Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert Mercer

Az előfizetők (de csak a Belső kör és Közösség csomagok tulajdonosai!) már szombat hajnalban hozzájutnak legfrissebb epizódunk teljes verziójához. A kedden publikált, ingyen meghallgatható verzió tíz perccel rövidebb. 00:37 Kapcsoljuk a regensburgi kamionparkolót. Bredában még dolgoznak fehér emberek. Holland mezőgazdaság, holland árak. 06:38 Unagi ramen. Parragh László fajelmélete. A brabanti-burgundi identitás. Babos Gábor. 10:52 Paks-Fradi. 14:02 A no migration, no gender, no war hármas eufemizmusa. Jim Simons-nekrológ. Robert Mercer és a Cambridge Analytica. 20:37 Azért jó, hogy nálunk nem lőnek politikusokra. Szoboszlai karrierjének megrekedése illetve meg nem rekedése. Ki lesz ott Azahriah-n a VIP-ben? Vitézy Dávid és Wang mester. 28:05 Helyreigazítás: Toyota. Benyalások további potenciális hirdetőknek. Bogazici. Robotlábú Herendi-gepárd.33:42 Helyreigazítás: Tisztán a Cél Felé. Eger helye a magyar hardcore térképén. Ikonokból született, legendák által lovagolva. A Teneré-fa és szomorú vége.37:08 Mit hazdujunk kiváncsiskodóknak útikönyvírás közben? Bede Márton, értelmiségi bűnöző. Kalaznói ingatlantippek. 42:08 A fekedi stifolder. Trabert Hof. Egyébként május 25-én lesz a stifolderfesztivál. Rozsdásserpenyőtelep és Rinyaszentkirály. 45::42 A vidéki Váci utcák halála. A pécsi Weöres Sándor-szobor. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's no secret that there has been an unrelenting media narrative that portrays President Joe Biden having a pronounced fundraising edge over former President Donald Trump. However, the coming months could bear witness to a shift in this narrative, with numerous billionaire patrons ready to bolster Trump's coffers starting from April, as per a report by Fox News. Over the upcoming weekend, Trump is expected to be in Palm Beach, Florida, in the company of many major campaign donors at an 'Inaugural Leadership Dinner'. This prominent gathering could potentially help narrow the fundraising disparity between Trump and Biden. The dinner event will be spearheaded by hedge fund titan John Paulson, with assistances from financial magnate Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, oil bigwig Harold Hamm, hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow, and casino kingpin Steve Wynn. Palm Beach is poised to become a political chessboard where the game of power and finances is played by these wealthy strategists. In the past, Bigelow and Hamm had directed their financial power towards Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for his presidential bid. A bid that ended in disappointment against Trump back in the primaries. Hamm also extended his financial support to Nikki Haley's presidential campaign, Fox News reported.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We speak with Blue Jays fan, Robert Mercer, about the decline in accessible sportscasts for blind and low vision fans.

We speak with Blue Jays fan, Robert Mercer, about the decline in accessible sportscasts for blind and low vision fans (7:15). Let's get to Headlines with Producer Grant Hardy (21:52). Podcast Coordinator, Ryan Delahanty shares highlights from recent AMI original podcast episodes (36:27). Carol Yaple features an audio tour of Surrey Art Gallery's exhibition titled "Untangling, Uncovering, Undoing: The Politics of Hair” (51:43). Robert Hampson of CNIB SmartLife drops by to tell us about the “ Activator”, a new 40 cell braille display that features a fold out qwerty keyboard (1:04:19). We examine justice issues specific to Black and Disabled Canadians with Danielle McLaughlin on Know Your Rights (1:19:15).

For the church to move forward, it's helpful to know your theological task. Listen as Rev. Robert Mercer outlines ours as United Methodists.

This week we bring you part 2 of our exploration of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal — cast in a very different light. In part 1 we took a look at Christopher Wylie's origin story and the sketchy science behind the supposed “psychological warfare mindfuck tool” Steve Bannon employed within Cambridge Analytica on behalf of Robert Mercer, which, the story goes, won the election for Donald Trump by manipulating the masses. In part 2, we're gonna be taking a look at Wylie's attempt to create his own Cambridge Analytica, how he turned into the supposed do-gooder whistleblower in the first place, and what it means for the accepted narrative about the scandal. We are joined again by guest writer Anthony Mansuy, a French reporter for Society Magazine. For this two-parter, Anthony conducted months of research and forty exclusive interviews. You'll be hearing from Cambridge Analytica employees, data scientists, former Obama, Trump and Cruz campaign staffers, as well as friends and associates of Chris Wylie. The evidence lays out how Wylie spread numerous fabrications and exaggerations to minimize his contribution to the development of Cambridge Analytica's tools and conceal the true causes of his departure from the organization. More importantly, Wylie capitalized on the deepest fears held by the liberal media about the far-right, social media, and Russia; allowing him to craft the perfect narrative to fit the political moment — one that persists to this day. Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like 'Manclan' and 'Trickle Down': http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous Anthony Mansuy: https://twitter.com/AnthonyMansuy Les Dissidents (Anthony's book): https://bit.ly/3jgCFfK Merch: http://merch.qanonanonymous.com Music by Pontus Berghe, Nick Sena, DJ Death. Editing by Corey Klotz.

Futás közbeni agytöltés megtette a magáét, avagy Robert Mercer tervén gondolkodott a Viktor buksi, csak hogy végül plázázhassunk kicsit -milyen fura, ennek így kb semmi értelme, meghallgatás után viszont minden szó világos.

For years, the propagandists with the greatest visibility in the United States were on television; the ones who contributed most to the “manufacture of consent.” Think Fox News. And we've covered many of the dark, hidden figures looming in the background churning out the ideas that make it into the mainstream and out of Tucker Carlson's mouth. Uncle Milton, James Buchanan, Lewis Powell, The Koch Brothers, Robert Mercer, Peter Thiel and the myriad think tanks like Mercatus, Cato and Heritage. Today we cover another contributor to the perverted right wing ecosystem: Prager University and its folksy, baritone, asshole patriarch, Dennis Prager. Chapters Intro: 00:00:51 Chapter One: The sort of Jews but not actual Jews behind the hateful, spiteful, very awful no good university that isn't a real university: 00:05:20 Chapter Two: Dennis the menace to society: 00:15:14 Coffee Break: 00:25:14 Chapter Three: So much fucking money: 00:26:16  Chapter Four: Bring it home, Max: 00:36:45 Post Show Musings: 00:41:50 Outro: 00:56:24 Resources PodVoices.Help Bloomberg: Billionaire Fracking Brothers Hammered by Permian Holdings Mint: Texas fracking billionaires drew Covid-19 aid while investing in rivals Financial Post: Wilks brothers-backed ProFrac valued at over $2 bln in Nasdaq debut Sludge: Who Funds PragerU's Anti-Muslim Content? Buzzfeed: How PragerU Is Winning The Right-Wing Culture War Without Donald Trump Bridge Initiative Team: Factsheet: PragerU PragerU: Form 990 | Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax 2021 Francesca Tripodi: Searching for Alternative Facts: Analyzing Scriptural Inference in Conservative News Practices Southern Poverty Law Center: Hungary Paid Dennis Prager $30,000 for an Hour of Appearances at Far-Right ‘Education' Conference The New York Times: Right-Wing Views for Generation Z, Five Minutes at a Time The Guardian: Guess what the three Democrats blocking lower medication prices have in common? Congress.gov: H.R.3 — 117th Congress (2021-2022) Congress.gov: Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com. Subscribe to Unf*cking The Republic on Substack at unftr.substack.com to get the essays these episode are framed around sent to your inbox every week. Check out the UNFTR Pod Love playlist on Spotify: spoti.fi/3yzIlUP. Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations. Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibility. Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is written and hosted by cartoon nazis and distributed by billionaires. Podcast art description: Image of the US Constitution ripped in the middle revealing white text on a blue background that says, ‘Unf*cking the Republic.' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today the Triple Vision team continues with the series on education. In this series we are tracing the history of Canada's schools for the blind and exploring some key themes around how effective these schools, as well as Canadian schools which undertook the integration of students who were blind and partially sighted, prepared these students for post-secondary study and beyond. In this second episode we talk to two past students of one of Canada's oldest schools for the blind in Halifax. Terry Kelly attended the Halifax School for the Blind and started his music career in high school, and in 2003, he was appointed to the Order of Canada. Robert Mercer attended the School for the Blind in Halifax, and went on to get a Bachelor's Degree from St. Mary's University, and at the age of thirty, he was appointed National President and CEO for the CNIB. "One other thing about the school is that it taught me to be competitive. It's hard to create a full education platform for young children who are blind in a regular school. You can provide the itinerant teaching, and watch over to make sure that if you don't understand the mathematics that we can teach it in a different way, but all of the other skills are difficult. You can't teach people to play football in the backyard when they can't participate. But we played football, baseball, and we played soccer, and we did all kinds of things as blind children that we couldn't have done with children in a sighted school, for example. We changed the rules and we adapted the game to our own circumstance, but those things happened very naturally." --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/david-best9/message

In a speech on Friday delivered from his office in the Kremlin, Putin criticized the West's “cancel culture” which, he charged, is “canceling” Russia -- “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people.” It was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted the so-called “cancel culture.”Which is exactly what Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the GOP have blasted for several years."The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it," Trump said as he accepted his party's nomination at the Republican National Convention in 2020.Tucker Carlson, one of Fox News's most prominent personalities, has charged that liberals have been trying to cancel everything from Space Jam to the Fourth of July.Putin's fixation on transgender and gay people has also been echoed on the American right. Republican state bills aimed at limiting LGBTQ rights or discussion in schools are soaring. Last fall — months before Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott threatened to criminalize parents who give their transgender children gender-affirming care — Putin argued that teaching children about different gender identities was “on the verge of a crime against humanity.”Then there's admiration for Putin himself. Just before Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Trump deemed him "savvy," "genius," and "smart” for “taking over a country, literally, a vast, vast, location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in.”On his Fox News program Carlson asked, rhetorically, “why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?” But Carlson called Ukraine “an obedient puppet of the Biden State Department,” and suggests Putin's invasion was nothing more than a “border dispute.” Putin's lies and the lies coming from America's extreme right are mutually reenforcing. Carlson's Fox News segments show up in Russian propaganda. And when the American site “Infowars” resurrected an unfounded Russian claim that the United States funded biological weapons labs in Ukraine, Putin repeated the Infowars story.To conclude from all of this that authoritarians think alike is to miss a deeper truth. Putin, Trump, Carlson, and a growing number of rightwing commentators and activists have been promoting much the same narrative — for much the same reason.  Remember, Putin was put into power by a Russian oligarchy made fabulously rich by siphoning off the wealth of the former Soviet Union. Likewise, Trump and the radical right in America have been bankrolled by an American oligarchy — Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, Rebekah Mercer (daughter of hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer), Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and other billionaires. What do these two sets of oligarchs get in return? Strongmen divert the public's attention away from the oligarchs' hijacking of their economies toward cultural fears of being overwhelmed by the “other.” Putin's MO has been to fuel Russian ethnic pride and nationalism. The Trump-Carlson-radical right's MO has been to fuel white American nationalism.In both cases, strongmen and their allies have mythologized a “superior” culture (replete with creation stories of blood ties, motherlands, and religion) supposedly endangered by decadent forces intent on attacking and overwhelming it.To Putin, the decadent force is the West. As he put it Friday, “domestic culture at all times protected the identity of Russia,” which “accepted all the best and creative, but rejected the deceitful and fleeting, that which destroyed continuity of our spiritual values, moral principles and historical memory.” Hence, a mythic justification for taking Ukraine back from a seductive but inferior Western culture that threatens to overwhelm it and Russia. The Trump-Carlson-white nationalist narrative is similar: America's dominant white Christian culture is endangered by Black people, immigrants, and coastal elites who threaten to overwhelm it.  The culture wars now being orchestrated by the Republican Party against transgender people, gay people, poor women seeking abortions, and schools that teach about sex and America's history of racism, emerge from the same narrative as Putin's culture war against a “decadent” West filled with “sociocultural disturbances.” As does the right's claim that “secularists” have, in the words of former Trump Attorney General William Barr, mounted “an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”These tropes have served to distract attention from the systemic economic looting that oligarchs have been undertaking, leaving most people poor and anxious. Which is why the grievances that Putin, Trump, Carlson, and the GOP use are unremittingly cultural; they are never economic, never about class, and most assuredly not about the predations of the super-rich. Reduced to basics, today's oligarchs and strongmen (along with their mouthpieces and lackeys) are trying to justify their wealth and power by attacking liberal values that have shaped the West, beginning with the enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – the values of tolerance, openness, democracy, self-government, equal rights, and the rule of law. These values are incompatible with a society of oligarchs and strongmen.Ultimately, the oligarchs and strongmen will lose. Putin won't succeed in subduing Ukraine, Trump won't be reelected president, and Carlson and his ilk won't persuade Americans to give up on American ideals. But the culture wars won't end anytime soon because so much wealth and power have consolidated at the top of America, Russia, and elsewhere around the world that anti-liberal forces have risen to justify it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Programming was once all about math. And life was good. Then came strings, or those icky non-numbery things. Then we had to process those strings. And much of that is looking for patterns that wouldn't be a need with integers, or numbers. For example, a space in a string of text. Let's say we want to print hello world to the screen in bash. That would be the echo command, followed by “Hello World!” Now let's say we ran that without the quotes then it would simply echo out the word Hello to the screen, given that the interpreter saw the space and ended the command, or looked for the next operator or verb according to which command is being used. Unix was started in 1969 at Bell Labs. Part of that work was The Thompson shell, the first Unix shell, which shipped in 1971. And C was written in 1972. These make up the ancestral underpinnings of the modern Linux, BSD, Android, Chrome, iPhone, and Mac operating systems. A lot of the work the team at Bell Labs was doing was shifting from pure statistical and mathematical operations to connect phones and do R&D faster to more general computing applications. Those meant going from math to those annoying stringy things. Unix was an early operating system and that shell gave them new abilities to interact with the computer. People called files funny things. There was text in those files. And so text manipulation became a thing. Lee McMahon developed sed in 1974, which was great for finding patterns and doing basic substitutions. Another team  at Bell Labs that included Finnish programmer Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan had more advanced needs. Take their last name initials and we get awk. Awk is a programming language they developed in 1977 for data processing, or more specifically for text manipulation. Marc Rochkind had been working on a version management tool for code at Bell and that involved some text manipulation, as well as a good starting point for awk.  It's meant to be concise and given some input, produce the desired output. Nice, short, and efficient scripting language to help people that didn't need to go out and learn C to do some basic tasks. AWK is a programming language with its own interpreter, so no need to compile to run AWK scripts as executable programs.  Sed and awk are both written to be used as one0line programs, or more if needed. But building in an implicit loops and implicit variables made it simple to build short but power regular expressions. Think of awk as a pair of objects. The first is a pattern followed by an action to take in curly brackets. It can be dangerous to call if the pattern is too wide open.; especially when piping information For example,  ls -al at the root of a volume and piping that to awk $1 or some other position and then piping that into xargs to rm and a systems administrator could have a really rough day. Those $1, $2, and so-on represent the positions of words. So could be directories.  Think about this, though. In a world before relational databases, when we were looking to query the 3rd column in a file with information separated by some delimiter, piping those positions represented a simple way to effectively join tables of information into a text file or screen output. Or to find files on a computer that match a pattern for whatever reason.  Awk began powerful. Over time, improvements have enabled it to be used in increasingly  complicated scenarios. Especially when it comes to pattern matching with regular expressions. Various coding styles for input and output have been added as well, which can be changed depending on the need at hand.  Awk is also important because it influenced other languages. After becoming part of the IEEE Standard 1003.1, it is now a part of the POSIX standard. And after a few years, Larry Wall came up with some improvements, and along came Perl. But the awk syntax has always been the most succinct and useable regular expression engines. Part of that is the wildcard, piping, and file redirection techniques borrowed from the original shells. The AWK creators wrote a book called The AWK Programming Language for Addison-Wesley in 1988. Aho would go on to develop influential algorithms, write compilers, and write books (some of which were about compilers). Weinberger continued to do work at Bell before becoming the Chief Technology Officer of Hedge Fund Renaissance Technologies with former code breaker and mathematician James Simon and Robert Mercer. His face led to much love from his coworkers at Bell during the advent of digital photography and hopefully some day we'll see it on the Google Search page, given he now works there.  Brian Kernighan was a contributor to the early Multics then Unix work, as well as C. In fact, an important C implementation, K&R C, stands for Kernighan and Ritchie C. He coauthored The C Programming Language ands written a number of other books, most recently on the Go Programming Language. He also wrote a number of influential algorithms, as well as some other programming languages, including AMPL. His 1978 description of how to manage memory when working with those pesky strings we discussed earlier went on to give us the Hello World example we use for pretty much all introductions to programming languages today. He worked on ARPA projects at Stanford, helped with emacs, and now teaches computer science at Princeton, where he can help to shape the minds of future generations of programming languages and their creators. 

