Wondering on Wednesday 10/6/21

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Tonight, I'm wondering on the Facebook thing: the whistleblower, corporate profits, marketing, artificial intelligence, actual intelligence, ethics, and more. 

How do you regulate Facebook's algorithm, content, and the decisions behind what gets promoted, and not do the same thing with every other social media outlet?

How do you regulate Facebook's algorithm, content, and the decisions behind what gets promoted, and not do the same thing with Fox News, MSNBC, and every other television network?

How do you regulate Facebook's  algorithm, content, and the decisions behind what gets promoted, and not do that with the NY Times, the NY Post, and every other print and digital newspaper? 

How does Wikipedia survive this new regulatory framework? Anyone can enter anything they want - who's going to be the boss of that? Are we going to create a regulatory framework for that, too?

Who gets to decide what content is abusive or divisive? Artificial intelligence can't do it, and humans can't do it either. What or who is left? And, even more fun, who gets to pick the arbiters?

What about the 1st Amendment? Doesn't that protect divisive speech?

How is it not insanely ridiculous and hypocritical for members of the House and Senate - professionals all, at spreading misinformation and division - to complain about Facebook's failure to stop the spread of misinformation and division? Seriously - how is that not the most insane aspect of this?

If the said misinformation- and division-spreading legislators decide to change the rules and let Facebook be held liable for 'harm' on its pages, which one of them will be the first to file a suit, and how long will it take - more than 30 minutes, or less than 30 minutes - after the rules are passed? I'm guessing Devin Nunes and less than 10...

If Facebook can be held liable for harm done to someone who's under age and on the platform, will Facebook be able to sue the parents for allowing the child to use the service?

And why do six-year-olds have smart phones, anyway? Who is responsible for that?

Before they go all out and regulate potentially harmful content - something that, by nature of the 'potentially' label, cannot be regulated - will the legislators do something to increase access to and the affordability of mental health services, particularly for children, and particularly for rural areas?

Isn't it ironic, and more than a bit ridiculous, that the same people who would to deny treatment options that would help transgender kids are all up in arms about body image issues on Facebook?

Why would the people who complain about their own voices being stifled on Facebook be willing to stifle other voices on Facebook? Is the algorithm unfair, or do they just not like what it does? Do they really care about any of this, or does it just look good to care, in which case they can make a profit, i.e., get re-elected because they 'showed they care?

How is Facebook to control the viewing habits of its users? For example, how are the people who ignore multiple notices that what they are reading is not real and then argue vigorously, and share widely, their outrage about the outrageously fake posts, supposed to be  protected from themselves?  Who's job is that, anyway?

Or the folks who wouldn't know sarcasm if it bit them on the butt cheek in the checkout line at Wegmans? (That's sarcasm, by the way. Sarcasm doesn't have actual teeth.) How is Facebook to be held accountable for them? 

Are we going to regulate comedians? Celebrity magazines, with pictures of stars or wanna-be stars and their "boldly topless" photos? The Kardashians and their puffy lips, 'trained' waists, and abundant behinds? People try to emulate them, and cause themselves real physical harm in the process; clearly, that can't be allowed to continue? 

How ironic is it, that the people who don't think the government should be able to require masks or vaccines during a pandemic are now contemplating having the government dictate what we're allowed to see on Facebook? What about "my mind, my choice?"

If we're going to ban detrimental content on Facebook, can we please ban Love Island, Big Brother, Hoarders, My 600-lb-Life, Married at First Sight, Real Housewives, Love After Lockup, Cellmate Secrets, 90-day Diaries, You, Me and My Ex, Ex-Rated, Naked and Afraid, Addicted to Marriage, 90-Day Fiancé, RuPaul’s Drag Race, My Big Fat Fabulous Life, and the rest of the unreal reality TV shows? Without much difficulty, I could make an argument that each of those shows is detrimental in one way or another...and I've never watched any of them.

Who gets to determine how 'good' a company must be in order to be allowed to make a profit? And how will those decisions be made? 

Are we going to require every company to provide us with their internal research on everything they internally research? Or is that just going to be shared with regulators? Just legislators (they're not the same thing as regulators, I can assure you.) And what if someone who gets the information as part of their job decides to leak it, for fun say, to the Wall Street Journal? What's the accountability there?

Based on the number of times the quote was shared, the big soundbite from Frances Haugen's testimony was, "Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook."  

I'm wondering if anyone reading this post can tell me everything that happens inside their current employer, or any of their former employers? I maintain that it's probably true for every company, even those in highly regulated industries, that outsiders don't know what happens inside, and neither do employees. I also maintain that that lack of knowledge can be positive (allowing a company to launch a new product, charitable plan, marketing campaign, etc. without leaks) as much as it can be negative (e.g., Enron, Wells Fargo, and perhaps Facebook, too). 

Especially in a country where we're supposedly working on improving the privacy rights of people. And, of course, where we consider corporations to be people, too. Unless, of course, corporations aren't really people after all. And isn't that a whole nother world of wonderment we can attack... 

What are you wondering about tonight? 

Wondering on Wednesday 7/7/21

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What in the wondering world is going on tonight? Let's take a look.

The embattled president of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in his home early this morning, and his widow has been flown to Miami in critical condition. Meanwhile, on the interwebs, fingers immediately pointed to Bill and Hillary Clinton as the culprits. The wondering here? How on earth did Hunter Biden escape blame?

There's a lot of speculation on what GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Afraid of Trump) will do about the House Select Committee on the insurrection. Will he appoint RWNJs like Marjorie Greene (R-Jewish Space Lasers), Lauren Boebert (R-OK Corral) and Matt Gaetz (R-Where's Nestor?)? Or maybe #FormerGuy favorite Jim Jordan (R-Coatless in Ohio), one wonders? Or, will he try and appoint people who might actually acquit themselves as serious members of Congress? 

One thing I am wondering about is why Nancy Pelosi (D-I Swear I Won't Run for Speaker Again) decided that three of the eight Dems on the Committee needed to be former impeachment managers. Is there no one other than Adam Schiff (D-I Don't Know When to Stop Talking) who could participate? You remember him, the guy who told the fun stories before anything even got started in the first impeachment? Couldn't she have done better, I wonder, in making this look less partisan? Or doesn't she even care anymore?

