March 23 and 24, 2018


News and Views


NEW BAN ON BUMP STOCKS — GOOD IDEA! I’M GLAD TO SEE SOMETHING REAL, RATHER THAN FANTASY LEVEL, BEING PROPOSED IN THE LEGISLATURE, AND THAT TRUMP IS BEHIND IT AS WELL AS SESSIONS.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/23/doj-proposes-new-ban-bump-stocks-mimic-machine-guns/454638002/?csp=chromepush
DOJ proposes new ban on bump stocks that mimic machine guns
Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY Published 6:22 p.m. ET March 23, 2018 | Updated 6:31 p.m. ET March 23, 2018

Photograph – Jeff Sessions
Video -- President Donald Trump says he's signed a memo directing the Justice Department to propose regulations to "ban all devices" like bump stocks used in last year's Las Vegas massacre. (Feb. 20) AP

President Trump, however, called for the Justice Department to act on the bump-stock devices, which were attached to rifles used in the Oct. 1 massacre in Las Vegas, in which 58 concert-goers were slaughtered by a lone gunman firing from a high-rise hotel.

"After the senseless attack in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress," Sessions said in a written statement.

Sessions' action opens a 90-day public comment period before the regulation can become final.

A long controversial firearm accessory, the devices use the recoil action of a semi-automatic firearm to speed the pace of gunfire, mimicking a fully automatic weapon.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had reviewed the device over the years and had issued opinions determining that the accessories were lawful.

Congress banned the sale and manufacture of machine guns for civilian use in 1986, and machine guns in circulation before then are now tightly regulated.

Trump took on the bump-stock issue in the aftermath of last month's Florida shooting, as students, victims' families and gun-control advocates launch their push for a re-examination of current gun laws.

"We must do more to protect our children," Trump said then, promising that the school safety would be a top priority for the administration.



“WELL, NOT SAYING THAT ANYMORE!” TRUMP WROTE. A REQUEST FOR AN EXPLANATION FROM THE WHITE HOUSE WAS NOT RETURNED.” I WONDER IF HE HAS JUST ADMITTED A CRIME HERE? IT’S CLEARLY A BOAST.

http://time.com/5211609/robert-mueller-donald-trump-cambridge-analytica-connection/
Mueller Examining Trump Cambridge Analytica Ties: Report | Time
time.com › U.S. › Donald Trump
By JONATHAN LEMIRE / AP March 22, 2018

(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Robert Mueller is scrutinizing the connections between President Donald Trump’s campaign and the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which has come under fierce criticism over reports that it swiped the data of more than 50 million Facebook users to sway elections.

Mueller’s investigators have asked former campaign officials about the Trump campaign’s data operations, particularly about how it collected and utilized voter data in battleground states, according to a person with direct knowledge of the line of inquiry but not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The investigators have also asked some of Trump’s data team, which included analysts at the Republican National Committee, about its relationship with Cambridge Analytica, according to two former campaign officials. The campaign paid the firm just under $6 million for its work in 2016, according to federal records.

Authorities in Britain and the United States are investigating whether Cambridge Analytica may have used data improperly obtained from Facebook to try to influence elections, including the 2016 White House race.

Mueller is leading a criminal probe into whether Trump’s Republican presidential campaign had ties to Russia and whether he may have obstructed justice.

The Trump campaign has distanced itself from the data mining firm, which had been financed by major Republican donors and, for a time, employed Steve Bannon, the conservative provocateur who later became Trump’s campaign chief executive.

Trump turned to Twitter on Thursday to boast about his campaign’s social media efforts compared with those of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, but it was not clear what prompted the declaration.

“Remember when they were saying, during the campaign, that Donald Trump is giving great speeches and drawing big crowds, but he is spending much less money and not using social media as well as Crooked Hillary’s large and highly sophisticated staff. Well, not saying that anymore!” Trump wrote.

A request for an explanation from the White House was not returned.

The exact role that Cambridge Analytica played for the Trump campaign has remained murky.

Staffers at Cambridge Analytica made several overtures to the Trump campaign before eventually being retained. They first requested a meeting in spring 2015, before the celebrity businessman officially announced his candidacy, according to four former campaign officials who were not authorized to publicly discuss internal operations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Alexander Nix, the Cambridge Analytica CEO captured on a sting video released this week, met with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to make a pitch for the data-mining company’s voter target products, including its so-called psychographic method.

Lewandowski passed, in part because the staff believed Trump would not be willing to make a sizable financial investment in an analytics firm, according to two of the campaign officials.

Cambridge then went to work for the campaign of Trump’s Republican rivals Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. But after Trump became the GOP’s presumptive nominee, the data firm reached out again, this time to Paul Manafort, who had replaced Lewandowski to become campaign chairman.

Manafort was also skeptical about the effectiveness of the firm’s methods, but Cambridge was hired, in part as a friendly gesture to the Mercer family, heavyweight Republican donors who helped fund the company’s launch a few years earlier, according to one of the former campaign officials.

With the Trump campaign concerned that the RNC might not fully invest in Trump — he had clashed repeatedly with the organization — Cambridge was retained. Campaign finance records indicate that the Trump campaign’s first payment of $100,000 to the firm came in July 2016.

Five of the firm’s staff members were assigned to work with the campaign’s digital director, Brad Parscale, at his Texas-based firm, where much of the campaign’s digital operation was located.

Parscale and Jared Kushner, the candidate’s son-in-law, emphasized using social media — and particularly Facebook — to better target voters and pressed its importance on Trump.

The campaign tapped Cambridge to build out a database of small-dollar GOP donors, a dataset the company had from its prior work for the Cruz and Carson campaigns.

But when it became clear the RNC would share its much-improved data operation with the Trump campaign, Cambridge became de-emphasized. Two of the former campaign officials said their tools were not useful, though Parscale, during a Google forum a month after the election, said the firm became involved in daily tracking polls and helped inform the campaign’s decisions on where to spend its resources.

Another of the campaign officials said Cambridge was kept around mostly to placate the Mercers and their allies on Trump’s staff.

All told, the Trump campaign paid Cambridge just under $6 million, according to Federal Election Commission records. The largest payment to Cambridge Analytica — $5 million on Sept. 1, 2016 — was made about two weeks after Bannon was appointed the chief executive of the Trump campaign, according to FEC records. At that same time, another Mercer ally, pollster Kellyanne Conway, was named his campaign manager to replace Manafort.

Bannon, with the Mercers’ backing, served as vice president of the firm from June 2014 to August 2016, when he joined the Trump campaign. He has since had a falling-out with the Mercers and with Trump over disparaging comments he made about the president’s family.

Chris Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who became a whistleblower, told The Washington Post that Cambridge had begun testing phrases like “drain the swamp” and “deep state” well before Trump launched his campaign. The president began incorporating those concepts into his stump speech in the stretch run of the campaign, soon after Bannon came on board.

Wylie has said he fears the data was turned over to Russians who aimed to interfere with the U.S. election.

Parscale, who has been appointed Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, has slammed the firm on Twitter for taking credit for Trump’s victory. “So incredibly false and ridiculous,” he wrote this week, declaring Cambridge’s comments “an overblown sales pitch.”

Lawmakers have demanded answers from both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, as Sen. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declared this week that the blooming scandal was “more evidence that the online political advertising market is essentially the Wild West.”

“Whether it’s allowing Russians to purchase political ads, or extensive micro-targeting based on ill-gotten user data, it’s clear that, left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in transparency,” Warner tweeted.

The news of Mueller’s interest in Cambridge Analytica was first reported by ABC News.



MORE ON A VERY TANGLED, BUT VERY INTERESTING, WEB.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43522775
Cambridge Analytica offices searched over data storage
24 March 2018

Photograph -- ICO officials were seen searching the London headquarters of Cambridge Analytica PA

The London offices of Cambridge Analytica have been searched by enforcement officers from the UK's information commissioner.

