Category: KAMALA HARRIS

REPORT: Tech Elite Building ‘Social Credit’ System Masters of The Universe to Track Everything You Do Zuckerscore: Points Control Your Freedom?

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By Allum Bokhari

Fast Company has caught on to what Breitbart News has been highlighting for some time: that the Big Tech Masters of the Universe are developing systems to monitor and regulate personal behavior that closely resemble China’s totalitarian “social credit” system.

The “social credit” system assigns all Chinese citizens a “social credit score.” A citizen’s score drops if he engages in a range of disfavored activities, ranging from littering to supporting political dissidents.

Citizens whose score drops low enough can find themselves subject to strict punishment, including bans from the use of public transport, exclusion from top jobs, and prohibitions on their children attending top-rated schools.

This may sound alien and Orwellian, but as Fast Company notes, Silicon Valley is bringing a version of this grim reality to America.

Via Fast Company:

Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.

The articles goes on to note a range of ways in which western citizens are being systematically rated, and in some cases excluded, by corporate America. These include insurance companies scanning the social media feeds of applicants, an app called “PatronScan,” that logs the face and name of troublesome bar and restaurant clientele, and the growing tendency of services like Airbnb, Uber, and WhatsApp to ban users for arbitrary reasons.

The comparison to China’s social credit system is similar to the one this reporter made on Breitbart News Daily in June:

In China, they have what’s called a “social credit system” — in which, if you engage in behavior that the regime doesn’t like, they’ll assign you a score, and when it drops below a certain point, they’ll exclude you from certain basic services, like transportation, they might not let your kids go to good schools — all sorts of basic services, they’ll cut you off from.

We have a corporate version of this already evolving. So if you don’t do the things that Facebook approves of, they’re going to cut you off from their platform, which is now essential for maintaining a social network, building a business, running for office. We rely on Facebook and other social media platforms for so many things. Uber and Lyft will also ban you now — they’ve started to ban people for political viewpoints, so you think China is the only one that’s going to cut you off from transportation for having the wrong opinions — well, Western corporations are now doing that, too. Airbnb, Amazon, they’re all doing it.

One other comparison from the Fast Company article deserves note — the Chinese communist government’s partnership with tech platforms like Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. Far from aiding dissidents, Chinese social media companies like Weibo and WeChat aid and abet the government in the persecution of its citizens.

That too, has eerie parallels with the West, where social media platforms have become a means of extra-judicial censorship for politicians. Because America has the First Amendment, politicians can’t pass laws suppressing speech or punishing dissidents against the established order — but they can, and frequently do, bully tech companies into doing their dirty work for them.

 

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60 MILES OF NEW BORDER WALL ERECTED WHERE ILLEGALS ONCE STORMED AMERICA

60 Miles of New Border Wall Erected Where Illegals Once Stormed America

Border Patrol footage shows the difference one administration makes

By Kelen McBreen – August 26, 2019

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unveiled 60 miles of new border wall near San Luis, Arizona on Saturday, showing before and after footage of the location.

In the “before” footage, dozens of illegals can be seen running into the United States, and in the “after” footage, a “triple-layered enforcement zone which includes an 18’ bollard wall” occupies the same space.

According to CBP, the Trump administration plans on building over 400 miles of wall in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas by 2020.

“CBP has constructed over 60 miles of new border wall system along the SW border since 2017 and expects to complete 450 miles by the end of 2020.”

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost tweeted out a time-lapse of the San Luis portion of the border wall being built, saying, “This new system improves impedance & denial of illegal entries, making the border safer for both my agents, & our nation.”

This is what Americans asked for when they voted for Donald Trump and this is what they can expect more of after he wins again in 2020.

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CNN host under fire after guest says Trump may cause more deaths than Hitler, Stalin and Mao

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Trump-bashing is nothing unusual at CNN, but when a guest told Brian Stelter that the president “may be responsible for many more million deaths” than the worst dictators of the 20th Century, even the host was left red-faced.

Speaking on Stelter’s ‘Reliable Sources,’ Dr. Allen Frances told the host that “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were.”

The segment went viral and Trump supporters were equal parts incredulous and furious. “Raise your hand if you don’t take CNN seriously anymore”quipped conservative pundit Jack Posobiec. “The only thing ‘Reliable’ about Stelter is that he is reliably a leftwing hack,”tweeted the president’s son, Donald Jr.

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Stelter, who has repeatedly questioned Trump’s mental faculties on air, didn’t interject when Frances compared the American president to a trio of mass-murdering dictators. Criticized later for this, he claimed to have been “distracted by tech difficulties,” and said that he “should have interrupted.”

