Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Ilhan Omar Is Not Really Sorry for Her Anti-Semitic Tropes
— Abe Greenwald (@AbeGreenwald) February 12, 2019
On Monday, Democrats called on Rep. Ilhan Omar to apologize for once again tweeting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, this time about rich Jews pulling the strings of American politicians. So she responded with a tweet apologizing “unequivocally” for not realizing that Jews were so touchy about anti-Semitism. And then, in that tweet, she trashed AIPAC for its “problematic role” in American politics.Keep reading.
What’s the point, exactly, of asking anti-Semites—or any bigots—to apologize for their bigotry? There are a few ways to look at it. Do you want them to express regret about being bigoted? Do you want them to express regret about giving voice to their bigotry? Do you really just want them to do a better job of pretending not to be a bigot? In the end, it doesn’t matter, because none of these positions changes the fact of their bigotry. Omar’s very apology contained paranoia about AIPAC.
Asking for an apology is an immoral response to anti-Semitism because it’s designed to allow the anti-Semite to move past her offense. In the public sphere, these apologies become a licensing fee paid by people like Omar every time they want to sound off about the evil Jews. She “apologizes,” people praise her willingness to learn and grow, and the headlines shift from her offense to the hysterics who won’t let her be. The only ones who benefit here are the bigots and their allies. In the case of Omar, those allies are either her fellow Democrats trying to do damage control or anti-Semites who are thrilled to see one of their own successfully playing the game...
And see also, Jonathan Tobin, "Why Ilhan Omar won’t pay for peddling bigotry."
Meghan Murphy Sues Twitter
This last year or two she was one of my favorite people on the site (the hate dump known as Twitter).
At WSJ, "Writer Sues Twitter Over Ban for Criticizing Transgender People":
Writer Sues Twitter Over Ban for Criticizing Transgender People. You can’t tell journalists to learn to code or to take a joke either. https://t.co/9bCeERhfFj pic.twitter.com/ltWXRcdKDQ— Nick Short (@PoliticalShort) February 12, 2019
Canadian blogger tweeted ‘Men aren’t women,’ violating harassment rules on the platformRTWT.
*****
In the case of Twitter’s policy update for transgender issues, the company banned the practice of intentionally referring to individuals by the wrong gender or referring to their previous names, saying it can be a form of harassment. The policy was designed to make Twitter a more inclusive space for transgender individuals.
Ms. Murphy says that Twitter locked her account on Nov. 15, telling her that to regain control of her account, she would need to remove two tweets she posted the prior month. One tweet stated: “How are transwomen not men? What is the difference between a man and a transwoman?” The other said: “Men aren’t women.”
Ms. Murphy deleted the tweets, and posted a response to Twitter, saying, “I’m not allowed to say that men aren’t women or ask questions about the notion of transgenderism at all anymore?” The post went viral, according to her suit, receiving 20,000 likes. Days later, Twitter informed Ms. Murphy that she needed to delete this tweet as well, the suit says.
Twitter then banned Ms. Murphy permanently. According to the suit, Twitter sent an email to Ms. Murphy on Nov. 23, informing her that an item she had posted previously on Nov. 8 violated the company’s hateful conduct policy because she referred to a transgender woman as “him,” according to the suit.
The suit says Ms. Murphy had tweeted “Yeeeah it’s him” to refer to an image of a Google review of a waxing salon posted by a Twitter account with a male name and a female name in parentheses. In the past year, the suit states, the person behind that account had filed complaints against aestheticians for refusing to perform Brazilian waxes due to that person’s male genitalia.
Previously: "Leading Canadian Feminist Meghan Murphy Banned by Twitter for Speaking Out on Trans Ideology."
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Monday, February 11, 2019
The Disaster of Public Education
RTWT, at Quillette:
"Bad teaching is a common explanation given for the disastrously inadequate public education received by America’s most vulnerable populations. This is a myth." Ex-teacher @merrycheeked1 reveals the brutal truth of what happens in NYC's classrooms: https://t.co/gkQWB5Ghey
— Quillette (@Quillette) February 11, 2019
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Democrats Opened Up Can of Sexual Assault Worms in #MeToo Era
At the Los Angeles Times, "Presidential hopefuls struggle to control damage from sexual misconduct cases in first race of #MeToo era":
The first presidential campaign of the #MeToo era is raising new questions and resurrecting old episodes, to the discomfort of Dems @finneganLAT https://t.co/Diu3UEFrFz
— Mark Z. Barabak (@markzbarabak) February 10, 2019
As he lays ground to run for president, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock looks back with regret at his failure to recognize the gravity of a top aide’s sexual harassment of a colleague.Keep reading.
After he was fired, the advisor went to work for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and was soon accused of harassing two more women. Bullock now says he’s “deeply sorry” he never told de Blasio about his aide’s misbehavior.
“I was wrong and naΓ―ve to think I did enough,” Bullock, a Democrat, wrote Feb. 2 in a blog post.
Kamala Harris has similar regrets. So does Bernie Sanders. And so does Joe Biden.
The 2020 presidential race is the first to occur since the #MeToo movement changed the nation’s cultural and political climate. Democratic contenders are already struggling to control the damage from their own shortcomings in policing sexual harassment in the workplace.
“You can say you support #MeToo, and you can say you support women, but you have to be able to demonstrate that in your own organization and in your own behavior,” said Kelly Dittmar, a political scientist at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.
