interested in. Inequality went up: When people could see what others were downloading, popular songs became far more popular, and unpopular songs far less popular. Social signals also created a greater unpredictability of outcomes; when people could see how others had picked songs, the collective ratings of each song were less likely to predict success, and bad songs were more likely to become popular.
I suspect we are seeing something like this effect playing out with Trump news. It’s not that coverage of the new administration is unimportant. It clearly is. But social signals — likes, retweets and more — are amplifying it.
Every new story prompts outrage, which puts the stories higher in your feed, which prompts more coverage, which encourages more talk, and on and on. We saw this effect before Mr. Trump came on the scene — it’s why you know about Cecil the lion and Harambe the gorilla — but he has accelerated the trend. He is the Harambe of politics, the undisputed king of all media.
The volume isn’t sustainable.
It’s only been a month since Mr. Trump took office, and already the deluge of news has been overwhelming. Everyone — reporters, producers, anchors, protesters, people in the administration and consumers of news — has been amped up to 11.
For now, this might be all right. It’s important to pay attention to the federal government when big things are happening.
But Mr. Trump is likely to be president for at least the next four years. And it’s probably not a good idea for just about all of our news to be focused on a single subject for that long.
In previous media eras, the news was able to find a sensible balance even when huge events were preoccupying the world. Newspapers from World War I and II were filled with stories far afield from the war. Today’s newspapers are also full of non-Trump articles, but many of us aren’t reading newspapers anymore. We’re reading Facebook and watching cable, and there, Mr. Trump is all anyone talks about, to the exclusion of almost all else.
There’s no easy way out of this fix. But as big as Mr. Trump is, he’s not everything — and it’d be nice to find a way for the media ecosystem to recognize that.
Email: farhad.manjoo@nytimes.com; Twitter: @fmanjoo
GOOD GOING, DEMS!
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/house-democrats-break-campaign-fundraising-record-n802171
POLITICS SEP 18 2017, 5:57 AM ET
House Democrats Break Campaign Fundraising Record
by ALEX SEITZ-WALD
WASHINGTON — The campaign arm of House Democrats has posted its highest off-year August fundraising haul ever, the group told NBC News.
While their Republican counterparts haven't yet released their August results, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has outraised Republicans each of the three previous months — a result Democrats say bodes well for their prospects of winning the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
"With the House in play, another record-breaking month of fundraising for the DCCC is a clear sign that the grassroots energy behind House Democrats is constantly growing stronger," said Tyler Law, a spokesman for the committee. "Given Speaker [Paul] Ryan's failure to govern with unified Republican control of Washington, it's understandable that vulnerable House Republicans are opting for retirement while we are recruiting incredible candidates deep into the map."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California is the Democratic leader and would be in line to return as speaker if Democrats could win back the House.
The DCCC raised $6.26 million in August, compared to $4.15 million for August 2015, the last comparable year before a midterm election. Overall, the DCCC has raised $72.46 million in 2017. And the committee touted its online fundraising, which it says has totaled $31.26 million for the year so far, including $2.4 million last month.
While lagging a bit in recent months, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) still had a sizable $12 million cash-on-hand advantage over Democrats as of July, and both parties had raised about the same amount for the year. Ryan, R-Wis., buttressed the committee's fundraising last month with a $2 million cash infusion.
Notably, House Democrats' financial success comes as the Democrat National Committee has struggled with its own fundraising.
THE PHOTOGRAPH OF THIS YOUNG MAN LOOKS A BIT “SPACED OUT,” AND EXPRESSIONLESS. I WONDER IF THE POLICE WERE ABLE TO IDENTIFY THE CAR FULLY, SO THAT THEY CAN KNOW THEY PROBABLY DO HAVE THE RIGHT KILLER. IF IT IS HIM, IT’S GOOD THAT THEY DID CATCH HIM. THE OFFICER SAID THAT HE SUSPECTED GLEASON MIGHT KILL AGAIN SOON. THE MANNER OF THE SLAYING REALLY IS GRUESOME.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-baton-rouge-man-arrested-deaths-black-men/
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS/AP September 19, 2017, 1:34 PM
White Baton Rouge man arrested in deaths of two black men
Photograph -- Kenneth Gleason EAST BATON ROUGE SHERIFF’S OFFICE VIA AP
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Authorities say a 23-year-old white Baton Rouge man has been arrested and will be charged with murder in the fatal shootings of two black men.
Interim Police Chief Jonny Dunnam said Tuesday that Kenneth James Gleason was accused of killing a homeless man and a dishwasher. Bruce Cofield, 59, was killed last Tuesday. Two nights later, Donald Smart, 49, was fatally shot as he was walking to his job at Louie's Cafe.
Gleason is expected to be charged with two counts of first-degree murder, officials announced Tuesday. He's also accused of firing on a black family's home. Gleason was led away from the police department in handcuffs just before authorities there held a news conference.
In both shootings, the gunman fired from his car, then walked up to the victims as they were lying on the ground and fired again multiple times. Neither victim had any prior relationship with Gleason. Police have said there was a "strong possibility" the shootings were racially motivated but in the press conference Tuesday didn't detail Gleason's alleged motive.
"Had there not been a swift conclusion in this case, I feel confident this killer probably would have killed again, and could have potentially created a tear in the fabric that holds this community together," Dunnam said Tuesday.
A law enforcement official who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity said a copy of an Adolf Hitler speech was found at Gleason's home.
Gleason's attorney, J. Christopher Alexander, said his client "vehemently denies guilt, and we look forward to complete vindication." Alexander declined to say anything else.
Officials had been searching for a red car linked to the investigation when they spotted Gleason driving the vehicle and pulled him over Saturday, East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore said in a press conference. Gleason was arrested on drug charges, but he was bailed out of jail late Sunday even though authorities considered him a "person of interest" in the murders.
Hate on display in string of high-profile crimes
Play VIDEO
Hate on display in string of high-profile crimes
Gleason was arrested again on Monday by the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office on a charge of stealing a book -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -- from a Baton Rouge bookstore as authorities awaited test results from the state crime lab. Those results linked DNA on shell casings found at one of the scenes to Gleason, Moore said.
The ATF's National Integrated Ballistic Information Network determined on Friday that shell casings found at both scenes were fired from the same weapon, Moore said.
Moore said it was highly unusual for DNA to be found on spent shell casings and praised the work of local law enforcement and the quick turnaround from federal and state forensic investigators that helped them secure the arrest warrant.
Gleason is also expected to be charged by the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office with firing at his neighbor's home Sept. 11. The home was occupied, but no one was injured. Moore said an African-American family lived in the home, but did not say whether he believed hate was a motive.
It's not clear if Gleason knew the family.
Moore said Gleason "made statements" to investigators but wouldn't detail what he said. Moore said his office could seek the death penalty.
"It appears to be cold, calculated, planned (against) people who were unarmed and defenseless," he said. "We don't need to prove motive. There are a lot of things that are unanswered."
