MEDIA Comments turned off

Instagram Makes Free Speech Disappear Company owned by Navy SEALs banned for criticizing NFL kneelers. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271172/instagram-makes-free-speech-disappear-lloyd-billingsley

Project War Path, a clothing company owned by Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces combat veterans, Charlie Nash of Breitbart News reported Monday, “has been permanently suspended from Facebook’s Instagram platform for ‘hate speech’ after criticizing NFL players who kneel during the national anthem.”

The post in question read, “This sums it up, Veteran’s defend our freedom and keep us safe. Meanwhile overpaid turds throw a leather ball around in an overpriced stadium and shit on all the men and women who have been killed defending our country.”

Project War Path co-owner Tej Gill, a Navy SEAL veteran, told Breibart “players kneeling really hits home with me and my teammates, I think it’s disgusting, an insult to all veterans, Americans, and especially families of veterans that have been killed and wounded during war.”

The same post on Twitter was not removed but Instagram took it down. As Gill explained to Breitbart, “I tried to reinstate my account, the form I filled out said my account was permanently suspended for hate speech. I have not heard anything back from Instagram since.”

Gill cited “a very aggressive censorship operation that is being conducted by Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the mainstream media.” Instagram, as it happens is owned by Facebook, which purchased the upstart in 2012 and turned it into a profit center.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Unbearable Darkness of Young Adult Literature Books on sexual abuse, dysphoria, racism, gang life, domestic violence and school shootings. By Steve Salerno

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-unbearable-darkness-of-young-adult-literature-1535495594

Although “Heather Has Two Mommies” caused quite a stir upon its 1989 publication, a case could be made that the book was a reasonable reflection of the gay-rights zeitgeist as well as the latter-day realities of American domesticity. If nothing else, “Heather” was uplifting in theme and execution, likely to make young readers more comfortable with an evolving culture.

The same can’t be said for a list of “socially aware” books featured prominently at the inaugural Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature, held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in June. The four-day summit convened nearly 50 presenters—top educators and authors from across the land—and focused nominally on “Rising Up: Socially Relevant Texts, Critical Literacy, and Identity.”

But “rising up” might not be the first phrase that comes to mind when one surveys a representative sampling of the marquee fare:

• “How It Went Down,” a novel by Kekla Magoon, presents 18 different perspectives on the shooting of an unarmed black youth. (This is the second prominent young-adult book on the topic published recently. While not featured at the summit, Angie Thomas’s “The Hate U Give”—also about the shooting of an unarmed black youth—contended for a National Book Award in 2017.)

• “Shout” is author Laurie Halse Anderson’s memoir of her sexual assault and struggle with eating disorders while growing up with an alcoholic parent suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Ms. Anderson’s debut novel, “Speak,” examined sexual assault from the viewpoint of a ninth-grade girl.

• In “Losers Bracket,” family therapist Chris Crutcher introduces young readers to the heartbreaking lives of children who continue to love and depend on their parents “no matter how badly treated” they may be. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Yahoo Admits It Scans Emails to Collect Data to Sell to Advertisers By Phil Baker

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/yahoo-admits-it-scans-emails-to-collect-data-to-sell-to-advertisers/

While the tech companies harvest our data to sell ads, in recent years email services have been off limits. That limit has just been crossed with the disclosure that Verizon is now promoting a new service to advertisers where they continually scan the 200 million inboxes of Yahoo Mail users. Yahoo Mail is a part of Yahoo that Verizon recently acquired under their Oath brand. Oath/Verizon told advertisers that they search the mail for clues about what people might buy or be interested in buying. They are doing the same with AOL Mail, which Verizon also owns.

Among all of the U.S. email providers, these are the only mail services being exposed to this intrusion. In the past, Gmail also scanned users’ emails but terminated that practice last year. Of course, Google has many other ways to gather our personal data. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Toxic Antibiotics By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/toxic_antibiotics.html

Urinary tract infections affect millions of women, and often they are prescribed Ciprofloxacin (Cipro), Gemifoxacin (Factive), Levofloxacin (Levaquin), Moxifloxacin (Avelox), Norfloxacin (Noroxin), or Ofloxacin (Floxin). These are fluoroquinolones, antibiotics, and have been on the market for more than 30 years. They are also routinely prescribed for a range of infections – sinusitis, cystitis, prostatitis, bronchitis, and skin infections.

