#DeleteFacebook is trending! I get the concerns, but let’s all slow down a bit. Every time you sign in to an app or site using your Facebook login and every time you take a Facebook quiz, they tell you right there what information they’re going to scrape. So here are a few things you can do instead of deleting your account:

• Clean up the apps that can access your information.
• Make sure your privacy settings are set to only show information you’re comfortable with.
• Don’t log into other apps with your Facebook login and don’t take those quizzes. But if you just can’t help yourself, edit the information the app or quiz can access first. You should see a small text link near the login or start button that you can click to open and edit the privacy settings for that app.

Cambridge Analytica:

The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook thing is big enough to earn its own heading this week. I’ll try to break it down, but it’s unclear how much, if any, effect the company had on the 2016 elections.

1. Cambridge Analytica is an offshoot of the SCL Group, a behavioral research and strategic communications company.
2. Robert Mercer is part-owner of Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon headed it at the time the activity in question occurred.
3. They hired Aleksandr Kogan, a professor at Cambridge, to write an app to scrape user data from Facebook for “academic purposes.” The app scraped not only participants’ data but also their friends’ data. Kogan also used Amazon Turk to collect data, ending up with data from an estimated 50 million users without their permission.
4. A sting video shows the CEO of Cambridge Analytica (Alexander Nix) and other officials saying that:

• • The company has used honey pots, fake news, disinformation campaigns, blackmail, sting operations, and ex-spies to affect elections around the globe.
  • Cambridge Analytica ran the digital and TV campaigns for Trump and the Trump campaign used Cambridge Analytica‘s data to direct their strategy.
  • They were the brains behind the “defeat crooked Hillary” ad campaign.
  • Cambridge Analytica helped bring Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon on board the Trump campaign.
  • Cambridge Analytica worked to influence the UK campaign for Brexit.
  • They stay under cover by using a shifting network of operatives and front groups.
  • PACs and outside groups can work around federal election laws, implying possible illegal coordination.
  • They use fake academic projects as cover, as they did with Facebook, in possible violation of federal law. This supports what their staff has claimed previously.

5. Cambridge Analytica suspends Nix after the video surfaces.
6. The data they scraped includes personally identifying information, a rating on how important each issue is, and which party a user leans toward. They combined all that with our voting history.
7. And then randomly, we learn that John Bolton’s PAC was one of Cambridge Analytica‘s first customers. They used the company for polling and micro-targeting voters on national security issues.
8. Despite Cambridge Analytica‘s denials that they ever worked with Russians, it turns out they met with Russian oil company Lukoil multiple times over how to target American voters.
9. The FTC is investigating whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree around sharing personal information.
10. The previous week, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica from the social network for its improper use of data. Cambridge Analytica officials, including Nix, dispute that they had ever received Facebook data.
11. In 2015, Facebook already knew their privacy had issues and announced tightened security. Too late, because Cambridge Analytica had already scraped the data they needed.
12. In late 2015, Facebook learned of the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Kogan. Facebook says Kogan and Cambridge Analytica violated Facebook’s terms of service.
13. Mark Zuckerberg says he welcomes federal regulation over Facebook’s data privacy procedures, but then we learn that Facebook lobbyists have actively lobbied against the disclosure rules for online ads.
14. Facebook stock drops.
15. Mueller is looking into coordination between Russian influence, Cambridge Analytica, and the Trump campaign.
16. The British government has opened its own investigation into Cambridge Analytica, and they’ve already missed one deadline to comply with the investigation.
17. At the end of the week, UK law enforcement officers raid Cambridge Analytica headquarters.
18. Note that there is no proof of legal wrongdoing by Cambridge Analytica yet. They were aware of election and campaign rules and it’s possible they walked the very fine (albeit sleazy) line to keep things just on the right side of legal.

