- Tackling the Internet’s Central Villain: The Advertising Business (NYT) "Ads are the lifeblood of the internet, the source of funding for just about everything you read, watch and hear online. And for all its power, the digital ad business has long been under-regulated and under-policed, both by the companies that run it and by the world’s governments. In the United States, the industry has been almost untouched by oversight, even though it forms the primary revenue stream of two of the planet’s most valuable companies, Google and Facebook. ...the same cheap and effective persuasion machine is also available to anyone with nefarious ends."
- Facebook Pushes ‘False Flag’ Amtrak Conspiracies in Trending Section (Daily Beast) "The 'People Are Saying' section of Facebook’s curated Trending News feature prominently surfaced several conspiracy theories about Wednesday’s Amtrak crash pushed by personal accounts, alleging a 'false flag' attack by 'commie-lib resisters' or Hillary Clinton herself. Far-right conspiracy sites InfoWars and Gateway Pundit...started pushing similar Amtrak-related conspiracies on Wednesday afternoon."
- Could False Alerts and Fake News Start A Nuclear War? (FastCompany) "Today, digital technology makes it easier than ever to manipulate officials and the public through false alarms. Throughout 2017, international officials warned that Russia had the capacity and intent to hack the telecommunications infrastructure of NATO states. This warning extended to the vulnerability of national and state alert systems, which hackers had attacked numerous times as the number of attempted and successful infrastructure hacks rose dramatically during the second term of the Obama administration."
BUSINESS/ECONOMY:
- Trump doesn’t deserve the credit for the economy. Neither does Obama. (WaPo) "If personal responsibility for prosperity belongs to anyone, it would be the cerebral economist who on Wednesday presided over the last Federal Reserve meeting of her four-year term as chair: Janet L. Yellen. In hindsight...Yellen’s approach has been vindicated: Simply put, you can’t argue with success. The current unemployment rate of 4.1 percent is a 17-year low; the annual core inflation rate is nearing the Fed’s target of 2 percent, with no sign of significantly exceeding it; wages rose 2.6 percent last year."
- How GE Went From American Icon to Astonishing Mess (Bloomberg) "For most of its 126-year history, GE has exemplified the fecundity and might of corporate capitalism. That long, proud run may have come to an end. So what happened?"
- With Time purchase complete, Meredith becomes the nation's top magazine publisher, Lacy says (Des Moines Register) "Meredith CEO Steve Lacy...said the company now owns five of the nation's top ten magazine brands and leads several categories including entertainment, food, lifestyle, sports and parenting. Meredith's announcement on Wednesday effectively extinguishes the nearly 100-year-old Time Inc. brand. Time's marquee sign on its New York offices was expected to be replaced by Meredith's banner within a matter of hours."
- Amazon Wants to Disrupt Health Care in America. In China, Tech Giants Already Have. (NYT) "Technology companies like Alibaba and Tencent have made health care a priority for years, and are using China as their laboratory. Behind this push is a realization that the country’s health care system is in crisis. With no functioning primary care system, patients flock to hospitals in major cities, sometimes camping out overnight just to get treatment for a fever. Doctors are overworked, and reports of stabbings and assaults by frustrated patients and their relatives are not uncommon."
ENVIRONMENT:
- Trump’s Environmental Rollbacks Were Fast. It Could Get Messy in Court. (NYT) "It is not unusual for major policy changes to be hit by lawsuits from opponents. The Obama administration’s own environmental regulations were sometimes controversial because they relied on creative interpretations of decades-old laws to rein in smokestack pollution or stop oil, gas and coal exploration. Some Obama-era rules have been blocked or delayed by courts. But there is one big difference... Even though some rules 'pushed the edges of legal authority,' the Obama administration mustered a stronger defense by assembling 'thousands of pages of support and technical analysis, laid out in mind-numbing detail'... 'Here, you have much more ad hoc, knee-jerk decision-making.'"
- E.P.A. Blocks Obama-Era Clean Water Rule (NYT) "Having suspended the water rule, Mr. Pruitt is now crafting a Trump administration version, which is expected to include much looser regulatory requirements on how farmers, ranchers and real estate developers must safeguard the streams and tributaries that flow through their property and into larger bodies of water. The Obama clean water regulation, which would have limited the use of pollutants like chemical fertilizers that could run off into small streams, came under fierce criticism from the rural landowners that make up a key component of Mr. Trump’s political base."
MEMO ROLL-UP:
- Trump-FBI feud over classified memo erupts into open conflict (WaPo) "The FBI’s public warning came after several days of failed attempts by FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and other Justice Department officials to convince the president and his senior staff in private meetings that the memo should be blocked because it poses a risk to national security. It is highly unusual for the White House and the FBI to be so publicly at odds over a matter of national security..."
- Rep. Nunes’s memo crosses a dangerous line (WaPo) "The party-line vote to release the Republican memo but not a Democratic response was a violent break from the committee’s nonpartisan tradition and the latest troubling sign that House Republicans are willing to put the president’s political dictates ahead of the national interest. The reason for Republicans’ abrupt departure from our nonpartisan tradition is growing alarm over special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. As Mueller and his team move closer to the president and his inner circle, a sense of panic is palpable on the Hill. In response they have drawn on the stratagem of many criminal defense lawyers — when the evidence against a defendant is strong, put the government on trial."