How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid Center for Media and Democracy exposedbycmd.org- PRWatch prwatch.org- SourceWatch sourcewatch.o rg  Bio: Alex is an investigative reporter with the Center for Media and Democracy. A campaign finance expert, Alex helped launch money-in-politics website Sludge, and his work has been published by more than two dozen media outlets including The American Prospect, The Nation, and Vice.com. David Armiak-608-515-4040David is research director for the Center for Media and Democracy. CMD is a nationally recognized government and corporate watchdog that leads in-depth investigations into the corruption that undermines our democracy, environment, and economic prosperity. CMD's groundbreaking exposés are featured on the blog ExposedbyCMD.org. CMD also publishes SourceWatch, an encyclopedia of corporations, corporate special interest groups and their leaders; and specialized investigative websites, including ALECExposed.org. This story was produced in partnership with The Daily Poster. Earlier this month, as the Omicron variant began to spread, a small liberal arts school on a tree-lined campus in Michigan called Hillsdale College announced it was launching an Academy for Science and Freedom to “educate the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth.” The academy was inspired by the pandemic. “As we reflect on the worst public health fiasco in history, our pandemic response has unveiled serious issues with how science is administered,” noted the college president in a press release. But the venture isn't exactly an effort to apply science to the Covid-19 crisis. The so-called “fiasco” was government pandemic measures like mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing, and lockdowns. Hillsdale is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures.  The trio also has ties to the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-rebuked yet influential missive that encouraged governments to adopt a “herd immunity” policy letting Covid-19 spread largely unchecked. The new academy appears to be the latest effort to provide intellectual cover to a nearly two-year campaign by right-wing and big business interests to force a return to normalcy to boost corporate profits amid a pandemic that is now surging once again thanks to Omicron.  This is the story of how that corporate-bankrolled campaign succeeded in supplanting public health experts and hijacking governmental response to the pandemic.  The War On Public Health When COVID began its spread across the United States in early March 2020, states responded by locking down to varying extents. All 24 Democratic governors and 19 of the 26 Republican governors issued weeks-long stay-at-home orders and restrictions on non-essential businesses.  Lockdown measures drove down cases in the U.S. and likely saved millions of lives globally. But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover.  One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing.  Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open.  “We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” it read.  A month later, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a business lobbying group partially funded by Koch Industries, published a letter calling on President Donald Trump to enable states to reopen. That letter was signed by over 200 state legislators and “stakeholders,” including leaders from Koch-funded groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the James Madison Institute.  To fight its war, the Koch network also relied on the astroturf roadmap behind the anti-government Tea Party movement, using its dark money apparatus to coordinate anti-lockdown protests. Participants for a number of anti-lockdown rallies were recruited by FreedomWorks, a dark money group tied to Charles Koch instrumental in organizing Tea Party protests in 2009. Several of the 2020 rallies were also promoted by the Convention of States Action, a group founded by an organization with ties to the Koch network and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer that wants to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. In Michigan, a major event was organized by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a nonprofit funded by the family of Trump's secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. Groups funded by the Kochs and their colleagues also turned to a more insidious form of combat adapted from Tea Party strategies: building an academic and intellectual network that would create and promote its own “science” to attack COVID mitigation policies. “Build Up Immunity… Through Natural Infection” On October 4, 2020, the Great Barrington Declaration was released to the world. Authored by Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya, former Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff, and Oxford University professor Sunetra Gupta, the declaration recommended governments allow younger, healthier people to become infected with Covid-19 while reserving “focused protection” for the vulnerable, in order to reach herd immunity. Suggestions included having nursing homes limit staff rotations and businesses rely on workers with “acquired immunity.” “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection,” read the declaration.  The document boasted a veneer of academic legitimacy. Its credentialed authors wrote the letter at a conference hosted by the auspicious-sounding American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. According to the declaration's website, the letter has since been signed by more than 2,700 “Medical and Public Health Scientists,” and “none of the authors or co-signers received any money, honoraria, stipend, or salary from anyone.” But the declaration arose out of the world of right-wing dark money and corporate interests, and many of its signatories aren't verified.  AIER, which hosted and filmed the conference and registered the declaration's website, is a Koch-tied libertarian think tank. From 2018 to 2020, the Charles Koch Foundation donated more than $100,000 to the institute. And before that, the Koch Foundation donated nearly $1.5 million to the Emergent Order Foundation, formerly Emergent Order LLC, a PR firm that engaged in hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of marketing consulting for AIER. AIER has also received $54,000 from the Atlas Network, an anti-regulation group formerly known as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation that has received more than a half million dollars from the Charles Koch Foundation and the connected Charles Koch Institute. The Atlas Network also pocketed nearly $3.9 million from DonorsTrust, a dark money fund connected to wealthy right-wing donors such as Koch and Mercer, and its sister group, Donors Capital Fund.  In exchange, AIER has provided fellowships to academics in several Koch-funded programs. That includes economist Peter Boettke, the former president of the Mont Pelerin Society, of which Charles Koch has been a member, and Michael Munger, an adjunct scholar at the Koch-backed Cato Institute. AIER's trustees include Benjamin Powell, director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, which has received millions from the Koch network. Powell is known for his defense of sweatshops. Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, is a former research fellow at the Hoover Institution, which received $430,000 from Charles Koch's foundation between 2017 and 2018, as well as $1.4 million from the dark money fund DonorsTrust from 2016 to 2020. Since then, Bhattacharya has appeared in multiple Hoover video programs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid Center for Media and Democracy exposedbycmd.org- PRWatch prwatch.org- SourceWatch sourcewatch.o rg  Bio: Alex is an investigative reporter with the Center for Media and Democracy. A campaign finance expert, Alex helped launch money-in-politics website Sludge, and his work has been published by more than two dozen media outlets including The American Prospect, The Nation, and Vice.com. David Armiak-608-515-4040David is research director for the Center for Media and Democracy. CMD is a nationally recognized government and corporate watchdog that leads in-depth investigations into the corruption that undermines our democracy, environment, and economic prosperity. CMD's groundbreaking exposés are featured on the blog ExposedbyCMD.org. CMD also publishes SourceWatch, an encyclopedia of corporations, corporate special interest groups and their leaders; and specialized investigative websites, including ALECExposed.org. This story was produced in partnership with The Daily Poster. Earlier this month, as the Omicron variant began to spread, a small liberal arts school on a tree-lined campus in Michigan called Hillsdale College announced it was launching an Academy for Science and Freedom to “educate the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth.” The academy was inspired by the pandemic. “As we reflect on the worst public health fiasco in history, our pandemic response has unveiled serious issues with how science is administered,” noted the college president in a press release. But the venture isn't exactly an effort to apply science to the Covid-19 crisis. The so-called “fiasco” was government pandemic measures like mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing, and lockdowns. Hillsdale is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures.  The trio also has ties to the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-rebuked yet influential missive that encouraged governments to adopt a “herd immunity” policy letting Covid-19 spread largely unchecked. The new academy appears to be the latest effort to provide intellectual cover to a nearly two-year campaign by right-wing and big business interests to force a return to normalcy to boost corporate profits amid a pandemic that is now surging once again thanks to Omicron.  This is the story of how that corporate-bankrolled campaign succeeded in supplanting public health experts and hijacking governmental response to the pandemic.  The War On Public Health When COVID began its spread across the United States in early March 2020, states responded by locking down to varying extents. All 24 Democratic governors and 19 of the 26 Republican governors issued weeks-long stay-at-home orders and restrictions on non-essential businesses.  Lockdown measures drove down cases in the U.S. and likely saved millions of lives globally. But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover.  One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing.  Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open.  “We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” it read.  A month later, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a business lobbying group partially funded by Koch Industries, published a letter calling on President Donald Trump to enable states to reopen. That letter was signed by over 200 state legislators and “stakeholders,” including leaders from Koch-funded groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the James Madison Institute.  To fight its war, the Koch network also relied on the astroturf roadmap behind the anti-government Tea Party movement, using its dark money apparatus to coordinate anti-lockdown protests. Participants for a number of anti-lockdown rallies were recruited by FreedomWorks, a dark money group tied to Charles Koch instrumental in organizing Tea Party protests in 2009. Several of the 2020 rallies were also promoted by the Convention of States Action, a group founded by an organization with ties to the Koch network and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer that wants to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. In Michigan, a major event was organized by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a nonprofit funded by the family of Trump's secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. Groups funded by the Kochs and their colleagues also turned to a more insidious form of combat adapted from Tea Party strategies: building an academic and intellectual network that would create and promote its own “science” to attack COVID mitigation policies. “Build Up Immunity… Through Natural Infection” On October 4, 2020, the Great Barrington Declaration was released to the world. Authored by Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya, former Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff, and Oxford University professor Sunetra Gupta, the declaration recommended governments allow younger, healthier people to become infected with Covid-19 while reserving “focused protection” for the vulnerable, in order to reach herd immunity. Suggestions included having nursing homes limit staff rotations and businesses rely on workers with “acquired immunity.” “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection,” read the declaration.  The document boasted a veneer of academic legitimacy. Its credentialed authors wrote the letter at a conference hosted by the auspicious-sounding American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. According to the declaration's website, the letter has since been signed by more than 2,700 “Medical and Public Health Scientists,” and “none of the authors or co-signers received any money, honoraria, stipend, or salary from anyone.” But the declaration arose out of the world of right-wing dark money and corporate interests, and many of its signatories aren't verified.  AIER, which hosted and filmed the conference and registered the declaration's website, is a Koch-tied libertarian think tank. From 2018 to 2020, the Charles Koch Foundation donated more than $100,000 to the institute. And before that, the Koch Foundation donated nearly $1.5 million to the Emergent Order Foundation, formerly Emergent Order LLC, a PR firm that engaged in hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of marketing consulting for AIER. AIER has also received $54,000 from the Atlas Network, an anti-regulation group formerly known as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation that has received more than a half million dollars from the Charles Koch Foundation and the connected Charles Koch Institute. The Atlas Network also pocketed nearly $3.9 million from DonorsTrust, a dark money fund connected to wealthy right-wing donors such as Koch and Mercer, and its sister group, Donors Capital Fund.  In exchange, AIER has provided fellowships to academics in several Koch-funded programs. That includes economist Peter Boettke, the former president of the Mont Pelerin Society, of which Charles Koch has been a member, and Michael Munger, an adjunct scholar at the Koch-backed Cato Institute. AIER's trustees include Benjamin Powell, director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, which has received millions from the Koch network. Powell is known for his defense of sweatshops. Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, is a former research fellow at the Hoover Institution, which received $430,000 from Charles Koch's foundation between 2017 and 2018, as well as $1.4 million from the dark money fund DonorsTrust from 2016 to 2020. Since then, Bhattacharya has appeared in multiple Hoover video programs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to our archived episodes: RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube Support the show: Patreon|PayPal: 1x or monthly|Square Cash * David Waldman allows Greg Dworkin back onto the KITM stage once Greg promised to not work so blue today. He also turned off the New Age background music, so Abby went somewhere else to downward dog. Tennessee encouraged teens to get vaccinated. The GQP told them to shut up, and they did. Now, in Mississippi, fetal deaths have doubled among unvaccinated pregnant women with COVID-19. Red/unvaccinated states continue to die/own the libs.   Joe Biden is going to have pull this car over again. Wisconsin's Ron Johnson shares heartbreaking stories of the people oppressed by vaccines and masks. Florida's Ron DeSantis isn't big on masks and vaccines as he is on Regeneron. Then again, his top donors don't make masks and vaccines… Salad tycoon Jonathan Neman figures more salads should be mandated, as thinner people are naturally free from health worries. Shopping for salad, a woman found herself oppressed by just the sight of masks on other people. She is now free of her employment. If you take Ivermectin, you can be free of birth control, forever!  450,000 more Americans have died since Donald Trump promised free Regeneron. Robert Mercer and a few co-workers over at Renaissance Technologies will pay about $7 billion to the IRS in fines, and probably around that price to make sure they aren't hassled again. Robert E. Lee, loser, went down again in Virginia, but the most interesting thing might be what was under his statue. Barack Obama, winner, is out stumping for Gavin Newsom and against Gavin's recall. Larry Elder is all set to be a Trump-level loser. Election truthers do what they can to take the security out of future elections.

We know everyone is talking about Texas’s new restrictive abortion law. We’re saving our in-depth conversation about that for Tuesday, when we’ll dive into the economic story behind reproductive rights. Today, we’re talking about other stories that have our shells feeling pretty hollowed out, including the flooding from Hurricane Ida. Can this be a George Floyd moment for climate change? Plus, a bunch of billionaires are paying up. And a plethora of make-you-smile moments — from a swimming rat living his best life in flood waters to ABBA! Here’s everything we talked about today: “Latest Updates: Flooding From Ida Kills Dozens of People in Four States” from The New York Times “James Simons, Robert Mercer, Others at renaissance to Pay $7 Billion to Settle Tax Probe” from The Wall Street Journal  “Apple secures first states to support digital driver’s licenses, but privacy questions linger” from TechCrunch “McDonald’s broken ice cream machines are part of FTC investigation, report says” from USA Today “ABBA to drop first studio album in 40 years” from CNN Cute video of floating rat Join us on YouTube Fridays at 3:30 p.m. Pacific/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don't miss it.