Former Guy sued social media companies Facebook, Google, and Twitter today, claiming in part that they are 'state actors' and therefore subject to the First Amendment. Red meat for his base, a comedic goldmine for his critics, and a continuation of his propensity for lawsuits. Says Santa Clara University law school professor Eric Goldman, Trump

is playing a standard media game. It fits into a broader pattern of the former president bringing lawsuits and then not vigorously pursuing them.

As always, we're left wondering what his 'news' is supposed to distract us from - maybe the tax-evasion case against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, his CFO? Or the fact that even Fox News doesn't broadcast his rallies?

We collectively fell short of President Biden's goal of 70% of American adults having at least one dose of a COVID vaccine by July 4th., landing at around 67%. So, instead of having big vaccination sites that are being underused, the new plan is to meet people where they are - going door-to-door to learn about - and counter - vaccine hesitancy; making sure primary care physicians  and pediatricians have vaccines available; and using mobile vaccination clinics, among other things. 

Response to these ideas is mixed, with the usual suspects on both sides acting as we expected they would. So, what's the wondering? Is there anything that will convince more people to get vaccinated? What if we told them the virus really did originate in a Wuhan lab, not a wet market (whether that's true, or not) - would that work? Or, maybe instead of offering a college scholarship, or a million bucks, we gave everyone a gun and a year's supply of ammo - would that work?

What are you wondering about?

TGIF 6/4/21

Ah... Friday! My chance to pick the good week and bad week lists. It's always such fun, isn't it?

Let's start with me: I had a great week, at least in one respect: veritable pastiche has been around for twelve and a half years, while Former Guy's blog lasted barely a single month. Yay, me!

And speaking of Former Guy, he had a bad week, and not just because his blog slunk into the morass of failed Trump business ventures. It's been determined that his bans from Facebook and Instagram have been extended at least until January 2023. Never one to miss an opportunity to lash out at others, Former Guy responded in typical bullybluster fashion.

Facebook's ruling is an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our country can't take this abuse anymore!

And my favorite part? 

Next time in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business! More hamberders and covfefe for MEEEE!!!!!!!!!! 

OK, I made up the last sentence. But only the last sentence. 

Now those "plus many others" he mentioned? I have to assume he's referring to the Russians and Ukrainians and Iranians and the rest of the election interferers who were on his side, right? 

Economic prognosticators had another bad week; they (again) widely (again) missed the mark on their jobs projections. In May, the experts anticipated over a million jobs would have been added in April, but it turned out there were only 266K. For May, the experts were looking for around 650,000 (or even as high as 671,000), but only 559K were added. Which makes me wonder if meteorologists are now helping predict our key economic indicators are going?

Elected officials in Surry County, NC think they had a good week, but I think they had a bad week. The county banned Coke machines from government buildings, to let the soda company know that they aren't going to tolerate 'woke' corporations and their support for "the out-of-control cancel culture and bigoted leftist mob." By, you know, cancelling the corporation's machines. Sigh.

Here's what the Surry County Board of Supervisors said in a letter to the company: 

Citizens of Surry County and across America are growing increasingly tired of large multinational corporations and their CEOs pushing an increasingly intolerant, bigoted, left-wing, divisive political agenda on its customers.

The root of this? A statement from James Quincey, the Georgia-based soda giant's CEO, in response to the restrictive voting legislation passed in its home state. Among other things, he had the audacity to say in part, that 

Voting is a foundational right in America, and we have long championed efforts to make it easier to vote.

We want to be crystal clear and state unambiguously that we are disappointed in the outcome of the Georgia voting legislation...  our focus is now on supporting federal legislation that protects voting access and addresses voter suppression across the country. We all have a duty to protect everyone's right to vote, and we will continue to stand up for what is right in Georgia and across the US. 

Now, I don't find anyone who says that voting is a foundational right in America to be bigoted and divisive and worthy of cancellation. And by 'anyone' I mean both living, breathing people and those large, multinational corporate people. I reserve those words to describe the people who have submitted over 360 restrictive voting bills across the country this year, and to people like the officials in Surry County, plus many others. Kudos to Coca-Cola on this one, and a giant, over-ripe raspberry to the rest of them.

Don McGahn - remember him? After a two-year fight, McGahn finally had to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. I initially thought maybe this was a bad week for McGahn, but it probably was a relief to be able to tell people how hard Trump worked to obstruct justice. Since McGahn was limited to talking about stuff in the Mueller Report that was already public knowledge, I don't think anyone else got much out of it, we'll see. We can probably read any number of books written by Trump staffers and critics, plus many others, and learn just as much.  

Do you need a fix from Donny Jr, since Daddy's availability is limited? Well, have no fear - for as little as 20 bucks, you can hear directly from the heir to the Golden Toilet. Seriously!

Apparently, there's a service called Cameo, and lots of self-important people like these are out there, waiting to provide you a personal video message, or in some cases, DMs. 

• Junior’s squeeze, Kimberly Guilfoyle ($200 for video; $19.99 for DM)
• George Papadopoulos ($100/no DMs available)
• Tomi Lahren ($90/no DMs available)
• Corey Lewandowski ($70/DMs at a bargain price of $2.99. No word if punches are included or cost extra)
• Jacob Wohl ($50/no DMs available)
• Sebastian Gorka ($99 for video, no DMs available)
• Joe Arpaio ($30/no DMs available)

That's a full-blown bad week list right there, IMO. 

And finally, there was a big kerfuffle over a tweet sent by Vice President Kamala Harris two days before Memorial Day, in which all she said was "Enjoy the long weekend." That was too much for the Fox News/My Pillow crowd, plus many others, who went off on Harris, never mentioning that she issued a Memorial Day tweet - on Memorial Day. And that's something that many of the attackers didn't even bother to do themselves.

The same people, plus many others, aren't making a peep about this story, reported by the AP. 

Organizers of a Memorial Day ceremony turned off a speaker's microphone when the former US Army officer began talking about how freed Black slaves had honored fallen soldiers soon after the Civil War. 

That's right - when Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter (Ret.) decided to include that part in his speech, he did so because "he wanted to share the history of how Memorial Day originated." Sadly, the folks who organized the Ohio celebration Kemter spoke at, said "that part of the speech was not relevant to the program's theme of honoring the city's veterans."  Pretty easy to see who the good week guy is, and who they aren't, right? 

There's more, but this'll have to do. TGIF everyone - I hope your week was a good one. 