“I don’t think we’re going to see all of a sudden a wholesale overturning of the allowances that we’ve given to folks for this type of behavior, or not acting significantly to stop this behavior in the past. But I do think the bar is higher.”
Cold political math is at least part of what’s drawing heightened attention to sexual misconduct: Women consistently turn out to vote in greater numbers than men. Women have also strongly preferred Democrats in recent elections, driving the party’s takeover of the House in the November midterm.
In the White House race, Democrats face pressure to nominate a candidate who can draw a strong contrast with President Trump. A Democrat who is perceived as not dealing with sexual harassment seriously could have a hard time attacking the president over allegations by multiple women that Trump sexually assaulted them.
The accusations, which Trump denies, have not caused die-hard supporters to desert him, but the president remains highly unpopular among women in general.
For Harris, the U.S. senator from California, the issue has become fraught since the Sacramento Bee revealed in December that the state paid $400,000 to settle a lawsuit over alleged sexual harassment by Larry Wallace, one of her closest aides for 14 years.
When Harris was state attorney general, she named Wallace as chief of the Division of Law Enforcement. He was in charge of her personal security detail, and he was a crucial figure in her political life: He led Harris’ successful drive to win endorsements from dozens of police groups that had once roundly opposed her.
In September 2016, Wallace and at least four others on her staff at the attorney general’s office were notified of the initial complaint filed by Danielle Hartley, Wallace’s executive assistant.
Three months later, Hartley sued the state, alleging Wallace had “harassed and demeaned” her in his Sacramento office. He kept a printer on the floor beneath his desk, she claimed, and ordered her every day to get on her knees to put paper in it or replace the ink, at times with him and male co-workers watching. Harris’ successor, Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, approved the settlement in May 2017.
Harris said she was not told about the case until the Bee asked about it two months ago. The inquiry led Wallace to resign as a senior advisor on her Senate staff in Sacramento.
“It was a very painful experience to know that something can happen in one’s office — of almost 5,000 people, granted, but I didn’t know about it,” Harris told CNN. “That being said, I take full responsibility for anything that has happened in my office.”
Critics have attacked the credibility of Harris, one of the Senate’s most pointed interrogators of Brett M. Kavanaugh when he faced sexual assault accusations at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. A Bee editorial called her denial of any knowledge of the Wallace settlement “far-fetched.” And if she’s to be believed, it said, she “isn’t a terribly good manager.”
Larry Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State, said Harris was facing the conundrum of many politicians: How do they justify actions they took — or didn’t take — prior to the #MeToo movement shifting public attitudes?
“It’s very hard for those folks to go back and undo what they did at a time when it wasn’t viewed as terrible as it is now,” he said.
Bernie's in hot water too, lol.
Liz Cheney Slams Elizabeth Warren as a 'Laughingstock'
At WaPo, "Rep. Liz Cheney says Elizabeth Warren is a "laughingstock" for having claimed Native American ancestry."
CNN’s Jake Tapper: “What about the language the President uses and the joking references to genocide against Native Americans?”
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 10, 2019
Rep. Liz Cheney: “Elizabeth Warren has made herself a laughingstock, and I don’t think anybody should be surprised that’s been the reaction to her” pic.twitter.com/15VbWPFLq4
Who Pissed in Her Boots?
At LAT, "Who urinated in her boots? A mystery at a California military base has led to claims of a cover-up":
Who urinated in her boots? A mystery at a California military base has led to claims of a cover-up https://t.co/lOPuvqJomE— L.A. Times: L.A. Now (@LANow) February 10, 2019
For Staff Sgt. Jennifer Pineda, a 15-year veteran of the California Air National Guard, the military was a family calling. She followed her older sister and brother-in-law into the guard, where she now holds an administrative position at the elite 144th Fighter Wing in Fresno.More.
On a March morning four years ago, Pineda was about to dress into a uniform she had stored overnight in a stall in the women’s bathroom when she made a foul discovery.
Someone had urinated in her boots.
The incident left Pineda humiliated and frightened and would trigger a series of behind-the-scenes investigations whose scope has come to extend beyond what happened that day at the Fresno base.
The defiling of Pineda’s boots has led to allegations that high-ranking officers tried to bury the incident, including by destroying evidence that could have potentially identified a suspect through DNA, and retaliated against a male pilot who supported her efforts to find the perpetrator, according to interviews and guard records obtained by The Times. Some in the wing have begun calling the ongoing saga “Pissgate.”
After The Times began asking questions about the Pineda episode, the California Military Department, which oversees the guard, asked the U.S. Air Force Inspector General’s Office to conduct an investigation.
In the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, guard leaders are concerned about the degrading nature of the act aimed at a woman, according to two sources close to the investigation, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly speak about the matter. Only about 20% of the officers and enlisted members in the guard are women.
The inspector general’s inquiry is the third investigation into the Pineda affair and part of a broader probe into whether whistle-blowers at the 144th wing suffered reprisals for questioning the actions or conduct of their superiors on a range of matters. At least five guard members from the 144th wing, including a pilot who was killed in October in a crash during a training mission in Ukraine, filed formal complaints. The guard recently suspended a 144th commander for reasons it said were unrelated to the Pineda incident.
“This boils down to just unprofessional leadership and cronyism,” said Maj. Dan Woodside, a retired 144th fighter pilot who is a witness in the inspector general’s Pineda investigation and has complained about how she was treated. “If anybody had urinated in their boots, they would have done everything they could to find the perpetrator, even if it involved calling the FBI.”
