NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Senator Ron Wyden: (D_OR)Mark Zuckerberg Should Face Prison Time For Privacy Lapses By Tristan Justice

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/04/ron-wyden-mark-zuckerberg-should-face-prison-time-for-privacy-lapses/

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) suggested last week that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should face jail time for his company’s mishandling of user data that allegedly violated privacy laws.

“Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly lied to the American people about privacy,” Wyden complained to the Willamette Week. “I think he ought to be held personally accountable, which is everything from financial fines to – and let me underline this – the possibility of a prison term. Because he hurt a lot of people.”

Wyden justified the suggested punishment by likening the crime to offenses committed by those who work in the finance industry.

“There is precedent for this: in financial services: if the CEO and the executives lie about the financials, they can be held personally accountable,” Wyden argued.

Wyden put out a draft bill last year to penalize executives who mishandle user data with up to 10 to 20 years in prison. The Oregon senator has been one of the central figures in Washington D.C. leading the effort to enhance federal regulation of big tech. In April, Wyden requested that the Federal Trade Commission hold Zuckerberg “individually accountable” for “repeated violations of Americans’ privacy.”

“Given Mr. Zuckerberg’s deceptive statements, his personal control over Facebook, and his role in approving key decisions related to the sharing of user data, the FTC can and must hold Mr. Zuckerberg personally responsible for these continued violations,” Wyden wrote in a letter to the agency.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Left Pushes To Erase High Achievers From University Halls Simply Because They’re White And Male Looming within academia, there is a strange desire to be attentive to history by erasing it. By Erielle Davidson

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/04/left-pushes-erase-high-achievers-university-halls-simply-theyre-white-male/

Perched in the old city of Akko, Israel, is an enormous citadel, one that has been built, leveled, and rebuilt again by various powers. When I visited the citadel, I recall mentally organizing the history, asking my friend to translate from Hebrew the timeline of the citadel’s ever-fraught ownership. From the Crusaders to the Ottomans to the British, the walls of Akko tell a story, one that locals are eager to both preserve and tell through intensive restoration projects.

I was reminded of this mantra­—walls tell stories—when I heard of a recent push within academia to remove pictures of scientists, Nobel Prize winners, deans, and various other accolade recipients from the walls of university halls under the auspices of their insufficient racial and sex differences. Most of the suspect portraits are of older white men.

In many instances, such as in the case of the Molecular & Integrative Physiology Department at the University of Michigan, the “dude wall” (as coined by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC) has simply been moved to a less-prominent location. But the relocation hasn’t always been received warmly. For example, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School, speakers presenting at Bornstein Auditorium now orate within the confines of bare walls, a situation in which former Dean of Harvard Medical School Dr. Jeffrey Flier has expressed public disappointment.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Blasey Ford Attorney Admits Abortion Support ‘Motivated’ Anti-Kavanaugh Accusations !!!!!By Mollie Hemingway

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/04/blasey-ford-attorney-admits-abortion-supported-motivated-anti-kavanaugh-accusations/

The attorney for a woman who made unsupported allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh admitted that she and her client Christine Blasey Ford were motivated by their support for abortion. The admission, first reported in Ryan Lovelace’s new reported book “Search and Destroy: Inside the Campaign Against Brett Kavanaugh,” was confirmed with video footage.

Tarnishing the reputation of a justice who would have the power to overturn abortion law Roe V. Wade “is part of what motivated Christine,” her attorney Debra Katz said. “Elections have consequences, but he will always have an asterisk next to his name,” she said of Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court was nearly derailed by last-minute unsubstantiated allegations that he had attempted to rape Ford when they were in high school decades prior. She said she feared he might kill her as well.

No evidence emerged in support of the allegations, and the four witnesses Ford named all denied any knowledge of the incident. She said she was unable to remember the date or location of the alleged event, or any other specific information that could be independently evaluated. The witnesses, who included Ford’s lifelong friend Leland Keyser, said they remembered no such event, even though some of them remembered the summer in question quite well.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Global Warming or Bad Data? Garbage in… by John Steele Gordon

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/climate-global-warming-data-locations/

Al Gore likes to say that the science of climate change is “settled.” But of course, science, almost by definition, is never settled.

And climate science has always suffered from the problem of shaky and missing data. Seventy percent of the globe is covered by ocean, where data is hard to collect. Reliable weather records only go back to about 1850 and, in many parts of the world, are far more recent. Modern recording weather stations date only to the early 20th century.

And many of those stations have a big problem. While they haven’t changed appreciably over the years, the land around them has changed, often profoundly, with the great growth in urban and suburban areas. The weather station that was put, say, in the middle of a Nassau County, Long Island, potato field in 1923 is still in the same spot. But the potatoes are long gone, and now it’s behind a strip mall, twenty feet from the kitchen exhaust fan of a Chinese take-out joint.

A study by meteorologist Anthony Watts found that almost 90 percent of the 1221 weather stations in the U.S. did not meet the National Weather Service’s setting standards, which requires that they be at least 100 feet from any artificial heat source or radiating surface. You can see some of the most egregious violators here. To deal with this defective information, climate scientists, have “adjusted” the data to solve this problem. Invariably, these adjustments have made earlier data show lower temperatures, and recent data show higher ones.

