Just so you know... CA was working for CRUZ initially, not Trump. Also, the data in question was collected prior to 2014.
All the Trump campaign actually did was buy ad targeting on FB from CA, not the data. And the issue CA has is that they had agreed with FB to delete the data collected prior to 2014.
SO.... I'm curious how folks are trying to imply the Trump campaign did something wrong? They didn't collect the data, never had the data, and only purchased targeting services from CA. There is no indication that Trump's campaign knew any of CA's sordid history concerning the data being used to target Facebook users so why are they being implicated?
40% of Americans below the poverty line. Are you telling them that they need to save up in case they lose their jobs? It's government's responsibility to deal with systemic risk because most individuals and their families can't. Or are you one of those hard-nosed, law of the jungle assholes?
Please make your point, but when you lie about your base numbers it doesn't look good.
BTW.. I've lived below the poverty line a number of times in my life. In fact it was a key experience in my childhood that instilled my "I'm not going to be poor like that" motivations that me in the work force and striving to better my situation. I understand that there are poor who cannot help it, they are disabled or incapable of working for one reason or another, but please understand that there are those who are poor by CHOICE, those who *could* work but are unwilling to try. Welfare is for the first group and starvation should be for the second.
There are basically four rules for not being in poverty. 1. Finish High School, 2. Don't have kids out of wedlock, 3. Get a job, learn a trade (i.e. WORK) and 4. Stay out of unsecured debt (i.e. Pay CASH for necessitates, don't borrow to live). If you do that, you will lower your chances of being in poverty by 90% or more. If you find yourself in poverty after following the rules, draw welfare with my compliments and let me know so I can help you find work.
BUT... Please remember that the Obama campaign KEPT the data for their own use in violation of the privacy agreements. The Campaign collected a user's contacts with consent, but ALSO then collected and KEPT information about those contacts WITHOUT a contact's consent. So, even if I didn't give consent, my data could have been collected and kept by the Obama campaign if someone who had me on their contact list loaded the app. This used the very same API that CA used....
This collection was done DIRECTLY by the Obama campaign and the DNC was given the data... The CA guys where just using data they had collected IN 2014 and where told my FB to delete (and apparently didn't), which only involved Trump's campaign in that they hired CA to run some targeted FB ad buys during the campaign. There is no indication that the Trump campaign or the RNC ever received copies of the data.
Then there is the whole "How did Obama's Campaign develop their app" question which unfortunately involves a lot of help from FB which wasn't paid for.... Which really could amount to an improper donation to the campaign by Facebook.... But hey, let's not push this too far or we may end up with a FEC investigation too.
It was scraping your contacts' public information and keeping it, without your contact's consent and that data was used for more than just allowing the Application's users to target their friends. Facebook helped the Obama campaign in doing this though the Facebook API. The keeping of this data violated Facebook's policy but nobody cared.
The Cambridge Analytica application was a bit more opaque about this, collecting your contacts w/o your direct consent, but to your friends the net effect is the same is it not? Facebook didn't assist CA with their application, but provided the common API that allowed it. Both the collection and keeping of this data violated Facebook's policy, but the API allowed it.
So, yea this was a bit different... But not enough to matter all that much.
Actually, the Facebook assistance to the Obama Campaign with their app might be construed as a violation of campaign finance laws as it was undeclared and not paid services that Facebook usually charged for. I'm not saying it necessarily was an FEC violation, but I would urge caution about pushing this narrative too far by those with political motives. It could easily back fire on you...
Actually, pretty sure it was improper because FB weren't paid enough for the data gathered. If they had been paid, it would have been ok.
The Obama campaign in 2012 didn't pay a cent to Facebook. Download their app and you got your friends information sucked into the DNC's database.. https://www.nationalreview.com...
How Slashdot and others keep referring to this as the "Cambridge Analytics scandal" as if Facebook's business model is only wrong when one side takes advantage of it.
They still don't get it, they think: It's not that what they were doing was bad, it's that the evil 'Drumpf' people came in and 'used them' and their data for bad things.
Lose your job, you die. That's how capitalism works.
LOL... Well, nice try. I lost my job for 6 months just as the 2000 down turn started and my youngest was born (and subsequently was hospitalized for complications) AND my former employer sued me.
My family and I didn't starve, though we did draw unemployment (After it was initially denied). The mortgage got paid, food was on the table AND my legal fees where all paid.
How was that possible?