The High Court granted the data watchdog a warrant amid claims the firm amassed information about millions of people without their consent, based on a 2014 quiz on Facebook.

The seven-hour search finished in the early hours of Saturday.

Both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook deny any wrongdoing.

A group of people, some wearing ICO enforcement jackets, entered the building housing Cambridge Analytica's London headquarters at 20:00 GMT on Friday - less than an hour after a High Court judge granted the warrant.

Several hours later members of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) were seen leaving the offices and a van - thought to be carrying gathered evidence - was driven away from the rear of the building.

The ICO applied for the warrant to access the databases and servers of Cambridge Analytica.

Image copyrightAFP/GETTY IMAGES
Image caption
The search of the London building continued into the early hours of Saturday
The search is part of a wider investigation into political campaigning.

Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has said she was looking at whether personal data was acquired in "an unauthorised way", whether there was sufficient consent to share the data, what was done to safeguard it and whether Facebook acted robustly when it found out about the loss of the data.

Cambridge Analytica's acting chief executive, Alexander Tayler, said the company has been in touch with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) since February 2017 and it remained committed to helping the investigation.

Cambridge Analytica: The story so far
The global reach of Cambridge Analytica
Elon Musk pulls brands from Facebook

In a statement, he said checks in 2015 showed all the Facebook data had been deleted but the company was now undertaking an independent third-party audit to verify none remained.

Cambridge Analytica chief executive Alexander Nix was suspended on Tuesday after footage broadcast on Channel 4 appeared to show him suggesting tactics his company could use to discredit politicians online.

Media captionCambridge Analytica: What we know so far

Claims over whether Cambridge Analytica used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to sway the outcome of the US 2016 presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum have also been raised.

The company denies any of the data harvested in the 2014 Facebook quiz created by an academic was used in its work for Donald Trump's campaign.

Meanwhile, the director of Vote Leave has denied allegations of links between his campaign and Cambridge Analytica. Dominic Cummings said claims by the Observer newspaper are "factually wrong, hopelessly confused, or nonsensical".

In a separate development, Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica's former business development director, has told the Guardian the firm carried out data analysis for Leave.EU, the rival Brexit campaign to Vote Leave that was fronted by Nigel Farage.

Cambridge Analytica said it did "no paid or unpaid work" for Leave.EU.



HE DID IT! NO, HE DID IT!

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/trump-linked-analytics-firm-cambridge-analytica-stolen-data/story?id=53844305
Trump-linked analytics firm Cambridge Analytica used improperly obtained data, ex-employee says
By KARMA ALLEN
Mar 19, 2018, 5:04 AM ET

WATCH Facebook suspends British-based data company used by Trump campaign
Photograph -- Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie speaks in an interview with ABC News.


A former Cambridge Analytica employee accused the data analytics firm of mishandling the personal information of more than 50 million Facebook users in an effort to help Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Christopher Wylie, who says he helped found Cambridge and worked there until 2014, told ABC News the company would use the information, including Facebook users’ hometowns, friends and “likes” to influence the behavior of potential voters.

“Cambridge Analytica will try to pick at whatever mental weakness or vulnerability that we think you have and try to warp your perception of what’s real around you,” Wylie told ABC News in the interview. “If you are looking to create an information weapon, the battle space you operate in is social media. That is where the fight happens.”

Facebook blocks data group tied to 2016 Trump campaign
Facebook's Zuckerberg comes under fire from UK, US lawmakers

Facebook announced it had suspended Cambridge Analytica on Saturday, stripping it of its ability to buy ads, as U.S. and British lawmakers called for government investigations.

The social media giant said approximately 270,000 people had downloaded an app developed by University of Cambridge psychology professor Aleksandr Kogan, who it said “lied” and violated its policy by gathering user data and passing it on to Cambridge Analytica.

“We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information,” Facebook said in its statement. “We will take legal action if necessary to hold them responsible and accountable for any unlawful behavior.”

Wylie, a self-proclaimed whistleblower, said Facebook banned him from its platform as well after he disclosed information that he claimed “they have known privately for two years.”

Cambridge Analytica denied any wrongdoing, including claims that it used or held onto Facebook data, but Wylie’s description of his work there told a different story.

“We would ask people to fill out psychological surveys,” he said, “That app would then harvest their data from Facebook. Then, that app would crawl through their friend network and pull all of the data from their friends also.”

PHOTO: The Facebook app is seen on a smartphone, Nov. 20, 2017.Photo Illustration by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Wylie accused the firm of “weaponizing the internet” and utilizing Facebook data to build psychological profiles of potential voters.

“It’s sort of like the digital shadow of yourself,” Wylie said. “So, when you think about what you do on social media, you curate your identity*, so when you like things, when you follow things, you reveal all these little clues and if we have enough of those clues, we can start to develop a portrait of who you are.”

Wylie’s claims come amid swirling questions about the digital operations surrounding the Trump campaign and Republican Party efforts during the last campaign cycle.

A spokesperson for the campaign told ABC News it never used Cambridge Analytica’s data, saying it relied on voter information gathered by the Republican National Committee.

“Any claims that voter data were used from another source to support the victory in 2016 are false,” the spokesperson said.

ABC News' James Longman contributed to this report.



WHO’S ON FIRST?

KOGAN SAYS IT WAS WYLIE WHO PROPOSED IT, USING WYLIE’S APP (RIGHT??). WHEN DID WYLIE AND KOGAN, RESPECTIVELY, LEAVE CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA? WHAT MONEY CHANGED HANDS BETWEEN WYLIE AND KOGAN, AND CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA; I’M SURE NONE OF THIS WAS DONE GRATIS. STEVE BANNON IS INVOLVED IN THIS ALSO, BUT IN WHAT WAY? HE WAS A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF CAMBRIDGE, I SEEM TO REMEMBER. WHAT OTHER PEOPLE AT CAMBRIDGE WERE AWARE OF THIS AND GAVE PERMISSION TO PURSUE THE PLAN? SURELY SOMEONE AT THE TOP DID. WE SHOULD NOT FORGET THAT THE MERCERS ARE AT THE CENTER OF IT. FINALLY WHO ARE ALL THE REPUBLICANS WHO PARTICIPATED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER, SUCH AS BY USING IT FOR THEIR CAMPAIGNS, ALSO?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/researcher-center-facebook-data-scandal-points-finger-cambridge/story?id=53952807
Researcher at center of Facebook data scandal points finger at former Cambridge Analytica employee
By ALI DUKAKIS Mar 23, 2018, 5:08 AM ET

WATCH: Firm with Trump ties accessed Facebook user's data

Aleksandr Kogan, the Cambridge University researcher who collected information on millions of Americans through Facebook for Cambridge Analytica, says both the social media giant and the controversial political research firm are using “revisionist history” to make him a “scapegoat.”

The real culprit, he says, is Christopher Wylie, the ex-employee of Cambridge Analytica who helped spark the controversy in the first place.

Kogan found himself at the center of a burgeoning scandal this week after Wylie told The New York Times that Kogan helped the firm exploit Facebook data Kogan had harvested through an app without users’ knowledge.

In an interview with ABC News, however, Kogan said it was Wylie who proposed the data-sharing agreement, assured him it was “totally legal” and even wrote the terms and conditions for the commercial version of the app.

“[He] guided us the whole way on what would be legal and appropriate,” Kogan told ABC News.

Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica and Kogan from the social network last week pending an investigation into the breach of millions of user profiles, while Cambridge Analytica has denied any wrongdoing and blamed Kogan for violating Facebook's privacy terms.

Kogan claims both companies are treating him “unfairly.”

“Their position that they didn’t know and it was me and my company,” he told ABC News, “strikes me as entirely inconsistent with the facts.”

