Tester's in Trouble

Heh, if this guy loses Ima die laughing on election night.

At the New York Times, "Jon Tester Is a Big Guy in Big Sky Country. He Hopes That’s Enough":

Montana's Senator Jon Tester, once considered a solid favorite, is now at risk https://t.co/g34U3C0LVk

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 23, 2018

BUTTE, Mont. — Jon Tester, the senator who looks least like a senator, sized up a crowd of dozens and got to talking about history.

He joined local veterans last week in a creaky hotel ballroom, with his $12 flattop haircut and scuffed black shoes, and spoke of the copper mines up the road, sustaining the nation in wartimes. He saluted Montana’s tradition of bipartisanship, recalling his work, as a Democrat, with President Trump. “The key word is ‘together,’” Mr. Tester said.

Mr. Trump, the president who behaves least like a president, stood hours later before a crowd of thousands in Missoula, Mont., and got to talking about himself.

He mocked Hillary Clinton’s 2016 slogan (“‘Come Together’ or something”). He commended a Montana congressman for having assaulted a reporter (“my kind of guy”). Occasionally, he drifted to the point.

“The Democrats have truly turned into an angry mob,” Mr. Trump thundered. “And your senator is one of them.”

Then came a shout from the audience. “You love my hair?” Mr. Trump called back, losing the thread again. “Thank you. She knows what to say.””

For decades, “all politics is local” has been the most overworked electoral cliché, well-worn mostly because it was so often true. But in critical Senate races across the country — with vulnerable Democratic incumbents in states that Mr. Trump won easily, like North Dakota, Indiana and this one — Republicans have made a different calculation: In an age of tribal fury and presidential ubiquity in the public consciousness, they believe, all politics is effectively national now. Even in a politically eccentric rural state with an abiding emphasis on local individualism and multigenerational credentials in its elected leaders.

Mr. Tester is a Montana lifer. His opponent, Matt Rosendale, the state auditor, is a former Maryland developer who moved here in 2002.

The result, two weeks before Election Day, has been the central strategic divide across several midterm battlegrounds: a Democrat keeping the focus local, hoping to dissociate from divisive national party figures like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi; and a Republican eager to make the race a referendum on Mr. Trump and the leftist “mob” opposing him, betting that the risk of a volatile and meandering executive messenger is worth the reward of an energized base.

Perhaps nowhere are the parties’ dueling instincts clearer than in Montana, where both sides acknowledge that Mr. Tester, once considered a solid favorite, is now genuinely at risk...

Still more.

President Trump Slams 'Migrant Caravan' Ahead of Midterm Elections (VIDEO)

I swear I can't believe leftists and Democrats made immigration an campaign issue before the elections?!!

This is President Trump's wheelhouse. The illegal alien invasion is going to infuriate the Republican base. I can't say about California, where we're practically a lost cause, but if you look at Texas or some states in the Midwest, it's not going to play over well.

And even in California's GOP-held House districts, not all of our diverse populations are for open borders. Again, my hunch is Dems are making a big mistake, and if it's truly Soros money that's financed leftists operatives in Honduras, I'll practically pop my eyeballs lol.

At Politico, "Trump has whipped up a frenzy on the migrant caravan. Here are the facts."

Donald Trump’s remarks in recent days about a caravan of Central American migrants heading toward the United States have stirred up a political frenzy — in the process distorting reality and ignoring basic factshttps://t.co/IPYP88KUb7

— POLITICO (@politico) October 23, 2018

Well see who's "ignoring basic facts" on election day. My money's on the White House.

Victoria Justice in Extremely Tight Bikini

At Taxi Driver, "Victoria Justice in Yellow Bikini."

BONUS: "Gerogia May Foote in See-Through Dress."

Attack on America: 7,000-Strong 'Migrant Caravan' Heads to the U.S. Through Southern Mexico (VIDEO)

Kate Linthicum of the L.A. Times is a partisan advocate campaigning through her "journalism" for open borders and unlimited access for the so-called "refugees" of the illegal immigrant caravan.

