The Myth of Shareholder Primacy

perc.org.uk |  In the late 1960s, a young banker named Joel Stern was working on a project to transform corporate management. Stern’s hunch was that the stock market could help managers work out how their strategies were performing. Simply, if management was effective, demand for the firm’s stock would be high. A low price would imply bad management.

What sounds obvious now was revolutionary at the time. Until then profits were the key barometer of success. But profits were a crude measure and easy to manipulate. Financial markets, Stern felt, could provide a more precise measure of the value of management because they were based on more ‘objective’ processes, beyond the firm’s direct control. The value of shares, he believed, represented the market’s exact validation of management. Because of this, financial markets could help managers determine what was working and what was not.

In doing this, Stern laid the foundation for a ‘shareholder value’ management that put financial markets at the core of managerial strategy.

Stern would probably never have imagined that these ideas would 50 years later be castigated as a fundamental threat to the future of liberal capitalism. In recent times everyone from the Business Roundtable group of global corporations, to the Financial Times, to the British Labour Party has lined up to condemn the shareholder ideology.

“Fifty years of shareholder primacy,” wrote the Financial Times, “has fostered short-termism and created an environment of popular distrust of big business.”

It is not the first time Stern’s creation has come under fire. A decade ago Jack Welsh, former CEO of General Electric declared shareholder value “probably the dumbest idea in the world”. And 15 years before then, British political commentator Will Hutton, among others, found paperback fame with his book The State We’re In preaching much the same message.

To critics, the rise of shareholder value is a straightforward story, that has been told over and over again. Following a general crisis of postwar profitability in the late 1970s, corporate managers came under fire from disappointed shareholders complaining about declining returns. Shareholder revolts forced managers to put market capitalisation first. The rise of stock options to compensate corporate managers entrenched shareholder value by aligning the interests of managers and shareholders. 

Companies began sacrificing productive investments, environmental protections, and worker security to ensure shareholder returns were maximised. The fear of stock market verdicts on quarterly reports left them no choice.

This account fits a widespread belief that financiers and rentiers mangled the postwar golden era of capitalism. More importantly, it suggests a simple solution: liberate companies from the demands of shareholders. Freed from the short-term pursuit of delivering shareholder returns, companies could then return to long-term plans, productive investments, and higher wages.

Speaking of Preverts Epstein and Cover-Ups that Make No Sense...,

NationalReview |  James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, a group that has often infiltrated news organizations to uncover liberal bias, has released an explosive “hot mic” video of Good Morning America co-host Amy Robach venting about ABC’s decision to spike a story about Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious activities three years ago.

“I had this interview with [Epstein victim] Virginia Roberts,” Robach is seen saying in the video, “we would not put it on the air. The [British royal] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that we, that also quashed the story.”

Robach now claims, through a network statement, that she was caught “in a private moment” of frustration over the lack of progress on a story. “I was upset that an important interview I had conducted with Virginia Roberts didn’t air because I could not obtain sufficient corroborating evidence to meet ABC’s editorial standards about her allegations.”

Sorry, but Robach’s response to the firestorm doesn’t square with her initial comments, in which she states that “Roberts had pictures, she had everything . . . it was unbelievable what we had. [Bill] Clinton, we had everything.”

“Everything” sure sounds like sufficient corroborating evidence. Even if employing the most scrupulous journalistic standards, a giant news organization wouldn’t need three years to substantiate — or dismiss — a story with pictures, dates, and a credible witness.

We certainly know that ABC didn’t need “everything” — or much of anything, for that matter – when it was running scores of pieces online and on television, highlighting every risible accusation against then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Burisma was a Huge Issue for V.P. Joe Biden

johnsolomon |  In recent interviews, Joe Biden has distanced himself from his son’s work at a Ukrainian gas company that was under investigation during the Obama years, with the former vice president  suggesting he didn’t even know Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings.

There is plenty of evidence that conflicts with the former vice president’s account, including Hunter Biden’s own story that he discussed the company once with his famous father. 

There also was a December 2015 New York Times story that raised the question of whether Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma posed a conflict of interest for the vice president, especially when Joe Biden was leading the fight against Ukrainian corruption while Hunter Biden’s firm was under investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors.

But whatever the Biden family recollections, the Obama State Department clearly saw the Burisma Holdings investigation in the midst of the 2016 presidential election as a Joe Biden issue.

Memos newly released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on my behalf detail how State officials in June 2016 worked to prepare the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to handle a question about “Burisma and Hunter Biden.”

In multiple drafts of a question-and-answer memo prepared for Yovanovitch’s Senate confirmation hearing, the department’s Ukraine experts urged the incoming ambassador to stick to a simple answer.

“Do you have any comment on Hunter Biden, the Vice President’s son, serving on the board of Burisma, a major Ukrainian Gas Company?,” the draft Q&A asked.

The recommended answer for Yovanovitch: “For questions on Hunter Biden’s role in Burisma, I would refer you to Vice President Biden’s office.”

Former Russian Tapeworm Bill Browder Involved With Snuffing Assange Too?

consortiumnews |  “They put him into a straight-jacket, put him into an isolation room and waited outside the door for 1hr18 minutes until he died.”

 

He invented the beating death in 2011 when he decided to create and lobby for the Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Congress to stop Russian authorities from pursuing him for $100 million in evaded taxes and illicit stock buys.