PHOTO: Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc. speaks during an event in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc. speaks during an event in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Nov. 10, 2016.

Wylie says he sounded the alarm because he was concerned about Cambridge Analytica’s role in the 2016 election. The firm was retained by the Trump campaign, but both the company and the campaign have said the Facebook data was not used as part of that work.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have invited both Wylie and Kogan for interviews. Wylie has agreed to the meeting, and Kogan has yet to respond to the committee on the matter.

Kogan’s version of events differs significantly from the ones put forth by Wylie and Cambridge Analytica.

According to Kogan, Wylie approached him with a proposal in 2014 about six months after his app launched that would transform what was originally intended to be an academic study for Cambridge University into a corporate market research project for SCL Group, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company.

Kogan said Wylie assured him the transaction would be legal and even offered to personally rewrite its terms and conditions to reflect its new commercial interests.

“Wylie told me it was ‘totally legal’ to share the data with them,” said Kogan. “They assured [me] that terms of service would be ones that allowed a broad license for usage, and this would be a completely commercial project.”

SCL Group purchased the data. Kogan declined to comment on the price tag but said he personally didn’t make any money at all. Ultimately, the firm received personal information from about 30 million Facebook users through the app, Kogan said.

Kogan does not appear to have explicitly alerted Facebook to the change of plans, but the app was updated and renamed. He says he wasn’t attempting to disguise its true intentions.

“It’s not like we changed [the app’s terms and conditions] somewhere [Facebook] couldn’t see. It’s on their system,” he said. “And their terms of service for developers state that ‘Hey, we will monitor your app, if we see any violations we’re going to notify you and audit you and all that stuff.’ And that never happened.”

PHOTO: Dr. Alex Kogan is pictured in an undated image from his LinkedIn profile page.Alex Kogan/LinkedIn
Dr. Alex Kogan is pictured in an undated image from his LinkedIn profile page.

Now Wylie, who told ABC News he left the company in late 2014, has painted a dark picture of his former employer, accusing them of “weaponizing the Internet” on behalf of their clients.

“Cambridge Analytica will try to pick at whatever mental weakness or vulnerability that we think you have and try to warp your perception of what’s real around you,” Wylie told ABC News. “If you are looking to create an information weapon, the battle space you operate in is social media. That is where the fight happens.”

Then another bombshell report appeared to bolster Wylie’s assertions.

On Tuesday, Britain’s Channel 4 News aired video of Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix appearing to court someone posing as a potential client by boasting about how the firm had sought to sway elections not only through digital micro-targeting but also bribery and entrapment. The claims in that report have not been independently verified by ABC News, but Nix was promptly suspended by the company’s board of directors.

Kogan, 31, was born in Moldova -- then a Soviet state — and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was seven years old. Later, he held an honorary associate professorship from the St. Petersburg State University in Russia, which he says entailed two or three trips to the university.

In an earlier interview with ABC News, Wylie said, "I think that it's really concerning that...the head psychologist that we were using, Aleksandr Kogan, was working on a Russian funded project in Russia on psychological profiling of people."

Kogan told ABC News that he is a U.S. citizen, but those ties have raised questions about whether this effort could have been connected to Russia’s broader effort to interfere in the 2016 election. Kogan says the speculation has only distracted from the real issue at hand: the privacy of personal data on the internet.

“Honestly, I think a lot of that is a sideshow,” Kogan said. “I think the Russian bit is quite ridiculous and really that’s what’s distracting us from the core issues that we really should have a conversation about, in terms of how do we use data, what do people know, what is appropriate and what does the general public feel comfortable with.”



CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA TRIES TO DEFLECT BLAME – READ TWEETS. THEY AND THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WERE, AFTER ALL, THE CUSTOMERS.
“OBAMA'S 2008 CAMPAIGN WAS FAMOUSLY DATA-DRIVEN, PIONEERED MICROTARGETING IN 2012, TALKING TO PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY BASED ON THE ISSUES THEY CARE ABOUT. 6/8.” AND, THIS NEXT COMMENT BY CA POINTS THE FINGER, BY IMPLICATION AT ANY RATE, AT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WHO, IN MOST ARTICLES I’VE SEEN SO FAR, HAVE SUCCESSFULLY EVADED COMMENTARY ABOUT THIS; AND THEN EXCUSES ITSELF AS BEING JUST A PART OF THE WHOLE UNDERHANDED BUSINESS. “JUST DOING MY JOB, BOSS.”

IT IS APPARENT TO ME THAT POLITICS IS DIRTY, AND AS LONG AS CANDIDATES AND THEIR CAMPAIGNS ARE NOT BOUND BY VERY SPECIFIC RULES OF BEHAVIOR, THEY WILL DO WHATEVER THEY CAN THINK OF TO SKIRT AROUND WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG. THE SAME IS TRUE FOR ADVERTISING AND SALES. LIKEWISE, FACEBOOK AND OTHER DATA COLLECTORS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SELL THEIR DATA TO UNSCRUPULOUS OPERATORS IN THIS WAY. ZUCKERMAN IS, ACCORDING TO YESTERDAY’S STATEMENT TO THE NEWS, TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS ACTIONS, AT LEAST TO THE POINT THAT FACEBOOK IN FUTURE WILL LOOK CLOSELY AT ALL APPS AND BAN SOME. THEY HAVE NOW BANNED CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA. GOOD FIRST MOVE.

DO WE NEED MORE SPECIFIC AND VOLUMINOUS RULES ON WHAT A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN CAN INVOLVE ITSELF IN WHILE PROMOTING THE CANDIDATE? HOW CLOSELY CAN THEY CURRENTLY BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RESULTS? SHOULD A BUSINESS WHICH, IN ITS’ VERY WAY OF OPERATING, USES LIES AND SUBTERFUGE TO “CONVINCE” PEOPLE OF THEIR CANDIDATE’S SUPERIOR VALUE, BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE IN THAT WAY? PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS! IN MY VIEW, WE SHOULD BLAME ALL CONCERNED, INCLUDING FACEBOOK FOR KNOWINGLY LETTING A POLITICAL GROUP HAVE A FREE HAND ABOUT WHAT IT PUBLISHES. FACEBOOK HAS BEEN CONCERNED IN A NUMBER OF OTHER SCANDALS BEFORE NOW. LET’S FACE IT. THEY HAVE TOO MUCH POWER, [WARNER’S NOTE: THIS NEXT COMMENT BY CA POINTS THE FINGER, BY IMPLICATION AT ANY RATE, AT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN; BY SAYING THAT THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN DID IT, TOO; AND THEN EXCUSES ITSELF AS BEING JUST A PART OF THE WHOLE UNDERHANDED BUSINESS. IT IS APPARENT TO ME THAT POLITICS IS DIRTY, AND AS LONG AS CANDIDATES AND THEIR CAMPAIGNS ARE NOT BOUND BY VERY SPECIFIC RULES OF BEHAVIOR, THEY WILL DO WHATEVER THEY CAN THINK OF TO SKIRT AROUND WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG. THE SAME IS TRUE FOR ADVERTISING AND SALES. LIKEWISE, FACEBOOK AND OTHER DATA COLLECTORS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SELL THEIR DATA TO UNSCRUPULOUS OPERATORS IN THIS WAY. ZUCKERMAN IS, ACCORDING TO YESTERDAY’S STATEMENT TO THE NEWS, TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS ACTIONS, AT LEAST TO THE POINT THAT FACEBOOK IN FUTURE WILL LOOK CLOSELY AT ALL APPS AND BAN SOME. THEY HAVE NOW BANNED CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA. GOOD FIRST MOVE.