We know everyone is talking about Texas’s new restrictive abortion law. We’re saving our in-depth conversation about that for Tuesday, when we’ll dive into the economic story behind reproductive rights. Today, we’re talking about other stories that have our shells feeling pretty hollowed out, including the flooding from Hurricane Ida. Can this be a George Floyd moment for climate change? Plus, a bunch of billionaires are paying up. And a plethora of make-you-smile moments — from a swimming rat living his best life in flood waters to ABBA! Here’s everything we talked about today: “Latest Updates: Flooding From Ida Kills Dozens of People in Four States” from The New York Times “James Simons, Robert Mercer, Others at renaissance to Pay $7 Billion to Settle Tax Probe” from The Wall Street Journal  “Apple secures first states to support digital driver’s licenses, but privacy questions linger” from TechCrunch “McDonald’s broken ice cream machines are part of FTC investigation, report says” from USA Today “ABBA to drop first studio album in 40 years” from CNN Cute video of floating rat Join us on YouTube Fridays at 3:30 p.m. Pacific/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don't miss it.

On this edition of Parallax Views, most American citizens imagine tax havens as all being located in the U.S. But what if some of America's most wealthy, the ultrarich, had what amounted to a tax haven right here in the U.S. of A? ProPublica and its crack team of reporters may have just blown the lid off  that very possibility in their explosive investigation "Lord of the Roths: How Tech Mogul Peter Thiel Turned a Retirement Account for the Middle Class Into a $5 Billion Tax-Free Piggy Bank". One of the investigations co-authors, Justin Elliott, joins us for a brief but informtive discussion about how ultrarich billionaires like Peter Thiel, Robert Mercer, and Warren Buffet have been able to use Roth IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts), originally intended for middle class Americans to build nest eggs for their golden years, to amass large amounts of wealth without having to worry about taxes or an increasingly stymied and underfunded IRS. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views.

Rebekah Mercer may be the most powerful woman in conservative politics today, and she’s never held--and probably will never run for--elected office. Since 2004, Rebekah Mercer has been the director of the Mercer Family Foundation, which means for nearly twenty years she has been one of the key people who is in charge of how her father Robert Mercer’s vast fortune is spent. And following the Citizens United decision in 2010, millions of dollars of that vast fortune have been dedicated to American politics, and primarily to American politics on the far right. The Mercers have played a major role in the contemporary rise of the far right, and from Cambridge Analytica to Kellyanne Conway, Rebekah Mercer and her father were instrumental in the election of President Donald Trump. But after Trump won, it was Rebekah who was named to his transition team. In 2021, however, Trump’s election almost feels like ancient history, and the real question is what will Rebekah Mercer do next, and what does that mean for the rest of us and our democracy?  Brendan Fischer, Director of Federal Reform at the Campaign Legal Center  Jane Mayer, Chief Washington Correspondent at The New Yorker, and author of several books, including “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right”   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Robert Mercer, who went to the Halifax School for the Blind, tells us about his book "Mrs Beaton's Question" and the inspirational teacher who helped him, and on the phone-in, we take your calls about all the teachers who had the most impact on your lives

Le Capitole américain vit depuis ce jeudi 4 mars sous sécurité renforcée, face à la menace d’une nouvelle intrusion, selon la police de Washington. Échaudés par les événements du 6 janvier, les responsables de la sécurité au Congrès ont décidé cette fois-ci de prendre au sérieux un projet d’attaque d’une milice identifiée par leurs services, projet nourri par les conspirationnistes autour de la date du 4 mars. Aussi invraisemblable que cela puisse paraître, une partie de l’électorat américain continue d’espérer un retour imminent de Donald Trump à la Maison blanche, n’ayant toujours pas accepté -comme un fait réel- l’arrivée du président Biden aux affaires. Le 6 janvier dernier, lors de l’intrusion au Capitole, ces partisans du candidat républicain avaient voulu empêcher, par la force, la certification du résultat des élections, mais en vain. Le 20 janvier, à leur grand damne et contre les prédictions des complotistes QAnon, Joe Biden prêtait serment et non Donald Trump. C’est à ce moment-là que commençait à circuler la date du 4 mars, présentée comme le « vrai jour de l’inauguration ». La thèse évoquant cette nouvelle échéance émane d’un groupe radical, les « Sovereign Citizen », en lutte de longue date contre l’État fédéral, et contre l’amendement de la Constitution américaine qui -en 1933- a fixé au 20 janvier l’investiture du Président américain et non plus au 4 mars. La campagne de désinformation « stop the steal », estimant que l’élection a été « volée », continue de leurrer les partisans les plus déterminés de Donald Trump, leur faisant croire qu’ils n’auront pas à attendre de prochaines élections pour reprendre la Maison Blanche.  Les partisans de Trump dans l’espoir d’un coup de force Ces attentes, sans cesse déçues, risquent d’exacerber les tensions, parmi les partisans d’un même camp, entre ceux qui se rallient à la réalité, et ceux qui optent pour une « réalité alternative », encouragés par le triomphalisme de leur idole. Le récit de la victoire confisquée a été échafaudé bien avant la tenue de l’élection. Dans ce scenario, Donald Trump apparaît comme l’ultime " sauveur d’un monde globalisé en proie aux élites pédophiles et corrompues "… c'est en substance ce que l'on peut voir et entendre à longueur de vidéos sur internet, relayées par ceux qui se réclament de la mouvance QAnon, et au-delà, par une nébuleuse de groupuscules liés à l’extrême droite et aux suprémacistes blancs. Une partie de ce public s’attend donc au retour de Donald Trump à la faveur d’un coup d’État, signant la mise aux arrêts de tous les responsables démocrates et de leurs « complices » dans les médias et les milieux du spectacle. Et même s’il ne s’est rien passé ce jeudi 4 mars, les autorités restent en alerte, contre d’éventuels rassemblements ou manifestations violentes. En marge des grandes plateformes, la radicalisation Facebook, Twitter et Youtube ont multiplié les mesures de lutte contre la désinformation et tout ce qui pouvait constituer des incitations à la violence, supprimant des dizaines de milliers de comptes.   Mais cela n’a fait que déplacer le problème. Les théories conspirationnistes ont sans doute perdu en visibilité sur les grandes plateformes, mais leurs adeptes se retrouvent désormais ailleurs, notamment sur le réseau social Parler, et d’autres plateformes, sans modération. C’est parce que Parler n’a pas su empêcher les incitations à la violence le 6 janvier, que les hébergeurs, Amazon, Apple et Google ont décidé de bannir ce réseau très prisé des partisans de Donald Trump les plus extrêmes. Ce qui a eu pour effet de relancer les attaques contre les big tech, accusés de faire le jeu des démocrates... et des satanistes. Puis finalement Parler a trouvé un nouvel hébergeur il y a deux semaines, SkySilk Cloud, qui s’est engagé à ne pas s’ériger en juge des contenus relayés sur le site, comme en témoigne le communiqué cité par Clémentine Chaloux sur Power trafic, agence de stratégie digitale. Et Rebekah Mercer, l’une de ses plus influents soutiens financiers, a repris les choses en main. Héritière de Robert Mercer, important donateur du parti Républicain, elle a également investi dans le site ultra conservateur de Steve Bannon, Breibart News, connu pour avoir œuvré à l’élection de Donald Trump en 2016. En janvier, Parler a vu bondir le nombre de ses abonnés, ils avoisineraient les 20 millions d’internautes. Pour diriger Parler, Rebekah Mercer a choisi Mark Meckler, l’un des fondateurs du mouvement des patriotes du Tea Party, à l’extrême droite de l’échiquier politique. C’est donc devenu une menace très concrète pour l’administration démocrate, non seulement en terme informationnel, mais aussi parce que gravitent autour de cette mouvance dite alt-right, ou droite alternative, des groupes radicalisés, capables de passer à l’acte, comme on a pu le voir le 6 janvier. L’inquiétude des autorités se nourrit également du fait que les différentes composantes de cette mouvance se retrouvent autour d’une passion commune pour les armes à feu.

In this episode, Fred and Gloria Haines talk about the positive impact the Boys Club and Canadian Girls in Training had on their lives, and how the school had very different rules for boys and girls during their teenage years. Meanwhile, Jean Hills reveals how she became Miss Congeniality, the great lengths to which a girl would go to keep up with the hit parade and dishes the dirt on the best make-out spots at the Halifax School for the Blind.

Love is in the air in this Valentines edition of Tales from the Halifax School for the Blind. Fred & Gloria Haines share their love story, which began when they were both students at the school, over 60 years ago. Jeanie MacAllister, now Jean Hills, reflects on first crushes, school dances, and the historic day when the fence, that long separated the boys from the girls, finally came down.

Ian almost jizzes his pants over the most indecorous algorithmic stock trading story of the year and Carlos talks about September 11th's silver lining. Then Jordan Scott Huggins joins the gang to answer listener questions about hate, kidneys, and the end of the world. We relay the latest news on deadbeat Trumpers (not Kvon this time) and Gwyneth Paltrow's weaponized pussy candle. We take a deep dive into the indecorous history of millionaire right-winger Robert Mercer. And finally, we close it all out with indecorous New Jersey state laws.Check out Jordan online at:https://twitter.com/akaYoungBeefy

In the sophomore episode of Tales from the Halifax School for the Blind, we catch up with former students Vivian O’Neill, Robert Mercer, and host, Terry Kelly. They share tales of an epic journey aboard the “Newfie Bullet,” Mrs. Miller’s classroom full of animals, a runaway locomotive inside the girls’ dormitory, how portable radios help cure homesickness, and their memorable first trips back home for the holidays.

Parler是法語，意思是“講話”。 現在這個字成為一個受人矚目的社交平台。2018年，一個20幾歲的年輕人John Matze 得到投資鉅富Robert Mercer的女兒Rebekah Mercer的贊助，在家鄉內布拉斯加開創了這個社交平台。Matze是一個自由意志主義者 (libertarian)，這個主義的追隨者和自由派人士是兩個不同的概念。 自由意志主義相信，只要不傷害他人，每個人都應該享有絕對的自由和自我財產控制權。他們反對政府的很多干涉行為，甚至某些稅收。建築在這個理念之上，他們的平台和推特、臉書有很大不同。他們給在上面發佈文章、圖片和視頻的人，絕對自由。 這個得到很多保守派人士的喜愛。那些飽受推特、臉書和Google“欺凌”和“驅趕”的人士，都來到這個平台上。這次總統大選的種種爭議，讓這個平台的下載量大幅增加，目前已超過1千萬。關於Parler和它的“寬容”，以及金主和“網紅”，我們都會做一些介紹。

In the debut episode of Tales from the Halifax School for the Blind, we get to know former students Robert Mercer (1958-1968), Vivian O’Neill (1960-1970) and our host, Terry Kelly (1961-1971). They discuss their first impressions of the old school, and the difficult choices faced by their parents when deciding to send their young children so far from home.