To develop reliable data, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) placed 114 state-of-the-art weather stations relatively evenly spaced about the lower 48 states. They were carefully sited to be away from urban areas, which are heat islands, airports, which can be affected by jet exhaust, etc.

The system became operative in 2005. Now, realclearenergy.com is reporting that there has been no increase in average temperatures in the continental United States over the last 14 years, as measured by these new stations. If anything, overall temperatures are slightly cooler than they were.

One big reason for this lack of warming is surely the explosion in U.S. natural gas production, thanks to fracking. The U.S. is now, by far, the number-one producer of natural gas, producing 90 billion cubic feet a day, 25 percent more than second-place Russia. This has brought the price of natural gas to its lowest point in 20 years, which has resulted in a big shift from producing power by burning coal to burning natural gas, which produces 50 percent less carbon dioxide. (The shale gas revolution has vast geopolitical implications, of course, as well as climatic ones.)

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.K. Parliament Gives A Full-Fledged Finger To The British People By Sumantra Maitra

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/04/u-k-parliament-gives-full-fledged-finger-british-people/

The British parliament is nominally more powerful than the monarch or the prime minister. Ever since Brexit, it is aspiring to be more powerful than the people.

The British Parliament stood firmly opposed to the British people, as 21 Conservative Party members of Parliament (MPs) defected and joined the Liberals-Democrats to damage the new Boris Johnson government and oppose a No-Deal Brexit on October 31. In a win for the European Union, keenly being watched from the Americas and the European continent, the British government is now paralyzed, with no majority for any Brexit, even a diluted one; no mandate for another election; no unified opposition to win in an election; and no government strong enough to push through.

Modern Western democratic societies, whether parliamentary or senatorial, have never faced a situation where the declared majority result is straddled against the checks for majoritarianism. The British parliament is nominally more powerful than the monarch or the prime minister. Ever since Brexit, it is aspiring to be more powerful than the people. And the outcome and direction of this will be a lesson for the entire English-speaking world.

A bit of background is necessary. The British system was a compromise from the chaos in the continent, and miraculously has managed without a written constitution, or a revolution, since the end of the Cromwellian Tyranny. The power lies in Parliament, which is the supreme authority in the country.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Squad Dems Raise Money to Help Activists Arrested in Boston, Including Antifa Goons Who Assaulted Cops Debra Heine

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

amgreatness.com/2019/09/03/squad-dems-raise-money-to-help-activists-arrested-in-boston-including-antifa-goons-who-assaulted-cops/

Far-left Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley lent a helping hand to violent antifa agitators over the weekend after a number of them were arrested on assault and battery charges.

The two “Squad” members urged their followers on Twitter to contribute to the bail fund for the “counter-protesters” who tangled with law enforcement while protesting the Straight Pride Parade in Boston on Saturday. A masked Antifa protester told reporters that the violence was necessary in order to shut up Straight Pride marchers.

The FundRazr page said that the monies raised would go toward “any legal fees, as well as supplies for jail support.”

The purpose of the parade was to “take a stand for free speech and demonstrate that the ‘oppressed majority’ of straight Americans have just as much right to celebrate their sexuality as does the LGBTQ community,” organizer John Hugo told the Boston Herald. Organizers insisted that the parade was open to “all races, genders and sexual orientations.”

AOC urged her followers to contribute to the crowdfunding campaign to “support the local LGBTQ community impacted by Boston’s white supremacist parade.” Pressley thanked the “allies & accomplices who stood in the gap & laid their bodies on the line …”

The FundRazr page said that “fascists and white supremacists, under the front organization Super Happy Fun America, are descending on Boston,” vowing that “Boston will repel them with beautiful and bold direct action!”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Italy: Salvini Down but Not Out by Soeren Kern

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14817/italy-matteo-salvini

The new governing alliance, if realized, may be short lived. In an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa, former Interior Minister Roberto Maroni of the Lega Nord party said that the new government, if it comes to fruition, will be “intrinsically weak” because it would exist, “not for a shared political project but only to avoid elections.” He added that there was a possibility that the new government could last for the entire legislature “in order to avoid delivering the country to Salvini.”

“Do you think I am afraid of a few months in opposition?” Salvini asked in a Facebook video. “You have not got rid of me with your political games. You do not know me, I do not give in.” He has called for a protest against the new government in Rome on October 19. Polls show that 67% of Italians are in favor of early elections.

“We Hungarians will never forget that you [Salvini] were the first Western European leader to make an effort to prevent illegal migrants from flooding Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. Irrespective of future political developments in Italy and of the fact that we belong to different European party groups, we consider you as a brother in arms in the fight to preserve Europe’s Christian heritage and stop migration.” — Hungarian President Viktor Orbán.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy premier and interior minister since 2018, has been shut out of the Italian government after his gambit to force snap elections to become prime minister backfired.