DO WE NEED MORE SPECIFIC AND VOLUMINOUS RULES ON WHAT A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN CAN INVOLVE ITSELF IN WHILE PROMOTING THE CANDIDATE? HOW CLOSELY CAN THEY CURRENTLY BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RESULTS? SHOULD A BUSINESS WHICH, IN ITS’ VERY WAY OF OPERATING, USES LIES AND SUBTERFUGE TO “CONVINCE” PEOPLE OF THEIR CANDIDATE’S SUPERIOR VALUE, BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE IN THAT WAY? PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS! IN MY VIEW, WE SHOULD BLAME ALL CONCERNED, INCLUDING FACEBOOK FOR KNOWINGLY LETTING A POLITICAL GROUP HAVE A FREE HAND ABOUT WHAT IT PUBLISHES. FACEBOOK HAS BEEN CONCERNED IN A NUMBER OF OTHER SCANDALS BEFORE NOW. LET’S FACE IT. THEY HAVE TOO MUCH POWER, AND THAT IS PARTLY BECAUSE WE THE PUBLIC HAVE TRUSTED THEM TOO MUCH. LET THE BUYER BEWARE.

THIS COMMENTER SAYS MY BELIEFS EXACTLY:
Kelly
@Kellymag26
Replying to @CamAnalytica
You develop complex psychological profiles of people without their concent [sic] and then target them with ads to sway their opinion without their knowledge. That’s not Advertising it’s brainwashing. You’ll do it for any cause that pays and at any cost.
11:20 AM - Mar 18, 2018


http://adage.com/article/media/cambridge-analytica-attempts-a-defense-tweetstorm/312798/
CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA ATTEMPTS A SELF-DEFENSE VIA TWITTER TWEETSTORM, BUT IT BACKFIRES
By Simon Dumenco. Published on March 19, 2018.

>Cambridge Analytica, the London-based data-analytics firm at the center of a Facebook-related firestorm thanks to journalistic exposés by The New York Times and the U.K.'s Observer (see "How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions," which was released online by the Times on Saturday and appeared on Sunday's print front page, and "The Cambridge Analytica Files" in The Observer, which followed the same online/print-release cycle), took to Twitter over the weekend to attempt to defend itself.

It didn't go so well.

This Saturday tweet remains the pinned tweet on the company's Twitter page as of this writing:


“Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Cambridge Analytica fully complies with Facebook’s terms of service. We are in touch with Facebook now and can confirm that we do not hold or use any data from profiles https://goo.gl/MbJaSw

9:57 AM - Mar 17, 2018

Cambridge Analytica responds to Facebook announcement | CA Commercial
Cambridge Analytica fully complies with Facebook’s terms of service and is currently in touch with Facebook following its recent...

ca-commercial.com
163
779 people are talking about this”

It links to a longer statement via press release. The precise wording of the self-defense escaped no one on Twitter. For instance, here's the most-liked response to the above tweet at the moment:

“Alt US Cyber Command
@AltCyberCommand
Replying to @CamAnalytica
Parse carefully, America. The terminal liars at @CamAnalytica are using present tense. They did. They got caught. Of course they don't now: there's already going to be hell to pay, and they're running for cover.

11:23 AM - Mar 17, 2018
1,025
346 people are talking about this”


Cambridge Analytica also attempted a hey-calm-down-this-is-no-big-deal defense in a separate eight-part tweetstorm. Part 1:


Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Reality Check: Cambridge Analytica uses client and commercially and publicly available data; we don’t use or hold any Facebook data.
2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
293
1,254 people are talking about this


<b>CA then attempted to shift blame to an outside company, GSR, for selling it Facebook data it allegedly wasn't supposed to:


Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Replying to @CamAnalytica
When we learned GSR sold us Facebook data that it shouldn’t have done, we deleted it all — system wide audit to verify 2/8

2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
118
292 people are talking about this


<i>CA then attempted to shift blame to an outside company, GSR, for selling it Facebook data it allegedly wasn't supposed to:

Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Replying to @CamAnalytica
CA did not use any Facebook data for the 2016 Trump campaign 3/8

2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
153
388 people are talking about this


Cambridge Analytica also tried to distance itself from Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower who spoke to both the Times and the Observer about CA's innner workings. (See "'We broke Facebook': Meet the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower.")


Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Replying to @CamAnalytica
Mr. Wylie is a former contractor for, not a founder of CA. He is the subject of restraining undertakings to prevent misuse of the company's intellectual property. 4/8

2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
92
151 people are talking about this


And then, in four tweets closing out the tweetstorm, CA attempted to downplay its entire approach:


Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Replying to @CamAnalytica
Advertising is not coercive; people are smarter than that 5/8

2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
211
1,345 people are talking about this


Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Replying to @CamAnalytica
Obama's 2008 campaign was famously data-driven, pioneered microtargeting in 2012, talking to people specifically based on the issues they care about. 6/8

2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
273
2,267 people are talking about this


Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Replying to @CamAnalytica
This isn’t a spy movie. We’re a data analytics company doing research & analysis on commercial, public and data sets for clients 7/8

2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
289
1,002 people are talking about this


Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
Replying to @CamAnalytica
CA works for brands and political parties from across the political mainstream in democratic elections. 8/8

2:49 PM - Mar 17, 2018
146
853 people are talking about this


<i>The problem with the company's position here is that the product it's been selling isn't mere "research & analysis"—it is, essentially, consumer/voter manipulation. And in general the Twittersphere isn't buying Cambridge Analytica's "advertising isn't coercive" bit or CA's attempt to portray itself as simply engaging in especially well-targeted advertising:


And as lots of people have pointed out on Twitter, Cambridge Analytica proudly touts its expertise in "Data-driven behavior change" in the main graphic right on its Twitter page:


Jonathan Kesler
@keslerlaw24
Replying to @CamAnalytica
That’s the entire point of advertising.

7:15 AM - Mar 19, 2018
13
See Jonathan Kesler's other Tweets


Dale Henry Geist
@dalehenrygeist
Replying to @CamAnalytica
Well then, what's the basis of your business?

8:52 PM - Mar 18, 2018
27
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Kelly
@Kellymag26
Replying to @CamAnalytica
You develop complex psychological profiles of people without their concent [sic] and then target them with ads to sway their opinion without their knowledge. That’s not Advertising it’s brainwashing . You’ll do it for any cause that pays and at any cost.

11:20 AM - Mar 18, 2018
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COPS DID IT AGAIN, SHOT FIRST, AND LOOKED CLOSELY LATER. READ THE STORY OF HOW THIS HAPPENED. IT'S CRINGEWORTHY. THE MAYOR OF SACRAMENTO IS APOLOGETIC. THAT'S GOOD. BUT WE NEED MORE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephon-clark-sacramento-kings-protests-police-shooting/
By JOHN BLACKSTONE CBS NEWS March 23, 2018, 6:32 PM
Police shooting of Stephon Clark sparks 2nd day of protests in Sacramento

SACRAMENTO -- The police killing of 22-year-old Stephon Clark brought a second day of angry protests to Sacramento on Friday. The demonstrators were largely peaceful, although there were brief confrontations with drivers stuck on blocked streets.

Clark was shot while holding a cellphone that police said they thought was a gun. On Thursday night, protesters blocked a major freeway then surrounded the arena where the NBA's Sacramento Kings were playing, keeping most fans out of the game.

Clark was killed in his grandparents' own backyard. Directed by a law enforcement helicopter, two officers came to a corner, saw a man holding something and fired 20 shots in his direction.

A sheriff's helicopter with a heat detecting camera was searching for a burglary suspect breaking windows.

"He just broke the window, running south, to the south," an officer said in the chopper video.

As Clark jumped backyard fences, two patrol officers joined the chase.

"Hey! Show me your hands! Stop! Stop!" officers could be heard shouting.

Fearing Clark had a gun, they opened fire. Clark was killed holding a cellphone

"Show me your hands! Gun, gun, gun!" the officers said as gunshots rang out. "Shots fired, suspect down!"