Sgt. L'Jean McKneely, a spokesman with Baton Rouge police, told CBS affiliate WAFB detectives still believe the crimes were racially motivated, but the investigation is ongoing to determine for sure.
Authorities are still searching for the weapon used in the crime.
WATCH THIS SECURITY VIDEO. THIS GIRL SEEMS TO ME TO BE LOST, WANDERING AROUND CORNER AFTER CORNER AND TRYING DOORS TO SEE IF THEY WILL OPEN. SHE WAS THERE WITH A PARTY IN ONE OF THE ROOMS, I UNDERSTAND. COULD SHE HAVE GONE OUT TO FIND A DRINK OR SNACK MACHINE, PERHAPS? I KNOW I HAVE BEEN LOST IN BUILDINGS MORE THAN A FEW TIMES, ESPECIALLY LARGE ONES WITH LOTS OF CORRIDORS. I HOPE THIS WAS AN ACCIDENT AND NOT MURDER. THAT WOULD BE A TERRIFYING WAY TO DIE. I’M SO SORRY FOR THE PARENTS.
https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/police-release-surveillance-video-of-kenneka-jenkins-teen-found-in-freezer-2/
Police release surveillance video of Kenneka Jenkins, teen found in freezer
SEPTEMBER 16, 2017, 8:59 AM
SEPTEMBER 16, 2017, 8:59 AM| Authorities released surveillance footage from a hotel in suburban Chicago where 19-year-old Kenneka Jenkins' body was discovered in a freezer last weekend. The footage shows Jenkins stumbling in a hallway and walking through the kitchen, but doesn't show her entering the freezer itself.
A FAR-RIGHT PARTY CALLED “NORTHERN LEAGUE” SOUNDS LIKE THE OLD GERMAN FOLK TALES THAT HITLER MADE SO IMPORTANT IN HIS PHILOSOPHY – WAGNERIAN OPERA, ARYANS, ETC., SO I GUESS THESE REHASHED SATANIC MATERIALS OF SUSPICIOUS FEAR ARE BEING SERVED UP AGAIN FOR THE PRESENT DAY’S FASCIST SUPPER. RAPES OCCUR, SO FOREIGNERS ARE BLAMED. NATURALLY. BESIDES, THIS RESEMBLES BREITBART’S STORIES, LURID AND FARFETCHED. PANIC AND GROUP HYSTERIA ARE THE NEXT STEP, WITH CALLS TO DEPORT OR KILL FOREIGNERS, OR MAYBE THAT’S WHERE WE ARE ALREADY.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/italy-rapes-rome-mayor-security-far-right-parties-link-crime-migrants/
CBS/AP September 19, 2017, 11:00 AM
Calls for more security after series of rapes in Italy
Photograph -- A photographer takes pictures near the area where a woman was allegedly raped in Rome's Villa Borghese park, Monday, Sept. 18, 2017. AP
ROME -- Officials are calling for increased police patrols and new laws to punish perpetrators after a spate of rapes around Italy.
After two new cases emerged Tuesday, Rome mayor Virginia Raggi declared it has been "a black September for Italy."
In Rome, a German woman reported being raped, robbed and bound in the swank Villa Borghese park overnight.
And in Catania, police on Tuesday arrested a man who allegedly raped a doctor to whom he had gone for medical help.
The attacks followed a case in Florence where two American students said two carabinieri officers raped them after offering them a ride home from a disco in their patrol car. And in August, a Polish tourist was raped and her partner beaten during a beach attack in Rimini.
The woman accused four Africans of the crime. The men, who were also accused of raping a Peruvian transsexual, is made up of two Moroccan brothers, 15 and 17, a 16-year-old Nigerian, and a Congolese who allegedly acted as their leader. He had come to Italy seeking asylum on humanitarian grounds, according to the Reuters News Agency.
Migrant crisis
The allegations fuelled rising sentiments in Italy that migrants are to blame for a disproportionate number of crimes committed in the country.
"Some 40 percent of rapes are being committed by foreigners who make up 8 percent of the population. You can't sweet this under a carpet," lawmaker Deborah Bergamini told Reuters News. "The influx of migrants is having major consequences."
Earlier in September, Matteo Salvini, of the far-right party Northern League, said on Twitter "There are too many of them. I will send quite a few home."
The Northern League has seen a jump in support since 2014, rising from 6 percent to over 15, rendering it the third largest party in the country. At the upcoming Italian election, they will ally with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party and Georgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party.
On the election, pollster Renato Mannheimer told Reuters News that, "The economy is a much more important issue, but sadly I think it will take a back seat to immigration."
* * * *
MOST OF THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES ARE ABOUT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. IT’S A BIG TRUMP NEWS DAY SO I JUST COLLECTED THEM ALL. ROBERT MUELLER IS NOT ONLY PLAYING HARD BALL, BUT HE IS GETTING RESULTS! NOT ONLY TRUMP, BUT SOME MAINSTREAM REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN TRYING TO SLOW HIM DOWN, BUT NOT ALL. IT’S FASCINATING, IF SAD. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO JUST DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING “PHILOSOPHICAL” AS LONG AS THEY GET THEIR MEGABUCKS.
NOTING THAT AUNG SAN SUU KYI HAD STARTED SPEAKING OF “FAKE NEWS” IN BURMA, HE ADDED: “THESE ARE INFECTIOUS FORMS OF DEMAGOGIC BEHAVIOUR AND THEY ARE TOXIC.” I WOULD PUT IT IN A MORE RELIGIOUS WAY – THEY ARE DEMONIC. LOOK AT THE BEHAVIOR AGAINST HUMANITY OF THIS CENTURY AND EVEN AGAINST LIFE ITSELF. CAN YOU SAY THAT PUTTING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN GAS CHAMBERS OVER THEIR RELIGION AND SUPPOSED “RACIAL” DIFFERENCES IS NOT AN ACT OF SATAN? WELL, HERE WE ARE AGAIN.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/john-le-carre-likens-donald-trump-rise-1930s-fascismsomething/
John le Carré likens Donald Trump to rise of 1930s fascism: ‘Something seriously bad is happening’
Telegraph Reporters
8 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 2:21AM
Photograph -- John Le Carre says he detests Brexit and Trump CREDIT: AFP
John le Carré has warned of the "toxic" influence of Donald Trump, likening his presidency to the rise of fascism in the 1930s.
Addressing an audience at the Royal Festival Hall in London, the acclaimed author said "something truly, seriously bad is happening".
“These stages that Trump is going through in the United States and the stirring of racial hatred … a kind of burning of the books as he attacks, as he declares real news as fake news, the law becomes fake news, everything becomes fake news.
“I think of all things that were happening across Europe in the 1930s, in Spain, in Japan, obviously in Germany. To me, these are absolutely comparable signs of the rise of fascism and it’s contagious, it’s infectious. Fascism is up and running in Poland and Hungary. There’s an encouragement about.”