As the de facto leader of Europe’s anti-mass-migration movement, Salvini’s departure from government may set back efforts to slow illegal immigration to the continent. Many analysts, however, believe that Salvini, who continues to lead his rivals in opinion polls, will be back in government soon and in an even stronger position than before.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Boko Haram: Bloody Terror, No End in Sight by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14785/boko-haram-bloody-terror

Every year, Nigeria’s Boko Haram, which has gained a foothold in the neighboring African countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger, appears to be growing stronger.

Suicide bombings and other deadly attacks committed by Boko Haram terrorists over the past decade have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people, while more than two million others have been displaced.

Nigeria’s government has proved itself to be incompetent at best, and at worst, complicit in the attacks.”

“The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, gives billions of dollars in aid to northeastern Nigeria. The problem is that aid, which helps fix small amounts of damage, is not a sufficient answer. As long as groups such as Boko Haram are able to keep destroying whole villages and infrastructure — while devastating populations — NGOs will never be able to keep up.” — International Christian Concern; August 13, 2019.

Boko Haram, the ISIS-aligned group seeking to establish an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria, just celebrated the 10th anniversary of its establishment. Contrary to initial and subsequent assessments, however, the terrorist group, also known as Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP), was not to be easily defeated. On the contrary, every year, the jihadist group, which has gained a foothold in the neighboring African countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger, appears to be growing stronger.

Suicide bombings and other deadly attacks committed by Boko Haram terrorists over the past decade have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people, while more than two million others have been displaced. These figures do not even include the thousands of women and children abducted, some of whom, according to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), “have been forced to carry out suicide missions.”

The CEP explains:

“Boko Haram has increased the number of female suicide bombers due to the easy concealment of weapons under hijabs and Islamic customs that forbid men to frisk women.”

According to International Christian Concern (ICC), so far in 2019, Boko Haram has kidnapped 179 people in Niger alone, mostly women and girls, a number that amounts to nearly one person per day. This does not include the many unreported abductions or those that took place in Nigeria or Cameroon.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obama at Columbia – Or Was He? Revelations from George Stephanopoulos, Newsweek, and Columbia grads from Israel. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274817/obama-columbia-%E2%80%93-or-was-he-lloyd-billingsley

The recent DOJ report on James Comey, the ongoing FISA investigation, and the probe of the Russia-collusion investigators under John Durham are all pointing back to POTUS 44, formerly known as Barry Soetoro. He wanted to know how Peter Strzok and Lisa Page of the FBI’s coup clan were doing. In similar style, designated prevaricator Susan Rice is on record that 44 wanted the counterintelligence operation to be done “by the book.” It didn’t exactly work out that way.

As investigators probe what the president knew, and when he knew it, other revelations about the former Barry Soetoro have managed to escape notice. This lapse comes despite massive revelations from his own handlers.

According to official biographer and Pulitzer winner David Garrow, the defining Dreams from My Father is not a memoir or biography. It is a novel, and in this work of historical fiction the author is a “composite character.” The implications proved alarming to fans and family alike.

The president, “spent the first 20 years of his life going by the nickname Barry,” the former First Lady explains in the 2018 Becoming. “Somewhere along the way, though, he’d stepped into the fullness of his birth name – Barack Hussein Obama.”  Michelle does not note that, in all his writings from 1958 to 1964, the Kenyan Barack Obama mentions nothing about an American wife and Hawaiian-born son. Becoming portrays the future president as an “exceptional” and “gifted” student who “worshipped books.” At Columbia he “consumed volumes of political philosophy as if it were beach reading.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Egypt Reinstates Notorious Hate Preacher So much for President Sisi’s “religious reforms.” Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on September 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274828/egypt-reinstates-notorious-hate-preacher-raymond-ibrahim

Egypt’s leading authorities have reinstated a notoriously “radical” cleric and hate preacher to the pulpit (minbar), despite strong opposition.

According to Arab Weekly, “The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments, which controls the mosques, gave Yasser Burhami, the deputy head of the Salafist Call, the umbrella organisation of Salafi movements, approval to deliver sermons before Friday prayers at the Wise Caliphs Mosque in Alexandria.”

“Everybody is shocked at the decision to allow this man to preach at the mosques,” said Saad al-Zunt, the head of the Strategic Studies Centre, a local think-tank.

“Salafists adhere to a strict version of Islam,” the report explains.  “They do not believe in women’s rights and call for women to be clothed from head to toe. The Salafists adopt a hostile stance towards non-Muslims, saying they are not full citizens.”

Indeed, Sheikh Yasser al-Burhami has authored numerous fatwas—edicts based on Islamic scriptures—that demand hate and hostility for non-Muslims, most specifically the nation’s largest and most visible minority, the Christian Copts, whom Burhami has referred to as “a criminal and infidel minority,” one that he regularly  invokes “Allah’s curse” on.

For example and in keeping with the doctrine of al-wala’ w’al bara’ (“Loyalty and Enmity”), Burhami has called on all Muslims to hate all non-Muslims—going as far as to say that, although a Muslim man is permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women (ahl al-kitab), he must make sure he still hates them in his heart—and show them this hate—because they are infidels; otherwise he risks compromising his Islam.