A reader wrote in a few days ago and said we should be called Daily Brazil Nut given the email is becoming longer. We are doing our best to be brief, concise, and illuminating. If we have long editions, we hope at least they don’t feel long!

Google Joins Facebook And Twitter In Russian Meddling Investigation: 2017 will be remembered as the year that big tech began to be viewed as toxic as the big banks. Last month Facebook admitted that a Russian company had spent $100,000 purchasing some 3,000 political ads aimed at influencing the 2016 US presidential election. They were quickly followed by Twitter who has found around 200 accounts linked to a Russian campaign to influence the election. And now the proverbial other shoe has dropped as Google’s own internal investigation said the company has found evidence that Russian agents bought ads on Google’s wide-ranging product networks (YouTube, Google search, Gmail, and “all your base belong to us”), in an attempt to interfere in the election. As they say in Silicon Valley, it’s a Google and Facebook world, they just let us live in it.

Google is the only company that sells more digital advertising than Facebook, and its role in the coordinated Russian campaign has been a source of intense speculation in Washington and Silicon Valley. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said it should not be surprising that Russians were using Google as well as Facebook and Twitter, but it is surprising that it took so long for Google to find the activity. Google has been called to testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on November first.

So far Google’s investigation has not found the same type of targeted advertising that Russian agents conducted on Facebook. Researchers at Oxford University reported Monday that Twitter and Facebook accounts linked to Russians targeted online content at U.S. military veterans and active-duty personnel, mixing disinformation alongside other content already being read and shared widely among these communities.

(A ton of) Additional Reads:

• Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you (TechCrunch). TechCrunch has been the biggest Silicon Valley cheerleader. And if this is the headline of a TechCrunch article, then the sentiment outside of the Silicon Valley will probably be even worse.
• “Google and Facebook deflect responsibility onto algorithms, as if they don’t control their own code.” (The Outline)
• Algorithms have already gone rogue (Backchannel). Hmm…if we can’t trust the algorithms then just how much should we pursue the blind rush of adopting artificial intelligence in all areas?
• Facebook can exploit the insecurities of teenagers using the platform
• Facebook security chief rants about misguided “algorithm” backlash (TechCrunch)
• Facebook’s war on free will and Facebook Plans to Rewire Your Life. Be Afraid.
• “Google and Facebook Failed Us: The world’s most powerful information gatekeepers neglected their duties in Las Vegas. Again.” (The Atlantic) Technology companies are really information companies. If they are consumer oriented that means they store information on consumers. If they are an enterprise-business oriented company, then they provide a better way to store, reveal, and analyze information. At the end of the day, data-information is the currency. Big data means big dollars.
• How to see everything Google knows about you (Business Insider)

NATO’s Visibility Is Heightened On The World’s Stage: President Donald Trump’s early and continued criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), bringing seemingly unwanted attention at times, may also have served to remind people of its actual relevance in the world. On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg spoke in Craiova, Romania   as he reviewed a new multinational force which will counter Russia along its eastern flank and serve to check a growing Russian presence in the Black Sea following the Kremlin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea. “We are sending a very clear message: NATO is here, NATO is strong and NATO is united,” Stoltenberg told assembled Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers.

The force will initially be built around a Romanian brigade of up to 4,000 soldiers, supported by troops from nine other NATO countries, and complementing a separate deployment of 900 U.S. troops who are already in place. The NATO force aims to develop its presence in the Black Sea region, rich in oil and gas, without escalating tensions as it seeks to counter Russia’s own plans to create what military analysts say is a “buffer zone”. Russia accuses NATO of trying to encircle it and threatening stability in Eastern Europe, which NATO denies. Around the Black Sea, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are NATO members while Georgia and Ukraine aspire to join. Under NATO’s founding treaty, an attack on one ally is an attack on all, meaning all 28 NATO nations would be required to respond in the case of any potential Russian aggression.