Two of the guard’s top officers held key leadership positions at the 144th at the time of the Pineda incident: Maj. Gen. Clay Garrison, who has since become head of the air guard, and Col. Sean Navin, now one of its five wing commanders. Neither responded to requests for interviews...
My dad's house in Fresno, on East Ashlan, was just Northwest of the airport, and was right under the flight path of the F-15s talking off from the Air Guard. Like clockwork on most days, you'd hear those jets screaming over the rooftops in the neighborhood. I'm not living up there anymore, but it's interesting to read about it.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
The Green New Deal
The #GreenNewDeal is perhaps the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. But don’t tell leftists! I pray #Democrats run on it — the entire party! <Rubs hands together diabolically ha ha!> This is truly the best political thing ever lol. πππ
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 9, 2019
The Green New Deal isn't just un-American, it's also completely bonkers. https://t.co/r7VeFTAQIt
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) February 8, 2019
Candace Owens Clarifies Comments on Adolf Hitler
In any case, at USA Today, "After backlash, conservative pundit Candace Owens clarifies viral Hitler comment."
Thank you @USATODAY for publishing the FULL quote & context of what I said.
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) February 9, 2019
We are all holding to see if @ChelseaClinton will apologize for perpetuating this leftist media hoax.
Similar to #Covington, this hoax has resulted in death threats against me.https://t.co/3VEAkX23nx
Extreme Democrats Boosting President Trump's Reelection Prospects
By embracing socialist-minded economic policy, from a Green New Deal to single-payer health insurance, the top 2020 presidential hopefuls are boosting Trump's prospects for reelection, opines @HotlineJosh https://t.co/4Mwoj3uELZ
— National Journal (@nationaljournal) February 8, 2019
Alexis Ren Enjoys Morning Coffee
At Taxi Driver:
Alexis Ren Enjoys her Morning Coffee Braless - https://t.co/XUcL1A4ZYG - pic.twitter.com/NJ7f62mOan
— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) February 6, 2019
Devin Brugman in Leopard Bikini
At Taxi Driver:
Devin Brugman's Body in a Leopard Bikini - https://t.co/3gVFEZxPXV pic.twitter.com/TXJkLUxTLC— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) February 7, 2019
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Scott Greer, No Campus for White Men
At Amazon, Scott Greer, No Campus for White Men: The Transformation of Higher Education into Hateful Indoctrination.
Jennifer Delacruz's Rainy Saturday Forecast
I'm going to be chillin' inside today.
At ABC News 10 San Diego, the fabulous Ms. Jennifer:
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Megan Parry's Tuesday Forecast
At ABC News 10 San Diego, the lovely Ms. Megan:
Monday, February 4, 2019
Ralph Northam, Refusing to Resign Over Racist Blackface Photo, Risks #Democrats' Future
And at the New York Times, "In Virginia Governor’s Turmoil, Democrats See an Agenda at Risk":
#Virginia Governor, Refusing to Resign Over Photo, Risks #Democrats’ Future. #RalphNortham #Blackface #Racism π€·♂️ https://t.co/mQnWSxtX5o
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 4, 2019
The refusal by Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of Virginia, to resign after the revelation of a racist photograph is threatening his party’s political fortunes in Virginia, where Democrats are on the brink of consolidating power after a decade-long rise in the once-conservative state.More.
With Mr. Northam’s turmoil erupting during a legislative session in an election year, Democrats and Republicans said Sunday that his fragile hold on power risked his party’s policy ambitions and its aspirations for this fall, when control of both the state’s legislative chambers is expected to be bitterly and closely contested.
“You can’t govern without a mandate, and all you’re going to do is make things worse for the state,” said Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who served alongside Mr. Northam in the Virginia Senate.
Mr. Northam met with some of his staff members on Sunday night, prompting speculation that he might announce his resignation during the Super Bowl. Most of the people he met with told him that resigning was the way to clear his name, according to a state Democrat briefed on the meeting by an attendee.
Both chambers of the Legislature are scheduled to meet on Monday morning for sessions that could bring fresh condemnations of the governor. As of Sunday evening, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would succeed Mr. Northam if he resigned, had not been notified that the governor was stepping down.
Mr. Northam’s troubles began on Friday with the surfacing of a photograph on his medical school yearbook page, which showed a person in blackface posing with another in a Ku Klux Klan robe. The governor at first acknowledged that he was one of the figures in the image, and then denied it on Saturday, all while drawing widespread calls for his resignation. Until this episode, Democrats appeared to be on a steady roll in Virginia, a state that had increasingly become a source of strength for the party in major elections.
Since 2008, when Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades to carry the state, Virginia has shifted steadily leftward. For the last decade, both of the state’s senators in Washington have been Democrats. And more recently, the party has gained greater sway at the Capitol in Richmond.
Two years ago, Democrats picked up 15 seats in the House of Delegates, where they had been locked out of the majority for more than two decades. They are now two seats away from control in both chambers. The biggest prize in controlling the statehouse would be the power, under current law, to draw congressional and legislative districts after the 2020 census.
More power in the Legislature has already translated into significant policy wins for Democrats. Since Mr. Northam was elected in 2017, the party has achieved long-prized goals, like the expansion of Medicaid, and seized new credit for the state’s economic growth.
And this week is arguably among the most crucial of the year’s 46-day legislative session, with an important deadline for bills to advance. The speaker of the House of Delegates, Kirk Cox, and other Republican legislators warned that Mr. Northam’s “ability to lead and govern is permanently impaired.”