Russia:

1. Trump’s lawyers turn documents over to Mueller that include information about key moments, like when Trump fired Flynn and Comey. They hope this will limit Trump’s exposure to the special counsel.
2. At the start of the week, Trump hires lawyer and Fox contributor Joe diGenova. He’s out by the end of the week (along with his wife, Victoria Toensing) due to unspecified conflicts.
3. Currently, only Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, represents Trump full-time in the Russia investigation. He’s assisted by White House attorney Ty Cobb.
4. Both Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan say that legislation isn’t needed to protect Mueller, and Ryan says he’s received assurances that Mueller won’t be fired.
5. Even though Trump’s security briefing said in capital letters not to congratulate Putin on his election, he congratulates Putin anyway, and then tells the press about four times that he’ll be meeting with Putin soon. Note: Obama also congratulated Putin on winning the last election, so I’m not clear the difference here unless it’s the timing. (Russia poisoning ex-pats on UK soil, meddling in our elections, and how quickly Trump congratulated him.)
6. It’s a BFD that someone leaked any contents of the president’s security briefing, no matter how innocuous it seems.
7. Trump blasts past presidents for not having the smarts, energy, or chemistry to work with Russia.
8. Though Trump hasn’t directed our intelligence communities to protect our elections from foreign interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee:

• • Recommends an auditable paper trail for all U.S. voting machines.
  • Requests funds for securing databases, cyber security, auditing vote, and updating voting systems.
  • States that we need to declare that Russia’s meddling in our 2016 election was a hostile act.

9. Senators from both parties criticize Trump for not doing anything to protect the 2018 midterms and they question Obama for not doing more to protect the 2016 elections.
10. Both Democrat and Republican politicians call for hearings into Andrew McCabe’s firing.
11. Mueller wants more information from Trump about four main issues:

• • Trump’s role, if any, in coming up with the public statement about Don Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Russians.
  • The circumstances around that meeting.
  • The firing of James Comey and of Michael Flynn.
  • Any connections between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica.

12. John Dowd resigns as the lead lawyer for Trump in the Mueller investigation, seemingly over disagreements on whether Trump should be interviewed by Mueller.
13. Guccifer 2.0, the hacker responsible for the DNC document and email dump, appears to be a Russian intelligence officer of the GRU (Russian military intelligence). At one point, he failed to disguise his IP address and left a real, Moscow-based IP address in a social media company’s logs. Mueller‘s looking into this.

Courts/Justice:

1. Jeff Sessions tells law enforcement officers he wants to see fuller jails.
2. Sessions also calls for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in drug cases whenever appropriate (Trump called for the same thing last week).

Healthcare:

1. Mississippi passes the most strict anti-abortion law in the nation, forbidding abortions after 15 weeks even in the case of rape or incest. The governor says he wants Mississippi to be the safest place in the world for an unborn child. Maybe Mississippi should focus on fixing things for the already-born children instead, which might help prevent unwanted pregnancies. Mississippi ranks:

• • 50th in infant mortality rate and in healthcare
  • 46th in education
  • 48th in economy and 49th in opportunity
  • 4th in gun shootings per capita
  • 42nd in gender wage gap, meaning that those women who are forced to carry unintended pregnancies are less able to afford them

2. A federal judge temporarily blocks Mississippi’s bill.
3. A group of Republican legislators in Ohio introduce a bill to ban all abortions in the state. Period. All of them. This despite the fact that federal courts have blocked their previous, and less extreme, attempts at abortion regulation.
4. Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, defends people’s right to refuse health services based on religious beliefs. Meanwhile, members of the LGBTQ community (especially transgender people) are denied treatment or have to struggle to get the appropriate care every day.
5. Internal notes and emails show that Trump abruptly canceled a program to prevent teen pregnancy over the objection of experts in the department. He based his decision on the opinions of three of his appointees who think that abstinence teaching works best. Many medical professionals credit this program with bringing the teen pregnancy rate down to an all-time low.