And below, Newt Gringrich's recent op-ed at Fox News and a raw video of the recent migrant siege of the Mexico border, via Ruptly:

“All my life is there, waiting for me,” said a migrant who was deported a month ago from Phoenix. “I miss my Playstation. I miss Buffalo Wild Wings. I miss my car.”https://t.co/MdlDFLHuO9

— Kate Linthicum (@katelinthicum) October 22, 2018

.@newtgingrich: The caravan is an attack on America -- Stop the caravan now https://t.co/swtG7y3K1x

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 20, 2018

The Nightmare of Democrats' Leftist Agenda

From VDH, at American Greatness, "Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing":

Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing https://t.co/xaeT0qah87 pic.twitter.com/MFOmBoTeFp

— American Greatness (@theamgreatness) October 22, 2018

If the New Democratic Party was smart, it would do what the old Democratic Party did long ago: always sound centrist if not conservative in the last weeks of a campaign, get elected, then revert to form and pursue a left-wing agenda for a year or two—and then repeat the chameleon cycle every two to four years.

But although many Democrats in Trump states still dance the old bipartisan two-step, lots of blinkered progressive wolves don’t even bother to put on the sheep’s clothing.

Evidently, the new progressive and radical Democratic Party is far more honest—or perhaps far more hubristic—than in the past. So what now looks and sounds like a wolf is a wolf. Democrats have learned nothing and forgotten nothing from 2016. Or rather, they still believe it is 2008 all over again, with a host of wannabe Obamas on the 2020 horizon, all appealing to identity politics, Maenad feminism, and neo-socialism. The hipster theory is that 30 percent of the present electorate will always vote en masse for unapologetic progressives, and that bloc number, due to changing demography and persuasive street theatrics, soon will grow to 50 percent of all voters.

More to the point, the strategy of hating Trump 24/7 and fueling the 90 percent negative media coverage of the president had seemed to be a winning hand—given that Trump has usually below 45 percent approval in most polls, and pundits promised a huge blue wave neutering what certainly would be Trump’s last two years in the White House.

Yet the result of a progressive wolf baying proudly like a left-wing wolf is that as we head to the 2018 midterm, progressives may soon blow what should be, by history’s analytics, a big win for the out party in any president’s first term.

Man-Made Disasters
As the economy kept booming and things overseas calmed down, the Democrats found it harder to run a campaign strictly against either the ogre or the incompetent Trump. So they stayed on the offensive and did not bother to hide their agendas of open borders, “Medicare for All,” abolishing ICE, identity politics quotas, radical feminism, abortion on demand, and climate change hysterias. And they were quite lupine in their sincerity even as the public insidiously began to tune them out.

The first disaster was disrupting senate confirmation hearings, on the part of both senators and paid operatives in the gallery. Hysterics by Senators Cory “Spartacus,” Kamala Harris, and Richard Blumenthal soon gave the impression that Democratic stalwarts were unhinged.

After all, somehow the Democrats had managed all at once to 1) lose the vote on Kavanaugh; 2) to ensure that the Bushite Kavanaugh likely would become so radicalized by the horrific treatment meted out that he would not follow the usual David Souter liberalizing trajectory, 3) unite Republicans and more or less end the Never Trump factionalism, 4) go on record of opposing due process of law and rejecting the entire political and cultural tradition of American jurisprudence, and 5) so discredit their opposition to a court nominee, that next time around everything they do and say about a nominee will be seen as mere go-through-the-motions leftist boilerplate.

The second disaster was condoning and indeed empowering street thuggery. Cory Booker, Hillary Clinton, and Eric Holder went full Maxine Waters in parroting the new incivility and seemed to think most Americans enjoy pampered protestors getting in the faces of their opponents to scream, yell, and in general go berserk. It is never a wise thing to be in alliance with young Bacchants shrieking as they scratch the closed doors of the Supreme Court or rude young activists swarming someone at a restaurant and screaming obscenities in a nasal voice.