For some people, what is supposed to be a helpful medicine has turned into a medical nightmare, and many are still unaware of the dangers posed by these antibiotics.

Fluroquinolones, when used as tablets, capsules, or injectables, are associated with disabling and potentially permanent serious side-effects that can occur together.

The concerns about the antibiotic fluoroquinolone drugs are not new. In fact:

The FDA first added a Boxed Warning to fluoroquinolones in July 2008 for the increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture. In February 2011, the risk of worsening symptoms for those with myasthenia gravis was added to the Boxed Warning. In August 2013, the agency required updates to the labeling to describe the potential for irreversible peripheral neuropathy or serious nerve damage.

Then, on May 12, 2016, the FDA warned that fluoroquinolone antibiotics (emphasis added):

… are associated with disabling and potentially permanent side effects of the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and central nervous system that can occur together in the same patient. …

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Taking an Axe to ‘Peace Processing’ By Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/taking_an_axe_to_peace_processing.html

The Trump administration has restored the United States to the position of honest broker – emphasis on “honest” – and taken a hatchet to a series of fantasies underlying the notion of an Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” Twenty-five years after the Oslo Accords ushered in radical, despotic, kleptocratic Palestinian self-government, the Accords are dead. And that’s good.

The new construct is as follows:

The U.S. is not neutral between Israel, America’s democratic friend and ally, and the Palestinians, who are neither.
Everybody has a “narrative,” a national story. Not everyone’s narrative is factual. The U.S. will insist that there are facts, and that history – both ancient and modern – is real and knowable. The American government’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel is simply the acceptance of the truth of history. The city was the capital of the Jewish people and never, ever the seat of government for any other. In this assertion, the president was joined by many members of the U.S. House and Senate, irrespective of party – although some had more trouble saying so than others.
The U.S. will not pay for fraud, mismanagement, or support of terrorism by the Palestinians or the United Nations. Repeat the comment about congressional support.
Neither will we fund two Palestinian governments simply because it is easier than figuring out what to do with Hamas and Fatah, who are fighting a civil war and agree on little besides the need for Israel’s ultimate demise. Repeat the comment about congressional support.

In the new game, the Palestinians have something to lose – the sine qua non of successful negotiations.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

DISPATCHES FROM TOM GROSS- ALL ABOUT ENGLAND

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://wp.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/
EX-CHIEF RABBI WARNS: “CORBYN HAS LEGITIMIZED THE PUBLIC EXPRESSION OF HATE, AND WHERE HE LEADS, OTHERS WILL FOLLOW”

[Note by Tom Gross]

For the past three years, since he became leader of the British Labour party and a favorite to become prime minister, I have noted that the New York Times (unlike other papers) has failed properly to cover Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing anti-Semitism in Britain, while writing about Corbyn.

Yesterday the New York Times opinion pages finally ran a piece clearly explaining the situation, by a Labour-voting journalist, the New York correspondent for the Sunday Times of London. The piece is below.

Also, yesterday evening, the widely respected former British Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks lashed out at Corbyn calling him an “anti-Semite” who “defiles our politics”.

The Labour leader, Sacks said, uses “the language of classic prewar European anti-Semitism… He has legitimized the public expression of hate, and where he leads, others will follow.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

CAIR in the Classroom: Islamist Group Partnering with Public Schools by Cinnamon Stillwell

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

In 1993, Ibrahim Hooper, director of strategic communications for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said that, “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future. But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through education.” Twenty-five years later, CAIR could be making headway on that goal, through its relationships with US public school districts in at least three states.

CAIR — an Islamist group and United Arab Emirates-designated terrorist organization that bills itself as a defender of civil rights — has achieved special concessions for Muslim students and launched the inappropriate insertion of religion into publicly-funded education. Meanwhile, pushback from parents and outside organizations is building.

Seattle Public Schools’ partnership with CAIR’s Washington chapter is the latest incident to cause controversy, but the relationship dates back to at least 2011, when CAIR-WA sent the district a letter proposing accommodations for Muslim students and classroom lessons on Islam. Then as now, CAIR-WA claimed to be fighting “anti-Muslim bullying.” To that end, in 2012 and 2013 the organization contacted the school district to complain about “Islamophobia” among teachers.

