DATA AND ELECTIONS

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Cambridge Analytica Explained: Data and Elections – Privacy International – Medium (Medium) "What does Cambridge Analytica actually do? ...companies like Cambridge Analytica do two things: profile individuals, and use these profiles to personalize political messaging. What some reporting on Cambridge Analytica fails to mention is that profiling itself is a widespread practice. This is terrifying! So everything can be predicted? Well, yes, but also not quite. Now here’s where it gets tricky: this derived information is often uncannily accurate (which makes profiling a privacy nightmare) but by virtue of being predictive, predictions also sometimes get it wrong. So profiling is widespread. But did Cambridge Analytica influence the Brexit vote and the U.S. election? The idea that a single company influenced an entire election is also difficult to maintain because every single candidate used some form of profiling and micro-targeting to persuade voters... So Cambridge Analytica is a snake oil vendor and I shouldn’t be worried? ...you should definitely be worried!

BUSINESS:

- Domino's delivers big by embracing technology (LA Times) "The Ann Arbor, Mich., company’s revenue and profit have surged. Its same-store sales — or sales from stores open at least one year, a key measure of retail performance — have risen in the U.S. market for 24 consecutive quarters, a feat that analyst Brian Bittner of Oppenheimer & Co. recently called 'incredible.'"

NEWS:

- G.O.P. Senators Pull Away From Trump, Alarmed at His Volatility (NYT) "As they pursue their own agenda, Republican senators are drafting a health care bill with little White House input, seeking to avoid the public relations pitfalls that befell the House as it passed its own deeply unpopular version. Republicans are also pushing back on the president’s impending budget request — including, notably, a provision that would nearly eliminate funding for the national drug control office amid an opioid epidemic. And many high-ranking Republicans have said they will not support any move by Mr. Trump to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement."

- Trump’s Madness Invites Mutiny (NYT) "He is insecure, paranoid and brittle, jostling between egomania and narcissism, intoxicated with a power beyond his meager comprehension and indulging in it beyond the point of abuse."

- Small Countries’ New Weapon Against Goliaths: Hacking (NYT) "State-sponsored hacking is 'the new way to do espionage in the 21st century because it’s much easier to resource compared to a human operation,' said Tim Wellsmore, FireEye’s Asia director of threat intelligence. 'This is a low-cost, high-return model.'"

- The Election Is Over, but Trump Can’t Seem to Get Past It (NYT) "At the root of Mr. Trump’s unpredictable presidency, according to people close to him, is a deep frustration about attacks on his legitimacy, and a worry that Washington does not see him as he sees himself. Mr. Trump burns with frustration over not getting enough credit for winning the nation’s highest office after having never so much as run for City Council or town alderman. He ran when pundits predicted he would not, stayed in when they were certain he would drop out, never lost his core supporters and, amid a dysfunctional campaign that was known for self-inflicted wounds, propelled himself to victory over the vastly more experienced Clinton machine. He expected to be celebrated for it, and that has not happened."

- What Happens When The Pro-Trump Media Get Actual Scoops? (BuzzFeed) "In recent weeks...the pro-Trump media has frequently seized control of the political news cycle via an unexpected tactic: real, and at times, well-sourced reporting."

- How Vladimir Putin mastered the art of 'online Judo' – and why the west should be worried (Wired) "When protests began in Moscow in December 2011 over what were seen as flawed elections, the Kremlin was spooked. The internet had to be brought to heel. The Kremlin exerted control in a number of ways."

- When the Wife of a Soldier Hears a Knock at the Door (NYT) "Mrs. De Alencar was upstairs. Her daughter Tatiyana, 13, shouted that two uniformed men were at the door, 'like in the movies, when they knock on the door when something bad has happened.'"

- The Comey Debacle (National Review) "'What does Donald Trump’s manufactured, self-inflicted, and pathological need for drama get us?' ...the correct answer, in policy terms, is . . . nothing. Actually, less than nothing because all this drama makes getting things done harder. The rush to defend the myth of Trump is causing conservatives to abandon their principles, standards, and credibility at a breathtaking pace. Everyone seems to have overlooked the fact that we have a Republican president defending a school of economics that conservatives have been trying to beat back for more than a century (free-market economists were anti-Keynesian before Keynes was born)."

TRUMPTELL:

- Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador (WaPo) "'This is code-word information,' said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump 'revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.' For most anyone in government discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Trump thinks that exercising too much uses up the body’s ‘finite’ energy (WaPo) "Trump mostly gave up athletics after college because he 'believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted.'"

TODAY'S SONG:

- Where The Streets Have No Name (U2)

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