We have covered, again and again, how bad things have been for Facebook in the past year. That’s just us, though, shouting into the night. But we are no longer alone. David Carroll, associate professor at Parsons School of Design in New York, believes that Facebook might have been dealt its death blow this week. 

Professor Carroll is an outspoken critic of the company and its handling of user data. The recent revelations about Facebook’s sharing of user data with other companies was beyond what even Carroll anticipated. “Even as someone who is deeply skeptical of Facebook, I was surprised by the latest revelations,” he said, “I didn’t know it could be that bad in terms of scope and scale. But it all seems to fit with Zuckerberg’s master plan for global domination.”

He’s not the only one suing the company––United States regulators are also suing Facebook:

The lawsuit from Karl Racine on Wednesday targeted Facebook mainly for its entanglement with Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that harvested names, “likes” and other data from the social site without users’ permission. The incident, which affected more than 87 million users beginning in 2014, came to light this March, sparking investigations around the world.

More about social media.

Last week was the rotten cherry on top of a very bad year for President Donald Trump:

January: Government shutdown and Trump utters the famous “shithole countries” line.

February: The Stormy Daniels saga begins when Michael Cohen says he paid her hush money out of his own pocket. 

March: Rex Tillerson is fired and Trump starts a trade war.

April: Trump denies porn star payoff and FBI raids Cohen’s office and hotel. 

May: Trump pulls out of Iran deal.

June: Trump reverses family separation at border. 

July: Trump publicly denies that Russia interfered with 2016 elections. (Holy moly.)

August: Cohen flips on Trump, Manafort convicted. 

September: A Trump insider turns on the administration in a NYT opinion piece.

October: Not a bad month for Trump!

November: Cohen pleads guilty, Jeff Sessions ousted. 

Now that Jim Mattis has left, the cracks in the GOP-Presidential alliance’s facade are beginning to show. Two years in, it seems that Trump is increasingly isolated and at war with his own government: 

For two years, Mr. Trump has waged war against his own government, convinced that people around him are fools. Angry that they resist his wishes, uninterested in the details of their briefings, he becomes especially agitated when they tell him he does not have the power to do what he wants, which makes him suspicious that they are secretly undermining him.

The Atlantic suggests that serving in the government is an either-or proposition: you’re either for Trump or for America, but not both.

A tsunami in Indonesia has killed at least 43 people and injured nearly 600 people. The cause is unknown, but the New York Times reports:

Scientists from Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics agency said it could have been caused by undersea landslides from the eruption of Anak Krakatau, a volcanic island formed over years from the nearby Krakatau volcano. They also cited tidal waves caused by the full moon.

Oystein Lund Andersen, Norwegian volcano photographer, reports that there were two waves:”And suddenly I saw this wave coming, and I had to run. There were two waves. The first wave wasn’t that strong – I could run from it…and I heard a bigger wave coming. I looked out of the window when the second wave hit. It was much bigger.”

Over four-hundred homes, nine hotels, and ten vessels were heavily damaged in the disaster. 

Another 832 people died earlier this year, in September, in an earthquake an tsunami that hit the city of Palu. 

More news.

Officials say that the United States is to pull half of its 14,000 troops out of Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump has long pushed to pull troops out of Afghanistan, considering the war a lost cause. But earlier this year, he was persuaded by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others military leaders to keep troops on the ground to pressure the Taliban and battle a stubborn Islamic State insurgency. Officials said the latest White House push for withdrawal was another key factor in Mattis’ decision to resign Thursday.

The move has led to a sense of betrayal in Afghanistan. 

Most officials and diplomats said they would only speak on condition of anonymity because they were still assessing the situation. But many were less concerned about the reduction in troop numbers — though struggling Afghan forces still need hands-on help — than by the way news of it emerged, which they said appeared to undermine not only the Afghan government, but also some of the most senior American officials working for a peace deal.

