Donald Trump is finally scheduled to visit Britain.

Just make sure there are no protesters. I hate protesters.

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

Donald Trump will make a “working visit” to the UK on Friday 13 July, the UK and US have both confirmed, with the US president set to meet the Queen during the trip. 

The visit, which will take place immediately after a Nato summit in Brussels, will include bilateral talks with Theresa May, according to Britain’s ambassador to the US.

It will not, however, be the full state visit the US president was promised when May visited Washington last year, meaning he will not be honoured with an official banquet at Buckingham Palace or a carriage procession up the Mall. 

Downing Street has insisted the invitation for a full state visit still stands, but there is no timetable for it to take place.

May invited Trump for a state visit when she became the first world leader to meet the president in the White House in January last year.

It was downgraded to a “working trip” after huge public opposition to the visit and MPs said Trump should not be given the opportunity to address parliament. He has clashed publicly with London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has said the president’s visit would result in mass peaceful protests and that Trump’s values were the polar opposite of Londoners’. 

I can only imagine how badly Trump will embarrass America when he visits the Queen.

There are already mass protests planned: 

Jeremy Corbyn-backing activist and commentator Owen Jones took to Facebook to urge Britons to join mass demonstrations against the visit. 

Writing on the 'Protest Trump's Visit' Facebook group - which has over 100,000 people interested in it, he wrote: 'It's official; Donald Trump is visiting the UK on 13th July. 

'Everyone out on the streets! Invite everyone you know to this event.'

Police have been bracing themselves for what could be the biggest protests the country has seen. 

So apparently this will go off like every other event planned by the Trump White House. 

Country singer suggests that if she were not Canadian she would have voted for Donald Trump. That does not go over well.

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

If she had been able to vote in the US election, she would have plumped for Donald Trump, she says. “I would have voted for him because, even though he was offensive, he seemed honest. Do you want straight or polite? Not that you shouldn’t be able to have both. If I were voting, I just don’t want bullshit. I would have voted for a feeling that it was transparent. And politics has a reputation of not being that, right?”

This comes from a rather long article all about Shania Twain's career, throat operation, the end of her marriage, etc.

However it was that statement up above that caught the attention of the internet.

And then all hell broke loose.

By the end of the day Twain was walking that remark back as quickly as she could.

I would like to apologise to anybody I have offended in a recent interview with the Guardian relating to the American President. The question caught me off guard. As a Canadian, I regret answering this unexpected question without giving my response more context (1/4)

— Shania Twain (@ShaniaTwain) April 22, 2018

I am passionately against discrimination of any kind and hope it’s clear from the choices I have made, and the people I stand with, that I do not hold any common moral beliefs with the current President (2/4)

— Shania Twain (@ShaniaTwain) April 22, 2018

I was trying to explain, in response to a question about the election, that my limited understanding was that the President talked to a portion of America like an accessible person they could relate to, as he was NOT a politician (3/4)

— Shania Twain (@ShaniaTwain) April 22, 2018

My answer was awkward, but certainly should not be taken as representative of my values nor does it mean I endorse him. I make music to bring people together. My path will always be one of inclusivity, as my history shows. (4/4)

— Shania Twain (@ShaniaTwain) April 22, 2018

I am not going to pile on with everybody else, mostly because Shania Twain was one of the few country artists who did not make me want to shove red hot pokers into my eardrums.

Having said that I just want to add that after reading her  ridiculous statement my response is "That Don't Impress me Much."

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

The takeaway from this is that Donald Trump is without a doubt the most divisive person in the country, and ANYBODY, including once huge stars who made country music palatable, who suggests that they either did or would have supported him should be aware that people will react in a very emotional manner. 

Chairman of Sinclair Broadcasting met with Donald Trump during the election, promising that "We are here to deliver your message."

David D. Smith

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

The chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group met Donald Trump at the White House during a visit to pitch a potentially lucrative new product to administration officials, the Guardian has learned. 

David D Smith, whose company has been criticised for making its anchors read a script echoing Trump’s attacks on the media, said he briefed officials last year on a system that would enable authorities to broadcast direct to any American’s phone. 

“I just wanted them to be aware of the technology,” Smith said in an interview. He also recalled an earlier meeting with Trump during the 2016 election campaign, where he told the future president: “We are here to deliver your message.” 

Sinclair is the biggest owner of local TV in the US, and may soon reach 72% of American households if a proposed $4bn takeover of a rival is approved by federal regulators. It is accused by critics of having a conservative bias, which it denies.