Even to his Democratic allies, Mr. Northam now seems hobbled.
“You’ve got to work as one unit to move your commonwealth forward, and he’s just not going to have that ability to do it,” Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who preceded Mr. Northam as governor, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Mr. Northam’s difficulties can be traced, in part, to his shifting accounts over the photograph, published in a 1984 yearbook for the Eastern Virginia Medical School, which said on Sunday that it would investigate how such “unacceptable photos” came to be published...
Justice Democrats to Wage War on the Party
At Politico:
GIFT TO TRUMP: ‘There Is Going to Be a War Within the Party. We Are Going to Lean Into It.’ https://t.co/VCCnoFClG2
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) February 4, 2019
No Regime Change
Say no to nuclear war. Say no to regime change wars. pic.twitter.com/7Smy4dRe2Z
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) February 4, 2019
David Patrikarakos, War in 140 Characters
Bar Refaeli Bikini
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Sunday, February 3, 2019
Kate Bock Body Covering (VIDEO)
Dua Lipa Flash
Got the whole gang back together π€ bts by Pixie Levinson for Alita London premiere x pic.twitter.com/qKnq287T3S
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Life Without the 'Big 5' Tech Giants
I have not yet implemented the plan, but I do think about it often.
And it turns out, an operational defense plan for social media should be just a start. To be truly free in this day and age, you've got to unplug from all the biggies: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.
Who does that? Probably no one, but Kash Hill is giving it a go. She's a warrior, dang!
See, "Life Without the Tech Giants," and "I Cut Google Out Of My Life. It Screwed Up Everything."
From the latter:
First-person adventure time: I’ve been cutting the tech giants out of my life one by one. https://t.co/CqSPbQRNAX— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) January 22, 2019
It was easy technically to block Facebook because it doesn’t run the web like Amazon’s AWS, but FB's trackers are everywhere, including 'Pixel,' which tracks products you look at so companies can show you ads for those products on FB/Instagram. https://t.co/MCAjZfrm7A— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) January 24, 2019
Long ago, Google made the mistake of adopting the motto, “Don’t be evil,” in a jab at competitors who exploited their users. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has since demoted the phrase in its corporate code of conduct presumably because of how hard it is to live up to it.Keep reading.
Google is no stranger to scandals, but 2018 was a banner year. It covered up the potential data exposure of a half million people who probably forgot they were still using Google+. It got caught trying to build a censored search engine for China. Its own employees resigned to protest Google helping the Pentagon build artificial intelligence. Thousands more employees walked out over the company paying exorbitant exit packages to executives accused of sexual misconduct. And privacy critics decried Google’s insatiable appetite for data, from capturing location information in unexpected ways—a practice Google changed when exposed—to capturing credit card transactions—a practice Google has not changed and actually seems proud of.
I’m saying goodbye to all that this week. As part of an experiment to live without the tech giants, I’m cutting Google from my life both by abandoning its products and by preventing myself, technologically, from interacting with the company in any way. Engineer Dhruv Mehrotra built a virtual private network, or VPN, for me that prevents my phone, computers, and smart devices from communicating with the 8,699,648 IP addresses controlled by Google. This will cause some huge headaches for me: The company has created countless genuinely useful products, some that we use intentionally and some invisibly. The trade-off? Google tracks us everywhere.
I’m apprehensive about entirely blocking Google from my life because of how dependent I am on its products; the company has basically taken up residence in my brain somewhere near the hippocampus.
Google Calendar tells me what I need to do any given day. Google Chrome is how I browse the internet on my computer. I use Gmail for both work and personal email. I turn to Google for every question and search. Google Docs is the home of my story drafts, my half-finished zombie novel, and a running tally of my finances. I use Google Maps to get just about everywhere.
So I am shocked when cutting Google out of my life takes just a few painful hours. Because I’m blocking Google with Dhruv’s VPN, I have to find replacements for all the useful services Google provides and without which my life would largely cease to function:
I migrate my browser bookmarks over to Firefox (made by Mozilla).
I change the default search engine on Firefox and my iPhone from Google—a privilege for which Google reportedly pays Apple up to $9 billion per year—to privacy-respecting DuckDuckGo, a search engine that also makes money off ads but doesn’t keep track of users’ searches.
I download Apple Maps and the Mapquest app to my phone. I hear Apple Maps is better than it used to be, and damn, Mapquest still lives! I don’t think I’ve used that since the 90s/a.k.a. the pre-smartphone age, back when I had to print directions for use in my car.
I switch to Apple’s calendar app.
I create new email addresses on Protonmail and Riseup.net (for work and personal email, respectively) and direct people to them via autoreplies in Gmail. Lifehack: The easiest way to get to inbox zero is to start a brand new inbox.
Going off Google doesn’t come naturally. In addition to mentally kicking myself every time I talk about “Googling” something, I have to make a “banned apps” folder on my iPhone, because otherwise, my fingers keep straying out of habit to Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Calendar—the three apps that, along with Instagram and Words With Friends, are in heaviest rotation in my life.
There’s no way I can delete my Gmail accounts completely as I did with Facebook. First off, it would be a huge security mistake; freeing up my email address for someone else to claim is just asking to be hacked. (Update: While other companies recycle email addresses, many Googlers have informed me since this piece came out that Google does not.) Secondly, I have too many documents, conversations, and contacts stored there. The infinite space offered by the tech giants has made us all digital hoarders.
