Tag: 3/22/2019

Research: Google Search Bias Flipped Seats for Democrats in Midterms

By Allum Bokhari

Google encourages users to "go vote"

New research from psychologist and search engine expert Dr. Robert Epstein shows that biased Google searches had a measurable impact on the 2018 midterm elections, pushing tens of thousands of votes towards the Democrat candidates in three key congressional races, and potentially millions more in races across the country.

The study, from Epstein and a team at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), analyzed Google searches related to three highly competitive congressional races in Southern California. In all three races, the Democrat won — and Epstein’s research suggests that Google search bias may have tipped them over the edge.

The research follows a previous study conducted in 2016 which showed that biased Google results pushed votes to Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Democrats and Google executives have disputed these findings.

Epstein says that in the days leading up to the 2018 midterms, he was able to preserve “more than 47,000 election-related searches on Google, Bing, and Yahoo, along with the nearly 400,000 web pages to which the search results linked.”

Analysis of this data showed a clear pro-Democrat bias in election-related Google search results as compared to competing search engines. Users performing Google searches related to the three congressional races the study focused on were significantly more likely to see pro-Democrat stories and links at the top of their results.

As Epstein’s previous studies have shown, this can have a huge impact on the decisions of undecided voters, who often assume that their search results are unbiased. Epstein has called this the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME).

According to Epstein’s study, at least 35,455 undecided voters in the three districts may have been persuaded to vote for a Democrat candidate because of slanted Google search results. Considering that each vote gained by a Democrat is potentially a vote lost by a Republican, this means more than 70,910 votes may have been lost by Republicans in the three districts due to Google bias. In one of these districts, CA 45, the Democrat margin of victory was just over 12,000 votes.

The total Democrat win margin across all three districts was 71,337, meaning that bias Google searches could account for the vast majority of Democrat votes. Extrapolated to elections around the country, Epstein says that bias Google results could have influenced 4.6 million undecided voters to support Democrat candidates.

Moreover, Epstein’s findings are based on modest assumptions, such as the assumption that voters conduct one election-related search per week. According to Epstein, marketing research shows that people typically conduct 4-5 searches per day, not one per week. In other words, the true impact of biased search results could be much higher.

Epstein’s study may also understate the level of liberal bias in Google search results, due to its use of a 2017 study from Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center to rank sources by their bias. The study assigns conservative sources like Breitbart News a far higher bias rating than ostensibly centrist but in fact highly liberal sources like the New York Times. The study also gives online encyclopedia Wikipedia a non-liberal bias rating, despite the fact that its most controversial pages are typically hijacked by its cabal of left-wing editors to push partisan liberal narratives.

As the Los Angeles Times notes, Epstein is not a Republican and publicly supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. Nevertheless, Democrats and liberals continue to ignore or doubt his findings. House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has repeatedly called claims of big tech bias a “conspiracy theory,” as have other congressional Democrats. And left-wing academics interviewed by the Los Angeles Times also heaped doubt on Epstein’s work.

Dr. Robert Epstein is featured in the 2018 documentary The Creepy Line, which was produced by Breitbart News editor-at-large Peter Schweizer and explores the bias amongst the Masters of the Universe in Silicon Valley.

Breitbart News continues to expose left-wing bias at Google. Recent reports reveal that company managers have told employees that the tech giant must stop “fake news” because “that’s how Trump won,” that Google-owned YouTube adjusted its algorithms to push pro-life content off its top search results, and that the company’s own internal researchers describe the company’s changes in policy since 2016 as a “shift towards censorship.”

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VIDEO: BETO TELLS SUPPORTERS ‘WE DO NOT NEED ANY WALLS, THERE IS NO BORDER CRISIS’

Video: Beto Tells Supporters 'We Do Not Need Any Walls, There Is No Border Crisis'

Floats conspiracy theory that it’s a plot to steal land

Steve Watson | Infowars.com – MARCH 22, 2019

Despite daily reports of hundreds of illegal immigrants being arrested every day attempting to cross the Southern border, Democrat presidential candidate Robert “Beto” O’Rourke told an audience during a campaign stop that there is no border problem and building a wall would be a waste of money.

The video, taken in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shows Beto waving his hands in the air, declaring that the border crisis is actually a manufactured plot to steal land from ranchers.

“We do not need any walls – $30 billion, 2,000 miles long, 30 feet high.” O’Rourke urged.

“It will not be built on the international boundary line, which is the centerline of the Rio Grande River. That wall will be built well into the interior, on someone’s ranch, someone else’s farm, someone else’s home,” he added, without citing a shred of evidence to back the claim.

“You and I will be forced to take their property to solve a problem we do not have.” Beto exclaimed.

“You and I will be forced to take their property to solve a problem we do not have.” Beto exclaimed.

O’Rourke’s claim that there is ‘no problem’ will be hard, even for Democrats, to swallow.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics prove that there are tens of thousands of illegal immigrants trying to cross every month, and that the number is rapidly rising.

More than 110,000 people were stopped in January and February alone, according to the figures.