Wondering on Wednesday 10/7/20

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I wonder what we should call tonight's vice presidential debate? Will it be the #UghfestinUtah or the #KnockoutinKingsburyHall or the #SmackdowninSaltLake -- I can't pick my favorite, but I can pick what I hope they get to talk about: something OTHER THAN the coronavirus pandemic. I get that the Biden/Harris team is running in large part on how poorly the Trump/Pence team handled things, and I know that Pence is the alleged head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, but we really need to hear from the teams, without all the shouting and interrupting and gurgling and whatnot, what the heck these folks want to do if they're declared the winner after voting ends on November 3rd. 

And speaking of November 3rd, I see that Facebook is now saying they won't run any political ads after voting ends that day. And I wonder, who's still going to be running ads at that point, other than Trump and his main man #SnittySnittyBillBarr - I mean, I'm sure they'll still be screaming about election fraud even as ballots are being received, or removed from their locked boxes and then opened and inspected in accordance with each state's rules, but is anyone else going to be running ads then? If not, why doesn't Facebook just tell the Trump team to "stand back and stand by" (aka sit down and shut up) until counting is done?

And speaking of voting and interference and lies and fake ads and stuff, today FBI Director Christopher Wray had a virtual press conference reassuring Americans that our election will be safe. And I wonder, will Trump wait until after the election before firing Wray? Or will he do it first, just to make sure he has the chance?

What else is going on? Will there be a stimulus payment for Americans who are struggling and those who are not? Will there be a bailout for the 'too big to fail' airline industry?  Do we have to wait until after the election, when Donald Trump says he will be elected, before we'll see a rescue plan - for anyone? Or, maybe, those hearty, wholesome, crime-free red states will get some stimmy, and us blue-staters will have to wait until... when, I wonder? But the big wondering is, what happens if we hold off on handing out any relief until after the election and (drum roll please) Donny gets sent packing?  Who gets the bump then? Blue states? Blue states and maybe purple swing states that voted for Papa Joe and Mom-ala? I mean, has Trump thought this through, I wonder?

Um, let's see -- we're getting October surprises almost daily, it seems. Or maybe it's Trump's 'roid rage, not sure. Today he lost another case on his taxes, and he's declassifying documents going back to Abraham Lincoln, I think... oh wait - Hillary Clinton, not Abraham Lincoln. Sorry -- different three-syllable, two syllable name there. My take on the document dump? No one will read them.  

Instead, the nation will turn its lonely eyes to Fox and Friends, or Don Lemon, or Chuck Todd, or Judge Jeannine, woo woo woo, and be told what to think about what they haven't read. And, if all goes according to Trump's plan, his base will vote for him, and Biden's base will vote for him, and nothing really matters any more... 

When did the president last test negative before being diagnosed with COVID-19, I wonder?  Bueller? Bueller? Anybody?

Mike Pence's aide Katie Miller is married to immigration psychopath Stephen Miller, who has tested positive. Mike Pence attended the #2020RoseGardenSuperSpreaderParty for Amy Coney Barrett, sitting in front of Sen. Mike Lee who has tested positive. I'm impressed with his negativity, I am, no wondering about that. 

And according to something I just heard, there are now 34 cases stemming from that little party. Anyone wondering how long before Kevin Bacon tests positive? 

The president said that his getting COVID was a blessing from God. I'll let you wonder about that one, and whether the 210,000-plus people who have died from it since the pandemic began would think the same thing.  And speaking of blessings and bizarre statements, don't forget that Trump's 4th chief of staff Mark Meadows, said that sticking by Trump while he was doing photo ops  undergoing treatment at WRMC was a message for our military men and women and boy oh boy, if you're not wondering about that, I don't know what you ARE wondering about...

And finally, about tonight's debate, I'm not wondering at all which of them will answer fewer questions: that's Pence, for sure. He is a professional question-non-answerer, and we've got proof.  Even though his chief of staff just said Pence is a "gifted communicator" - blecch.

Get your snacks, your beverages, and your bingo cards, if you're so inclined. We can compare notes tomorrow. About that, there's no wondering at all.

Quick Takes (v52): Everybody's Talking

Quick Takes

We know, of course, that not all comments on social media are sincere; some are, certainly, but others are simply meant to anger, or to rile people up, or just to allow someone to be obnoxious.

Here in my neck of the woods, there's been a plan floated by a local businessman to paint Black Lives Matter, similar to how this has been done in DC and other cities, on a two-block section of one of the streets downtown. Currently, the plan is to paint the 'symbol of unity' on Friday, as part of the recognition of Juneteenth.  Local media pages are pushing the news, and the comments are about as one might expect.

Here's a sampling from a couple of different Facebook posts.

I love they are putting Blue Lives Matter all over everything glad (the) city is working with the police  Thank You!!!!!!

Amid COVID-19, they're still holding Juneteenth, but they take away Taste of Syracuse and other festivals because of this? Um okay.... Unfair, can anyone say that?  

 It's all about pressure, if you don't give in the the BLM they trash the place...again. 

Unfair

I don't endorse terrorist groups. 

 Will it be permanent or just part of the celebration? Many people use and prefer the term ALL LIVES MATTER so this isn't really a symbol of unity.

Only racist people use and prefer all lives matter.

Not even close to true.  A very racist and divisive statement. Please join us in the 21st century.

So, what you're saying is that ALL LIVES which includes black lives don't matter. Maybe you're racist.

I'm not 100% white and I believe all lives matter...matter of fact I come from a multicultural family... For people to continuously use the term 'white privilege' when one states their opinion and feelings that they believe every cultural background's lives are important, itself is a racist statement.

Well, until black lives matter, then all lives do not matter, unless you don't count black people as people.

Great choice, Syracuse! Absolutely the symbol of unity should be painted instead of BLM.

How equal is that pray tell as I see it it's one sided.

The media is taking all of this for a ride!!! 

How is this painting 'unity.' If it was unity it would be ALL lives matter. We all matter. One race. The human race! 

I would like to lay a couple strips of rubber across that saying.

 Proud to see this happening!

So glad to hear they will be painting the American flag.

Who's paying for this, the City?

Maybe the rest of us need to get together and pain on the roads and highways with all lives matter.

Who's symbol of unity is that? It symbolizes a further divide. 

 All lives matter regardless of color or occupation.

That's not unity. That is graffiti at best and endorsement of a terrorist group at worst.

BLM is a movement not a group.

