Unwatchable debates

Everyone knows that the two debates between Democrat presidential candidates are this evening and tomorrow evening, both at 9pm. There are some voters who expect the proceedings to be pretty amusing and plan to tune in. But the idea of turning on the television to actually watch these two events does not sound like much fun to me.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative. Stephen Green, a/k/a Mr. Vodkapundit, will be live drunk-blogging at PJ Media. Here’s the link https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/.

UPDATE 8:50 pm: A better direct link is here.  It automatically refreshes, so stay at the top of the blog.

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Google: it keeps getting worse

art credit: tyranny.news

Yesterday, this blog linked to a report on Breitbart concerning the left-wing bias Google is employing by manipulating the search engines. Today we read more details reported by Lucas Nolan, again at Breitbart:

Google documents leaked to Project Veritas show the company referring to popular conservative personalities such as Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager as “Nazis.”

A recent report from investigative journalism group Project Veritas claims that leaked internal Google documents shows a Google employee and a member of a Google “transparency-and-ethics” group calling conservative and libertarian commentators such as Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson, “Nazis.” The email was sent as part of internal communications between the Google “transparency-and-ethics” group and suggests that content published by PragerU, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro should be removed from the “suggestion feature.”

A Google employee named Liam Hopkins can be seen stating: “…if we understand that PragerU, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro et al are nazis using the dog whistles…” The employee further suggests following through with the suggestion of another employee named Meredith: “I don’t think correctly identifying far-right content is beyond our capabilities. But if it is, why not go with Meredith’s suggestion of disabling the suggestion feature?”

Following the publication of an undercover video of Google executive Jen Gennai stating that the company was working to prevent another “Trump situation” after the 2016 election; the executive stated in a Medium blog post: “Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings.” Yet here we see Google employees discussing doing exactly that.

The rest of the report is here.

Related: Ned Ryun at American Greatness:

unless the tech companies are forcefully confronted, now, in the immediate, our self-governing republic will be over in less than a generation and we will be ruled by a tech oligarchy.

Or are we already there?

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Google vs President Trump

Not to beat a dead horse, but here’s most of the Breitbart report by Allum Bokhari that’s getting linked all over the place:

A Google insider who spoke anonymously to Project Veritas claims the company is devoted to preventing anything like the 2016 election of Donald Trump from happening again.

The insider who spoke to Project Veritas also drew attention to the covert suppression of non-progressive voices on YouTube, a Google-owned platform, said that stopping President Donald Trump and other politicians like Trump has become a priority for the tech giant.

The insider claimed that the company did a “complete 180 in what they thought was important,” abandoning earlier ideals of self-expression and “giving everyone a voice” in favor of crackdowns on “hate.”

Previous leaks from Google support the insider’s account of a dramatic shift in thinking following the election of Trump. An internal company document titled “The Good Censor”leaked to Breitbart News last year admits that the company has undergone a “shift towards censorship,” in part as a response to the events of 2016.

Earlier in the year, recently-fired Google software engineer Mike Wacker spoke of a colleague who informed him that a manager at the company said the tech giant “need[s] to stop hate [speech] and fake news because that’s how Trump won.” 

Via Project Veritas’ interview with the insider:

There’s this façade about what they’re doing, but what they’re actually doing, what the employees are actually seeing inside the company is different. And, people need to know what’s going on with Google, and that they are not an objective piece – they’re not an objective source of information. They are a highly biased political machine that is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again.

Right after Donald Trump won the election, in 2016, the company did a complete 180 in what they thought was important, before they thought self-expression, and giving everyone a voice was important, but now they’re like, “Hey, there’s a lot of hate.” And because there’s a lot of hate and misogyny, and racism, that’s the reason why Donald Trump got elected.

They started talking about the need to combat hate and racism online, and also at YouTube. They had the same talks by the CEO, Susan, and they talked about combating that and getting rid of unfairness.

In our household, we have switched from Google over to Start Page. All we need to do now is wean ourselves from YouTube videos. 