Simple. I was raised to be responsible for me and my family and I had savings and little debt (nothing but the mortgage) so we could live on next to nothing. THIS is how a capitalist manages his finances so he doesn't starve. Plus, I COULD have had a job doing all sorts of menial tasks, mopping floors, making fast food etc.
So I contend that capitalism doesn't kill you, but lack of financial discipline and planning and lack of willingness to work sure can. However, in this country, nobody need starve to death. There are plenty of ways to feed yourself and your family in the USA.
Doesn't the FDA request and fund studies? If not, how do these studies on the new drugs get started? Please don't say the drug companies fund all of them!!
The FDA doesn't fund studies on new drugs. However it DOES determine what studies they will require for licensing a new drug, then after the manufacturer has completed those studies, the FDA reviews them before it issues a license for a drug to be used in specific ways.
HOWEVER, the FDA does order and pay for studies for existing licensed drugs when possible and significant adverse reactions for said drug are found.
Oh come on, the FDA does more than that. Be honest about this.
They DO finance their own studies, funded by the fees the pharmaceutical companies pay for licensing. They also are charged with actually reviewing all the studies the makers do seeking approval and over seeing that the studies are properly done. The FDA does a lot of it's own drug monitoring and reporting of possible adverse events.
That's just the "drug" part of their mandate and activity. There is the "food" part too..
This evil and corrupt agency, the puppet of Big Pharma, makes it illegal for terminally ill people to try potentially life-saving treatments (for their own "safety," of course). It also tells us that lots of over the counter drugs are good but too many eggs will kill you.
The FDA is evil and stupid, and it should be abolished.
To what end?
IF you recall the time BEFORE the FDA, you will remember the so called "snake oil salesmen" who sold their bottles of often harmful and addictive "elixirs" which cured no one beyond the placebo effect.
I for one do not wish to return to the wild wild west medical practices.
Rich people? Is that all you have in your play book? Class envy?
So you are saying a corporate tax cut won't have any positive effects on the economy? All it needs to do is 1% GDP growth improvemnt to break even.
Guess what, we are getting that.... https://tradingeconomics.com/u... GDP growth under Trump has averaged above this target. The stock market has been doing *really* well overall. Unemployment continues to fall with the labor participation rate staying steady, after 8 years of falling under Obama.
Things are getting better for a lot of folks jobs wise.... Under Obama things where getting worse because GDP growth wasn't enough to cover the population increases. Now we are breaking even or better under Trump.
Not all is roses, but it's not a compost heap like it was, when Obama was telling us that 3% GDP growth wasn't in our future anymore. http://www.aei.org/publication... Well Under TRUMP it apparently IS here again.
I think the issue here is the improper use of antidotal evidence and it's prevalence in society today. We are barraged with "It worked for me" advertisements and claims all the time and most people I've run into don't understand how to weigh such evidence. How do you think vaccines get such a bad rap in some circles and how people can persist in the "DTaP causes SIDS" misinformation?
Actual training in the scientific method is sorely lacking these days....
It's a catch 22. The FDA usual process is slow and plodding but results in medications and medical procedures which are generally safe and effective by reducing as much risk as possible. However it takes a LONG time to perform all the necessary studies and clinical trials and critically ill patients die while they wait.
The catch is that if you are trying to get approval for a novel medication that saves lives of the critically ill, how do you justify the delay needed to do all the safety and effectiveness studies? People will die if you don't try, but you might also kill and/or cure. What to do?
Nothing? You've heard of nothing? Maybe you need to take a closer look at that claim because I think you are either being misleading on purpose or you are just swallowing what ever your media sources of choice have been feeding you.
For example... The Tax bill... SURELY you remember that? After all, the media and the democrats told a pile of bald faced lies about that one. If you get a paycheck, You got a tax cut, check your check stubs.
That's just ONE thing he got though congress, there is more... Not to mention, He's done a lot more working around a congress that isn't on board for his agenda.
Also, don't forget the "bent the curves UP" criteria I pointed to above. The recovery was officially the worst recovery on record under Obama. It was technically a recovery, with a positive growth rate, but if you factor in inflation and population increases the recovery was basically flat. We where bumping along on the bottom with growth rates UNDER what it was going to take to keep treading water. Since the election of Trump and the promise of his economic policy of tax cuts and reworking trade agreements the trends have been more positive. The curves have bent up from Obama's (this is all we can expect) trends.
Fixing the democrat mess will take some time and the process won't be bump free.