Earlier this month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified before Congress, warning that close to a million illegal immigrants are expected to attempt to cross the border into the US in 2019 alone, making the situation “truly an emergency.”

USBP reports indicate that there is rampant criminality among those trying to gain access to the country, including sex and drug trafficking.

Even Obama’s former border chief agrees that the situation is dire.

To claim that there is ‘no problem’ in the face of such facts is manifestly asinine.

It indicates that O’Rourke intends to run a campaign entirely focused on opposing any policy advocated by President Trump, rather than one based in reason, logic and fact.

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Planned Parenthood President Brags That She’s Trump’s ‘Nightmare’

Joins Trevor Noah to mock President Trump

By HANK BERRIEN

On Friday, Planned Parenthood president Dr. Leana Wen, after appearing on Comedy Central with Trevor Noah Thursday night, bragged that she is President Trump’s “nightmare.” Wen tweeted, “Last night, I was on @TheDailyShow to talk about Planned Parenthood’s incredible life-saving work. @Trevornoah called me @realDonaldTrump‘s ‘nightmare’ — a badge of honor I proudly wear as we fight for our patients, our rights & our future!”

CAP

Speaking with Noah Thursday night, Wen made some amazing statements considering her organization routinely murders roughly 300,000 unborn children every year. She pronounced, “I truly believe that health care is a human right that’s guaranteed to all, and not just a privilege available to some.”

Arguing that her organization was not political, Wen completely ignored the hundreds of thousands of murdered babies every year as she attacked pro-life advocates, stating, “Look, we’re not the ones that made health care political. I mean, getting medications for your children, getting breast and cervical cancer screenings, SDI tests, these are not political issues. But when other people have made healthcare political, it’s our duty to fight back with everything we have because it’s about people’s lives.”

Later, Wen and Noah mocked President Trump for his pro-life stance. Noah began by saying, “When you look at arguments Republicans pose from the other side, they say, ‘We’re here to protect the unborn child.’ President Trump has been seen on the campaign trail saying this is about late-term abortions. You know, you hear the stories now where, I mean, President Trump actually said it’s gotten to the point where a baby can be aborted after it is born.”

Wen shook her head in mock disbelief; the crowd laughed.

Noah continued, “I don’t know what that means, but you’re a doctor. What do they mean by late-term abortions, like after birth, or at birth.”

The crowd laughed, prompting Wen to gesture to them and say, “Good response from the audience.”

She continued, “We have to call out President Trump for what he is doing, which is lying. (audience cheers) What he is saying has no basis in medicine or reality. (Audience laughs again) And here are the facts: about 99% of abortions occur before 21 weeks; those that occur later in pregnancy are because something in the pregnancy has gone very wrong … these are extremely difficult, hugely personal and challenging circumstances that women and families find themselves in and they deserve our compassion, and President Trump is exploiting their pain for political gain and I say to him, ‘Shame on you, President Trump.’” (Audience cheers)

After Wen bragged that her organization had recently filed a lawsuit against the “Trump-Pence administration,” prompting wild cheering, Noah said, “I’ll tell you this much: you are a doctor who is a woman who is running Planned Parenthood who finished college and is an immigrant; you are literally Trump’s nightmare.”

That prompted Wen to crow on Twitter Friday morning about Noah’s characterization of her.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/44996/planned-parenthood-president-crows-shes-trumps-hank-berrien

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TOLERANCE? NYC LGBT Center cancels ‘Walk Away’ town hall for ex-Dems who left party

VAP

MARCH 22, 2019
BY KYLE OLSON

The LGBT Center in New York City has no tolerance for gay Americans who walked away from the Democrat party.

Brandon Straka, founder of the #WalkAway campaign, had scheduled a town hall meeting at The Center next week for ex-Democrats who left the party to support President Trump or become conservatives.

The Center came under intense pressure from liberals to cancel the event, and now it has done just that. Via a statement:

Upon further review and consideration, The Center has cancelled the March 28 Walk Away event. We strongly oppose censorship and fully stand by our commitment to free speech, but as our space use policy states, we reserve the right to cancel any event that promotes discriminatory speech or bigotry; negatively impacts other groups or individuals that use The Center; or conflicts with, or interferes with, Center-sponsored or produced programming. It has become clear that this event would violate all of these important policies.

The Center blamed the panelists for the cancellation:

In recent days we have learned that certain of the panelists announced for this event have made repeated, well-documented past statements that violate our mission, values and the spirit of inclusiveness for all individuals and identities that is core to our work and who we are. Our space is a place of safety and refuge for those most vulnerable among us, and we will do everything in our power to protect that. Permitting this event to proceed would make many of our community members feel unsafe and, among other things, interfere with their ability to participate in other Center programming.

The Center said “the work to heal and rebuild trust begins today.”

Straka says he found out via Twitter.

CAP

“I am just finding out via Twitter that the  has bowed 2 the pressure of the lies, dishonesty, & bullying of activist leftists,” Straka responded.

“Nobody at The Center contacted me. I am finding out now as u r from this twitter post. We will be pursuing legal action 2defend our RIGHTS.”

The Center didn’t identify which panelist it couldn’t tolerate or what statements they allegedly made.