Most Americans wondered, what in the world would the frenzied anti-Kavanaugh protestors have done if they had broken down the court doors and plunged into the swearing-in ceremony: scratch Mrs. Kavanaugh and the two Kavanaugh girls, or rip apart Brett Kavanaugh as if he were a young King Pentheus? Progressives seem to think it is cool that the street mobs are now the paramilitary wing of their own party.

Immolated by Identity Politics
A third mishap was senator Elizabeth Warren’s amazingly stupid ploy of releasing her DNA ancestry test before the midterms. The Massachusetts Democrat somehow adduced that a person with about a 1 percent likelihood of being an indigenous person (more likely from Central and South America than from the American plains) somehow was proof of her long-feigned minority status. That Warren worked in cahoots with newspapers to massage the gambit, as refutation of Donald Trump’s “Pocahontas” ribbing, backfired when it took the media two retractions to get down the basic math of Warren’s infinitesimally tiny Indian bloodlines.

The reaction was obvious: if someone can cajole a minority billet for careerist purposes based on a 1-percent ancestry, then every American can be anything he wishes. And when everyone is everything, then no one is anything—and the racial basis for diversity set-asides is dead.

In Warren’s logic, how can the average African-American be authentically black with an average white pedigree 25 times greater than her own Indian heritage that she used to authenticate her status as a “person of color” academic? And how weird it is that Warren identifies with the 1 percent of her ancestry, rather than the 99 percent of other various tribes and races—and then claims that she does so not necessarily for any careerist advantages when such advantages are well established.

The timing was even worse, as Boston was also the contemporaneous scene of a landmark lawsuit lodged by Asian groups against Harvard University’s disingenuous racial restrictionist admission policies. Harvard, every bit as intellectually dishonest as Warren, conjured up all sort of personality and character issues to stereotype and demonize Asian applicants for admission, as a way of nullifying their academic records of achievement and thereby reducing their percentages of racial spoils in order to help more “diverse” Hispanics and blacks.

So what will Harvard now do, subpoena its own esteemed law professor Elizabeth Warren to lecture jurors about how minorities like herself would lose out when there are too many Asians? At some point on the horizon, voters are going to conclude that the diversity monster is devouring itself and making a mockery of common sense...

Still more.

Steamy New Hailey Clauson (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

The Truth About Jamal Khashoggi

I haven't blogged about this guy because I don't care. After I found out who he was, I could see how the leftist press was exploiting the guy's death as a campaign issue against the White House and the GOP.

The leftist media is despicable.

See Sebastian Gorka, at American Greatness, "Why the Media Couldn’t Care Less About Khashoggi":

The Truth about Khashoggi. https://t.co/oAQlwwCnuX@theamgreatness @thechrisbuskirk

— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) October 22, 2018

People die. Every day. It’s our lot. Some deaths attract more attention than others. Sometimes for good reasons. Sometimes for nefarious and dishonest ones.

The largest metropolitan U.S. cities see deadly violence every weekend. And those run by the Democratic Party for the last several decades are especially prone to it. Recently, Baltimore witnessed seven murders in less than 24 hours. How much coverage does the Washington Post or CNN give those murders? In fact, New York City made headlines this week for having had the first homicide-free weekend in 25 years. This was news because it is so anomalous. How perverse.

So what about Jamal Khashoggi? Yes, it is now clear that Saudi Arabian man was murdered. But what are the facts of his death and do they matter to you? Or to America?

First things first. It is important to understand that Khashoggi—whose name the mainstream media seems to be having such difficulty pronouncing, even though no one had any difficulty for decades with his uncle Adnan Khashoggi, the late billionaire arms dealer—was neither an American nor was he strictly speaking a journalist.

