The speed with which the Cruz campaign was able to translate an offhand set of remarks on CNN about Ben Carson returning to Florida after the Iowa caucuses into a strategy for all his precinct captains to poach Carson’s votes was pretty impressive. It was actually a technological accomplishment, as voicemails were almost instantaneously sent out all across the state to each caucus with instructions to inform voters that Carson was dropping out and support for him would be wasted.
Likewise, his mobile app is impressively sophisticated. It’s a data mining weapon.
Protecting the privacy of law-abiding citizens from the government is a pillar of Ted Cruz’s Republican presidential candidacy, but his campaign is testing the limits of siphoning personal data from supporters.
His “Cruz Crew” mobile app is designed to gather detailed information from its users’ phones — tracking their physical movements and mining the names and contact information for friends who might want nothing to do with his campaign.
That information and more is then fed into a vast database containing details about nearly every adult in the United States to build psychological profiles that target individual voters with uncanny accuracy.
Cruz’s sophisticated analytics operation was heralded as key to his victory in Iowa earlier this month — the first proof, his campaign said, that the system has the potential to power him to the nomination.
When people warn about Cruz’s intelligence, it’s really a kind of ruthless cunning that they’re talking about. Sure, it comes with astronomically large levels of hypocrisy, but no one should doubt his will to win. He has thought this through and he’s willing to use any tactic if he thinks it will give him an edge. He’s already engaged in the dirtiest of dirty tricks. He’s sent misleading mailers that accuse the recipients of committing a “voting violation” if they don’t caucus. He’s falsely spread rumors about his opponents, including that they’re dropping out of the race. And he’s invading the privacy of his supporters’ phones to psychological profile them and their contacts.
What’s next?
Think of something devious. You might just be able to predict his next outrage.
someone’s got to find out where he keeps his gimp hid, and blow the lid of this canadian freakazoid.
Damn, that’s funny. It’s easy to imagine Ted enjoying a gimp.
I’d bet his app system has a few security holes- It’s probably exploitable in some fashion. Although I bet he pulls a Clinton and accuses one of his opponents of “hacking” his database.
But, it will be hacked. Does not matter who he blames.
Cunning yes and now that he is turning passive aggressive on Trump (by telling him he’s coming unhinged but that Cruz won’t nasty back) it draws Trump out to become more and more flamboyant.
But Trump could have the last laugh with this whole ‘I have standing’ to bring a birther suit. So, best we can hope for is that Cruz & Trump blow each other up.
Birther stuff:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/01/guest-post-from-mark-field-regarding-ted-cruzs-eligibili
ty-for-the-presidency
Yes, and there was also a great debate over at Balkinization.
i’d enjoy seeing the lawsuit, not just to have them blow each other up, but it really is a valid point of law. No court has ever ruled on what “natural born citizen” means.
listening to the lawyers on dkos, the question of who might have standing to bring a suit is also an interesting and not obvious point of law.
Standing is a problem, might not occur short of Cruz winning the general election.
Sure makes it sound like the app, simply by its use, mines all that directly from the phone. Diabolical indeed, if true.
It isn’t.
That impression aroused both my curiosity and my skepticism enough for me to read on, finding:
<feels vindicated for decision never to register with facebook>
The same AP article details how all other major candidates (including Bern!) do similarly. The greater egregiousness of the Cruz app seems to lie mainly in its “opt-out” (with “in” as the default setting) requirement for the geographic tracking and facebook log-in “features”.
None of which is to say Cruz isn’t a repulsive, dishonest sleaze. He is!
The wording of the article makes it sound as though, if you have a facebook, you HAVE to use it to log in to the Cruz app. I really doubt that: how would they know (but then again, who knows)?
Seems more likely to me that they’re doing all they can to steer users to logging in via facebook, but if you just never divulged having a facebook account, you could probably do so with e-mail address or phone number instead.
which, rather than something especially nefarious, is the same deal as more than one commercial website out there. If you don’t want to manage another login and password, you log in with facebook.
