Gmail is hiding emails from conservatives By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/gmail_is_hiding_emails_from_conservatives.html

It’s not uncommon for the American Thinker staff to learn that emails from readers and writers have vanished into Gmail’s automatic spam filter. It’s extremely irritating but is it deliberate? One study suggests that it probably is. That’s either because the email’s content is obviously conservative or because the email comes from Proton Mail, a site to which conservatives gravitated after the FBI’s partisan crackdown following January 6.

Six years ago, Russ Vaughn authored an American Thinker post revealing that his email box appeared to show a distinct bias in the way Google automatically sorted email:

I decided to clean out my email trash, and after completing the task, I turned to my spam to do the same.  But upon clicking into that folder, I made the interesting discovery that almost all of the emails relegated to spam by Gmail’s filters (I have no personal filters in place) had a common thread: Almost all were from conservative sources.  In fact, ninety percent of them were from Republican or conservative causes, most seeking contributions. 

It turns out that what Russ observed was not limited to his own inbox. North Carolina State University’s Department of Computer Science decided to look into the matter. Fox News reports that it recently published its findings in “A Peek into the Political Biases in Email Spam Filtering Algorithms During US Election 2020.” The results completely supported Russ’s suspicions:

“We made several important observations in our study. For example, as an aggregate trend, Gmail leaned towards the left while Outlook and Yahoo leaned towards the right. Yahoo retained about half of all the political emails in inbox (up to 55.2% marked as spam) while outlook filtered out the vast majority of emails (over 71.8%) from all political candidates and marked them as spam,” the proposed methodology section continued. “Gmail, however, retained the majority of left-wing candidate emails in inbox (< 10.12% marked as spam) while sent the majority of right-wing candidate emails to the spam folder (up to 77.2% marked as spam).”

Never Admit Anything The popular and overused Biden mantra. John Stossel

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/never-admit-anything-john-stossel/

“Apologizing for mistakes is something we teach little kids to do. Is that too much to ask of our media and social media giants?”

President Joe Biden says he never talked business with his son.

Maybe he didn’t.

Maybe that Ukrainian gas company paid Hunter Biden half a million dollars because he has unique business skills that no one else noticed.

It’s possible.

But unlikely.

Now a Justice Department investigation may tell us whether Hunter is a sleazy opportunist who broke the law and whether his father knew, or even helped.

But equally revealing is the arrogance and bias the reporting on Hunter’s laptop revealed among wide swaths of media and big tech gatekeepers.

Even today, most will not admit they were wrong.

Bill Clinton’s Corrupt Love Affair With Putin The last thing the Clintons wanted was democracy and an end to the corruption. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/bill-clintons-corrupt-love-affair-putin-daniel-greenfield/

Bill Clinton, once the youngest governor in the country, now only four years younger than Biden, came out of the shadows with a defensive op-ed, titled, “I Tried to Put Russia on Another Path”.

While the Clintons, like Obama, fashionably embraced Putin-bashing when it served their agenda of inventing a Russia scandal as a pretext for discrediting the 2016 presidential election and spying on their Republican political opponents, Bill’s history tells a very different story.

In My Life, his 2004 memoir, Bill Clinton praises Putin and uses him to attack Republicans.

After his first meeting with Putin, Bill Clinton wrote that he came away believing “Yeltsin had picked a successor who had the skills and capacity for hard work necessary to manage Russia’s turbulent political and economic life” and the “toughness to defend Russia’s interests”. He called Putin’s appointment, which helped end democracy in Russia, a “wise and shrewd move”.

After Putin was elected, Bill Clinton recollects that he “hung up the phone thinking he was tough enough to hold Russia together.” Soon Clinton is using Putin to bash Republicans, sneering that “even the Russian Duma was more progressive on arms control than the U.S. Senate” and supporting Putin’s refusal to hold off on the anti-ballistic missile treaty because “Republicans had been enamored of missile defense since the Reagan era, and many of them wouldn’t hesitate to abrogate the ABM Treaty in order to deploy it.” Putin good, Republicans bad.

Why was Bill Clinton flattering Putin in his autobiography?

Biden’s ‘Integrated Deterrence’ Military Strategy Failed in Ukraine Leading from behind has an exciting new name. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/bidens-integrated-deterrence-military-strategy-daniel-greenfield/

Last year, Secretary of Defense Austin claimed that a new strategy called “integrated deterrence” would be at the heart of Biden’s new defense strategy. Last month, he was talking up a new National Defense Strategy driven by integrated deterrence while claiming that it would prove effective against Russia in the war in Ukraine. Instead the war showed “ID” doesn’t work.

What is “integrated deterrence”? It sounds better than leading from behind, which was Obama’s version of it, but it’s not too different from the failed approach of the Obama administration.

Like a lot of organizational jargon, “integrated deterrence” is a collection of meaningless buzzwords that no one understands concealing the same old thing that dresses up failure as success because under the exciting new approach, no one was even trying to succeed.

Integrated deterrence, if you listen to Austin, is everything and therefore nothing. ID is going to perfectly integrate together all military capabilities without regard for service rivalries, combined with all elements of the federal government, and be ready to go anywhere at home or across the globe without any friction or limitations, while also seamlessly integrating with our allies.