It's nice to see this.

That needs to be paved over. 

Yup acid needs to be spilled on the street right there

Because painting the road solves all of life's problems. Ignorant!!!

Only paint what the woke want.

Sure let's bring segregation back. 

Give them paint to paint their houses!! Now there's something ambitious!

Why?

Because black lives matter just as much as white lives and cop lives.

And who is paying for this to be done? Taxpayers??

So, defacing the road is not criminal activity. I guess I'm going to paint on City Hall too. A big penis because they are allowing dick moves haha

They should use black paint.

This needs to end ASAP!!! Get the guards! 

How about a mural or painting for missing children next to it?

Does no one see this entire black lives matter  poor me movement hypocritical and racist? I guess it's do as I say and not as I do. 

But the road is already black. Blacktop matters.

Put it in front of Planned Parenthood .... that's where lots of black lives are taken

Every life matters so sick of all about black people. FYI 90% of black people. It's insane. It should be ALL Lives matter.

So ridiculous, everyone is too afraid to say this is wrong.

We better get this country back quick or it's gone. Stop pandering to the liberal Democrats. 

So, what do you think? Are these comments:

• Sincere
• Meant to rile people up
• Meant to make people angry
• Meant to be obnoxious

I'm curious; are others seeing these kinds of comments on similar posts? I'd love to know what it looks like where you are.

Wondering on Wednesday (v188)

Today's wondering begins not in the halls of Congress or anywhere else in DC, but in a Dallas courtroom where the NRA is suing its former ad agency, Ackerman McQueen (AMc). The whole thing is a mess, but here's a quick recap from the Daily Beast.

According to an Oct. 25 amended complaint filed in its ongoing lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen, NRA officials believed the short-lived TV outlet - which featured shows from right-wing stars like Dana Letch and Dan Bongino - "strayed from the Second Amendment to themes which some NRA leaders found distasteful and racist." 

You know, distasteful and racist like "a picture of cartoon character Thomas the Tank Engine wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood."  This whole thing is part of a big ugly fight between the gun rights group and AMc, and comes on the heels of the litany of scandals that the NRA has faced:

a ProPublica report alleging sexual harassment by a senior NRA staffer; vicious infighting among top executive; and reportedly out-of-control spending and debt fueled by legal fees, unpaid bills and expenses on lavish travel, clothing and makeup for LaPierre and his wife. 

So, what's to wonder about? Well, with the messy lawsuits, and if things in this August Mother Jones article are still true, and we continue to see polling showing  the majority of Americans  - including Republicans - favor universal background checks, red flag laws, and more, I'm wondering how long politicians will continue to fear the NRA at election time, and if they stop being afraid, will we be able to get these very popular measures passed and signed into law?

Turning now to San Francisco, we learn that Twitter will ban ALL political ads, beginning November 22nd.  The company's CEO, Jack Dorsey, tweeted the decision this afternoon, saying that "political message reach should be earned, not bought."  And, he offered some insight, including this:

For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want! 😉” 

We know that politicians have been suggesting that Facebook needs to verify the truth of an ad, or not accept it. We've all heard about Sen. Elizabeth Warren's fake ad, suggesting that the social media giant and its CEO had endorsed Donald Trump in 2020. Facebook accepted that ad. And, the Biden campaign had asked Facebook to take down lies or debunked statements pushed by the president regarding the Ukraine thing.

In response, Facebook said that "politicians are not allowed to share a previously debunked viral hoax in ads, but their direct speech was ineligible for fact-checking." And, Katie Harbath, Facebook's head of global elections policy, said

Our approach is grounded in Facebook's fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is. 

So, here's what I'm wondering:

• Should Facebook and Twitter and the rest of the social media companies be required to fact-check everything that's published on their platforms? 
• Should these companies be required to fact-check only ads and promotions, things they're paid to publish?
• Should the companies be allowed to left our speech - truth, lies and everything in between - flow freely without fact-checking any of it?
• And finally, why are these companies being treated differently from any other media platform -television and radio stations, newspapers and magazines, web-only news outlets, and so on, who aren't fact-checked at all, except by other media companies?

And finally, tonight, I'm wondering when the president and people in the media will stop referring to the summary memorandum of that beautiful phone call with Ukraine's President Zelensky as a 'transcript'?  It's happening all over again, because of the revelation that Lt. Col. Anthony Vindman, a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, said the 'reconstructed transcript' of the call was incomplete and that his efforts to have it corrected were rebuffed.

As a reminder, here is the disclaimer that appears on the so-called transcript:

CAUTION: a Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word "inaudible" is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear. 

I get why the president calls it a transcript - no need to wonder about that - but I don't get why reporters are more careful when describing a document that expressly states it's not what they say it is.

I mean, if they're not careful, Facebook will start fact-checking them.

Sunday School 3/10/19

I wandered around three classrooms this morning. I'm not sure exactly what I was looking for, so I'm not exactly sure if I found it or not.

Let's start with Face the Nation and Ed O'Keefe's interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), one of the declared presidential candidates. He kicked things off with her recently announced plan to break up tech companies, asking her why it needs to be done. Her answer?

Because the giant tech companies right now area eating up little, tiny businesses, startups - and competing unfairly. 

The thing is, Warren says, the platform companies should not be competing with people who use their platforms, putting their items ahead of the competition in the search returns, and so on.

So what I'm saying is we've got to break these guys apart. You want to run a platform? That's fine, You don't get to run a whole bunch of the businesses as well. You want to run a business? That's fine. You don't get to run the platform. Think of it this way, it's like in baseball. You can be the umpire or you can own one of the teams, but you don't get to be the umpire and own the teams.

So Facebook would have to sell off Instagram, Amazon would have to sell off Whole Foods, and "all those little businesses that they're running, competing businesses. Yup."

O'Keefe asked who the federal government was to tell these companies they had to do this; Warren mentioned long-standing anti-trust laws.  But, she's not anti-market, she pointed out, she's pro-markets-that-work:

The way markets work is they have to have rules and they have to have a cop to enforce them. A market without rules is theft and I'm not in favor of theft, I'm in favor of markets that produce real competition. 