John le Carré: An Evening with George Smiley - trailer John le Carré: An Evening with George Smiley - trailer
01:20
Noting that Aung San Suu Kyi* [see below] had started speaking of “fake news” in Burma, he added: “These are infectious forms of demagogic behaviour and they are toxic.”
Le Carré, 85, was speaking at the event to mark the publication of his latest book, A Legacy of Spies, which sees the return of his famous fictitious spy George Smiley.
Having outwitted Soviet spies and played his part in the downfall of communism, the British intelligence officer of le Carré's novels is ending his days feeling lost in his own country because of Brexit.
Smiley, reflecting on his long life, makes his final, if brief, appearance in le Carre's new novel, which was published on Thursday.
Copies of 'A legacy of Spies' a new novel by English author John Le Carre are on sale at a bookshop in central London
"It was terribly hard to write this book during the period of Brexit and the ascendancy of Trump," le Carré told BBC radio.
"And I'd like to think that Smiley was aware of the sense of aimlessness which has entered into all of our minds - we seem to be joined by nothing but fear," he said.
"Smiley, who has spent his life defending the flag in one way or another, feels alienated from it, feels a stranger in his own country, and that’s why we find him and indeed leave him in a foreign place."
Le Carré, whose real name is David Cornwell, said Smiley's dream was to see a unified Europe which helped him justify his actions during the Cold War, a time of treachery and moral ambiguity.
"The dream he had was of a second Reformation, and of a great, peaceful, democratic Europe," he said.
"Because it's such a difficult period in which to write - with Brexit which I detest and Trump whom I also detest - what we are looking at is Europe as the squeezed middle, democratic rule as we understand it being assailed from both sides of the Atlantic and that for Smiley is a big thing to swallow," he said.
Smiley's appearance in the latest book will be his first for 25 years. He made his debut in 1961 in "Call for the Dead" and most famously featured in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "The Honourable Schoolboy" and "Smiley's People."
John le Carre's A Legacy of Spies is available at The Telegraph Bookshop. To order your hardback copy, visit books.telegraph.co.uk or call 0844 871 1514.
Related Topics
USA
Donald Trump
John le Carré
SUU KYI OFFICIAL SAYS THAT THE REFUGEES LEFT THEIR RADICAL INVOLVED AREAS “TO AVOID BEING QUESTIONED.” THE ROHINGYAS DISPUTE THAT. OVER 400,000 HAVE FLED MYANMAR FOR BANGLADESH. THERE IS A SERIOUS CLAIM OF VIOLENCE AGAINST THE MUSLIM MINORITY, WHOM MYANMAR CALL “BENGALI MUSLIMS.” THEY ARE DENIED MYANMAR CITIZENSHIP. THE ROHINGYA HAVE RECENTLY FORMED A MILITANT GROUP CALLED: THE ARAKAN ROHINGYA SALVATION ARMY (ARSA). THEY ARE FEARED AS BEING POTENTIALLY RADICAL AND DANGEROUS MUSLIMS. SUU KYI HAS BEEN AIDED BY THE USA IN THE PAST.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41329662
Rohingya crisis: Suu Kyi speech criticised by global leaders
20 September 2017
Asia Migrant Crisis
Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi is facing mounting international pressure for her handling of violence in Rakhine state and the Rohingya refugee crisis.
In a speech on Tuesday, Myanmar's de facto leader condemned rights abuses but did not blame the army or address allegations of ethnic cleansing. Leaders and diplomats from several countries have since expressed strong disappointment with her stance.
>More than 400,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since late August.
The latest unrest in troubled Rakhine was sparked by deadly attacks on police stations across the state last month, blamed on a newly emerged militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa).
Scores of people were killed in an ensuing military crackdown and there are widespread allegations of villages being burned and Rohingya being driven out.
Media caption Aung San Suu Kyi: 'We will accept refugees who want to return'
The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority, are denied citizenship by the Myanmar government, which says they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. It refers to them as Bengali Muslims.
In her first national address on the recent crisis, Ms Suu Kyi said:
there had been no clashes or clearance operations in the northern state since 5 September most Muslims had decided to stay and that this indicated the situation was not so severe the government had made efforts in recent years to improve living conditions for all people in Rakhine including Muslims that all refugees would be allowed to return after a verification process.
Reality Check: Are Suu Kyi's Rohingya claims correct?
Who are the Rohingya group behind attacks?
The Burmese military says its operations in Rakhine are aimed at rooting out militants, and has repeatedly denied targeting civilians. Witnesses, refugees and journalists have contested this.
Media caption'A denial of the most basic human rights'
Late on Tuesday, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina renewed her call for Myanmar to take back the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled to her country.
"We have told Myanmar, they are your citizens, you must take them back, keep them safe, give them shelter," she told the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
She said the Rohingya were facing an "unbearable human catastrophe".
Bangladesh also denies Rohingya have any right to settle on its soil - and has been criticised for not doing more to help in the crisis.
In a phone call, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Ms Suu Kyi that he welcomed her statement that refugees would be able to return once verified.
Rex TillersonImage copyrightAFP
Image caption
Mr Tillerson called Ms Suu Kyi to discuss the US concerns
But he urged her to facilitate humanitarian aid and "address deeply troubling allegations of human rights abuses and violations", the state department said.
Also speaking to the UN Assembly, French President Emmanuel Macron said "the military operation must stop, humanitarian access must be guaranteed and the rule of law restored in the face of what we know is ethnic cleansing".
He also said he would start a Security Council initiative to ensure humanitarian access and an end to the violence.
Media caption Rohingya refugees say they would return to Myanmar if it was safe for them to be there UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also urged Myanmar to "end the military operations" and "address the grievances of the Rohingyas, whose status has been left unresolved for far too long".
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the international community to act on the crisis warning that "unless the tragedy taking place in Myanmar is brought to a halt, humanity will have to live with the shame of another dark stain in its history".
What sparked latest violence in Rakhine?
Myanmar conflict: The view from Yangon
A spokesperson for the EU said Ms Suu Kyi's invitation for international diplomats to visit the affected areas - previously ruled out of bounds by the government - was "a step forward".
Burning Gaw Du Thar Ya
Image caption
A Rohingya village which was burnt on 7 September - Ms Suu Kyi said violence had stopped before then
But he said Myanmar's leadership needed to show "that the democracy they fought so hard for can work for all the people of Myanmar, beyond ethnic, social and religious boundaries".
UK Prime Minister Theresa May also said the military action in Rakhine had to stop. The UK is suspending training courses for the Myanmar military in light of the violence.
Amnesty International said Aung San Suu Kyi's speech was "little more than a mix of untruths and victim blaming", and accused her of "burying her head in the sand" by ignoring the abuses by the army.
Having led Myanmar's struggle out of decades of military dictatorship, Ms Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. She remains overwhelmingly popular in the country.
One of her most senior ministers defended her speech and sought to clarify some of the questions it raised.
Ms Suu Kyi had said she did not know why people were fleeing, but social welfare minister Win Myat Aye told the BBC that the Rohingya who had gone to Bangladesh all came from communities which supported militants and that they had left to avoid interrogation.