The company has been a driving force in the development of a new broadcasting standard known as Next Gen TV, and is one of the first involved in making chips for televisions, cellphones and other devices to receive the new transmissions. 

Gee I wonder if those chips can also report back information, such as viewing habits, news sources, and possible political affiliations?

Because I kind of bet they can.

The CEO of Sinclair recently apologized to their employees for all of attacks they are receiving from "extremists."

Courtesy of Politico:  

Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley apologized to employees Tuesday for having to endure what he called “politically motivated attacks” over the right-leaning media company’s recent promos, which drew widespread criticism for echoing President Trump’s attacks on the “fake” news media. 

In a memo sent to staff, Ripley defended the scripts that anchors at more than 60 Sinclair stations were compelled to read, telling staff that the practice “is not unique to Sinclair, however, the blowback we received for doing so certainly is.” 

“For having to field nasty calls, threats, personal confrontations and trolling on social media, I am truly sorry you had to endure such an experience,” Ripley wrote. “However, as an organization it is important that we do not let extremists on any side of the political fence bully us because they do not like what they hear or see.”

Oh yeah Sinclair is being attacked for doing what EVERY other news outlet does.

Once again, which news outlets force their reporters to do this?

It is not an "extremist" point of view to point out that this is atrocious, nor is it extremist to be very uncomfortable with a "news" agency that meets with a presidential candidate and promises to deliver their message.

That is not news reporting, that is propaganda.

Ecuador cut off Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's internet, because that is how you punish petulant teenagers.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Ecuador has cut Julian Assange’s communications with the outside world from its London embassy, where the founder of the whistleblowing WikiLeaks website has been living for nearly six years. 

The Ecuadorian government said in statement that it had acted because Assange had breached “a written commitment made to the government at the end of 2017 not to issue messages that might interfere with other states”. 

It said Assange’s recent behaviour on social media “put at risk the good relations [Ecuador] maintains with the United Kingdom, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations”.

It has already been reported that being locked away in this embassy was having a "dangerous" impact on Assange's health, losing access to the internet might drive him out of his mind as well.

Gee' maybe then he will be forced to flee the embassy and he can be picked up by Swedish law enforcement for those sexual assault allegations, or by American law enforcement for his part in helping Russia hijack our democracy.

Either way he needs to have his day in court, and quit hiding like a pussy.

Cambridge Analytica, who stands accused of stealing data from over 50 million Facebook users, is working overtime to stop media outlets from issuing reports revealing their tactics.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Cambridge Analytica is trying to prevent an undercover report by London’s Channel 4 News that shows the firm’s CEO Alexander Nix speaking candidly about the firm’s practices from airing, according to the Financial Times. 

Reporters for Channel 4 posed as prospective clients and secretly filmed a number of meetings with the firm. 

The Financial Times's report did not make clear how the data firm was working to stop the report from airing. 

Cambridge Analytica also threatened to sue the Guardian to stop this story about the guy who blew the whistle on their Facebook data theft from being published: 

The Observer also received the first of three letters from Cambridge Analytica threatening to sue Guardian News and Media for defamation. We are still only just starting to understand the maelstrom of forces that came together to create the conditions for what Mueller confirmed last month was “information warfare”. But Wylie offers a unique, worm’s-eye view of the events of 2016. Of how Facebook was hijacked, repurposed to become a theatre of war: how it became a launchpad for what seems to be an extraordinary attack on the US’s democratic process. 

Wylie oversaw what may have been the first critical breach. Aged 24, while studying for a PhD in fashion trend forecasting, he came up with a plan to harvest the Facebook profiles of millions of people in the US, and to use their private and personal information to create sophisticated psychological and political profiles. And then target them with political ads designed to work on their particular psychological makeup. 

“We ‘broke’ Facebook,” he says. 

And he did it on behalf of his new boss, Steve Bannon.

Clearly that didn't work.

In another piece by the Guardian that I am sure Cambridge Analytica would like to make go away, we learn that the guy who orchestrated the data mining on Facebook has ties to Russia: 

Aleksandr Kogan, the Cambridge University academic who orchestrated the harvesting of Facebook data, had previously unreported ties to a Russian university, including a teaching position and grants for research into the social media network, the Observer has discovered. Cambridge Analytica, the data firm he worked with – which funded the project to turn tens of millions of Facebook profiles into a unique political weapon – also attracted interest from a key Russian firm with links to the Kremlin. 

Energy firm Lukoil, which is now on the US sanctions list and has been used as a vehicle of government influence, saw a presentation on the firm’s work in 2014. It began with a focus on voter suppression in Nigeria, and Cambridge Analytica also discussed “micro-targeting” individuals on social media during elections. 

