Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursday.
TRUMP SUPPOSEDLY REACHED DEAL WITH DEMS ON DACA, SUPPORTERS GO APESHIT
So, this one is weird. Last night, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer met with Donald Trump, and worked out a deal on DACA and not building a physical wall.
This morning on Twitter, Trump then delivered this message to his followers, pissing off the racists and pundits.
Then, he repeats his “bad people on both sides” to try to keep the racists happy.
NYT REPORTS ON THE TRUMP/SESSIONS FALLOUT
The New York Times released the story of how Trump found out about Robert Mueller’s appointment as Special Counselor, and how he verbally attacked Jeff Sessions on the spot. It was so bad that the Keebler Nazi offered his resignation. Pence, Bannon, and Preibus talked Trump out of accepting it.
TRUMP ETHICS OFFICE SAYS ITS OKAY TO GIVE ANONYMOUS GIFTS
According to Talking Points Memo Trump’s “Ethics Office” says that he’s allowed to receive anonymous gifts to pay for his legal fund.
How else is Putin supposed to pay Trump’s lawyers when he won’t?
MINING LOBBYISTS HOLD EVENT AT TRUMP HOTEL FOLLOWING GIVEAWAYS TO THEIR INDUSTRY
Now we’re at the open bribery part of the day. The Intercept reports that a major coal mining lobby held an event at a Trump hotel, right after the government gave concessions to their industry.
MNUCHIN USES GOVERNMENT JET ON HONEYMOON
Even more corruption. WaPo at it again. Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of Treasury and formerly of Goldman Sachs, responsible for leading this country into the Great Recession, ordered a government jet to take his trophy wife on their honeymoon.
FACEBOOK ALLOWED ADS FOR JEW HATERS AND OTHER ANTISEMITE CATEGORIES
From ProPublica today, a report on how, until the story was written and published, Facebook had multiple antisemitic advertising categories available for targeting ads to people and groups.
Here’s how it worked: on Facebook, they gather data on what people like, where they work, where they live, and so on. So, if I’m selling software to help writers publish a book on Amazon, I’d target people that have “writer” or synonyms as their career. Some people, instead of putting “writer” or “IT Professional” as their career, they might put “Jew Hater” or “Nazi”.
Because a couple thousand people put “Jew Hater” as their occupation, it crossed a minimum threshold to show up in the advertising database. When that happened, Facebook scanned those profiles and looked for keywords they might have in common, and created an associated wordcloud. Someone who is a “Jew Hater” also likes Nazis and guns.
That process is likely automated, with next to no human intervention. This is their excuse, and I can buy it. This is low-level code work that can be set up quickly, likely with some SQL pulling data from database to another. And they most likely have filters in there that just need a little tweaking. To FB’s credit, they did tweak the filters, and as of now, you can’t sell ads to “Jew Hater.”
HRC ON RACHEL MADDOW
Hilary Clinton is straight spitting fire. This is what we could have, and should have had. When a politician is no longer running for office, they develop a refreshing attitude. Hilary has that attitude now.
She mentioned quite a few things about Facebook and Twitter, but the piece that hit me the most was when she mentioned that if she was being attacked from the left, she didn’t know if it was a Russian, a bot, or an American.
That’s it for tonight. I hope to get some new articles this weekend. Might War Game a little.
Thank you, and have a good one.
None of this is Normal 
You have missed your calling, my friend!
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