For demonstrators, the video is proof police acted too quickly with lethal force.

In a news conference late Friday afternoon, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said while the investigation is far from complete, regardless of the outcome, this is wrong.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



BERNIE NEWS – TWO ARTICLES
I DON’T BELIEVE TRUMP WILL ACTUALLY FIRE MUELLER. HE’S TOO SELF-PROTECTIVE TO TAKE THAT ONE STEP TOO FAR. HE KNOWS THAT THERE THINGS THAT HE JUST CAN’T GET AWAY WITH.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/379837-bernie-sanders-firing-mueller-an-impeachable-offense
Bernie Sanders to Trump: Firing Mueller 'an impeachable offense'
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 03/23/18 09:00 AM EDT

Photograph – Bernie Sanders speaking © Greg Nash

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says it would be an "impeachable offense" if President Trump were to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the federal probe into ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia.

"I've been very reluctant to talk about impeachment until we have all the information coming in from the investigation. But that would be a major, major, major obstruction of justice. That would be an impeachable offense in my view," Sanders said in an interview for The Intercept's newly launched podcast "Deconstructed" released Friday.

Sanders joins several senators from both parties who have warned Trump against dismissing the special counsel. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday that firing Mueller would "probably" be an impeachable offense, while Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has also said he would support impeaching Trump if Mueller was fired "without cause."


Trump has long voiced frustration with the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race, a probe that has also looked at whether Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.

But speculation that the president could move to oust Mueller has grown in recent days. The President voiced his ire at the special counsel's investigation on Twitter earlier this week, questioning the fairness of the probe and mentioning Mueller by name, something he had previously resisted.

He also indirectly criticized Mueller in another tweet on Wednesday, in which he quoted lawyer Alan Dershowitz, suggesting that a special counsel should never have been appointed in the first place.

Over the weekend, John Dowd, a personal lawyer for Trump, issued a statement calling for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to dismiss Mueller. That statement was an apparent break from past comments from Trump's legal team urging cooperation with the special counsel.

Dowd resigned from Trump's legal team on Thursday.

TAGS LINDSEY GRAHAM BERNIE SANDERS ROD ROSENSTEIN ROBERT MUELLER DONALD TRUMP JEFF FLAKE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION


THIS IS A NEW PODCAST SERIES BY MEHDI HASAN CALLED “DECONSTRUCTED.” HE CHOSE BERNIE SANDERS AS HIS GUEST. THE TRANSCRIPT IS BELOW.

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/23/deconstructed-podcast-we-need-to-talk-about-inequality-with-bernie-sanders/
DECONSTRUCTED PODCAST: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT INEQUALITY (WITH BERNIE SANDERS)
Deconstructed
March 23 2018, 6:00 a.m.

ON THE FIRST episode of his new podcast “Deconstructed,” The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan sits down with former presidential candidate and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to talk poverty, inequality, media bias, and the 2020 presidential election.

Sanders is fresh off a Facebook town hall with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and filmmaker Michael Moore that was viewed live by nearly 2 million people. He and Mehdi dig into the challenges facing the Democratic Party, how the left can connect with Trump voters, and whether Trump firing Mueller would be an impeachable offense (Bernie’s answer? Yes). Sanders ends with a warning to Democrats: “Anyone who thinks Trump cannot win a re-election is just not looking at reality. He can. That doesn’t mean he will. And I think there’s a good chance he could be stopped. But anyone who just sits back and says, ‘Hey, no problem, come 2020 Trump is gone’ — that would be a big mistake.”

Senator Bernie Sanders: Today there are thousands of people this country who can’t afford to go to a doctor. Today there’s a mom waking up who can’t afford affordable childcare for her little one. There are senior citizens a mile away from here who are trying to survive on $12,000 a year, social security. Does anyone give a shit about them? Does anyone cover them? The answer is no.

[Musical interlude.]

Mehdi Hasan: Welcome to Deconstructed, a new weekly show from The Intercept that’s all about presenting the facts, doing the deep-dive and perhaps above all else picking apart the B.S. and pure spin that passes for news and analysis these days. We’re here to have a brutally honest conversation about what’s happening in American politics and culture, both at home and abroad.

My name is Mehdi Hasan, and Washington D.C. has been my home for the past three years. Yeah, I’m an immigrant — a brown, Muslim journalist in Donald Trump’s America. I hit the Trump trifecta! Lucky me.

What I hope to bring to the show, though, from here in the nation’s capital is an outsider’s perspective — a different take on the discussions and debates that dominate the headlines here in the U.S. This won’t be a show that bows to soggy political consensus or lazy conventional wisdom. Some of you may know me already from my TV interviews, which can often get pretty heated.

MH: Would you kill the family of a terror suspect, yes or no?

TK: I would. I would have to see what the circumstances of that situation was.

MH: Are you kidding me?

TK: Three attorneys general said it wasn’t torture.

MH: Do you think it’s torture?

TK: Mehdi, you’re the nth person to ask me that.

MH: Doesn’t change the reality that you’re avoiding a very simple answer.

TK: I don’t know.

MH: But I’m really excited about joining the world of podcasting because as much as I love the heat, this show is going to be focused on shedding some light, having deeper conversations with people whose voices we really all need to hear more from, as well as giving my own take. Yeah — my own take.

This week, on this first show, my guest is the independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who according to the polls is now the most popular politician in America. Today, he and I are going to talk about a pair of issues that are very unpopular in the mainstream media that many politicians choose to ignore, but issues that Bernie’s worked hard to bring to national attention: poverty and inequality.

President Lyndon B. Johnson: This administration, today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.

MH: Previous presidents declared war on poverty. These days, though, presidents both Republican and Democrat prefer to declare war on the poor. And they’re able to do it because the U.S. media gives them a free pass — it doesn’t cover this stuff.

For example, how many of you are aware of the fact that 41 million Americans live in poverty? 41 million. That nine million Americans have zero cash income? That a million and a half families in America — in America, the richest country in the history of the world — live on less than $2 a day.

But why would you know any of that? It’s not as if the media is telling you, informing you, reminding you of these facts. Not in an age of Russiagate or Trump tweets or Stormy Daniels. Who wants to talk about poverty and inequality when you could talk about porn star suing the president? I mean just remember the presidential debates.

Lester Holt: From Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, I’m Lester Holt.

Martha Raddatz: I’m Martha Raddatz.

Chris Wallace: I’m Chris Wallace.

MH: Three televised presidential debates in 2016, saw 70 questions asked of Clinton and Trump. Just one of them was on income inequality. None of them were on poverty.

Three debates, four moderators, 70 questions asked: zero on poverty. Zero on child poverty, despite the fact that the U.S. has one of the highest child poverty rates in the developed world. You might think that would be worth a comment or a question at a televised presidential debate.

And the number of poor in America is only going to go up in the coming years. The gap between the rich and poor is only going to increase because of the Trump tax plan.

President Donald J. Trump: The typical family of four earning $75,000 will see an income tax cut of more than $2,000. They are going to have $2,000, and that’s, in my opinion going to be less than the average, you’re going to have a lot more than that. [Audience clapping.]

MH: What he didn’t say is that most economists agree that the Trump tax plan gives the biggest tax cuts to corporations and to the top one percent, and that the gap between rich and poor will only go up over time as a result of those tax cuts.

Remember: Republicans are quite happy to do redistribution of wealth. You hear people say, “Oh, the right don’t believe in redistributing wealth.” Actually they do. They just want it to go in the other direction, from poor to rich, not from rich to poor. They’re basically the reverse Robin Hoods — to be fair though, Donald Trump himself loves poor people, or at least poorly educated people. He does! He says it himself.

DJT: He won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.

MH: Though he doesn’t love them enough to give them a top job in his cabinet.

DJT: In those particular positions, I just don’t want a poor person. Does that make sense? Does that make sense?