Welcome to the history of computing podcast. Today we're going to talk about the use of big data in elections. But first, let's start with a disclaimer. I believe that these problems outlined in this episode are apolitical. Given the chance to do so I believe most politicians (or marketers), despite their party, would have jumped on what happened with what is outlined in this podcast. Just as most marketers are more than happy to buy data, even when not knowing the underlying source of that data. No offense to the parties but marketing is marketing. Just as it is in companies. Data will be used to gain an advantage in the market. Understanding the impacts of our decisions and the values of others is an ongoing area of growth for all of us. Even when we have quotas on sales qualified leads to be delivered.  Now let's talk about data sovereignty. Someone pays for everything. The bigger and more lucrative the business, the more that has to be paid to keep organizations necessarily formed to support an innovation alive. If you aren't paying for a good or service, then you yourself are the commodity. In social media, this is represented in the form of a company making their money from data about you and from the ads you see. The only other viable business model used is to charge for the service, like a Premium LinkedIn account as opposed to the ones used by us proletariat.   Our devices can see so much about us. They know our financial transactions, where we go, what we buy, what content we consume, and apparently what our opinions and triggers are. Sometimes, that data can be harnessed to show us ads. Ads about things to buy. Ads about apps to install. Ads about elections. My crazy uncle Billy sends me routine invitations to take personality quizzes. No thanks. Never done one. Why? I worked on one of the first dozen Facebook apps. A simple rock, paper, scissors game. At the time, it didn't at all seem weird to me as a developer that there was an API endpoint to get a list of friends from within my app. It's how we had a player challenge other players in a game. It didn't seem weird that I could also get a list of their friends. And it didn't seem weird that I could get a lot of personal data on people through that app. I mean I had to display their names and photos when they played a game, right? I just wanted to build a screen to invite friends to play the app. I had to show a photo so you could see who you were playing. And to make the game more responsive I needed to store the data in my own SQL tables. It didn't seem weird then. I guess it didn't seem weird until it did.  What made it weird was the introduction of highly targeted analytics and retargeting. I have paid for these services. I have benefited from these services in my professional life and to some degree I have helped develop some. I've watched the rise of large data warehouses. I've helped buy phone numbers and other personally identifiable information of humans and managed teams of sellers to email and call those humans. Ad targeting, drip campaigns, lead scoring, and providing very specific messages based on attributes you know about a person are all a part of the modern sales and marketing machine at any successful company.  And at some point, it went from being crazy how much information we had about people to being - well, just a part of doing business. The former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix once said “From Mad Men in the day to Math Men today.” From Don Draper to Betty's next husband Henry (a politician) there are informal ties between advertising, marketing and politics. Just as one of the founders of SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica had ties with royals having dated one and gone to school with others in political power. But there have also always been formal ties. Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick was the first colonial newspaper in America and was formally suppressed after its first edition in 1690. But the Boston News-Letter was formally subsidized in 1704. Media and propaganda. Most newspapers were just straight up sponsoring or sponsored by a political platform in the US until the 1830s. To some degree, that began with Ben Franklin's big brother James Franklin in the early 1700s with the New England Courant. Franklin would create partnerships for content distribution throughout the colonies, spreading his brand of moral virtue. And the papers were stoking the colonies into revolution. And after the revolution Hamilton instigated American Minerva as the first daily paper in New York - to be a Federalist paper. Of course, the Jeffersonian Republicans called him an “incurable lunatic.” And yet they still guaranteed us the freedom of press.  And that freedom grew to investigative reporting, especially during the Progressive Era, from the tail end of the 19th century up until the start of the roaring twenties. While Teddy Roosevelt would call them Muckrakers, their tradition extends from Nellie Bly and Fremont Older to Seymour Hersch, Kwitny, even the most modern Woodward and Bernstein. They led to stock reform, civic reforms, uncovering corruption, exposing crime in labor unions, laying bare monopolistic behaviors, improving sanitation and forcing us to confront racial injustices. They have been independent of party affiliation and yet constantly accused over the last hundred years of being against whomever is in power at the time. Their journalism extended to radio and then to television. I think the founders would be proud of how journalism evolved and also unsurprised as to some of the ways it has devolved. But let's get back to someone is always paying. The people can subscribe to a newspaper but the advertising is a huge source of revenue. With radio and television flying across airwaves and free, advertising exclusively became what paid for content and the ensuing decades became the golden age of that industry. And politicians bought ads. If there is zero chance a politician can win a state, why bother buying ads in that state. That's a form of targeting with a pretty simple set of data.  In Mad Men, Don is sent to pitch the Nixon campaign. There has always been a connection between disruptive new mediums and politics. Offices have been won by politicians able to gain access to early printing presses to spread their messages to the masses, those connected to print media to get articles and advertising, by great orators at the advent of the radio, and by good-looking charismatic politicians first able to harness television - especially in the Mad Men fueled ad exec inspired era that saw the Nixon campaigns in the 60s. The platforms to advertise become ubiquitous, they get abused, and then they become regulated. After television came news networks specifically meant to prop up an agenda, although unable to be directly owned by a party. None are “fake news” per se, but once abused by any they can all be cast in doubt, even if most especially done by the abuser.  The Internet was no different. The Obama campaign was really the first that leveraged social media and great data analytics to orchestrate what can be considered to really be the first big data campaign. And after his campaign carried him to a first term the opposition was able to make great strides in countering that. Progress is often followed by lagerts who seek to subvert the innovations of an era. And they often hire the teams who helped with previous implementations.  Obama had a chief data scientist, Rayid Ghani. And a chief analytics officer. They put apps in the hands of canvassers and they mined Facebook data from Facebook networks of friends to try and persuade voters. They scored voters and figured out how to influence votes for certain segments. That was supplemented by thousands of interviews and thousands of hours building algorithms. By 2012 they were pretty confident they knew which of the nearly 70 million Americans that put him in the White House. And that gave the Obama campaign the confidence to spend $52 million in online ads against Romney's $26 million to bring home the win. And through all that the Democratic National Committee ended up with information on 180 million voters. That campaign would prove the hypothesis that big data could win big elections. Then comes the 2016 election. Donald Trump came from behind, out of a crowded field of potential Republican nominees, to not only secure the Republican nomination for president but then to win that election. He won the votes to be elected in the electoral college while losing the popular vote. That had happened when John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson in 1824, although it took a vote in the House of Representatives to settle that election. Rutherford B Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden in 1876 in the electoral college but lost the popular vote. And it happened again when Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888. And in 2000 when Bush beat Gore. And again when Trump beat Hillary Clinton. And he solidly defeated her in the electoral college with 304 to her 227 votes.  Every time it happens, there seems to be plenty of rhetoric about changing the process. But keep in mind the framers built the system for a reason: to give the constituents of every state a minimum amount of power to elect officials that represent them. Those two represent the number of senators for the state and then the state receives one for each member of the house of representatives. States can choose how the electors are instructed to vote. Most states (except Maine and Nebraska) have all of their electors vote for a single ticket, the one that won the state. Most of the states instruct their elector to vote based on who won the popular vote for their state. Once all the electors cast their votes, Congress counts the votes and the winner of the election is declared.  So how did he come from behind? One easy place to blame is data. I mean, we can blame data for putting Obama into the White House, or we can accept a message of hope and change that resonated with the people. Just as we can blame data for Trump or accept a message that government wasn't effective for the people. Since this is a podcast on technology, let's focus on data for a bit. And more specifically let's look at the source of one trove of data used for micro-targeting, because data is a central strategy for most companies today. And it was a central part of the past four elections.  We see the ads on our phones so we know that companies have this kind of data about us. Machine learning had been on the rise for decades. But a little company called SCL was started In 1990 as the Behavioral Dynamics Institute by a British ad man named Nigel Oakes after leaving Saatchi & Saatchi. Something dangerous is when you have someone like him make this kind of comparison “We use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler.” Behavioural Dynamics studied how to change mass behavior through strategic communication - which US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings described in 2008 as the “synchronization of images, actions, and words to achieve a desired effect.” Sounds a lot like state conducted advertising to me. And sure, reminiscent of Nazi tactics. You might also think of it as propaganda. Or “pay ops” in the Vietnam era. And they were involved in elections in the developing world. In places like the Ukraine, Italy, South Africa, Albania, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, even India. And of course in the UK. Or at least on behalf of the UK and whether directly or indirectly, the US.  After Obama won his second term, SCL started Cambridge Analytica to go after American elections. They began to assemble a similar big data warehouse. They hired people like Brittany Kaiser who'd volunteered for Obama and would become director of Business Development.  Ted Cruz used them in 2016 but it was the Trump campaign that was really able to harness their intelligence. Their principal investor was Robert Mercer, former CEO of huge fund Renaissance Technologies. He'd gotten his start at IBM Research working on statistical machine translation and was recruited in the 90s to apply data modeling and computing resources to financial analysis. This allowed them to earn nearly 40% per year on investments. An American success story. He was key in the Brexit vote, donating analytics to Nigel Farage and an early supporter of Breitbart News.  Cambridge Analytica would get involved in 44 races in the 2014 midterm elections. By 2016, Project Alamo was running at a million bucks a day in Facebook advertising. In the documentary The Great Hack, they claim this was to harvest fear. And Cambridge Analytica allowed the Trump campaign to get really specific with targeting. So specific that they were able to claim to have 5,000 pieces of data per person.  Enter whistleblower Christopher Wylie who claims over a quarter million people took a quick called “This is Your Digital Life” which exposed the data of around 50 million users. That data was moved off Facebook servers and stored in a warehouse where it could be analyzed and fields merged with other data sources without the consent of the people who played the game or the people who were in their friend networks. Dirty tactics.  Alexander Nix admitted to using bribery stings and prostitutes to influence politicians. So it should be as no surprise that they stole information on well over 50 million Facebook users in the US alone. And of course then they lied about it when being investigated by the UK for Russian interference and fake news in the lead to the Brexit referendum. Investigations go on.  After investigations started piling up, some details started to emerge. This is Your Digital Life was written by Dr Spectre. It gets better. That's actually Alexandr Kogan for Cambridge Analytica. He had received research funding from the University of St Petersburg and was then lecturing at the Psychology department at the University of Cambridge. It would be easy to make a jump that he was working for the Russkies but here's the thing, he also got research funding from Canada, China, the UK, and the US. He claimed he didn't know what the app would be used for. That's crap. When I got a list of friends and friends friends who I could spider through, I parsed the data and displayed it on a screen as a pick list. He piped it out to a data warehouse. When you do that you know exactly what's happening with it.  So the election comes and goes. Trump wins. And people start asking questions. As they do when one party wins the popular vote and not the electoral college. People misunderstand and think you can win a district due to redistricting in most states and carry the state without realizing most are straight majority. Other Muckraker reporters from around the world start looking into Brexit and US elections and asking questions.  Enter Paul-Olivier Dehaye. While an assistant professor at the University of Zurich he was working on Coursera. He started asking about the data collection. The word spread slowly but surely. Then enter American professor David Carroll, who sued Cambridge Analytica to see what data they had on him. Dehaye contributed to his Subject Access request and suddenly the connections between Cambridge Analytica and Brexit started to surface, as did the connection between Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign, including photos of the team working with key members of the campaign. And ultimately of the checks cut.  Cause there's always a money trail.  I've heard people claim that there was no interference in the 2016 elections, in Brexit, or in other elections. Now, if you think the American taxpayer didn't contribute to some of the antics by Cambridge Analytica before they turned their attention to the US, I think we're all kidding ourselves. And there was Russian meddling in US elections and illegally obtained materials were used, whether that's emails on servers then leaked to WikiLeaks or stolen Facebook data troves. Those same tactics were used in Brexit. And here's the thing, it's been this way for a long, long time - it's just so much more powerful today than ever before. And given how fast data can travel, every time it happens, unless done in a walled garden, the truth will come to light.  Cambridge Analytica kinda' shut down in 2017 after all of this came to light. What do I mean by kinda? Well, former employees setup a company called Emerdata Limited who then bought the SCL companies. Why? There were contracts and data. They brought on the founder of Blackwater, Mercer's daughter Rebekah, and others to serve on the board of directors and she was suddenly the “First Lady of the Alt-Right.” Whether Emerdata got all of the company, they got some of the scraped data from 87 million users. No company with the revenues they had goes away quietly or immediately.  Robert Mercer donated the fourth largest amount in the 2016 presenting race. He was also the one who supposedly introduced Trump to Steve Bannon. In the fallout of the scandals if you want to call them that, Mercer stepped down from Renaissance and sold his shares of Breitbart to his daughters. Today, he's a benefactor of the Make America Number 1 Super PAC and remains one of the top donors to conservative causes.  After leaving Cambridge Analytica, Nix was under investigations for a few years before settling with the Federal Trade Commission and agreed to delete illegally obtained data and settled with the UK Secretary of State that he had offered unethical services and agreed to not act as a director of another company for at least 7 years.  Brittany Kaiser flees to Thailand and is now a proponent of banning political advertising on Facebook and being able to own your own data.  Facebook paid a $5 billion fine for data privacy violations and have overhauled their APIs and privacy options. It's better but not great. I feel like they're doing as well as they can and they've been accused of tampering with feeds by conservative and liberal media outlets alike. To me, if they all hate you, you're probably either doing a lot right, or basically screwing all of it up. I wouldn't be surprised to see fines continue piling up.  Kogan left the University of Cambridge in 2018. He founded Philometrics, a firm applying big data and AI to surveys. Their website isn't up as of the recording of this episode. His Tumblr seems to be full of talk about acne and trying to buy cheat codes for video games these days.  Many, including Kogan, have claimed that micro-targeting (or psychographic modeling techniques) against large enhanced sets of data isn't effective. If you search for wedding rings and I show you ads for wedding rings then maybe you'll buy my wedding rings. If I see you bought a wedding ring, I can start showing you ads for wedding photographers and bourbon instead. Hey dummy, advertising works. Disinformation works. Analyzing and forecasting and modeling with machine learning works. Sure, some is snake oil. But early adopters made billions off it. Problem is, like that perfect gambling system, you wouldn't tell people about something if it means you lost your edge. Sell a book about how to weaponize a secret and suddenly you probably are selling snake oil.   As for regulatory reactions, can you say GDPR and all of the other privacy regulations that have come about since? Much as Sarbanes-Oxley introduced regulatory controls for corporate auditing and transparency, we regulated the crap out of privacy. And by regulated I mean a bunch of people that didn't understand the way data is stored and disseminated over APIs made policy to govern it. But that's another episode waiting to happen. Suffice it to say the lasting impact to the history of computing is both the regulations on privacy and the impact to identity providers and other API endpoints, were we needed to lock down entitlements to access various pieces of information due to rampant abuses.  So here's the key question in all of this: did the data help Obama and Trump win their elections? It might have moved a few points here and there. But it was death by a thousand cuts. Mis-steps by the other campaigns, political tides, segments of American populations desperately looking for change and feeling left behind while other segments of the population got all the attention, foreign intervention, voting machine tampering, not having a cohesive Opponent Party and so many other aspects of those elections also played a part. And as Hari Seldon-esque George Friedman called it in his book, it's just the Storm Before the Calm.  So whether the data did or did not help the Trump campaign, the next question is whether using the Cambridge Analytica data was wrong? This is murky. The data was illegally obtained. The Trump campaign was playing catchup with the maturity of the data held by the opposition. But the campaign can claim they didn't know that the data was illegally obtained. It is illegal to employ foreigners in political campaigns and Bannon was warned about that. And then-CEO Nix was warned. But they were looking to instigate a culture war according to Christopher Wylie who helped found Cambridge Analytica. And look around, did they?  Getting data models to a point where they have a high enough confidence interval that they are weaponizable takes years. Machine learning projects are very complicated, very challenging, and very expensive. And they are being used by every political campaign now insofar as the law allows. To be honest though, troll farms of cheap labor are cheaper and faster. Which is why three more got taken down just a month before the recording of this episode. But AI doesn't do pillow talk, so eventually it will displace even the troll farm worker if only ‘cause the muckrakers can't interview the AI.  So where does this leave us today? Nearly every time I open Facebook, I see an ad to vote for Biden or an ad to vote for Trump. The US Director of National Intelligence recently claimed the Russians and Iranians were interfering with US elections. To do their part, Facebook will ban political ads indefinitely after the polls close on Nov. 3. They and Twitter are taking proactive steps to stop disinformation on their networks, including by actual politicians. And Twitter has actually just outright banned political ads.  People don't usually want regulations. But just as political ads in print, on the radio, and on television are regulated - they will need to be regulated online as well. As will the use of big data. The difference is the rich metadata collected in micro-targeting, the expansive comments areas, and the anonymity of those commenters. But I trust that a bunch of people who've never written a line of code in their life will do a solid job handing down those regulations. Actually, the FEC probably never built a radio - so maybe they will. So as the election season comes to a close, think about this. Any data from large brokers about you is fair game. What you're seeing in Facebook and even the ads you see on popular websites are being formed by that data. Without it, you'll see ads for things you don't want. Like the Golden Girls Season 4 boxed set. Because you already have it. But with it, you'll get crazy uncle Billy at the top of your feed talking about how the earth is flat. Leave it or delete it, just ask for a copy of it so you know what's out there. You might be surprised, delighted, or even a little disgusted by that site uncle Billy was looking at that one night you went to bed early. But don't, don't, don't think that any of this should impact your vote. Conservative, green, liberal, progressive, communist, social democrats, or whatever you ascribe to. In whatever elections in your country or state or province or municipality. Go vote. Don't be intimated. Don't let fear stand in the way of your civic duty. Don't block your friends with contrary opinions. If nothing else listen to them. They need to be heard. Even if uncle Billy just can't be convinced the world is round. I mean, he's been to the beach. He's been on an airplane. He has GPS on his phone… And that site. Gross. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the history of computing podcast. We are so, so, so lucky to have you. Have a great day. 

Inspired by the book Mrs. Beaton’s Question by Robert Mercer, this monthly podcast shares the experiences of those who attended the Halifax School for the Blind. Hosted by renowned musician and school alumnus Terry Kelly, Tales from the Halifax School for the Blind presents first-hand accounts from students who tell stories of youthful mischief, school culture, inspiring teachers and the lives they’ve enjoyed since graduation.

Today on Sojourner Truth, our weekly roundtable. The COVID-19 pandemic is close to the end of its second month. The United States remains the epicenter of the global crisis, with over 49,000 deaths and 869,000 confirmed cases. Within the U.S., New York leads other states in terms of fatalities, with close to 21,000 deaths and over 263,000 reported cases. Globally, there have been over 190,000 deaths and 2.7 million reported cases, according to The Washington Post. The handling of the pandemic - the inability to control the crisis as other countries have done - has shaken the belief in "American exceptionalism." Using the pandemic as a cover, the Trump administration is moving full steam ahead with a right-wing agenda that only a few years ago would have been considered fringe. Encouraged by Trump and financed by wealthy Trump supporters, protests have broken out in several states against stay-at-home orders, calling on the government to reopen America. Not only do these protests have the blessing of Trump, who is putting the lives of millions at risk by wanting to pre-maturely lift lockdown rules. They are also being supported by Republican billionaires like Robert Mercer, who helped finance the Convention of States project, which is behind many of the protests. So far, protests have been held in Washington, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Texas. Critics of these Trump-backed protests point out that more people will likely be infected and die if the country re-opens too early. Meanwhile, protesters who have been calling for a rent freeze and having safe protests in cars have been ignored. A CBS News poll published on Thursday, April 23, reports that 70 percent of respondents believe the countrys top priority should be to try to slow the spread of coronavirus by keeping people home and social distancing, even if the economy is hurt in the short term. Today on our weekly roundtable, our panelists will be discussing the pandemic as cover to move forward with a right-wing agenda nationally as well as internationally. They will also be discussing a story they want to bring out, but has not gotten much mainstream media attention. Also, what about the November elections? We return to our Sojourner Truth Election Watch. Our panelists are Laura Carlsen, Jackie Goldberg and Dr. Gerald Horne.