Or, as Austin put it during a visit to Poland, integrated deterrence uses “the capability and capacity that’s resident in our partners and allies.” Or, you know, leading from behind.

ID means being “integrated across our allies and partners, which are the real asymmetric advantage that the United States has over any other competitor or potential adversary,” Colin Kalh, Biden’s undersecretary of policy, had claimed. “Our adversaries know that they’re not just taking on the United States, they’re taking on a coalition of countries who are committed to upholding a rules-based international order.”

America has plenty of asymmetric advantages. Being tied to the Germans and the French, not to mention the awesome might of a variety of small countries that have marginal militaries and no desire to fight is not making China, Russia, or anyone else tremble in their leather boots.

A rules-based international order has not stopped a single war or deterred any aggressor.

Joe Biden Still Talks Like a Senator Philip Klein

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/joe-biden-still-talks-like-a-senator/

His Russia–Ukraine stumbles are the product of somebody who spent decades in a job where off-the-cuff statements have no consequences.

Over the course of the Ukraine–Russia conflict, President Biden has made a number of reckless statements that have undermined or confused American foreign policy. A popular explanation among critics has been that his propensity to make such statements reflects his being gaffe-prone in general and also that he is undergoing an age-driven mental decline. But another explanation is equally likely: He is not being as careful about what he says because his formidable political experience was as a senator, a position in which off-the-cuff statements do not matter as much.

The president’s extemporaneous comments repeatedly have created problems for his administration.

In a January news conference during the run-up to the invasion, Biden talked about the potential response to an offensive by Vladimir Putin and speculated, “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, etc.”

This created uncertainty about the resolve of NATO countries to hold Putin accountable, and top White House officials scrambled to do cleanup.

Last month, during a mostly restrained speech in Poland, Biden went off-script and added the line, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

The statement reverberated around the world, as it appeared that the president of the United States was calling for regime change, which would represent a significant escalation in the conflict.

This statement, too, had to be walked back so the White House could tamp down the idea that the U.S. was pushing for Putin’s ouster.

Then there has been the loose talk around war crimes.

Last month, after the conclusion of an event at the White House, Biden initially responded “no” when a reporter asked if he thought Putin was a war criminal, and walked away. But then he made his way back to the reporter and said, “Oh, I think he is a war criminal.”

America is still paying the price for Hillary Clinton’s treachery Michael Goodwin

https://nypost.com/2022/04/09/america-is-still-paying-the-price-for-hillary-clintons-treachery/ , NYPost.com

However this era of angry polarization, crime and violence ends, it will be left to historians to decipher how America got so far off track. Instead of building on our unprecedented prosperity and role as the world’s ultimate superpower, we declared war — cultural, political and social — on each other. Even our nation’s Founders are not spared. 

The reasons will be better understood in hindsight, but it’s hard to believe the 2016 presidential campaign won’t be seen as an inflection point. Our move toward disunion didn’t begin then, but it certainly gained steam and vitriol during and after the election of Donald Trump. 

Two recent developments illustrate how that campaign remains a radioactive hot spot. With both developments centering on Hillary Clinton, they underscore her role and the depths of her venality. 

Just when you think you’ve seen the worst of her, proof emerges that she was even more duplicitous than we knew. 

The first evidence came in a little-noticed decision from the Federal Election Commission. It ruled on a complaint from the Coolidge Reagan Foundation that Clinton and the Democratic National Committee violated federal law by hiding how they funded the odious Christopher Steele dossier, perhaps the most destructive disinformation document in United States history. 

The FEC agreed with the complaint and ruled that Clinton and the DNC, which she effectively controlled, hid their payments to Steele as merely “legal fees,” without mentioning him or his work. In fact, the money was funneled through a law firm, Perkins Coie, which then hired the smear merchants at FusionGPS, who hired Steele, a former British spook. 

The layers and false claim about legal fees were intended to put distance between Clinton and Steele because knowledge of the truth would have destroyed her campaign. Although her lawyers and the DNC argued they did nothing wrong, they agreed not to contest the findings and quietly paid fines totaling $113,000.

Press looks the other way 

$54M in Chinese gifts donated to UPenn, home of Biden Center By Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein

https://nypost.com/2022/04/09/54m-in-chinese-gifts-donated-to-upenn-home-of-biden-center/

A government watchdog is demanding the US Attorney probing Hunter Biden in Delaware investigate tens of millions in anonymous donations from China to the University of Pennsylvania, where an academic center is named for his father, President Biden.

The Ivy League college raked in a total of $54.6 million from 2014 through June 2019 in donations from China, including $23.1 million in anonymous gifts starting in 2016, according to public records.

Most of the anonymous donations came after the university announced in February 2017 that it would create the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Joe Biden, whose term as vice president had just ended, was to lead the center and was also named a professor at the university.

The center, which is located in Washington, DC., opened its doors in February 2018. Antony Blinken, whom Biden named as Secretary of State, briefly served as its managing director.

