"Fresh off his congressional testimony, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is showing no signs of relenting on his attack against conservative news outlets.
According to Buzzfeed, the social media behemoth will be implementing "a system that ranks news organizations based on trustworthiness, and promotes or suppresses its content based on that metric."
Zuckerberg says that Facebook compiled data on the trustworthiness of certain news brands based on consumer perception."
Opinion | The Iran Deal Is a Lie - The New York Times: "“The sanctions lifting will only occur as Iran takes the steps agreed, including addressing possible military dimensions.” That was State Department spokesman John Kirby in June 2015, speaking just as negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal were wrapping up. But Tehran did not “take the steps agreed.” The deal was founded on a lie. Two lies, actually.
The first was Iran’s declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency, prior to the implementation of the deal, of the full extent of its past nuclear work.
This was essential, both as a test of Tehran’s sincerity and as a benchmark for understanding just how close it was to being able to assemble and deliver a nuclear warhead.
The second lie was the Obama administration’s promise that it was serious about getting answers from Tehran.
In a moment of candor, then-Secretary of State John Kerry admitted “we are not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another” — but then he promised Congress that Iran would provide the accounting. That was when the White House still feared that Congress might block the deal. When it failed to do so, thanks to a Democratic filibuster, the administration contented itself with a make-believe process in which Iran pretended to make a full declaration and the rest of the world pretended to believe it. “Iran’s answers and explanations for many of the I.A.E.A.’s concerns were, at best, partial, but over all, obfuscating and stonewalling,” David Albright and his colleagues at the nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security wrote in December 2015. “Needed access to sites was either denied or tightly controlled as to preclude adequate inspections.”..." Read all!
‘My Clients Are Fleeing NJ Like It’s on Fire’ - WSJ "After tax reform, a stampede from high-tax states. That headline arrives via email from a money manager in northern New Jersey. The Garden State already has the third largest overall tax burden and the country’s highest property tax collections per capita. Now that federal reform has limited the deduction for state and local taxes, the price of government is surging again among high-income earners in New Jersey and other blue states. Taxpayers are searching for the exits.
In the financial industry of course it’s not just the clients who are looking for greener pastures. One hedge fund manager moving his office to a southern state reports that his new home on a golf course will be more than double the size of his house in Chatham, N.J. while generating just one third of the current property tax bill.
...“We structure real estate deals for family offices and high-net-worth individuals and at a record pace those family offices and individuals are leaving the TriState for lower-tax states. Probably a dozen this year at least,” he writes via email..."
WALSH: What My Sons Can Learn From The Self-Destruction Of The Boy Scouts | Daily Wire:
"The process is complete. The Boy Scouts, a once proud and important organization that helped shape boys into young men, is dead. It had been dying for sometime, but now it is official. In an announcement that would have seemed like an outlandish parody only ten years ago, the Boy Scouts said today that they will be dropping "Boy" from their name. They shall henceforth be known only as Scouts."
46% Favor Government Guaranteed Jobs for All - Rasmussen Reports®:
"Senator Bernie Sanders is looking ahead to the 2020 presidential election with a proposed federal government program that guarantees all Americans a job with health insurance. Nearly half of voters like the idea.
The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on April 24-25, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports.
The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence..."
Gender Equality is Basically a Farce, Study Suggests | Intellectual Takeout:
"There’s a big trend these days for individuals to challenge the preconceived – and allegedly outdated – lens through which they view society.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the differences between the genders.
Gender, we are told, is a social construct. As such, there is really no difference between the male and female sex, the roles they take, the interests they have, or the power they possess.
What we often push aside, however, are the biological differences between men and women.
And according to recent scientific findings, these differences are ingrained into the very genetic structure of the male and female – and are extremely prolific.
...Humans today pride themselves on basing their actions and thought upon scientific fact. However, those scientific facts don’t always align with what society tells us is politically correct.
Is it time we take a clue from our own genetic make-up and recognize that when it comes to the sexes, difference is not a thing to be scorned, shunned, and ignored, but a thing to be embraced and welcomed?" Read all!
No, Teachers Are Not Underpaid - Foundation for Economic Education
"Recent protests across the country have reinforced the perception that public school teachers are dramatically underpaid. They’re not: the average teacher already enjoys market-level wages plus retirement benefits vastly exceeding those of private-sector workers.
...It's Not Just Wages
...We forget the value of benefits when considering how teacher pay compares with private-sector work.
Oklahoma teachers accrue new pension benefits each year, with a present value equal to 30 percent of their annual salaries.
