Unsocial Media

The Facebook Chronicles:  Last week despite Facebook’s initial claims that they hadn’t sold ads to any Russian entities or bots, an internal review revealed that fake accounts, likely run from Russia, placed $100,000 of ads on Facebook that were then pushed out to millions of targeted “swing” voters. Facebook presented some of this information to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees but did not provide much detail and wouldn’t leave any copies of their presentation material, leaving committee members frustrated by their lack of transparency.  It turns out that Facebook has been cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller, providing his investigators with copies of ads and explaining how they were targeted and who bought them.  Pursuant to their interpretation of applicable law and as a matter of company policy Facebook will only provide such detailed information in response to a warrant.  Apparently, Mueller obtained such a warrant and is now focusing on the weaponization of social media during the election.  In addition to Facebook, he is also looking at Twitter, another source of questionable content.  So far there is no evidence that Google is involved in this investigation, however Google and Facebook are now facing criticism for allowing advertisers to direct ads to users who express an interest in “racist sentiment and hate speech.”  Advertisers get to target Jew Haters and people who use the “N word.”  So much for the advent of social media.  

DACA Tick Tock:  There’s been a lot of back and forth about a DACA solution ever since Trump had his dinner with Chuck and Nancy.  He’s hemmed and hawed with a series of comments about border security, the wall and the prohibition of chain migration, i.e. family reunification, while the most anti-immigrant members of his base, right wing pundits and some xenophobic members of Congress have expressed their fury with any DACA legislation.  For their part Democrats continue to insist that they want clean legislation that doesn’t include border wall funding.  With all this noise in the background, House Speaker Ryan has  put together a working group including various factions of his party to come up with some form of compromise DACA legislation. To pass legislation Ryan only needs around 25 Republican votes to add on to Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic bloc but his task is complicated by the Hastert Rule, an informal Republican governing principle that requires a “majority of the majority” to pass legislation.  Ryan can opt to ignore the rule, but doing so will make his standing with his more conservative colleagues even more perilous.  Like Healthcare and Tax Reform, passing immigration legislation is complicated.  While Ryan dithers, DACA kids with military aspirations have been told that their enlistments are being put on hold.  The DACA kids join the military’s transgender population, another group that’s in limbo.  They’ve been told that they are fine at least until February at which time Defense Secretary Mattis’ policy review will be completed.        

Obamacare Repeal:  It’s back, the Obamacare repeal is once again rearing its ugly head.  Senators Graham and Cassidy claim that they are closing in on having enough votes to pass their plan through the Senate. The so-called Graham-Cassidy plan replaces Obamacare with block grants, reducing allocations to the mostly “blue” states that participated in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion and upping allocations to “red” states.  Their plan reduces overall spending and likely dramatically reduces the number of people who are insured much the way earlier Senate iterations did. With the plan gaining traction, Senate Majority Leader McConnell has requested that budget office scorers give it priority over the other legislation on their lengthy to do list so that a score can be released ASAP.   Graham and Cassidy’s assertions that they can muster fifty votes may be overly optimistic.  Senator Paul says that he’ll vote no because the plan retains the Obamacare taxes he wants repealed.  No word yet from Senators Murkowski, Collins or McCain, the Senators who sunk the last attempt at Obamacare repeal but Trump is frothing at the mouth over the possibility of getting healthcare done and McConnell would love to prove that he can actually pass legislation in order to put a crimp in Trump’s relationship with his new BFFs Chuck and Nancy.  This chapter of Obamacare repeal/replace won’t be over until September 30, the deadline for passage of healthcare by reconciliation.   

Tweet Bombing London:  Yesterday after a terrorist bomb was detonated in London’s subway, injuring at least 29 people, Trump launched into one of his tweet storms.  He used the attack to call for a “far larger, tougher and more specific” travel ban and then went on to assert that the London assailant had been known to Scotland Yard, infuriating British Prime Minister May.  Either Trump was making up his assertion, heard it on Fox or was privy to confidential information that was not his to share, either way his tweet was inappropriate at a time when tea and sympathy would have been more welcome.  It’s also hard to miss the irony that Trump who failed to react to this summer’s Minnesota Mosque bombing because he was “waiting to gather all the facts,” was quick to get out ahead of this attack.  

North Korea Festers:  Security Advisor McMaster and UN Ambassador Haley attended Friday’s White House press conference to discuss North Korea’s most recent missile launch and talk about next week’s United Nations General Assembly Meetings.  Providing more evidence that US communication strategy isn’t well coordinated, Haley distanced herself from Secretary of State Tillerson’s earlier call for even more sanctions by saying that the most recent round of sanctions against North Korea are only now going into effect and that they will “strangle their economic situation.” She also said that it’s important to push through “as many of the diplomatic options that we have” but that she has “no problem kicking it” to Defense Secretary General Mattis because he has “plenty of options,” none of them good.  McMaster then added that there are “strong military consequences if North Korea initiates hostilities.” Trump, McMaster, Tillerson and Haley will be joining other world leaders at the UN meetings. Trump will be making his first address to the UN General Assembly, his speech is expected to address peace, sovereignty, accountability, prosperity and shared responsibility and anything else he decides to throw in when he goes off script. He will also have a series of “speed dates” with other world leaders but won’t be seeing China’s Xi or Russia’s Putin who have decided to skip the UN meetings this year. Trump meeting with a series of world leaders, what could go wrong?    

Trump Takes on ESPN:  Apparently it was okay for Trump to call Obama a racist and repeatedly insist that he was born in Kenya when starring in NBC’s The Apprentice, but it’s a fireable offense for ESPN SportsCenter commentator Jamele Hill to call him a “white supremacist who surrounds himself with white supremacists” on her twitter account. Hill who also posted “The First White President,” a recent Atlantic article critical of Trump’s racial politics on her Facebook page subsequently apologized for publicly airing her views about Trump, an apology accepted by ESPN, but that’s not enough for Trump or his mouthpiece, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Trump tweet attacked both ESPN and Hill and Huckabee Sanders said that Hill should be fired citing ESPN’s firing of Curt Schilling as justification for her view.  For the record Schilling was fired because he continued to make inappropriate remarks after ignoring repeated warnings from his ESPN bosses.  Late Friday ESPN management sent an email to its employees reminding them that their personal tweets should refrain from inflammatory remarks.  At least for now, despite Trump and Sanders’ best efforts, Hill remains a SportsCenter commentator and Trump still thinks there are “fine people” on both sides.