The BBC's Jonah Fisher says this version of events is directly at odds with what many of the Rohingya who have arrived in Bangladesh are saying.
TRUMP’S LAWYER COHEN WILL HAVE TO DO HIS TALKING IN PUBLIC, AFTER ALL, APPARENTLY.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-intel-committee-delays-interview-with-trump-lawyer-michael-cohen/
CBS/AP September 19, 2017, 12:55 PM
Senate Intel Committee staff delays interview with Trump lawyer Michael Cohen
The Senate Intelligence Committee has delayed its meeting with President Trump's personal lawyer and confidant Michael Cohen Tuesday morning.
The committee was expected to interview Cohen Tuesday at 9 a.m. as part of its investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, but decided to postpone the inquiry after Cohen released an opening statement to the press ahead of the meeting.
In his opening statement, which was obtained by The Associated Press, Cohen addressed revelations from last month that the Trump Organization had given some consideration to a business proposal in Russia during the presidential election -- a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
It was "solely a real estate deal and nothing more," Cohen said in his statement. Cohen said that the postponement occurred after he had already been in the committee's offices for about an hour and a half Tuesday morning, according to the AP.
Cohen has previously acknowledged that he reached out to the spokesman for President Vladimir Putin on behalf of the Trump Organization's pursuit of the Trump Tower project and says in his statement that the proposed deal was abandoned in January 2016 — "months before the very first primary" — and that he was simply "doing my job."
He also said that he had seen no evidence that Trump was involved in Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
"It was a request of the Senate Intel to postpone, and I'll be back, and I look forward to giving all the information that they're looking for," Cohen told reporters Tuesday morning.
When asked why his testimony was delayed, Cohen responded, "That's a question you're going to have to ask the Senate," and did not take any further questions.
Later Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Virginia, issued a joint statement regarding the meeting.
"We were disappointed that Mr. Cohen decided to pre-empt today's interview by releasing a public statement prior to his engagement with Committee staff, in spite of the Committee's requests that he refrain from public comment," the statement reads. "As a result, we declined to move forward with today's interview and will reschedule Mr. Cohen's appearance before the Committee in open session at a date in the near future. The Committee expects witnesses in this investigation to work in good faith with the Senate."
Cohen's attorney Stephen Ryan told reporters that he and his client will continue to stand by the four-page opening statement that was intended to be released to the press ahead of Cohen's meeting with the committee.
"That statement was factual, it was accurate, it was respectful and we stand behind that statement," Ryan said. "The committee has chosen to postpone today's meeting, and we will come back for a voluntary interview whenever we can to meet with them, and we look forward to voluntarily cooperating."
Cohen has denied any personal connection to the Russian government, including allegations that he had a secret meeting with Kremlin-connected officials in Prague in the summer leading up to the U.S. presidential election. He has also has refuted claims made in a 35-page dossier regarding Mr. Trump's alleged campaign collusion efforts.
The Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees have issued multiple subpoenas over the past few months to various members of Mr. Trump's personal sphere, including Mr. Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner as well as former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
WIRETAPPED, YES, BUT NOT BY ROBERT MUELLER AND NOT OVER TRUMP/RUSSIA CONTROVERSY.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paul-manafort-was-wiretapped-by-us-government/
CBS NEWS September 19, 2017, 1:21 AM
Paul Manafort was wiretapped by feds, CBS News confirms
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was wiretapped under a foreign intelligence warrant in connection with U.S. concerns that he was communicating with Russian operatives who wanted to influence the American election, a former U.S. official familiar with the intelligence confirms to CBS News' Andres Triay.
The warrants were issued before Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to take over the investigation from the FBI.
According to CNN, which first reported the Manafort wiretapping, the FBI began the surveillance in 2014, as a result of consulting work done by Washington firms for the pro-Russian party of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych,
The U.S. government listened in on Manafort's conversations during the presidential campaign and through the election -- though not constantly -- and its surveillance includes the period when Manafort was Mr. Trump's campaign chairman.
The FBI didn't surveil Manafort continuously during that period, according to CNN, and wasn't listening in on the June 2016 meeting he attended at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and a Russian lawyer who had allegedly claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
There are wiretaps of multiple conversations Manafort had with Russian individuals, according to the former official. Also, CNN reports that Manafort and Mr. Trump continued to have conversations long after Manafort was forced out of the campaign, and in fact, the two talked after Mr. Trump took office -- a practice that stopped when lawyers representing each of them "insisted that they stop," CNN reported.
It isn't clear whether Mr. Trump himself was ever heard on the government's surveillance of Manafort.
The intercepts were part of a wide-ranging FBI counter-intelligence operation.
IT WOULDN’T SURPRISE ME IF THEY WERE BEING RECORDED, NOR WOULD I BE SORRY TO HEAR IT. THEY ARE CERTAINLY NOT EXACTLY INNOCENT, EVEN IF THEY HAVEN’T COMMITTED TREASON.
http://ir.net/news/politics/127356/report-wh-officials-fearful-colleagues-may-wearing-wires/
REPORT: WH Officials Fearful That Colleagues May Be Wearing Wires
TOPICS: Don Mcgahn Trump Lawyers Ty Cobb Wired
POSTED BY: TODD FRANKLIN SEPTEMBER 18, 2017
Usually it’s the guilty who act guilty. After all, an innocent person doesn’t usually go to extreme lengths to cover up their tracks through lies and deceit, and most certainly innocent people aren’t afraid that they are being watched or listened too [sic] at all times.
Those within the White House have been acting very guilty as of late. If it’s not the fact that multiple cabinet members and advisers have tried their best to cover meetings they had with Russian officials, both before and after the election, then it’s usually these same people lying about what those meetings were about. Now, new information reported by the New York Times, indicates that many within the White House are frantic, worried that their colleagues may be wearing wires in order to record conversations for the Mueller probe.
Yesterday’s New York Times Report focused on a battle between two of Trump’s lawyers: White House counsel Donald McGahn, and a more recently appointed attorney, Ty Cobb. According to the Times, the two men are conflicted over how to handle Robert Mueller’s request for documents from the White House. While Cobb is taking a more liberal approach, wanting to provide exactly what the investigators ask for, McGahn feels that a more conservative approach will help the President and future presidents in the long run. McGahn feels that the liberal approach that Cobb has taken may set a dangerous precedent in the future, for both Trump as well as future presidents.
On top of this, a reporter from the Times recently overheard a conversation between Cobb and others, where Cobb accused another individual of being a ‘McGahn spy”. Cobb also mentioned that he wanted documents that McGahn had been storing in his safe. When the New York Times contacted Cobb and the White House to question them on this conversation, McGahn reportedly blew up at Cobb. Additional reports have also just revealed, according to the Times, that “White House officials privately express fear that colleagues may be wearing a wire to surreptitiously record conversations for Mr. Mueller”.
