Political Tweet Analysis: Power Flows from Media to Politician

An article published by Nature, one of the world's most respected science magazines, describes the effects of Trump's Tweets on media coverage. The article's abstract says this:

Social media has arguably shifted political agenda-setting power away from mainstream media onto politicians. Current U.S. President Trump’s reliance on Twitter is unprecedented, but the underlying implications for agenda setting are poorly understood. Using the president as a case study, we present evidence suggesting that President Trump’s use of Twitter diverts crucial media (The New York Times and ABC News) from topics that are potentially harmful to him. We find that increased media coverage of the Mueller investigation is immediately followed by Trump tweeting increasingly about unrelated issues. This increased activity, in turn, is followed by a reduction in coverage of the Mueller investigation—a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that President Trump’s tweets may also successfully divert the media from topics that he considers threatening. The pattern is absent in placebo analyses involving Brexit coverage and several other topics that do not present a political risk to the president. Our results are robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables and examination of several alternative explanations, although the generality of the successful diversion must be established by further investigation. (emphasis added)

Once again, the power of dark free speech (lies, deceit, unwarranted emotional manipulation, partisan motivated reasoning, etc.) is observed. The casualty is, as usual, the public interest and the wound is deceit and distraction. Ever since Trump announced he was running for president, the professional media seemed to be doing a bad job in dealing with Trump's endless stream of dark free speech. I wavered between giving the media an overall D or D-. 

I suspected that the reason Trump tweeted when and as he did was to divert attention from his problems and failures. This research supports that belief. Trump is not the only politician or government that does this to manipulate the media and public perceptions. The Nature article includes this in the paper's introduction:

On August 4, 2014, a devastating earthquake maimed and killed thousands in China’s Yunnan province. Within hours, Chinese media were saturated with stories about the apparent confession by an Internet celebrity to have engaged in gambling and prostitution. News about the earthquake was marginalized, to the point that the Chinese Red Cross implored the public to ignore the celebrity scandal. The flooding of the media with stories about a minor scandal appeared to have been no accident, but represented a concerted effort of the Chinese government to distract the public’s attention from the earthquake and the government’s inadequate disaster preparedness. This organized distraction was not an isolated incident. It has been estimated that the Chinese government posts around 450 million social media comments per year, using a 50-cent army of operatives to disseminate messages. Unlike traditional censorship of print or broadcast media, which interfered with writers and speakers to control the source of information, this new form of Internet-based censorship interferes with consumers by diverting attention from controversial issues. Inconvenient speech is drowned out rather than being banned outright. (emphasis added)

And, once again, the power of social media to poison millions of minds to the detriment of the public interest is clear. Unlike the Chinese people, Americans still have a chance to fight against dark free speech in social media. The question is how long will this luxury last? 

The Constant Presence of Propaganda: Oil Company Astroturfing Public Opinion

Propaganda by a public relations (propaganda) company website named 

Texans for Natural Gas funded by natural gas interests but pretending to 

be regular folks naturally supporting natural gas  

Astroturfing: the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization, e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations (propaganda) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants

The New York Times writes: 

In early 2017, the Texans for Natural Gas website went live to urge voters to “thank a roughneck” and support fracking. Around the same time, the Arctic Energy Center ramped up its advocacy for drilling in Alaskan waters and in a vast Arctic wildlife refuge. The next year, the Main Street Investors Coalition warned that climate activism doesn’t help mom-and-pop investors in the stock market.

All three appeared to be separate efforts to amplify local voices or speak up for regular people.

On closer look, however, the groups had something in common: They were part of a network of corporate influence campaigns designed, staffed and at times run by FTI Consulting, which had been hired by some of the largest oil and gas companies in the world to help them promote fossil fuels.

An examination of FTI’s work provides an anatomy of the oil industry’s efforts to influence public opinion in the face of increasing political pressure over climate change, an issue likely to grow in prominence, given President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pledge to pursue bolder climate regulations. The campaigns often obscure the industry’s role, portraying pro-petroleum groups as grass-roots movements.