That approach eventually paid off. In a Ramadan crowd-funding campaignin May of this year, the CAIR-WA chapter outlined its plan “to provide educational training for teachers and staff on things like Ramadan, Eid, and how educators can support Muslim students in the classroom.” Accordingly, that same month, CAIR-WA ran a “professional development session” in a Seattle high school that “addressed providing identity-safe spaces in schools for Muslim families” and “how to support students during Ramadan.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Should It Be Illegal for Prosecutors to “Flip” Witnesses? by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on August 29th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12935/flipping-witnesses

It is already illegal for a lawyer to offer a witness a valuable consideration for providing testimony — if the lawyer is a defense attorney. If any defense attorney offers a witness an inducement to testify favorably to his client — even if his testimony is 100% truthful — that lawyer will be disbarred, prosecuted and imprisoned. But it is perfectly legal, indeed widely regarded as commendable, for prosecutors to offer major inducements in order to get witnesses to testify against their targets.

Here is what the statute says: “Whoever… directly or indirectly, gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person, for or because of the testimony under oath or affirmation given or to be given by such person as a witness” is guilty of a felony. [U.S. Code § 201 (c)(2), emphasis added]

Every day, these tactics are being used against ordinary Americans caught up in our deeply flawed criminal justice system that relies far too heavily on the testimony of flipped witnesses.

Recently President Trump said that “flipping” a witness to incriminate a prosecutorial target “almost ought to be outlawed,” saying that individuals who flip are often untruthful.

This statement raises the important question of whether it should be illegal to offer a witness a valuable consideration for providing testimony, as prosecutors allegedly did with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.

Interestingly, it is already illegal for a lawyer to do that — if the lawyer is a defense attorney.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Priorities of US Justice by Mark Steyn

Posted By on August 28th, 2018

https://www.steynonline.com/8773/the-priorities-of-us-justice

News from the justice system:

Jakiv Palij, a 94-year-old concentration-camp guard, is in Germany tonight, having been arrested by ICE agents at his home in New York and deported from the United States. His deportation order was issued in 2004, so it only took twice as long to enforce it as the war in which he committed his crimes. And this for one of the few offenses specifically spelled out to this day in US immigration paperwork: “Between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?” If so, don’t worry, because we’ll take two years longer than the entire twelve years of Nazi rule to enforce the deportation order.

Also today, the body of poor, twenty-year-old Mollie Tibbetts was found in an Iowa cornfield. She went jogging in one of those small towns where everybody knows everybody and they leave their doors unlocked. But she ran into an “undocumented” immigrant and he killed her, and her parents will live with that hole in their hearts till the day they die. The AP’s Zeke Miller played it for laughs:

Likely coming to a Trump rally near you…. Investigators: Suspect in Mollie Tibbetts death is in custody, subject to immigration detainer

Funny. Or, per MSNBC, Mollie Tibbetts is “some girl in Iowa Fox News is talking about”. Because, as the pajama boys at Mediaite will tell you, only “racist fearmongers” are boorish enough to make a fuss about homicidal illegal aliens. It’s no surprise that a bureaucracy that can’t deport a Nazi in fourteen years cannot reliably inform its citizens just how long Mollie Tibbetts’ killer has been in the country. He broke into a nation that has supposedly been on “orange alert” since September 12th 2001, but the authorities cannot tell us when he did it – except that he’s been here “between four and seven years”. Close enough for government work.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The bridge of desperation By Katy Watson

Posted By on August 28th, 2018

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Venezuela_bridge

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has led to one of the largest mass migrations in Latin America’s history.

President Nicolás Maduro blames “imperialists” – the likes of the US and Europe – for waging “economic war” against Venezuela and imposing sanctions on many members of his government.

But his critics say it is economic mismanagement – first by predecessor Hugo Chávez and now President Maduro himself – that has brought Venezuela to its knees.

The country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. It was once so rich that Concorde used to fly from Caracas to Paris. Now, its economy is in tatters.

Four in five Venezuelans live in poverty. People queue for hours to buy food. Much of the time they go without. People are dying from a lack of medicines. Inflation is at 82,766% and there are warnings it could exceed one million per cent by the end of this year.

Venezuelans are trying to get out. The UN says 2.3 million people have fled the country – 7% of the population. More than a million have arrived in Colombia in the past 18 months.