This fear, although likely unwarranted, certainly shows the kind of mindset those in the White House currently have. They appear to be afraid of their own shadows, afraid to relax, as they know, they themselves, may be in for a long legal battle. I’m pretty sure Obama and Bush officials within the White House never questioned whether they were being recorded by investigators via wires.
Let’s hear your thoughts on this report in the comments section below.
THIS NEEDS NO COMMENT, AND I HAVE NONE THAT ARE CLEAN. I AM EVEN MORE ANGRY THAT TRUMP IS DOING THE SAME THING, BUT AFTER THE FACT. AT LEAST FLYNN ASKED UP FRONT FOR AID WITH HIS LEGAL DEFENSE. THE TRUMP FUNDS WERE COLLECTED IN EARLY 2017 WHEN TRUMP SURPRISINGLY ANNOUNCED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEING INAUGURATED, THAT HE WAS ALREADY SETTING UP HIS CAMPAIGN FUND FOR 2020. I TAKE THAT TO MEAN THAT HE NEEDED READY CASH FOR WHATEVER CAME UP, LIKE LEGAL FEES FOR POTENTIAL CRIME COMMITTED.
http://ir.net/news/politics/127368/worth-7m-flynn-asking-public-donations-legal-defense/
Worth $7M, Flynn is Asking The Public for Donations for Legal Defense
POSTED BY: BRIAN KRASSENSTEIN SEPTEMBER 18, 2017
As Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump/Russia fiasco continues to churn on, picking up steam as it brings on additional investigators and prosecutors, one of the people who seem to be at the center of the investigation thus far is former Trump National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn.
Flynn has been at the center of the Mueller investigation seemingly from the start, with business ties to Russia and alleged secret meetings with Russian officials leading up to the 2016 election last November. While there had been rumors that Flynn was a cooperating witness, there appears to be a pretty good chance that he will be facing charges before all is said and done.
A legal defense, especially in a possible conspiracy case like this one, could cost a pretty penny, and Flynn has hired one of the best there is to defend him in Robert Kelner. Over the course of the next several months or even years Flynn, could rack up legal bills in excess of $1 to $2 million quite easily. This would be a tremendous burden for most of us, but for Flynn, it’s an expense he likely can afford. According to numerous accounts, Flynn’s estimated net worth is over $7 million. This wealth includes a home worth more than $1 million as well as three vehicles which have a combined value in excess of over half a million dollars, according to Finapp.
One would think that someone with Flynn’s wealth would shy away from asking the pubic to help foot his legal bill, but no, that’s exactly what his ‘friends and family’ have just decided to do. They have just launched the website, MikeFlynnDefenseFund.org, where they ask the public to donate in order to help the former National Security Adviser fund his legal defense. The website reads as follows:
“Mike Flynn has served the nation for nearly four decades during time of war and peace, including nearly five years in combat. He has also received numerous awards and military decorations. He is a four-time recipient of the bronze star medal, as well as the intelligence community’s gold medallion, and other civilian, law enforcement and defense honors. The costs of legal representation associated with responding to the multiple investigations that have arisen in the wake of the 2016 election place a great burden on Mike and his family. They are deeply grateful for considering a donation to help pay expenses relating to his legal representation.
Please note that donations of any amount are welcome, but the Michael T. Flynn Legal Defense Fund will accept donations only from U.S. citizens and permanent residents. All donated funds will be used solely to defray attorneys’ fees and other costs related to legal representation.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I could think of a billion better ways to donate my money than to a multi-millionaire who is being investigated for possibly colluding with a hostile foreign government.
Let’s hear your thoughts on this story in the comments section below.
THE LAYERS AND TENDRILS OF THIS WHOLE BUSINESS ARE BEGINNING TO WEAR ME OUT. IT APPEARS TO ME THAT THIS RUSSIA CONNECTION HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR A MUCH LONGER TIME, AND INVOLVED MORE PEOPLE AND BUSINESS CONTACTS. THERE WAS ONE REPORT ABOUT A MONTH AGO THAT PUTIN HAS BEEN INVOLVED WITH TRUMP FOR SOMETHING IN THE RANGE OF FOUR YEARS. MAYBE HE SHOULD JUST GO THERE TO LIVE.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-journalist-andrew-feinberg-worked-for-sputnik-fbi-questioning/
CBS NEWS September 18, 2017, 7:44 PM
American journalist who worked for Sputnik opens up about FBI questioning
WASHINGTON -- In the eyes of U.S. investigators, American journalist Andrew Feinberg was on the inside of the Russia propaganda machine. FBI agents interviewed Feinberg for two hours on September 1 about his former employer, the Russian web-based media outlet Sputnik.
"What did they want to know?" asked CBS News national security correspondent Jeff Pegues.
"They wanted to know how I ended up there, you know, who paid me, who signed my checks, what a typical day was like," Feinberg said. "Who I took my orders from … they wanted to know everything."
a19-pegues-sputnik-reporter-transfer-frame-3176.jpg
Andrew Feinberg CBS NEWS
According to a declassified report issued in January, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded Sputnik was part of the massive Russian intelligence campaign to spread misinformation during the 2016 election.
Investigators believe there was a combination of "covert intelligence operations," "paid social media trolls" and "state-funded media," all of which is now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Why a Facebook warrant could signal a turning point in Mueller's investigation
Sputnik did not respond to numerous requests for comment but recently told Yahoo News it was "a news organization dedicated to accurate news reporting."
"Is it Russian propaganda?" Pegues asked.
"Yes," Feinberg said.
Feinberg took the job believing he would be allowed to report freely, but after four months he was fired. He said he was fired for refusing to do a story he thought was wrong. Sputnik alleges it was over his performance, but Feinberg said he has proof of meddling by Moscow in the 6,000 emails handed over to the FBI.
Former Sputnik journalist: News outlet part of Putin's "hybrid warfare" against U.S.
Play VIDEO
Former Sputnik journalist: News outlet part of Putin's "hybrid warfare" against U.S.
"They only will run a story ... when it meets a certain criteria that the angle that the story takes is one that meets their worldview," he said.
"The worldview of Vladimir Putin?" Pegues asked.
"Well that's where the money's coming from," Feinberg said.
Feinberg said the U.S. has opened itself up to a "kind of hybrid warfare, this kind of information warfare, because we allow them to use the First Amendment and our country's commitment to a free press against us because we're very reluctant to go to an organization like Sputnik that's operating as a news agency and say, 'Well you're not really a news agency, you're propaganda.'"
The FBI would not comment.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department recently asked another Russian-owned media organization, RT America, to register as a foreign agency. RT told CBS News that any claims it engages in political activity are "entirely baseless."