As part of its services to the industry, FTI monitored environmental activists online, and in one instance an employee created a fake Facebook persona — an imaginary, middle-aged Texas woman with a dog — to help keep tabs on protesters. Former FTI employees say they studied other online influence campaigns and compiled strategies for affecting public discourse. They helped run a campaign that sought a securities rule change, described as protecting the interests of mom-and-pop investors, that aimed to protect oil and gas companies from shareholder pressure to address climate and other concerns.

FTI employees also staffed two news and information sites, Energy In Depth and Western Wire, writing pro-industry articles on fracking, climate lawsuits and other hot-button issues. Former employees familiar with Energy In Depth said the site’s content had direction from Exxon Mobil, one of the major clients of the FTI division that worked on these oil and gas campaigns.

The Energy In Depth website notes its affiliation with an energy trade group that Exxon is a member of, though not Exxon’s role in directing content that the site published. 

This article is based on interviews with a dozen former FTI employees, including former managing directors, a review of hundreds of internal FTI documents and an examination of the digital trail of domain-name registrations and other details left by the creation of the websites. In all, FTI has been involved in the operations of at least 15 current and past influence campaigns promoting fossil-fuel interests in addition to its direct work for oil and gas clients.

Matthew Bashalany, an FTI spokesman, disputed the idea that FTI worked behind the scenes for these groups. [FTI lies in its own defense][1] “We hide behind no one,” he said.

“We summarily reject as false, misleading and defamatory the general narrative and specific claims,” he said. “We hold ourselves to the highest professional and ethical standards of conduct; when and where shortfalls are identified in this regard, they are addressed appropriately.”

This is just a reminder that the real war in America is over winning hearts and minds. The goal for rich and powerful people and interests is gaining and maintaining wealth and power. The goal for the masses, or the mob as the radical right sees it, is a better deal based on less economic inequality and special interest over public interest influence (i.e., money and power). 

This is an all-out war of dark free speech (lies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation, self-serving motivated reasoning, etc.) against the masses. Unfortunately, dark free speech is more powerful than honest free speech. The playing field is heavily tilted in favor of the rich and powerful as it usually is and has been throughout history.

Footnote: 

1. Going forward, I will try to insert a notice that a lie or other form of deceit follows from content I quote. To better counteract dark free speech, I will try to get closer to the truth sandwich rhetorical tactic (discussed here) that has been proposed as a better way to deal with dark free speech. If I don't get to a full sandwich, I'll at least make an open faced sandwich, e.g., [FTI lies in its own defense]. The point of this is to try to be more aggressive and effective in countering dark free speech.

A THEORY ABOUT TRUMPISM

 I HAVE A THEORY.

YES - this is strictly MY theory, SNOWFLAKE'S theory, so you are more than welcome to disagree with it.

I HAVE been reading more and more headlines lately about "TRUMPISM", and how it will still be with us long after Trump.

IN FACT, Trumpism by another name has been with us for decades and it only took Trump to bring it to the surface.

NOW HERE IS MY THEORY:

Call it the darkest before the dawn theory, or call it the storm before the calm theory, but I think we needed Trumpism to usher in a new era in the good Ole U.S. of A.

NOT making headlines is that five states had ballot initiatives about passing legal cannabis laws, and in all five, the initiative passed.

MORE AND MORE individuals, cities and states are moving towards alternative energies. HELL, electric charging stations for electric cars are popping up all over the place.

AND ENTIRE GENERATION of young people are growing up and reaching voting age that view the Environment as a #1 priority, as well as some form of Universal health care.

By 2050, or some sites saying even before that, Whites will be in the minority in the U.S. The Right can only do so much gerrymandering or passing of Voter ID laws, and still not be able to stem the tide.

I GET IT - 70 million voted for Trump, but I believe, and hence MY theory, that this was the last gasp of the middle age, middle income, middle (and southern) Americans who want desperately to keep their image of America alive - Bibles, guns, football, pick-up trucks and backyard BBQs.

