https://www.zerohedge.com/news
And:
True for You but Not for Me | PragerU
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Israel offers to help the U.S protect ships. (See 1 below.)
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What Twitter did to Mitch McConnell is no joke. (See 2a below.)
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Some meaningful op eds:
Civil Discourse Was One More Victim of the Shooting Frank Miele, Real Clear Politics
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The top Democrat candidates are in their 70's . Is Doofus' too old and are his inane gaffes a reflection of his "losing it?"
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I was invited by a dear friend and fellow memo reader to have lunch with our Governor this afternoon. Brian Kemp has been maligned by Stacey Abrams and the mass media because winning at all costs is critical to radical progressives..
Kemp is a soft spoken man who comes across balanced in his judgement. He talked about his background, why he ran for the office he occupies and gave his viewpoint of what he believes is the political outlook going forward.
As he talked I could not help but reflect on the bile being thrown around by the Democrat Candidates and the depth to which they will go to dehumanize their opposition.
The Democrats have little to offer by way of solutions to our many problems so they have resorted to characterizing Trump as a racist while protesting concurrently he is so divisive.
Georgia will be a battleground state and the governor is clear eyed when it comes to what conservatives are up against. Overall our state is enjoying a strong economy and the "Rainy Day Fund" is expanding. Also, the various state pension funds have been beefed up and are no longer seriously unfunded. The port is doing well but should the tariff fight persist it is bound to have a negative revenue effect. Kemp believes farmers in the state are still behind Trump because they understand the threat China poses but they are hurting.
The key to a 2022 victory for Kemp is turning out the vote.
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Did AOC drop out of the sky? (See 3 below.)
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.Dick
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Israeli Supremacy in the Gulf’s Shadow War
A tugboat moves cargo toward the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Musandam province, Oman, July 20, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Hamad I Mohammed / File.
This campaign — which began a decade ago with the aim of quashing Iran’s nuclear aspirations and has evolved to include preventing it from entrenching itself militarily in Syria and curtailing its support for militias in the region, and especially for Hezbollah — has made Israel the world’s number one expert on the Iranian issue.
This is not theoretical, academic expertise, but an actual practical specialty that combines intelligence-gathering efforts and operations the Israeli defense establishment refers to as the “campaign between wars.” This is a strategic concept that encompasses a host of covert and low-intensity military and intelligence efforts to prevent enemy states and terrorist organizations from becoming stronger.
The overt part of this struggle includes countless operations and strikes on Iranian assets — in 2018, then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot spoke of over 1,000 operations within a period of a few years. The covert part of this effort includes extensive intelligence-gathering operations meant to ensure Israel remains at least one step ahead of Iran.
In fact, Israel’s intelligence-gathering superiority in the Persian Gulf is so great that we have used it for multiple purposes, such as, for example, conducting surveillance on Islamic State in Syria in the later years of the civil war there.
In operations against the jihadi terrorist group, the acting force may have been Western, but the intelligence they were working with was purely blue and white. It is not for nothing that Mossad director Yossi Cohen has gone on record as saying that Israeli intelligence has saved thousands of lives in the Middle East and Western countries.
Therefore, it is not surprising to find that Israel is assisting its Western allies in their dealings in the Persian Gulf, as well as its (less obvious) emirate friends there.
It’s safe to assume this assistance mostly consists of intelligence and is not operational. The Israeli defense establishment is unlikely to risk exposing operational activity to non-American entities, and moreover, an active Israeli partnership in an international coalition might prove to be a double-edged sword: much like during the first and second Gulf wars, Israel is expected to stay on the sidelines, knowing that any overt operation on its part could be used by the opponent — in this case Iran — to undermine the main effort.
Still, it is doubtful whether Israel refrains from taking action against targets it defines as threats to its national security. All one has to do is look at the strikes on various targets in Syria and, according to Arab media reports, Iraq.
It is important to remember, however, that Israel is not taking the lead when it comes to the fight against Iran’s ambitions in the Persian Gulf, or its nuclear aspirations — nor should it. The United States should lead this campaign, along with other countries, and it wouldn’t hurt Europe to get a little more involved. Israel’s role here is to provide assistance, mainly in the form of intelligence, and to maintain deterrence within its borders, so as to ensure that tensions in the Gulf do not spill over into the Middle East.
Yoav Limor is a veteran Israeli journalist and columnist for Israel Hayom. A version of this article first appeared in Israel Hayom.