MH: But no one really wants to talk about any of this. Not the millionaire senators from both parties. Not the billionaire members of the Trump cabinet. Not the guests from corporate-funded think tanks who run their mouths day in, day out on corporate-owned cable channels.

Is it any wonder then that poverty and inequality don’t get a look in?

[Musical interlude.]

MH: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is one of the few U.S. politicians who has been banging on about the importance of these issues for decades now — not years — decades. But recently he’s taken a different approach to trying to get his message across. He’s taken to social media to try and go beyond the narrow confines of the corporate media.

In January, he hosted a town hall online on healthcare. Over a million people watched live. On Monday, joined by Senator Elizabeth Warren and filmmaker Michael Moore, among others, he hosted a town hall on Facebook Live on the poverty, on the inequality, on the oligarchy that has come to define the United States in the early 21st century. More than 1.5 million people tuned in live.

BS: How often have you guys seen on television any discussion of poverty in America. You ever see it?

Woman: No!

BS: Virtually not at all. 40 million people struggling. And, what I would say to our friends in the corporate media, start paying attention to the reality of how many people in our country are struggling economically every single day. And talk about that.

MH: That was Monday. On Wednesday, I went to see him in his offices on Capitol Hill.

[Musical interlude.]

MH: Bernie Sanders, thanks so much for joining me on Deconstructed. Great to have you on as our first guest, in this week of all weeks. You’ve been busy doing a town hall on Facebook Live with Elizabeth Warren, Michael Moore and others on Monday night, looking at inequality in the U.S., I think it got something, almost two million views?

BS: Well, who’s counting, but by the time it’s over with, it’ll be close to three million, I think.

MH: Fantastic. And you did one in January on healthcare —

BS: Medicare for all.

MH: — which got more than one million views. So let me start by asking you this: You’re not exactly a millennial yourself, you’ve described yourself as a technology Luddite, what made you want to start doing these town hall meetings on Facebook Live?

BS: I am a Luddite, but I am not dumb. And what I understand is: If you communicate effectively to the American people, we’re going to have to do it directly, we’re going to use the technologies that are out there.

So what we are doing selecting issues of extraordinary importance that the American people, issues which by and large are not covered in the corporate media. You got three people in America who own more wealth than the bottom half of the American society — three people. Is that moral? We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth.

MH: One statistic I came across recently made my head spin, the Tyndall Report looked at nightly news broadcasts in 2016, election year, they found a mere 32 minutes was devoted over 2016 to substantive policy issues, most of those minutes were on foreign policy and terrorism, zero minutes on poverty, zero on inequality, zero on infrastructure, zero on climate change. Isn’t that a disgrace?

BS: Unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. And unless we understand that, you can’t understand why Donald Trump is president of the United States, you can’t understand why most people in America are giving up on the political process, we have the lowest voter turnout of any major country on Earth, so we have got to raise political consciousness in a way that the corporate media has never gone near.

MH: You mention Donald Trump. It’s not just issues that are kind of censored by omission, it’s people, and you’ve been one of those people in recent years who’s been kind of quote-unquote excluded. Again, another study found in 2015, Clinton, Hillary Clinton got six times as much coverage as you did, Donald Trump got 16 times as much coverage as you did; one study of ABC World News Tonight found that Trump got 81 minutes of coverage in 2015, and you got 20 seconds.

BS: Did we get 20 seconds?

MH: Wow!

BS: Must’ve been a mistake. 20 seconds!

MH: What did you say? What were the 20 seconds?

BS: Now, none of this shocks me. Look, none of this shocks me. I mean, right now you’ll have Stormy Daniels, whatever her name is, getting far more coverage than the fact that the middle class of this country has been the climbing for 40 years.
Look, there are a couple of reasons. Guess what? The corporate media year is owned large corporations. I know that’s a shocking statement.

MH: Hence the name!

BS: (laughs) But that is the reality. What is their function? Their function is to make money. And also their function is protect their own interests. You think the people who own the major corporations, whether it’s media or elsewhere, want to talk about income and wealth inequality, ant to talk about disastrous trade policies, want to talk about Wall Street? That’s not the issue they want to talk about. They want to keep us entertained, and, in fact, in many ways they want to deflect attention away from issues that might bring about real substantive changes in this country, politically and economically.

MH: One thing I’ve always thought the Democrats could do, the left could do in the U.S. — as a someone who used to come and visit here, and now lives here, I find fascinating — the Republicans have spent years pushing this line that the media has a liberal bias in this country, and I find liberals seem to be unwilling to push back hard against that narrative. Obviously, on cultural social issues, yes, there’s a liberal bias in kind of East Coast media, but on economic issues, on tax on corporations, on inequality — clearly not. It’s B.S. to say the media is left wing.

So do you think people on the left should be pushing back much harder against that narrative, here in Washington, D.C.?

BS: I do. I mean, yes, the answer to your question, the short answer is, is yes. The problem is when people talk about somebody being a liberal. I’m not a liberal — I’m a progressive. What’s your view on gay rights? What’s your view on racism? What’s your view on sexism? Oh, I’m a liberal.

But what is your view on whether or not we raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, whether we rebuild our infrastructure, whether we have progressive taxation? We have got redefine what is important in America. Today there are thousands of people this country who can’t afford to go to a doctor. Today there’s a mom waking up who can’t afford affordable childcare for her little one. There are senior citizens a mile from here who are trying to survive on $12,000 a year social security. Does anybody give a shit about them? Does anyone cover them? The answer is no.

MH: No, should be a huge scandal. And here’s a question just about tactics again. You’ve been very direct, very blunt — you are in this conversation right now, you are known for kind of dropping the jargon, you talk about the billionaire class, you talk about Medicare for all, not single-payer or technical terms. Do you think Democrats have been a bit weak when it comes to talking directly? People say, “Oh populist is a scary word in the Donald Trump era.”

BS: I think that’s the wrong question, because the question is: Who are the Democrats? Are there some who have the guts to take on the billionaire class? Yeah. Most don’t. So it’s not that they are, don’t know how to develop — they don’t believe it. All right?

In my view, obviously, and we’re working very hard for, is a transformation of the Democratic Party, to make it a party which stands with the working class, that is prepared to take on the billionaire class. That is not rhetoric. Guess what? There is a billionaire class. There is a Wall Street which puts huge amounts of money into politics. There is the Koch brothers, and we’ve got to deal with that reality.

MH: You gotta call it out, which is what you did do in the last election, and Hillary, following your lead, just started doing that, but I’m guessing you’re saying you need more people to do that.

BS: How many people, even, right now? Look, the Koch brothers today are more powerful than the Republican Party. You know what that means? Two people, two brothers, worth $90 billion are more powerful than the entire Republican Party, consisting of millions of people, or the Democratic Party.

MH: And have some very reactionary views.

BS: Very, very reactionary views. You seem that on television? Is anyone prepared to take on these people who are in many ways destroying American democracy?

MH: No, I haven’t seen them being grilled on “Meet the Press.” What about the American public? Because when you look at the polling it seems mixed. A lot of American voters want a higher minimum wage, they want healthcare for all but when you poll voters on redistribution and inequality and the gap, this is a capitalist society historically, Americans like the idea of the American Dream, meritocracy, much more than Europeans, say, they believe that people at the top, a lot of them got there through hard work and innovation. What do you do about the fact that a lot of Americans don’t have a kind of Scandinavian, egalitarian spirit? How do you get through to them?

BS: Look, this is my view: I go out around the country and I talk about the fact that the middle class is declining, that in the last 40 years there’s been a $13 trillion transfer of wealth from working families to the top one percent. And you know what? The vast majority of people are shaking their heads and saying, “This is unacceptable.” That’s why I run all over this country. Why we do these town meetings.