Ironically, though he uses the U.S. to build a wall against Russian tax collectors, he gave up his American citizenship in 1998 to avoid paying taxes. He is listed by CBS News as a “tax expatriate.”

If you are serious lawyers and investigators, you will examine the evidence and respond. (And change your story.)

The rest of the op ed is to support unspecified steps to hold to account those who benefit from human rights abuses and corruption. No mention of the persecutors of Julian Assange or the beneficiaries of the U.K.’s worldwide system of tax havens. The real purpose appears to be to repeat the Browder hoax in the lead.

I sent copies of the article to Brandon and Bailin. No response.

I also sent a complaint to IPSO the British Independent Press Standards Organization.

It calls itself ” the independent regulator of most of the UK’s newspapers and magazines.” It says: We hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press.

Clauses breached
1 Accuracy
This op ed article is based on egregiously fake facts. See this story and the links for the evidence. I have sent it to the authors. They should retract the story. https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2019/10/london-times-runs-fake-browder-story-by-acolytes-ben-brandon-alex-bailin/

Why Pumpkinhead-Pencilneck Schiff So Smug?

spectator |  However many Ukraine whistleblowers there may or may not be, Cockburn’s source says that at least one of the (purported) seven has nothing to do with Ukraine at all. Instead, it’s claimed that this whistleblower reported a call between Trump and the Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. He or she is said to have had ‘concerns’ about what was said on the call about the president’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner. Kushner himself is known to have a very close relationship with MBS. Cockburn has previously written that Kushner may have been what Cosmo would call an ‘oversharer’ when it came to MBS. Unfortunately, it’s claimed that what he was sharing was American secrets: information Kushner had requested from the CIA would (allegedly) be echoed back in US intercepts of calls between members of the Saudi royal family. One source said this was why Kushner lost his intelligence clearances for a while.

According to Cockburn’s source about the seven whistleblowers, there’s more. It is that Kushner (allegedly) gave the green light to MBS to arrest the dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who was later murdered and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. A second source tells Cockburn that this is true and adds a crucial twist to the story. This source claims that Turkish intelligence obtained an intercept of the call between Kushner and MBS. And President Erdogan used it to get Trump to roll over and pull American troops out of northern Syria before the Turks invaded. A White House official has told the Daily Mail that this story is ‘false nonsense’. However, Cockburn hears that investigators for the House Intelligence Committee are looking into it. Who knows whether any of this is true…but Adam Schiff certainly seems to be smiling a lot these days.

Why the Deep State Must Kill Julian Assange

theconservativetreehouse |  According to recent reports U.S. Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr are spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election.  One recent quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state notes:

“One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services””. (Link)

It is interesting that quote comes from a British intelligence official, as there appears to be mounting evidence of an extensive CIA operation that likely involved U.K. intelligence services.  In addition, and as a direct outcome, there is an aspect to the CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control.  In this outline we will explain where corrupt U.S. and U.K. interests merge.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to CIA interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016.  It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok is clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.

By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}

In a similar fashion the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page.  Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn.  Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.

The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas.  This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier.

Does Eric Ciaramella Have a Husband? Is the Husband Mad?

redstate |  Eric Ciaramella, the alleged whistleblower, was a young man on a mission. This Ivy-league graduate, said to be fluent in Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic, a favorite among Obama Administration officials, was introduced to us by investigative reporter Paul Sperry on Thursday. Washington insiders, including the mainstream media, have known his identity for quite some time, and for obvious reasons, have remained silent. Even after Sperry outed him this week, we’re hearing crickets from those on the left. The conservative media, however, which understands that history is repeating itself, has gone into overdrive to expose the truth.

Here’s what we know about Eric Ciaramella (EC):

He submitted a whistleblower complaint on August 12th.

He is a registered Democrat.

He is a CIA analyst who specializes in Russia and Ukraine. He ran the Ukraine desk at the National Security Council (NSC) in 2016.

He was detailed over to the NSC in the summer of 2015 and worked for then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

He worked for former Vice President Joe Biden when he served as the Obama administration’s “point man” for Ukraine. He may have flown over to Ukraine with Biden on Air Force Two.

He worked for former CIA Director John Brennan and appeared to have been a highly valued employee.

In June 2017, then-National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster appointed EC to be his personal aide.

EC did not have direct knowledge of the July 25th conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It is very possible he learned about the call from NSC Director for European Affairs Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified last week before Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee.

EC contacted at least one of Schiff’s staff members prior to filing his complaint. Two of EC’s colleagues from the NSC were hired by Adam Schiff this year, one of whom, Sean Misko, was hired in August.

He was posted to the NSC in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 and “left amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.”

Work on your Own and with Your Friend Who is a Girl Before You Go to the Baile...,

addicted2salsa |  Download : How to find the beat in salsa music

 

Well, this episode has long been in the making. One of the hardest things I ever went through, and most dancers will go through in my salsa, is finding the beat in the music.

We all go through this problem, and with this part 1 of a multiple part series, I will try to do my best to help you practice on how to find the beat in salsa music. I will play some songs, do some counting and hopefully give you some tips on how to train your ear to listen and feel the clave of the salsa music.