Frances made his bold claim in a segment discussing the implications of analyzing the president’s mental health from a distance, a practice that the American Psychoanalytic Association frowns on. Frances, on the other hand has published a book doing just that, entitled ‘Twilight of American Sanity’.

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‘Crime does pay’: CNN hires disgraced ex-FBI director Andrew McCabe

Despite opening with a caution against “medicalizing politics,” Frances went on to turn that statement against Trump. “It stigmatizes the mentally ill,” he said, adding that comparing them to Trump is “an insult.”

“Second, calling Trump crazy hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist,” he continued.

With criticism flowing in at Stelter and Frances, Trump Campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told the Washington Examiner that “Trump Derangement Syndrome is real.”

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OBAMA JUDGE RULES MEDICAID MUST PAY FOR TRANSGENDER SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY

Obama Judge Rules Medicaid Must Pay For Transgender Sex Reassignment Surgery

Federal judge is forcing Wisconsin taxpayers to provide costly sex reassignment surgery and hormonal procedures for low-income transgender residents

JudicialWatch.org – AUGUST 23, 2019

An Obama-appointed federal judge is forcing Wisconsin taxpayers to provide costly sex reassignment surgery and hormonal procedures for low-income transgender residents who get free medical care from the government.

In a recently issued ruling U.S. District Judge William M. Conley writes that Medicaid, the publicly funded insurance that covers 65.7 million poor people, cannot deny the medical treatment needs of those suffering from “gender dysphoria.” Officials estimate it will cost up to $1.2 million annually to provide transgender Medicaid recipients in the Badger State with treatments such as “gender confirmation” surgery, including elective mastectomies, hysterectomies, genital reconstruction and breast augmentation. The intricate operations are typically done by plastic surgeons.

The ruling culminates a lawsuit filed more than a year ago by two transgender Wisconsinites, who accuse the federal and state-funded insurance program of providing them with disparate and inferior health care on the basis of sex. Cody Flack of Green Bay and Sara Makenzie of Baraboo say they suffer from severe gender dysphoria that requires costly surgery. Flack, a woman, claims to be ashamed of her breasts and wants to have them surgically removed as she transitions into a man’s body. To make a case for the government to pay for her surgery, she claims that she engages in “binding,” which flattens her breasts and causes sores, skin irritation and respiratory distress. Flack also has difficulty binding her breasts due to a disability, according to court documents. Makenzie, a man who legally changed his name to Sara and wears women’s clothing, says his “male-appearing genitalia” causes him “great distress” and negatively affects his sexuality and social life. Showering and seeing his body in a mirror is “painful,” court records state, and Makenzie fears someone will be able to see his “male genitals” through his clothing.

Last summer Judge Conley issued a preliminary injunction ordering Wisconsin to cover sex reassignment surgery for Flack and Makenzie while state health officials appealed. The permanent ruling directing the state-federal insurance for the poor to pay for all gender confirmation operations in the state was issued last week. To lay the foundation, Conley writes in the injunction that gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition, which if left untreated can cause adverse symptoms. “As a group, transgender individuals have been subjected to harassment and discrimination in virtually every aspect of their lives, including in housing, employment, education, and health care,” according to the document. “Their own families, acquaintances and larger communities can be sources of harassment. For some transgender individuals, though certainly not all, the dissonance between their gender identity and their naturally assigned sex can manifest itself in the form of gender dysphoria, a serious medical condition recognized by both sides’ experts and the larger medical community as a whole.”

Though Medicaid initially denied Flack’s chest reconstructive surgery, it was eventually completed at taxpayer expense after the judge’s injunction. A plastic surgeon performed a double mastectomy and male chest construction last fall. “Following the surgery, Cody’s gender dysphoria was greatly diminished,” according to Conley’s final ruling, because his “outward appearance matched his male gender” and he “would no longer be misgendered because of his breasts.” Makenzie got a bilateral orchiectomy and vaginoplasty to create “female appearing external genitalia” after the judge determined that the surgeries are medically necessary. Because Medicaid refused to cover chest reconstruction surgery prior to the lawsuit, Makenzie obtained a personal loan to pay a plastic surgeon at the University of Wisconsin Hospital for the operation in 2016. Court documents say Makenzie contends that the surgery helped alleviate his gender dysphoria.

In his decision, Judge Conley cites guidelines issued by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health to treat transsexual, transgender and gender nonconforming people. Treatments include psychotherapy, hormone therapy and “a number of surgical procedures” to eliminate the development of unwanted secondary sex characteristics of the assigned sex, develop secondary sex characteristics of the sex associated with the patient’s gender identity and enhance the patient’s ability to “pass” as the sex associated with the patient’s gender identity to decrease harassment, mistreatment and other forms of discrimination.

