Thank goodness for Statesman Trump

Antagonizing Russia is incredibly stupid.  The last thing the world needs is a war -- cold or hot -- with the largest country on earth.  But the idiot British bureaucrat, PM Theresa May, and the Washingtom establishment, are doing their best to foment war. But Mr Trump did not follow suit, choosing instead to have a cordial conversation with Vladimir Vladimirovich. The world is in safe hands with Mr Trump


A SECRET memo has been handed to US President Donald Trump about what not to say to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Trump’s national security advisers reportedly warned the president in briefing materials: “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” ahead of a phone call with the Russian leader about his re-election, according to officials familiar with the call.

But Mr Trump ignored the advice. “I had a call with President Putin and congratulated him on his electoral victory,” the US leader said. “The call had to do also with the fact that we will probably get together in the not-too-distant future.”

Mr Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides who instructed him to condemn Mr Putin about the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy with a powerful nerve agent in the United Kingdom, a case that both the British and US governments have blamed on Moscow.

Russia is under pressure from London and its allies to explain how its former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned on British soil. Moscow has denied being involved.

Although the nerve attack has topped global headlines for weeks, it did not come up during the leaders’ conversation, according to both the Kremlin and White House. Mr Trump later described the phone conversation with Mr Putin as “a very good call”.

SOURCE 

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'They were on our side': Obama campaign director reveals Facebook ALLOWED them to mine American users' profiles in 2012 because they were supportive of the Democrats

I think this is a storm in a teacup. Targeted advertising is the way of the future.  You want your messages to go to those who might be interested in them.  The shotgun approach which is still normal ends up with people being exposed to advertising messages that only annoy them.  Targeted advertising reduces the annoyance of unwanted messages and ensures that your messages are delivered in a useful way.  But targeted advertising requires information on who is interested in what.  And getting that information is what they are talking about below

Facebook allowed the Obama campaign to access the personal data of users during the 2012 campaign because they supported the Democratic candidate according to a high ranking staffer.

Carol Davidsen, who worked as the media director at Obama for America and has spoken about this in the past, explained on Twitter that she and her team were able to ingest massive amounts of information from the social network after getting permission from Facebook users to access their list of friends.

'Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't stop us once they realized that was what we were doing,' wrote Davidsen.

She wrote that, not only did Facebook not try to stop them, but the company said they'd made a special exception for them.

'They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn't have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side,' she tweeted.

Davidsen was then careful to note: 'I am also 100% positive that Facebook activity recruits and staffs people that are on the other side.' 

Davidsen posted this in the wake of the uproar over Cambridge Analytica, and their mining of information for the Trump campaign.

The revelations, if true, mean that Obama's campaign used similar tactics to those of Cambridge Analytica, which worked on President Donald Trump's election campaign, and reportedly harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users.

Members of Congress called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify about Facebook's actions on Monday in the wake of the revelation.

Meanwhile, British privacy regulators are seeking a warrant to search the offices of the U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica as both US and European lawmakers demand an explanation of how the consulting firm gained access to the data. 

The news also saw Facebook shares closed down nearly 7.0 percent on Monday, wiping nearly $40 billion off its market value as investors worried that new legislation could damage the company's advertising business.

Facebook said on Monday it had hired forensic auditors from the firm Stroz Friedberg to investigate and determine whether Cambridge Analytical still had the data.

'Auditors from Stroz Friedberg were on site at Cambridge Analytic's London office this evening,' the company said in a statement late Monday. 'At the request of the UK Information Commissioner´s Office, which has announced it is pursuing a warrant to conduct its own on-site investigation, the Strop Friedberg auditors stood down.' 

Yet the Obama campaign may have harvested information from millions during the 2012 run.

Of course, the biggest difference is that those signing up to the Obama campaign did so knowingly. While with Cambridge Analytic, users were told they were contributing to an academic research project. That information was then passed to the Trump campaign.

But that doesn't mean the friends of the Obama supporters consented to have their details used in their data mining.

The New York Times Magazine reported how the campaign had a list of a million people who had signed into the campaign website through Facebook.

To do so, they were prompted to agree to grant the campaign permission to access their Facebook friends list, photos and other personal information. 

Another prompt, which most people also agreed to, asked for them to grant access to their news feed.

Through these prompts, the campaign had access to millions of people, and their interests, and friends - who they could note down as potential donors, unregistered voters and persuadable votes - to target in specific campaigns.