Salsa

wikipedia |  Salsa is a popular form of social dance originating in Eastern Cuba^{[citation needed]}. The Salsa we hear now is said to be born in New York to a mixture of Afro Cuban folk dances with Jazz. Evidence shows that the “Salsa” sound was already developed in Cuba before being brought up to New York^{[citation needed]}. The movements of Salsa are a combination of the Afro-Cuban dances Son, cha-cha-cha, Mambo, Rumba, and the Danzón. The dance, along with salsa music,^[1][2][3] saw major development in the mid-1970s in New York.^[4] Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia, L.A. and New York styles. Salsa dance socials are commonly held in night clubs, bars, ballrooms, restaurants, and outside, especially when part of an outdoor festival. 

In many styles of salsa dancing, as a dancer shifts their weight by stepping, the upper body remains level and nearly unaffected by the weight changes. Weight shifts cause the hips to move. Arm and shoulder movements are also incorporated. Salsa generally uses music ranging from about 150 bpm (beats per minute) to around 250 bpm, although most dancing is done to music somewhere between 160–220 bpm. The basic Salsa dance rhythm consists of taking three steps for every four beats of music. The odd number of steps creates the syncopation inherent to Salsa dancing and ensures that it takes 8 beats of music to loop back to a new sequence of steps. 

Fania record label in the 60s, was the one that gave the name "Salsa" to this new blend of different influences, rhythms and styles of Latin music in New York City, especially in el Barrio, Spanish Harlem, and the Bronx. Salsa means sauce which represented son, guaguanco, son montuno, Jazz elements, Latin Jazz, Cuban influences. Prior to that time, each style was recognized in its pure original form and name. It evolved from forms such as Son, Son Montuno, cha cha cha, and Mambo which were popular in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Latino communities in New York since the 1940s. Salsa, like most music genres and dance styles, has gone through a lot of variation through the years and incorporated elements of other Afro-Caribbean dances such as Pachanga. Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia.  

La Pachanga

wikipedia |  Pachanga is a genre of music which is described as a mixture of son montuno and merengue and has an accompanying signature style of dance. This type of music has a festive, lively style and is marked by jocular, mischievous lyrics. Pachanga originated in Cuba in the 1950s and played an important role in the evolution of Caribbean style music as we know it today. Considered a prominent contributor to the eventual rise of Salsa, Pachanga itself is an offshoot of Charanga style music.^[1] Very similar in sound to Cha-Cha but with a notably stronger down-beat, Pachanga once experienced massive popularity all across the Caribbean and was brought to the United States by Cuban immigrants post World War II. This led to an explosion of Pachanga music in Cuban music clubs that influenced Latin culture in the United States for decades to come.

Charanga is a type of traditional ensemble that plays Cuban dance music (mostly Danzón, Danzonete, and Cha cha chá) using violin, flute, horns, drums. In Cuba in 1955, Los Papines fused the violin-based music of charanga with the trumpet-based music of conjuntos. Eduardo Davidson's La Pachanga was recorded in 1959 by Orquesta Sublime (which was in the USA). After Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, the epicenter of Cuban music moved to other islands and USA. José Fajardo brought the song La Pachanga to New York in the Cuban charanga style. The orquesta, or band, was referred to as charanga, while the accompanying dance was named the pachanga.^[3] The similar sound of the words charanga and pachanga has led to the fact that these two notions are often confused. In fact, charanga is a type of orchestration, while pachanga is a musical and dance genre.

 

We'll Soon Learn Eric Ciaramella Was Assigned to the Trump Task Force

sicsempertyrannis |  The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump Task Force, and given the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump.

This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.

A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project.  But it also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA. Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958.  The author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.

A Task Force operates independent of the CIA "Mission Centers" (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).

So what did John Brennan do? I am told by an knowledgeable source that Brennan created a Trump Task Force in early 2016. It was an invitation only Task Force. Specific case officers (i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin personnel were recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.

Chomsky: Impeachment Will Not Hurt Trump

theintercept |  MH: Let’s talk impeachment. The Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into President Trump specifically around this suggestion that he was pressuring a foreign country Ukraine to dig up dirt on his political opponent and even withholding military aid until they agreed to do so. Do you support the House Democrats’ decision to finally start an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump?

NC: First notice something, they’re going after Trump not on his major crimes but because he went after a leading Democrat. Does that remind you of anything? Yes. Watergate. They didn’t go after Nixon on his major crimes. They were off the record. It was because he had attacked the Democratic party. 

MH: Good point. 

NC: So yes, they’ll protect themselves. Is it the right thing to do? I mean, Trump is impeachable 100 times over. You know, he’s a major crook. There’s no doubt about it. Is it politically wise? I frankly doubt it. I think it’ll turn out pretty much like the Mueller report, which, that I thought was also a political mistake. What’ll happen is probably the House will impeach, goes to the Senate. The Republican senators are utterly craven. They’re terrified of Trump’s voting base. So they’ll vote to turn down the impeachment request. Trump will come along, say I’m vindicated. Say it was the Deep State and the treacherous Dems trying to overturn the election. Oh, vote for me. 

MH: I had the filmmaker Michael Moore on the show last week, and he thinks that eventually this evidence is going to pile up against Trump that’s so damning — and we’ve already seen some of the testimony from the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and others — that actually he thinks Republican senators, some of them who you know, who need to save their skins will join Senate Democrats to vote to remove Trump from office. You don’t seem to buy that?