Khashoggi was a Saudi national who recently moved to the United States. How a man with his past obtained a green card from the State Department is another interesting question, and more on that momentarily.

Secondly, he was not a journalist. At least not in any conventional sense of the word.

Journalists have a beat. Journalists are accredited and cover news stories, from the local police blotter to the White House. Khashoggi was a newly minted U.S.-based commentator, an opinion piece writer, after having spent much of his life as a subject about which journalists write (he was a friend of the Osama bin Laden family and an activist for a decidedly dark cause). To call him a journalist would be just a wrong as calling me a journalist on account of the opinion pieces I write.

So, ask yourself, why does the mainstream media complex almost exclusively refer to him as a journalist?

These may seem to be technical mistakes but when added to the hagiography and selective coverage of Khashoggi’s past now flooding the media, it is obvious this is no accident.

Take the U.S. newspaper where Khashoggi had published his commentary, the Washington Post. With a straight face its employees have lavished praise on the missing Saudi national, lauding him as a champion of free speech and democracy.

“Free speech” and “democracy?” This is a man who was a fully paid up member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological mothership that gave us Hamas, al-Qaeda, and, eventually, the Islamic State. He is the same man who, under the banner of his organization, DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World), was providing the glide path for Islamists to pervert and subvert any nascent structures of representative government in the Middle East. Shades of Orwell and 1984’s “War is Peace” Newspeak. But this time it’s “Democracy is Salafist Theocracy.”

None of the above can be used to justify torture, let alone an extrajudicial execution by an international hit squad. But they are facts that the media is failing to report, or worse, intentionally keeping from the American people. And they are facts that bear directly on the question of how the Trump Administration should respond to the death of this foreign national who was killed on foreign soil.

In addition to “lapses” in honest coverage there is the question of professionalism and balance among the media.

Some may have become inured to the precipitous drop in media ethics and journalistic tradecraft since our 45th president’s inauguration, which brings us now to an age in which all you need is one anonymous “source” to build a story attacking the Trump Administration and a market in which more than 90 percent of media coverage about President Trump is negative. But the depths to which media brand-names have sunken would embarrass a high-school newspaper.

Allegedly serious outlets are publishing stories about the Khashoggi death relying on little more than hearsay, as in “someone who spoke to a Turkish official who knows someone who heard the audio of . . .” As far as “journalism” goes, this is laughable, especially when one considers the Turkish government and what Erdogan has wrought as he tries turn Turkey into his own neo-Ottoman play thing, imprisoning thousands along the way, including more journalists than any other government in the world.

And as to balance and perspective, well, the mainstream media hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory here either.

I hereby challenge a budding cub reporter or journalism student—ideally, one who is not afraid of being fired or given an “F”—to author a comparative study. Question: How many column-inches have already been expended on this one foreign death overseas in the past three days, versus those dedicated to the deaths of four American nationals, including a serving ambassador, in the whole month after the Benghazi attack in September 2012?

Or—and here let’s ignore the conspiracy theorists and stick to major outlets—as former CNN defense correspondent and radio host Chris Plante has recently asked, how many hours of TV coverage have already been broadcast on Khashoggi’s fate as opposed to Seth Rich’s murder? Rich, after all, was an American working at the center of American politics who was killed in the nation’s capital. It would be safe to say that CNN and MSNBC have already dedicated more air-time this week to one Saudi national’s death in Turkey than to Rich’s July 2016 murder. Why? Well, because the media has an agenda. It has an axe to grind.

In accord with some simplistic mathematics of political revenge, these outlets must attack President Trump for his deft, devastating, and repeated use of the moniker #FAKENEWS. These “journalists,” 90 percent of whom admit to being left-wing, can’t stand having their integrity impugned by a successful president who—unlike the GOP establishment for far too long—simply does not care what they say about him or anything else. They see the Khashoggi story as the perfect cudgel with which to bash Donald J. Trump and so regain their vaunted status. “See! See! He gives us no respect and then this is what his allies do!” And that is how an insalubrious pro-Brotherhood Saudi agitator magically becomes a “U.S. journalist who championed democracy.”