BUT a record number of people also voted for Biden, despite all the measures put into place to disenfranchise legitimate voters, and Biden could NOT have won with just the minority vote. A LOT OF WHITES would have had to vote for him too.

I could spend my time posting links to numerous articles on the subject of a changing America, but I only have to use my eyes and ears:

Gay marriage being more accepted, more states legalizing cannabis, white suburbs becoming more and more interracial, black entrepreneurs popping up all over the place.

YES, I KNOW that this is still a white man's country, abortion rights are being overturned in many states, and we have to wring our hands at having a conservative SCOTUS, but.....

The trendlines are moving left, they really are, just think back to what it was like in the 60s and 70s (if you are old enough to remember that far back).

Progress is irritatingly slow, with many bumps along the road, but I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that over the next couple of decades we will end up looking more like Europe and Canada than the States of the 1950s (which a lot of people are fearing we are regressing into)

Maybe one needs to be a SNOWFLAKE or an optimist to see the silver lining, but I BELIEVE that we needed Trump to show us the ugly underbelly of the monster, and that having seen the ugly underbelly, we will be even MORE motivated to bring about CHANGE.

THAT is my theory anyways.

Voter Fraud: The GOP's Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster - IT'S ALIVE!!!

The GOP and Trump keep alleging and looking for widespread vote fraud. They keep failing to find it. Trump's vote fraud commission failed to find the millions of fraudulent votes that Trump claimed and still claims were cast in the 2016 election. That effort ended after finding no evidence. NPR just announced that a Texas republican will pay up to $25,000 for information about voter fraud in 2020 that leads to a conviction. 

AP commented in 2018 on the end of the commission: 

The now-disbanded voting integrity commission launched by the Trump administration uncovered no evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud, according to an analysis of administration documents released Friday. In a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who are both Republicans and led the commission, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said the documents show there was a “pre-ordained outcome” and that drafts of a commission report included a section on evidence of voter fraud that was “glaringly empty.”

 
The New York Times went looking for evidence of vote fraud in the 2020 election and writes this in an article entitled The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud:

PHILADELPHIA — Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.

Over the last several days, the president, members of his administration, congressional Republicans and right wing allies have put forth the false claim that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump and have refused to accept results that showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner.

“There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” said Frank LaRose, a Republican who serves as Ohio’s secretary of state. “The conspiracy theories and rumors and all those things run rampant. For some reason, elections breed that type of mythology.”

The New York Times contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had evidence of illegal voting. Officials in 45 states responded directly to The Times. For four of the remaining states, The Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments from secretaries of state; none reported any major voting issues.  

What emerged in The Times’s reporting was how, beyond the president, Republicans in many states were engaged in a widespread effort to delegitimize the nation’s voting system.  

Some Republicans have even turned to lashing members of their own party who, in their eyes, did not show sufficient dedication to rooting out fraud. In Georgia, where Mr. Biden is leading, the two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both of whom are in a runoff to gain re-election, have called for the resignation of the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. “The secretary of state has failed to deliver honest and transparent elections,” the senators said in a statement.

The GOP and Trump vote fraud searches have all failed. Sometimes absence of evidence really does amount to evidence of absence. 

Action urgently required to stop Trump from further damaging this nation (All ideas welcome)

 