NC: I think you may find a handful who will find a way to evade taking a position But if you just look at the record of the party — I gave you a couple of examples, but we could go on — it’s very hard to imagine any bit of principle emerging. It’s true that if some of them thought they were really going to suffer for it politically or in other ways, maybe they’d change, but that doesn’t seem too likely. I mean, just take a look at Trump’s voting base, you know, there are pretty regular polls and studies. They haven’t changed. They buy his line. Here’s our hero. The one man in the world who’s willing to stand up for us.

MH: Although whether it works or not in the Senate, it doesn’t mean the House Democrats shouldn’t take a stand regardless of whether Republican Senators convict. Can Trump be beaten at the ballot box next November? Is there a Democratic candidate who you think can beat him or more than one candidate?

NC: Well, here it’s very interesting to see what’s being done. You may have seen a day or two ago in the New York Times was a big article about a meeting of the Democratic centrists, the establishment, the billionaires, the donors, you know, the mainstream political figures. And it was about, their concern about just what you asked, is there a Democrat who can defeat Trump? And they went through the possible Democratic candidates and discussed their flaws, and then asked, can we bring in someone else like Bloomberg or Michelle Obama? Take a look at the leading candidates they listed: Warren, Biden and Mayor Pete. Do you notice somebody missing? 

MH: Senator Sanders doesn’t make the cut of these lists.

NC: There’s a very good reason for it. He has absolutely infuriated the liberal establishment by committing a major crime. It’s not his policies. His crime was to organize an ongoing political movement that doesn’t just show up at the polls every four years and push a button, but keeps working. That’s no good. The rabble is supposed to stay home. Their job is to watch not to participate.

"Arab Spring" in NYC? (Hollywood for Ugly People REALLY Pulling Out All the Stops Now)

dailymail |  Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of Brooklyn to demonstrate against the NYPD after a spate of violent arrests on the subway and over its plans to put more officers on the beat to catch anyone who skips paying the fare.  

The protesters started gathering in Downtown Brooklyn near Barclays Center at about 7pm Friday, with their signs reflecting the dual nature of the march. 

While flashier banners bore slogans such as 'Don't let these pigs touch us,' 'F**k the police,' 'Punch that cop' and 'NYPD out of MTA,' other signs read 'Free transit,' 'Poverty is not a crime' and 'Our subways need more $ for elevators, not for cops.' 

Their grievances stem from two issues. One, alleged police brutality against New Yorkers including a group of teenagers who officers were seen fighting with in a recent viral video. 

The other issue is that police have vowed to create 500 additional jobs specifically for officers to monitor the subway network and arrest anyone who jumps the barriers rather than pay the $2.75 fee. 

Over the last month. several videos have emerged of NYPD cops violently arresting seemingly nonviolent subway riders. 

One, which circulated last week, showed them pounding on the windows of a subway car, waiting for the doors to open, before rushing on board, tackling the man to the ground. It is unclear why he is wanted. He had his hands in the air for several minutes before they arrested him and bystanders say the officers drew their guns.  

Why I ain't see this covered in the Kansas City Star or more realistically, as an item in Go-ogle News?

Seriously..., How Can You Even Stand to Look at This Little Bug-Eyed Gimp?!?!?!

truthdig |  A huge national spotlight is now on Adam Schiff, the member of Congress leading the impeachment inquiry. In his tenth term, Schiff is really going places. But where is he coming from?

This year, as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he has relentlessly built a case against a horrendous president. For progressives eager to see Donald Trump impeached, Schiff is an enemy of their enemy. But whether he’s a friend is another matter.

“Schiff’s record on foreign policy, civil liberties, human rights and other key issues has often put him more in line with Republicans than with liberal Democrats,” international affairs scholar Stephen Zunes told me. “It is ironic, therefore, that Trump and the Republicans are portraying him as some kind of left-winger.”

For a backstory perspective on Schiff, I contacted a progressive activist who has been closely tracking his political career for two decades. Howie Klein, the publisher and editor of DownWithTyranny.com, lives in Schiff’s congressional district in the Los Angeles area. They met when Schiff was a state senator running for Congress in 1990 against a Republican incumbent.

“I was all gung-ho and raised a lot of money for him from my music industry colleagues,” Klein told me. “I didn’t understand at the time that although he was a Democrat, he was a conservative Democrat. There were a couple of hints during the campaign, but it wasn’t until he was elected and joined the Blue Dogs and started voting that I realized that we had traded a right-wing Republican for a GOP-light Democrat.”

Please Stay Woke to What the "Impeachment Inquiry" is Really All About

unz |  Cohen observes in his latest conversation with John Batchelor that the so-called Impeachment inquiry, whether formal or informal, will make the new Cold War even worse and more dangerous than it already is, noting that an inflection point has been reached, because at the core of these allegations—most of which are undocumented and a substantial number of which are untrue— revolving around Russiagate and now Ukrainegate is an underlying demonization of Russia. Relations between America and Russia will continue to deteriorate either due to the fact that the entire political spectrum is engaging in a frenzy of Russophobia or that President Trump, who ran and won on a platform of improving relations with Russia, is now completely shackled, thus it is inevitable that the new Cold War will continue to become more dangerous.