When I served in the White House, many in the press team considered my treatment of the media strange, even unseemly...

 Keep reading.

English Swimwear Designer Kimberley Garner Bikini Photos

Here, "It’s official: Kimberley Garner’s booty in a thong bikini is the most insanely sexy/perfect booty of all time… WOW!" (That's Popoholic's headline, FWIW.)

BONUS: At the Sun U.K., "Kimberley Garner wows in a sexy photoshoot as she promotes her own bikini line: The former Made In Chelsea star and socialite, 28, reclined in a hammock showing off her amazing figure."

Emily Ratajkowski Busting Out

At Popoholic:

Emily Ratajkowski Busting Out Her Ginormous Bikini Cleavage https://t.co/bPw3ZgKoFA pic.twitter.com/34LvM3dj39

— Popoholic (@Popoholic) October 22, 2018

Today's Deals

At Amazon, Shop Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

Especially, BLACK+DECKER BESTA512CM 12" 3in1 Compact Electric Lawn Mower, and Greenworks 21-Inch 40V Brushless Cordless Mower, Two 2.5 AH Batteries Included MO40L2512.

Also, Cottington Lane 400 Thread Count 100% Long Staple Cotton Sheetsets, 4 PCs, Queen Sheets, Upto 15" Deep Pocket, Soft & Smooth Sateen Weave, Breathable Bed Sheets, Luxury Hotel Bedding, Taupe.

And, Emart 600W Photography Photo Video Portrait Studio Day Light Umbrella Continuous Lighting Kit.

More, Kind Bars, Nuts and Spices Variety Pack, Gluten Free, 1.4oz.

Plus, Caterpillar Men's Heavy Insulated Parka.

Still more, DeLonghi TRD40615E Full Room Radiant Heater.

And here, LongGe: Mens Soft Comfort Thick Casual Cotton Warm Wool Winter Crew Socks 5 Pairs.

BONUS: Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943.

Hot Reddit Girls Celebrate Canada’s Marijuana Legalization

Heh.

This is great!

At Drunken Stepfather, "100 Reddit Girls with Weed for Canada’s Legalization of the Day."

Today's Shopping

At Amazon, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

And see especially, Omega J8006 Nutrition Center Quiet Dual-Stage Slow Speed Masticating Juicer Creates Continuous Fresh Healthy Fruit and Vegetable Juice at 80 Revolutions per Minute High Juice Yield, 150-Watt, Metallic.

More, Floopi Womens Indoor/Outdoor Faux Fur Lined Basic Moccasins Slipper W/Memory Foam.

And, CRAFTSMAN CMEBL700 Electric Leaf Blower 240 mph 380 CFM 12 amps.

Also, Pendleton Men's Westerley Full Zip Sweater.

Still more, Carhartt Men's Arctic Quilt Lined Yukon Active Jacket J133.

Here, Horny Goat Weed Herbal Complex Extract for Men & Women | Ginseng, 100% Maca Root Tongkat Ali Powder | 60 1000mg Optimum Dosage Capsules.

Plus, CLIF BAR - Energy Bar - Blueberry Crisp - (2.4 Ounce Protein Bar, 12 Count).

And see, Samsung UN65MU6300FXZA 65" 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2017 Model) Plus Terk Cut-the-Cord HD Digital TV Tuner and Recorder 16GB Hook-Up Bundle.

BONUS: Allen C. Guelzo, Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

'The People's Vote' March for a New Brexit Referendum

Leftists want a do-over. Just thinking about it makes me guffaw.

Britain had the "people's vote" on Brexit two years ago and leftists lost. They also lost their minds, and they've been wailing and waging a hissy fit war on democracy ever since. The final deal for the formal "leave" negotiations should have been completed long ago, so blame the inept Theresa May for that (bless her heart, the corrupt little totalitarian).