International:

1. Forty-four countries still don’t have an ambassador from the U.S.
2. Trump freaks out Twitter users by tweeting about an arms race none of us knew existed.
3. After a week of speculation (and after Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders refuted it), National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster announces his resignation. Trump announces former UN ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton to replace him.
4. It surfaces that Bolton was appointed to the NRA’s international affairs subcommittee, and did a short video promoting gun ownership in Russia as part of an effort to get Russia to loosen their gun regulations.
5. Bolton’s hawkish stances have some people concerned about potential wars with North Korea and Iran.
6. A gunman kills two people in a French grocery store and holds another hostage, claiming allegiance to ISIS. A police officer convinces the shooter to take him as a hostage instead, and the gunman shoots and kills him. #RealHeros
7. The UK and the EU come to an agreement to the terms of the Brexit transition.
8. Boko Haram releases 104 girls they kidnapped last month in Nigeria, but with a warning. Don’t let your girls go to school.
9. Officials drop charges against 11 of the 15 Turkish guards who attacked protestors last year and sent several people to the hospital.
10. A contingent of House Democrats travels to the Mid East with a focus on security and cooperation in the region.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Representative Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) considers stepping down early to avoid an Ethics Committee investigation.
2. Alibaba joins the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a coalition of businesses that writes boilerplate legislation for U.S. states and for the federal government. ALEC has a very large influence in our laws.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Negotiations between the White House and Democrats to come to a DACA and border wall agreement fall apart before the vote on the spending bill.
2. Trump bans transgender people who have surgical or other medical needs from serving in the military, despite previous protestations from the military. One in five transgender people serve in our military.
3. Protests shut down a freeway in Sacramento following the police shooting of a black man in his grandparents‘ backyard who was armed with a cell phone. Police shot at Stephon Clark—who was 22 and had two young children—20 times.
4. The Department of Health and Human Services removes the pages from its website that provided resources for lesbian and bisexual women.
5. The Department of the Interior joins other government agencies in removing diversity from its mission.
6. Trump blames the opioid epidemic on immigrants and sanctuary cities.

Climate/EPA:

1. The spending bill passed by the House includes this about Trump’s border wall.

“None of the funds provided in this or any other Act shall be obligated for construction of a border barrier in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.”

2. The Interior Department auctions off all its available parcels of public land in Utah for oil and gas development, but doesn’t include any of the land recently removed from Bears Ears. Still, environmentalists are worried.

Budget/Economy:

1. The Fed raises interest rates again to mitigate inflationary pressures.
2. Trump announces $60 billion in tariffs against China on top of the steel and aluminum tariffs that went into effect last week. The new tariffs include some on intellectual property, partly as a way to punish China for its blatant trademark and patent infringements. China owns most of our debt, so we need to play our cards carefully.
3. Threats of trade wars + rising interest rates + Facebook woes = major stock market volatility this week.
4. Betsy DeVos testifies to the House Appropriations Committee to justify her budget, which includes a $1 billion voucher program. Members of her staff say she tried to withhold information about overhauling the department in her budget request.
5. Three months after passing a GOP tax reform bill that cuts taxes by $1.5 trillion, Congress signs a bipartisan spending bill that increases spending by $1.3 trillion.
6. Trump threatens to veto the spending bill hours before the government would shut down. Trump tries to blame the Democrats for not fixing DACA. (Can we just put the onus of this issue where it belongs? Trump broke DACA last fall, and the only reason it’s still alive right now is because it’s stuck in the court system.)
7. Trump finally signs the spending bill, calling it ridiculous. Here are a few highlights. It:

• • Increases defense funding by $61 billion.
  • Increases funding to fight the opioid epidemic from $3 billion to $5 billion.
  • Includes $1.6 billion of the $25 billion requested for the border wall, which can actually only be used to repair existing fencing, for secondary barriers, and for 33 miles of non-concrete barrier.
  • Denies Betsy Devos’ budget requests, and denies defunding EPA projects.
  • Provides extra money to shore up infrastructure, but far short of the $250 billion Trump has talked about.
  • Includes legislation to improve the background check system for gun buyers.
  • Includes wording to allow the CDC to use public funds to study gun violence (previously prohibited).
  • Includes fixes to the recent tax plan, along with tax credits for low-income housing.
  • Bars employers from taking employees’ tips.
  • Includes funding to fight Russian interference in the 2018 elections and for the FBI to fight future Russian cyber attacks.
  • Denies funding for additional immigration detention beds and ICE.
  • Doesn’t include fixes to help DACA qualifiers.
  • Doesn’t include fixes to the healthcare system.