She talked about taxing the ultra rich, noting that the top 1/10th of 1% will pay about 3.4% of their total net wealth in taxes while the 99.9% will pay about 7.4% and that's not fair because (paraphrasing here) when all of their inherited wealth was actually being earned by their families way back in the day, they did it on the backs of the rest of us -- along the lines of Obama's "you didn't build that" but in a way that seemed to be less offensive, if not more accepted. We 99-per-centers educated all of those workers back then, and built the roads, bridges, and factories, and so

So what we're really saying is look, just put a little back in the kitty. This is what we're asking for. Pay a fair share, so the next kid has a chance to build something great and the kid after that and the kid after that. 

She also said if anyone labels her as a socialist, "it's just wrong."

Who Cares if Nothing is Real?

The more extreme we become, the more people believe it. 

In this enlightening Washington Post article, we meet Christopher Blair, the author of the above statement; he lives in the woods in Maine, running the satirical Facebook page, America's Last Line of Defense. Even though the page makes it clear that it's satire (see the note below, one of the multiple disclaimers used), Blair's outlandish stories are liked and commented on over and over.

In that regard, they're treated in exactly the same manner that the president's tweets are -  liked and shared and commented on, over and over. The difference? The latter doesn't declare himself a satirist.

From the article:

In the last two years on his page, America's Last Line of Defense, Blair has made up stories about California instituting sharia, former president Bill Clinton becoming a serial killer, undocumented immigrants defacing Mount Rushmore, and former President Barack Obama dodging the Vietnam draft when he was 9. "Share if you're outraged!" his posts often read, and thousands of people on Facebook had clicked "like" and then "share,"most of whom did not recognize his posts as satire. Instead, Blair's page had become one of the most popular on Facebook among Trump-supporting conservatives over 55. 

With viewership spread to fake news sites with millions and millions of monthly visitors, according to the article, Blair was led to wonder how long it could go on.

No matter how racist, how bigoted, how offensive, how obviously fake we get, people keep coming back. Where is the edge? Is there ever a point where people realize they're being fed garbage and decide to return to reality?

Once, seeing a picture of Trump at a White House ceremony where two women - one black, one white - were behind the president, he circled the women and posted:

President Trump extended an olive branch and invited Michelle Obama and Chelsea Clinton. They thanked him by giving him the finger during the national anthem. Lock them up for treason! 

The women? Not Michelle and Chelsea - Omarosa and Hope Hicks. White House staffers, not bird-flippers (although, Omarosa did write that book...) 

Meanwhile,the article introduces us to Shirley Chapian, a 76-year-old living in Pahrump, Nevada who scrolls through her Facebook feed, liking and sharing posts she gets from right-leaning pages like Free Speech Patriots, Trump 2020 and Ban Islam, among others.

As I read about Chapian, what struck me is how easy it was to see her get sucked in. Many people believe "liberals were restricting free speech. Immigrants were storming the border and casting illegal votes. Politicians were scheming to take away everyone's guns." These are common themes, we know, from checking in on Fox News, Breitbart, and yes, the president himself, and from pretty consistent polling data, across multiple demographics.

As with Blair, the article gives us quite a big of background on Chapian, including that she wasn't a hard-core conservative until Barack Obama was elected, thinking him arrogant and inexperienced. And possibly a liar, and maybe he wasn't born here. That didn't jive with what she was seeing on the mainstream media, and she started seeking out alternative news sites to find out what she wasn't being told, ultimately following more than 2,500 conservative pages on Facebook. 

When she saw Blair's post about 'Michelle' and 'Chelsea'; it fit her opinion of the characters: Trump, a patriot, surely would invite the other two; Clinton and Obama -"demonrats" - would certainly act badly. She commented on the post, saying

Well, they never did have any class.  

Others commented too: the women were gross, and ill-bred trash; there were calls for putting them in jail (another nod to the power of the president's rhetoric). Blair's posted response to the comments was harsh, as were those of similarly-minded satire fans, who attacked Chapian and other believers. And that, really, was the point.

Beyond the money he earned, this was what Blair had conceived of as the purpose for his website: to engage directly with people who spread false or extremist stories and prove those stories were wrong. Maybe, after people had been publicly embarrassed, they would think more critically about what they shared online. Maybe they would begin to question the root of some of their ideas. 

I don't know if that's going to happen, though.  I know from personal experience that people - friends and family alike- fall for satire or fake news that's easily debunked literally as fast as you can Google the headline.

And, of course, our politicians (of both parties) and their champions - the satirists like Blair, the true believers like Alex Jones and others - share in this kind of nonsense, as if we're in some weird gang war with the goal of having an uninformed society that can be played with - and played - at will.

The article shows us how lies become the truth; the question is, how does the truth become the truth?

Wondering on Wednesday (v155)

Welcome, friends, to our regular wondering and wandering through the news. Here's a snipped of what's on my wondering mind.

Facebook is under fire again, this time facing grilling from an international panel that's frustrated with the social media behemoth for a host of reasons, including privacy issues, not being able to control misinformation and propaganda, and worse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not attend, which did not endear his company to the inquisitors - no wondering there.

But what I do wonder about is this: if you think Facebook has an obligation to protect us from ourselves and our inability to discern what's real from what's fake, what's intentional misinformation from what's an accidental share of something outdated, or from the general threat of interference in elections, who else should ace the same solution, whatever that might be? Would be be everyone below or to the left or right of the green box on the Media Bias Chart 4.0? Or would the yellow box get to stay  too, as long as it was heavily disclaimed?

And, as I've wondered before, who's more dangerous, a 400-pound guy in a basement, the Russian intelligence machine,  the Chinese government  picking pro-Trump industries for tariffs, or the president himself?  For example, here's just one of the president's many actions on Twitter today:

That's right - the president of the United States retweeted this picture today.  #MAGAMA, if you know what I mean.

Also today, NPR reported that enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans is down some 400,000 people in the first 17 days this year compared to last year. Also down this year? Spending by the feds on support for enrollees in the plans.  In 2016, $63 million was spent on funding for navigators, the people who help others, in person, find a plan and get enrolled. Last year, it was $36M, and this year? $10M.

Now, we can somewhat logically guess that some of the decrease in enrollment is because of the lower unemployment rate; after all, most of us get our insurance through our employers not through healthcare.gov, the federal exchange. But it's hard not wondering how much further the Trump administration will go to 'repeal' the ACA by continually drying up the funding. You know, like they  might do with the Mueller investigation...