 As I write, the latest Politico Poll reveals that 70% of Republicans in the US do not believe the 2020 election was "fair and free." https://thehill.com/homenews/news/525388-poll-70-percent-of-republicans-dont-believe-election-was-free-and-fair  Even if nothing else was wrong right now that alone would constitute a tremendous challenge to our system-- a major legitimation crisis. But these numbers reflect a concerted effort on the part of the Trump-captured GOP to do everything possible to change the results or else to make sure that when Trump leaves the White House, "tens of millions" (as Tucker Carlson said in his Monday rant against the election result) would be furious at democrats for "stealing" the election even if all legal concerns are dismissed as they probably will be. Unless Trump admits defeat, he will remain a frighteningly relevant de facto leader of a hollowed out party of sycophants who no longer have a program (there was no party platform in 2020, but only loyalty to Trump, the Dear Leader). About 70 million voters are behind Trump, and he has set about firing Pentagon and NSA top officials,  replacing them with loyalists. This is an ominous signal even if it is a theatrical move. The Secretary of State, Pompeo, has promised "a smooth transition to a second Trump term" in brazen defiance of all the votes cast in the election and in the absence of any evidence of conspiratorial vote tampering and fraud across 4 US time zones. Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell have also doubled down on the drive to convince Americans that Biden hasn't  "won" the election, or even that Trump won and it was stolen from him by unspecified conspirators.  Graham is raising money for the legal challenges against various states for Trump (who is not only raising funds for legal battles but using his America First Super Pac to air commercials nation-wide). Of course, states that show Trump picking up votes (e.g. Arizona) face no accusations, and we've yet to hear any GOP Senators or Representatives that won down ballot challenge their own victories even though many of those ballots are the same ones that were counted in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania and others that supposedly stole the election. So, the stealing is conveniently selective.

But logic and consistency have nothing to do with this massive propaganda assault on the facts. As Trump once said early in his term, "What you see and hear [in the news] is not what is happening." A four year attempt to convince his followers that he alone is to be believed and trusted has largely succeeded, creating what is, in effect, an uncritical devotion of the kind charismatic authoritarian leaders and fascists have relied on in the past. If between 1/3 to 1/2 of the electorate have been so conditioned, then a new movement which is counter-democratic has arrived. One which Trump can lead from outside the government; one which could lead to instability in the country. And cronies like Pompeo who have Trump's back now will be plausible successors when Trump passes away, if this movement endures. 

Again, one of the 2 major parties refuses to acknowledge election results which are the same as any others that were accepted in the past.  We're past the time when a peaceful transfer of power, the release of transition funds and meetings in the White House would occur. This is not akin to the Gore-Bush voting count and legal struggle. That was at least a specifiable problem that had to do with razor thin margins in only 1 or 2 counties in the state of Florida. This is a situation in which several states (some in which Republicans oversaw the election such as Georgia) are being accused of covering up a massive fraud perpetrated on the people. 

If this continues into December, it will lead to increased anger and madness among Trump supporters and those GOP officials who have been, as Biden put it tactfully, "mildly intimidated" by Trump. Jake Tapper reports that several Senators and Reps he spoke with stated, on condition of anonymity, that they would not openly defy Trump's assertions for fear of not just the ruination of their careers but for fear also of death threats. 

We have in Trump a leader who has a pattern of viciously attacking anyone who "gets in his way" (e.g. Anthony Fauci in his mind) and then remaining silent while his supporters-- often fringe elements-- issue death threats. Dr. Fauci now requires a security detail after receiving multiple death threats to himself and his family members. Trump has never made a statement calling on his own supporters to refrain from death-threats and other horrific and illegal behavior. We saw this recently when he continued attacking Governor Whitmore of Michigan after an attempt was made by Trump-loyal radicals to kidnap her. Thus intimidation and death threats that Trump refuses to denounce become de facto instruments of his power.

In short, we had better take this very seriously as 4 years were largely wasted treating the Trump menace as something that was "bad," but which could be easily absorbed by "the institutional guard-rails of democracy." That is pure magical thinking. Institutions are as strong as the people that compose them. In the end an institution is, as sociologists know, a pattern of predictable norm-governed behavior. Nothing here is predictable or reliable. We are witnessing the fraying of the GOP and thus about half of our politicians and citizens. The GOP is no longer a real party, but a goon squad; a mindless group of frightened and/or power-hungry careerists held in thralldom by a dangerous demagogue and tyrant. Democracy is in danger, authoritarianism is already here. Winning the Presidential election was an important defeat, but it was a battle-- not the entire war. The war on US representative democracy is upon us. What we now see is fast approaching sedition. Each day it is allowed to pass as an acceptable disappointment is another day of victory for those who truly would steal not only the election, but the administrative apparatuses of the state, if they could. Short of that, they will minimally continue to menace the country as a well-funded insurgent group with "respected" politicians and tens of millions of voters on board. 