The revelations come at a time of intense US scrutiny of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, with 13 Russians criminally charged last month with interfering to help Donald Trump.

Man no matter what the story, it always links back to Russia in some way or another. 

By the way Robert Mueller has requested all emails between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica, so this party is far from over.

Interesting that not only is the Trump White House all super double secret about what they are up to, but so is just about everybody who helped them to get there in the first place.

Data analysis group associated with Trump campaign harvested information from millions of Facebook accounts in order to target them more effectively.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

The data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters, in the tech giant’s biggest ever data breach, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box. 

A whistleblower has revealed to the Observer how Cambridge Analytica – a company owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon – used personal information taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements. 

Christopher Wylie, who worked with an academic at Cambridge University to obtain the data, told the Observer: “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis that the entire company was built on.” 

Documents seen by the Observer, and confirmed by a Facebook statement, show that by late 2015 the company had found out that information had been harvested on an unprecedented scale. However, at the time it failed to alert users and took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million individuals. 

The New York Times is reporting that copies of the data harvested for Cambridge Analytica could still be found online; its reporting team had viewed some of the raw data.

Couple of things to note here.

First off Jared Kushner took credit for bringing Cambridge Analytica into the Trump campaign:  

“I called somebody who works for one of the technology companies that I work with, and I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook micro-targeting,” Kushner told Steven Bertoni of Forbes. “We brought in Cambridge Analytica. I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley who were some of the best digital marketers in the world. And I asked them how to scale this stuff . . . We basically had to build a $400 million operation with 1,500 people operating in 50 states, in five months to then be taken apart. We started really from scratch.”

Secondly if this breach happened way back in 2014, it might indicate that Trump was already getting his ducks in a row to run way back then, despite his claims that he did not decide until 2015. 

Thirdly using Facebook data was also how the Russians targeted users for their propaganda campaign, which could link their efforts directly to Kushner and the Trump campaign, something I am certain Robert Mueller is already looking into.

Have you noticed that the more we learn, the more it seems to indicate that the Russians and the Trump campaign worked hand in hand to win that 2016 election?

P.S. The Massachusetts Attorney General is now launching in investigation into Cambridge Analytica. 

Elon Musk says we need to colonize Mars so that there will be humans who survive the next war.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Humans must prioritise the colonisation of Mars so the species can be conserved in the event of a third world war, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk said on Sunday.

“It’s important to get a self-sustaining base on Mars because it’s far enough away from Earth that [in the event of a war] it’s more likely to survive than a moon base,” Musk said on stage at SXSW – just days after Donald Trump announced plans to meet the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in an attempt to defuse rising nuclear tension. 

“If there’s a third world war we want to make sure there’s enough of a seed of human civilisation somewhere else to bring it back and shorten the length of the dark ages,” Musk said, responding to questions from his friend Jonah Nolan, co-creator of TV show Westworld.

You know just a year or so ago I would have said this is hyperbolic and a severe overreaction.

Now I am simply hoping that Musk has enough time to solidify his plans before it is too late. 

Hope Hicks finally testifies before the House Intelligence Committee. Decides to pull a "Bannon."

Courtesy of WaPo:

Hope Hicks, one of President Trump’s closest aides and advisers, met Tuesday with House investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. But she refused to answer any questions about events and conversations that occurred since Trump took office, according to a Republican lawmaker who was there during the proceedings. 

Emerging from the meeting with Hicks, panel member Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) said that “there are some questions that she’s not going to answer,” adding that Hicks was not willing to detail anything from the inauguration forward. 

Her refusal to answer questions about the Trump administration’s tenure suggests lawmakers will have a difficult time learning her side of a key story: the drafting of a misleading statement to explain an un­or­tho­dox meeting at Trump Tower between top Trump campaign members and a Russian lawyer.

According to at least one Democrat on the committee to say "We got Bannoned."

However at least one interesting tidbit was revealed during the testimony:

Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, told House investigators on Tuesday that her work for President Trump, who has a reputation for exaggerations and outright falsehoods, had occasionally required her to tell white lies. 

But after extended consultation with her lawyers, she insisted that she had not lied about matters material to the investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible links to Trump associates, according to three people familiar with her testimony. 

The exchange came during more than eight hours of private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Ms. Hicks declined to answer similar questions about other figures from the Trump campaign or the White House. 

One has to wonder if she means "white lies" in the sense that they were harmless in nature, or just that they were okay because white people were telling them.?