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2) About That ‘Election Security’ Bill
Chuck Schumer is trying to win elections, not safeguard them.
By The Editorial Board
The media’s latest hot take is that Republicans—in particular the dastardly Senator Mitch McConnell—are blocking bipartisan legislation to protect the nation’s elections. Reality, as usual, is more complicated. Consider the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act, or the Safe Act, which the Democratic House passed in June.
The core of the Safe Act is a pile of federal money, $600 million in the first year, to help states upgrade their voting systems. The bill would standardize and tighten election rules. All votes for federal office would have to be cast via paper ballots. A portion of this audit trail would then need to be manually checked for every election. Voting machines—presumably devices that assist in marking paper ballots—could not be manufactured outside the U.S. or connected to the internet.
Some of these ideas may have merit, but others have trade-offs. Running elections has been a state responsibility, and there are legitimate questions about further federalizing it. The Safe Act says post-election audits would be fully paid for by Washington—assuming Congress appropriated enough funds. If states think free money for new voting equipment is around the corner, they may quit upgrading themselves.
Paper ballots aren’t perfect, as Florida has shown. Last year in Broward County thousands of voters didn’t fill in the ovals for U.S. Senate, probably due to a poorly designed paper ballot that tucked this race beneath the panel with the voting instructions. If a recount means examining all paper ballots by hand, the Safe Act could slow final results.
Many electronic voting machines also create a physical paper trail. A dozen or so states still have some purely electronic machines, but often they are already in line to be phased out. Compared with hard ballots, digital devices with a paper backup may be easier for disabled voters to use, while adding flexibility. In Indiana, many voters aren’t locked to a specific polling place. They can cast a ballot at any “vote center” in their county, since electronic machines can display each election permutation, with every local candidate for dogcatcher.
The bill trots out liberal hobbyhorses. “All paper ballots used in an election for Federal office,” it says, “shall be printed in the United States on recycled paper manufactured in the United States.” Oklahoma’s top elections official testified in June that given the sensitivity of his ballot scanners, “if we were required to use recycled paper, it would actually run the risk of causing false readings.”
Or how about this Safe Act sleeper provision: “To the greatest extent practicable, an eligible State which receives a grant to replace a voting system under this section shall ensure that the replacement system is capable of administering a system of ranked choice voting.”
A few places, notably Maine and San Francisco, have rolled out this alternative balloting. Rather than mark a single favorite candidate, voters are asked to designate their preferences in numeric order, say, Nos. 1 through 5. (Or 25, as the Democratic presidential primary may have it.) Ranked-choice voting has proponents, but in the U.S. it’s still an experiment, and it hardly justifies a federal mandate.
Republicans in the House tried to amend the Safe Act but were voted down. One suggestion was to delete the recycled paper provision. Another would have required “a 25% funding match from states, which would force states receiving funds to have their own skin-in-the-game,” as Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis wrote.
A third Republican proposal was to ban “ballot harvesting,” which is when third-party canvassers go around collecting absentee votes. As election security, this is a no-brainer. Mail-in ballots should not be handled en masse by partisan actors. Many states already ban ballot harvesting. This year North Carolina threw out a House election because a GOP consultant allegedly went door to door amassing ballots, some of them unsealed.
Yet California allows ballot harvesting. “We certainly had that going on here,” the Orange County registrar said last November, “with people dropping off maybe 100 or 200 ballots.” Paid partisan staff can march around California taking possession of votes. This is a recipe for fraud and general mistrust.
When the Safe Act finally passed the House, a single Republican supported it. This allows the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, to pitch the bill as “bipartisan.” He recently asked to pass it by unanimous consent, as if it were immaculately conceived and impervious to debate. “There are only two inferences, neither good,” Mr. Schumer said. “One is, the Republican side doesn’t care about interference in our elections. And the other is, they want it because maybe they think it will benefit them.”
Come on. This isn’t a good-faith try at getting something done. It’s a crude attempt to whack Republicans with a political club.
2a) Anti-)Social Media Inciting Hatred
“… we definitely help divide people”
It is impossible to understand the current state of social polarization while ignoring the Internet, and its especially toxic part, which should be called anti-social media (“ASM”). ASM includes Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Reddit. ASM distorts our social and political communications in many ways. The mechanics of ASM generate misunderstanding, hatred, and polarization. ASM leaders multiply this damage by denying that and falsely pointing fingers at Trump and Trump supporters.
