MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Sovereign People Need Data Sovereignty—Now By Ned Ryun

Posted By on June 7th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/06/a-sovereign-people-need-data-sovereignty-now/

It’s time the American people woke up and understood what the big tech companies, many of which are now publishers and telecommunications companies masquerading as neutral platforms, are doing with their personal data.

Respecting individual privacy is the most common concern you find in the media and elsewhere. But privacy is only part of the challenge before us—and a relatively small part at that. By feeding companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook untold amounts of personally identifiable data, Americans—specifically American workers—are helping sow the seeds of their own demise.

Many people don’t take the time to consider what happens to their data when they give it away. Where does it go? With whom is it being shared? How is it being used to accelerate the growth of new technologies, including artificial intelligence and automation?

The data being given freely to these tech companies and the amount of personally identifiable data being collected put the National Security Agency’s efforts to shame. Like it or not, all of this data isn’t being used simply to inform algorithms that help you make better movie selections or put funny cat videos into your Facebook feed or remind you that you’re about to run out of toilet paper.

All of that information is feeding projects such as Google Brain and Facebook’s artificial intelligence research and development. These are grand efforts by very large, private companies that have vast and untold implications for public policy. Yet these same companies are not being very transparent about their work.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Democrats 2020: The Grievance Party A vicious identity politics and socialist platform. Larry Elder

Posted By on June 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273910/democrats-2020-grievance-party-larry-elder

Describing the Democratic Party as one built on “identity politics” used to be a pejorative. But Georgia’s failed 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, recently defended this description of her party. “I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are,” said Abrams, “and it’s exactly how we won. … When we refuse to engage in the conversation of identity politics, when we refuse to acknowledge that we see you and we understand you and we understand the barriers that you face, then what we are met with is a lack of trust.”

Fellow Democrat and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg apparently failed to get the memo. A week before Abrams embraced and even expressed pride in Democrats’ identity politics, Buttigieg was blasting President Donald Trump for his “racist” use of it. Trump, said Buttigieg, engages in “peak white identity politics” that creates a “crisis of belonging” in America “designed to drive apart people with common interests.” Buttigieg added, “When you do not belong, it doesn’t just put you in a bad mood; it puts you in a different country.”

By “identity” politics, Democrats really mean grievances. The party leaders push the narrative that blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. are victims, whether due “inequality” or “sexism” or “racism” or “otherism.”

Take 2020 Democratic presidential contender Sen. Kamala Harris, who announced plans to end the alleged grievance of “unequal pay.” Harris claims women working full time make 80 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men. She insists it’s worse for minorities: Black women are only paid 61 cents on the dollar, Hispanic women 53 cents. Never mind that the Labor Department long ago debunked this myth.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ron DeSantis Challenges the BDS Movement : Caroline Glick

Posted By on June 7th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273943/ron-desantis-challenges-bds-movement-caroline-glick

“If you openly support BDS in Florida, you’re dead, politically.”

That was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s conclusion from the surprisingly large role the issue of the antisemitic “boycott, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) campaign against Israel played in his close race against Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum in Floridan’s gubernatorial election last November.

DeSantis edged out the hardcore progressive Democrat by a mere 0.4 percent, or 32,000 votes.

DeSantis made the remark during the course of his official visit to Israel last week. He led a massive trade mission of Florida business leaders, cabinet secretaries, and university presidents on a five-day trip to the Jewish state. During the course of the mission, Florida universities signed collaboration agreements with Israeli universities spanning a vast spectrum of undertakings from water purification to space research.

The mission merged the twin goals of increasing Florida-Israel economic, academic and commercial ties; and fighting anti-Semitism generally, and the BDS campaign against Israel specifically. Its success was a stunning expression of DeSantis’s state government’s friendship with Israel. It also placed the sharp contrast between progressive Democrats — like his opponent, Gillum — and DeSantis in stark relief.

Throughout his three terms in Congress, DeSantis distinguished himself as one of the most active defenders and promoters of the U.S. strategic alliance with the Jewish state. In contrast, in the years preceding Gillum’s general election run for Florida governor, he cultivated and benefitted from close ties with BDS groups.

DeSantis made his remark about the negative effect his opponent’s support for Israel’s worst opponents in America had on Gillum’s election prospects during a visit Wednesday to the Hub Etzion in the Gush Etzion industrial park. The Hub is a flexible work office space and a central meeting place for the growing hi-tech, small business and self-employed community of Gush Etzion and Efrat in Judea and Samaria.