FACEBOOK SELF-POLICING NOW? YES, AND ADDING “MORE HUMAN VERIFICATION OF SEARCH TERMS USED. THERE IS AN ODD PHRASE IN THE TEXT, THAT FACEBOOK HAS MOVED TO “REINSTATE ITS 5,000 MOST COMMON AD-TARGETING TERMS, WHICH SANDBERG SAID HAVE BEEN VERIFIED AS COMPLYING WITH THE COMPANY'S COMMUNITY STANDARDS.” THAT SOUNDS AS THOUGH FACEBOOK HAS DELETED GOOD TERMS AND ALLOWED BAD TERMS TO BE ADDED. MAYBE THAT WAS DONE BY THE NON-HUMAN COMPUTER LOGIC, PERHAPS BASED ON THE INCREASING FREQUENCY OF RACIAL AND SEXUAL LANGUAGE ON THE PLATFORM. OR, COULD THAT HAVE BEEN PURPOSEFUL, BECAUSE THERE’S FASCIST AND RUSSIAN MONEY IN IT? GIVE THE ROUGH CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY WANT, IN OTHER WORDS?
I WONDER WHAT FACEBOOK WOULD DO IF THOUSANDS OF POLITICALLY AND SOCIALLY PRINCIPLED USERS ALL PULLED OUR ACCOUNTS? UNFORTUNATELY, THE ARTICLE SAID THAT GOOGLE HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN “TARGETING” GROUPS LIKE “JEW HATERS,” AS WELL. WELL, GOOGLE IS MY BEST RESEARCH TOOL, SO I’LL STICK WITH IT. IT DOESN’T RUN “LONG RUNNING SCRIPTS” THAT SLOW ME DOWN THE WAY INTERNET EXPLORER DOES. THIS IS A VERY GOOD AND INFORMATIONAL ARTICLE, IN MY VIEW. GOOD FOR CBS.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-ads-sheryl-sandberg-objectionable-ads/
MONEYWATCH September 20, 2017, 3:57 PM
Facebook moving to clamp down on offensive ads
Under fire for its advertising practices, Facebook (FB) is taking action to strengthen its ad targeting policies and tools.
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer with the social media giant, said in a blog post on Wednesday that the company is "clarifying its ad policies and tightening our enforcement processes" to ensure Facebook doesn't sell ads that violate the company's community standards.
"This includes anything that directly attacks people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender or gender identity, or disabilities or diseases," she wrote. "Such targeting has always been in violation of our policies, and we are taking more steps to enforce that now."
How Russia-linked groups used Facebook to meddle in 2016 elections
Facebook allowed advertisements to target "Jew haters," report says
Facebook's ads are under mounting scrutiny after the company disclosed earlier this month that Russia bought $100,000 in advertising on its platform during the 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle, generating 3,000 ads connected with hundreds of fake accounts.
Facebook faces new scrutiny amid Russia probe
Play VIDEO
Facebook faces new scrutiny amid Russia probe
The heat intensified after investigative news site ProPublica revealed last week that Facebook could target ads to unsavory groups such as self-described "Jew haters."
Noting in the post that she is Jewish, Sanderg expressed disappointment that Facebook's systems allowed anti-Semitic and other bigoted language to be used in targeting ads, saying she is "disgusted by these sentiments."
"The fact that hateful terms were even offered as options was totally inappropriate and a fail on our part," Sandberg said. "We removed them and when that was not totally effective, we disabled that targeting section in our ad systems."
Along with moving more aggressively to weed out offensive ads, Sandberg said Facebook is adding more human oversight to its automated ad sales system.
"From now on we will have more manual review of new ad-targeting options to help prevent offensive terms from appearing," she said.
Facebook will also reinstate its 5,000 most common ad-targeting terms, which Sandberg said have been verified as complying with the company's community standards.
In another step to block objectionable ads, Sandberg said Facebook is creating a program to encourage site users to report "potential abuses" directly to the internet company.
Troll farm bought $100K in Facebook ads
Play VIDEO
Troll farm bought $100K in Facebook ads
"We hope these changes will prevent abuses like this going forward," Sandberg said. "If we discover unintended consequences in the future, we will be unrelenting in identifying and fixing them as quickly as possible."
Other popular internet companies also face public pressure to change their ad systems. Google (GOOG), the largest ad platform in the world, has allowed advertisers to target racist and bigoted keywords, according to BuzzFeed News. Twitter appears to have a similar problem with its ad campaigns, The Daily Beast has reported.
Facebook's disclosure that it sold ads to Russia-linked groups has aroused the attention of Washington lawmakers. For Facebook and Twitter (TWTR) executives, that may mean having to appear before a Senate intelligence panel investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
VANITY FAIR ON THE CONSPIRACY OF THE DAY – YOU MAY SAY, THIS IS “JUST BUSINESS,” NOT A CONSPIRACY. THAT’S HOW TOO MANY REPUBLICANS SEEM TO THINK. SHORT TERM GAINS AND PERSONAL ADVANTAGE OVER ETHICS, LOYALTY AND TRUE PATRIOTISM ARE ALL FAIR PLAY – IN FACT, ANYTHING IS FAIR PLAY IF IT BRINGS IN A PROFIT. TO BORROW FROM A CRUDE PHRASE OF THE 1970S, “IF IT MAKES MONEY, DO IT!” AND THEN, THERE’S “EVERYBODY DOES IT,” FROM THE 1950S. THE PRIMARY PERSONAL VIRTUE OF A CONFIRMED CAPITALIST IS TO GET RICH AND MAKE HIS INVESTORS RICH – NOT HIS EMPLOYEES, NOTICE!
I THINK THAT IS THE ESSENCE OF CORRUPTION, AND OUR SOCIETY IS FULL OF IT. IT’S NO WONDER, THEN, THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS FULL OF IT, TOO; AND I AM SORRY TO SAY THAT DEMOCRATS ARE TOO OFTEN INVOLVED IN THE SAME MISDEEDS. THAT’S THE PRIMARY PROBLEM THAT BERNIE SANDERS HAS WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. HE’S A THREAT IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.
THE IDEALISM OF MY YOUTH IS STILL ALIVE IN THE SANDERS MOVEMENT, THANK GOODNESS, AND THERE ARE PLENTY OF UNAFFILIATED HONEST AMERICANS WHO HAVE THE SAME BELIEFS. EVEN IF THEY ARE “CAPITALISTS,” THEY DON’T WANT A CORRUPT TAKEOVER OF THE US GOVERNMENT, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE HERE. SANDERS WOULDN’T HAVE HAD SUCH A LARGE FOLLOWING IF THAT WEREN’T TRUE.
I DON’T WANT TO GO TO MY GRAVE WITH THIS GRIEF AND NEAR HOPELESSNESS ABOUT HUMAN IMPROVEMENT. INDIVIDUALS CAN CHOOSE TO FOLLOW A VIRTUOUS PATH, BUT THE HUMAN RACE NEVER WILL. THAT’S WHY WE NEED A STRONG GOVERNMENT OF LAWS THAT PROMOTE AND PROTECT FAIRNESS AND WISDOM. ELECTING THE CRASS, AND APPARENTLY NOT VERY INTELLIGENT, TO HIGH OFFICE IS NOT HELPING, EVEN IF, TO SOME PEOPLE, THOSE MAY APPEAR “STRONG.”
