by Oui
Sun Jul 28th, 2019 at 01:51:36 PM EST
Follow-up of my previous diary ...
○ Boris Invests In Next Election Win
Johnson's key adviser must face sanctions for contempt, demand MPs | The Guardian |
Prominent MPs on the committee investigating fake news and disinformation want Boris Johnson's aide Dominic Cummings, who has been found in contempt of parliament, to face sanctions in his new role at the heart of government. These could include docking his salary, denying him a security pass and putting pressure on the prime minister to force him to give evidence to parliament.
Johnson's decision to appoint Cummings as a key adviser outraged many MPs because it came less than four months after parliament unanimously passed a motion, tabled by the government , to censure him for failing to testify at the fake news inquiry.
Continued below the fold ...
Some also have concerns about his role as mastermind of the Brexit campaign. The official Vote Leave group has been found to have broken electoral law and referred to the police.
Continuing the Leave Campaign from Downing Street 10 ... contingency planning for a general election to gain superior majority. Johnson's best strategy is to defeat the House of Commons through elections ... project FEAR
Dominic Cummings previously described as the career psychopath of the Tory party. Interesting to read article of 2014, with descriptions as "Leninist fervour and idealogical zealotry" ... signs of authoritarianism, dictates and Trotsky intrigues.
H
Michael Gove forced to disown closest aide after attack on David Cameron | The Guardian - June 16, 2014 |
The shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, said: "This has all the Leninist fervour and ideological zealotry that surrounds Gove. He has forgotten that the way to sustainable change in education is by taking people with you, and focusing on what works, not ideology."
[...]
Cummings followed up his initial attack on Downing Street by describing the Conservative approach to the EU as "whining, rude, dishonest, unpleasant, childishly belligerent in public while pathetically craven in private, and overall hollow".
He added: "As the black flags of Isis fly and Putin seeks to break Nato, William Hague poses for the cameras with Angelina [Jolie] and Cameron's closest two advisers stick with the only thing they know - a 10-day planning horizon (at best) of feeding the lobby (badly) and changing tack to fit the babbling commentariat (while blaming juniors for their own failings)."
He argued that Whitehall faced a long-term inability to develop political institutions able to think wisely about the biggest problems in order to pre-empt crises or tackle long-term challenges such as autonomous robotics, synthetic biology, the rise of China, or the collision of Islam with modernity.
He insisted his attack on No 10 was nothing to do with any leadership ambitions for Gove, but just an honest attempt to set out the problems facing Whitehall.
PM Cameron backs Michael Gove but suggests former aide was a 'career psychopath'
Collision of Islam with modernity ... the Islamophobe theme used by rightwing states after the Saudi led 9/11 attacks on America. That's why the United States, United Kingdom and NATO states are supplying the most advanced fighter planes, guided bombs and military support to the most backward [religious] Arab States of the Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Can anyone tell me how this makes sense?? All in the name of spreading fear and terror to comply to the wishes of the military and intelligence complex running global conflicts despite lacking a clear mandate from Congress or Parliament.
Coming to your hometown, a brief review ...
The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked | The Guardian - May 2017 |
A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign influenced the result of the EU referendum.
"The connectivity that is the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims.[...] The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty."
Alex Younger, head of MI6, December, 2016
"It's not MI6's job to warn of internal threats. It was a very strange speech. Was it one branch of the intelligence services sending a shot across the bows of another? Or was it pointed at Theresa May's government? Does she know something she's not telling us?"
Senior intelligence analyst, April 2017
In January 2013, a young American postgraduate was passing through London when she was called up by the boss of a firm where she'd previously interned. The company, SCL Elections, went on to be bought by Robert Mercer, a secretive hedge fund billionaire, renamed Cambridge Analytica, and achieved a certain notoriety as the data analytics firm that played a role in both Trump and Brexit campaigns. But all of this was still to come. London in 2013 was still basking in the afterglow of the Olympics. Britain had not yet Brexited. The world had not yet turned.
Why would anyone want to intern with a psychological warfare firm, I ask him. And he looks at me like I am mad. "It was like working for MI6. Only it's MI6 for hire. It was very posh, very English, run by an old Etonian and you got to do some really cool things. Fly all over the world. You were working with the president of Kenya or Ghana or wherever. It's not like election campaigns in the west. You got to do all sorts of crazy shit."
[...]
To anyone concerned about surveillance, Palantir is practically now a trigger word. The data-mining firm has contracts with governments all over the world - including GCHQ and the NSA. It's owned by Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and major investor in Facebook, who became Silicon Valley's first vocal supporter of Trump.
[...]
There are three strands to this story. How the foundations of an authoritarian surveillance state are being laid in the US. How British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by a US billionaire. And how we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored. Whoever owns this data owns the future.