This pullout comes after Trump withdrew troops from Syria despite his top aides’ advice. Observers are worried that these moves signal a larger change in U.S. international policies: 

“Who will persuade Trump not to withdraw from NATO?” Daniel B. Shapiro, the former American ambassador to Israel, asked in a tweet on Friday as the implications of the Mattis resignation sunk in. “Really scary possibility, no longer theoretical.”

More news. 

The U.S. House of Representatives adjourned Friday night without approving government funding. As a result, the government will shut down. The House will return on Saturday afternoon.

The New York Times reports that there has been a series of behind-the-scenes attempts to avoid the shutdown, carried out by everyone but Trump.

While the president has been unwilling to consider dropping his demand to fund his signature campaign promise, Mr. Pence and other White House officials were discussing a number of potential compromises that would force him to do just that, omitting spending on a wall and instead adding money for other security measures at the border, according to several officials with knowledge of the talks.

The editorial board of the New York Times calls this a breakdown rather than a shutdown: 

This is what happens when the nation’s chief executive holds a leadership philosophy akin to that of the Petyr Baelish character on “Game of Thrones” — namely, that “chaos is a ladder.” For most people, uncertainty and disorder are scary, unsettling forces to be avoided. But for Mr. Trump, they are cherished friends and strategic assets, in part specifically because other people are so anxious to avoid them. The president clearly believes that throwing everyone else off balance gives him an edge — that is, if he can make the turmoil fierce enough, those around him will give up and give in.

The Washington Post highlights the chaos Trump has inspired in the last week, culminating in the shutdown. 

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Donald Trump has had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. The Washington Post describes it as a tailspin:

President Trump began Thursday under siege, listening to howls of indignation from conservatives over his border wall and thrusting the government toward a shutdown. He ended it by announcing the exit of the man U.S. allies see as the last guardrail against the president’s erratic behavior: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, whose resignation letter was a scathing rebuke of Trump’s worldview.

While it’s too soon to tell if it’s a tailspin––because that implies a crash––this week has definitely been rough. 

The economy is tanking thanks to Trump’s promise to shut down the government over border wall funding. 
Trump supporters have started a GoFundMe to pay for the wall––the wall that Trump swore up and down that Mexico would pay for. It’s impressive that 160,000+ people have paid about ten million dollars for this, but it’s really, really bad optics for the rest of the nation.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned, likely due to a disagreement over Trump’s insistence on withdrawing troops from Syria.
That resignation exposed major issues between the GOP and Trump, the ostensible leader of the party. 
Fortunately for Trump, the week is nearly over. 

More news.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned from Donald Trump’s administration after Trump announced that he would withdraw troops from Syria, ignoring the advice of top officials. The Washington Post reports that the resignation was came surprise:

The retired Marine Corps general’s surprise resignation came a day after Trump overruled his advisers, including Mattis, and shocked American allies by announcing the withdrawal. In the process, Trump declared victory over the Islamic State, even though the Pentagon and State Department for months have been saying the fight against the group in Syria isn’t over.  

The Atlantic reproduced Mattis’s resignation letter: 

I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model—gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions—to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies.

Multiple news outlets, including the New York Times, have pointed out that Mattis was the last of the officials to try to reign in Trump: “His departure leaves the Trump administration without one of the few officials viewed as standing between a mercurial president and global tumult.”

In an op-ed, the NYT editorial board writes that Trump’s decision benefits Russia, damages the GOP, and appears to have been made entirely without consulting his team.

More news.

Facebook admitted Wednesday that they gave other big tech companies access to users’ private messages. Those companies include Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and Spotify. Signing into Spotify, for example, through Facebook gave Spotify access to user messages. 

Facebook’s admission was not voluntary. The New York Times released an investigative piece revealing that, for “years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews.”

Facebook’s loophole benefitted more than 150 companies, allowing them access to user data. In turn, the companies brought more users to Facebook. 