“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” WELL, RAW POWER IS NOT WHAT MAKES A NATION “GREAT,” BUT DECENCY, EDUCATION AND FULL PARTICIPATION BY THE CITIZENS. THIS IS NOT A DICTATORSHIP. WE DON’T NEED A STRONGMAN IN THE PRESIDENCY. WE HAVE TO MANAGE TO STEER THIS BOAT INTO THE CORRECT CHANNEL; BECAUSE THAT ROAR YOU HEAR UP AHEAD IS NIAGARA FALLS, AND WE’RE GETTING TOO CLOSE TO THE EDGE.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/robert-mueller-paul-manafort-investigation
From Russia with Love
ROBERT MUELLER BRINGS DOWN THE HAMMER ON PAUL MANAFORT
The special prosecutor reportedly warned Trump’s former campaign manager that he plans to indict him.
BY ABIGAIL TRACY
SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 11:01 AM
While more than a dozen Trump associates are considered to be central players in the Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller has been pursuing Paul Manafort with scorched-earth tactics that seem calculated to inspire fear—or force his cooperation. Among the most aggressive moves was a July 26 raid on Manafort’s home in Virginia, in which F.B.I. agents searched the former political operative’s property for evidence related to the Russia probe on the same day Manafort was set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But new details of Mueller’s visit, reported by The New York Times on Monday evening, are particularly shocking:
Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and raided his Virginia home. They took binders stuffed with documents and copied his computer files, looking for evidence that Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, set up secret offshore bank accounts. They even photographed the expensive suits in his closet.
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him, said two people close to the investigation.
The very fact that the F.B.I. raided Manafort’s home is telling: the former Trump campaign manager is reportedly under investigation for potentially violating tax laws, money laundering, and the failure to disclose foreign lobbying on behalf of pro-Russian interests. In order for Mueller to obtain the warrant to search and enter Manafort’s home unannounced, his team would have had to convince a judge not only that the home contained evidence of a crime, but that Manafort was likely to destroy evidence. “Clearly they didn’t trust him,” Jimmy Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor and former federal prosecutor, told the Times. “This is more consistent with how you’d go after an organized crime syndicate,” he added. (Manafort has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.)
If Mueller’s tactics are extraordinary, it may be because the F.B.I. does not view this as a typical white-collar case. Also on Monday, CNN reported that U.S. law enforcement had wiretapped Manafort under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant as early as 2014, when he came under investigation by the F.B.I. for work that he conducted as a political consultant for the pro-Kremlin Party of Regions in Ukraine. According to CNN, Manafort was under surveillance before the 2016 election, but the work was discontinued due to a lack of evidence at some point last year. The F.B.I. later obtained a new FISA warrant, which reportedly extended into early 2017 and was part of the probe into whether members of the Trump campaign worked with the Kremlin to derail Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.
As with the Mueller raid, the FISA warrant would have required sign-off from top Justice Department and F.B.I. officials and investigators—in this case to present a solid argument that the individual could be acting as an agent of a foreign government. It also means that Manafort would have been wiretapped during periods in which he is known to have been in touch with Trump. In August of last year, Manafort resigned as Trump’s campaign chairman following a separate Times report that said he received $12.7 million in undisclosed payments from the Ukrainian group, according to a handwritten ledger. (In June, Ukrainian prosecutors said they haven’t found any proof of illegal payments to Manafort.)
The latest revelations will only fuel speculation that Mueller’s team sees Manafort as either the primary suspect in any Russia-related wrongdoing, or the best person to flip to become a cooperating witness for the state. A series of moves over the past months suggest Mueller is attempting to gain maximum leverage over Manafort, who also attended a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer. Federal investigators have reportedly sought cooperation from or subpoenaed a number of Manafort’s associates, including his son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, with whom he has partnered on business deals; his spokesperson Jason Maloni, who appeared before a grand jury on Friday; the heads of Mercury Public Affairs and the Podesta Group, two consulting firms that worked with Manafort on behalf of exiled former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych; and Melissa Laurenza, who previously represented Manafort. Last month, Mueller teamed up with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate Manafort, an alliance that could circumvent Trump’s presidential pardon power.
FACEBOOK COMPLICITY – TWO ARTICLES
I WONDER IF MARK ZUCKERBERG HAS HIS LAWYER LINED UP YET? THE COMPANY TO WHICH FACEBOOK SOLD THE $100,000 WORTH OF ADS WAS “A SHADY PRO-KREMLIN RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA COMPANY SEEKING TO TARGET U.S. VOTERS.” THE OVERT GOAL WAS TO SPECIFICALLY CONVINCE US VOTERS TO VOTE A CERTAIN WAY (AGAINST HILLARY, I’M SURE.)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/mark-zuckerbergs-russia-problem-is-bigger-than-facebook
Hive
MARK ZUCKERBERG’S RUSSIA PROBLEM IS BIGGER THAN FACEBOOK
With Mueller bearing down and Congress demanding answers, Silicon Valley is losing its political firewall.
BY MAYA KOSOFF
SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 10:03 AM
Photograph -- mark-zuckerberg-facebook
By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
Facebook, which initially rejected claims that it enabled the spread of misinformation during the presidential race, is now a central focus of the Justice Department probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Bloomberg reports that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors are investigating how Russia manipulated social media to post propaganda and spread fake-news stories, and are “seeking additional evidence” from companies like Twitter and Facebook. The latest revelation follows news last week that Facebook turned over information to congressional investigators showing that it sold about $100,000 worth of ads—a relatively small amount of ad spend, but one that nevertheless could have reached 70 million Facebook users—to a shady pro-Kremlin Russian propaganda company seeking to target U.S. voters.
It’s a remarkable turn of events for C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg, who had previously called it “pretty crazy” that Facebook could have had a material impact on the election. In the last several months however, new fears about cyber warfare, including Russia’s sophisticated propaganda machine, have moved from the intelligence community into the mainstream. On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that Russian operatives also sought to organize conservative protests in the U.S., using false identities to create Facebook events designed to inflame partisan divisions over immigration and Islam. According to Bloomberg, multiple agencies including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the F.B.I. are now racing to prevent future hacking and disinformation operations, including potential threats to the 2018 midterm elections.
Facebook is also rushing to fix what threatens to become a major P.R. issue. Over the past week, Facebook has said it will shut off advertisements for news outlets publishing misinformation; that it will take new precautions when placing ads inside videos; and that it will be more responsive to advertisers in not pairing them with content “that wouldn’t reflect well on their brands.” Its new guidelines for publishers that want to run ads, for instance, demand an “authentic, established presence on Facebook” and proof that “they are who they represent themselves to be, and have had a profile or page on Facebook for at least one month.” Facebook also said that it has now shut down all inauthentic accounts and pages believed to be operated out of Russia. The response comes after Facebook said earlier this year that it would add new services to detect abuse and fake accounts on its platforms, and take down what it calls “false amplifiers”—fake accounts or groups that coordinate online harassment campaigns or spread fake news.