And that hoarding can be a bonanza for tech giants, allowing Google, for example, to create a “Smart Reply” feature that crawls billions of emails on Gmail to predict how you’d like to respond to a friend’s missive. Yay?
This experiment is not just about boycotting Google products. I’m also preventing my devices from interacting with Google in invisible or background ways, and that makes for some big challenges.
One morning, I have a meeting downtown. I leave my apartment with enough time to get there via Uber, but when I open the app, it won’t work. Same thing with Lyft. It turns out they’re both dependent on Google Maps such that I can’t even enter my destination while blocking Google. I’m astounded. There are no taxis around, so I have to take the bus. I wind up late to the meeting.
Google is a behemoth when it comes to maps. According to various surveys, the vast majority of consumers—up to 77 percent—use Google Maps to navigate the world. And a vast majority of companies rely on Google Maps’ API to power the mapping on their websites and apps, according to data from iDataLabs, Stackshare, and BuiltWith.
Even Google’s mortal enemy, Yelp, uses it for mapping on its website (though it taps Apple maps for its iPhone app). Luther Lowe, head of policy and Google critic-in-chief at Yelp, says there aren’t great alternatives to Google when it comes to mapping, forcing the company to pay its foe for the service.
In its Maps API, Google has long offered a free or very cheap product, allowing it to achieve market dominance. Now it’s making a classic monopolistic move: Google announced last year that it’s raising its mapping prices significantly, leading developers across the web to freak out because Google Maps is “light years ahead of its competitors.”
I become intimately acquainted with Google Maps competitors’ drawbacks using Mapquest for navigation; it keeps steering me into terrible traffic during my commute (probably because it doesn’t have the real-time movements of millions of people being sent to it).
Google, like Amazon, is woven deeply into the infrastructure of online services and other companies’ offerings, which is frustrating to all the connected devices in my house.
“Your smart home pings Google at the same time every hour in order to determine whether or not it’s connected to the internet,” Dhruv tells me. “Which is funny to me because these devices’ engineers decided to determine connectivity to the entire internet based on the uptime of a single company. It’s a good metaphor for how far the internet has strayed from its original promise to decentralize control.”
In some cases, the Google block means apps won’t work at all, like Lyft and Uber, or Spotify, whose music is hosted in Google Cloud. The more frequent effect of the Google block though is that the internet itself slows down dramatically for me...
If you could create a social media defense anonymous identity, I suspect you could continue to use the Big Five relatively safely (anonymously), although you'd still be handing over all your data, which is valuable whether you're identified or not.
What a crazy world we live in!
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Released
At Amazon, Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, Antisocial Media
At Amazon, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy.
Amber Lee's Super Bowl Forecast
At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, the lovely Ms. Amber:
CBS Rejects ‘Just Stand’ Super Bowl Advertisement (VIDEO)
A veteran-owned apparel company’s pro-flag Super Bowl TV ad that punches back at Nike's promotion of Colin Kaepernick and his national anthem protests has been rejected by CBS.
According to the firm, Nine Line Apparel, CBS was apparently not satisfied the firm could pay for the 45-second ad, despite having annual revenues of $25 million. A spokesman for Nine Line charged that CBS didn’t like the ad’s content.
The ad features soldiers, first responders, and images of military graves decorated with American flags and gives credit to them for protecting the rights of those like Kaepernick to protest.
It appears to open up where the ad Kaepernick narrated and starred in ended.
Nike’s minutelong ad, which debuted at the beginning of the 2018 NFL season to great fanfare and controversy, shows Kaepernick at the end saying, “So don’t ask if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they are crazy enough.”
The ad celebrated sports achievers but was controversial because it featured the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, who started a wave of political protests by kneeling during the National Anthem to protest the treatment of minorities.
Nine Line Apparel’s ad opens with, “Don’t ask if your loyalty is crazy. Ask if it’s crazy enough.”
It is narrated by Benghazi survivor U.S. Marine Mark Geist. “Some people think you’re crazy for being loyal, defending the Constitution, standing for the flag. Then I guess I’m crazy,” he said in it.
“For those who kneel, they fail to understand that they can kneel, that they can protest, that they can despise what I stand for, even hate the truth that I speak, but they can only do that because I am crazy enough,” he adds.
Nine Line Apparel CEO Tyler Merritt ripped the rejection of his ad.
"CBS’s purported reason for rejecting a Super Bowl commercial that extols patriotism is totally out of bounds," he said. "Let’s call this what it is: a blatant attempt to censor a message that their politically correct executives find offensive. We urge Americans who believe it’s important to show respect for our flag and national anthem to join us in calling out this offensive bias. It’s time to give a penalty flag to CBS."
The firm is overtly patriotic. Nine Line Apparel’s “About Us” page on its website reads: "Nine Line Apparel represents the grit and commitment of all Patriotic Americans. Founded on the principles similar to other value based organizations, Nine Line aims to promote the issues faced by all those who have served their country, on both foreign and domestic soil. Nine Line encourages a conversation between those who serve and those who support them."
Super Bowl Today
In any case, great coverage at the Los Angeles Times.