In any case, here's the Guardian U.K., "People's Vote march: '700,000' rally for new Brexit referendum," and "Huge crowd turns out in London to demand a 'people's vote' on Brexit."

And video, "Hundreds of thousands attend People's Vote march in London: Organisers say more than 600,000 people rallied in central London on Saturday to call for a referendum on the final Brexit deal."

And don't miss Pat Condell's blistering denunciation of the loser remain progs. Watch:

Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

At Amazon, Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI's War on the American Indian Movement.

Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

*BUMPED.*

Keeping up with the "Cultural Marxism," make sure you pick up a copy of this one.

At Amazon, Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks.

'Migrant Caravan' Breaks Border Fence at Guatamala-Mexico Checkpoint (VIDEO)

Here's the video, via Associated Press, "Migrants force through fence at Mexican border: On Friday, the migrant caravan of at least 3,000 broke down gates at the Guatemalan border with Mexico and streamed toward a bridge to Mexico."

And here's Laura Ingraham with her opening "angle," at Fox News:

Glamorous Rhian Sugden

She's a selfie-lovin' babe, heh.

#BTS of the more glamorous side of my life ❤️📸 pic.twitter.com/RJxgKEIguy

— Rhian Sugden (@Rhianmarie) October 18, 2018

Kara Del Toro Bikini Shots

This is from earlier this year, but Ms. Kara is spectacular.

At Hollywood Tuna, "Kara Del Toro Belongs in a Bikini."

Kate Upton on Picking the Perfect Swimsuit (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

#DeleteFacebook

Well, I rarely use it, so deleting my account won't affect me much either way. I guess I'd lose a few connections to people that are valuable. Maybe I could message my important contacts, get their cellphone numbers, and then delete the monstrosity.

I hadn't really thought of it until now, and that sounds pretty good actually, heh.

In any case, Jacob Weisberg reviews two books that I've promoted here, Siva Vaidhyanathan's, Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy, and Jaron Lanier's, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

At the New York Review, "The Autocracy App":

"By training its users to elevate feelings of agreement and belonging over truth, Facebook has created a gigantic 'forum for tribalism.'" https://t.co/Ll1dnaTTtw via @nybooks

— Sarah V. Schweig (@sarahvschweig) October 16, 2018

Facebook is a company that has lost control—not of its business, which has suffered remarkably little from its series of unfortunate events since the 2016 election, but of its consequences. Its old slogan, “Move fast and break things,” was changed a few years ago to the less memorable “Move fast with stable infra.” Around the world, however, Facebook continues to break many things indeed.

In Myanmar, hatred whipped up on Facebook Messenger has driven ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. In India, false child abduction rumors on Facebook’s WhatsApp service have incited mobs to lynch innocent victims. In the Philippines, Turkey, and other receding democracies, gangs of “patriotic trolls” use Facebook to spread disinformation and terrorize opponents. And in the United States, the platform’s advertising tools remain conduits for subterranean propaganda.

Mark Zuckerberg now spends much of his time apologizing for data breaches, privacy violations, and the manipulation of Facebook users by Russian spies. This is not how it was supposed to be. A decade ago, Zuckerberg and the company’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, championed Facebook as an agent of free expression, protest, and positive political change. To drive progress, Zuckerberg always argued, societies would have to get over their hang-ups about privacy, which he described as a dated concept and no longer the social norm. “If people share more, the world will become more open and connected,” he wrote in a 2010 Washington Post Op-Ed. This view served Facebook’s business model, which is based on users passively delivering personal data. That data is used to target advertising to them based on their interests, habits, and so forth. To increase its revenue, more than 98 percent of which comes from advertising, Facebook needs more users to spend more time on its site and surrender more information about themselves.