Finally today, I can't help wondering whether the speech by Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, was driven at least in part by the president's treatment of Powell and not only by the collective thinking of the central bankers. From this article on The Street,

Prior to Powell's appearance, Donald Trump criticized him and the Fed in an interview with the Washington Post in which he accused the central bank of pushing US stocks lower and triggering a decision by General Motors Co. to shutter five plants in North America and two additional plants outside North America, and cut 15% of its salaried workforce. 

Trump  told the Post in an interview that he wasn't "even a little bit happy with my selection" of Powell to head the Federal Reserve, adding that the Fed's current stance on interest rates was "way off base." Trump's remarks followed a similar interview with The Wall Street Journal in which he accused the central bank of being a "bigger problem than China."

Now, maybe Powell is another Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, a guy who will continue to do his thing in spite of the obvious attempts at interference from his boss. But at the end of September, Powell suggested our low interest rates was no longer necessary, suggesting that rates would continue to rise in the near future. I don't pretend to understand this stuff, but the timing of this change, which delighted the market today, is interesting. 

And one thing we won't have to wonder about much is how soon the president will being tweeting about the stock market again.

There's more out there we could focus on -- what's on your list, I wonder?

Lies, Damn Lies, and Facebook

Back in July, when we were talking about Facebook and fake accounts and deleting pages and all that jazz, I asked this question:

Is it worse that we have fake accounts on social media promoting 'malign' influence' and divisiveness or that the American president does exactly the same thing on a daily basis?

In my mind, it's still valid. And we have some additional data to back it up. Check out this headline:

That's right: the folks at the Toronto Star have laboriously studied the words the president has tweeted, uttered and muttered, and has determined that, as of July,  5.1% of the time he talks, he lies. Seriously.

Here are some of the key points the study found:

That's a lot of dishonesty: Of all the words Trump said and tweeted as president as of July 1, 5.1% were part of a false claim. Expressed differently: Trump uttered a false word every 19.4 words.

Trump's dishonesty density is increasing: The issue isn't just that he's talking more these days. It's that what he's saying is less truthful.

Word count aside, his raw number of false claims has spiked: Trump made 2.9 false claims per day in 2017. He's made 5.1 false claims per day in 2018.

He is talking 20% more than he used to: Thought it's not the whole issue, some of the 2018 increase in false claims is indeed happening because Trump is speaking more.

It's a fun read, for sure; they include their methodology, sources and cool charts that show Trump ramping up the lying as time goes by.

Still, the Star's lie count is lower than some others. For example, the Washington Post's Fact Checker count is over 6,000 - through October 30, 2018.

I have no idea what the number would be now, given that we have the whole explosion of lies surrounding the mid-terms.

And Veterans Day, and the weather in Paris.

And his attacks on French President Macron. 

And his attacks on Robert Mueller.  

And of course his ridiculous lies about not knowing Mark Whitaker, the man he just appointed as the acting AG after Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was forced to resign. 

And his attack on California as an entire town was destroyed by fire. 

And -- well, you get the drift, right?

So, I ask again, what's worse? Facebook not protecting people from themselves, and folks at the company acting badly towards each other as the news about fake news broke, or the lying, rude, belligerent, childish person who was elected president of the US?  

If we are going to demand that tech companies do everything in their power to keep us from being exposed to fake news and influence and lies, we simply cannot allow the president to continue having unfettered access to the airwaves. 

Can we?

Choose Your Poison...

News came out today that Facebook has detected an influence operation, even as we are less than 100 days from the critical midterm elections. Activities of the operation "appeared to target divisive political issues," we're told.

The company identified the activity roughly two weeks ago as part of an ongoing investigation into election interference, its representatives said, and had removed eight Pages and 17 profiles from Facebook and seven accounts from Instagram that had been created between March 2017 and last May. Taken together, the accounts and Pages created more than 9,500 posts and more than 290,000 accounts had followed at least one of the pages, Facebook said. The pages ran 150 ads for $11,000 that were paid for in US and Canadian dollars. 

There seems to be some consensus that the Russians are behind it,at least from the politicians, although the investigation into the shenanigans is really just getting started. Intelligence officials hopefully will do their part to formally identify the bad actors. Per the article, Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the National Security Council, noted

We applaud efforts by our private sector partners to combat an array of threats that occur in cyber space, including malign influence. NSC staff leads the regular and continuous coordination of the whole-of-government approach to addressing foreign malign influence and ensuring election safety.

At least some of the Pages and profiles appeared to be designed to get 'resistes' all riled up, by scheduling events like a counter-protest to a Unite the Right rally in DC in a couple of weeks.

Can I ask a question?

Why do we ask so much of Facebook and other social media companies, but so little of Fox News, Breitbart, Infowars, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity and the like? I mention these particular actors because they are generally excluded from any definition of  'mainstream media' even though Fox and their flock of right-wingers are as mainstream as they come.

Can I ask another one?

Is it worse that we have fake accounts on social media promoting 'malign influence' and divisiveness or that the American president does exactly the same thing on a daily basis?

TGIF 7/27/18

What kind of week did you have? Was it better or worse than these folks?

How about that Michael Cohen, the president's 'fixer', the deal maker's deal maker?  It seems like just a short while ago that Rudy Giuliani was saying Michael Cohen was an honest, honorable lawyer and yet, last night during an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN, the messer-upper (Rudy) was now contending that Cohen has been a liar from the beginning, lies all the time, which lie can you believe, and so on. And I thought, wow - when the lying president's lying lawyer calls you a liar, that's a pretty bad week, right?

Who else had a bad week?  Mark Zuckerberg and anyone who owns Facebook stock, and anyone who owns Twitter stock, and maybe anyone who owns any other social media stock  Yesterday, Facebook took a huge hit, and in two days its stock has dropped around 20%. Today, Twitter took a huge hit as well, dropping in similar fashion. Both companies have been trying to address bad actors, purging fake accounts, and the like, and also dropping 'real' or 'active' users or at least not growing as fast as investors would like. Facebook faced some particular wrath lately due to its decision not to ban holocaust deniers from the platform. Sure, they're wrong and history deniers and all that, but we have to learn from them and teach them what's right and we can't do that if we shut them down or something. Infowars was another beneficiary of that thinking.

On the good week side of things, there was happy baby news from the Animal Adventure Park, outside of Binghamton, NY: Internet star April the Giraffe and her zoo mate Oliver are expecting another baby in the spring!. Folks will recall the frenzy when the park streamed live footage of April pretty much doing nothing except eating, and sleeping, and eating, and sleeping, for what seemed like weeks on end last spring, with all of the excitement culminating in the birth of baby Tajiri. We're set to go through all of that again early next spring, although owner Jordan Patch noted that while the average or normal gestation period for giraffes is around 15 months, April likes to go longer.