It's Super Bowl Sunday pic.twitter.com/kkURBifNrI
— L.A. Times Sports (@latimessports) February 3, 2019
Super Bowl LIII: Rams ready to butt heads with Patriots and their G.O.A.T. https://t.co/2P3W29ZUxe pic.twitter.com/3MUxdRTxDh
— L.A. Times Sports (@latimessports) February 3, 2019
Super Bowl LIII by the numbershttps://t.co/lxpSz7aOCx pic.twitter.com/xNlFdvf7UD
— L.A. Times Sports (@latimessports) February 3, 2019
The official @latimessports staff #SuperBowl picks in the @latimes this morning. I got the #LARams 31-28. pic.twitter.com/nP4Gbe8dG4
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) February 3, 2019
Friday, February 1, 2019
Voters Want Political Moderation?
Seems like most folks on Twitter, especially leftists, are attacking moderation. Look at the leftist jihad against former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. The attacks have been so bad he's rethinking whether or not he should run. Even his hometown constituency launched huge protests against him. See NYT, "Howard Schultz Draws Protesters in His Hometown, Seattle."
This is an interesting discussion, in any case, at Fox News:
Corey Booker Throws His Hat in the Ring
Booker's a farcical grandstanding hack. (*Eye roll.*)
Spotted in the wild pic.twitter.com/73IkSygCXJ
— Rebecca Buck (@RebeccaBuck) February 1, 2019
I want to take a couple minutes and share a few thoughts about why I’m running for president:
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) February 1, 2019
Sen. @CoryBooker: "The cancer, in many ways, in our country right now is a caustic type of politics that wants to pit us against each other and create the delusion of separateness." https://t.co/f8u2wc159S pic.twitter.com/bEcTLVSWrO
— The View (@TheView) February 1, 2019
New Arrests in Southern California Birth Tourism Industry
Travel agents charged with bringing pregnant Chinese women to give birth on U.S. soil https://t.co/DT9YTY2dra pic.twitter.com/kiOttlnLub
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) February 1, 2019
When pregnant Chinese women called You Win USA Vacation Services, they didn’t receive information on visiting Disneyland or the Grand Canyon.More.
Instead, they sought coveted advice on how to make a very different type of trip — one aimed at giving birth on U.S. soil so their children would be American citizens. You Win USA employees allegedly coached the women on the lies they should write on bogus applications for tourist visas and made sure the women traveled before their bellies swelled too much to conceal.
Fly first to Hawaii to blend in with the hordes of tourists, and list the Trump International Hotel in Honolulu as your destination, the women were told. Then, hop a flight to Los Angeles.
It was a scheme that federal authorities say went on for years. But Thursday, the operator of You Win USA and the owners of another allegedly illicit “birth tourism” company in Southern California were arrested and charged with an array of crimes including immigration fraud, money laundering and identity theft, according to indictments filed in U.S. District Court.
The arrests marked the culmination of a long-running investigation by agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service into three outfits operating for years in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire and Orange County. They charged as much as $100,000 for their clandestine services — a price tag that authorities say Chinese parents-to-be readily paid to make sure their children would be citizens of what You Win USA’s promotional material called the “most attractive nationality.”
“These cases allege a wide array of criminal schemes that sought to defeat our immigration laws — laws that welcome foreign visitors so long as they are truthful about their intentions when entering the country,” U.S. Atty. Nicola Hanna said in a statement. “Statements by the operators of these birthing houses show contempt for the United States, while they were luring clients with the power and prestige of U.S. citizenship for their children.”
Arrested Thursday morning were Dongyuan Li, 41, of Irvine, who was identified in court records as an executive at You Win USA Vacation Services in Irvine; as well as Michael Wei Yueh Liu, 53, of Rancho Cucamonga; and Jing Dong, 42, of Fontana, who authorities said owned and operated a company called USA Happy Baby in San Bernardino.
All three pleaded not guilty in court appearances Thursday afternoon, according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. Li was ordered to be held in custody pending a detention hearing next week. Liu and Dong can be released after they post $250,000 bonds.
Also indicted Thursday was Wen Rui Deng, 65, an American citizen officials accuse of running a Los Angeles agency named Star Baby Care, which authorities believe to have been the largest birth tourism operation in the U.S. She is believed to be living in China, authorities said...
The Fight Over Identity Politics
E Pluribus Unum? - The Fight Over Identity Politics; https://t.co/r0ZJ1NMZPy via @ForeignAffairs
— Steven J. Gulitti ⚔️π΄☠️⚔️ (@SJGulitti) February 1, 2019
Lindsey Pelas Busting Out Like Bananas? Or Melons?
At Popoholic:
Lindsey Pelas Busting Out Her Ginormous Super Cleavage Like Bananas! https://t.co/kH8BemDvyb pic.twitter.com/5WsNa02Vhq
— Popoholic (@Popoholic) February 1, 2019
Kimberley Garner Working Out on the Beach (PHOTOS)
At Taxi Driver, "Kimberley Garner Bikini Bottom Workout on the Beach."
And at Daily Mail, "Kimberley Garner flaunts her sizzling physique in a skimpy blue thong-style bikini as she soaks up the sun in Miami."
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Extreme Cold Kills Several as Polar Vortex Spreads Into Midwest
I've never experienced anything like this in my entire life, and honestly this is one reason I'm happy to still live in Southern California. (*Shrug.*)
At WaPo:
Deadly polar vortex puts the Midwest in a deep freeze https://t.co/UR9iHyiZsM
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 30, 2019
It’s so cold in Cadillac...even the light posts are shivering! pic.twitter.com/LWGTuSLk60
— @MSPNorthernMI (@mspnorthernmi) January 30, 2019
Russell Blackford, The Tyranny of Opinion
At Amazon, Russell Blackford, The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism.