Once again while I want as many investigations as possible looking into the Russia issue, I simply do not trust this House committee to actually get to any truth.

In fact I heard that they have already started writing their final report with several witnesses still to see. (Well to be honest it's the Democrats who want to see many more witnesses, as far as the Republicans are concerned Hicks was the last one.)

I am actually more interested in what Hicks might tell Mueller.

And I imagine that Mueller will not allow little miss orange stained thighs to pull any of these shenanigans on him or his investigators.

The FBI is now assessing a second Russia dossier.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

The FBI inquiry into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election has been given a second memo that independently set out some of the same allegations made in a dossier by Christopher Steele, the British former spy.

The second memo was written by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s. 

Unlike Steele, Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election. 

However, the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the “Shearer memo” and is pursuing intriguing leads. 

One source with knowledge of the inquiry said the fact the FBI was still working on it suggested investigators had taken an aspect of it seriously. 

It raises the possibility that parts of the Steele dossier, which has been derided by Trump’s supporters, may have been corroborated by Shearer’s research, or could still be.

Well that is some interesting news.

I would imagine that Mueller has also read through this second dossier, which is not going to make a certain orange tinged Russian agent very happy.

Which brings me to another thing that we learned yesterday.

Courtesy of NBC News:   

He keeps telling some in his circle that Mueller — any day now — will tell him he is off the hook for any charge of collusion with the Russians or obstruction of justice. 

But Trump — who trusts no one, or at least no one for long — has now decided that he must have an alternative strategy that does not involve having Justice Department officials fire Mueller. 

"I think he's been convinced that firing Mueller would not only create a firestorm, it would play right into Mueller's hands," said another friend, "because it would give Mueller the moral high ground." 

Instead, as is now becoming plain, the Trump strategy is to discredit the investigation and the FBI without officially removing the leadership. Trump is even talking to friends about the possibility of asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to consider prosecuting Mueller and his team. 

"Here's how it would work: 'We're sorry, Mr. Mueller, you won't be able to run the federal grand jury today because he has to go testify to another federal grand jury,'" said one Trump adviser.

Launching an investigation against the person investigating you sounds like an act of absolute desperation, but with top level FBI agents dropping like flies, and Rod Rosenstein under constant attack, it could happen.

Which is likely why Senate Democrats are working desperately to protect Mueller and his investigation: 

Senate Democrats are plotting aggressive tactics to force Republicans to consider legislation that would effectively shield special counsel Robert Mueller from presidential interference. 

The party’s Senate leaders have been internally discussing the prospects of tying legislation to a must-pass government funding bill that must be considered by Feb. 8. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Tuesday that he would “very much like to” merge those two efforts. And the appetite among the rest of the caucus for doing so is surprisingly strong, aides and lawmakers say.. 

“I’m keenly supporting those pieces of legislation and I think the continued arrows shot at the department and the knowledge that they took one run at Mueller already is a sign that we need to find a way to get this done,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told The Daily Beast. “I agree with any strategy that helps get it done. That’s the prime goal.”

I have to say that with these new revelations I have stopped eating popcorn and am chewing on my fingernails instead.

Things are getting seriously tense.

Julian Assange's health is suffering as a result of hiding from authorities in an Ecuadorian embassy. Don't everybody shed a tear at once.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Julian Assange’s long stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London is having a “dangerous” impact on his physical and mental health, according to clinicians who carried out the most recent assessments of him. 

The pair renewed calls for the WikiLeaks publisher to be granted safe passage to a London hospital. 

Sondra Crosby, a doctor and associate professor at the Boston University’s school of medicine and public health, and Brock Chisholm, a London-based consultant clinical psychologist, examined Assange for 20 hours over three days in October. 

In an article for the Guardian, they wrote: “While the results of the evaluation are protected by doctor-patient confidentiality, it is our professional opinion that his continued confinement is dangerous physically and mentally to him and a clear infringement of his human right to healthcare.” 

Although the two did not go into details, Assange’s health appears to be deteriorating significantly after more than five years holed up in the embassy.

Well that's a real shame isn't it? 

Poor little Julian has to hide out after working with the Russians to interfere in our last presidential election and to avoid those allegations of sexual assault.

That must be a terrible burden.

But do you know where you can get top notch medical treatment?

In a Federal prison.

Yep they would certainly fix him right up, and I am positive that there are open invitations to prisons from all over the world. 

Or he could just stay where he is and take his chances.

Simply could not care less.

Trump Administration wants to loosen constraints on nuclear weapons to make them easier to use in response to an attack. I'm sorry, what?