One staffer said that once a supporter signed up through Facebook, it would take them mere seconds to go through their friends' lists, match them with votes lists, and then they would go through photos - trying to weed out old girlfriends and college friends who could share their political beliefs.

The campaign reportedly mined data from 15 million Facebook users, which triggered alarms at the social media giant, but the company always decided that the campaign had not violated its privacy and data rules.

SOURCE 

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Jaw dropping revelation: Benghazi Hero Reveals What Comey and McCabe’s FBI Did to Him

When it was announced Friday evening that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had been fired on the recommendation of both the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, there were plenty of “hot takes” from politicians and media figures on both the right and left.

However, according to BizPac Review, the hottest take of all in regard to McCabe’s termination may have come from one of the heroes who emerged from the deadly 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, Kris “Tanto” Paronto.

Paronto, a former U.S. Army Ranger who was a security contractor in Benghazi at the time of the attack and helped fend off repeated waves of assaults by terrorists at the U.S. consulate and nearby CIA annex, took to Twitter to make his feelings known in regard to McCabe, as well as former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan.

He began with a tweet which eviscerated McCabe’s rebuttal claiming he had been “singled out” in an effort to “slander” him and the FBI in general by President Donald Trump and his administration.

Paronto tweeted, “Slander the FBI and Law Enforcement?! You’ve got to be s—-ing me Andy. You, James and your @BarackObama appointed syndicate brought nothing but lies, politics, corruption & disgrace to a once great FBI. @Comey #AndrewMcCabe #LockThemUp.”

But it was the tweet he sent immediately following that which really garnered attention, as he appeared to indicate that partisan members of the FBI attempted to slap him and the other team members from Benghazi with excessive use of force charges, presumably in relation to their use of deadly force to defend the consulate and CIA annex from repeated attacks.

“By the way, as you’re on your way out I want to thank you, James and your @HillaryClinton supporting hacks at the @FBI for trying to pin excessive force use on myself and my team after coming home from Benghazi. You all are the worst scum of human. @Comey #SorryNotSorry,” the Benghazi hero tweeted.

That astonishing assertion — that he and other Benghazi heroes were targeted for legal reprisal by partisan hacks at the FBI — cannot be independently verified at this time. But it will be interesting to see if any further information in regard to this claim is shared by Paronto or one of his teammates, or perhaps even the upcoming DOJ-OIG report which has been looking into allegations of FBI misconduct.

But Paronto wasn’t quite done yet, as he then set his sights on Comey. He posted a tweet in response to the veiled threat issued to Trump by the former director that Comey’s own version of events would be heard by the American people “very soon” — as in, as soon as his lucrative and profitable book tour kicks off.

“Still beating your ‘honorable’ drum James?? Yea, because your words hold so much truth after lying continually & protecting the criminal @HillaryClinton. Say what you want, I won’t believe a word of it. You have zero integrity which you earned. @Comey #believeyourownBS,” Paronto tweeted.

Nor did he let the more open and unhinged threat against Trump from Brennan slide either, as he tweeted a short time later, “Showing your true partisan colors that you took into the @CIA, a govt organization that should be politically neutral. Being nominated by @BarackObama though it should come as no surprise. You put #politicsbeforepatriots.”

This man knows a thing or two more than the average government bureaucrat about such things as honor, patriotism and service to country, and he isn’t the least bit afraid to let the partisan hacks who have infested the bureaucratic deep state know exactly how he feels about their duplicitous actions.

Hopefully more information will emerge in the near future to validate and support his claim of being targeted by those same slimy hacks in the aftermath of the Benghazi terror attack, now that a nonpartisan and less vindictive rule of law is being restored.

SOURCE 

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Israel Demands That Left-wing Groups Disclose Funding Sources, Activists’ Personal Details

Organizations that facilitate meetings between Israelis and Palestinians must now provide extensive information in order for the Palestinians to be granted entry permits to Israel

The Israeli army has started asking left-wing groups that arrange meetings between Israelis and Palestinians for large quantities of information about their activities, funding sources and media efforts.

SOURCE 

In America Leftists have managed to force various conservative organizations to make their donor lists public. They use that information to harass donors -- with the  Brendan Eich case being a well known example -- and thus discourage others from donating. But the Left  are not liking having the same thing done to them in Israel

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