Courtesy of Buzzfeed:
The boss of Cambridge Analytica, the analytics firm at the centre of an international storm over the misuse of Facebook user data, has been caught on camera bragging about how the company could blackmail political candidates with sex workers, and telling a prospective client that it has been secretly operating around the world to campaign in elections.
In an undercover operation by Britain's Channel 4 News, CEO Alexander Nix and two other high-ranking Cambridge Analytica staff took meetings with a reporter posing as a fixer who wanted the data firm's help getting candidates elected in Sri Lanka.
On Monday evening, Channel 4 broadcast undercover footage from four meetings across three months, with Nix telling the reporter that one of the services of Cambridge Analytica could be to “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.
Nix also told the undercover reporter: “We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land, for instance. We’ll have the whole thing recorded. We’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the internet.”
Representatives of the company also offered to spread fake news about political opponents in order to help sway the elections.
Well gee, no wonder the Trump campaign wanted to work with these guys, they were singing the same tune.
This is what the whistle blower who outed the company's Facebook data mining operation said about this video:
Wiley couldn’t speak as to how this relates to the firm’s work for the Trump campaign, but he went on to say “there is a perverse company culture inside of Cambridge Analytica, and as the undercover shows, they’re willing to go to extreme lengths to service their clients, and they’ll do anything that helps, whether it’s legal or not.”
Do we really believe that the Trump campaign did not utilize that skills set?
We also learned yesterday that before they started using their possibly illegal tactics to help Donald Trump, that Cambridge Analytica worked for Ted Cruz.
Courtesy of Raw Story:
Before they ran shady data operations for Donald Trump’s campaign, Cambridge Analytica worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during his presidential bid. Now, the Texas Republican is under fire for hiring the group amid reports that they improperly used Facebook data.
The Dallas Morning News reported Monday that the Cruz campaign kept Cambridge Analytica on retainer six months after initial reports of the firm using illicitly-sourced Facebook data surfaced in 2015 — a fact the Texas Democratic Party touted in a news release published on Monday.
“Ted Cruz will stop at nothing to weasel his way into power, even if it means weaponizing stolen information to manipulate people to like him,” Manny Garcia, the deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a press release. “Cruz’s campaign exploited personal information to create psychological profiles on millions of Americans. All to keep lining the pockets of Cruz’s billionaire super PAC donors — like Robert Mercer, who funded this propaganda machine.”
Color me unsurprised that Cruz would resort to tactics like this, nice to see that it might end up biting him in the ass and costing him this election.
Oh, one more thing.
I appears that Cambridge Anaylytica currently has a contract with our State Department:
Strategic Communications Laboratories, best known for its work with its offshoot and collaborator Cambridge Analytica, appears to have an open contract with the State Department. DefenseOne first noted the contract on a government contracts database, where it is listed as still open.
Well, I ma going to have to take a really hot shower after this post to get the sleaze off.
https://wonkette.com/631480/that-cambridge-analytica-video-sure-did-land-like-a-hot-turd
ReplyDeleteDEUXIÈME PARTIE!
CRIMEa!
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-9iciNF1A&feature=youtu.be
Deletehttps://wonkette.com/631491/here-are-the-579852-dirtiest-cambridge-analytica-scoops-in-channel-4s-new-video
DeleteDEUXIÈME PARTIE!!
Tale as old as time.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'll bet Beto O'Rourke is going to use this, along with the NRA bribes, er, donations to attack Cruz.
ReplyDeleteSteve Bannon, Jarrod Kushner and Brad Parscale were all involved with Cambridge Analytica during the Trump Campaign. Parscale is Trump's new campaign manager.
State Department. That would be the recently departed Rex Tillerson.
Just saw the Mr Rodgers trailer.
ReplyDeleteCould you imagine if he were around to see the state of the media, the advent of the immoral blogosphere, how people find joy in verbally abusing strangers in comment sections, no matter what the article is about.
He'd never stop weeping.
Its not abuse.
DeleteIts the truth - Sarah IS an ignorant C##T.
Cambridge Analytica's Dirty Tricks Elected Trump, CEO Claims
ReplyDeleteAlexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, claimed they used proxies in the U.S. to influence the 2016 election.
British political consultants that worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said they secretly used proxy organizations and super PACs to spread ads in the U.S. that could not be traced back to the Trump campaign.
Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, was secretly recorded by undercover reporters from Channel 4 in Britain who were posing as prospective clients. “There’s no evidence, there’s no paper trail, there’s nothing,” said Nix, reassuring them that his company’s dirty tricks for his clients would never be detected.
Nix said Cambridge Analytica used encrypted emails that were timed to self-destruct and boasted that U.S. politicians on the congressional committees weren’t smart enough to catch him out. “They’re politicians, they’re not technical. They don’t understand,” he said.