Trump’s EPA Secretary Deals Death Knell To Obama’s Clean Power Plan: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Secretary Scott Pruitt announced Monday he will withdraw the signature piece of former President Obama’s climate agenda, the Clean Power Plan, the 2015 effort to address global warming by curbing the emission of greenhouse gasses in order to move the US toward cleaner energy sources like wind, solar and natural gas. President Trump campaigned on the promise to eradicate his predecessor’s environmental legacy, and he announced in June he would pull the US out of the Paris Climate Accord. Shortly afterward, Pruitt claimed Trump’s policies had resulted in 50,000 new jobs for the coal industry, with 7,000 added in May alone. Fact checkers advised that these numbers were wildly inaccurate, in that there were only 50,000 total coal industry jobs, with 1,300 having been added in May. #fake_political_statements

As America relinquishes the mantle of environmental stewardship, China eagerly steps in to focus on clean energy industries like building and dominating an electric-car future. China is deftly combining vision and transaction as they are not doing this strictly for environmental reasons but more importantly for economic ones (“It’s All About the Benjamins” as P Diddy and the Notorious BIG sang/preached). “China has reshaped industries before — clothing, steel making, even lace — through a potent mix of government support and cheap labor. More recently it has transformed green-energy businesses like solar and wind power.”

Turkish Military To Establish De-Escalation Zone In Syrian Province Of Idlib: A Turkish military reconnaissance team has been deployed to the northern Syrian province of Idlib to establish a “de-escalation zone” there. Rebels fighting ISIS militants for control its de facto capital of Raqqa criticized Turkey’s actions. The deputy commander of a main faction of the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition claimed the Turkish move was an attempt to stop the Kurdish-dominated force from advancing towards Idlib once the battle for Raqqa is over. He stated that Turkey is trying to cut off the Kurdish-dominated Syrian city of Erfin and prevent Kurdish rebels from expanding the areas under their control.

Merkel Bows To Political Pressure On German Refugee Policy: On Monday, in a joint news conference with Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union (the more conservative sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union), German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a limit on Germany’s refugee intake. The two parties have agreed to try and limit the number of refugees arriving in Germany each year to 200,000–a policy that Seehofer has repeatedly demanded and Merkel has consistently rejected. In July, Merkel steadfastly refused to cap the number of refugees entering the country and now, just three months later and after disappointing election results, her position has changed.

More than a million refugees entered Germany in 2015 as a result of Merkel’s migration policy, sparking an intense national debate about immigration and integration. Merkel and Seehofer made it clear that the fundamental right to seek asylum is guaranteed: People will not be turned away at the borders even after the limit is reached. The Director of Pro Asyl, a German charity that advocates for refugees, described these “regressive” new policies as a direct response to the success of the far-right, anti-Islam, anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in last month’s election. The AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote and is now the third largest party in Parliament. On the night of the election, Merkel said she wanted to “win back AfD voters,” and her new refugee cap may be an attempt to do just that.

Liberia Goes To The Polls Today: Voters go to the polls in Liberia today [Tuesday], and for the first time in decades, a democratically elected president will hand over the reins to a democratically elected successor. 20 registered candidates will vie to succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president, who has served her constitutionally mandated two terms. George Weah, a famous and much-loved former footballer, is running for a second time to lead the country. His running mate is former president Charles Taylor’s ex-wife Jewel Howard Taylor, who told reporters last month that her ex-husband still has promises that need to be kept and proposed putting Taylor’s agenda “back on the table.” Her remarks so alarmed European Union officials in Monrovia that they put out a statement reminding voters that Taylor, who resigned as president in 2003, is in the UK serving a 50-year prison sentence for war crimes. The statement noted that a condition of Taylor’s sentence is that “he does not attempt to interfere in Liberian politics, and this is monitored closely by prison authorities.”

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Here’s to bathing!

(Even) More Reads

• Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, and Manafort’s Debts (NY Magazine)
• Richard Thaler won a Nobel Prize for showing how Homo Economicus does not exist. (Bloomberg)
• Donald Trump won the presidency with a populist message but he also had the support of a billionaire hedge fund” “Trump wouldn’t be President if not for Bob (Mercer).” How some billionaires probably see the world: “Mo Money, Mo Politicans to solve my Mo Problems.”
• The Lawyer Who Beat Big Tobacco Takes On the Opioid Industry (Bloomberg)
• We might not live in the world of Terminator (machines and robots who try to enslave humans) but Arnold Schwarzenegger is living up to his word of “I’ll be back (politically).” And this time Arnold wants to say “hasta la vista baby” to President Trump.

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