Lack of Empathy Aggravated by Anonymity
ASM is not and has never been social. The internet is perfect for storing and transmitting information, but it does not transfer the most important parts of real human interactions: empathy, sympat
In real life, most of our interactions are with people whom we know and with whom we have relationships: family, friends, romantic interests, co-workers, or neighbors. Most of our interactions on ASM are with unrelated individuals whom we don’t personally know and who could be thousands of miles away.
Added to this is the anonymity, which brings out the worst in humans.
Most of us have learned to be nice to the people around us, in real life. We like them or we are concerned about our relationships with them. We are also apprehensive about the negative consequences of our rude behavior, including possibilities like being fired or even punched in the face. We are also accustomed to such considerate treatment from others.
But nothing prevents users from insulting others on ASM – there are no feelings, no relationships, and no accountability. Online, many people unlearn good manners and freely insult others at any opportunity. Even more alarming, this new habit transfers to real life.
Adverse Selection
The ASM flaws described above are well-known. The adverse selection of contacts on ASM is less obvious. It is also less felt by ordinary users and more felt by Hollywood celebrities, liberal journos, multimillionaires, and other VIPs.
In real life, most of us select those with whom we interact. When we must interact with unpleasant people, negative feelings are typically mutual and people who dislike each other usually avoid each other. Thus, in real life, most of us rarely experience serious insults
On Twitter, a user is exposed to hundreds of millions of other users (and bots). Some of them are psychos. Obviously, ASM disproportionately attracts individuals with whom nobody wants to deal with in real life. Some users are racists, misandrists, misogynists etc. Some are normal people who enjoy trolling others on ASM. One troll can harass hundreds of people every day. When he is banned, he simply creates a new account. A troll can create a false identity of any race, religion, gender, and political affiliation, and harass others in ways that are taboo in real life.
Notice that one troll can cause a chain reaction. For example, some individuals offended by racist slurs might respond in kind, offending others, and so on. Some public figures harass others under guise of replying to trolls.
Many VIPs who are used to receiving admiration from real life fans or sycophants become targets on ASM. Because envy motivates anger, VIPs attract trolls. One can encounter more harassment online in an hour than offline in a year. Such an online “experience” has led many VIPs to look for the its causes outside of ASM, and Trump was the obvious fall guy. That might explain the militancy of lib jornos, Hollywood celebrities, Silicon Valley multi-millionaires etc.
By April 2016, Trump became the leading Republican presidential candidate, and Bernie proved himself a tough competitor to Hillary. The 2016 Democratic campaigning, based on identity politics and an energized fringe, was probably the main offline factor in arousing hate online. But Twitter radically changed its feed algorithm in February-March 2016, just in time for that. Instead of reverse chronological ordering, it started placing on top of the feed tweets it deemed most important. The new algorithm increased users’ engagement and anger.
“Gamergate” demonstrates that ASM creates trolls. The woman at the center of the controversy was harassed online and received threats of rape. The police investigated the threats and found the perpetrators. They were 13-years old. ASM and MSM are happy with the online hatred as long as it increases “engagement” and they are able to attribute it to Trump and Trump supporters.
Deceive We Much
The ASM platforms were protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Hate speech (as well as fake identities, clickbait, incitement etc.) was generally understood as an inevitable evil, inseparable from open platforms. But after the 2016 elections, ASM looked for ways to pacify the Democrat-MSM complex, to accommodate the demands of the EU, and to increase revenues with the existing business model. The compromise to create the myth that it is not them, but Trump Deplorables who are at fault. Since then, ASM has been responding to criticism by denigrating (“fact checking”), harassing, and deplatforming conservatives.
The worst part: despite their well-known flaws, the ASM platforms deceived many people into believing that they provide online public space comparable to real life public venues. “People see Twitter as a public square, and therefore they have expectations that they would have of a public square. Washington Square Park, for instance” – Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey said in an interview with Rolling Stone in January. The ASM corporations wrote in their terms of services and repeated through the MSM that hate speech and other bad things are prohibited on their platforms. They reinforced that impression by deplatforming high profile conservatives and Trump supporters for minor or non-existent infractions.
However, the only effort that ASM corporations made was to deceive the public. Contrary to their ToS and PR, the top ASM platforms:
- accept everybody from all over the globe, including representatives of foreign governments and terrorist organizations;
- allow or even encourage bots and malware;
- don’t verify identities behind the accounts;
- don’t prevent banned users from creating new accounts;
- make no effort to ensure that the content and conduct is in accordance with what is promised in the ToS, but use those terms and policies as an excuse to silence Trump supporters and opponents of strong leftist agendas.