Subtract Oklahoma teachers’ own contribution of 7 percent, and employer-paid retirement benefits are worth 23 percent of annual salaries.
By contrast, the typical private-sector employer contribution to a 401k plan amounts only to about 3 percent of employee pay.
Many teachers also qualify for retiree health coverage, now practically extinct in the private sector. ...But for teachers in Illinois, future retiree health benefits are worth an additional 8 percent of annual pay, while in North Carolina, retiree health benefits are worth an additional 12.5 percent..." Read on!
"A key House Republican on Tuesday asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate whether former President Barack Obama administration officials pressured the FBI to “stand down” from its probe of the Clinton Foundation that was ongoing during Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a letter to Sessions that he wants an investigation into Sally Yates, who Obama appointed to serve as the deputy attorney general at the time. Goodlatte wants to know if Yates ordered her principal associate deputy attorney general, or PADAG, to call the FBI and ask for the probe of the Clinton Foundation to end."
Facebook Enlists Eric Holder's Law Firm to 'Advise' on Anti-Conservative Bias | Breitbart: "Facebook has enlisted a team from law firm Covington and Burling to advise them on combating perceptions of bias against conservatives. One minor detail: Covington and Burling is the firm of Barack Obama’s left-wing former attorney general, Eric Holder.
...According to Axios, the team will be led by former Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl.
The former attorney general is still a partner at Covington & Burling...
So, to sum up: Facebook, a California-based company, has enlisted the same firm that is providing legal advice to their state against the Trump administration, through none other than Eric Holder, to advise them on combating perceptions of bias against conservatives.
...Facebook has recently been engaged in outreach to conservative organizations, but their focus has not been on censorship concerns, but instead on securing free-market allies against the threat of regulation...." Read on!
History for May 4 - On-This-Day.com: Horace Mann 1796 - Educator, father of public education in the U.S., author, Thomas Huxley 1825, Heloise 1919 Hosni Mubarak 1928 - Egyptian president, Audrey Hepburn (Edda Kathleen Hepburn van Heemstra) 1929 - Actress ("Monte Carlo Baby", "Breakfast at Tiffany's"), George F. Will 1941 - Columnist ("Newsweek"), editor 1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on Manhattan Island. Native Americans later sold the island (20,000 acres) for $24 in cloth and buttons. 1886 - Chichester Bell and Charles S. Tainter patented the gramophone. It was the first practical phonograph. 1942 - The Battle of the Coral Sea commenced as American and Japanese carriers launched their attacks at each other. 1961 - Thirteen civil rights activists, dubbed "Freedom Riders," began a bus trip through the South. 1970 - The Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on students during an anti-Vietnam war protest at Kent State University. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded. 1979 - Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister. 1981 - The Federal Reserve Board raised its discount rate to 14%. 1987 - Live models were used for the first time in Playtex bra ads.
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions deployed dozens of new prosecutors and 18 more immigration judges down to the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday to handle the illegal immigrant caravan and to try to head off another summer-time surge of border jumpers.
The additional lawyers should give the government capacity to file more criminal charges as a deterrent to illegal immigrants, and the added judges will help speed decisions on asylum claims like the ones the caravan participants say they’re making. “We are not going to let this country be overwhelmed. People are not going to caravan or otherwise stampede our border,” Mr. Sessions said."
The Useful Idiots Spreading Socialist Propaganda - Reason.com: " "Why does American journalist Abby Martin do propaganda for socialist murderers?
You've heard about Russian propaganda.
Martin once worked for RT, Russia's state-run news network. Now she's got a similar gig at teleSUR, an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist news network funded by Latin American leftists.
I'd never heard of teleSUR before researching this week's YouTube video.
But teleSUR matters because its videos get millions of views.
Latin America stays poor because people believe socialist propaganda.
One teleSUR video lists countries where "capitalism failed": Canada, Mexico, England, Peru, Panama, Switzerland, the United States...
Another says that "Trump is killing our brains with Nazi-era chemicals."
Few viewers know that teleSUR is funded by the tyrants who control Cuba and Venezuela.
Venezuela, once rich, has been bankrupted by its socialist rulers.
...One shows a picture of Warren Buffet's son while telling viewers, "Philanthropy is a scam that allows the super rich to influence global affairs ... as if capitalism were the solution, not the cause of world problems."
...In the last few decades, capitalism has lifted billions of people out of miserable poverty.
By contrast, in Venezuela, many store shelves are empty.
How can teleSUR put a positive spin on that? They hire "useful idiots," as Communists once called naive leftists who spread tyrants' propaganda..." Read all!