I didn’t think about the advantage to the site of getting all of your facebook links. but the convenience to me of not creating a new account is worth something.
only by being marginally more evil about it.
(The difference between “opt-in” and “opt-out” as default is actually significant, though, imo. Don’t want to seem to suggest otherwise.)
It’s pretty easy. A lot of sites require a Facebook log-in to use them, which is why I don’t use those sites.
As with all iPhone apps, there’s a moment where you, the user, are asked if you want to allow the app access to your user data. (In detail: “The App [name] wants to use data from [location]; cancel or allow?”)
I don’t know anything about Android but Apple’s always been very serious about this, on all their platforms. You can’t get the user’s data unless they explicitly permit it (although obviously there are ways to trick them into doing this).
He makes Nixon look like Gandhi. Can you imagine a Cruz presidency? Like something by Stephen King.
when considering that he’ll do anything to win, also consider what he’d do then.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/11/1483532/-Heidi-Cruz-says-as-president-her-husband-Ted-will-
deliver-a-combination-of-the-law-and-religion
Trump is less dangerous than this committed Dominionist.
I thought George W. Bush was Gregg Stillson, but both Cruz and Trump are much closer.
People on either side who say “Trump would be better than Hillary” just baffle me. “Why put this slightly-objectionable technician in charge of the nuclear power plant when we can have an eight-year-old spoiled, angry child instead?”
A Cruz presidency would be a horror show. I’m not sure how to describe a Trump presidency– maybe Hunter S Thompson or Gabriel Marquez could write it. Best experienced on LSD.
That’s how I regard the Reagan presidency — both while it was happening, and in retrospect. I think most of the culture (high and low) of the 1980s is as strange as it is because of the basic surrealism of the situation.
The social and cultural dissonance of having a Frigidaire salesman as president is where everything left the rails and all bets were off. It was like a bad dream and we’ve never awakened.
JFK, RFK and MLK shot dead followed discreetly by the elevation of a hand-puppet to the Oval Office. A slow-motion coup d’état by the military-industrial complex and the reactionary elite.
Since 1900 no paralysis of reason has so disabled Western polity than the overwhelming and unreasonable fear of communism, Bolshevism and the Red menace. A student of 20th century history will discover endless missed opportunities, crimes against humanity and unnecessary bloodshed in the name of the free exercise of wealth by a conspicuous and conspiratorial minority. Most of it based on figments of their fevered imaginations.
The Reagan remedy was just the same old snake-oil in new bottles. How much of the Reagan revolution world-view is complete hogwash? Just about all of it. And the consequences affect our polity to this day, like a slow, fatal nation-destroying ailment from an overdose of a tragically flawed prescription.
Agreed 100%.
That’s very insightful… and yes, the 80s were weird…
With his clout in the House, I think president Ted would try for Speaker simultaneously
Oh geeze clear, that’s good.
.
no shock in the least.
o/t report that Justice Scalia has died
This changes everything.
He’s dead!! That wingnut Governor Abbott of Texas has put out a statement!! Scalia kicked the bucket!! Problem is that we won’t get a new justice until next year if the GOP base has its way.
And it will be another in his mold or worse. The only possibility is a Sanders election dragging Liberal Democrats into senate control on his coattails. Might as well wish for aliens to arrive in spaceships.
I’d laugh my ass off if he spent the night with a male prostitute.
Changes nothing.
Honest. First thought….was Cheney there?
Second thought…they will never let Obama appoint his replacement. Gonna be a war.
Some campaigning senators just might have to return to Washington to avoid missing some votes.
He can recess appoint. If he has the guts.
Why not? Eisenhower recess appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Would both the House and Senate hold pro forma sessions until the clock runs out?
Warren was appointed in Eisenhowers first year in office, not his last, and the senate was republican majority. When his appointment was confirmed by the senate it was unanimous. Obamas appointment of Scalias replacement will face decidedly stronger historical headwinds. Still, if he does put someone forward it’ll be a helluva show.
