Let's Do Popcorn! News & Markets for 1-22-18
They are imploding.
Facebook sent fear through the news industry last week when it announced plans to redirect the site’s 2 billion-plus users more toward posts from friends and family and away from media content.
The company also plans to let users determine how trustworthy news sources are to avoid perceptions of bias and address claims it has helped spread fake news.
This prompted Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp. to issue a statement today:
“If Facebook wants to recognize ‘trusted’ publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies...
The publishers are obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services.
We will closely follow the latest shift in Facebook’s strategy, and I have no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg is a sincere person, but there is still a serious lack of transparency that should concern publishers and those wary of political bias at these powerful platforms."
"Facebook and Google have popularized scurrilous news sources through algorithms that are profitable for these platforms but inherently unreliable.
Recognition of a problem is one step on the pathway to cure, but the remedial measures that both companies have so far proposed are inadequate, commercially, socially and journalistically."
Murdoch said earlier this month that News Corp. will keep an eye on Facebook’s newsfeed changes “for any signs that the weighting of news sites is politically motivated.”
Moments after Senate democrats reversed, and voted through a stopgap government funding bill - one which they rejected on Friday night forcing a brief, 3-day government shutdown, and which keeps the government running until February 8 - progressives started hammering Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer over his negotiating tactics and his agreement with Senate Republican leadership to end the government shutdown.
Even Nancy Pelosi has spoken out against the deal, saying there was no reason to support it: "I don’t see that there’s any reason – I’m speaking personally and hearing from my members – to support what was put forth," Pelosi said at a press briefing shortly before Schumer signaled Senate Democrats would agree to it.
Progressive activists were much harsher.
“It’s official: Chuck Schumer is the worst negotiator in Washington – even worse than Trump,” said Murshed Zaheed, political director at CREDO, a progressive advocacy group, quoted by The Hill.
“Any plan to protect Dreamers that relies on the word of serial liars like [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell [R-Ky.], [House Speaker] Paul Ryan [R-Wisc.] or Donald Trump is doomed to fail,” Zaheed added.
Now this is maligning to the nth degree and will come back to bite them.
Dems are discovering it can't be my way or the highway anymore. It has to be a win win for all. They made these monsters and so now they turn and bite their creators on the ass.
Dems - Ass biting hurts
DACA was fine. No worries until March. Yet the Dems insisted on shutting down the government over DACA.
I am not judging. I don't care one way or another. I am the narrator only and report what I see and read.
The Democratic Party puts the interests of non-citizens above everybody else in the country. That’s what will be remembered about this come voting time. If they actually thought this showed they were tough and would get them votes later, I have a bridge here in Houston for sale. Cheap.
Unlike the allegations in the Russian Collusion story, allegations with no evidence to date, there’s plenty of evidence that FBI leadership deliberately mishandled several concurrent Hillary Clinton inquiries and, along with other players on their team such as the NSA, launched the Russia Collusion story to upend Donald Trump’s legitimacy in office.
Former President Obama and his White House aides are implicated in these deeds.
Whether you’re a Trump fan or not, this ought to raise troubling questions about the legitimacy of the FBI. For details see below.
The bad smell at the FBI creeps into several other areas of being bad boys involving Hillary Clinton, her campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and members of the permanent Washington bureaucracy.
When some thing goes bad you throw it out. You don't eat it. Here are some questions that need answering.
Did the Obama White House use the Christopher Steele dossier, paid for by the Clinton Campaign, to obtain FISA warrants against her opponent in the election for the purpose of conducting electronic surveillance on him?
Was the FBI abetting a Democratic Party takeover to get rid of Trump by any means necessary once he got into office?
Did the FBI conduct a half-assed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server by dismissing the charges before interviewing any of the principal characters involved, granting blanket immunities to Obama White House officials, and failing to secure computers that contained evidence?
Does the FBI actually know what then Attorney General Loretta Lynch discussed with Bill Clinton in the parked airplane on the Phoenix tarmac?
Did the FBI fail to investigate enormous contributions (roughly $150 million) to the Clinton Foundation after the Uranium One deal was signed?
Did they look into any of the improprieties surrounding the DNC’s effort to nullify Bernie Sander’s primary campaign?
ROTFLOL such a great show isn't it?
Bad boys! LOL
Right after the NSA said screw you to the American people and the courts the FBI followed suit and said screw you too.
The FBI said late Friday that it 'lost' five months of text messages. In a letter from Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs at the Justice Department, to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC, the assistant AG writes that "The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page."
The explanation for the gap was "mis-configuration issues related to roll outs, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities."
Take it from an IT person, that is bullshit. This is nothing more than a modern day repeat of Ms. Rosemary deleting, accidentally of course, key 20 seconds of tape of Nixon during the Watergate investigation.