Today on Sojourner Truth, our weekly roundtable. The COVID-19 pandemic is close to the end of its second month. The United States remains the epicenter of the global crisis, with over 49,000 deaths and 869,000 confirmed cases. Within the U.S., New York leads other states in terms of fatalities, with close to 21,000 deaths and over 263,000 reported cases. Globally, there have been over 190,000 deaths and 2.7 million reported cases, according to The Washington Post. The handling of the pandemic - the inability to control the crisis as other countries have done - has shaken the belief in "American exceptionalism." Using the pandemic as a cover, the Trump administration is moving full steam ahead with a right-wing agenda that only a few years ago would have been considered fringe. Encouraged by Trump and financed by wealthy Trump supporters, protests have broken out in several states against stay-at-home orders, calling on the government to reopen America. Not only do these protests have the blessing of Trump, who is putting the lives of millions at risk by wanting to pre-maturely lift lockdown rules. They are also being supported by Republican billionaires like Robert Mercer, who helped finance the Convention of States project, which is behind many of the protests. So far, protests have been held in Washington, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Texas. Critics of these Trump-backed protests point out that more people will likely be infected and die if the country re-opens too early. Meanwhile, protesters who have been calling for a rent freeze and having safe protests in cars have been ignored. A CBS News poll published on Thursday, April 23, reports that 70 percent of respondents believe the countrys top priority should be to try to slow the spread of coronavirus by keeping people home and social distancing, even if the economy is hurt in the short term. Today on our weekly roundtable, our panelists will be discussing the pandemic as cover to move forward with a right-wing agenda nationally as well as internationally. They will also be discussing a story they want to bring out, but has not gotten much mainstream media attention. Also, what about the November elections? We return to our Sojourner Truth Election Watch. Our panelists are Laura Carlsen, Jackie Goldberg and Dr. Gerald Horne.

Today on Sojourner Truth, our weekly roundtable. The COVID-19 pandemic is close to the end of its second month. The United States remains the epicenter of the global crisis, with over 49,000 deaths and 869,000 confirmed cases. Within the U.S., New York leads other states in terms of fatalities, with close to 21,000 deaths and over 263,000 reported cases. Globally, there have been over 190,000 deaths and 2.7 million reported cases, according to The Washington Post. The handling of the pandemic - the inability to control the crisis as other countries have done - has shaken the belief in "American exceptionalism." Using the pandemic as a cover, the Trump administration is moving full steam ahead with a right-wing agenda that only a few years ago would have been considered fringe. Encouraged by Trump and financed by wealthy Trump supporters, protests have broken out in several states against stay-at-home orders, calling on the government to reopen America. Not only do these protests have the blessing of Trump, who is putting the lives of millions at risk by wanting to pre-maturely lift lockdown rules. They are also being supported by Republican billionaires like Robert Mercer, who helped finance the Convention of States project, which is behind many of the protests. So far, protests have been held in Washington, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Texas. Critics of these Trump-backed protests point out that more people will likely be infected and die if the country re-opens too early. Meanwhile, protesters who have been calling for a rent freeze and having safe protests in cars have been ignored. A CBS News poll published on Thursday, April 23, reports that 70 percent of respondents believe the countrys top priority should be to try to slow the spread of coronavirus by keeping people home and social distancing, even if the economy is hurt in the short term. Today on our weekly roundtable, our panelists will be discussing the pandemic as cover to move forward with a right-wing agenda nationally as well as internationally. They will also be discussing a story they want to bring out, but has not gotten much mainstream media attention. Also, what about the November elections? We return to our Sojourner Truth Election Watch. Our panelists are Laura Carlsen, Jackie Goldberg and Dr. Gerald Horne.

Brian Keating, Director of the Simons Observatory, interviews Greg Zuckerman, author of the bestselling biography of Jim Simons, “The Man Who Solved The Market”. Portfolio/Penguin has published Greg Zuckerman’s latest book, THE MAN WHO SOLVED THE MARKET: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution. This book, the culmination of two challenging years of research, is the story of how Simons, a secretive mathematician and code breaker, set out to conquer financial markets, overcoming a series of imposing obstacles to become the greatest moneymaker in modern finance. Recruiting colorful and enigmatic mathematicians and scientists, Simons embraced algorithms and computer models while Mark Zuckerberg was still in grade school, launching a quantitative revolution that has shaken Wall Street. With their winnings, Simons, his colleague Robert Mercer, and others at Renaissance Technologies have upended the worlds of education, science and politics.

   Find show notes and other resources here Brian Keating, Director of the Simons Observatory, interviews Greg Zuckerman, author of the bestselling biography of Jim Simons, “The Man Who Solved The Market”.  Portfolio/Penguin has published Greg Zuckerman’s latest book, THE MAN WHO SOLVED THE MARKET: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution. This book, the culmination of two challenging years of research, is the story of how Simons, a secretive mathematician and code breaker, set out to conquer financial markets, overcoming a series of imposing obstacles to become the greatest moneymaker in modern finance. Recruiting colorful and enigmatic mathematicians and scientists, Simons embraced algorithms and computer models while Mark Zuckerberg was still in grade school, launching a quantitative revolution that has shaken Wall Street. With their winnings, Simons, his colleague Robert Mercer, and others at Renaissance Technologies have upended the worlds of education, science and politics. THE MAN WHO SOLVED THE MARKET was shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year award. The book competed against five of the year’s best nonfiction books for the award. It’s been reviewed in Bloomberg, and the Financial Times, and adapted in the Wall Street Journal. Get your copy here:  or from our friends at Warwicks.com For more, including an excerpt of the book and its many endorsements and reviews, visit here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Intelligent Investing Podcast, Eric Schleien sits down with WSJ Veteran Reporter, Gregory Zuckerman, to discuss his book "The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution"   Editorial Reviews “Leave it to the Wall Street Journal's Greg Zuckerman to lay open the golden mysteries of quantitative investing. With this fine, humane, and eye-opening book, he's well and truly broken the code.” —James Grant, Grant's Interest Rate Observer “Captivating.” —New York Times   “A compelling read.” —The Economist   “Reads like a delicious page-turning novel.” —Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg   “One of the most important stories of our time.” —Financial Times   “Zuckerman brings the reader so close to the firm's inner workings that you can almost catch a whiff of the billionaire's Merit cigarette.” —Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg “A gripping biography of investment game changer Jim Simons… readers looking to understand how the economy got where it is should eat this up.” —Publishers Weekly "Worthwhile reading for budding plutocrats and numerate investors alike." —Kirkus “Immensely enjoyable.” —Edward O. Thorp, author of A Man for All Markets   “An extremely well-written and engaging book . . . a must read, and a fun one at that.” —Mohamed A. El-Erian, author of The Only Game in Town "Page-turning tale…bravura storytelling." —Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success About The Book NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award The unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm--and made $23 billion doing it.   The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution": Summary Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor--Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros--can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars. Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that's sweeping the world. As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump's victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit. The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It's also a story of what Simons's revolution means for the rest of us.   About Gregory Zuckerman Greg is a Special Writer at The Wall Street Journal, ​a 20-year veteran of the paper and a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award — the highest honor in business journalism. Greg is the author of “The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters,” a national bestseller published October 2014 by Portfolio/Penguin Press. The book describes how several unlikely individuals created an American energy renaissance that brought OPEC to its knees. The Frackers was named among the best books of 2014 by The Financial Times and Forbes Magazine and book of the year by the New York Financial Writers Association. Greg also wrote “The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller published December 2010 by Crown Business/Random House. The book has been translated into 10 languages. Greg and his two sons wrote Rising Above: How 11 Athletes Overcame Challenges in their Youth to Become Stars,” a book for young readers and adults published May 2016 by Philomel/Penguin that describes the remarkable stories of how stars in various sports overcame imposing setbacks in their youth. The book was chosen by Scholastic Teacher magazine as a top pick for 2016 and a top 2017 recommendation of the Texas Library Association. In February 2018, Rising Above-Inspiring Women in Sports, also written by Greg and his sons, will be published. At the Journal, Greg writes about big financial firms, personalities and trades, hedge funds, the energy revolution and other investing and business topics. Previously, Greg was the lead writer of the widely read “Heard on the Street” column and covered the credit markets, among other beats. In 2015, Greg won the Loeb Award for a series of stories revealing discord between Bill Gross, founder of bond powerhouse Pimco, and others at the firm, including Mohamed El-Erian. The stories led to Mr. Gross's surprise departure from Pimco. In 2012, Greg broke news about huge, disastrous trades by the J.P. Morgan trader nicknamed the “London Whale.” In 2007, Greg was part of a team that won the Gerald Loeb award for breaking news coverage of the collapse of hedge fund Amaranth Advisors and in 2003 he won the Loeb award for breaking news coverage of the demise of telecom provider WorldCom. Greg was part of a team that won the New York Press Club Journalism award in 2008. He was a finalist for the 2011 Gerald Loeb award for investigative news coverage of the insider trading scandal and a finalist for the 2008 Gerald Loeb award for coverage of the mortgage meltdown. Greg appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg Television and various television networks. He makes regular appearances on National Public Radio, BBC, ABC Radio, Bloomberg Radio and radio stations around the globe. Greg gives speeches to business groups on a variety of topics. Over the past year, he has spoken to groups in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Calgary, Montreal and Niagara Falls. Greg joined the Journal in 1996 after writing about media companies for the New York Post. Previously, he was the managing editor of Mergers & Acquisitions Report, a newsletter published by Investment Dealers' Digest. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1988, Magna Cum Laude. A graduate of Brandeis University, Greg lives with his wife and two sons in West Orange, N.J., where they enjoy the Yankees in the summer, root for the Giants in the fall, and reminisce about Linsanity in the winter.   Staying In Touch With Gregory Zuckerman Twitter Email Website WSJ Profile   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Podcast Blog Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM

Jim Simons is the most successful trader of the last 3 decades by a country mile. Simons founded the Renaissance Technologies the secretive Hedge Fund which employs some of the world’s most brilliant mathematical geniuses. Their flagship Medallion fund has returned a staggering 66% annually, before fees, since 1988. In November 2019, Wall Street journalist and author Greg Zuckerman published his book which lifted the veil on Jim Simons and Renaissance. ‘The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution’ tells the story of Simons, his early years, his influences, his prolific rise as a mathematician, and his career as a code-breaker for the US government. It explores Simon’s initial ventures into the world of investing and trading, how Simons vision shaped the direction his firm took, his search for methods and models which could unlock the potential to profit in the markets and how he accumulated a team of world renowned Mathematicians to form Renaissance Technologies. This brilliant book also tells the story of the Renaissance through some of the individuals which were leading figures within the firm, how they found and improved the model which still runs today as the Medallion Fund, and how they launched other highly successful funds. The book also digs below the surface to reveal some of the dramas which occurred within the firm, the battles between personalities, and finally the how the wealth created by one partner, Robert Mercer, was to have a huge influence on the world we live in today, and which without, we may not have had Donald Trump or Brexit. The book is a brilliant read, and in this interview with Zuckerman, we explore his inner thoughts on the book, Simons and Renaissance and discover a little more about what lies behind their extraordinary success. You can find out more about the AlphaMind podcast and the show’s co-hosts Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall on the AlphaMind podcast website https://alpha-mind.net.You can also follow them on twitter https://twitter.com/AlphaMind101 or visit their blog page https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/If you are interested in the AlphaMind Trader Performance Coaching you can find out more at https://alphamindblog.blogspot.com/p/the-alphamind-private-trader.html

NYC has made it so you can’t fire someone for using Plan B! Wait, wha? You could before? Apparently. Plus: Lizz and M &M introduce you to the Robert Mercer of the anti-abortion movement, oh wait and the anti LGBTQ+ movements. He is the billionaire who is extra…. GATHERED IN THE SLEEPER CELL      Lizz Winstead @lizzwinstead Moji Alawode-el @mojilocks Marie Khan @mjkhhn QUICK HITS OF THE WEEK New York religious bodies fighting anti-discrimination healthcare legislation- https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2019-11-18/abortion-opponents-sue-ny-over-anti-discrimination-lawSusan Collins Has Some Choice Words for Missouri Judge Pick- https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2019-11-18/abortion-opponents-sue-ny-over-anti-discrimination-lawSome Background on Sarah Pitlyk- https://content.blubrry.com/repromadness/AAF13.mp3VAWA Reauthorization Hitting Partisan Political Roadblocks- https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2019-11-18/abortion-opponents-sue-ny-over-anti-discrimination-law GOP version strips protections from DV survivors, LGBTQ populations, and Native American communities- https://www.huffpost.com/entry/violence-against-women-act-senate-republicans-native-americans-lgbtq-guns_n_5dd578ade4b010f3f1d17bbc Joni Castrates Pigs- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhGp1KfuweUYou Might Need a Death Certificate for Fertilized Eggs- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwyng/pennsylvania-fetal-burial-bill-death-certificates-for-miscarriage-abortion-fertilized-eggs-hb1890 MEATY STORY:. FEMM App and Sean Fieler https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/30/revealed-womens-fertility-app-is-funded-by-anti-abortion-campaigners https://news.littlesis.org/2019/05/31/anti-abortion-hedge-fund-manager-is-main-funder-of-femm-fertility-app/ https://rewire.news/article/2014/09/23/sean-fieler-little-known-atm-fundamentalist-christian-anti-choice-movement/ https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=sean+fieler&sort=D&type=donors https://www.wya.net/about-wya/history/ Six Degrees of Abortion - The end of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show! LIZZ DID IT IN FOUR > CEO Leslie Wexner > Close Friend of Jeffrey Epstein > Hung out with Bill Clinton > who coined “safe, legal, and rare” (fuck you, Bill) Announcements Tix went on sale for Lizz’s MN shows at The Cedar ALL THE HOUSEKEEPING Write a review/ give us 5 starsFollow us on social @accessforce on Twitter/InstagramEmail us at podcast@aaforce.org! If we read your question on air, you will get a shirt! Edited by Brad Pearson, theme song by Cory Eischen, The Purple Xperience DONATE TO Abortion Access Force/Feminist Sleeper Cell pod!!!!