The problem here for your side is that if you measure apples to apples, Trump has been ultra successful at turning the economy around and getting unemployment unexpectedly lower while bringing GDP up to levels the last administration claimed was impossible. So far, Trump has been able to bend the curves up over the last administration's results and has sustained that for more than a year. I don't expect this to change all that much, though when climbing any mountain, sometimes you have to move horizontally to get to a place you can climb again.
Of course, one side of this political debate simply MUST make all this into bad news... Every little hiccup is THE sign that the Trump Bump is now going to crash down... Maybe it's just a bit of consolidation of our gains, natural ebb and flow of the economy as we adjust to the new "normal" which is way better than what the last administration claimed was possible?
Time will tell, but so far, we are still on a trajectory which is much improved over the last administration's. Remember that.
most petty criminals get caught because they are stupid, at least according to my brother in law who's been a cop for 25 years.
In other words, cops are only smart enough to catch really dumb criminals who make obvious stupid mistakes.
Well, mostly that's true. But we don't pay cops all that much so what do you expect? There are a few (like my brother in law) who actually like the job regardless of what it pays, but in most places they have been continually lowering their recruiting standards trying to hire enough people.
And, if they don't have to work all that hard to solve 99% of the crimes in that small town... Why not harvest the low hanging fruit? that actually sounds smart to me.
Bad mouthing your employer in public is risky business that often leads to unemployment. I prefer being able to pay my bills and feed my family over taking out my grievances with my employer. I've worked in some pretty appalling conditions over the last 25 years so my family could eat and have a place to live while I searched for another place of employment. I've also had to quit places on principle too.
IF you think your principles on some issue are incompatible with your employer's, then I suggest you change jobs in such a way as to preserve your earning potential as much as possible. But, if you are young, single and foolish, feel free to sacrifice your future earning potential by raising a stink. But remember that unemployment doesn't cover quitting or firings for cause and welfare is but a pittance. If your "principle" outweighs that risk then I'd suggest you QUIT over signing some petition that gives your employer a PR black eye.
Yea, crooks are usually more greedy than they are smart. Bright enough to figure out how to do this, not smart enough to make it pay very long. Actually, if you think about it, the inability to delay gratification is likely one of the key traits that makes one inclined to cheat so that makes sense.
Despite what you see on the Crime shows on TV, most petty criminals get caught because they are stupid, at least according to my brother in law who's been a cop for 25 years. He says that detectives really just follow the obvious trail of stupid stuff to the usual suspects, who then confess to the crime before they can get the handcuffs on.
How did this conversation devolve into an emotional political debate?
I posted, "I don't think people are surprised that Facebook has the data, but many still aren't really aware what can be done with it. It's this dawning realization that causes most of the concern."
Sorry.. I assumed everybody understood that none of this would matter if the media wasn't reporting on it because you'd not know. I'm also assuming that the REASON the media came out swinging on Facebook's "failure to prevent" this is because of the connection to the Trump campaign though Cambridge Analytica.
In short, if Hillary had won, nobody would know or care about this. Clearly this is political.
If you don't like what the company you work for does, it might be time to find a new place to work...
Are you kidding? That takes effort. I'd much rather just sign a piece of paper that someone else wrote.
Sure, I would too... But I'm going to insist that this paper is a good check made out to me before I sign and cash it.
I'm certainly NOT going to create a negative PR campaign with my current employer as its target... Mainly because those pay checks would likely stop (and I do like to feed my family). ALSO if you worked for my company and did this, you'd be escorted from the premises with your personal items and the promise that your last paycheck will be in the mail and a note in your file that says you would not be eligible for rehiring for violating company policy about such things.
I don't understand this "plausible deniability" angle. What do you mean? Who is denying what?
You don't? The party who's candidate was the sure thing failed to get elected. Their voters don't take kindly to failure and are in the mood to punish those responsible for the loss. In an effort to keep the Bernie Sanders left wing wacko's from taking over, they have to deny they are responsible. Oh no, it's not my fault.... The other side cheated... Was helped by others who are not legally allowed to help... That way their voters are kept angry at somebody or something other than the party, it's platform and candidates.
They need a scapegoat to burn outside the camp so their voters don't vote THEM out of office for the failure.
Slashdot Mirror
Just so you know... CA was working for CRUZ initially, not Trump. Also, the data in question was collected prior to 2014.
All the Trump campaign actually did was buy ad targeting on FB from CA, not the data. And the issue CA has is that they had agreed with FB to delete the data collected prior to 2014.