- Schiff accuses Nunes of altering memo before sharing it with Trump for release (WaPo) "Before Democrats identified the 'material changes' they allege Nunes made to the memo, they were already accusing Republicans of coordinating with the White House to publicize the memo. It is an 'effort to circle the wagons around the White House and distract from the Russia probe,' Schiff said during the House Intelligence Committee’s Monday night business meeting, according to a newly released transcript."
- With FBI statement on memo, Christopher Wray could now be in the president’s crosshairs (WaPo) "The showdown over the memo could be a defining moment for Wray — threatening to alienate him from the president as he demonstrates his independence. Friends and supporters of Wray say he is a cautious decision-maker who attempts to weigh all the possible consequences of his actions before he commits to doing anything — and probably would have carefully considered publicly criticizing the memo before doing so."
- F.B.I. Condemns Push to Release Secret Republican Memo (NYT) "Mr. Wray had strongly objected to the move to release the memo and was allowed to review it only on Sunday, after the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes of California, relented. F.B.I. officials say privately that Mr. Trump, who wants to see the memo released, is prioritizing politics over national security and is putting the bureau’s reputation at risk."
- The Memo Freakout (National Review) "At the outset of all this, we favored a full investigation of the 2016 election controversies — from the Russian hacking to unmasking — to give the public as many facts as possible. Instead, the main investigation is taking place within the black box of a special-counsel probe. If nothing else, the Nunes memo will pull back the curtain on part of the story. The FBI and the Democrats can — and should — share their own versions. This is called public debate, and we assure the Red Hunters on the Left that this is not how the Kremlin conducts its affairs."
- Senator Urges Fellow Republicans to Heed Warnings on Releasing Secret Memo (NYT) "Mr. Thune [John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican] said he thought that the Senate Intelligence Committee and its Republican chairman, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, should be allowed to see the document before its release. He also said that House Republicans should carefully consider the F.B.I.’s warning that it had 'grave concerns' about making the memo public. Mr. Thune also called for a Democratic memo rebutting the Republican document to be shown to the public at the same time."
MORE SMOKE:
- Mueller Zeros In on Story Put Together About Trump Tower Meeting (NYT) "The statement, released in response to questions from The New York Times about the meeting, has become a focus of the inquiry by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors working for Mr. Mueller in recent months have questioned numerous White House officials about how the release came together — and about how directly Mr. Trump oversaw the process. Mr. Mueller’s team recently notified Mr. Trump’s lawyers that the Air Force One statement is one of about a dozen subjects that prosecutors want to discuss in a face-to-face interview of Mr. Trump that is still being negotiated. Some lawyers and witnesses who have sat in or been briefed on the interviews have puzzled over Mr. Mueller’s interest in the episode. Lying to federal investigators is a crime; lying to the news media is not. For that reason, some of Mr. Trump’s advisers argue that Mr. Mueller has no grounds to ask the president about the statement and say he should refuse to discuss it."
- Some Real 'Bombshell News' in the Mueller Investigation (National Review) "Now the Mueller investigation is really getting dangerous for the Trump administration, and perhaps key adviser Hope Hicks in particular. The latest witness to be called for an interview about the episode was Mark Corallo... Mr. Corallo is planning to tell Mr. Mueller about a previously undisclosed conference call with Mr. Trump and Hope Hicks... I’ve chatted with Corallo on and off since the days of the Fred Thompson campaign in 2008. He’s a straight shooter, an indisputable conservative... If Corallo ends up offering sort of critical testimony, this is not because he’s a Judas or because he’s part of the establishment or some sort of 'Deep State' sellout. It’s because he saw stuff that genuinely struck him as either illegal or unethical or both and he’s not the kind of person who’s willing to lie under oath about it."
NEWS:
- It’s Time for Michigan State to Clean House (NYT) "To ensure real accountability, the university’s board of trustees, who pick the university’s president, oversee its administration and set policy, should resign to make way for new leadership unencumbered by the Nassar scandal and the recent report by ESPN that the university concealed allegations of sexual violence by members of its prized football and basketball programs. If the trustees refuse to do so, Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, and its Legislature ought to remove them."
- House Republicans are retiring in droves. What's pushing them out (USAToday) All told, 41 Republican House members have said they will either retire or seek another office, compared to 16 Democrats, according to the House Press Gallery. Some of those lawmakers have been forced out amid sexual harassment allegations, while others are running for governor or the Senate. So what’s pushing these gavel-wielding lawmakers out the House door? A toxic stew of congressional dysfunction, perilous electoral prospects, term limits on committee chairmen, and an increasingly rightward tilting party with a president widely see as erratic at its helm."
- 2018's open House seats (Axios) "By the time Nov. 6 rolls around, there will be at least 50 vacated House seats up for grabs — more than two-thirds of those are held by Republicans this term."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- New Study Finds Dirtiest Spot at the Airport (Time) "Overall...check-in kiosks were germiest of all the spots they tested with 253,857 CFU (colony-forming units). As a point of comparison, the average home toilet seat has 172 CFU."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Read My Mind (The Killers)
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