An important feature piece from The Observer has resurfaced recently. The story is written by Carole Cadwalladr, a Welsh feature writer. It was written nearly a year ago, May 2017, and was attempting at that point to connect the dots between what at first seemed disparate names and companies and events, yet all weirdly linked to: Brexit, the Trumpster’s election, Steve Bannon, the Mercers, Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, Peter Thiel, Aggregate IQ, Chris Wylie, SCL, Murdock, Facebook and, of course, Russia. The listing continues to grow. For instance, we just found out that McMaster will be replaced by John Bolton who has been running several SuperPacs that donated/paid no other than . . . Cambridge Analytica.

It’s a small, small world!

Just to give you a taste of the article:

There are three strands to this story. How the foundations of an authoritarian surveillance state are being laid in the US. How British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by a US billionaire. And how we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored. Whoever owns this data owns the future.

Even now, many of us are overwhelmed by the intricate network of nebulous names and connections; seemingly incongruent facts and an ever-increasing information overspill.

That was the design of the enterprise, not a bug, btw. Because what better way to evade awareness and/or detection?

The astounding thing is Cadwalladr’s article and detail was gathered, organized and written nearly a year ago and only now is the U.S. public slowly seeing the shape and character of the plot line: one of the most incredible, sophisticated assaults on the notion of democratic governance.

Personally, I have a sneaky suspicion that this whole messy assault was hatched by a bunch of plutocrats who thought they had the best idea on how we should be governed and they were quite willing to throw our Constitutional Republic overboard for their own selfish reasons, basically money and power. If they had to dirty their hands with mobsters or Russian-styled tyrants or Putin himself that was okay. Because the end justifies the means. As for the rest of us? Well, we’re the inferior rabble anyway, lucky to get what we scramble for, the crumbs off the royal table.

It’s pretty depressing to think people can be this arrogant and greedy, even treasonous. Then I think of the Trumpster and/or Steve Bannon and I just get angry and disgusted.

May they all rot in jail!

Btw, this article is on the lengthy side. May be something to invest in over the weekend. But I think the article is pretty informative and a year ago—when people were poo-poohing the idea of wrong-doing and yelling Sour Grapes—it was extraordinarily prescient in nature. As was another Brit writer whose name I won’t mention.


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

After being fed a steady diet of fairytales from the Trumpster--how he was going to bring back King Coal to tis glory days--the US Miners' Union is throwing its support and endorsement to two Dems for the 2018 election. Joe Manchin and Richard Ojeda get the nod for WVa's Senate and House spots respectively because the Union feels the two men will fight for those issues important to the coal mining community, as in protecting pensions and (I've read elsewhere) healthcare. There's been an uptick in Back Lung disease. So yeah, healthcare and decent benefits are important, life and death matters.The Union decided the Democrats are more likely to protect those benefits.

Plus, the GOP not immediately batting down a possible run by Blankenship, former Murray Mining CEO, a man who served a year in Federal Prison for gross negligence (willfully violated mining safety regulations) that led to the deaths of 29 miners is beyond disgusting.

People remember.

Ojeda has an interesting position on coal, well said and reasonable. He said he is for increased coal mining particularly for feeding steel furnaces but he also supports biofuels, wind and solar, energy sources of the future. The position reminds me of how Lamb thread the needle in PA and won.

Details can be read here:


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-coal-endorsements-exclus/exclusive-u-s-miners-union-to-endorse-two-more-democrats-in-coal-country-idUSKBN1GY1YM

Confused about all these different threads we're suddenly being exposed to--Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, Spectrum Health--and connecting the dots. I found this tweet thread pretty clear:

https://twitter.com/Tru7hS33kR/status/976079706549313536

We were attacked in 2016, even before that from the info coming in now. The attacks continue to this day. And the Trumpster et al are right in the middle of it.

Click on the tweet and drop down to the second entry, then show thread. It's all there in its gruesome glory.

And this is just the beginning of the revelations. Whoosh!

This isn't intended as a contentious reply to Ken's earlier thread, simply my take on the continuing squabble over who or what represents the Democratic Party. I took particular note of Conor Lamb's comments last night when he mentioned his grandfather, a FDR Dem who believed in the idea of a Government walking on the same side of the street as its people, helping to raise people up so that they could live out their lives with promise and dignity. Frankly, I don't give a shit where Lamb falls on the political spectrum. He won last night in a district that has been Red Hot for decades. He's a fellow Democrat and that's all that should matter. My thoughts on the matter below:

No one agrees on every issue because our candidates are not party zombies, anymore than we are. Democrats are known for our policy squabbles--the Party of Stray Cats.

But in November we need to put our cat yowling aside and support our fellow Democratic candidates. There's simply too much at stake, not simply for the Democratic Party but for the country at large. We'll win this thing by joining forces among ourselves, like-minded Independents and disgusted, Never-Trumper Republicans. We can see signs of the political shift everywhere.

Trumpism must be defeated at every corner, pulled out root and branch as McTurtle would say. The only way the GOP will wake up is if they're defeated soundly, massively, fiercely. We give them no quarter. The only way we preserve and protect the country is by a Blue Tsunami washing the rot away and neutering the Trumpster and his hateful sycophants. We do that with candidates tailored to the districts they'll be representing, in the manner that a Conor Lamb was able to speak and reach out to the people in his particular area. And by agreeing that any Democrat is better than any Republican.

I'd rather have someone who agrees with me 80% of the time as opposed to 0%. As Eliot said in an earlier thread: it's all about the Math, the number of rear ends we manage to seat so that Democrats have a real voice, the ability to vote in the interest of the country and the people they serve, to protect those principles we value: healthcare, reproductive issues, Medicare, Medicaid, climate change, energy, gun control, etc. Without a majority, we're severely limited, at best attempting to reduce the on-going damage.

The Trumpsters are a bunch of arsonists, burning down the House and putting us all in danger. Time to put out the damn fire. We can argue about the color of drapes once the fire is extinguished. Not now.