8. China’s new economic czar says Trump violated international trade rules with his tariffs, and issues a vague threat of a trade war. China plans to raise tariffs on $3 billion in American goods.
9. America’s oldest gun manufacturer, Remington, files for bankruptcy. They’ve long been having business problems, and last year, sales plummeted (likely because people stopped fearing gun control legislation and didn’t stockpile as much).

Elections:

1. Eight months after the elections, no election official had yet received their security clearance. Currently, only 20 out of 150 elections officials have obtained clearance.
2. Though the Illinois Republican Party campaigned against him, Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier accused of being a Nazi, wins the Republican primary for U.S. Congress. The party failed to run a candidate against him, and even with his known prejudices, Jones got over 20,000 votes.
3. This is not what I expected Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to get investigated for. The FEC opens an investigation into Nunes for alleged violations of campaign finance laws. The allegations seem pretty trivial, but could spell trouble for Nunes.
4. A Wisconsin judge orders Governor Scott Walker (R) to call specials elections for two districts that have been vacant for months.
5. And then GOP legislators in Wisconsin indicate that they’ll hold a special session to change the election law instead of running two special elections. It’s a brazen move, but they’ve postponed the special elections so long that they’d run into the regular elections.
6. Pennsylvania State Rep. Cris Dush (R) introduces a resolution to impeach the state Supreme Court justices with whom he disagrees about the gerrymandered district lines. This happens just days after the Supreme Court refuses to hear the Republican-led house’s appeal.
7. Washington becomes the 11th state since 2015 to adopt automatic voter registration. This year, legislators have introduced at least 206 laws in 30 states to expand voter access.

Miscellaneous:

1. There’s yet another high school shooting, this time in Maryland. One student is injured, and another dies of her injuries. The shooter shoots himself and is simultaneously shot by a school security guard.
2. Over a million people protest gun violence in our schools in Saturday’s March For Our Lives. There are over 700 marches in the U.S. and around the world.
3. Hundreds of thousands march on Washington, but Trump heads to Mar-a-Lago, with the motorcade taking the long way there to avoid marchers. At least the White House issues the following statement of support:

“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.”

4. Instead of labelling the man who terrorized Austin with a series of package bombs as a terrorist, police called him a challenged young man. The bomber killed himself in a car explosion, and though he left a taped confession, we don’t know the motive yet.
5. In one week, TSA found 71 guns in carry-on bags around the U.S. Of those, 66 were loaded and 29 had a round in the chamber. TSA threatens penalties of over $13,000 per violation.
6. We learn that Jared Kushner’s old real estate venture falsified information on their permit applications so they could push out rent-controlled tenants.
7. Former Playboy model Karen McDougal sues to be released from an agreement not to talk about her affair with Trump. She goes on to give a salacious interview about their affair. She’s suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, which bought her story and then quashed it. The owner of the company is a friend of Trump’s.
8. In 2011, Stormy Daniels took a polygraph which showed she was telling the truth when she said she and Trump had unprotected sex. Also, polygraphs are not 100% accurate.
9. Stormy also gives an interview to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. I’m not going to go into any detail, because affairs are none of my business, IMO. I’m more concerned about the payoffs.
10. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen sends Stormy a cease and desist letter following the interview.
11. A New York judge rules that the defamation suit against Trump brought by an Apprentice contestant can go forward.
12. Trump receives a summons in the emoluments case brought by Maryland and DC. The case was brought because of Trump’s refusal to fully divest himself of the family business.
13. Trump praises Adapt Pharma for a program that provides public institutions with life-saving drugs to combat opioid overdoses. The program was created in partnership with the Clinton Foundation.
14. Despite the fact that White House employees work for the public, Trump makes them all sign non-disclosure agreements.

Polls:

1. For the first time since 2000, the NRA’s disapproval rating is higher than its approval rating.
2. 69% of voters are in favor of stronger gun laws.
3. 70% of millennial women identify as Democrats.
4. 67% of voters don’t think Trump is a good role model for children, and 55% say he doesn’t have a good sense of decency.
5. 57% of voters say Trump has damaged our global reputation instead of improved it.
6. 59% of voters say Trump doesn’t share their values.

Quotes of the Week:

“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that.”

~ Rick Santorum, who has apparently never seen the damage to a human body from an AR-15 shooting.