Nix claimed they had overseen much of the Trump presidential campaign, we “ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy.”
He said he had met Trump “many times.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cambridge-analytica-bosses-we-secretly-made-ads-for-trump-and-well-never-be-caught
Today's latest episode from UK's Channel 4 is now out.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/cy-9iciNF1A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Mercer
Delete"In 2010, Mercer bought six adjoining apartment units in Donald Trump's 41-story Heritage at Trump Place"
Undercover Reporter:"So the candidate is the puppet?"
DeleteCambridge Analytica:"Always"
Enraged Democratic Senator Lays Out How Facebook Data Theft Enabled Trump’s Win
ReplyDeleteSen. Ed Markey (D-MA) demanded that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify before Congress because the Cambridge Analytica data theft that Facebook did nothing about may have swung the election to Trump.
Video:
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/03/20/facebook-data-theft-enabled-trumps-win.html
That figures that all of our info is being used that we put out there on the internet. Who of us didn't think this would happen?
ReplyDeleteI think when we get into the Hitler mode again here on earth all our stuff on the internet will be used against us. And I suspect Putin will lead this new world order.
It’s why I stayed off Facebook from the beginning. The more I learned about data mining and loss of copyright, the more I avoided it, plus Twitter, Photobucket, Instagram and all of those social sharing sites.
DeleteI can’t avoid Google but I’ve locked up as much as I can and don’t use to for very much except this site, Instructables and YouTube. I have no videos uploaded to YouTube.
You can’t avoid data mining but you can do a lot to reduce your exposure.
There are articles out on how to delete your presence from Facebook. If you can manage to avoid it for two weeks, you can take control of your information again. Just remember, if you do it on Facebook, you might consider doing it on Twitter, Instgram, etc.
Any place that asks you to fill out information, put in false data. Create an e-mail account just for it. Obviously amazon is going to have to know your address. But imgur doesn’t.
Geez! Was it always like this? Or is is everyday in Trump world going to be like this till we all die from bleeding ulcers?
ReplyDeleteCambridge Analytica suspends their CEO as footage of him discussing illegal tactics airs live
ReplyDeletehttps://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/cambridge-analytica-suspends-ceo-footage-discussing-illegal-tactics-airs-live/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cambridge-analytica-bosses-we-secretly-made-ads-for-trump-and-well-never-be-caught
DeleteDid they suspend him because he got caught or because they were disgusted by his tactics. Probably because he got caught.
Delete"Trump faces double lawsuit threat from ex-Playboy model and Apprentice star" "a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who claimed she had an affair with Trump, sued to be released from a 2016 legal agreement requiring her silence.
ReplyDeleteZervos accuses him of sexual harassment, and the go-ahead to proceed in the case raises the possibility of Trump being forced to answer questions by her lawyers about his behavior toward her and other women who have accused him of sexual misconduct.
Judge Jennifer Schecter in Manhattan supreme court said there was “absolutely no authority” to dismiss or stay a civil lawsuit by Zervos related “purely to unofficial conduct” just because Trump is president of the US.
Zervos claims Trump kissed her twice on the lips during a lunch meeting in his New York office in 2007 and, while in Beverly Hills, she alleges he kissed her aggressively and touched her breast."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/20/karen-mcdougal-trump-playboy-model-affair-allegations-break-silence
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-a-playboy-model-and-a-system-for-concealing-infidelity-national-enquirer-karen-mcdougal
DeleteThank god no one in major media is talking about the role DiGenova played in helping Trump win the election via illegal FBI leaks. Even though the story is all over Twitter, it's important it be "breaking news" in major media six months from now.
ReplyDeleteThat's 2018 journalism for you.
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/976151336336191488
I've said that Michael Cohen implied to The New York Post in mid-2013 that Trump would run, and that Trump was letting Russians know he'd run by late 2013. Since I said that, the confirmed latest date for Trump deciding to run has been pushed back from June 2015 again and again.
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/976085340195905537
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson
https://threadreaderapp.com/user/SethAbramson
They're not "claims," Cambridge Analytica.
ReplyDeleteThey're *detailed, videotaped confessions* of serious and possibly criminal misconduct by your top executives.
Why should the world read your *press releases* when it can read exhaustive, sworn depositions from you for the next decade?