POLITICS Comments turned off

The End of Democrat Domination in Michigan? ‘Rising Star’ John James Will Run for the Senate in 2020 By Rick Moran

Posted By on June 6th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/michigans-john-james-will-run-for-the-senate-in-2020/

Businessman John James, who gave incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow a serious challenge in 2018, announced he will run for the Senate again in 2020 against another incumbent, Gary Peters.

James, whom Trump called “a rising star,” garnered more statewide votes than any other Republican in Michigan in the last decade. At age 37, he has shown himself to be an adept politician, running as a conservative in a state where Democrats have dominated for decades. Trump won Michigan in 2016, but only by the razor-thin margin of 11,000 votes out of more than five million cast. It’s widely believed that Trump absolutely has to have Michigan if he is going to win re-election.

“We are heading in the wrong direction as a country and our leaders in Washington are failing to lead us toward a better and brighter future. I believe I can help lead Michigan toward that future we deserve, and that’s why I am running for US Senate,” James tweeted.

He also sent an email to supporters saying, “my service to this nation is not over.” He’s a West Point grad who served eight years in the military, including two tours in Iraq.

James appeared on “Fox and Friends this morning:

“I understand what we need to do, because I have experience as a business leader, as a job creator, how to protect our economy from socialism, how to bring people together and unite people to make sure that we can defeat the evils that face us today,” James said.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

ISIS plotted to send westerners to US through Mexico border:By Hollie McKay

Posted By on June 6th, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/world/isis-plot-westerners-mexico-border

A chilling confession from a captured ISIS fighter has shed light on how the terrorist group intended to exploit the vulnerabilities of the U.S. border with Mexico, using English speakers and westerners to take advantage of smuggling routes and target financial institutions.

Seized ISIS fighter Abu Henricki, a Canadian citizen with dual citizenship with Trinidad, last month said that he was sought out by the violent insurgency’s leadership to attack the U.S. from a route starting in Central America, according to a study by the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and published in Homeland Security Today.

“ISIS has organized plots in Europe with returnees so it seems entirely plausible that they wanted to send guys out to attack. The issue that makes a North American attack harder is the travel is more difficult from Syria,” Anne Speckhard, who co-conducted the study as the director of ICSVE and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University, told Fox News. “So the idea that they would instead use people who were not known to their own governments as having joined ISIS might make it possible for them to board airplanes.”

Henricki allegedly traveled to Syria with the intention of serving as an ISIS fighter, but was later told he could not take on soldier duties due to a chronic illness. At the end of 2016, he claimed to have been “invited” by the ISIS intelligence wing – known as the emni – to join other Trinidadians and launch financial attacks on the U.S.

The attacks were described to Henricki as designed to “cripple the U.S. economy,” and he was said to have been informed that he would be issued false identification and passports and would be maneuvered from Puerto Rico to Mexico and then to the United States.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Another Great Jobs Report The latest NFIB survey shows U.S. small firms hiring more and paying more. By James Freeman

Posted By on June 6th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-great-jobs-report-11559839362

What will it take to stop the U.S. jobs machine? Data on capital expenditures and manufacturing are flashing warning signals, while rising tariffs threaten growth. But U.S. small firms in May continued to raise pay, add workers and make plans to hire even more. That’s the encouraging news in the latest monthly employment survey from the National Federation of Independent Business, due out later today.

NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg reports that job creation among the small employers in the survey “remained strong in May,” matching the April reading of a net addition of 0.32 workers per firm. He notes that demand for workers continues to outpace supply at small companies:

Sixty-two percent reported hiring or trying to hire (up 5 points), but 54 percent (up 5 points) reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill. “Qualified” includes having position-appropriate skills but also encompasses appearance, attitude, social skills, [reasonable] wage expectations and work history. Twenty-five percent of all owners cited the difficulty of finding qualified workers as their Single Most Important Business Problem, equaling the record high.

Employees and employers are bound to have different opinions when it comes to the definition of reasonable wage expectations. Regardless, the tight labor market is forcing employers to pay up for talent. According to Mr. Dunkelberg:

Reports of higher worker compensation were unchanged at a lofty net 34 percent of all firms. Plans to raise compensation posted a 4 point gain to a net 24 percent. Overall, reports of rising compensation are holding at historically high levels.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

What would D-Day heroes make of today’s snowflake generation? Judith Woods ****

Posted By on June 6th, 2019

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/would-d-day-heroes-make-todays-snowflake-generation/

When my children were little and attempted to run through traffic or step heedlessly between parked cars into the road, I would invariably grab them and scold: “Girls, some things are worth dying for. Freedom, democracy, human rights, that sort of thing; catching a bus is definitely not one of them.”

