Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

Not Surprised ...



Over the past two weeks, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals and three companies for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. The spotlight fell on one company, the Internet Research Agency and its so-called Russian trolls, who wrote fake news articles, impersonated Americans on social media and worked to manipulated people to promote certain agendas.

Now, a band of computational social scientists at the University of Southern California has measured the influence of those faceless trolls and bots in the Twitterverse.

They report in an early-release study that American conservatives shared tweets and content from Russian trolls about 30 times more often than liberals right before the 2016 election.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The disinformation tools used by Moscow against the West are still fairly basic: They rely on exploiting human gullibility, vulnerabilities in the social media ecosystem, and lack of awareness among the public, the media, and policymakers. In the very near term, however, technological advancements in artificial intelligence and cyber capabilities will open opportunities for malicious actors to undermine democracies more covertly and effectively than what we have seen so far. Increasingly sophisticated cybertools, tested primarily in Ukraine, have already infected Western systems, as evidenced by the DHS-FBI report. An all-out attack on Western critical infrastructure seems inevitable.

...

The next Russian attack on the U.S. could be massive in scope and debilitating in its effects. It will make social media bots and trolls look benign by comparison. It could be as straightforward and easily traced back to Russia, or it could be far more ambitious. ...

Computational propaganda, or the “use of algorithms, automation, and human curation to purposely distribute misleading information over social media,” is also evolving. Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will enable malicious actors to spread disinformation faster and in a more targeted manner. Detecting automated accounts, often called “bots,” will also become more difficult as these accounts appear increasingly human—they will be able to adapt to human reactions, tailor messaging, and exploit human emotions. In a cyber attack, disinformation campaigns by human like users will be used to mislead the public about the nature and severity of the threat, magnifying the chaos and amplifying the damage.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

President Trump must face a defamation lawsuit by a former contestant on his reality TV show “The Apprentice” after a Manhattan judge ruled in a first-of-its kind decision that he could not claim immunity through his job as the nation’s commander-in-chief.

“No one is above the law,” Justice Jennifer Schecter wrote in the 19-page decision released Tuesday.

Trump had argued that presidents are shielded from civil litigation in state courts under the US Constitution’s supremacy clause, but that assertion had never been fully tested by the courts — until now.

“It is settled that the President of the United States has no immunity and is ‘subject to the laws’ for purely private acts,” Justice Schecter added.

The decision means that Summer Zervos, who in 2016 accused then-candidate Trump of groping and pressing his privates against her in 2007, can pursue her defamation case against the president for saying that her allegations were “fiction” and claiming she made them up for “personal gain.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

A former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with Donald J. Trump sued on Tuesday to be released from a 2016 legal agreement requiring her silence, becoming the second woman this month to challenge Trump allies’ efforts during the presidential campaign to bury stories about extramarital relationships.

(Read the complaint.)

The model, Karen McDougal, is suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, American Media Inc., which paid her $150,000 and whose chief executive is a friend of President Trump’s. The other woman, the adult entertainment star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, was paid $130,000 to stay quiet by the president’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. She filed suit earlier this month.

Both women, who argue that their contracts are invalid, are trying to get around clauses requiring them to resolve disputes in secretive arbitration proceedings rather than in open court. Mr. Trump has denied the affairs.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Here's Peters' full email to colleagues:

On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold:

First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you've shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don't often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.

Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to "support and defend the Constitution," and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin's agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the "nothing-burger" has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true--that's how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.

I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece--some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You're the grown-ups.

Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business..

So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president's favorite world leader would say, "Das vidanya."

 

[Michael Scally MD]

President Trump’s legal team reached out in recent days to Theodore B. Olson, one of the country’s most high-profile and seasoned litigators, to join forces amid mounting challenges in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

The overture came as Trump, feeling more vulnerable to the investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, has told confidants he wants to recruit top-tier talent and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-shakes-up-team-of-lawyers-as-legal-threats-mount/2018/03/19/fad71bb0-2ba1-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618_story.html?utm_term=.3466eed3c72f (shake up his group of lawyers), the people said.

But after reviewing the offer and weighing potential conflicts with his clients at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he is a partner, Olson is not planning to join Trump’s team, a top executive at the firm said Tuesday.

“I can confirm that [the firm] and Theodore B. Olson will not be representing Trump,” Theodore J. Boutrous, the global co-chair of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher litigation group, https://twitter.com/BoutrousTed/status/976142612183662592 (tweeted)on Monday following The Washington Post’s initial report.

Olson, 77, who served as solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration and has long been considered a legal superstar, would have brought deeper ties to the Justice Department and more experience on landmark cases than any of Trump’s current lawyers.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

A Trump project in Mumbai had its permits revoked after investigators found “significant irregularities.” Then Trump Jr. travelled to India to get the decision overruled.

Last month, Donald Trump Jr. visited India to https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/sen-menendez-probes-whether-us-officials-helped-trump-jr-on-speech-india-trip/2018/02/22/387ae5c1-bc69-415f-9176-fe6ad308d17f_story.html?utm_term=.32a7e0a4319d (tout new Trump properties). Full page ads in India’s top papers announced, “Trump has arrived. Have you?”

It wasn’t Trump Jr.’s first trip to India. “I’ve been coming to India for over a decade,” he said during his visit last month. “There’s an entrepreneurial spirit here … it needs no further explanation.”

This week on “Trump, Inc.,” we’re looking at the Trumps’ yearslong work in India, where corruption in the real estate industry is endemic.

We worked with Investigative Fund reporter Anjali Kamat, whose reporting on the Trumps’ business in India appears in the new issue of The New Republic.

As with many of the company’s deals abroad, the Trump Organization’s India projects are all licensing deals. Trump Jr. has been closely involved in much of the work.

The Trumps’ first India project, in Mumbai, was halted in early 2012 after investigators found significant “irregularities.” The investigators had been tipped off by a state lawmaker who suspected a $100 million fraud scheme and warned of “gross violations” in the project’s plans. Authorities revoked the building’s permits.

A few months later, in April 2012, Trump Jr. traveled to Mumbai and, along with partners, met with a top official there to try to get the project restarted.

 

[Michael Scally MD]