NYC has made it so you can’t fire someone for using Plan B! Wait, wha? You could before? Apparently. Plus: Lizz and M &M introduce you to the Robert Mercer of the anti-abortion movement, oh wait and the anti LGBTQ+ movements. He is the billionaire who is extra…. GATHERED IN THE SLEEPER CELL      Lizz Winstead @lizzwinstead Moji Alawode-el @mojilocks Marie Khan @mjkhhn QUICK HITS OF THE WEEK New York religious bodies fighting anti-discrimination healthcare legislation- https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2019-11-18/abortion-opponents-sue-ny-over-anti-discrimination-lawSusan Collins Has Some Choice Words for Missouri Judge Pick- https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2019-11-18/abortion-opponents-sue-ny-over-anti-discrimination-lawSome Background on Sarah Pitlyk- https://content.blubrry.com/repromadness/AAF13.mp3VAWA Reauthorization Hitting Partisan Political Roadblocks- https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2019-11-18/abortion-opponents-sue-ny-over-anti-discrimination-law GOP version strips protections from DV survivors, LGBTQ populations, and Native American communities- https://www.huffpost.com/entry/violence-against-women-act-senate-republicans-native-americans-lgbtq-guns_n_5dd578ade4b010f3f1d17bbc Joni Castrates Pigs- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhGp1KfuweUYou Might Need a Death Certificate for Fertilized Eggs- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwyng/pennsylvania-fetal-burial-bill-death-certificates-for-miscarriage-abortion-fertilized-eggs-hb1890 MEATY STORY:. FEMM App and Sean Fieler https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/30/revealed-womens-fertility-app-is-funded-by-anti-abortion-campaigners https://news.littlesis.org/2019/05/31/anti-abortion-hedge-fund-manager-is-main-funder-of-femm-fertility-app/ https://rewire.news/article/2014/09/23/sean-fieler-little-known-atm-fundamentalist-christian-anti-choice-movement/ https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=sean+fieler&sort=D&type=donors https://www.wya.net/about-wya/history/ Six Degrees of Abortion - The end of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show! LIZZ DID IT IN FOUR > CEO Leslie Wexner > Close Friend of Jeffrey Epstein > Hung out with Bill Clinton > who coined “safe, legal, and rare” (fuck you, Bill) Announcements Tix went on sale for Lizz’s MN shows at The Cedar ALL THE HOUSEKEEPING Write a review/ give us 5 starsFollow us on social @accessforce on Twitter/InstagramEmail us at podcast@aaforce.org! If we read your question on air, you will get a shirt! Edited by Brad Pearson, theme song by Cory Eischen, The Purple Xperience DONATE TO Abortion Access Force/Feminist Sleeper Cell pod!!!!

Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor–Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros–can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance’s signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars. Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that’s sweeping the world. As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump’s victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit. The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It’s also a story of what Simons’s revolution means for the rest of us. Gregory Zuckerman is the author of The Greatest Trade Ever and The Frackers, and is a Special Writer at the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal, Zuckerman writes about financial firms, personalities and trades, as well as hedge funds and other investing and business topics. He’s a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Zuckerman also appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business and other networks and radio stations around the globe.

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Ephesians 2:2-9 is the scripture that forms the foundation for this sermon by Rev. Robert Mercer. (Many thanks to Pastor Robert (who leads The Bridge) for filling in for Pastors Kip and Greg)!

Rev. Robert Mercer preaches in The Bridge.

Carole Cadwalladr, a reporter for the Guardian and Observer, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her investigations into the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the links between tech and political disinformation campaigns. In this episode: Cadwalladr's background; tech's impact on democracy; the "cancer" of the far-right internet; Google's lack of accountability; Cambridge Analytica and its co-founder Robert Mercer; talking to whistleblower Christopher Wylie; the links among Brexit, Donald Trump, and Russia; the danger of challenging an ideological billionaire like Mercer; how Facebook shot itself in the foot; at Facebook, "who knew what, when?"; Cadwalladr's viral TED Talk about social media and disinformation; "techno-fascism" and you; why the US press must push Facebook harder; what Cadwalladr would do if she were in charge; and is she still optimistic about tech? Recode Decode has been nominated for best technology podcast in this year’s People’s Choice Podcast Awards! Cast your vote for Recode Decode at https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup before July 31st. One vote per category. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Independent investigative journalism, broadcasting, troublemaking and muckraking with Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com

Independent investigative journalism, broadcasting, troublemaking and muckraking with Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com

Air Date: 11/6/2018 Today we take a look at the movement behind the anti-government, pro-wealthy campaign to remake America that dates back much farther than the Koch Brothers.  Be part of the show! Leave a message at 202-999-3991   Episode Sponsors: Madison-Reed.com(Promo Code: Left) Amazon USA| Amazon CA| Amazon UK| Clean Choice Energy Get AD FREE Shows & Bonus Content: Support our show on Patreon!   SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: Jane Mayer, Dark Money - @InDeepRadio w @AngieCoiro - Air Date 3-23-18 Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah moved into prominence with the publication of investigative reporter Jane Mayer’s book, Dark Money. Ch. 2: Nancy MacLean on the libertarian architect of the American right's revolutionary agenda - @thisishellradio - Air Date 6-17-17 Historian Nancy MacLean examines the libertarian right's revolutionary plan for America - from an ideological capture of think tanks and the GOP to its plan for a society stripped of social programs and democratic influence over capital Ch. 3: Nancy MacLean explains Democracy in Chains Part 1 - @RalphNader Radio Hour - Air Date 6-8-18 Nancy MacLean discusses her book “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America,” which delves into the destructive “libertarian” ideology the Koch brothers fund to keep the minority in power. Ch. 4: Are the Libertarians Winning? - @Thom_Hartmann - Air Date 8-2-18 Is the Libertarian plan coming into reality thanks to Ronald Reagan? Ch. 5: Nancy MacLean explains Democracy in Chains Part 2 - @RalphNader Radio Hour - Air Date 6-8-18 Nancy MacLean discusses her book “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America,” which delves into the destructive “libertarian” ideology the Koch brothers fund to keep the minority in power.   VOICEMAILS Ch. 6: Final thoughts on the litmus test - Elizabeth from Virginia   Ch. 7: Final comments on how no one knows what “litmus test” even means   MUSIC: Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr  Algea Trio - Algea Fields (Blue Dot Sessions) Feather on the Crest - Wax Museum (Blue Dot Sessions) Moon Bicycle Theme - American Moon Bicycle (Blue Dot Sessions) Vibrant Canopy - Origami (Blue Dot Sessions) Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Thanks for listening! Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Support the show via Patreon Listen on iTunes | Stitcher| Spotify| Alexa Devices| +more Check out the BotL iOS/AndroidApp in the App Stores! Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Review the show on iTunesand Stitcher!

Especialista belga ouvido pela CPI britânica no caso da empresa Cambridge Analytica, que pirateou dados do Facebook, explica como são criados os modelos matemáticos para influenciar eleitores e marcas O escândalo envolvendo a campanha de Donald Trump e a Cambridge Analytica, empresa criada pelo engenheiro de computação Robert Mercer e o ex-conselheiro do presidente americano, Steve Bannon, lançou o debate sobre a utilização de dados de internautas para influenciar os eleitores. No início do ano, Christopher Wylie, diretor do grupo britânico, revelou que a Cambridge Analytica pirateou dados pessoais de cerca de 87 milhões de usuários do Facebook, a maioria americanos. O objetivo: influenciar a votação na eleição presidencial dos EUA que levou à vitoria de Trump. No Brasil, a recente denúncia sobre o financiamento ilegal da campanha de Bolsonaro - empresários que teriam bancado disparos em massa contra o PT no aplicativo WhatsApp-  trouxe novamente à tona a discussão sobre a utilização dos dados dos internautas que circulam na web para influenciar o resultado nas urnas. A RFI Brasil entrevistou com exclusividade o matemático belga Paul-Olivier Delaye, fundador da empresa PersonalDataIo e especialista na proteção de dados. Ele foi consultado como expert na CPI aberta pelo Parlamento britânico em março de 2018, sobre o caso Cambridge Analytica. RFI - Uma das técnicas usadas na manipulação dos dados é a Psicometria, que ajuda a construir a personalidade dos indivíduos a partir dos traços que deixam na web quando estão conectados. Como podemos defini-la? Paul-Olivier Delaye - A Psicometria é uma teoria em Psicologia que não é aceita por todo mundo. Segundo essa teoria, podemos medir o perfil psicológico de alguém. A pessoa pode ser aberta, meticulosa, extrovertida, agradável ou neurótica. Essas cinco características por si só já definem um perfil psicológico. Num contexto político, emocional, elas têm um valor preditivo. Podemos prever como as pessoas vão reagir. RFI – Esse ainda é o método usado hoje atingir eleitores potenciais em uma campanha politica, por exemplo? POD - Novas técnicas emergiram, permitindo a criação do perfil de um indivíduo através da interação coletada de maneira massiva na Web, como, por exemplo, os “likes” no Facebook. A partir de um “like” podemos construir o perfil psicológico de um indivíduo. A vantagem, em relação a um questionário de Psicologia, como no caso da Psicometria, é a escala. A segunda vantagem é que podemos, usando Facebook, atingir pessoas com características psicológicas específicas que buscamos. RFI - Como surgiu essa técnica? POD - A principal delas foi desenvolvida na universidade de Cambridge. Os pesquisadores usaram questionários padrões de Psicologia para avaliar as pessoas. Em seguida, consultaram o perfil Facebook dos participantes dos estudos. A observação dos “likes” possibilitou um ajuste do questionário. Esse modelo também pode ser usado no outro sentido: construir o perfil psicológico de uma pessoa a partir dos “likes”. Os pesquisadores demonstraram que, a partir de 170 “likes”, o modelo criado é mais preditivo, ou seja, mais fiel à verdadeira personalidade do indivíduo do que seria a descrição do próprio parceiro em um casal. Em princípio, o algoritmo conhece você melhor do que seu marido ou esposa! RFI - Os “likes”devem ser públicos? POD - Os “likes” foram retirados do acesso público. Com o passar do tempo, foi necessário o uso de técnicas mais sutis para ter acesso a esses “likes”. Usamos diferentes técnicas. Seus amigos, por exemplo, podem ver seus “ likes” no Facebook. Se você integra um grupo, por exemplo, você expõe seus “likes” ao administrador do grupo. RFI - A conclusão é que não existe privacidade nas redes sociais. POD - As redes sociais ganham dinheiro encorajando as pessoas a compartilharem o máximo de informações possíveis sobre elas mesmas e entre seus amigos. Em seguida observam esse compartilhamento para manipular os dados que são coletados para fins publicitários. RFI - E no WhatsApp, os dados podem ser coletados da mesma forma? POD - Há uma diferença entre o Messenger do Facebook e o WhatsApp. Os dois pertencem ao Facebook, mas, pelo menos por enquanto, o conteúdo do WhatsApp é criptografado. Facebook pode ler uma mensagem no Messenger, mas não pode ler uma mensagem WhatsApp. Por outro lado, pode coletar os metadados associados à rede para uso publicitário. Facebook sabe, graças ao WhatsApp, quem é seu marido, sua família, sua empresa, o esporte que você pratica, etc. RFI - Como essas técnicas podem ser usadas em campanhas eleitorais? POD - Essas técnicas são usadas para incitar à viralização nas redes sociais e encorajar as pessoas a reagirem de uma certa maneira, compartilhando conteúdos que não correspondem necessariamente à verdade. E, graças a isso, dirigir o debate, ou a discussão pública, sobre temas bem específicos. Trata-se de uma ferramenta de manipulação da informação em grande escala. Além das cinco noções da Psicometria que defini antes usadas na construções de perfis influenciadores, há outras noções importantes: o que chamamos de locus of control (quem você responsabiliza pelas mudanças em sua vida? Você mesmo ou o destino?), need for cognition (a necessidade de pensar antes de tomar uma decisão) e need for affection (necessidade de sentir emocionalmente essa decisão antes de toma-la). Na construção dos algoritmos, podemos caracterizar as pessoas usando dados, e se percebemos que se alguém esta mais próximo do perfil need for affection, por exemplo, estamos diante de uma pessoa que pode ser facilmente influenciada pela emoção, sem nenhuma, ou pouca reflexão. Desta forma, se compartilharmos com esse indivíduo um conteúdo político, que tem bastante ressonância, isso vai encorajá-lo a compartilhar esse conteúdo sem pensar. Os efeitos podem ser muito surpreendentes em termos de feedback no Facebook. Esse pequeno grupo compartilhará o conteúdo entre si, e isso, por conta da natureza comercial da rede, levará o algoritmo de Facebook a buscar outras pessoas com as mesmas características. Isso levará naturalmente a uma viralização com pouca reflexão sobre o que foi compartilhado. O problema é quando focamos apenas nessas pessoas. RFI - E o chamado “dark post”? POD - É uma outra ferramenta. Podemos fazer circular uma mensagem dentro de uma comunidade, sem que outras pessoas, como jornalistas ou ONGs, possam acessar os conteúdos que circulam nesse grupo. Isso impede a visão de um debate aberto e democrático em um contexto de eleições. Há pessoas que se deixam influenciar, não sabemos como, com falsas informações que circulam, mas sem feedback crítico sobre essas informações. RFI - Podemos comparar o que acontece no Brasil com a campanha eleitoral americana? POD - Observamos uma esfera política cada vez mais complexa para os jornalistas, que têm dificuldade em acompanhar essa dinâmica. Foi o que aconteceu na campanha americana. Os jornalistas tinham problemas para explicar o que estava acontecendo, justamente porque havia informações que circulavam em redes nas quais eles não tinham acesso. O paralelo entre o Brasil e os EUA é esse: alguns atores conseguem manipular as redes eletrônicas de maneira mais eficaz que os jornalistas conseguem cobrir os eventos. Para mim, há um problema de base muito importante: o papel dessas redes na difusão do conteúdo jornalístico. Os jornalistas se tornaram muito dependentes delas e isso faz com que a cobertura sobre as redes sociais não tenha sido suficientemente crítica no passado.  