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/975934326457098240
Cambridge Analytica contractor agrees to give interview to House intel
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/congress-cambridge-analytics-facebook-christopher-wylie/index.html
https://www.thewrap.com/karen-mcdougal-affair-trump-playboy-playmate-9-month-silence-buy-ronan-farrow/
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-a-playboy-model-and-a-system-for-concealing-infidelity-national-enquirer-karen-mcdougal
Delete"Dozens of pages of e-mails, texts, and legal documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal how the transaction evolved. Davidson got in touch with A.M.I., and on June 20, 2016, he and McDougal met Dylan Howard, A.M.I.’s chief content officer. E-mails between Howard and Davidson show that A.M.I. initially had little interest in the story. Crawford said that A.M.I.’s first offer was ten thousand dollars."
Dobbs And Gorka: DOJ A 'Viper's Den' Thanks To The Black Folks Who Used To Run It
ReplyDeletehttps://crooksandliars.com/2018/03/dobbs-and-gorka-agree-doj-fbi-are-viper
' "viper's den, thanks to Eric Holder and Obama and Loretta Lynch." "Can you clean the stables of the American Department of Justice?," When I was tracking them, they were developing their strategies alongside Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica, and the Republican Party for 2014 and 2016. Listen to the audio recording where they planned the attack on Hillary Clinton over Benghazi in 2013. It's instructive to hear Bannon caution them not to play the Benghazi card on Hillary Clinton too soon because they definitely wanted it not to "appear political" when it clearly was." I guarantee you it will have echoed across every single right wing blog, radio show, podcast, and television channel, and the blame for the non-existent cabal will be placed at the feet of the black folks, so they can stoke and inflame the right-wing nativists who represent Trump's core.
DeleteWorking together behind the scenes to gaslight the nation is the work of a cabal, but it's not the black folks anyone needs to fear. It's these white cynical well-paid liars."
Pruitt For President 2024? Or Sooner?
ReplyDeletehttps://crooksandliars.com/2018/03/pruitt-president-2024-or-sooner
U.S. government spent over $30,000 on personal security for Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt during his trip last year to Italy, according to documents obtained by a watchdog group that said the spending was irresponsible at a time of budget cuts.
According to the document, obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project through a Freedom of Information Act request and shown to Reuters, Pruitt’s personal security detail racked up $30,553.88 in travel costs from June 5 through June 12, 2017, when Pruitt was in Italy for meetings at the Vatican and to attend a summit of foreign energy ministers. The total cost of the trip exceeded $80,000, EIP calculated.
“Mr. Pruitt’s trip to Rome last summer cost the taxpayers over $84,000,” said Eric Schaeffer, EIP’s director. “That’s a lot of money for Mr. Pruitt to tour the Vatican, pose for photos, and tell his European counterparts that global warming doesn’t matter,” he said.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/epa-chiefs-security-detail-italy-trip-cost-30000-document/
$80,000 for a week?
DeleteI was in Italy in 2016 for three weeks at it cost me about $8,000, including airfare, lodging, meals, transportation, gratuities, souvenirs and a week long watercolor workshop.
Ralph Peters quits Fox News ‘propaganda machine’ with epic rant affirming the Steele dossier
ReplyDeleteA retired military intelligence expert who specialized in the Soviet Union has quit his job as a Fox News contributor over the shame he feels being associated with the network.
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (US Army, ret.) denounced Fox News in an email to colleagues, which was obtained by Buzzfeed.
“Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform,” he reminded. “Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers.”
“Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association,” Peters noted. “Now I am ashamed.”
“In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” he continued. “When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of ‘deep-state’ machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove.”
“To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit,” he concluded.
The former Foreign Area Officer also referenced his specialization in the former Soviet Union.
“As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things,” he noted. “The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/ralph-peters-quits-fox-news-propaganda-machine-epic-rant-affirming-steele-dossier/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboating
Delete'The term "Swift Boat" itself refers to a class of United States Navy vessel used during the Vietnam War. During the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry's heroism under fire as a Swift Boat commander in Vietnam was a centerpiece of his campaign.[13] A number of Vietnam veterans who had served on Swift Boats formed a 527 organization called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (later renamed Swift Vets and POWs for Truth or SVPT) with the intent of discrediting his military record and attacking his subsequent antiwar activities as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.[9] The group produced a series of television ads and a bestselling book, Unfit for Command.[14] The unsubstantiated charges against Kerry by the SVPT gave rise to the term "swiftboating" as a synonym for "the nastiest of campaign smears",[6] "a slimy political attack",[15] and, for many, "ugly, unprincipled slander".[16][17][18][19][20] As the purpose of a tax-exempt 527 organization is "to focus on the issues" rather than "attack or defend a specific candidate", the SBVT was fined by the Federal Election Commission in 2004 for specifically attacking Kerry instead of focusing on political issues.'
What took him so long? Too little too late if you ask me.
DeleteWATCH: Cambridge Analytica busted on tape discussing potentially illegal tactics used in Trump’s campaign
ReplyDelete...In new undercover footage filmed by Channel 4 News, Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix can be seen boasting that his firm “did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting” for Trump’s campaign.