SO.... I'm curious how folks are trying to imply the Trump campaign did something wrong? They didn't collect the data, never had the data, and only purchased targeting services from CA. There is no indication that Trump's campaign knew any of CA's sordid history concerning the data being used to target Facebook users so why are they being implicated?
40% of Americans below the poverty line. Are you telling them that they need to save up in case they lose their jobs? It's government's responsibility to deal with systemic risk because most individuals and their families can't. Or are you one of those hard-nosed, law of the jungle assholes?
When did that happen? I understand the poverty rate in the USA is between 12 and 13% https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/fa...
Please make your point, but when you lie about your base numbers it doesn't look good.
BTW.. I've lived below the poverty line a number of times in my life. In fact it was a key experience in my childhood that instilled my "I'm not going to be poor like that" motivations that me in the work force and striving to better my situation. I understand that there are poor who cannot help it, they are disabled or incapable of working for one reason or another, but please understand that there are those who are poor by CHOICE, those who *could* work but are unwilling to try. Welfare is for the first group and starvation should be for the second.
There are basically four rules for not being in poverty. 1. Finish High School, 2. Don't have kids out of wedlock, 3. Get a job, learn a trade (i.e. WORK) and 4. Stay out of unsecured debt (i.e. Pay CASH for necessitates, don't borrow to live). If you do that, you will lower your chances of being in poverty by 90% or more. If you find yourself in poverty after following the rules, draw welfare with my compliments and let me know so I can help you find work.
BUT... Please remember that the Obama campaign KEPT the data for their own use in violation of the privacy agreements. The Campaign collected a user's contacts with consent, but ALSO then collected and KEPT information about those contacts WITHOUT a contact's consent. So, even if I didn't give consent, my data could have been collected and kept by the Obama campaign if someone who had me on their contact list loaded the app. This used the very same API that CA used....
This collection was done DIRECTLY by the Obama campaign and the DNC was given the data... The CA guys where just using data they had collected IN 2014 and where told my FB to delete (and apparently didn't), which only involved Trump's campaign in that they hired CA to run some targeted FB ad buys during the campaign. There is no indication that the Trump campaign or the RNC ever received copies of the data.
Then there is the whole "How did Obama's Campaign develop their app" question which unfortunately involves a lot of help from FB which wasn't paid for.... Which really could amount to an improper donation to the campaign by Facebook.... But hey, let's not push this too far or we may end up with a FEC investigation too.
It was scraping your contacts' public information and keeping it, without your contact's consent and that data was used for more than just allowing the Application's users to target their friends. Facebook helped the Obama campaign in doing this though the Facebook API. The keeping of this data violated Facebook's policy but nobody cared.
The Cambridge Analytica application was a bit more opaque about this, collecting your contacts w/o your direct consent, but to your friends the net effect is the same is it not? Facebook didn't assist CA with their application, but provided the common API that allowed it. Both the collection and keeping of this data violated Facebook's policy, but the API allowed it.
So, yea this was a bit different... But not enough to matter all that much.
Actually, the Facebook assistance to the Obama Campaign with their app might be construed as a violation of campaign finance laws as it was undeclared and not paid services that Facebook usually charged for. I'm not saying it necessarily was an FEC violation, but I would urge caution about pushing this narrative too far by those with political motives. It could easily back fire on you...
Actually, pretty sure it was improper because FB weren't paid enough for the data gathered. If they had been paid, it would have been ok.
The Obama campaign in 2012 didn't pay a cent to Facebook. Download their app and you got your friends information sucked into the DNC's database.. https://www.nationalreview.com...
How Slashdot and others keep referring to this as the "Cambridge Analytics scandal" as if Facebook's business model is only wrong when one side takes advantage of it.
You speak truth! https://www.nationalreview.com...
Yep, they celebrated this in 2012: https://www.nationalreview.com...
They still don't get it, they think: It's not that what they were doing was bad, it's that the evil 'Drumpf' people came in and 'used them' and their data for bad things.
Obama's campaign did this, with FB's blessing in 2012. https://www.nationalreview.com...
Who of these cared then? (Can we say nobody?)
Lose your job, you die. That's how capitalism works.
LOL... Well, nice try. I lost my job for 6 months just as the 2000 down turn started and my youngest was born (and subsequently was hospitalized for complications) AND my former employer sued me.
My family and I didn't starve, though we did draw unemployment (After it was initially denied). The mortgage got paid, food was on the table AND my legal fees where all paid.
How was that possible?