Poll Shows 'Extreme' Immigration Proposals Are Broadly Popular "Survey finds strong support for reducing entry, mandating consistent use of E-Verify, and curtailing 'chain migration' Proposals to reduce legal immigration, give preferences to immigrants with advanced skills and education, and crack down on companies that hire illegal immigrants are often considered “extreme” in the nation’s capital. ...“Most of the political elite just totally haven’t understood that Americans for a long, long time have wanted a legal immigration cut,” said NumbersUSA President Roy Beck, whose group lobbies for a reduction in migration to the United States.
Some highlights of the poll results include:
Fifty-nine percent said new immigrants should be able to bring in their spouses and minor children, but not extended family members.
When respondents were told the United States awards 1 million green cards a year and gives six different choices for possible immigration levels, the most popular range was 250,000 or less. Nearly half — 49 percent — chose that option, which is well below any proposed to date by politicians in Washington. Only 17 percent chose the status quo or an immigration increase.
Told Congress is considering eliminating 250,000 "chain migration" visas a year, respondents by a margin of 53 percent to 24 percent favored reducing immigration rather than redistributing those visas to allow businesses to bring in more foreign workers.
By a margin of 52 percent to 24 percent, respondents favored requiring all businesses to use the E-Verity system to check the legal status of new hires under legislation to grant amnesty to young adult illegal immigrants who came to America as children.
By a margin of 63 percent to 20 percent, respondents rejected granting amnesty to the young illegal immigrants if the legislation kept the status quo on chain migration, E-Verify, and current immigration levels...
"Since Barack Obama weaponized the FBI, the IRS, the NSA, the FISA court, and the CIA, citizens who believe that America is a nation of laws have been on a collision course with progressives. Core constitutional tenets including checks and balances, equality under the law, innocent until proven guilty, and no man is above the law have been replaced with identity politics, victim culture, and weakened First and Second Amendments."
The Period Of No Global Warming Will Soon Be Longer Than the Period of Actual Global Warming "If you look at the record of global temperature data, you will find that the late 20th Century period of global warming actually lasted about 20 years, from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. Before that, the globe was dominated by about 30 years of global cooling, giving rise in the 1970s to media discussions of the return of the Little Ice Age (circa 1450 to 1850), or worse. But the record of satellite measurements of global atmospheric temperatures now shows no warming for at least 17 years and 5 months, from September, 1996 to January, 2014, as shown on the accompanying graphic. ...But when the period of no global warming gets longer than the period of actual global warming, what is the climate trend then? Even worse for the theory of catastrophic, anthropogenic (human caused), global warming is that during this now extended period of no global warming mankind’s emissions of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that are supposed to be predominant in causing global warming continued to explode..." Read all!
Two weeks ago I noticed that Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot had shrunk to its smallest level in nearly a year, due mainly to Trump’s improving job approval.
After slogging along at 38-39 percent for most of the second half of last year, POTUS had crept up to 41-42 percent.
Not a world of difference, but a few points can mean a lot in the midterms.
"Dillinger isn't the only person on the Left trying to silence Kanye. Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters unloaded on West on Monday in a stunningly paternalistic rant in which she chided him for talking "out of turn" and saying too much about politics, which she suggested he needs to "not have so much to say."
"Kanye West is a very creative young man," Waters said Monday in response to a question from a Politico reporter. "But we also think that sometimes West talks out of turn and perhaps he needs some assistance in helping him to formulate some of his thoughts. "
Photo: F-117 Retires:
"Two specially painted F-117 Nighthawks fly on one of their last missions.
The F-117s were retired in a farewell ceremony at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, April 22, 2008. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. Kim Frey)"
Ferrell observes, “We become set in our opinions precisely because we have lost sight of the fact that they are merely opinions…our culture is suffering from what one might call ‘opinion creep’—the elevation of unsupported thoughts to the status of opinions and opinions to convictions.”
We don’t know how to have civil disagreements anymore.
We fail to recognize that having a thought doesn’t make our thinking the truth.
Ferrell writes, “We tend to have convictions about many things and to have opinions about almost everything else. We blind ourselves to the enormity of our ignorance.”
Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Phillip Fernbach in their book The Knowledge Illusion, put it this way: “In general we don’t appreciate how little we know; the tiniest bit of knowledge makes us feel like experts. Once we feel like an expert we start talking like an expert.”
We take that tiny bit of knowledge and, as Ferrell observes, elevate it to a conviction.
Sloman and Fernbach write..."
Read all!
"Fresh off his congressional testimony, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is showing no signs of relenting on his attack against conservative news outlets.