High Court session in liquidation of Cambridge Analytica - secrets covered up by Emerdata - run by the Mercers
○ Cambridge Analytica's administrators misled judge, High Court told | The Register - Dec. 2018 |
The strange afterlife of Cambridge Analytica and the mysterious fate of its data | Fast Company - July 26, 2019 |
Since last year, however, Emerdata has been footing the SCL companies' legal bills amid bankruptcy proceedings, investigations, and lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic. After both SCL Group and Cambridge Analytica ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy-or, in British parlance, "went into administration"-in May 2018, Emerdata also paid millions to acquire what remained of the companies while they are being liquidated.
According to its latest corporate filing, Emerdata purchased 100% of the share capital of SCL Group for £10,861,339 GBP, equivalent to around $13 million. Emerdata also noted its 89.5% ownership of Cambridge Analytica, just as it reported in previous filings.
A third and final wholly owned subsidiary listed on the document is Anaxi Holdings [?], a government contractor that was registered in Delaware ten days after the firestorm began to hit the companies last March. Emerdata has not acquired SCL Insight Limited, another government-focused company owned by Nigel Oakes, an SCL Group co-founder.
Emerdata now appears to be largely owned by conservative activist Rebekah Mercer and her sister Jennifer, whose shares are held in trust and via their U.S.-based Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, according to Cambridge's bankruptcy filing in New York. The remaining fifth of Emerdata's shares are owned by several prior SCL Group minority investors and a number of Hong Kong-based shell companies. Investigative journalist Wendy Siegelman first reported on Emerdata and its links to SCL last year.
David Carroll, an American professor who sued Cambridge Analytica to obtain his personal data, has alleged that Emerdata had surreptitiously tried to shield the defunct firms from scrutiny and liability.
Common Cause Holding Power Accountable - filing before the Federal Election Commission [pdf]
This complaint is filed pursuant to 52 U.S.C. § 30109 (a)(1) and is based on information providing reason to believe that Cambridge Analytica Ltd., SCL Group Limited, Alexander Nix, Nigel Oakes, Alexander Tayler, Mark Turnbull, Christopher Wylie and/or unknown persons ("John Doe(s)") violated prohibitions on foreign national election-related activities established by the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), 52 U.S.C. § 30101, et seq. and Commission regulations.
[...]
"Disbursement to Cambridge Analytica LLC 2013-14, FEC.GOV/DATA"
According to Commission records, during the 2014 election cycle, the following federal committees made disbursements to Cambridge Analytica for goods and services in the following amounts:
* John Bolton Super PAC: $342,025
- North Carolina Republican Party: $150,000
- Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund (Sen. Ted Cruz Leadership PAC): $133,333,33
- Thom Tillis Committee: $30,000
- Art Robinson for Congress: $20,000
- McHenry for Congress: $15,000
- Cotton for Senate: $20,000
- Dr. Monica Wehby for US: $20,000
...
"Disbursement to Cambridge Analytica LLC 2015-16, FEC.GOV/DATA"
According to Commission records, during the 2016 election cycle, the following federal committees made disbursements to Cambridge Analytica for goods and services in the following amounts:
* Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.: $5,912,500
- Cruz for President: $5,805,552,23
- Make America Number 1: $1,476,484
- John Bolton Super PAC: $ 811,274
- Keep the Promise II: $570,000
- Carson America: $ 438,065
- Restore/Restoring American Leadership: $ 155,725
- Thom Tillis Committee: $100,000
- North Carolina Republican Party: $65,000
- Walters for Congress: $20,000
- Friends of Roy Blunt: $ 12,000
...
○ Ted Cruz Campaign Credits Data, Analytics for Success | GovTechData - Dec. 14, 2015 |
To build its data-gathering operation widely, the Cruz campaign hired Cambridge Analytica, a Massachusetts company reportedly owned in part by hedge fund executive Robert Mercer, who has given $11 million to a super PAC supporting Cruz. Cambridge, the U.S. affiliate of London-based behavioral research company SCL Group, has been paid more than $750,000 by the Cruz campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.
During the period Donald Trump was the Republican nominee for president, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica worked together in the Houston HQ of the Republican Party
○ Cloak and Data: The Real Story Behind Cambridge Analytica's Rise and Fall | Mother Jones |
○ Cambridge Analytica (Mercer) the Real Election Cycle Culprit
Cross-pollination between Trump-Bannon-Farage-Johnson mixed with Tommy Robinson hot pepper...
○ How Britain grapples with nationalist dark web
○ US - Donald Trump anti-Muslim video retweet sparks condemnations
○ Donald Trump Retweets Controversial Katie Hopkins' Praise Of Far-Right Politicians
○ Tommy Robinson: EDL founder begs Trump to grant him political asylum in US
Any doubt left America has got itself a racist white-supremacist president ...
○ Outrage as Trump brands mostly-black Baltimore 'infested mess'
○ Trump 'rat-infested' attack on Elijah Cummings was racist, Pelosi says
Related reading ...
○ After Brexit, Europe at a Crossroad
○ Cambridge Analytica diaries @BooMan
○ New York and Trump associates join fight to destroy the EU - World4Brexit