Simple. I was raised to be responsible for me and my family and I had savings and little debt (nothing but the mortgage) so we could live on next to nothing. THIS is how a capitalist manages his finances so he doesn't starve. Plus, I COULD have had a job doing all sorts of menial tasks, mopping floors, making fast food etc.
So I contend that capitalism doesn't kill you, but lack of financial discipline and planning and lack of willingness to work sure can. However, in this country, nobody need starve to death. There are plenty of ways to feed yourself and your family in the USA.
Doesn't the FDA request and fund studies? If not, how do these studies on the new drugs get started? Please don't say the drug companies fund all of them!!
The FDA doesn't fund studies on new drugs. However it DOES determine what studies they will require for licensing a new drug, then after the manufacturer has completed those studies, the FDA reviews them before it issues a license for a drug to be used in specific ways.
HOWEVER, the FDA does order and pay for studies for existing licensed drugs when possible and significant adverse reactions for said drug are found.
Oh come on, the FDA does more than that. Be honest about this.
They DO finance their own studies, funded by the fees the pharmaceutical companies pay for licensing. They also are charged with actually reviewing all the studies the makers do seeking approval and over seeing that the studies are properly done. The FDA does a lot of it's own drug monitoring and reporting of possible adverse events.
That's just the "drug" part of their mandate and activity. There is the "food" part too..
This evil and corrupt agency, the puppet of Big Pharma, makes it illegal for terminally ill people to try potentially life-saving treatments (for their own "safety," of course). It also tells us that lots of over the counter drugs are good but too many eggs will kill you.
The FDA is evil and stupid, and it should be abolished.
To what end?
IF you recall the time BEFORE the FDA, you will remember the so called "snake oil salesmen" who sold their bottles of often harmful and addictive "elixirs" which cured no one beyond the placebo effect.
I for one do not wish to return to the wild wild west medical practices.
Rich people? Is that all you have in your play book? Class envy?
So you are saying a corporate tax cut won't have any positive effects on the economy? All it needs to do is 1% GDP growth improvemnt to break even.
Guess what, we are getting that.... https://tradingeconomics.com/u... GDP growth under Trump has averaged above this target. The stock market has been doing *really* well overall. Unemployment continues to fall with the labor participation rate staying steady, after 8 years of falling under Obama.
Things are getting better for a lot of folks jobs wise.... Under Obama things where getting worse because GDP growth wasn't enough to cover the population increases. Now we are breaking even or better under Trump.
Not all is roses, but it's not a compost heap like it was, when Obama was telling us that 3% GDP growth wasn't in our future anymore. http://www.aei.org/publication... Well Under TRUMP it apparently IS here again.
I think the issue here is the improper use of antidotal evidence and it's prevalence in society today. We are barraged with "It worked for me" advertisements and claims all the time and most people I've run into don't understand how to weigh such evidence. How do you think vaccines get such a bad rap in some circles and how people can persist in the "DTaP causes SIDS" misinformation?
Actual training in the scientific method is sorely lacking these days....
Um... Yea, the FDA does that.
It's a catch 22. The FDA usual process is slow and plodding but results in medications and medical procedures which are generally safe and effective by reducing as much risk as possible. However it takes a LONG time to perform all the necessary studies and clinical trials and critically ill patients die while they wait.
The catch is that if you are trying to get approval for a novel medication that saves lives of the critically ill, how do you justify the delay needed to do all the safety and effectiveness studies? People will die if you don't try, but you might also kill and/or cure. What to do?
Nothing? You've heard of nothing? Maybe you need to take a closer look at that claim because I think you are either being misleading on purpose or you are just swallowing what ever your media sources of choice have been feeding you.
For example... The Tax bill... SURELY you remember that? After all, the media and the democrats told a pile of bald faced lies about that one. If you get a paycheck, You got a tax cut, check your check stubs.
That's just ONE thing he got though congress, there is more... Not to mention, He's done a lot more working around a congress that isn't on board for his agenda.
Also, don't forget the "bent the curves UP" criteria I pointed to above. The recovery was officially the worst recovery on record under Obama. It was technically a recovery, with a positive growth rate, but if you factor in inflation and population increases the recovery was basically flat. We where bumping along on the bottom with growth rates UNDER what it was going to take to keep treading water. Since the election of Trump and the promise of his economic policy of tax cuts and reworking trade agreements the trends have been more positive. The curves have bent up from Obama's (this is all we can expect) trends.
So it's not all about signing bills....