The lost text messages are in direct contradiction to a December 13, 2017 letter from the DOJ's internal watchdog - Inspector General Michael Horowitz, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley and HSGAC Chairman Ron Johnson, in which he claims he received the texts in question on August 10, 2017.
In gathering evidence for the OIG's ongoing 2016 election review, we requested, consistent with standard practice, that the FBI produce text messages from the FBI-issued phones of certain FBI employees involved in the Clinton email investigation based on search terms we provided. After finding a number of politically-oriented text messages between Page and Strzok, the OIG sought from the FBI all text messages between Strzok and Page from their FBI-issued phones through November 30, 2016, which covered the entire period of the Clinton e-mail server investigation. The FBI produced these text messages on July 20, 2017. Following our review of those text messages, the OIG expanded our request to the FBI to include all text messages between Strzok and Page from November 30, 2016, through the date of the document request, which was July 28, 2017.
The OIG received these additional messages on August 10, 2017.
LOL The FBI is so cute. Too bad they and the NSA said screw you. Let's just say it is the beginning of the end for the CIA/NSA/FBI stranglehold. While the people there are only doing their job, that is no different than the Nazi Germans who said they were doing as they were told.
If you can't think, if you would rather not think and take the paycheck ok but that was your choice and you will pay for it in the end.
I love them all but they did it to themselves and I have no compassion. That would be silly. I wish them the best and imagine they are doing great. I have nothing but love for them but everyone walks their own road and if they are to suffer they do it to themselves and that's ok too. Infinite roads to the same end.
I just point out other's roads. It's not my road. Up to you if you wish to make it part of your road.
Now you will probably hear about this on the news and this is what they will be saying.
The Seattle store, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what they put back. Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous - customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file.
For grocers, the store’s opening heralds another potential disruption at the hands of the world’s largest online retailer, which bought high-end supermarket chain Whole Foods Market last year for $13.7 billion. Long lines can deter shoppers, so a company that figures out how to eradicate wait times will have an advantage.
Amazon did not discuss if or when it will add more Go locations, and reiterated it has no plans to add the technology to the larger and more complex Whole Foods stores.
Yet is gets kind of creepy. Wait lines at grocery stores are hardly horrid and quite enjoyable for the few minutes there. I love the smiling cashier and the ability to ask them to get something I don't see there.
As Reuters pointed out, there have been some unexpected obstacles involving the store’s complex system of sensors and cameras. People familiar with Amazon’s operations said these included correctly identifying shoppers with similar body types.
Children who were brought into the store during the course of testing created mayhem by picking up items and putting them back in the wrong places. That means it went into your cart but it did not come out of your cart.
Reuters explained that, to start shopping, customers must scan an Amazon Go smartphone app and pass through a gated turnstile.
In an interview with the Times, Amazon representatives were tight-lipped about how the store’s complex system of cameras and sensors would work, other than to say it involves sophisticated computer vision and machine learning software which means AI. The sensors are mostly out of sight, though customers can, in some areas, see clusters of small cameras hanging from the ceiling.
Too creepy for me thanks and the odds for getting charged for something that I did not purchase are high if I pick it up and put it down somewhere else. Bring your own bags too. No bags, no one there to help you. No one to complain to. No one to ask if they could try to get XXX for you.
They say this is the future of shopping but nah. Removing service to profit and allowing a bunch of sensors and cameras to watch, record, and store your facial and body type as well as financial information is not ok. Amazon has contracts with the 17 spy agencies and if you want them to hand that stuff over to them ok. Go ahead. I don't care one way or another.
Cash is King. It is always king and anything electronic is vulnerable to hacking, erasure, and theft. I don't care how convenient it is, it is not worth the time and trouble that could result from it.
This eliminates jobs and does not create them as Amazon has proven over and over again. They say it changes the jobs and yes it does. From the many to the few.
Who does that benefit? Amazon and no one else.
Amazon has gotten too big. It is a great retail online shopping experience. It has never made money. If large corporations are going to eliminate jobs, perhaps the people should eliminate shopping from them.
The few who work in this cannot support the many who will lose work over this.
You can give it your attention and make it be or you can say thanks I dislike this and no longer shop there and remove your attention from it. Up to you of course.
Markets
S&P 500 Resistance – 2842, 2876, 2905
S&P 500 Support – 2811, 2785, 2760, 2752, 2730, 2715, 2682, 2655, 2638
Patterns prevailed and we had a new all time high. Passing the stop gap helped. The pattern indicates more to come so I expect more to the upside.
Target 3200 remains.
Cryptocurrencies
Took a bath today for the most part. The bottom is not in yet. We have to bounce off the old low to say it is in and that pattern has not developed yet.
Be careful out there.
Take care,
Rita