The mounting scrutiny comes at a precarious time for Facebook and other major Silicon Valley companies, which are quickly seeing their political firewall in Washington eroded. For years, the Big Five tech oligopoly (Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet) has managed to stay off Congress’s radar, ensconced in a halo of consumer goodwill that has mostly protected them from the sorts of regulatory threats that have resulted in anti-trust investigations and large fines in Europe. Now, the Era of Good Feelings seems to be coming to an end, just as the federal government is taking a harder look at the ways in which social-media platforms were weaponized in 2016. Suspicion of Facebook is a bipartisan enterprise; Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has said that it’s “probably more of a question of when” than if Facebook officials will have to testify. The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, argued this week that “the whole notion of social media and how it is used in political campaigns is the wild wild west.” He added that Facebook’s earlier denials “in the immediate aftermath of our elections” raises questions about what they knew, and when they knew. (Facebook said in a statement that “we have shared our findings with U.S. authorities investigating these issues, and we will continue to work with them as necessary.”)
MAYA KOSOFF
Maya Kosoff writes about tech for VF.com, with a focus on start-ups and venture capital.
I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT MUELLER WILL DIG UP ABOUT FACEBOOK AND THE OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES. I ENTERTAIN MYSELF AT NIGHT WATCHING RACHEL MADDOW DIG INTO THIS RUSSIA/TRUMP (AND POSSIBLY OTHERS) CYNICAL PLAN TO STEAL AN ELECTION.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/russia-investigation-turns-up-the-heat-on-facebook#intcid=dt-recirc-cral1_1
RUSSIA INVESTIGATION TURNS UP THE HEAT ON FACEBOOK
The social-media company is in Robert Mueller’s crosshairs.
BY MAYA KOSOFF
SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 9:51 AM
Photograph – Mark Zuckerberg at Sun Valley Conference July 14, 2017
By Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Facebook is facing an unusual degree of scrutiny as Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors makes the social network a central focus of the Justice Department’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including how the platform was used to disseminate foreign propaganda and misleading news stories. Earlier this month, Facebook told congressional investigators that it sold about $100,000 worth of ads to a pro-Kremlin Russian troll farm that targeted U.S. voters. But while some lawmakers appeared frustrated by Facebook’s overly general answers to their inquiries, Mueller isn’t asking nicely.
On Friday, CNN reported that the special counsel obtained a search warrant for copies of the Russia-linked ads. According to The Wall Street Journal, the information includes details about the fake accounts that bought the ads and the targeting criteria that was used to reach U.S. voters. They may serve to provide Mueller with a more detailed picture of how the purchased ads helped influence voter sentiment during the 2016 election.
The latest revelation could mark a turning point in Mueller’s investigation. In order to obtain a search warrant, the former F.B.I. director would have had to prove that he has evidence suggesting a crime occurred and that it occurred on Facebook. “He would have to sort of lay out evidence showing that this crime had occurred, not just merely say so, but records that he had obtained, testimony that had been given, or interviews that people gave to the F.B.I.,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti told CBS News on Sunday. “It's a very serious and significant move forward for the Mueller investigation.” Anyone who was part of that effort could be criminally liable, he added. Because Mueller has been looking at relatively specific, narrow crimes, Mariotti said he believes the special counsel’s office is “closing in on charging foreign individuals.” As Chris Smith wrote for Vanity Fair on Friday, some lawmakers believe that investigation could include a closer look at the election data operation run by Jared Kushner and Trump’s digital campaign chief, Brad Parscale, as well as their work with the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook hasn’t provided the same ads to members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, citing its privacy policy in accordance with the federal Stored Communications Act. And some elected officials seem to be losing their patience. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on ABC’s This Week that “a lot of unanswered questions” about Facebook and the Russian-linked ads remain, and that his committee is planning to ask for more information from Facebook. “We need to know the full extent of their use of social media to influence us from Facebook, from Twitter, from Google, from any social media or search engine,” Schiff said. “They need to be fully forthcoming. And I’m confident they will. I think, frankly, they need to come and testify before Congress because there’s a lot we need to know about this.”
The fallout from the 2016 election continues to be a political problem for Facebook, which is under unprecedented pressure on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle. . Republicans, who have always been skeptical of Facebook’s political biases, are reportedly investigating whether the social network poses national security threats and are looking at ways to rein it in. And Democrats are working on legislation to force Facebook to disclose more information about the political ads it serves online. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has said that it’s “probably more of a question of when” than if Facebook officials will have to testify. The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, has argued that “the whole notion of social media and how it is used in political campaigns is the wild wild west.” He added that Facebook’s earlier denials “in the immediate aftermath of our elections” raise questions about what the company knew, and when it knew it.
MAYA KOSOFF
Maya Kosoff writes about tech for VF.com, with a focus on start-ups and venture capital.
FORTUNATELY FOR OIL AND COAL COMPANIES, THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE SAYS THAT THERE IS PROBABLY A GREAT AMOUNT OF FOSSIL FUEL LOCATED OFF THE SHORE OF A NEW CONTINENT CALLED "ZEALANDIA." I HOPE GEOLOGISTS WILL ALSO FIND SOME NEW AND FASCINATING BONES AND PLANT FOSSILS.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/16/scientists-discover-eighth-continent-zealandia/
Scientists discover 'Zealandia' - a hidden continent off the coast of Australia
Michael East
16 FEBRUARY 2017 • 5:00PM
Photograph -- Awaroa beach adjoining the Abel Tasman National Park at the top of New Zealand's South Island CREDIT: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Geologists claim to have discovered a new continent to the east of Australia: Zealandia. At 4.9 million square kilometres of land mass, 94 per cent of which is under water, Zealandia would be the world's smallest continent.
The 11 scientists behind the claim presented their findings in the study "Zealandia: Earth's Hidden Continent" in Geological Society of America, making a case for Zealandia to be recognised as the world's eighth continent in its own right.
According to their study, the land mass comprises all the four attributes needed to be considered a continent, including the presence of different rock types and crucially "the high elevation relative to regions floored by oceanic crust."
"It was not a sudden discovery but a gradual realisation," the scientists wrote.
An elevation map of Zealandia and nearby Australia
An elevation map of Zealandia and nearby Australia CREDIT: GSA TODAY
The term Zealandia was coined by geophysicist Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, at which time it was believed to possess three of the four necessary qualities required for continent status. A recent discovery using satellite technology and gravity maps of the sea floor have revealed that Zealandia is a large unified area, fulfilling all four requirements.
The political and economic implications of a new continent would be manifold, with the question of clearly defining what belongs to New Zealand and Australia particularly salient in light of offshore mining in the area.
A six-year study by the GNS Science research institute in New Zealand has revealed that there could be tens of billions of dollars worth of fossil fuels located off-shore in the region.
According to the study, the 94 per cent of Zealandia currently submerged broke away from Australia and sank 60-85 million years ago.
Zealandia is shown in grey to the east of Australia
Zealandia is shown in grey to the east of Australia CREDIT: GSA TODAY
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