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New Jersey Awarded $3.8 Million in Financial Aid to Illegal Aliens

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By TOM CICCOTTA

A local news report revealed that the state of New Jersey awarded $3.8 million in financial aid to illegal immigrants during the 2018-2019 school year.

According to a report from NJ.com, the state of New Jersey gave $3.8 million in financial aid to 749 illegal immigrant students in the last academic year. More than a quarter of the funding went to 328 illegal immigrants that attend Rutgers University.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a law last year that allowed illegal immigrants to apply for financial aid. Prior to the signing, illegal immigrants were permitted to apply to pay in-state tuition at public universities but they were not eligible for financial aid.

Murphy, who supports the spending, hit back at Republican critics by arguing that giving financial aid to illegal immigrants is compatible with American values.

“I’d even invite any of those folks who have that attitude, beginning with our president, to come on into this room and allow me or any of us to say, ‘This is the United States of America,’” Murphy said at the time.

David J. Socolow, executive director of the state’s Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, defended the state’s decision to offer financial aid to illegal immigrants.

“This financial assistance offers these New Jersey students a life-changing opportunity,” Socolow said in a brief comment.“The successes of these first 513 students, who are now attending county colleges, state colleges and universities, and independent institutions around the state, will have a positive impact on countless additional lives.”

According to the report, there is currently no limit on the amount of illegal immigrant students that are permitted to receive financial aid from the state of New Jersey. State lawmakers forecast that they will spend approximately $5 million on financial aid for illegal immigrants each year.

 

 

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NYT editor’s tweets mocking Jews, Indians amid newspaper’s ‘anti-racist’ drive

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A politics editor at the New York Times faces charges of anti-Semitism and bigotry after a series of old insensitive tweets surfaced online. This comes after a similar scandal with its Washington editor and leaked editorial tapes.

Breitbart News uncovered the tweets in an investigation published on Thursday, detailing a litany of offensive and racially-charged remarks from senior staff editor Tom Wright-Piersanti, who has worked at the Gray Lady for a little over five years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Before that, on New Year’s day in 2010, Wright-Piersanti said: “I was going to say ‘Crappy Jew Year,’ but one of my resolutions is to be less anti-Semitic. So… HAPPY Jew Year. You Jews.”

The tweet has since been deleted.

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In another missive dated December 2009, the future Times editor posted a photo of a vehicle with what appears to be a menorah – associated with the religious holiday of Hanukkah – on its roof, and asked “Who called the Jew police?”

Though the “Jew police” tweet was still publicly viewable when Breitbart’s story first ran, it has also since mysteriously vanished from Wright-Piersanti’s Twitter page.

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The apparently anti-Semitic comments prompted the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), one of the oldest Jewish political advocacy groups in the US, to demand for the editor’s swift termination, and a review of past stories he edited.

“The Zionist Organization of America urges the New York Times to immediately dismiss this individual and to undertake a review of all of the stories that he has edited for possible antisemitic bias,” a spokesperson for ZOA told Breitbart News.

In addition to members of the Jewish faith, Wright-Piersanti’s tweets often fixated on “Indians” as well, though it’s not always clear if he is referring to Native AmericRAans or people from India.

“There are four indian guys with mohawks in this one class, and each one is a douche in his own awful way,” he tweeted in December 2009.

I hate mohawk Indians.

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A number of other posts singled out Indians for ridicule or insult as well, all of which remain public on Wright-Piersanti’s page at the time of publication.

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In another deleted tweet, the Times editor mused “With asian babies, is it racist to say to the parents, ‘Aw, he looks just like you!’? What if you say it before you see any pictures?”

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While the Times has not yet addressed the allegations publicly, Wright-Piersanti tweeted an apology on Thursday morning, after scrubbing a number of the offending tweets from his page, which he briefly set to private.

Following the publication of Brietbart’s investigation, Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, weighed in on the story, tweeting “Disgusting. But we shouldn’t expect any better from the New York Times. This is who they are.”

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Earlier this month, the Times demoted its deputy Washington editor for “serious lapses in judgement” in the form of tweets criticized as ‘racist.’

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NYT shifts from Russiagate to racism, insisting Orange Man Still Bad

Last week, a transcript of an internal town hall meeting surfaced, showing that the newspaper deliberately decided to shift its coverage of President Donald Trump from his supposed connections to Russia to “race and other divisions.”

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(JUST IN TIME FOR THE 2020 ELECTIONS) – Facebook hiring editors to pick stories for ‘News Tab’, that didn’t work out well last time

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Facebook will hire a “small team” of journalists to select featured content for its much-hyped ‘News Tab’ section, which the platform will begin testing across its US user base later this year.

What could go awry with human editors in charge? Facebook should know, since the company was forced to fire its last team of human content-pickers over revelations of bias against conservative viewpoints.