How Memes got Weaponized: (Why You Can't Have Anything Nice Anymore)

technologyreview | Memes come off as a joke, but some people are starting to see them as the serious threat they are. In October 2016, a friend of mine learned that one of his wedding photos had made its way into a post on a right-wing message board. The picture had been doctored to look like an ad for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and appeared to endorse the idea of drafting women into the military. A mutual friend of ours found the image first and sent him a message: “Ummm, I saw this on Reddit, did you make this?”

This was the first my friend had heard of it. He hadn’t agreed to the use of his image, which was apparently taken from his online wedding album. But he also felt there was nothing he could do to stop it.

So rather than poke the trolls by complaining, he ignored it and went on with his life. Most of his friends had a laugh at the fake ad, but I saw a huge problem. As a researcher of media manipulation and disinformation, I understood right away that my friend had become cannon fodder in a “meme war”—the use of slogans, images, and video on social media for political purposes, often employing disinformation and half-truths.

While today we tend to think of memes as funny images online, Richard Dawkins coined the term back in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene, where he described how culture is transmitted through generations. In his definition, memes are “units of culture” spread through the diffusion of ideas. Memes are particularly salient online because the internet crystallizes them as artifacts of communication and accelerates their distribution through subcultures.

Importantly, as memes are shared they shed the context of their creation, along with their authorship. Unmoored from the trappings of an author’s reputation or intention, they become the collective property of the culture. As such, memes take on a life of their own, and no one has to answer for transgressive or hateful ideas.

 

To Even Speak of the Ukraine is to Invite Blowback (Weaponization)

cjr |  On May 1, The New York Times carried a story on its front page, “For Biden, a Ukraine Matter That Won’t Go Away,” by Kenneth P. Vogel and Iuliia Mendel. It delved into the effort by supporters of Donald Trump to connect Joe Biden, through his son Hunter, to corruption in Ukraine. Within the Times, the story has been treated as a big win, an early look at the matter that has now led to an impeachment inquiry of Trump. Vogel has popped up on a segment of the Times podcast The Daily, telling host Michael Barbaro his reporting was “prescient.” And he’s been on a recent episode of the Times’s TV show, The Weekly, where he and an image of that front-page headline both feature prominently on-screen.

But outside the paper, the response to the story has been far less enthusiastic: the piece has been labeled “controversial,” accused of getting its facts wrong, and of pushing a “Republican conspiracy theory” into the “mainstream.” Podcast host and former Obama White House staffer Dan Pfeiffer went so far as to accuse Vogel and the Times of having a “Watergate-style scoop about Trump … and fumbled the ball.” To which Vogel responded, “I literally broke the story upon which the impeachment inquiry is based.”

ICYMI: Why Netflix is facing a lawsuit over one of the streaming giant’s miniseries

On October 9, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfeld, sent a letter to Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet: “The Times had an outsized hand in the spread of a baseless conspiracy theory advanced by Rudy Giuliani,” she wrote. “What was especially troubling about the Times active participation in this smear campaign is that prior to its reporting on the subject by Ken Vogel, this conspiracy had been relegated to the likes of Breitbart, Russian propaganda, and another conspiracy theorist regular Hannity guest John Solomon.”

(The piece also generated a separate controversy when Mendel, who worked as a freelance reporter in Ukraine for the Times, announced in June that she had been hired as the spokesperson for President Volodymyr Zelensky—who President Trump had pressured in the now infamous July 25 phone call. The Times wasn’t happy to learn of the clear conflict of interest but said that the international desk conducted a review of her work and found it “fair and accurate.”)

What has made this such an alluring media story is that the battle lines are so firmly drawn: Is the piece, as Vogel has described it, a seminal journalistic work that opened the gates to the entire Ukraine saga? Or is it, per its critics, clickbait better suited to Breitbart than the Times?

Did Y'all Know Lawfare a Brookings Jawnt?

theconservativetreehouse |  After the 2018 mid-terms, and in preparation for the “impeachment” strategy, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler hired Lawfare group members to become House committee staff.

Chairman Schiff hired former SDNY U.S. Attorney Daniel Goldman (link), and Chairman Nadler hired  Obama Administration lawyer Norm Eisen and criminal defense attorney Barry Berke (link).  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then hired Douglas Letter as House General Counsel – all are within the Lawfare network.

After Goldman, Eisen, Berke and Letter were hired in late 2018, Pelosi then went about changing the Rules of the House in January ’19.  Few were paying attention until recently.

In the last month many people have surmised that Pelosi and Schiff moved to utilize the Ukraine/NSC impeachment angle *after* the Mueller angle for impeachment ran into trouble. However, CTH research (widely criticized in 2018) doesn’t reflect the Whistle-blower impeachment plan as an ‘add-on’.  Instead, what we see is the use of the HPSCI; and the use of embeds within National Security Council staff; by design.  The Schiff events of today were always part of a prior planned design.

The SchiffShow - What Use is an Entertainment Division that Fails to Entertain?

moonofalabama |  The New York Times continues to lie about Joe Biden's involvement in the Ukraine and about Ukrainian involvement in the U.S. election. Today it also lied about a fact in relation to Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who was yesterday questioned by the Democrats 'impeachment inquiry'. The NYT reported that very fact just a day ago. During the hearing Lt.Col. Vindman expressed a rather preposterous view about who should define U.S. foreign policy. 