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

The Trump administration plans to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for US Trident missiles, according to a former official who has seen the most recent draft of a policy review. 

Jon Wolfsthal, who was special assistant to Barack Obama on arms control and nonproliferation, said the new nuclear posture review prepared by the Pentagon, envisages a modified version of the Trident D5 submarine-launched missiles with only part of its normal warhead, with the intention of deterring Russia from using tactical warheads in a conflict in Eastern Europe. 

The new nuclear policy is significantly more hawkish that the posture adopted by the Obama administration, which sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US defence.

Arms control advocates have voiced alarm at the new proposal to make smaller, more “usable” nuclear weapons, arguing it makes a nuclear war more likely, especially in view of what they see as Donald Trump’s volatility and readiness to brandish the US arsenal in showdowns with the nation’s adversaries. 

The NPR also expands the circumstances in which the US might use its nuclear arsenal, to include a response to a non-nuclear attack that caused mass casualties, or was aimed at critical infrastructure or nuclear command and control sites.

Okay this is not about Russia, Putin knows that his puppet would never use these against the homeland, this is about North Korea.

Trump had been itching to use nuclear weapons against Kim Jong Un almost since the day he took office, and now he is looking for a way to do that and not blow up South Korea as well.

This lunatic needs to be stopped, and stopped now!

In new book, Steve Bannon calls Trump Tower meeting "treasonous," and claims Mueller will get Trump by focusing on "money laundering."

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, reportedly based on more than 200 interviews with the president, his inner circle and players in and around the administration, is one of the most eagerly awaited political books of the year. In it, Wolff lifts the lid on a White House lurching from crisis to crisis amid internecine warfare, with even some of Trump’s closest allies expressing contempt for him. 

Bannon, who was chief executive of the Trump campaign in its final three months, then White House chief strategist for seven months before returning to the rightwing Breitbart News, is a central figure in the nasty, cutthroat drama, quoted extensively, often in salty language. 

He is particularly scathing about a June 2016 meeting involving Trump’s son Donald Jr, son-in-law Jared Kushner, then campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York. A trusted intermediary had promised documents that would “incriminate” rival Hillary Clinton but instead of alerting the FBI to a potential assault on American democracy by a foreign power, Trump Jr replied in an email: “I love it.” 

The meeting was revealed by the New York Times in July last year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon after, Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers. 

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Well there goes Junior, right under the bus.

But if you think Bannon is planning to spare is former boss, well you would be mistaken.

Bannon has criticised Trump’s decision to fire Comey. In Wolff’s book, obtained by the Guardian ahead of publication from a bookseller in New England, he suggests White House hopes for a quick end to the Mueller investigation are gravely misplaced. 

“You realise where this is going,” he is quoted as saying. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”

Bannon went on to say that he himself had no interactions with any Russians, and does not feel he will need the services of a lawyer at any time soon.

And in the book Bannon is only ONE of the many sources inside the Trump White House that were willing to spill their guts.

And Trump buddies as well. Here is what one of Trump's oldest associates told a friend about the Donald: 

Wolff writes that Thomas Barrack Jr, a billionaire who is one of the president’s oldest associates, allegedly told a friend: “He’s not only crazy, he’s stupid.”

Certainly hard to argue with that assessment.

Here is what New York Magazine reported about this book:

Even though the numbers in a few key states had appeared to be changing to Trump’s advantage, neither Conway nor Trump himself nor his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — the effective head of the campaign — ­wavered in their certainty: Their unexpected adventure would soon be over. Not only would Trump not be president, almost everyone in the campaign agreed, he should probably not be. Conveniently, the former conviction meant nobody had to deal with the latter issue. 

As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all, had never been to win. “I can be the most famous man in the world,” he had told his aide Sam Nunberg at the outset of the race.

.......

Not only did Trump disregard the potential conflicts of his own business deals and real-estate holdings, he audaciously refused to release his tax returns. Why should he? Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary. His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared would be international celebrities. Steve Bannon would become the de facto head of the tea-party movement. Kellyanne Conway would be a cable-news star. Melania Trump, who had been assured by her husband that he wouldn’t become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching. Losing would work out for everybody. Losing was winning. 

In the end perhaps nobody was as surprised by Trump's victory, than Trump himself. (With the possible exception of Hillary Clinton.)