READ MORE: Facebook tells Trump ads can’t appeal to ‘strong women LIKE YOU,’ caving in to ex-Clinton staffer

The platform said Tuesday that the new team — which will likely be fewer than 10 employees at the beginning — will choose the content for the ‘Top News’ section of the News Tab. Stories found in the other sections will be chosen by algorithms and determined by specific user interests, the New York Times reported.

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‘Trending’ no more: Facebook removing controversial news feature

Facebook said it made the decision to go after human curators after discussions with publishers convinced them that algorithms would not be capable of “news judgement” the way real journalists would and that it would take too long to train an algorithm to that level.

But there are pitfalls to consider with human editors, too. Facebook ditched its ‘Trending Topics’ section last year after being plagued by accusations that it was politically biased and amplified “fake news.” 

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An explosive Gizmodo story put the spotlight on Trending Topics in 2016, revealing that human editors, independently contracted by Facebook, were asked to suppress conservative news and even stories about Facebook itself.

The contractors were also told to artificially “inject” preferred stories into the trending module, even if they were not trending organically. Rather than relying on algorithms (as it claimed), Facebook was acting like a traditional news organization and reflecting the personal biases of its employees.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Facebook is planning to pay publishers “millions of dollars” to include their content in its News Tab.

A source told Digiday that the new batch of curators will be given the option to include that content in the Top News section, but they will not be obliged to. The new hires will be full-time employees, unlike the contractors used for the doomed Trending Topics section.

As Facebook rolls out the News Tab, users will no doubt be waiting to see if it has learned its lesson after the last debacle.

READ MORE: Google is censoring political content? *Gasp!* Who knew?

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OBAMAS TO RELEASE ANTI-TRUMP MOVIE ON NETFLIX

Obamas To Release Anti-Trump Movie On Netflix

Film aims to undercut Trump’s job number claims

Steve Watson  – AUGUST 21, 2019

Ahead of the 2020 election, the Obamas are set to release a documentary via Netflix that has been described by Politico as anti-Trump.

The movie, scheduled to be released this week, titled American Factory, focuses on the economy in the heartland of the US.

The review states:

The documentary, which debuts on Netflix on August 21, never mentions President Donald Trump by name—but its message is clear: Trump’s promise to reinvigorate the industrial heartland is going to take a lot more than a campaign slogan. There are no easy solutions. And if some manufacturing jobs do come back, they’re going to look nothing like they used to. Americans will have to accept a new reality to stay competitive in the global marketplace—one that they might not like, and one that Trump doesn’t acknowledge.

it’s a message that echoes Obama’s declaration in 2016 that some jobs in the manufacturing sector are “just not going to come back.”

The movie argues that Trump’s efforts to reinvigorate manufacturing have not been successful, despite there being more employed in factory jobs now than before Trump was elected.

The message is clear. The Obamas are trying to hit Trump where it matters ahead of the election, in an effort to prevent history repeating.

Last year, when the Obamas inked the deal with the streaming service, the former president declared that the projects would focus on “training the next generation of leaders.”

“I continue to believe that if we are hearing each other’s stories and recognizing ourselves in each other, then our democracy works,” Obama said at the time.

WATCH: Why You Should Cancel Netflix

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CNN ANALYST: WHITE REPUBLICAN MEN ARE ‘GREATEST TERRORIST THREAT’ IN US

CNN Analyst: White Republican Men Are 'Greatest Terrorist Threat' In US

Triggered by the word ‘hijacking’

Steve Watson  – AUGUST 21, 2019

CNN Analyst Angela Rye told a Republican strategist on air this week that ‘the greatest terrorist threat’ in the US are white men who think like he does.

GOP campaign strategist Patrick Griffin argued that the so called “Squad” of Democrats, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., has “hijacked” the Democratic Party.

“It’s so interesting that you use the term — the only two Muslim women in Congress, the term you chose to use, sir, is ‘hijacking,’” Rye, the former Congressional Black Caucus executive director, ridiculously responded.

“It has nothing to do with whether they’re Muslim or not,” Griffin hit back, “Nothing to do with that… They’ve hijacked from their own principles.”

“That’s a real interesting word choice, and you understand why,” Rye continued, insisting that Griffin used the term to connect the Democrats to terrorists.

“You can talk over me all you want to but the bottom line is the greatest terrorist threat in this country is white men, white men who think like you. That is the greatest terrorist threat in this country.” Rye blurted.

Griffin described Rye’s remarks as “silly rhetoric.”

“No, it’s not!” Rye responded.

“You know what’s silly? The fact that you’re on here knowing how dangerous times are right now defending this nonsense.” she added.

CNN, bringing the nuanced debate as usual.

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