Stephen Harper, Former Prime Minister of Canada, Explains Why Trump Won (VIDEO)
Harper is so exceptionally well-spoken it's no wonder he was elected prime minister. What a guy, dang!
Excellent discussion of the current populist moment as well.
Harper's new book is available at Amazon, Right Here, Right Now: Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption.
And at Prager Univeristy:
Kristin Cavallari Flash
Season 2!!!! pic.twitter.com/1HIfGZosiW
— Kristin Cavallari (@KristinCav) August 23, 2018
The Jussie Smollett #MAGA Attack Hoax
See Michelle Malkin, "The MAGA-phobic manure-spreaders of media sensationalism":
Here we go again. If you think the manure-spreaders of sensationalism who masquerade as ethical practitioners of journalism learned anything from last week’s MAGA-bashing Covington Catholic High School hoax, I have three words for you:Also, at Instapundit, "SHIFTING STORIES CLOUD CLAIMS OF ALLEGED HATE CRIME ATTACK TARGETING EMPIRE ACTOR JUSSIE SMOLLETT: Read the whole thing, and whatever your conclusions, remember the 48 Hour Rule," and "WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY, JUSSIE?"
Ha, ha, ha.
On Tuesday morning, uncorroborated claims by actor Jussie Smollett that he was the victim of a “brutal” hate crime by Trump supporters in Chicago went viral across social media. Entertainment rag TMZ.com first splashed “exclusive” headlines that the “Empire” cast member was “beaten by MAGA backers” in a “homophobic attack” at around 2a.m. in Chicago. If you have no idea what “Empire” is or who Smollett is, join the club. The TV star is apparently a vocal critic of Trump and attacked “45 and all his white hooded cohorts” on Instagram last week.
But I digress.
Within minutes, the gossip site’s squib on the TV star’s alleged victimization trended on Twitter and rocketed up to USA Today, Variety, CBS, CNN, and the New York Times. The Fishwrap of Record breathlessly reported lurid details of two people who “wrapped rope around his neck,” which multiple outlets characterized as a “noose.” A police statement providing incident background stated that “the offenders began to batter the victim with their hands about the face and poured an unknown chemical substance on the victim,” according to Smollett. Multiple websites reported that the substance was bleach.
This is truly horrible, if true. But color me cautious and skeptical. TMZ initially reported that Smollett had exited a Subway chain restaurant near his luxury apartment when accosted by the racist, homophobic assailants, who allegedly recognized him from his work on “Empire.” Allegedly, Smollett received a hate mail with the word “MAGA” on it addressed to him and sent to his studio in Chicago last week. If this was a premeditated “attack,” the FBI should get to the bottom of it.
But oddities and discrepancies abound:
TMZ quoted one of the “MAGA country” attackers who allegedly hurled epithets at Smollett: “Aren’t you that f***ot ‘Empire’ n*****?”
Question: How many racist, homophobic menaces wander around the upscale Streeterville neighborhood of liberal Chicago at 2 a.m. carrying rope and bleach, yelling about “MAGA country?”
Question: How many racist, homophobic menaces have ever heard of “Empire,” could recognize Jussie Smollett, or know or care anything about his sexuality?
Despite TMZ’s claim that Smollett had the “hell beat outta him” and attackers “broke his ribs” plus subjected him to a chemical attack, an ambulance was not called and he instead “self-transported” to the hospital. CWB Chicago, a local public safety watchdog site, reported on police dispatch records documenting that Smollett’s friend “Frank” refused EMS services for Smollett; no mention of bleach was made; “no or minor injury” was observed; and “officers never sent a ‘flash; message with offender descriptions to field units.”
Weird.
Another assertion not included in the CPD’s initial press release on the incident: Any mention of “MAGA supporters” or any mention of the race of the alleged assailants. Police clarified that they had not received any official information backing TMZ reporter Charles Latibeaudiere’s claim, which he attributed to sources close to Smollett, that the alleged attackers shouted, “This is MAGA country.”
Nor had the police corroborated that the attackers were white, since Smollett had told them their faces and hands were both covered. After launching a search for surveillance video and potential witnesses, the police department reported late Tuesday that “thus far we have not found anything to be able to put out a description.”
I was told that public records requests for the incident report may take “weeks” to be approved. I was also told the Chicago police remain in charge of investigating the alleged incident, while the FBI probe of the alleged hate mail remains separate.
CPD’s public information office also told me late Tuesday that when police responded to the 911 call regarding the incident, Smollett gave them no details about where it occurred or what the attackers looked like. None. They were reportedly on scene for an hour with Smollett. When I asked again how the claims about white “MAGA attackers” were disseminated in the press, the PIO replied:
“We have no idea where that came from.”
Minutes after I hung up the phone with her, a local Chicago reporter tweeted that Smollett did mention the “MAGA” angle in a “follow-up, supplemental interview.” Which is it?
Despite all the holes, contradictions, and unanswered questions, the MAGA hate crime narrative has already calcified. (Sound familiar?) By 5pm Eastern on Tuesday, a search for “MAGA” and “Smollett” on Google yielded 3,520,000 results. And TMZ ended its day of social justice pot-stirring with the Rev. Al Sharpton calling for President Trump to “denounce Jussie Smollett’s MAGA attackers” who have yet to be identified.
Classic manufactured “news:” Report on an uncorroborated hate crime. Plant unverified details. Repeatedly blame white male Trump supporters. Stoke Hollywood outrage. Enlist the Godfather of Hate Crime Hoaxes to call on the president to denounce phantom attackers. Reap clicks and publicity. Indict all skeptics as racists and haters. Repeat.
