Morning Joe pimps Facebook ads: Did someone in the Trump campaign collude with the Russkies last year?
More specifically, did someone tell the Russkies how to target their ads to help Donald J. Trump get elected?
Like you, we don't know how to answer those questions. We'll be interested to see what investigative bodies conclude, and what their evidence is.
That said, if it's tribal entertainment you seek, you won't have to wait that long. Corporate cable entertainers service your tribal needs day and night.
Case in point: Katty Kay, discussing kollusion on today's Morning Joe. Mika didn't make it in today, so Katty was cast in the role of sidekick blonde, as she is routinely cast when Mika's under the weather.
This morning, during the program's first hour, Kay posed before a map of the states and told us a story we like. The story involved the dozen states the Russkies allegedly semi-targeted with their Facebook ads. To see Katty and Joe in action, click here, move ahead to 2:15:
KAY (10/5/17): Meanwhile, we're also learning more about Russia's use of Facebook to interfere in the election.Just for the record, Katty double-cited Ohio, forgot to cite California. With that in mind, let's get clear on what she pleasingly said:
It turns out, about a quarter of the 3400 ads linked to Russia targeted specific states, including traditionally Democratic strongholds like Wisconsin and Michigan that ended up of course flipping for Donald Trump, as well as the battleground states of Florida and Ohio.
The Russians also targeted states with high-profile incidents of violence between police and African-Americans, states like Missouri, Maryland, New York and Ohio.
Ads were also planted in solidly red states like Texas, Alabama and Mississippi.
Last month, Facebook revealed that groups linked to Russia spent $100,000 on election ads. Both Facebook and Twitter have agreed to testify now before the SIC investigating Moscow's election interference.
You know, just looking at those states that they chose—either somebody in the Russian side, or they had links with somebody here, was giving them a pretty good take on how to use their money.
She said a quarter of the Facebook ads targeted specific states. According to our Mathematical Bureau, that means that three-quarters of the Facebook ads didn't target specific states.
At any rate, whatever! But as you can see on the map Kay fronted, the targeted states were these:
The twelve states which were targeted:From that list, we were invited to conclude that somebody was giving the Russkies "a pretty good take on how to use their money."
1) Alabama
2) California
3) Florida
4) Georgia
5) Maryland
6) Michigan
7) Mississippi
8) Missouri
9) New York
10) Ohio
11) Texas
12) Wisconsin
That was Katty's scripted conclusion. In his reply, Joe sharpened her pleasing claim:
SCARBOROUGH (continuing directly): A pretty good take on how to use their money. And also, if you look at the contents of the advertisements, at least some of them that you've seen out there already, it's also somebody that's pretty darn aware of how to target, what bells to ring. It certainly looks like they had the help of Americans who might know how to campaign and how to win elections.Yay yay yay yay yay yay! According to Joe, it certainly looks like the Russkies "had the help of Americans who might know...how to win elections."
Based on the targeting of those states! In one-quarter of the ads!
Multimillionaire TV stars, please! If the Russkies were trying to win the election for Donald J. Trump, why would they have targeted ads at voters in California, New York, Maryland, Alabama or Mississippi? Did anyone even dimly believe that those states would be in play?
Beyond that, were Texas and Georgia ever anything but the longest of long shots? Our questions are blindingly obvious, if you live in a rational world.
In a rational world, no one would look at that list of states and think it meant that the Russkies were trying to defeat Candidate Clinton. But that's the story we love to hear, and people like Katty and Joe have been pimping it all over Our Own Cable Channel, where we go for our daily dose of partisan entertainment product. They flew Katty in from London to hand us that latest pile!
We live in a world where almost every word we hear is false, phony, fraudulent, faux. When you-know-who shakes his fist at "fake news," it isn't like he's "wrong."
It isn't exactly like he's wrong. The problem's more complex than that.