And once he won he had no idea what to do with that victory:  

From the moment of victory, the Trump administration became a looking-glass presidency: Every inverse assumption about how to assemble and run a White House was enacted and compounded, many times over. The decisions that Trump and his top advisers made in those first few months — from the slapdash transition to the disarray in the West Wing — set the stage for the chaos and dysfunction that have persisted throughout his first year in office. This was a real-life version of Mel Brooks’s The Producers, where the mistaken outcome trusted by everyone in Trump’s inner circle — that they would lose the election — wound up exposing them for who they really were.

Is anybody else having and out of body experience right now? Because I am having an out of body experience.

This is what we have all suspected all along, and here it is in black and white from Trump White House sources themselves.

The two articles have way too much information to adequately summarize here, including that the idea of Ivanka becoming the first female president was seriously touted, so I strongly suggest that you read them thoroughly.

Who knew that Wednesday was going to be such a big news day?

Putin calls Trump for the second time in four days to thank him for a supposed CIA tip that helped stop a "terrorist" attack. Things that make you go, "Hmm."

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke for the second time in four days on Sunday, the White House said, and agreed that a CIA tip which helped Russia prevent bombings in St Petersburg was “an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together”.The two leaders’ first call this week was on Thursday, when Trump thanked Putin for his remarks “acknowledging America’s strong economic performance”, according to the White House. 

The two presidents also discussed ways to address North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic weapons program.

The Kremlin said on Sunday Putin told Trump the information provided by the CIA was sufficient to track down and detain a group of Islamic State-linked suspects who were planning to bomb the Kazan Cathedral and other sites in the city. 

Putin asked Trump to convey his gratitude to the CIA and said Russian law enforcement agencies would hand over any information they get about potential terror threats against the US, as they have done in the past. 

The White House said Trump “appreciated” the conversation and “stressed the importance of intelligence cooperation to defeat terrorists wherever they may be”.

Do you all smell that fishy smell? Or is that just me?

What an amazing coincidence that as Trump and Putin push for some joint intelligence operation between America and Russia, that the CIA just so happens to stumble upon some information about a potential terrorist attack.

And how much more amazing is it that while Trump is suggesting that we need to work with Russia to fight ISIS, that this thwarted bomb attack is credited to them?

And if all of that were not amazing enough, how fortuitous is it that all of this is happening right as Robert Mueller suddenly seems to be getting much closer to learning some devastating new facts about the Trump campaign and their dealings with Russia?

I mean it all seems so perfectly timed, don't you think?

By the way in the past American intelligence agencies have treated Putin's claims of thwarted terrorist attacks with a high degree of skepticism.

Just thought I would throw that in there to provide a little context.

P.S. The Washington Post found the read out of the phone call to be a little troubling. 

Old interview shows Roy Moore favorably comparing himself to Vladimir Putin and suggesting that America might be “the focus of evil in the modern world.”

This is courtesy of a Guardian article from August of this year: 

Roy Moore, the controversial former judge and a leading contender in Alabama’s Senate race, has said “maybe Putin is right” and “more akin to me than I know” given the Russian leader’s stance on gay marriage. 

Moore, who was propelled to fame in 2001 over his refusal to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments that he’d installed in state courthouse, is a leading contender to fill the vacancy left by Donald Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions. 

Several polls have indicated Moore could have the edge in the Republican primary, which will be held next Tuesday, although the president’s endorsement this week of another candidate, Luther Strange, could change that dynamic.

In an interview with the Guardian’s Anywhere But Washington series, Moore also said that Ronald Reagan’s famous declaration about the Soviet Union being “the focus of evil in the modern world” might today be applied to the US. 

“You could say that about America, couldn’t you?” he said. “We promote a lot of bad things.” Asked for an example, he replied: “Same-sex marriage.” 

When it was pointed out to Moore that his arguments on gay rights and morality were the same as those of the Russian leader, he replied: “Well, maybe Putin is right.” He added: “Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know.”

Well I missed this back in August so it is new to me.

And now we know that not only is a religious zealot, and a possible pedophile, but also a man who sees similarities between himself and Vladimir Putin and believes America is the "focus of all evil in the modern world." 

Damn Alabama, could you not find a sleazier, more anti-American candidate?

But hey, at least he's not one of those liberal Democrats. Right?

Russian trolls paid actual American activists to help fund protests during 2016 election cycle.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

On Tuesday, the newspaper RBC published a major investigation into the work of a so-called Russian “troll factory” since 2015, including during the period of the US election campaign, disclosures that are likely to put further spotlight on alleged Russian meddling in the election. 

The existence of the troll factory, which has a history of spamming Russian and English blogs and comment forums, has been reported on by many outlets including the Guardian, but the RBC investigation is the first in-detail look at the organisation’s activity during the election period. 