You have parts of this country where people have never heard anything other than Rush Limbaugh or Fox TV. All right? And we’ve got to get out in those areas.

MH: On that note, when you talk about going out and talking to Trump voters in particular who, a lot of people say have been betrayed by Trump’s economic promises, you look at the Trump tax cuts, were very unpopular, now some polls studies show that a narrow majority of Americans like them as their paychecks start reflecting some of the cuts in the short term. Would you advise Democrats going into the next election, in 2020, to promise repeal all those tax cuts?

BS: Not all the tax cuts, you don’t want to repeal — look, I don’t have any objection to tax cuts that benefit small business or the middle class. But I damn well will do everything that I can to see that we repeal tax breaks that go to large, profitable corporations, that go to Wall Street, that go to billionaires. And the vast majority of people understand that. I mean, what the Republicans always do is they give, you’re a working person, hey,, good news you got $100 tax break! You’re the Koch brothers? Oh, you’ve got $1 billion a year tax break. That’s what they do. And I think we can expose that. and I think the American people will understand that.

MH: Would you accept that a lot of the poverty debate on the left has focused on class, and a lot of people say, Well, race hasn’t had the same look when it comes to talking about poverty, historically. A big study out this week found that black boys raised in America, even in the wealthiest families, the best neighborhoods still earn less in adulthood than white boys with similar backgrounds. Race seems to trump class even now.

BS: I wouldn’t say that it trumps — both of them are enormously significant, and there is, I mean that is, I haven’t read that whole study, but I have read summaries of it, and that’s just astounding.

But I think, to my mind, what we’re focusing on, whether you are black or white or Latino, is the fact that we have 40 million people living in poverty, some in desperate poverty, that we have an administration now that wants to make a bad situation even worse by cutting back very substantially on food stamps, on other nutrition programs, on affordable housing, etc.

MH: A lot of political debate is if the Democrats were to retake Congress, if they were to retake the White House, what should be their priority when it comes to fighting and tackling some of these issues we’ve talked about? Should number one issue be climate change? Should number one issue be immigration? Should number one be healthcare? Where do you stand on that debate?

BS: If there is anything that we have learned from Trump is that a president and congressional leadership can be really bold. And you’ve got to give this to the Republicans. They have the courage to do what nobody in America wants except their billionaire campaign contributors.

I mean to come forward with a proposal that there were 32 million people off the health insurance — my god! Or to come up with a tax proposal with 83 percent of the benefits are to the top one percent at the end the 10 years? That’s incredible. What you need is an equal level of boldness on the part of Democratic leadership, except that boldness works for the working class, for the middle class, not just the one percent.

What does it mean? It means we are going to go forward with a Medicare for all, single-payer program. We are going to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We are going to establish pay equity for women.

MH: Is there a priority when it comes to governing, I’m just wondering? What’s top of the list?

BS: Those are what’s on the list. You know, I think you can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. What you want, this is what you want: Is to show that average person, oh, government can make a difference in my life. I’m now making more money. I now have good healthcare, where I didn’t have to before. I now have affordable housing, I now have a job. You’ve got to move, and you’ve got to move fast.

MH: You’re right, and you got knocked by your own fellow Democrats for coming up with, you know, debt-free tuition, etc. How are you going to pay for it? How are you going to do this? And nobody says, “How is Trump going to pay for his damn wall?”

BS: Exactly.

MH: How is he going to pay for these tax cuts?

BS: Oh, these great Republicans, so concerned about the deficit, they just raised the deficit by $1.4 trillion over ten years.

MH: Yeah. A lot of the commentary around your election run last time around was: Can a socialist run for president in the United States of America? Do you think the success of your run has kind of detoxified the s-word in the U.S.?

BS: Yes. Absolutely. It did detoxify it, but we haven’t brought forth the discussion of what democratic socialism means.
I am glad that there has been a greater emphasis on some of the real achievements that Scandinavia has accomplished, which in the past have been completely — it’s not, you know, Finland as you may know was recently selected, I don’t know exactly how they did it, as quote-unquote the happiest country in the world.

MH: Also has the best education system.

BS: But that’s one of the reasons why! So it’s not complicated to know that if you live in Finland, affordable health care is not a problem, your kid’s going to get a great education, you don’t have to pay for it through college, childcare is virtually free. You know what? That takes a lot of stress.

MH: But nobody knows that in the U.S. That’s the problem.

BS: Now, as a result of your podcast, where millions of people are going to be hearing this, that’s what we got. We what we have to say —

MH: They got Nancy Pelosi on CNN saying, “We’re capitalists. Sorry.”

If you were to run again for president in 2020, and many people want you to, do you think the media would give you much more coverage and attention this time around given how big a figure you’ve become? You mentioned, you know, the CNNs of this world reaching out to you because of the success of your run.

BS: Yes, I suspect so, but I think it would not all be very positive. I mean, there would be an effort to try to, tear us apart. There’s no question about it. Look: What I stand for is a threat the Wall Street, it’s a threat to corporate media, it’s a threat to the corporate world. These guys do not go easily into the sunset, you know, and there would be tremendous resistance and it would certainly take its form in the media as well.

MH: And I know you don’t like answering questions like, “Are you going to run for president?” But we’re a year away from where you have to decide, it’s about 12 months away, 13 months away. I think you declared April 2015 last time. So we’re about a year away. Are you thinking about it?

BS: The honest answer I am very worried, and working very hard on 2018. If we can get a Democratic house or a Democratic Senate, we can go a long way to stopping the Trump agenda. And that’s my immediate concern.

And second of all, the media likes to talk about campaigns and individuals. I like to talk about issues. And what we’re focused on right now is how we can prevent the United States from getting into never-ending wars, how we could deal with all the domestic issues that we talk about.

MH: And you mentioned stopping the Trump agenda. A lot of Democrats, liberals across the border assume the Bob Mueller, the special counsel in the Russian investigations, is to do this big takedown of Trump, he’s going to get impeached and he’s going to be gone. I’m not so sure, personally. I can see a two-term Trump presidency, as much as that horrifies me. Does that worry you too? What do you think the chances are?

BS: Your point is absolutely right on. Anyone who thinks that Trump cannot win a reelection is just not looking at reality. He can! That doesn’t mean he will. And I think there’s a good chance he can be stopped, but anyone who just sits back and says, “Hey, no problem! Come 2020, Trump is gone.” That would be a big mistake.

MH: You think there’s a good chance of a second Trump term?

BS: I’m not saying there is a good chance, but I’m saying — look, on Election Day, 2016, this is what I thought: I thought, I think Hillary Clinton is going to win but I surely will not be surprised if Trump wins. That was my feeling. That’s how I feel right now. I think there is a good chance the Trump can be defeated, but anyone who thinks it is a slam-dunk is absolutely mistaken.

MH: One last question, this is a big story in the news this week, there’s been a lot of talk about President Trump getting ready to fire the special counsel in the Russia investigation, Bob Mueller. Republican Senator Jeff Flake said this week that he would vote for impeachment if that were to happen. Would you as well? Would that be grounds for impeachment.

BS: Yes. I think that that’s a point in which — you know, I’ve been very reluctant to talk about impeachment until we have all of the information coming in from the investigation. But that would be a major, major, major obstruction of justice. That would be an impeachable offense, in my view.

MH: Bernie Sanders, thanks so much for coming on Deconstructed.

BS: Hey, thank you very much, and very good luck with your program.

MH: I appreciate it.

[Musical interlude.]

MH: That’s our show!

Deconstructed is a production of First Look Media and The Intercept and is distributed by Panoply.

Our producer is Zach Young, Leital Molad is our executive producer. Our theme music was composed by Bart Warshore. Betsy Reed is The Intercept’s editor-in-chief.

And I’m Mehdi Hasan. You can follow me on Twitter @mehdirhasan. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every Friday. Go to theintercept.com/deconstructed.