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Big Tech and social media vs free speech

In keeping with recent Tea Party blog themes:

 Mike Lester cartoon via Flopping Aces

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Big Brother and facial recognition

 image credit: metro.co.uk

Oddly enough, the state of Massachusetts is considering some legislation that could begin to challenge the Big Tech’s threats to Free Speech. From WND (linked to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, which has a paywall, so I cannot vet this report):  

Facial recognition programs are becoming more common. From cameras on street corners to airports and stores, images are being captured continuously, reports Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

But one privacy organization says there’s an opportunity right now for people to encourage one state to become a leader in fighting “invasive government surveillance.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a report by Hayley Tsukayama that Massachusetts “has a long history of standing up for liberty.”

But lawmakers “need to hear from the people of Massachusetts to say they oppose government use of face surveillance.”

Polling shows 91 percent of likely voters in the state support government regulation of face recognition surveillance, and 79 percent support a statewide moratorium.

For background, the report explains the threat to privacy posed by face surveillance. And the surveillance “chills protest in public places and gives law enforcement unregulated power to undermine due process.”

The report at WND is here. Eyes on Massachusetts…

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Rep. Marcia Fudge is on the wrong side. Again.

photo credit: www.essence.com

NumbersUSA is urging Cleveland area voters to call Rep. Marcia Fudge at 202-225-3121 to DEMAND a vote on H.R. 3056 to end the border crisis. Speaker Pelosi has thus far refused to bring the Act to the floor. The talking point:

H.R. 3056 is the Border Crisis Supplemental Appropriations Act, to deal with the ongoing border crisis. I urge you to demand an immediate floor vote on this badly needed spending package! This crisis has gone on long enough, and it's time for Congress to act.

I have to wonder whether Rep. Fudge and her staff pay any attention to Tea Party people, but it’s probably worth the couple of minutes on the phone.

Here's more. In an op-ed piece at American Greatness, Candace Owens warns Trump voters to not become complacent – and she provides a few examples (out of zillions) of rage, hatred, and hysteria from the Progressive Left:

Just last week Congresswoman Marcia Fudge described Trump voters as “either racist, steeped in religious beliefs, ignorant, or, as my mother used to say, just plain dumb.”

These people are not trying to retake control of the White House merely to advance their agenda. They want to punish the Americans who made them look like fools in 2016.

This new breed of Democrats cheer as the social media giants silence and eliminate any voice that opposes them or threatens the monopoly liberal journalists have over the flow of information. They’re prepared to pack the courts, let 16-year-olds vote, and even eliminate the Electoral College in order to help them win. They’re already talking about the prospect of the election being “stolen” by “racism,” which gives a pretty good indication of the strategy they plan to fall back on if they lose again.

In short, they will do anything they can to destroy our coalition and make sure the humiliation of 2016 can never happen again.

(Full article is here.) Spot the racist and the dummy. And maybe give her a call.

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Healthcare update – and it’s good

image credit: powerlineblog.com

Headline: Trump Just Revolutionized Health Care — And Nobody Noticed

The editorial at Issues and Insights reports:

Under the plan, employers will be able to fund tax-free Health Reimbursement Accounts for their workers, who can then use the money to buy an individual insurance plan — thereby taking another step toward fixing the 77-year-old tax distortion. The rule also lets employers fund a different account to buy cheaper “short-term” plans.

“This subtle, technical tweak has the potential to revolutionize the private health insurance market,” wrote Avik Roy, one of the smartest health care experts around, in the Washington Post.

The administration figures that 800,000 employers will eventually move to HRA plans, and 11 million workers will get their benefits this way.

At the same time, Trump also loosened the federal rules that had needlessly impeded “association health plans.” These are plans that let members of various groups band together to buy insurance. The result will be more competition, and more affordable choices for millions of people.

The Democrats’ response? Attack these changes as another attempt by Trump to “sabotage” Obamacare. What they really fear, however, is that the two new rules will destroy their case for socialized medicine.

The full report is here. Even as Congress continues to drag its feet, and the RINO’s who campaigned on repealing Obamacare reneged on their promises, the Trump administration is finding ways to improve healthcare for Americans.

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