Potter Stewart was recess appointed in October 1958, two years before end of Eisenhower’s presidency, with Senate controlled by Democrats.
True. I looked through the list and could find only one example since 1900 of a SOTUS nomination in the last year of a presidents term who was confirmed: Benjamin Cardozo nominated by Hoover in Jan. 1932.
Doesn’t mean Obama shouldn’t do it.I hope he nominates someone like Elizabeth Warren, just so we can all enjoy the resulting right wing freak show.
Anthony Kennedy was unanimously approved by the Senate in the Presidential election year of 1988. His nomination was placed in late November, 1987.
it would be the longest delay in filling a SCOTUS vacancy ever.
WHERE ARE MY FUCKING DANCING SHOES?
I have to say, this brings a smile to my face
Scalia was more surely more surprised than anyone. He seemed to be aiming for being the first 100 year old sitting Supreme Court Justice.
A loser all the way. His death makes me wish he was right about God and the Devil.
Wonder which of the GOP candidates will be the first to claim that Scalia has talked to him? Or they could do the talking as Hillary did with Eleanor Roosevelt.
McConnell has already put out the news that he won’t allow an Obama appointment to come to the floor for a vote.
Has McConnell announced the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow?
McConnel says no confirmation vote is forthcoming:
How can they make such an assertion? Has our polity so eroded that this makes sense to the punditry and the public; that only Republicans can nominate justices to the Supreme Court? Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) disagrees:
Let the wild rumpus begin!
Nothing preventing Obama from making a recess appointment except fear.
CNN announcing Obama intends to nominate new justice.
Excellent!
As he should. The GOP demanded that Alito be confirmed; so, turnabout is fair play.
“Nothing preventing Obama from making a recess appointment except fear.”
Actually, I believe the NLRB v. Canning 2014 Supreme Court case creates current precedent which would block the President:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/court-strikes-down-recess-appointments-in-plain-english/
The case was not about appointments to the Federal Judiciary, but it is difficult to see how this decision would not represent stare decisis for Judicial appointments as well.
No legal obstacle to wingnuts keeping Senate pro forma “in session” continuously through the end of Obama’s term.
The evil little weasel; Dominionist Nixon. Let’s not overlook his ability to tangle everyone up in procedure either as we wrangle over the rules. Every step of the way is a struggle with this one; to be treated like a venomous snake.
This is what happens when you play footsie with the Dark Side (looking at you, GOP), you leave an opening in the firmament for treacherous, little hobgoblins to hop through into our reality. Cruz is like something out of a four-year-old’s bad dream.
His wife is just plain creepy, too.
From Charles P Pierce on Heidi:
Would he support Sri Srinivasan if Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court? (Whether devious or not, I’d guess that he might have a problem with it.)
Actually, going way OT. Obama should resign and let Biden finish out his term, including nominating Obama to the Supreme Court. That would be good.
Srinivasan was unanimously approved by the Senate for a D.C. Circuit Court seat in 2013. I’ll be interested in seeing what preposterous justifications Majority Leader McConnell, Judiciary Committee Chair Grassley and the rest of their Caucus will cook up to block him if Barack puts him up for this SCOTUS nomination.
If the GOP were to block a Srinivasan nomination, they would make it easier to jack up Indo-American and other non-white voter turnout in November.
Forced recess appointment if necessary.
Pro forma sessions?
Are unconstitutional.
Well, to the Supreme Court then.
Not according to the Supreme Court. NLRB v. Canning from 2014 says 9-0 that Congress is in session when Congress says it’s in session. Unless you can get Congress to pass a law directly saying Pro Forma Sessions don’t count, then they count.
Next unconstitutional “pro forma session” Obama makes his appointment (like Eisenhower did three times). Appointed justice shows up on first Monday next October to be sworn in and we’ll see if the remaining 8 justices can decide whether to seat the person or not. That’d be good.
This is the kind of theatrics that we revel in these days.