The executives filmed by Channel 4 News also discuss potential coordination between Trump’s campaign and outside Super PACs, which is supposed to be illegal in the United States.
Specifically, the executives admitted that they took funding from the Make America Number 1 super-PAC and used it to create an anti-Hillary Clinton attack ad, even as they were supposedly doing research, targeting and analytics directly for the Trump campaign.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/watch-cambridge-analytics-busted-tape-discussing-potentially-illegal-tactics-used-trumps-campaign/
"Make America Number 1 is a super PAC (political action committee) that supported the presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election. During the primary campaign, the super PAC was known as Keep the Promise I.[citation needed] In the general election, it informally termed itself Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC.[citation needed] The PAC is run by Rebekah Mercer, the second daughter of its largest donor Robert Mercer .[1]
DeleteRobert Mercer donated $15.5 million to the PAC during the 2016 campaign; philanthropist Bernard Marcus donated $2 million; and Cherna Moskowitz donated $1 million.[2] As of November 2, it had received a total of $19,586,131 in donations.[3] Robert Mercer is the fourth-largest contributor to Super PACs in the 2016 cycle.[4]
Rebekah Mercer has been chairperson of the PAC since 2015. Its operations were headed by Kellyanne Conway from August 2015 until she was tapped to serve as the Campaign Manager of the Donald Trump campaign in mid-August 2016.[5] The PAC also employed Stephen Bannon, who joined the campaign as CEO.[6] After Conway's departure, David Bossie took leadership. He left in September to become Trump's Deputy Campaign Manager, and Rebekah Mercer took over leadership of day-to-day operations.[6]
During the general election the PAC ran anti-Hillary Clinton ads in a $350,000 campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania.[1]
Make America Number 1 responded to the public release of Donald Trump's conversation with Billy Bush about his treatment of women by stating, "We are completely indifferent to Mr. Trump's locker room braggadocio."<WIKIPEDIA
If Mueller doesn’t have the entire Mercer family on his hit list, they so need to be added. Criminals and traitors, all of them.
DeleteExclusive: Mark Zuckerberg AWOL From Facebook’s Data Leak Damage Control Session
ReplyDeleteFacebook employees gathered to discuss the widening scandal over the 2016 election. But company chiefs Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were nowhere to be found.
It’s not just that he’s silent in public. Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg declined to face his employees on Tuesday to explain the company’s role in a widening international scandal over the 2016 election.
Facebook employees on Tuesday got the opportunity for an internal briefing and question-and-answer session about Facebook’s role with the Trump-aligned data firm Cambridge Analytica. It was the first the company held to brief and reassure employees after, ahead of damaging news reports, Facebook abruptly suspended Cambridge Analytica. The Q&A session was first reported by The Verge.
But Zuckerberg himself wasn’t there, The Daily Beast has learned. Instead, the session was conducted by a Facebook attorney, Paul Grewal, according to a source familiar with the meeting. That was the same approach the company used on Capitol Hill this past fall, when it sent its top attorney, Colin Stretch, to brief Congress about the prevalence of Russian propaganda, to include paid ads and inauthentic accounts, on its platform.
Nor, The Daily Beast has learned, did chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg attend the internal town hall.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-mark-zuckerberg-awol-from-facebooks-data-leak-damage-control-session
$uck ~IT~up Zuck!
Deletehttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawmakers-zuckerberg-to-explain-misuse-of-facebook-data_us_5ab0fc2ae4b0e862383b6766
What’s he going to tell them? He sold his soul for money and put all of their livelihoods in jeopardy?
Deletehttps://www.politicususa.com/2018/03/20/two-republican-senators-warn-that-trump-will-be-impeached-if-he-fires-mueller.html
ReplyDelete"Both Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are warning Trump that firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller would be an impeachable offense." The statements of Flake and Graham are an expression of the concern of the entire Senate Republican caucus. Donald Trump has few allies in the Senate, so if it comes down to saving themselves or Trump, Senate Republicans are signaling that it isn’t going to be Trump." reGODle$$>
"In Russian politics, KOMPROMAT, short for "compromising material" (компрометирующий материал), is damaging information about a politician or other public figure used to create negative publicity, for blackmail, or for ensuring loyalty."
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/phill-mudd-nails-trump-wont-criticize-putin-achilles-heel-whether-not-russia-helped-win/
ReplyDeleteWhat a bunch of corrupt assholes.
ReplyDeleteWonder how many visas they applied for those "beautiful Ukrainian women", did they come over on E1 visas?
ReplyDeleteYep this sounds just the company trump would work with.