The NYT claims to debunk falsehoods but spreads more of them:

Debunking 4 Viral Rumors About the Bidens and Ukraine
As lawmakers examine whether President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, here are some of the most prominent falsehoods that have spread online and an explanation of what really happened.

Why was Ukraine’s top prosecutor fired?
...
A year later, Viktor Shokin became Ukraine’s prosecutor general, a job similar to the attorney general in the United States. He vowed to keep investigating Burisma amid an international push to root out corruption in Ukraine. 

But the investigation went dormant under Mr. Shokin. In the fall of 2015, Joe Biden joined the chorus of Western officials calling for Mr. Shokin’s ouster. The next March, Mr. Shokin was fired. A subsequent prosecutor cleared Mr. Zlochevsky.

We have show the time lime of Biden's intervention against Shokin and provided evidence that the investigation into Burisma was very much alive:

Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out. 

Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.

and:

It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record, in form of a report by Interfax-Ukraine, contradicts it.

Government and Media are the Entertainment Divisions of the Military Industrial Complex

moonofalabama |  Since Donald Trump was elected president the New York Times' understanding of the 'Deep State' evolved from a total denial of its existence towards a full endorsement of its anti-democratic operations.

February 16, 2017 - As Leaks Multiply, Fears of a ‘Deep State’ in America

A wave of leaks from government officials has hobbled the Trump administration, leading some to draw comparisons to countries like Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, where shadowy networks within government bureaucracies, often referred to as “deep states,” undermine and coerce elected governments. So is the United States seeing the rise of its own deep state?
Not quite, experts say, but the echoes are real — and disturbing.

March 6, 2017 - Rumblings of a ‘Deep State’ Undermining Trump? It Was Once a Foreign Concept

The concept of a “deep state” — a shadowy network of agency or military officials who secretly conspire to influence government policy — is more often used to describe countries like Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, where authoritarian elements band together to undercut democratically elected leaders. But inside the West Wing, Mr. Trump and his inner circle, particularly his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, see the influence of such forces at work within the United States, essentially arguing that their own government is being undermined from within. It is an extraordinary contention for a sitting president to make.

March 10, 2017 - What Happens When You Fight a ‘Deep State’ That Doesn’t Exist

American institutions do not resemble the powerful deep states of countries like Egypt or Pakistan, experts say. Nor do individual leaks, a number of which have come from President Trump’s own team, amount to a conspiracy. The diagnosis of a “deep state,” those experts say, has the problem backward.
...
Though Mr. Trump has not publicly used the phrase, allies and sympathetic news media outlets have repurposed “deep state” from its formal meaning — a network of civilian and military officials who control or undermine democratically elected governments — to a pejorative meant to accuse civil servants of illegitimacy and political animus.

September 5, 2018 - I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Tried to Tell Y'all Cats Two and a Half Years Ago..., (Search Susan Rice Here)

sicsempertyrannis |  I was chatting last night with a retired CIA colleague, a person well connected to many folks still working at our former employer, and he dropped a bombshell--he had learned that John Brennan set up a Trump Task Force at CIA in early 2016. 

This is definitely something Prosecutor John Durham should explore. A "Task Force" normally is a short term creation comprised of operations officers (i.e., guys and gals who carry out espionage activities overseas) and intelligence analysts. The purpose of such a group is to ensure all relevant intelligence capabilities are brought to bear on the problem at hand.

While a "Task Force" can be a useful tool for tackling issues of terrorism or drug trafficking, it is not appropriate or lawful for collecting on a U.S. candidate for the Presidency. But Brennan did it, so I'm told, and it had the blessing of the Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper. 

The Task Force members were handpicked. The job was not posted. Instead, people were specifically invited to join up. Not everyone accepted the invitation, and that is now a problem for John Brennan. If those folks are talking to Durham's folks then Brennan's days are numbered.

Brennan reportedly took it upon himself to recruit foreign intelligence organizations, such as MI-6, the Aussies, the Italians and the Israelis, to help in spying on Trump and his campaign. He sold it as a "counter-intelligence" mission citing his fear that Trump was a Russian puppet. And these foreign services agreed to help. But they did more than passive collection. They helped create and implement covert actions, such as entrapping Michael Flynn as a foreign agent and cultivating and ensnaring George Papadopoulos.

Barr Changes the Dynamic

sicsempertyrannis |  I do not believe in coincidence. I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that these three events occurred late last night:

1. The investigation of the roots of the plot to destroy Donald Trump and his Presidency is now a criminal matter.

2. A letter from Inspector General Horowitz announcing that his report on the FISA fraud would be out shortly with no major redactions. 

3. The Government caved to Honey Badger Sidney Powell and allowed her to fully expose criminal conduct by Michael Flynn's prosecutors.

What is going on? Two words. Bill Barr. The Attorney General has pulled the trigger and altered the landscape in the Russiagate saga. Having been granted full authority by the President to declassify information, including intel from the CIA and the NSA, he has now acted in a powerful, but low key way.

The announcement that this is now a criminal investigation means that anyone, including FBI agents and CIA officers, who try to hold back information or hide information will be vulnerable to obstruction of justice charges. Criminal penalties attach.