Rod Rosenstein could have ended up on the short end of the stick this week, after the House Freedom Caucus decided to file a resolution of impeachment against him - but that was foiled when lame duck House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated he was not supportive of their shenanigans. The HFC gang decided to table their request and instead will maybe give Rosenstein a contempt of Congress citation if he doesn't start playing better in the sandbox with them.

TGIF, everyone.

Wondering on Wednesday (v129)

I have a day job and so was not able to watch either of the two days of testimony from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to House and Senate committees. I did hear that his personal information was compromised, as was that of 86,999,999 other people, and that he got into a spat with Lyin' Ted Cruz about Chik-Fil-A Appreciation Day and bias against conservatives or something.

I did wonder about a couple of questions he got from Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). First, Durbin asked if Zuckerberg would be comfortable sharing what hotel he stayed in, and then he asked if Zuckerberg would share the names of anyone he had messaged that week. In both cases the answer was 'no' with varying degrees of discomfort, Zuckerberg sensing as he must have been the presumed trap he was walking into. AHA! people thought: the exchange proved everyone's point that Facebook overshares!

I didn't see it that way; Zuckerberg did not intend to share where he stayed the previous night, nor did he have any intention of sharing who he messaged - so, in effect, he set his privacy settings to 'friends only.' Just like you can do on Facebook, and should do, if you're paying attention. Congressmen are forgetting that so much information that can be gathered from Facebook is put there - on purpose - which is nothing like asking a random stranger where he spent the night.

There were also questions about political ads and disclosing who is behind them, to show transparency and protect us from bad guys. I wondered if Zuckerberg wanted to say he'd go for the same level of disclosure that Congress allows on ads that support them, but I think even if he had an inkling to, he was surely well counseled to not go there.

Another thing I thought was interesting was the level of concern these politicians have for privacy, something over which people can actually exert some control, compared to pols' apparent lack of concern over, say, clean air or clean water?  Everyone has issues with the costs of environmental regulations, and ensuring multi-billion dollar profits quarter after quarter after quarter for companies in that space. Everyone has issues with the costs of regulation on financial firms, and particularly now, no one's complaining about quarter after quarter billion dollar profits - so, why are they so concerned about Facebook and the company's profits, I wonder?

Moving on, House Speaker Paul Ryan has announced his retirement from politics - not just from the House, but from ever seeing himself run for office in the future. I wonder, will anyone hold him to that? His wife, maybe?

Ryan says he's leaving because his kids are going to only know him from the weekends, and he doesn't want that. Others say he's leaving because, well, he got his tax deal and now's as good a time as any. Or that he sees the handwriting on the wall and the House is going to fall, in the fall, so screw it all and go back to Janesville. Or that he's sick of dealing with Trump and he's not loyal enough to the orange-haired one, and loyalty is all that matters.

I could do a whole post on Ryan, and I might do that, but right now, I'm wondering about a tweet the president sent. Take a look:

Is it too much to wonder, to wish for, that Trump's "We are with you Paul!" comment means that Trump won't run in 2010?  

Nah. That's just silly stuff, not wonderful stuff. 

Sunday School 4/8/18

I managed to catch a few classrooms today, paying attention to the group discussions where everyone gets to chime in, instead of focusing on the one-on-one interviews with oh so many of the usual suspects.

Topic one? Facebook, as Mr. Zuckerberg goes to Washington. The social media giant's founder and CEO is set to testify before the House and Senate this week, to talk about privacy and Cambridge Analytica and privacy and privacy, and likely, regulations. How did the gangs talk about it?

On Meet the Press (MTP), the general thinking was that Zuckerberg should have apologized earlier - immediately after the Cambridge Analytica story came out, before the news that it wasn't 50 millions users, maybe it was 87 million users. Maybe it's a trillion users, who knows. And we were reminded that this over-sharing actually started a few years ago. One reporter mentioned that sources will only talk face-to-face, won't put anything in writing anymore, harkening back to Watergate days and parking garages. That got a chuckle.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos (TWwGS), where again Martha Raddatz was sitting in, one of the folks suggested that Zuckerberg was going into a 'Congressional gauntlet' (compared to MTP's 'ambush' language) and that being supportive of regulations calling for more transparency in political ads, for example, was good but was not going to be nearly enough to protect him from the wrath of a bunch of people who,in my opinion probably don't really have a good understanding of Facebook.

Topic two? Trade and tariffs. On Face the Nation (FTN) over on CBS, Margaret Brennan's group suggested we'd not see a revised NAFTA deal before or during Trump's visit to South America for the Summit of the Americas, noting that the president's incendiary tweets and border moves don't help, nor do his aluminum and steel tariffs or the many others he's threatening. And, surrounding himself with conflicting pro- and anti-NAFTA voices plays to how Trump likes things, but hurts our policy decisions. One noted that Trump, at his core, is a protectionist and NAFTA may not survive as a result. The stock market swings, which are driving everyone nuts, stem more from uncertainty than any single move Trump is making. And of course, you'll recall that uncertainty was a dirty word to Republicans throughout the Obama administration.

Topic three? Embattled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, he of the 50 bucks a night rental in DC, and the travel, and the phone booth, and the raises, and so on. The group at Fox News Sunday had mixed opinions. On the one hand, we were told, there's this giant double standard because Obama's people did the same thing, spending money on travel, and besides his policies are what people wanted, so let's tell the president to stay away from Pruitt. This thought was echoed by folks on FTN, who noted that with the mid-term elections coming up, now is not the time to keep Republicans in Washington trying to fill Cabinet positions.

Back to Fox, the point was also made that if Trump is all about draining the swamp, keeping Pruitt is the wrong thing to do, whether he's right from a policy perspective or not. On ABC, the comparison was made to how Christian evangelicals were willing to overlook Trump's bad behavior because they like his policies. It was also noted that, as EPA rules don't change that often or quickly, pretty much anyone could implement the policy changes that Pruitt is making, while having none of the ethical issues.