In this incredible podcast I am joined by the author of 'Your Mind Is Not Your Own' Volumes 1 & 2 and his new book 'Now's The Only Thing That Is Real' which is a re-examination of the Manson Murders. In this podcast interview Niel talks in depth and goes deep down the rabbit hole into the names and suits of those behind Cambridge Analytica, SCL and The Trump Campaign as well as a whole lot more. Niel's research is up there with the likes of David Icke for depth, fact checking and connecting the dots. We talk about Data Mining and how Facebook, Twitter and Instagram use your Data to find out what you will likely do before you even know. We look at the founders of Cambridge Analytica, Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon who created C.A from the ashes of SCL as well as the other names connected. We talk about the complete switch by Alex Jones and INFO WARS and ask wether this might have been the plan all along. The use of Fake News as a sci ops weapon, both in the news itself and as termonology hijacked by the Trump Campaign. Niel goes on to suggest that Breitbart and Rebel Media are funded by the Elite and backs it up with links back to his research on Cambridge Analytica.  Added to the likes of Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon are the Koch Brothers who are riding the Trump Train. We look at how terms such as 'Drain The Swamp' 'Build The Wall' and 'Deep State' were used by Donald Trump from DATA gathered by C.A. The right wing agenda of the Mercers and suits behind these Sci Op Studies and how Mercer is running the show behind Trump.  Niel also talks about the cracks starting to show in places like Hollywood, where they are all throwing each other to the wolves such as Wienstien and Kevin Spacey, and how the system seems to be bleeding out all over the place. Maybe we are not to far from 'The House Of Cards' colapsing in on itself ? I certainly hope so. Niel is one of the best in the business, his research is impeccable and he one of the guys leading the way in this type of reasearch. Head over to his website to follow his work and find his incredible work.  https://neilsandersmindcontrol.com/   Richard Willett Brick In The Wall Media Tin Foil Hats Podcasts  

  Bio Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey (@drniiquartelai) is a trusted strategic partner and community advocate. He’s currently Senior Advisor and National LGBT Liaison at AARP, where he serves as a strategic advisor to the Senior Vice President of Multicultural Leadership. He also serves AARP in an enterprise-wide role charged with building national awareness and deepening intersectional community engagement to advance AARP's social impact agenda. Dr. Quartey is dedicated to advancing the affirming influence of corporate and non-profit executives on LGBTQ civil rights. Previously, he was the National Strategic Partnership Manager at American Heart. Dr. Quartey earned his B.A. in Political Science with a Minor in Critical Approaches to Leadership from the University of Southern California, and his Masters in Social Entrepreneurship & Change from Pepperdine University, where he also earned his Doctorate of Education in Organizational Leadership. Resources AARP’s LGBT Pride Portal Maintaining Dignity: A Survey of LGBT Adults Age 45 and Older   Uber stops requiring arbitration from sexual assault victims, employees and drivers just days before the Supreme Court ruled that such agreements are enforceable The Supreme Court ruled on Monday of this week, in a 5-4 decision, that employers can force employees to sign arbitration agreements to prevent them from joining class-action lawsuits. Uber announced that it will stop implementing its long-time policy of forcing passengers who allege sexual assault at the hands of drivers into arbitration. All Uber passengers, drivers and employees will now be able to choose the venue in which they wish to bring their claims. CNN reported two weeks ago that passengers have accused 103 Uber drivers of sexual assault over the past 4 years. Sara Ashley O’brien reports in CNN. House takes up Net Neutrality CRA The House is now reviewing the Senate’s Congressional Review Act resolution to nullify the Trump administration FCC’s repeal of the net neutrality rules the FCC adopted back in 2015. The House needs to vote on the resolution by June 12th. Representative Mike Doyle—a Democrat from Pennsylvania—introduced a companion resolution, but that can’t come to a floor vote until the House votes on the Senate’s resolution, which needs 218 votes to pass a House in which Republicans hold a 52-member majority. John Eggerton reports in Broadcasting and Cable. House Committee rejects Trump’s efforts to water down ZTE sanctions The House Appropriations Committee agreed by voice vote last week to disabuse the Trump administration of any notion that it would be watering down sanctions against Chinese phone manufacturer ZTE. The Trump administration has been at odds with law enforcement over sanctions the administration announced it would be taking against China-based phone manufacturer ZTE, but then backtracked on. A couple of weeks ago, U.S.  Commerce Department Secretary Wilbur Ross imposed a seven-year ban on the sale and purchase of ZTE products. China then requested that the U.S. ease up on the sanctions because they’d likely devastate the company. President Trump and Ross had begun reconsidering the sanctions and the president says they’re working more closely with Chinese President Xi a “way to get back into business, fast”.   But law enforcement officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that he was “deeply concerned” about the threat ZTE poses to the U.S. telecommunications network. And Republicans and Democrats alike have for years warned about ZTE’s spying capability. Eli Okun reports for Politico. FCC puts Sinclair-Tribune merger back on the table The FCC has opened a new comment cycle for the Sinclair-Tribune merger. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is still reviewing how many TV stations Sinclair should own. Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel says the FCC should wait to reopen the Sinclair docket until after the court makes decision. Reply comments in the new proceeding are due on July 11th. Amazon will adopt board diversity rule Amazon announced, after first resisting a shareholder proposal for Amazon to implement best practices to improve diversity, that it will now support it. The company announced on Monday of last week that it would now adopt a policy to include women and people of color in the applicant pool of candidates for its board seats. The company’s initial resistance sparked outrage from its employees. Justice Department and F.B.I. Investigate Cambridge Analytica Cambridge Analytica, the political data firm that filed for bankruptcy last week after a whistleblower revealed the company misused millions of Facebook users’ data to impact the 2016 presidential election, is now under criminal investigation in the U.S. The Justice Department and F.B.I. are apparently in the early stages of the investigation as they have questioned several witnesses. Cambridge Analytica is principally owned by Robert Mercer—a wealthy political donor. Nicholas Confessore and Matthew Rosenberg report in the New York Times. Trump issues Executive Order on CIO Authority President Trump issued an Executive Order last week that strengthens federal agency Chief Information Officers’ ability to set hiring, budget and agenda goals for their departments’ IT enterprises.  Aaron Boyd reports in NextGov.

Episodi 18! Cambridge Analitica, Cristina Cifuentes i transfuguisme a la alacantina. Expliquem un poc a la nostra manera la història de Cambridge Analytica, l'empresa de Big Data que va ajudar a Donald Trump a guanyar les eleccions. gràcies a les dades furtades de Facebook, la intel·ligència de Steve Bannon i la pasta de Robert Mercer. Parlem de Cristina Cifuentes i del seu final com a Presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid, i expliquem com ha estat víctima de una mort anunciada pels seus enemics: Mauricio Casals, Marhuenda i altres implicats al Cas Lezo. Frank Underwood estaria orgullós! I per acabar parlem (breument, perquè ja s'han venut tot el peix) del retorn d'Alacant a mans del PP. Qui es podia imaginar que el vot d'una trànsfuga podia ofrenar un ajuntament alacantí a un del PP? Ningú! No ha passat mai!

Episodi 18! Cambridge Analitica, Cristina Cifuentes i transfuguisme a la alacantina. Expliquem un poc a la nostra manera la història de Cambridge Analytica, l'empresa de Big Data que va ajudar a Donald Trump a guanyar les eleccions. gràcies a les dades furtades de Facebook, la intel·ligència de Steve Bannon i la pasta de Robert Mercer. Parlem de Cristina Cifuentes i del seu final com a Presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid, i expliquem com ha estat víctima de una mort anunciada pels seus enemics: Mauricio Casals, Marhuenda i altres implicats al Cas Lezo. Frank Underwood estaria orgullós! I per acabar parlem (breument, perquè ja s'han venut tot el peix) del retorn d'Alacant a mans del PP. Qui es podia imaginar que el vot d'una trànsfuga podia ofrenar un ajuntament alacantí a un del PP? Ningú! No ha passat mai!

Welcome back to the ModState Podcast. *Edit: in the episode it was stated that Steve Bannon started Cambridge Analytica. In fact he co-founded it as a strategic US Branch of SCL (Strategic Communication Laboratories) with funding from right-wing hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. Cambridge Analytica was designed to create "behavioral changes" in foreign countries. This episode is a discussion about the implications of data received by Cambridge Analytica. Roughly 50-87 million profiles were harvested and then used to swing cultural perspectives in the US during the 2016 election. Nate makes the argument that political campaigns should be using social media, but unethically procuring data from millions of people without their explicit consent is problematic to say the least. Sarah's background is in digital marketing. She elucidates upon some of the practices of how digital marketing companies target you based many different metrics. So where does this lead us next? Will someone be held accountable for the geo-political psychological warfare that Cambridge Analytica used on the US population? Where does the Steve Bannon link to the Donald Trump administration play into this? Please tune in and have a listen. This episode is available at YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huPc7qvrAIo&t=106s Show Notes 1) Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/30/politics/bannon-cambridge-analytica/index.html 2) Propaganda Used During 2016 Presidential Campaign https://qz.com/1245777/trump-funder-robert-mercer-also-paid-for-islamophobic-facebook-and-google-ads/

In Episode 27, Justin reminds us about the Black Women's March on April 7, talks about Faso's usual inaccessibility during Congressional recess,  and his unwillingness to denounce the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which Robert Mercer, a prominent Faso supporter, among others, aided in facilitating stealing Facebook user data for political purposes. Faso instead likened the scandal to social media techniques used during the Obama campaign. A return of #FiveFastFasoFacts travels to 1997, when Faso voted against a raise in the minimum wage. We end our #TinyTownHall series with #NY19 candidate Brian Flynn.  We delve into his background and any questions that may have arisen, we get deep with a discussion on morality, and about the time he rented a fancy car. 

In Episode 27, Justin reminds us about the Black Women's March on April 7, talks about Faso's usual inaccessibility during Congressional recess,  and his unwillingness to denounce the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which Robert Mercer, a prominent Faso supporter, among others, aided in facilitating stealing Facebook user data for political purposes. Faso instead likened the scandal to social media techniques used during the Obama campaign. A return of #FiveFastFasoFacts travels to 1997, when Faso voted against a raise in the minimum wage. We end our #TinyTownHall series with #NY19 candidate Brian Flynn.  We delve into his background and any questions that may have arisen, we get deep with a discussion on morality, and about the time he rented a fancy car. 

Abby and Robbie Martin give tribute to renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, talk about Cambridge Analytica using Facebook data to target voters, and how the company acts as a shadowy private intelligence firm that carries out psyops and regime change ops around the world at the behest of Robert Mercer and other oligarchs. Abby explains the most amazing underwater discoveries in the new Blue Planet series, including an octopus creating a sea shell suit and the vast communication networks that exist across ocean species. They talk about the new Waco miniseries, and the ATF/FBI attack on the compound where 80 people were massacred, the majority women and children. In light of John Bolton being appointed as Trump's National Security Advisor, they describe the bizarre trajectory of Alex Jones and Roger Stone--going from 'fighting the deep state' to building an open alliance with Bush-era neoconservatives. Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast please consider donating to Media Roots Radio on Patreon: www.patreon.com/mediarootsradio www.twitter.com/AbbyMartin www.twitter.com/FluorescentGrey

This week Ter and Michelle are joined by cult leader/composer Blake DeGraw and ballerina/illustrator Jillian for a lengthy dive into Cambridge Analytica, one world government, stupidity and Terminator memorabilia, Robert Mercer, and the gang returns in the second half for a discussion about the lonely death epidemic in Japan, being elderly, writing, old lady prisons, and a whole bunch of other stuff. This week's breaks are "Accidents Don't Happen" by El-P and "Into Dust" by Mazzy Star. Subscribe to Mortville!!!

Show #195 | Guest: Jane Mayer | Show Summary: A month ago almost no one had heard of Cambridge Analytica. But when the Facebook data story blew open, one of the names involved was mighty familiar: Mercer. Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah – he an investor, she on the board – moved into prominence with the publication of investigative reporter Jane Mayer’s book, Dark Money. The book and our original interview with her – recorded last fall – provides key background to this new story. This week we air it again, to share that context.

In 2015, Donald Trump's campaign data firm, Cambridge Analytica, used a researcher to illicitly cull user data from 50 million Facebook users -- the researcher lied to Facebook users, telling them the information was only for "academic research," when it really for the Trump campaign and other clients. Trump then used that data to influence millions of Americans in the 2016 elections. Cambridge Analytica was created by Trump super-funder, far-right conservative billionaire Robert Mercer. Mercer's daughter Rebekah sits on the board, and Steve Bannon had a seat as well. It gets worse. Around the same time, Cambridge Analytica, a British-based firm owned by a UK defense contractor, reached out to to a Russian oil company, asking if they might be interested in learning how the company influences American voters. You might ask yourself why a Russian oil company needs information on influencing American voters only a few months before the start of the US presidential campaign season. Good question. Now, we learn in a shocking undercover video by Britain's Channel 4 released Monday night, that Cambridge Analytica claims to bribe politicians, and send Ukrainian prostitutes to their residences, in order to help Cambridge Analytica's clients undermine those politicians. Not only is this sleazy as hell, but bribery is a crime. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. A former Facebook employee says 200 million or more users may have been violated in similar schemes, by companies using the same tactics as Cambridge Analytica. And now we find out that Cambridge Analytica's parent company has been doing work with the US State Department and NATO. This 11-minute segment of the UnPresidented Podcast focuses exclusively on the latest breaking news about the growing Cambridge Analytica scandal. You can listen to the entire podcast here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep-75-trump-data-17654831

Bio  Henry T. Greely (@HankGreelyLSJU) is the Director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences; and Professor (by courtesy) of Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine. He is also the Chair of Stanford's Steering Committee of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and the Director of Stanford's Program in Neuroscience and Society. Hank specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics, or stem cell research. He frequently serves as an advisor on California, national, and international policy issues. He is chair of California's Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee, a member of the Advisory Council of the NIH's National Institute for General Medical Sciences, a member of the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law of the National Academies, a member of the Neuroscience Forum of the Institute of Medicine, and served from 2007-2010 as co-director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. In 2007 Professor Greely was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1985, Greely was a partner at Tuttle & Taylor, served as a staff assistant to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, and as special assistant to the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense. He served as a law clerk to Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge John Minor Wisdom of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He received Stanford University's Richard W. Lyman Prize in 2013.  Resources Stanford University Center for Law and the Biosciences War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy News Roundup N.Y. Times: Data Firm with links to Trump Campaign Exploited Facebook User Data  The New York Times dropped a bombshell story on Sunday and it has sent Washington and the stock market into a tailspin. The Dow dropped more than 1%, or by over 300 points, Facebook lost some $37 billion in value, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw his net worth decline by $5 billion. In addition,  Congressional leaders including Dianne Feinstein, Amy Klobuchar, John Thune, Adam Schiff, Mark Warner and Chuck Grassley are just HAMMERING Facebook at this moment and I wouldn't want to be in Zukerberg's shoes right now. The New York Times investigation alleges that a London-based company called Cambridge Analytica, with deep ties to Republican donor Robert Mercer, who invested $15 million in Cambridge Analytica, Mercer's daughter who's on the board of Cambridge Analytica, and none other than Steve Bannon, who allegedly named the company, exploited Facebook user data to influence the 2016 presidential election to target users based on their psychographic profiles—things like religion, life statisfaction, conscientiousness, and extraversion. Of course, it's illegal under U.S. election laws to employ foreigners in political campaigns. So, The Times alleges, Cambridge set up a shell corporation and hired a Russian-American front man, Alexander Kogan, who was a researcher with the University of Cambridge. Kogan then created a Facebook personality quiz that paid users to share their private information and download the app. Some 50 million users were affected. This quiz allegedly scraped their information, and Cambridge Analytica gave him $800,000 for it. A former Cambridge Analytica employee, Christopher Wylie, was the whistleblower in all this. Facebook says it would suspend working with Cambridge Analytica and conduct an internal review, including the hiring of a forensics team. Channel 4 News London reported in an internal investigation that Cambridge Analytica uses bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians. This is just the surface. Summarizing every detail of this is way above my pay grade. But it's just layers upon layers of deception and bullshittery. You can find summaries and analysis in The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Trump administration issues new Russian sanctions on same day it reveals attacks on power plants Russia has stepped its capability with regard to cyberattacks on nuclear power plans, water, and electric systems, according to U.S. intelligence officials.The country now has moved from having the ability to surveil American power plants to having the ability to disable them anytime tensions escalate, and in a similar manner with which it disabled power in the Ukraine on two separate occasions in 2015 and 2016. The accusations came on the same day the Trump administration imposed new economic sanctions against Russia for its role in hacking the 2016 presidential election. Sanctions include freezing assets and prohibiting business deals from being transacted with two-dozen Russian individuals and entities. Nicole Perlroth and David Sanger report in the New York Times and Jonathan Easley reports in The Hill. First pedestrian casualty for self-driving cars Ali Breland reports in the Hill that a 49-year-old woman was struck and killed by an Uber fully self-driving car while she was walking through a crosswalk in Tempe, Arizona on Monday. The state attracted Uber because of its deregulatory approach to self-driving vehicle technology. The National Transportation Safety Board announced that it would be investigating. Uber has suspended its testing of self-driving cars in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Walmart whistleblower sues after reporting e-commerce cheating A former Walmart executive has sued the world's largest retailer for firing him after he reported that the company was fudging its e-commerce results to show better numbers against Amazon. The complaint alleges that Walmart mislabeled products and deliberately failed to properly process returns in order to inflate sales numbers. Jonathan Stempel and Nandita Bose report in Reuters. Japanese regulators raid Amazon Ali Breland reports for the Hill that Japanese regulators raided Amazon last week. Japan's Fair Trade Commission may be concerned about Amazon's alleged practice of strong-arming suppliers to show cheaper prices on Amazon as compared to their competitors in Japan. Amazon recalls portable chargers  Amazon is recalling 260,000 AmazonBasics portable chargers after it received 53 complaints that they were overheating. One person reported being burned by the charger's battery acid. Four others reported fire and smoke. Kate Gibson reports for CBS. Google introduces wheelchair accessibility in Maps Google released Thursday a new wheelchair-friendly maps navigation feature. The feature will include accessible routes and information on accommodations in public transportation. Josh Delk reports in the Hill. Google bans Bitcoin ads  Google has decided to ban ads for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Facebook had previously initiated a similar ban. The company did not state why it decided to make the policy change. However, it comes as many in the policy community have expressed concern that online ads could be used to promote cryptocurrency scams. Daisuke Wakabayashi reports for The New York Times. Microsoft logs 200 discrimination, harassment complaints over 6 years Ali Breland reported in the Hill that, according to court filings filed by women suing Microsoft for gender pay and promotion discrimination, women working at the company lodged some 238 gender discrimination or harassment complaints between 2010 and 2016. Of the 118 that were gender discrimination complaints, Microsoft found only one to be “founded”. According to Natasha Bach at Fortune, Microsoft has changed the way it addresses harassment complaints by banning forced arbitration agreements. The question, of course, is whether that's enough. Conservative forms bogus company to lure tech workers Finally, Gizmodo reports that James O'Keefe—the undercover conservative activist— created a fake company and sent in employees of his Project Veritas organization to pose as recruiters. These fake recruiters then reached out to employees at major tech companies like Twitter to interview them and record their responses. In one case, an employee stated that Twitter hired few conservatives and secretly hid content posted by conservative users in a practice called “shadow banning”. Project Veritas then allegedly posted the videos as evidence of an anti-conservative bias at Twitter. Twitter has denied in Congressional testimony that it engages in shadow banning activities.

