Pierce: Cambridge Analytica Is Not an Anomaly

[babylonsister]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19485380/cambridge-analytica-ukraine/

Cambridge Analytica Is Not an Anomaly
Ratf*cking is political tradition—just ask G. Gordon Liddy and Richard Nixon.
By Charles P. Pierce
Mar 19, 2018


A murder of crows.

An exaltation of larks.

A shrewdness of apes.

And now, a new collective noun, prompted by astounding undercover work done by Channel 4 in Great Britain.

A bannon of sleazebags.

In an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, the company’s chief executive Alexander Nix said the British firm secretly campaigns in elections across the world. This includes operating through a web of shadowy front companies, or by using sub-contractors. In one exchange, when asked about digging up material on political opponents, Mr Nix said they could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”. In another he said: “We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the Internet.”

This is the company that credits itself with putting the current president* in the White House. This is the second of a three-part series. The first part broke the news of how Cambridge Analytica grabbed 50 million Facebook profiles and used them to build a program to predict and influence electoral behavior in 2016. From The Guardian:

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 a Cambridge University academic 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 the entire company was built on.”

Meanwhile, Part Three is said to be about “the company’s work in the United States.” I can hardly contain myself.

snip//

There simply was nothing about the Trump campaign that wasn’t rotten at its core. The candidate himself and most of his advisers had a positive gift for finding the most rancid operatives available to do the most rancid kind of work. By the time the election rolled around, the whole Trump operation had rats in its brains and poisonous spiders in its blood. It produced not a presidency, but a wart-ridden golem of a presidency, wandering and staggering around the landscape with bits of its pestiferous flesh falling into the public prints every day. Good Christ, what has this country done?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. And let's add Roger Stone to the list.

He's an old ratfcker from the Nixon days.

Stone's political career began in earnest with activities such as contributing money to a possible rival of Nixon in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance—then slipping the receipt to the Manchester Union-Leader. He also got a spy hired by the Hubert Humphrey campaign who became Humphrey's driver. According to Stone, during the day he was officially a scheduler in the Nixon campaign, but "By night, I'm trafficking in the black arts. Nixon's people were obsessed with intelligence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone

[True Blue American]

7. Lee Atwater?

Apologized before he died young of cancer.

[Abu Pepe]

12. Even Nixon would consider him a traitor if he had

to see him sell out to the Kremlin. Nixon was a hardball realpolitik mover and shaker. Major asshole but erring on the side home team for better or worse - assaults on the Constitution were bad and real but Nixon undoubtedly considered this turd to be scum at the time but useful.
Nixon wouldnt coome near him today for the damage it might do to his reputation. tricky dick would see him as traitor.

[The Blue Flower]

2. "A bannon of sleazebags"

Charlie Pierce is a treasure.

[yonder]

9. yes, yes

A "bannon of sleazebags" is very good. I liked "wart-ridden golem of a presidency" as well.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. What a wonderful way with words! . . . . . nt

[erronis]

13. For POTUS - Puckered Orifice Trump (I'm leaving off the US since he doesn't represent us.)

While we try to relieve ourselves (sic) during these times, it would be wonderful to read the Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the North American Empire" from a few centuries out perspective. I think that most of what we consider important now will fade into a general sense of "lack of will".

[gademocrat7]

3. So very true.

[MrsCoffee]

4. They had to get rancid characters because they needed blackmail material on all of them.

[BigmanPigman]

5. "Rats in its brains and spiders in its blood...

wart-ridden golem of a presidency..." sounds like lyrics to You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch song from How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
I made this Christmas card and sent it to everyone two years in a row but then this year for some reason I was "unfriended" by a now former frIend who LOVES "our dear, innocent president who is viciously attacked by the fake news".

[erronis]

14. Please make a new card! I'll forward it to thousands who will celebrate Grimpus

That card is a real "piece of work". If you don't make a new one I'll just have to copy.

This has been such an incredible time in history. Perhaps as intense as when the french royalty were getting their heads chopped off. Or maybe the russian revolutionary period. Or when the true patriots of democracy got rid of an emperor-with-no-clothes.

[BigmanPigman]

16. I updated the date on the inside to say 2017

since I sent it out two years in a row since it was still a valid card/idea and he wasn't impeached by Festivus Time this past year. Here is the front of it. I do not know why my ex art school friend thought it was OK in 2016 but not 2017. It turns out that she drank the Kool Aid. I think I was really kind since my other ideas were a lot nastier.

[erronis]

17. Love it - will copy with your permission...

[BigmanPigman]

18. Go ahead. I already copyrighted it...

I was an illustrator. Just be ready to get unfriended as I was.

[octoberlib]

6. That stuff about G. Gordon Liddy is just nuts.

[FakeNoose]

8. Sure, even Hitler did it - but he only had to win once

[erronis]

15. That's the perfect image. It'll go out to a few RW friends -

That I don't expect to stay that way any more.

Good riddance.

[mcar]

10. K&R!