The import of a business model driven by addiction and surveillance became clearer in March, when The Observer of London and The New York Times jointly revealed that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had obtained information about 50 million Facebook users in order to develop psychological profiles. That number has since risen to 87 million. Yet Zuckerberg and his company’s leadership seem incapable of imagining that their relentless pursuit of “openness and connection” has been socially destructive. With each apology, Zuckerberg’s blundering seems less like naiveté and more like malignant obliviousness. In an interview in July, he contended that sites denying the Holocaust didn’t contravene the company’s policies against hate speech because Holocaust denial might amount to good faith error. “There are things that different people get wrong,” he said. “I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong.” He had to apologize, again.

It’s not just external critics who see something fundamentally amiss at the company. People central to Facebook’s history have lately been expressing remorse over their contributions and warning others to keep their children away from it. Sean Parker, the company’s first president, acknowledged last year that Facebook was designed to cultivate addiction. He explained that the “like” button and other features had been created in response to the question, “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” Chamath Palihapitiya, a crucial figure in driving Facebook’s growth, said he feels “tremendous guilt” over his involvement in developing “tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.” Roger McNamee, an early investor and mentor to Zuckerberg, has become a full-time crusader for restraining a platform that he calls “tailor-made for abuse by bad actors.”

Perhaps even more damning are the recent actions of Brian Acton and Jan Koum, the founders of WhatsApp. Facebook bought their five-year-old company for $22 billion in 2014, when it had only fifty-five employees. Acton resigned in September 2017. Koum, the only Facebook executive other than Zuckerberg and Sandberg to sit on the company’s board, quit at the end of April. By leaving before November 2018, the WhatsApp founders walked away from $1.3 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. When he announced his departure, Koum said that he was “taking some time off to do things I enjoy outside of technology, such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate Frisbee.”

However badly he felt about neglecting his Porsches, Koum was thoroughly fed up with Facebook. He and Acton are strong advocates of user privacy. One of the goals of WhatsApp, they said, was “knowing as little about you as possible.” They also didn’t want advertising on WhatsApp, which was supported by a 99-cent annual fee when Facebook bought it. From the start, the pair found themselves in conflict with Zuckerberg and Sandberg over Facebook’s business model of mining user data to power targeted advertising. (In late September, the cofounders of Instagram also announced their departure from Facebook, reportedly over issues of autonomy.)

At the time of the acquisition of WhatsApp, Zuckerberg had assured Acton and Koum that he wouldn’t share its user data with other applications. Facebook told the European Commission, which approved the merger, that it had no way to match Facebook profiles with WhatsApp user IDs. Then, simply by matching phone numbers, it did just that. Pooling the data let Facebook recommend that WhatsApp users’ contacts become their Facebook friends. It also allowed it to monetize WhatsApp users by enabling advertisers to target them on Facebook. In 2017 the European Commission fined Facebook $122 million for its “misleading” statements about the takeover.

Acton has been less discreet than Koum about his feelings. Upon leaving Facebook, he donated $50 million to the Signal Foundation, which he now chairs. That organization supports Signal, a fully encrypted messaging app that competes with WhatsApp. Following the Cambridge Analytica revelations, he tweeted, “It is time. #deletefacebook.”

The growing consensus is that Facebook’s power needs checking. Fewer agree on what its greatest harms are—and still fewer on what to do about them. When Mark Zuckerberg was summoned by Congress in April, the toughest questioning came from House Republicans convinced that Facebook was censoring conservatives, in particular two African-American sisters in North Carolina who make pro-Trump videos under the name “Diamond and Silk.” Facebook’s policy team charged the two with promulgating content “unsafe to the community” and indicated that it would restrict it. Facebook subsequently said the complaint was sent in error but has never explained how that happened, or how it decides that some opinions are “unsafe.”

Democrats were naturally more incensed about the twin issues of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the abuse of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica in its work for Trump’s presidential campaign.

Keep reading.