And if you’re new to podcasts, we’ve got all the info there. Please do subscribe whether you’re on an iPhone or an Android or whatever — that means this podcast will automatically download to your device every time a new episode’s available. And you don’t want to miss this new show now, do you? If you’re subscribed already, great. And please do leave us a rating or review, it helps people find the show.

Thanks so much. See you next week.

We depend on the support of readers like you to help keep our nonprofit newsroom strong and independent. Join Us



THIS IS A GREAT VIDEO AND PRINT ARTICLE. WHAT THESE KIDS ARE DOING IS REALLY IMPRESSIVE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/march-for-our-lives-2018-03-24-how-to-watch-live-stream/
CBS NEWS March 23, 2018, 7:04 PM
March for Our Lives: How to live stream rallies as students press for gun control

VIDEO -- CBS News embeds with school shooting survivors

NEW YORK -- Students from Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School arrived in Washington Friday ahead of Saturday's gun control rally, March for Our Lives. Rallies are taking place in about 800 cities around the world.

How to watch the March for Our Lives:

Live stream: CBSNews.com/live
Time: 12 p.m. ET, 9 a.m. PT
Live blog: Check back here for a link to CBS News' live coverage
Television: CBS will air a series of special reports throughout Friday from CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues

In Washington, hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected to attend the march. The students will be accompanied by a number of celebrity performers, including Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, Common, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and Vic Mensa.

In a statement, the organizers said protesters will demand that a "comprehensive and effective bill" is immediately brought before Congress to address gun issues.

"Every kid in this country now goes to school wondering if this day might be their last. We live in fear," the statement said. "It doesn't have to be this way. Change is coming. And it starts now, inspired by and led by the kids who are our hope for the future. Their young voices will be heard."

Over the past five weeks, after the murders of 17 people at the high school, CBS News has followed the students as they started a movement. It's all featured in CBS News' upcoming documentary "39 Days." The one-hour documentary to be broadcast March 24, 2018 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

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THIS IS REALLY VERY STRANGE. IN FACT, WE NEVER KNOW WHEN WE MAY MEET A DERANGED INDIVIDUAL WHO FEELS AN URGE TO KILL, RAPE OR TORTURE US.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-family-reported-missing-found-dead-in-mexico/
CBS NEWS March 23, 2018, 2:39 PM
Police: Family of four from Iowa found dead in Mexico

Photograph -- The Sharp family

CRESTON, Iowa -- Police in Creston, Iowa, say a family of four that was reported missing overnight has been found dead in Mexico. The bodies of Kevin, Amy, Sterling and Adrianna Sharp were discovered Friday inside a condominium, CBS Des Moines affiliate KCCI reports.

"Autopsies are being performed in Mexico and results are pending," the Creston Police Department said in a statement.

There were no signs of foul play, according to police, KCCI reported. A local news outlet in Mexico reports investigators are looking into whether food poisoning or a gas leak could have been responsible.

The incident took place in Akumal, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, according to the Mexico Tourism Board.

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The Sharp family

"An investigation is currently ongoing and includes representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico," the Mexico Tourism Board said in a statement. "Preliminary reports from local officials conclude that there were no signs of violence or struggle upon initial review."

The family had not been heard from since they left for Mexico on a trip on March 15. KCCI reports that according to family members' social media posts, Kevin, 41, Amy, 38, Sterling, 12, and Adrianna Sharp, 7, were expected to arrive in St. Louis on Wednesday to attend a basketball game in Danville, Illinois.

Relatives had filed a missing persons report through the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.


Hannah Hilyard KCCI
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@Hannah_KCCI
Terrible update, the Sharp family was found dead in their condo in Tulum, Mexico. Dad, mom, son and daughter. Police are working with state department and Mexican authorities to figure out what happened.

1:18 PM - Mar 23, 2018
Twitter Ads info and privacy

The tragedy is the latest in a list of concerns about the safety of tourists in Quintana Roo, home to popular destinations like Cancun and Tulum. It is estimated that 20 million American tourists went to Mexico last year, CBS News' Manuel Bojorquez reports, and around 8.5 million visited Quintana Roo.

In offering condolences Friday, Mexican tourism officials sought to portray the Sharp family deaths as an isolated incident.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



“IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PROGRAM, STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES WENT UP 50 PERCENT.” WHAT A REALLY HAPPY STORY THIS IS!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/failing-atlanta-school-cut-its-turnover-rate-in-half-with-help-from-lawyers/
CBS NEWS March 23, 2018, 8:44 AM
How a failing Atlanta school cut its student turnover rate by nearly half

Our continuing series, What's Working, looks at the innovations that are paying off in America, from education to infrastructure and more. Research finds that when students change schools they're more likely to be less engaged, which could lower their grades and increase the risk they will drop out of high school. Students generally lose about three months of reading and math with each transfer. A promising new program for low-income students and their families at an Atlanta school has cut the student turnover rate by nearly half.

When Nicole Evans Jones became principal at Thomasville Heights Elementary School two years ago, she inherited a crisis. The Atlanta school, at times, has been the worst performing elementary school in all of Georgia – and one of its poorest.

"I have students that have been in four or five schools by second grade or so," Jones told CBS News' Mark Strassmann. "Like 40 percent of the kids in that class might not be there at the end of the year."

Michael Lucas helps lead the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, a group that gets attorneys to fight for free on behalf of low-income tenants.

"They knew they had to address that problem. And we thought we had a solution," Lucas said.

He traced the Thomasville Heights turnover problem right across the street to the Forest Cove Apartments where 95 percent of the school's students live. It's Section 8, subsidized housing.

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Ayanna Jones-Lightsy CBS NEWS

Families kept moving in and out of there because they had no choice, a combination of wrongful evictions, or deplorable conditions that never seemed to get fixed. The solution? Embed a tenant rights lawyer inside the school's front office, a free walk-in resource for parents

"I get to be a lawyer in a school helping parents and families stay in the school zone to get the benefit of the school," lawyer Ayanna Jones-Lightsy said.

She says right away, new clients kept walking in the door.

"It's more a question of what kind of issues aren't they having….'My ceiling fell in this weekend from a leak that I've been telling my landlord about for months, My oven doesn't work, hasn't worked for weeks,'" she said.

People are coming to her with problems that violate the law. They need a lawyer to fight them, but can't afford it.

Lolita Evans and her four kids live at Forest Cove. They kept missing school, sick from the mold that grew inside their apartment. Her complaints went nowhere – until she showed up with her new lawyer.

"I had a whole SWAT team come to my door," Evans said. "They came right in and went to work and fixed everything in one day."

Before that? Evans said she'd been waiting for about a year. Ayanna Jones-Lightsy was her lawyer.

"I think it's still an adjustment and these tenants don't just have me. They have lawyers from the top law firms in Atlanta," Jones-Lightsy said. "One of my tenants says 'Ayanna don't play'. That's her phrase for it."

Last year, the program's first year there, the lawyers stopped 20 evictions. They took on more than 80 cases involving conflicts with the complex management.

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Some of the living conditions Forest Cove tenants have faced.

"I've had tenants cry in court because they knew they had a story. And they knew they had a right. But they didn't think they would be able to articulate it and win," Jones-Lightsy said.

Principal Jones says student turnover at Thomasville Heights dropped from 40 to 25 percent.

"It's huge," she said. "I mean we still have a long way to go obviously but it's a great start and first year."

"There's some far-reaching really human impacts of this affordable housing crisis and I hope that other communities will take a closer look at those impacts," said Lucas of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation.

Lolita Evans can tell you about the impact. Her kids Ja'ona, a fourth grader, and Robert, a second grader, received awards as students of the month.

In the first year of the program, standardized test scores went up 50 percent. No one is calling it a miracle turnaround but it's a solid start.

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