RBC said it had identified 118 accounts or groups in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that were linked to the troll factory, all of which had been blocked in August and September this year as part of the US investigation into Russian electoral meddling. 

Many of the accounts had already been linked to Russian disinformation efforts in western outlets, but RBC said its sources at the troll factory had provided screenshots of the internal group administration pages of some of the groups, as proof they were run from Russia. It also spoke to former and current employees of the troll factory, all of whom spoke anonymously. 

Perhaps the most alarming element of the article was the claim that employees of the troll factory had contacted about 100 real US-based activists to help with the organisation of protests and events. RBC claimed the activists were contacted by Facebook group administrators hiding their Russian origin and were offered financial help to pay for transport or printing costs. About $80,000 was spent during a two-year period, according to the report.

So another $80,000?

Oh but that is not all. Not by a long shot.

Courtesy of CNN:

A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The Twitter account has been handed over to Congress; the Facebook account is expected to be handed over in the coming days. 

Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage. "Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read. "Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read. The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans. 

And then there is this:

A group linked to the Russian troll farm behind thousands of fake Facebook ads paid personal trainers in New York, Florida, and other parts of the United States to run self-defense classes for African Americans in an apparent attempt to stoke fear and gather contact details of Americans potentially susceptible to their propaganda. 

"Be ready to protect your rights... Let them know that black power matters," the group, known as Black Fist, wrote on its website promoting the events. 

The group appears to have been set up in January 2017, and it ran events before stopping at some point this year, evidence that Russia's attempts to use social media to meddle in American affairs have extended far beyond the 2016 presidential election. 

The events, which appear to have been designed to suggest a connection to the Black Lives Matter movement, were -- unbeknownst to the trainers who led them -- likely conceived by the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency. 

Seriously?

At this point nobody could possibly say that the Russian government was not all in to help Donald Trump get elected.

And you simply do not put this much effort into something unless you are getting a substantial, guaranteed, benefit.

UN is pulling people out of southeastern Africa due to fear of vampires. That's right, vampires.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

The United Nations has pulled staff out of two districts in southern Malawi where a vampire scare has triggered mob violence in which at least five people have been killed. 

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in rural Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, where many aid agencies and NGOs work. A spate of vigilante violence linked to vampire rumours also erupted in Malawi in 2002.

“These districts have severely been affected by the ongoing stories of blood sucking and possible existence of vampires,” the UN Department on Safety and Security (UNDSS) said in a security report on the Phalombe and Mulanje districts that was seen by Reuters.

Of course this type of superstitious fear does not stop with Vampirism.

You may have read recently about the murder of numerous children in Africa accused of being witches.

It was so widespread that they had to found a relief effort just to rescue children accused of witchcraft.

This is why I bang the drum so hard against religion on this blog.

You may think that modern Christianity has nothing in common with this type of mass hysteria, but if so then you have not attended a fundamentalist church where talk of demonic possession, fights with the devil, and the ongoing battle between good and evil are peppered throughout Sunday sermons as if they are as common as household pets.

When you tell people that perfectly natural phenomena have a supernatural basis you are potentially disconnecting them from a reality based existence and plunging them into a world of terrifying possibilities which could quite easily convince them that their neighbors, friends, and even children, are demons, witches, and yes, vampires.

Gryphen posts a somewhat negative article about autonomous cars.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

Driverless vehicles could build a “gold mine” of personal data for private companies and would make it easier for them to target people as consumers, an Australian law professor has warned. 

Des Butler, of the Queensland University of Technology, said the privacy risks involved in driverless vehicles were a “sleeper issue” that regulators were yet to fully consider, even though car manufacturers say the technology could be on roads in Australia by 2020. 

“These vehicles will know where you like to frequent, which businesses, and may very well build a profile of you,” Butler said. “People will go into these things not realising just how much data the vehicle will be generating about them and not knowing the extent to which the data can be used.”

As even the most casual IM visitor has probably surmised I am essentially all in for driverless cars.

However in the interest of being fair I wanted to share a least a few articles which point out potential hazards or concerns.

Trust me it's not going to keep me from purchasing one at some point, but yes there could be issues with privacy, hackers, and occasional technological malfunctions.

In the meantime around 3,287 people are dying each day due to car accidents with an additional 20 to 50 million injured or disabled each year. (Source.)

Just to keep things in perspective.

The problem with climate change denying in the wake of devastating hurricanes.

Courtesy of the Guardian: 

As the US comes to terms with its second major weather disaster within a month, an important question is whether the devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma will convince Donald Trump and his administration of the reality of climate change. 