This week’s D-Day commemorations have thrown into sharp relief the servicemen slain in battle 75 years ago in the cause of freedom. Selflessness, courage, a belief that justice must prevail were the forces that drove a generation of young men to lay down their lives so we might live ours in freedom.

Our gaze has necessarily been focussed on the past, the pomp, circumstance and pride of victory shot through with grief over fallen comrades and the senseless slaughter that continued even as the Second World War drew to its only possible conclusion.

But as the strains of The Last Post echoed away. I found myself wondering what those brave airmen, sailors and soldiers would think of us, and the 21st-century freedoms we hold so dear.

Would those who landed on Omaha Beach in a hail of German gunfire, death raining down on them salute us for being worthy of their sacrifice?

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

More U.S. talks with Iran are doomed to fail by Lawrence Haas

Posted By on June 6th, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/447235-more-us-talks-with-iran-are-doomed-to-fail

The latest U.S. offer of negotiations with Iran prompts the same question with which every administration of recent decades has grappled: Is behavioral change in Tehran possible without regime change?

We Americans want to think so, but the evidence of four decades suggests otherwise. Consequently, President Donald Trump and his team may be headed toward another fruitless U.S. effort to create a better Iran.

With the president concerned that growing tensions between Washington and Tehran were setting the stage for war, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this week that the administration is ready to talk with “no preconditions.”

That came days after the president himself sought to ease tensions by deriding National Security Advisor John Bolton’s enthusiasm for regime change. Of the Islamic Republic, Trump told reporters in Tokyo, “It has a chance to be a great country with the same leadership. We’re not looking for regime change. I just want to make that clear. We’re looking for no nuclear weapons.”

The new U.S. offer of talks marked a dramatic change of direction for an administration that, as Pompeo announced a year ago, said it wouldn’t talk to Tehran until the regime satisfied a list of sweeping demands that included an end to its ballistic missile tests and its support of militants in Syria and Yemen.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SPEECH COMMEMORATING D-DAY-PLEASE READ IT ALL

Posted By on June 6th, 2019

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/06/full-text-donald-trump-commemorates-the-75th-anniversary-of-d-day/

President Macron, Mrs. Macron, and the people of France; to the First Lady of the United States and members of the United States Congress; to distinguished guests, veterans, and my fellow Americans:

We are gathered here on Freedom’s Altar. On these shores, on these bluffs, on this day 75 years ago, 10,000 men shed their blood, and thousands sacrificed their lives, for their brothers, for their countries, and for the survival of liberty.

Today, we remember those who fell, and we honor all who fought right here in Normandy. They won back this ground for civilization.

To more than 170 veterans of the Second World War who join us today: You are among the very greatest Americans who will ever live. You’re the pride of our nation. You are the glory of our republic. And we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. (Applause.)

Here with you are over 60 veterans who landed on D-Day. Our debt to you is everlasting. Today, we express our undying gratitude.

When you were young, these men enlisted their lives in a Great Crusade — one of the greatest of all times. Their mission is the story of an epic battle and the ferocious, eternal struggle between good and evil.

On the 6th of June, 1944, they joined a liberation force of awesome power and breathtaking scale. After months of planning, the Allies had chosen this ancient coastline to mount their campaign to vanquish the wicked tyranny of the Nazi empire from the face of the Earth.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Museum At James Madison’s Home Slants The Truth About His Interactions With Slavery By Brenda M. Hafera

Posted By on June 6th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/06/museum-james-madisons-home-slants-truth-interactions-slavery/

It seems the Montpelier Foundation has adopted a version of the ‘blame America first’ mantra: Blame the Founders first, instead.

Along with a group of other young professionals, I journeyed to James Madison’s Montpelier last year for a weekend summit “to connect with the source of American democracy.” I was disappointed. It seems the Montpelier Foundation has adopted a version of the “blame America first” mantra: Blame the Founders first, instead.

In June 2017, “The Mere Distinction of Colour” exhibit, composed of three separate exhibits on slavery, opened at Montpelier. An 11-minute video on “slavery’s lasting legacies in modern society” occupies its own room in the cellars.

Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries, chair of the Teaching Hard History Advisory Board, an initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is featured. There are some notable similarities between the video and the preface of SPLC’s report (authored by Jeffries).

The SPLC is now infamous as an ideologically biased organization. They brand conservative nonprofits such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, an institution that has won Supreme Court cases, “hate groups.”  Even Twitter is not comfortable relying on the advice of the SPLC, having removed them from their “Trust and Safety Council” recently. Yet their arguments are welcome at Montpelier.