Barr's Not Just a Referee, He's An Effective Referee!

npr |  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter to Democrats on Monday that the House will vote to formalize the procedures in the ongoing impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

The resolution will outline the terms for public hearings, the disclosure of deposition transcripts, procedures to transfer evidence to the House Judiciary Committee and due process rights for Trump.

Senior Democratic aides said the resolution will be released on Wednesday, with a House vote on Thursday.

"We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump Administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives," Pelosi wrote.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff confirmed that the resolution will establish a format for open hearings. 

"The American people will hear firsthand about the President's misconduct," Schiff said in a statement.

Weaponization Means Schiff Cuffed and Concussed On His Way Into Squad Car

politico  |  Democrats are accusing Attorney General William Barr of using the Justice Department to do President Donald Trump's political bidding. 

Democratic criticism of the attorney general comes amid media reports that a department probe into the FBI's investigation connections between Russia and the Trump 2016 campaign has now become a criminal investigation. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, accused Barr on Sunday of “weaponizing” the Justice Department. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have called on Barr to recuse himself from the department's investigation. 

"Bill Barr, on the president’s behalf, is weaponizing the Justice Department to go after the president’s enemies,” Schiff said on ABC‘s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “He’s demonstrating once again that he is merely a tool of the president, the president’s hand, not the representative of the American people.” 

Trump has repeatedly called on Barr to investigate how the FBI began its Russia probe. John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, is leading that effort. The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General has also been conducting an investigation into aspects of the FBI's Russia probe. That report is expected to be released in the near future.

Brennan "Concerned" About All The Dot-Connecting...,

thefederalist |  Last weekend, NBC News reported that the Justice Department’s probe into the origins of the Russia collusion investigation is now focusing on the CIA and the intelligence community. NBC News soft-peddled this significant development by giving former CIA Director John Brennan a platform (a pen?) to call the probe “bizarre,” and question “the legal basis for” the investigation. Politico soon joined the spin effort, branding the investigation Attorney General William Barr assigned to Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham “Trump’s vengeance.”

However, if the media reports are true, and Barr and Durham have turned their focus to Brennan and the intelligence community, it is not a matter of vengeance; it is a matter of connecting the dots in congressional testimony and reports, leaks, and media spin, and facts exposed during the three years of panting about supposed Russia collusion. And it all started with Brennan.

That’s not how the story went, of course. The company story ran that the FBI launched its Crossfire Hurricane surveillance of the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016, after learning that a young Trump advisor, George Papadopoulos, had bragged to an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. This tip from Downer, when coupled with WikiLeaks’s release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails and evidence of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, supposedly triggered the FBI’s decision to target the Trump campaign.

The Upper Echelon of __________ Met to Orchestrate It All

thefederalist |  Earlier this week, Michael Flynn’s star attorney, Sidney Powell, filed under seal a brief in reply to federal prosecutors’ claims that they have already given Flynn’s defense team all the evidence they are required by law to provide. A minimally redacted copy of the reply brief has just been made public, and with it shocking details of the deep state’s plot to destroy Flynn.

While the briefing at issue concerns Powell’s motion to compel the government to hand over evidence required by Brady and presiding Judge Emmett Sullivan’s standing order, Powell’s 37-page brief pivots between showcasing the prosecution’s penchant for withholding evidence and exposing significant new evidence the defense team uncovered that establishes a concerted effort to entrap Flynn. Along the way, Powell drops half-a-dozen problems with Flynn’s plea and an equal number of justifications for outright dismissal of the criminal charges against Flynn.

What is most striking, though, is the timeline Powell pieced together from publicly reported text messages withheld from the defense team and excerpts from documents still sealed from public view. The sequence Powell lays out shows that a team of “high-ranking FBI officials orchestrated an ambush-interview of the new president’s National Security Advisor, not for the purpose of discovering any evidence of criminal activity—they already had tapes of all the relevant conversations about which they questioned Mr. Flynn—but for the purpose of trapping him into making statements they could allege as false.”

The Deep State vs. Democracy

counterpunch |  With Bernie Sanders the people’s choice for winner of the Democratic primary in terms of political organizing and campaign contributions, the powers-that-be in the DNC are putting out a call for establishment figures like Hillary Clinton or Michael Bloomberg to join the race. Not being ‘reported’ by the establishment press is that these same kingmakers 1) weighted the Democrat’s choice against Mr. Sander’s and towards Ms. Clinton in 2016 and lost and 2) chose Joe Biden as their ‘heavyweight’ candidate for 2020.

The idea, popular on the American left, that winning against Donald Trump is all that matters, runs up against the fact that these DNC kingmakers have a less than stellar track record when it comes to winning elections. Not only is Ms. Clinton one of the most enthusiastically despised people on the planet— more so than Donald Trump even after his impeachment was announced, but Michael Bloomberg was a Republican for the entirety of the wildly misguided American war against Iraq. Why isn’t he running as a Republican?

The rationale for the reappearance of the ‘grownups’ from the DNC appears to be that Joe Biden’s political prospects are sinking faster than Bill Clinton’s libido in the presence of women over the age of consent. That Mr. Biden’s failure comes as a surprise to DNC insiders illustrates the political ineptitude mentioned above. In fact, this practice of perpetually failing upward— of being wrong about absolutely everything while maintaining leadership positions in quasi-public institutions like the DNC, suggests that winning elections isn’t the objective.