Cambridge Analytica, a data company backed by Republican donor Robert Mercer and headed by Steve Bannon, harvested private information from almost 50 million Facebook users without their permission to develop and exploit psychological profiles in the 2016 U.S. election.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode Beth and Kelly discuss the documentary "Trumping Democracy: Real Money, Fake News, Your Data."  In this boring, yet terrifying documentary (It's like doing your taxes!) it traces how reclusive billionaire Robert Mercer - and his gang of evil masterminds - Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and David Bossie used Breitbart and another company controlled by Mercer - Cambridge Analytica - to find voters for Trump - and then target them with fake news by using "dark posts" on facebook. Yes, this is all real.  Yes, it does seem like a plot from Scooby Doo, just minus the "pesky kids" that save the day. Follow along with the episode guide at: http://www.podcastfakenews.com/i-cant-believe-its-not-news-episode-guide-blog/episode-17

Join The Higherside Chats podcast as host, Greg Carlwood, talks our data-drive world, sex crimes, and the Manson Murders cover-up with returning guest, Neil Sanders. There are a handful of crimes that have captivated the attention of the American public, and there is no denying, the 1969 Manson "family" murders are certainly one of them. Ingrained in the collective subconscious decades later, the unusual circumstances surrounding these events have piqued the interest of researchers, including today's guest, Neil Sanders. As an author of books such as "Your Thoughts Are Not Your Own" Sanders has studied the use of mind control, mass manipulation and perception management carried out by alphabet agencies and inflicted upon the public through marketing, movies, and music. His latest book, "Now's The Only Thing That Is Real", is a re-examination of the Manson murders, myths and motives, and today he joins The Higherside to discuss about some of the key components in America's most heinous murder spree. 3:00 Making his first appearance on THC about 3 years ago, Neil starts things off by giving his perspective on the state of affairs today. Greg and Sanders discuss the prominent influence on the internet from the sophisticated, weaponizezd, disinformation campaigns emanating from sources such as Neon Nettle and RT, to the propaganda and manipulation techniques proliferating online. They revisit notorious pedophile, Jeffery Epstein, his connection to Trump, Mar-A-Lago, and the Clintons, and follow the breadcrumbs from Trump to Marc Collins-Rector, Brock Pierce and Steve Bannon. 10:00 As "whataboutisms" run rampant in any attempted discussions about political and elite corruption, Neil explains the subliminal marketing, employed by groups like Cambridge Analytica, that have permeated our culture, and hijacked our consciousness. A data mining firm financed by Breitbart owner and Trump campaign donor, Robert Mercer, Cambridge Analytica merged with SCL Group, a former British military intelligence organization to engage in a global campaign of psychological warfare and through micro-targeting. Sanders takes it one step further by detailing key figures and their connection between the election of Trump and the historic Brexit vote across the pond. 20:00 With an obvious cohesion between the Bush, Clinton, and Obama years that resembles more of an Olympic style passing of the torch than changing of political policies, the Trump administration's drastically different tone is not only apparent, but has sparked some to speculate a closed-door coup is happening in America. Sanders breaks it down to the bottom-line: money. Neil explains Russia's impact on the international stage, what they stand to gain through the collapse of the EU and turmoil in the US, and Ukraine's key role in all of it. 25:00 Switching gears a bit, as someone who has spent countless hours studying the dark undercurrents of the Hollywood culture, Sanders give his take on the possible agenda behind the recent flood of sexual misconduct accusations catching celebrities such as Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer and Louis C.K. in the cross-hairs. 33:00 Continuing with their discussion of Hollywood's darkest secrets, Greg and Neil pivot to the infamous saga of the Manson murders and Sanders' most recent exploration culminating in his book, "Now Is The Only Thing That Is Real". 40:00 From Vincent Bugliosi's 'Helter Skelter' and Dave McGowan's Satanic cult theory, to William Scanlon Murphy's drug-deal gone wrong and Adam Gorightly's 'Operation Chaos', Sanders details the four mainstream theories circulating about the motivations behind the Manson murders. Neil walks through his research, including inconsistencies in the prosecution's explanation and physical evidence at the crime scene, an alibi for Manson at the time of his supposed race war bonfire speech, the injection of high price mob lawyers,

All politics is local, even if you’re a billionaire. Robert Mercer, the conservative financier behind Steve Bannon and then-candidate Donald Trump, waded into the Westchester County Executive election last month with nearly $1 million for a super PAC supporting incumbent Rob Astorino. Journal News reporter Mark Lungariello joined Poozer Politics to explain Astorino’s ties with … Continue reading "EXTRA EXTRA: Alt-Right Financier Funds Local Attack Ad"

Trump’s pick for science chief at USDA withdrew because of the Russia investigation, billionaire Robert Mercer will step down as CEO following a BuzzFeed News exposé, how drinking and drug use has changed in the last 30 years, and inside the great poop emoji feud.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump’s twitter account gets hacked by disgruntled twitter employee which worries many that Trump’s most popular form of communication is not protected, Report shows a popular Twitter personality who was quoted by over 20 top media and news outlets was really a Russian fake account pushing propaganda, and Robert Mercer severs ties with Breitbart, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Steve Bannon which could be a problem for the Trump wing of the party

Patrick goes solo for a deep dive into the ultra rich, ultra creepy and kinda Bond Villainesque....Robert Mercer.  The guy that owns Breitbart, pushed Brexit and funded the Trump presidency.

Writer/Performer Rick Thomas joins Dwyer in a chat about how Presidents shouldn’t make decisions based on emotion, how Robert Mercer owns the president, and the fog machine. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The hedge-fund magnate Robert Mercer was probably the most important backer of Trump for president. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has the first in-depth report on this little-known figure and former Breitbart News funder. Also: Is Trump like Nixon? Both won by exploiting the resentments of the white working class; both covered up crimes committed by their campaigns against the Democrats. But Rick Perlstein, author of the classic book 'Nixonland,' says the answer is no: Trump is not like Nixon.

The hedge-fund magnate Robert Mercer was probably the most important backer of Trump for president. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has the first in-depth report on this little-known figure and former Breitbart News funder. Also: Is Trump like Nixon? Both won by exploiting the resentments of the white working class; both covered up crimes committed by their campaigns against the Democrats. But Rick Perlstein, author of the classic book 'Nixonland,' says the answer is no: Trump is not like Nixon.

You may not have heard of the hedge-fund magnate Robert Mercer, but he was probably the most important backer of Trump for president. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has the first in-depth report on this little-known figure and former Breitbart News funder. Also: Is Trump like Nixon? Both won by exploiting the resentments of the white working class; both covered up crimes committed by their campaigns against the Democrats. But Rick Perlstein, author of the classic book Nixonland, says the answer is no: Trump is not like Nixon. Plus: Tom Hayden finished a book on the antiwar movement of the sixties before he died in October: Hell No: The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement. It’s out now from Yale University Press. Steve Wasserman, Tom’s editor and publisher, comments.

Thursday, January 19th, 2017 - Irrational fear of nationalism has made World Government part of the Progressive agenda, Analyzing the elite's long-range, big picture propaganda approach, The ridiculous story of illusive, former British spy, Remington....I mean, Christopher Steele, Trump double dog dares the EU, we analyze a Wall Street Journal Story that demonstrates the degrading integrity of one of the nation's most respected news sources, and we show how the British, who manipulated America into WWI & WWII, might be pulling the wool over our eyes yet again, as they manipulate us into WWIII with their subtle, yet effective propaganda approach. We've got a jam packed show for you today! If you haven’t, subscribe to the Propaganda Report podcast on iTunes for weekly in-depth propaganda analysis by clicking here. If you’re an android user, subscribe on Google play by clicking here. Click Here To Subscribe To Brad’s Youtube Page Check out our new website. Propaganda Report Daily Check out Monica’s blog here. Show Notes The Story on the Chatham House Program to propagandize Russia from June 2015 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/john-helmer-chatham-house-rule-propaganda-is-what-comes-out-of-other-peoples-mouths-and-pockets.html Summary of Chatham House Report Titled: The Russian Challenge. This was written in part by Sir Andrew Wood, the former British diplomat who leaked information to John McCain about the possibility of there being blackmail evidence on Trump.  https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/russian-challenge-authoritarian-nationalism#sthash.jIQ6oBQP.dpuf The first line of the summary reads,  "The West has yet to absorb the full implications of Russia’s descent into authoritarian nationalism." Again, this was published by the British in June of 2015, in a document about the need to target Russia with a strategic communication plan (code for propaganda) in order to combat messages that the British, the U.S., and NATO does not like....in a document essentially calling for the needs to conduct information warfare against Russia.  The document then goes on to say.... "The West has neither the wish nor the means to promote, or for that matter to prevent, regime change in Russia. But Western countries need to consider the possible consequences of a chaotic end to the Putin system." This is a pretty backwards, yet blatantly clear way to say that they want to remove Putin and install someone who is friendly to the agenda of the globalist.  Here is one of the stated objectives listed in the summary of the document.  "To prepare for the complications and opportunities that will inevitably be presented by an eventual change of leadership in Russia." Sounds to me like they're assuming the existing Russian government is going to collapse. What do they assume the cause might be? You be the judge.  Here is another one of their stated objectives.  "Not to isolate the Russian people. It is not in the Western interest to help Putin cut them off from the outside world." This sounds like intent to assimilate the public into a world government system. It's like invading a country that you plan on becoming the ruler of. To more easily win the people, whose homes and way of life you're about to plunder and destroy, to the values you intend to force upon them after the invasion and take over, go easy on them during the destruction. The more resentment created within the public that is attacked, the more they will resist the rule of their new kings.  This is the full Chatham House Document Titled: The Russian Challenge https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150605RussianChallengeGilesHansonLyneNixeySherrWoodUpdate.pdf The White House BRAIN initiave. https://www.whitehouse.gov/BRAIN ***Monica's Word of the Week***This isn't even my word--it appeared in an article in the WSJ this week and I had to look it up--sometimes I think sounding extra smart is a way these guys use to deliver propaganda to those who consider themselves intellectuals...sybaritic: pertaining to or characteristic of a sybarite; characterized by or loving luxury or sensuous pleasure Globalism is good, nationalism is a Russian plot Omar Mateen's Wife really should have gotten her Knowledge Report in on time Trump Dares the EU to Double Down Davos 2017: Aristocrats Face the Pitchforks The disconnect between the Davos community—among the principal beneficiaries of globalization— and the rest of the world is striking The World Economic Forum, under whose auspices the Davos crowd meets, does its best to play down the elite nature of this week’s gathering, frowning on some of the more ostentatious sybaritic displays and encouraging earnest dialogue about the responsibilities rather than the privileges of being among life’s winners. The Crisis of Democracy, by Zbigniew Brzezinski ‘Kompromat’ and the Danger of Doubt and Confusion in a Democracy (Kompromat is the K word I couldn't remember on the air) Trump Dossier Spotlights Russian History of ‘Kompromat’ Diplomats, politicians and bureaucrats have been embarrassed by leaks of compromising material Cambridge Analytica (Surprise, surprise! It's a British company!) Trump supporter Robert Mercer heavily funds Cambridge Analytica: Meet the Mercers: A Quiet Tycoon and His Daughter Become Power Brokers in Trump’s Washington Armed with data on an alienated electorate, a hedge-fund magnate and his family shun the GOP establishment to support the winning campaign; advising on cabinet selections Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users Exclusive: Documents reveal donor-funded US startup embedded in Republican’s campaign paid UK university academics to collect psychological profiles on potential voters Cruz campaign paid $750,000 to ‘psychographic profiling’ company Trump Campaign Turns to ‘Psychographic’ Data Firm Used by Cruz Neurotic? Extroverted? Disagreeable? Political campaigns have an ad for you. Scientology Exposé by Leah Remini Westworld Humans Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons, by George Pendle Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons, by John Carter US Government Spending Going Galt, or Pulling a Ron Paul Philosophy of Metrics article: The Mystery of Truth – Information Power and Its Controlled Distribution Trump Meets With Judge Nap to Talk Supreme Court Books Discussed The Jefferson Bible http://amzn.to/2iDUSnl Getting Us Into War http://amzn.to/2iDKR9K Edward Bernays, Public Relations http://amzn.to/2iDNc4s Art of The Deal http://amzn.to/2jNCUM4 Rules for Radicals http://amzn.to/2jpQKEz

This week on Look Forward the dynamic duo is back to discuss the post debate fallout, Paul LePage's binder of white criminals(!!!!!!!), the JASTA vote, Robert Mercer, financial transaction tax, Trump's 1995 tax returns that got leaked and what it all might mean, attack on humanitarian convoy in Aleppo, junior Hitler in the Philippines, and yet ANOTHER Gary Johnson moronic moment.

Joel RL Phelps is an American musician and songwriter who once played in the now-defunct band Silkworm. Upon leaving Silkworm, Phelps began collaborating with new musicians, most notably William Herzog and Robert Mercer, and formed a unique rock group called Joel RL Phelps and the Downer Trio. The band’s new album came out Oct. 8, […]