Notice how socially destructive real ASM policies are. Any public figure who respectfully and honestly communicates about matters of public importance with his or her audience can be punished or banned from his platform at any time. But trolls, criminals, and foreign operatives can do whatever they want on ASM. In the worst-case scenario, their accounts would be disabled, and they would simply create new accounts.
Sowing Polarization and Inflaming Conflicts
And it is time to pay attention to ASM’s role in massacres, like the horrors that happened in El Paso and Dayton. The law protects ASM from liability for the content posted by third parties, but not for deception in advertising. They have been marketing their platforms to us by promising free speech, civil debate, and trust, but they currently provide none of these. ASM squat on the word media, but are interactive computer services, as defined in 47 U.S. Code §230. ASM is a technical service, not real media or press, which are protected by the First Amendment. §230 clearly states that interactive computer service providers arenot publishers or speakers (regarding the 3rd party content).
Twitter artificially increases circulation of the most divisive and polarizing topics by making them Trending. It directly benefits from inflaming conflicts through increased user engagement, translating into higher ad revenues. It indirectly benefits from such conduct because lib jornos, MSM, and other agitators enjoy such conflicts and promote Twitter to further the contention.
Twitter was praised for fueling the Ferguson riots in 2014. Facebook apparently so envied Twitter that it hired left leaning reporters to manipulate its own Trending section. Over the last 3-4 years, ASM has developed into a malignant tumor. It’s time for the country’s immune system to fight back.
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3) Many may remember the comment made that the only way America can be destroyed is from within. It appears to have started …
God help us if this group takes control .
Jun 26, 2018 · In a major upset for the Democratic Party establishment, Rep. Joe Crowley of New York lost his primary election unseated by a young progressive newcomer who reflects restiveness in the left wing of the party.
Ocasio-Cortez did not defeat Crowley alone. She was recruited and supported by a political organization working to hijack the Democratic Party. Our Revolution, the largest Marxist front in America. And yes they love social media--its so easy to fool people there.
In 2016, a political action committee called the Justice Democrats held auditions for candidates willing to endorse their far-left platform. It received over 10,000 nominations. Ocasio-Cortez’s brother submitted her name for the position while she was working at Flats Fix, a taco restaurant in Manhattan. The Justice Democrats selected Ocasio-Cortez and 78 other candidates to run against moderate Democratic incumbents.
Of these candidates, seven won seats in the House of Representatives: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for New York’s 14th District, Ayanna Pressley for Massachusetts’ 7th District, Ilhan Omar for Minnesota’s 5th District, Pramila Jayapal for Washington’s 7th District, Rashida Tlaib for Michigan’s 13th District, Raúl Grinalva for Arizona’s 3rd District, and Ro Khanna for California’s 17th District.
What makes the Justice Democrats unusual is that it has partnered with another political action committee: Our Revolution, the largest Marxist front in America. The goal of both committees is to transform the Democratic Party from within. The Justice Democrats and Our Revolution were formed out of the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign. Claiming more than 100,000 members in 50 states, Our Revolution acts as a front for the three most influential Marxist organizations in America: the Democratic Socialists of America, the Communist Party USA, and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
Our Revolution is recruiting far-left candidates to run as Democrats in state and local elections, while Justice Democrats are recruiting potential far-left candidates for federal office.
Of the seven current congressional representatives that the Justice Democrats helped win office, two are card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
Most of the Our Revolution leadership comes from the Democratic Socialists of America. But some are members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization or Communist Party USA. Communist Party USA leader John Bachtell explained their strategy for hijacking the Democratic Party in an online webinar on May 23, 2018, when he told an audience of activists from the Democratic Socialists, Freedom Road and Communist Party USA that they must campaign for openly socialist candidates within the Democratic Party as a means of challenging President Donald Trump.
It is not a coincidence that nearly every major proposal of today’s Democratic Party—from single-payer health care, amnesty for illegal aliens, normalization of relations with Communist Cuba, $15 per hour minimum wage, etc—originated with the Communist Party USA or Democratic Socialist of America. Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib may be the only official dsa members in Congress, but all 96 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are affiliated with political action committees that are effectively part of the world Communist movement
Now you know who AOC really is and who is actually behind her...
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