The president’s luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida may escape Irma’s wrath, but with the deaths of so many Americans, and billions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses, the costs of climate change denial are beginning to pile up at the door of the White House. 

Just days before Harvey formed in the Atlantic last month, Trump signed an executive order to overturn a policy, introduced by his predecessor Barack Obama, to help American communities and businesses become more resilient against the risks of flooding, which are rising because of climate change. 

But the merciless assault on the US mainland by Harvey and Irma should be forcing the president to recognise the consequences of his arrogance and complacency in dismissing the research and analysis carried out by scientists. 

The flooded streets of Houston and the wind-ravaged homes of south Florida bear the unmistakable fingerprint of extreme weather made worse by manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

I don't have a lot of confidence that Trump will suddenly see the light,  especially while the head of his EPA is suggesting that talking about climate change is "insensitive" to the victims of the storms, however it should instruct voters that they need to prioritize candidates who understand and respect science to offset the shitgibbon wiping poop all over the country's environmental protections.

George Clooney and his wife pledge 1 million dollars to fight Right Wing extremism in America.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

George and Amal Clooney have announced a partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center to combat “bigotry and hate” in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

The Clooney Foundation for Justice says that it will bestow a grant of $1m to the SPLC in order to assist the civil rights organization in its attempts to combat violent extremism in the US, following the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer at a white supremacist rally in the campus city earlier this month. 

“Amal and I wanted to add our voice (and financial assistance) to the ongoing fight for equality,” George Clooney said. “There are no two sides to bigotry and hate.” 

“We are proud to support the Southern Poverty Law Center in its efforts to prevent violent extremism in the United States,” the pair added in a statement. “What happened in Charlottesville, and what is happening in communities across our country, demands our collective engagement to stand up to hate.”

Keep in mind that most terrorist attacks in this country are perpetrated by Right Wing extremists.

 And since Trump and his cohorts don't seem to believe that terrorism exists unless it is perpetrated by an Islamic person with brown skin I guess that leaves it up to private citizens and liberal Hollywood activists to do the heavy lifting.

Well now Donald Trump's ignorance about climate change is directly impacting Alaska.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

The Trump administration has moved to dismantle climate adaptation programs including the Denali Commission, an Anchorage-based agency that is crafting a plan to safeguard or relocate dozens of towns at risk from rising sea levels, storms and the winnowing away of sea ice. 

Federal assistance for these towns has been ponderous but could now grind to a halt, with even those working on the issue seemingly targeted by the administration. In July, Joel Clement, an interior department official who worked with Alaskan communities on climate adaptation, claimed he had been moved to a completely unrelated position because of the administration’s ideological hostility to the issue. 

“We were getting down to the brass tacks of relocation [of towns at risk] and now work has just stopped,” Clement told the Guardian. He has lodged an official complaint over his reassignment.

“Without federal coordination from Washington DC, there isn’t much hope. This will take millions of dollars and will take years, and these people don’t have years. I think it’s clear I was moved because of my climate work. It feels like a complete abdication of responsibility on climate change.” 

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, 31 Alaskan communities face “imminent” existential threats from coastline erosion, flooding and other consequences of temperatures that are rising twice as quickly in the state as the global average. A handful – Kivalina, Newtok, Shishmaref and Shaktoolik – are considered in particularly perilous positions and will need to be moved. 

“It was clear from the start of the Trump administration that there was no interest in helping Alaskan communities, particularly coastal communities, adapt to climate change,” said Victoria Hermann, president of the Arctic Institute. 

“There’s now no liaison from Washington on the issue. The biggest loss has been momentum. It feels like the Obama administration was kickstarting something useful but now it has dropped dead.”

It should be noted that Alaska natives overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton, and in an unusual move even endorsed her during the 2016 campaign.

They knew what the danger was in electing Donald Trump, and they feared what he would do to the country and how it could negatively impact their lives.

And they were right to fear.

These villages are in a very dire situation, and without government help they may lose the home they and their ancestors have inhabited for literally thousands of years.

The Denali Commission in Anchorage is working right now to raise funds and help them, but as it turns out they are also targeted for elimination by the Trump Administration.

When President Obama came here in 2015 he saw the problems facing our native communities and he implemented plans to help them.

If Hillary Clinton had won this election you can bet she would have kept those promises made by her predecessor.

Donald Trump on the other hand wants to literally undo EVERYTHING President Obama set in motion to help this planet and her people.

Like I said, the Alaska natives knew. Too bad so many failed to listen.