The Ivy League university received $15.8 million in anonymous Chinese gifts that year, including one eye-popping $14.5 million donation in May 2018, records show.

The flurry of donations may be related to Hunter Biden’s business interests in China, the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based watchdog, alleged in complaints sent in May and October 2020 to the Departments of Education and Justice.

China Taking Over Africa: ‘China’s Second Continent’ by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18417/china-taking-over-africa

“America cannot ignore Africa. Africa’s challenges, opportunities, and security interests are inseparable from our own…. Our competitors clearly see Africa’s rich potential. Russia and China both seek to convert soft and hard power investments into political influence, strategic access, and military advantage. China’s economic and diplomatic engagements allow it to buttress autocracies and change international norms in a patient effort to claim their second continent.” — General Stephen Townsend, Commander of United States Africa Command, Senate Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2022.

About 40 out of Africa’s 54 countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party launched in 2013. BRI aims to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting China with Europe, Africa and beyond, and has already strengthened China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.

“China is dependent on Africa for imports of fossil fuels and commodities… Beijing has increased its control of African commodities through strategic direct investment in oil fields, mines, and production facilities, as well as through resource-backed loans that call for in-kind payments of commodities. This control threatens the ability of U.S. companies to access key supplies.” — US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 annual report to Congress.

In June 2021, in an extremely belated attempt to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Biden administration together with the G7 launched a new global infrastructure initiative, the Build Back Better World (B3W)…. The initiative, however, comes across as far too little, too late. Between 2007 and 2020, China invested $23 billion in infrastructure projects in Africa, according to the Center for Global Development, a US think tank. That is reportedly “$8 billion more than… the other top eight lenders combined…”

It will be very near impossible for the US or others to catch up on that, especially with the planned B3W initiative, because that initiative is not focused on much-needed tangible investments. Instead, its four focus areas are climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.

“More troubling is B3W’s apparent excision of hard physical infrastructure from its remit… In Africa, which lags all other regions of the world in the availability of paved roads and electricity [and rail], that deficit that deficit is set to grow without a massive influx of hard infrastructure investment…” — Gyude Moore, senior policy fellow, Center for Global Development, African Business, February 13, 2022.

In the absence of a serious coordinated international effort, China will go on to fill that infrastructure gap, as it continues to consolidate its influence in Africa while the US lags behind.

China continues to deepen its engagement in Africa on all levels. Recently it engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity with African countries. In March alone, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held bilateral talks with his African counterparts in Algeria, Egypt, The Gambia, Niger, Somalia, Tanzania and Zambia. The talks came only two months after Wang Yi visited Eritrea, Kenya and Comoros. Also in March, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a phone conversation with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during which the two spoke about deepening cooperation between the two countries. Ramaphosa affirmed that he supports China’s policies on Taiwan, Tibet, and other “major issues”.

States of Covid Performance A new study compares outcomes on economy, education and health.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-of-covid-performance-economic-schools-study-working-paper-lockdowns-11649621806?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“The NBER working paper presents the data straight without policy conclusions, but here’s one of ours: The severe lockdown states suffered much more on overall social well-being in return for relatively little comparative benefit on health.”

More than two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s time to draw some conclusions about government policy and results. The most comprehensive comparative study we’ve seen to date was published last week as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and it deserves wide attention.

The authors are University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan and Stephen Moore and Phil Kerpen of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. They compare Covid outcomes in the 50 states and District of Columbia based on three variables: the economy, education and mortality. It’s a revealing study that belies much of the conventional medical and media wisdom during the pandemic, especially in its first year when severe lockdowns were described as the best, and the only moral, policy.

The Chicago Thinker Staged a Media Regime Takedown This Week—Here’s How We Did It by Audrey Unverferth and Evita Duffy *****

https://thechicagothinker.com/the-chicago-thinker-staged-a-media-regime-takedown-this-week-heres-how-we-did-it/

This week, the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP) and The Atlantic magazine hosted a “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference, and we have to hand it to IOP Director David Axlerod for bringing in true experts on the subject. The conference featured some of America’s greatest purveyors of disinformation, such as Barack Obama, Brian Stelter, Anne Applebaum, and a few token conservatives, including Jonah Goldberg and Adam Kinzinger. 

The media, government, and academia elites speaking at the conference weren’t expecting to be challenged as they self-righteously spewed more lies—but our team at the Chicago Thinker was prepared to hold them accountable. 

Student journalists from the Chicago Thinker respectfully listened, asked honest questions, and reported. Our efforts soon went viral, garnering millions of views on social media. We successfully turned the IOP’s “Disinformation Conference” on its head and sparked a national conversation about the corporate media’s disinformation. 

If this week has taught us anything, it’s that the regime media is incredibly fragile. If a couple hard-hitting questions from college students can rattle the elites to such a degree, just think what would happen if our peers at other universities follow our lead.

Here’s how we smoked some of America’s most corrupt, partisan liars.

We Recognized Them for Who They Are

Despite its stated objectives, this conference clearly wasn’t dedicated to rooting out disinformation or facilitating substantive debates. It was theater. When the partisan conference speakers referred to disinformation, they were really just referring to information they dislike.