It is well past time to thwart any further attempts to erode democracy. I cannot say exactly how, but I suspect that law enforcement will have to play a role. The stakes are too high to sit and treat this as shocking spectacle to analyze. We must see to it that either Trump immediately provide his alleged "credible evidence" of fraud or else release transitional funds to Biden and take the other normal steps that make up smooth transition from one administration to the next. Any political speeches or press conferences featuring Pence, Pompeo, Barr, Graham, McConnell, et al.,  must be treated as sedition if they continue to baldly accuse states of fraud and/or promise a "smooth transition to a 2nd Trump term," as Pompeo did yesterday.  Everyone should know that when it comes to rhetoric the mere ability to get away with repeating destructive and incendiary lies converts the lies into convictions that loyal followers then treat as truths upon which to act. This must not continue.

Any suggestions or ideas regarding how to thwart this coup-like onslaught by Trump and the GOP would be very welcome.

The Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine

Diagram of immune responses to the virus

Pfizer released some data in a press release indicating that the company's SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is about 90% effective in reducing infections in the tested patients so far. Additional data will be generated in the ongoing clinical trial, so the final efficacy data could be different than what was released. The data has not been subject to peer review, so this is only preliminary.

The Pfizer vaccine is injected as shown in part b of the figure above. The protection from this vaccine is believed to come from the immune response in the lungs, but not in the nose and upper airway. 

A paper summarizing SARS-Cov-2 vaccines under development make the following observations:

1. It is likely that two doses of a vaccine will be required, with booster doses potentially necessary at later time points; in this case, at least 16 billion doses will be needed to meet the global demand. 
2. For SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, there have so far been no signals of enhanced disease in animal models or in humans; however, such a safety signal would certainly derail the development of a vaccine candidate and would negatively affect vaccine development in general.
3. Participants in the 100 μg group did not receive a booster dose due to tolerability profiles of the 100 μg dose post-prime and the 30 μg dose post-boost.
4. At 14 days post-boost, titres reached 1:180 and 1:437, respectively. Convalescent serum was also tested and reached titres of 1:94. However, it is unknown how representative these sera were.
5. Systemic adverse events after the prime dose seemed to be dose-dependent and included fever—especially in the 100 μg group, for which it was seen in 50% of individuals—fatigue, headache and chills.

What is not yet known is how long immunity will last and how well immunity will protect people in different age groups. Data from one group of older individuals (65–85 years) indicated that the immune response and antibody titres were lower compared to that in younger individuals. The vaccine uses a genetically modified RNA variant of the spike protein that covers the surface of the virus. That protein is what the virus uses to enter human cells. Because RNA in the vaccine is used to generate the immune response in vaccinated people, it has to be stored on dry ice (-78.5ᵒ C, or -109.3ᵒ F). That will create significant logistics complications in manufacturing, distributing and storing the vaccine. RNA is a very unstable molecule due to the ubiquitous presence of enzymes that rapidly break it down. That is why the vaccine needs to be solidly frozen on dry ice. 

The side effects seem to be generally more pronounced for the vaccine compared to most flu vaccines. That makes the vaccine generally less pleasant for most people compared to flu vaccines.

The vaccine works as shown below. The vaccine is injected into muscle and some of the RNV enters into cells where the RNA is translated into the spike protein. The body them mounts an immune response against the spike protein.

 

For context, traditional vaccine development generally takes about 10-15 years. Given the urgency of the threat, development time for SARS-CoV-2 is shooting for a about 10-18 months, assuming something does not go seriously wrong during the development and regulatory review period. Given that accelerated development schedule, the risk of failure to detect a serious side-effect increases, especially a side-effect that takes years to manifest itself.