Smears first. Facts later. How much deader can American journalism get?
Chicago police say detectives have reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage but haven’t found any yet that shows the alleged attack on “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett. https://t.co/zj2fs1MUyX
— AP Central U.S. (@APCentralRegion) January 30, 2019
Jennifer Delacruz's Midweek Forecast
Her's the scrumptious Ms. Jennifer, at ABC 10 News San Diego:
Reading Totalitarian Philosophers
In any case, this is interesting, at Quillette, "How Should We Read the Totalitarian Philosophers?"
In contemporary times, how should one read and interpret authors whose work has become associated with totalitarianism? @MattPolProf, a professor of politics, explains: https://t.co/hFIFNeWA78
— Quillette (@Quillette) January 30, 2019
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
'Vacation'
These women are so hot!
Heard yesterday on K-EARTH 101 FM Los Angeles:
Monday, January 28, 2019
Sally D. Reed, NEA: Propaganda Front
Sally D. Reed, NEA: Propaganda Front of the Radical Left.
An oldie but goodie! Click on the used copies for more.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
A Stinging Defeat for President Trump
This feels like a real turning point in Trump's presidency, mostly it's really the one time I think he's seriously hurt politically. Democrats were gloating, as I would have been too, given both the stakes and polarization. But more importantly, Trump's capitulation, especially after the longest shutdown, hurt him with the base --- yes, even folks who've been die-hard Trump supporters were turned off by the long impasse.
If there's no deal on this supposed set of congressional conference negotiations, Trump will either deploy the Army Corps of Engineers or blow off any hopes of reelection.
We'll see.
At NYT, "For a President Consumed With Winning, a Stinging Defeat":
After the longest government shutdown in history, Trump surrendered with nothing concrete (or steel) to show for the battle, taking essentially the same deal that was on the table in December that he originally rejected, touching off a 35-day impasse. https://t.co/9LfBpXd1Pq
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) January 26, 2019
And now go live to Ann Coulter to get her remarks on Trump caving on the wall. Ann? pic.twitter.com/VhuxgyNwuK
— Dana Goldberg (@DGComedy) January 25, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump famously declared that in his administration the nation would become tired of all the winning. So on Friday he tried a little losing.Still more.
After the longest government shutdown in history, Mr. Trump surrendered with nothing concrete (or steel) to show for the battle, taking essentially the same deal that was on the table in December that he originally rejected, touching off a 35-day impasse.
With Senator Mitch McConnell on the telephone, rank-and-file Republicans in revolt and televisions in the White House showing air traffic slowing in the Northeast because of the shutdown, Mr. Trump bowed to the inevitable and agreed to reopen the government until Feb. 15 without the money for his border wall that he had demanded.
For a president who believes in zero-sum politics and considers compromise a sign of weakness, it was a bruising setback, a retreat that underscored the limits of his ability to bull his way through the opposition in this new era of divided government. As it turned out, the art of the deal at this stage of Mr. Trump’s presidency requires a different approach and the question is whether he can adjust.
“By any measure, it was an unequivocal loss,” said Patrick J. Griffin, who was the White House legislative director for President Bill Clinton during the government shutdowns of the 1990s. “No interpretation is needed. No wall and probably lost votes rather than gain or strengthen his base.”
The next three weeks will test whether Mr. Trump can rebound as he faces a new deadline to come up with an agreement. If he can find common ground with Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer while making progress on his wall, he may yet emerge from this searing ordeal claiming a political victory.
If not, however, he may discover his disgruntled fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill less willing to go along with a renewed government shutdown, forcing him to decide whether to provoke a constitutional clash by declaring a national emergency to bypass Congress altogether and build the wall without legislative approval.
White House officials argue that there are more moderate House Democrats who are willing to support a wall even though Ms. Pelosi has called the project “immoral” and opposed spending even a single dollar on it. In the days to come, they hope to either peel off those Democrats and force Ms. Pelosi to meet somewhere in the middle or to drive a wedge among Democrats highlighting their own divisions.
“Moving forward for the next three weeks, have the Democrats boxed themselves into a corner with zero for wall funding that makes them look weak on border security?” asked Marc Short, who was Mr. Trump’s White House legislative director earlier in his presidency. “Will the White House be able to work around Pelosi to gain enough Democrat support for some wall funding?”
After watching Ms. Pelosi this week disinvite Mr. Trump from delivering the State of the Union address while the government remained closed, Mr. McConnell concluded that she would never cave and decided to come off the sidelines to try to end the standoff. He scheduled votes for Thursday on two plans to end the stalemate, one on Mr. Trump’s terms and another Democratic version, mainly to demonstrate to the president that he did not have enough support to prevail.
After both bills failed to muster the 60 votes required for passage on Thursday, Mr. Trump was fed up and ready to get it over with, according to advisers. He was eager to get the dispute resolved at least temporarily so he could deliver his State of the Union address. He told Vice President Mike Pence and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, to give him options.
They came back with four ways to reopen the government: a three-week spending bill that included a prorated portion of money as a down payment on the border wall pending further negotiations; a “clean” short-term spending bill that included no such money; a clean short-term bill with a bipartisan House-Senate conference committee to negotiate border security; or a declaration of national emergency that Mr. Trump would use to move money on his own while resuming government operations for the rest of the fiscal year...