All of this sort of leads us to topic four: Trump's personal General John Kelly. According to some reports, which Trump denies as being fake news, Kelly is ready to go, has offered to go, has threatened to go. Kelly has two jobs, we're told on TWwGS: keeping an eye on Trump and keeping an eye on the Cabinet. Both roles may be shrinking; Kelly did take Jared's security clearance away, and if he's truly told Trump to get rid of Pruitt and/or told Pruitt to behave, neither is having any impact.

This was echoed by Brennan's group, and one even suggested that Pruitt would replace Kelly as Chief, instead of replacing Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as Attorney General. And, we're told, Kelly's not being invited to meetings, his team seems more willing to speak out, and so on - so maybe Kelly will be the next one to go?

Finally, a little extra credit. One guest on FTN suggested that the reason he sleeps so well at night is because he doesn't follow Trump's tweets as closely as do many others.

See you around campus.

Wondering on Wednesday (v126)

OK, wonder-lusters, let's get to it.

If you're a Facebook user, do you know you can manage your privacy settings?

When Facebook sends you those little messages reminding you to check your privacy settings often, and how to do that, I wonder if you've ever looked to see what's what?

And if you're a Facebook user who has never, ever, ever paid attention to privacy, is there a reason why you haven't?

Do you use apps on Facebook? What about those ubiquitous quizzes? Have you ever looked at the screen right after you click on "Continue with Facebook" where it allows you to check the app's Privacy Policy and to review what you're about to share? Below is an example of the screen you might be just clicking right through.

"What's your St. Patrick's Day Nickname?" is one that was making the rounds last week. Several of my friends and acquaintances on Facebook did that one, and I wonder if any of them took steps to protect their privacy?

If you're wondering the point here, it's all this stuff about Facebook not protecting our personal data, which of course has been all over the news - including the recent stretch when the company suffered a reported $50B loss in market value.

Now, I get that we want 'them' - Mark Zuckerberg and his coders and techies and security people and his advertising contract writers and lawyers and all -  to do something to protect us, and I agree they have some responsibility here - there's no doubt about that. I wish, for example, that everything on Facebook was an 'opt in to share' default rather than an 'opt out to not share' - if that were the case, the social media giant would be protecting us even if we're not interested enough, or savvy enough, or mindful enough to protect ourselves.

But I can't  help wondering why we are so quick to ignore the phone if we don't recognize the number, but we fall so willingly into divulging our pet's names, or the name of our childhood best friend or our first car, or our high school mascot and on and on and on, especially when we should know that many of those same bits of information are used on our favorite websites to protect us? You know, those security questions?  Um hmm.

And, to be honest, I also can't help wondering what's going to happen as the two (so far) class action suits - one on behalf of investors, one on behalf of users - start winding their way through the process.  Facebook as we know it might end up looking very different.

And if it does, you can be sure there will still be ways for users to protect their privacy, and millions of users who don't.

As we learn more about Cambridge Analytica, the data-mining firm that bragged about helping get Donald Trump elected, and that stole (used?) the personal information of 50 million Facebook users, I have one more question:  I wonder who you think we should really worry about more?

• data-miners who pick and choose who to try and influence on social media, and then target ads and fake stories made to look real to their chosen users, or
• the lying liar in the White House, his ethically-challenged, security-challenged, less-than-forthcoming staff, and everyone else who is associated with him, including those Republicans who have thrown their ethics, self-respect, and even their long-standing policy positions out the window in order to stay in his good favor?

Wondering on Wednesday (v118)

Here we go again, everyone - it's Wednesday!

Buffalo Congressman Chris Collins was one of the earliest supporters of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, and he has continued to be a staunch defender of Trump as president. On Tuesday, Collins was on CNN's 'Cuomo Prime Time' broadcast, talking about the warm fuzzy president that we're supposed to recognize when we see him (full disclosure: I'm really bad at picking him out of a crowd even a crowd of one).

Here's the Congressman's take on what happened at the meeting where Trump's um, colorful comment drew so much attention:

It's disappointing that anyone would leave a private meeting and politicize that, and certainly a lot of that language was denied. All I know is this is a president who is not a racist, who cares about the young people who are here now, who have lived here most of their lives. He will be generous and compassionate with them, but he needs what he needs on the border wall, on border security. That's a reasonable compromise.

So, now that it's officially the day of Wondering, I can't help wondering why it is that every Republican who has commented on this whole debacle, Collins included, has managed to completely conflate DACA with shitholian nations such as Haiti and the African continent? And I wonder how on earth can we rely on our elected officials if they don't even know that our southern border separates us from Mexico, not Africa? And, staying with the Republicans, shouldn't they be worried about the potential for a Bernie Sanders victory in 2020 if we let in all these Norwegians we should be coveting? What are they thinking, I wonder?

We've learned, with this president, that the most important thing on his mind, or the position that's the most important one he has is whatever was said by the last person he talked to, Hence, Norway was the anti-shitholian comparison.  Given how many world leaders Trump has talked to - you know, all those ones he 'respects' -  in his first year in office, it's hard not to wonder how much worse this could have been.

The president tweeted on the stroke of 8 PM the winners of the Fake News Awards. Here's the celebratory tweet, in case you missed it. 

Note that to get to the list of winners, you don't get them from the White House website, you get them from the GOP website. I wonder about that right off the bat. Are these the president's awards, or the Republican party's awards?  Whose fake news is this, anyway?

I should tell you I certainly tried to see if there were any red carpet pictures -- what's an award show without those, right? -- and I certainly tried to see who the winners were, but that's all on hold until the website gets up and running,it seems (cue the ketchup commercial), although I did see an unconfirmed tweet about CNN winning some...

One more wondering before I go.  Facebook is in hot water these days, as some tech folks called them out for not doing enough to keep us safe from those pesky Russians pushing their fake news false narratives pro-Trump and/or anti-Clinton news stories. Seems these folks thought that more could have been done, especially since the 'screeners' who reviewed reported accounts and posts were not instructed to look for stuff that was fake and pull it down.

Speaking from experience, I know that it can be hard to convince the reviewers to take stuff down (in my case, it was a porn thing not a political thing), so I get there could be some frustration. 

But here's the thing that has me wondering: what difference does it make, at this point, if the fake stuff that was posted to try and influence our election came from a Russian bot or from an American in the Russian River Valley wine region in California, or having dinner in the Russian Tea Room, or from an American sitting in a corner dive having a white Russian?

Is a Russian bot more of a threat to us than we are to ourselves?  Just wondering...