According to the political campaign funding website opensecrets.org, Bernie Sanders is second only to Donald Trump in terms of campaign contributions raised toward his 2020 presidential campaign. And given the source of Mr. Sanders’ contributions— small donors, a.k.a. ’the people,’ he is quite conspicuously the people’s choice for President amongst Democrats. This leaves the rich, business executives and their bourgeois aspirants— the richer 10% of the country, with a choice of Mr. Trump or the Democratic Party equivalent.

The question of where Elizabeth Warren is in all this gets to the issue of motives. Ms. Warren is both brighter and more competent in a performative sense than Joe Biden. And she signaled early on that she will drop her entire political program if doing so gets her the nod from donors and DNC insiders. This willingness to ‘compromise’ sets her apart from Mr. Sanders. The question ‘can she win,’ the seeming pragmatic question of the day, is proved a farce through the first insider choice of Joe Biden, and then with the call for more ‘heavyweight’ losers.

Gotta imagine AOC’s response here to Lawrence O’Donnell’s condescending question is rattling a few establishment cages. pic.twitter.com/OB3WHMnb7h

— Wooooobie 👻 Boos Day (@WoobieTuesday) October 25, 2019

Shoe!!! Meet Other Foot...,

theconservativetreehouse |  The reaction from CNN to news that U.S. Attorney John Durham is now conducting a criminal investigation is actually quite funny when contrast against their positions in 2017 and 2018.  Jeffrey Toobin doesn’t have any idea about the background of Joseph Mifsud, and his narration is a jumbled mess of dissonance: “clearly no evidence” he proclaims.

When Weissman and Mueller were traveling the world to investigate Trump-Russia it was an example of prudent and thorough investigative approaches.  However, Durham and Barr doing the same thing is an example of the most horrific investigation imaginable.  When Mueller sent a subpoena it held a seriousness that could not be ignored; however, if Durham sends a subpoena, everyone can just shrug-it-off and “take the fifth”.

Accordingly, Weissmann & Mueller opened investigations, the targets were automatically guilty and should be alarmed.  However, when Durham & Barr open investigations, it means nothing to the targets and not even the possibility of guilt.  Meanwhile, former ODNI James Clapper’s muttering responses are, well, also quite humorous.

While Rome Has Burned the Past Three Yars...,

tablet |  A very, very interesting interview — you can skip past the lengthy intro — with an old school national security mandarin, Angelo Codevilla. Here is the important nugget:

 

INTERVIEWER: I have some close personal friends who are more on the left, and I said to them: OK. Where’s the evidence? Who did what when to whom? Where are the quids and where are the quos? What’s going on here? And all they could say is, “Well, the investigation is going on.”

Whose fault is this?

[CODEVILLA:] The fault here is not of Democrats on the left. The fault here is of Donald Trump and his friends who have refused to enforce the most basic laws here. The most obvious one is Section 798, (18 U.S. Code), the simple comment statute. Now anybody in the intelligence business knows that this is the live wire of security law. It is a strict liability statute. It states that any revelation, regardless of circumstance or intent, any revelation period, of anything having to do with U.S. communications intelligence is punishable by the 10 and 10. Ten years in the slammer, and $10,000 fine. Per count.

Now the folks who went to The Washington Post and The New York Times in November and December of 2016 and peddled this story of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Trump and the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, these people ipso facto violated §798.

Considering these matters are highly classified, and that the number of the people involved is necessarily very small, identifying them is child’s play. But no effort to do that has been made.

I’m not a lawyer, but Codevilla seems like an authoritative source (e.g., “directly involved in the drafting of the original FISA law in 1978”).

Unsubstantiated Drug Price Increases

angrybearblog |  The ICER (Institute for Clinical and Economic Review)

Is an independent and non-partisan research organization. Its purpose is to evaluate the clinical and economic value of prescription drugs, medical tests, and health care and health care delivery innovations. ICER conducts rigorous analyses of all clinical data with key stakeholders to include patients, doctors, life science companies, private insurers, and the government and translate the evidence into policy decisions that lead to a more effective, efficient, and just health care system.

As explained by their site information, ICER is known as the nation’s independent watchdog on drug pricing. It’s drug assessment reports include a full analysis of how well each new drug works and the resulting “clinical value, quality of life, benefit to the health-care system and society” used to establish a price. Using the drug assessment report, a “value-based price benchmark” is established  reflecting how each drug should be priced addressing all four factors. Reports also evaluate the potential short-term budget impact of new drugs to alert policymakers to situations when short-term costs may strain health system budgets and lead to restrictions on patient access. Ensuring objectivity in its work, all ICER reports are produced with funding from non-profit foundations and other sources that are free of conflicts of interest from the life science industry or insurers.

What I have seen in the past is the ICER establishing pricing for new drugs taking into consideration these factors; “the patient’s quality of life, and the resulting benefits to the health-care system, and society.” This is the first time I am seeing the ICER looking at price increases and determining whether the value delivered substantiates a price increase. By the numbers: Here are the drugs (and manufacturers) highlighted in a recent ICER’s report, with the increase in net spending attributable to each drug’s price increase, and citing the increases could not be justified by the value delivered.