This news comes at the same time that an US Senate Intelligence Committee report reveals that subversive Russian agents attempted to suppress African-American voters. As a result of the report, the NAACP has called for a boycott of Facebook: “Over the last year, NAACP has expressed concerns about the numerous data breaches and privacy mishaps in which Facebook has been implicated. And since the onset of the Silicon Valley boom, the organisation has been openly critical about the lack of employee diversity among the top technology firms in the country.”

More social media.

President Trump has claimed victory over ISIS in Syria, and troops are already on their way back to the United States. 

The New York Times reports that

“Pentagon officials who had sought to talk the president out of the decision as late as Wednesday morning argued that such a move would betray Kurdish allies who have fought alongside American troops in Syria and who could find themselves under attack in a military offensive now threatened by Turkey

[…]

In a series of meetings and conference calls over the past several days, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other senior national security officials have tried to dissuade Mr. Trump from a wholesale troop withdrawal, arguing that the significant national security policy shift would essentially cede foreign influence in Syria to Russia and Iran at a time when American policy calls for challenging both countries.

Similarly, the Washington Post notes that Russia may approve the move: “Russian officials had no immediate comment, but they seemed likely to cheer Trump’s move. Russia has long described the U.S. mission in Syria as illegal because it wasn’t approved by the Assad government.”

More news. 

It’s been a bad week for the police. Three major stories broke this week about police officers breaking the law––sometimes without consequences. 

Off-duty cop won’t be charged for putting girl in coma

Let’s start with Florida, just to get it out of the way. You all knew it was coming, anyway.

From WPTV: “Investigators say the Palm Beach County deputy was driving 53 mph (85 kph) in a 25 mph (40 kph) when his pickup ran the stop sign and smashed into a truck carrying Fox. The University of Central Florida aeronautics engineering student was comatose for a month and remains in rehabilitation.” He will not be charged because the stop sign was allegedly obscured by trees. 

No jail time for child porn sheriff

Donny Lewis Dixon was arrested following an executed search warrant. His defense attorney denies that the search warrant revealed anything. “Dixon’s 12-month jail sentence has been suspended, providing he complete therapy and treatment, and avoid unsupervised contact with unrelated minors.”

Sheriff gambles with drug money 

An anonymous report filed against Ohio sheriff Charles Reader says: “Reader just does whatever he wants and no one ever calls him on it. We are scared to death of him.” He has been accused of using drug-money from busts to gamble. Cleveland.com notes: “Reader reportedly declined to comment on the allegations. His lawyer, James Boulger, tells the Dispatch he’s “not aware” of Reader having a gambling problem but didn’t deny the sheriff might have gambled. Boulger says the complaint might be the result “bitterness” over layoffs in September.”

More news.

As a result of a continuing lawsuit about its finances, the Trump Foundation has agreed to dissolve under judicial supervision. The dissolution Trump Foundation resolves but one aspect of the attorney general’s civil lawsuit against Trump, and his children––Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. The attorney general claims that the four violated campaign-finance laws and abused its tax-exemption.

Fortune notes that  the “signed Tim Tebow helmet and two large portraits of Donald Trump that the foundation that bears his name paid $42,000 for in total are now valued at $975, according to the foundation’s 2017 IRS filing. The foundation will have to sell these assets off as part of an agreement to shut down with the New York State Attorney General’s office on Dec. 18.”

The Washington Post published a victory lap article, noting that “The Post’s reporting showed that, for years, Trump appeared to use the foundation — which was, by law, an independent entity — to make payments that bolstered his interests.”

The attorney general investigation reveals damning evidence––for example, the Trumps had never held a board meeting, and the board hadn’t met since 1999. The Post points out that the “charity’s official treasurer, Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, told investigators that he wasn’t aware that he was on the board.”

More news.

The Chinese have taken another (goose)step in their march towards genocide. We have already argued that the Chinese are committing cultural genocide against the Uighur, an ethnic minority comprised mostly of Muslims. Recent news suggests that Beijing’s policy against the Uighur is following a trajectory similar to the evolution of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. …