Fixing the democrat mess will take some time and the process won't be bump free.
The problem here for your side is that if you measure apples to apples, Trump has been ultra successful at turning the economy around and getting unemployment unexpectedly lower while bringing GDP up to levels the last administration claimed was impossible. So far, Trump has been able to bend the curves up over the last administration's results and has sustained that for more than a year. I don't expect this to change all that much, though when climbing any mountain, sometimes you have to move horizontally to get to a place you can climb again.
Of course, one side of this political debate simply MUST make all this into bad news... Every little hiccup is THE sign that the Trump Bump is now going to crash down... Maybe it's just a bit of consolidation of our gains, natural ebb and flow of the economy as we adjust to the new "normal" which is way better than what the last administration claimed was possible?
Time will tell, but so far, we are still on a trajectory which is much improved over the last administration's. Remember that.
If Facebook's policies piss you off so much, stop using it (I stopped in 2011).
And yet here you are on Slashdot? Ok.. I believe you..
most petty criminals get caught because they are stupid, at least according to my brother in law who's been a cop for 25 years.
In other words, cops are only smart enough to catch really dumb criminals who make obvious stupid mistakes.
Well, mostly that's true. But we don't pay cops all that much so what do you expect? There are a few (like my brother in law) who actually like the job regardless of what it pays, but in most places they have been continually lowering their recruiting standards trying to hire enough people.
And, if they don't have to work all that hard to solve 99% of the crimes in that small town... Why not harvest the low hanging fruit? that actually sounds smart to me.
No, not good, just self serving.
Bad mouthing your employer in public is risky business that often leads to unemployment. I prefer being able to pay my bills and feed my family over taking out my grievances with my employer. I've worked in some pretty appalling conditions over the last 25 years so my family could eat and have a place to live while I searched for another place of employment. I've also had to quit places on principle too.
IF you think your principles on some issue are incompatible with your employer's, then I suggest you change jobs in such a way as to preserve your earning potential as much as possible. But, if you are young, single and foolish, feel free to sacrifice your future earning potential by raising a stink. But remember that unemployment doesn't cover quitting or firings for cause and welfare is but a pittance. If your "principle" outweighs that risk then I'd suggest you QUIT over signing some petition that gives your employer a PR black eye.
Yea, crooks are usually more greedy than they are smart. Bright enough to figure out how to do this, not smart enough to make it pay very long. Actually, if you think about it, the inability to delay gratification is likely one of the key traits that makes one inclined to cheat so that makes sense.
Despite what you see on the Crime shows on TV, most petty criminals get caught because they are stupid, at least according to my brother in law who's been a cop for 25 years. He says that detectives really just follow the obvious trail of stupid stuff to the usual suspects, who then confess to the crime before they can get the handcuffs on.
How did this conversation devolve into an emotional political debate?
I posted, "I don't think people are surprised that Facebook has the data, but many still aren't really aware what can be done with it. It's this dawning realization that causes most of the concern."
Sorry.. I assumed everybody understood that none of this would matter if the media wasn't reporting on it because you'd not know. I'm also assuming that the REASON the media came out swinging on Facebook's "failure to prevent" this is because of the connection to the Trump campaign though Cambridge Analytica.
In short, if Hillary had won, nobody would know or care about this. Clearly this is political.
Am I wrong about that?
If you don't like what the company you work for does, it might be time to find a new place to work...
Are you kidding? That takes effort. I'd much rather just sign a piece of paper that someone else wrote.
Sure, I would too... But I'm going to insist that this paper is a good check made out to me before I sign and cash it.
I'm certainly NOT going to create a negative PR campaign with my current employer as its target... Mainly because those pay checks would likely stop (and I do like to feed my family). ALSO if you worked for my company and did this, you'd be escorted from the premises with your personal items and the promise that your last paycheck will be in the mail and a note in your file that says you would not be eligible for rehiring for violating company policy about such things.
I don't understand this "plausible deniability" angle. What do you mean? Who is denying what?
You don't? The party who's candidate was the sure thing failed to get elected. Their voters don't take kindly to failure and are in the mood to punish those responsible for the loss. In an effort to keep the Bernie Sanders left wing wacko's from taking over, they have to deny they are responsible. Oh no, it's not my fault.... The other side cheated... Was helped by others who are not legally allowed to help... That way their voters are kept angry at somebody or something other than the party, it's platform and candidates.
They need a scapegoat to burn outside the camp so their voters don't vote THEM out of office for the failure.