They were to include Blaire White, a trans YouTuber; Iraq War veteran Rob Smith and writer Mike Harlow, according to the group’s website.

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Facebook stored 7 years of passwords in plaintext, but it’s OK, they’re trustworthy!

CAP

Over half a billion Facebook users’ passwords sat unsecured on the company’s servers for years, the tech giant admitted, after an investigation uncovered the egregious bug – but it’s OK, only Facebook employees could access them.

Facebook acknowledged the glaring oversight after an anonymous employee blew the whistle to Krebs on Security, admitting “hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users” had been affected, then adding insult to injury with a casual admission that they’d discovered the security flaw “as part of a routine security review in January.”

The scandal-plagued social media giant hastened to assure users that “no passwords were exposed externally and we didn’t find any evidence of abuse to date,” but their post was cold comfort from the company whose CEO has explicitly called the users who trust him “dumb f***s.”

As many as 600 million users – anyone who created their password after 2012 – had their login credentials stored in a plaintext, unencrypted database where they could be searched by any one of 20,000 Facebook employees, according to the leaker.

Passwords – especially high-value passwords like Facebook’s – are normally “hashed,” or cryptographically scrambled to prevent hackers from using them even if they are able to break into a company’s servers. Storing this data in unsecured plaintext is the cyber-security equivalent of allowing guards to walk in and out of a bank vault without passing through a metal detector.

Facebook says it has fixed the bug and promised to notify all users whose passwords were stored unencrypted. The vulnerability is only the latest in a seemingly endless string of outrages. Earlier this month, it emerged that Facebook had made users’ ostensibly private phone numbers – given for security purposes only – into just another searchable attribute, with no option to opt out and the added indignity of those numbers being targeted with ads. In September, data from some 30 million accounts was stolen via compromised access tokens and, in December, seven million users learned that third-party app developers could access their private photos – even those they’d never uploaded to the platform.

While it had their attention, Facebook took the opportunity on Thursday to notify users about a cool new “physical security key” they could login with – a “small hardware device that goes in the USB drive of your computer” ideal for “high-risk users including journalists, activists, political campaigns and public figures.”

“There is nothing more important to us than protecting people’s information,” said Pedro Canahuati, vice president of engineering, security and privacy for Facebook – while presumably hiding a smirk.

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UK Denies Asylum To Christian Convert From Iran Because “Christianity Is Not Peaceful”

By Tyler Durden

The UK has denied asylum to an Iranian man because he said on his application that he converted from Islam to the “peaceful” religion of Christianity, according to The Independent.

The Home Office quoted excerpts from the bible in the man’s rejection letter – saying the book of Revelations is “filled with imagery of revenge, destruction, death and violence,” and concluded that “These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge.”

When contacted by The Independent, the Home Office essentially said “our bad” – claiming that the letter was “not in accordance” with proper policies for claims based on religious persecution, and that it was working to improve employee training.

Lawyers and campaigners said the case demonstrated a “distortion of logic” and a “reckless” approach to asylum seekers’ lives, stemming from a tendency by the department to “come up with any reason they can to refuse” cases. –The Independent

The asylum seeker’s caseworker, Nathan Stevens, tweeted “I’ve seen a lot over the years, but even I was genuinely shocked to read this unbelievably offensive diatribe being used to justify a refusal of asylum.”

CAP

According to the latest immigration statistics, there has been a marked increase in incorrect asylum refusals – with successful appeals up 5% since 2015-2016.

“You can see from the text of the letter that the writer is trying to pick holes in the asylum seeker’s account of their conversion to Christianity and using the Bible verses as a tool to do that,” said legal expert Conor James McKinney – deputy editor of the website Free Movement. McKinney said the case was a symptom of the Home Office’s reputation to “come up with any reason they can to refuse asylum.”

“The Home Office is notorious for coming up with any reason they can to refuse asylum and this looks like a particularly creative example, but not necessarily a systemic outbreak of anti-Christian sentiment in the department.” -Conor James McKinney

The case is a “particularly outrageous example of the reckless and facetious approach of the Home Office to determining life and death asylum cases,” said Sarah Teather, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in the UK. Teather added that JRS frequently encounters cases where asylum has been refused on “spurious grounds,” adding “Some of these cases require more legal knowledge to recognise than this bizarre misquoting of the Bible, but as this instance gains public attention, we need to remember it reflects a systematic problem and a deeper mindset of disbelief, and is not just an anomaly that can be explained away.”

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“ALLAHU AKBAR”: NEW ZEALAND RECOGNIZES MUSLIM CALL TO PRAYER AS NEWS ANCHORS WEAR HIJABS

"Allahu Akbar": New Zealand Recognizes Muslim Call to Prayer as News Anchors Wear Hijabs

Mosque leader calls on governments to ban “hate speech”

 | Infowars.com – MARCH 22, 2019

New Zealanders across the country stopped to recognize the Muslim call to prayer as news anchors and armed police officers wore hijabs in solidarity one week after the Christchurch mosque massacre.

The call to prayer preceded a two minutes silence. The video below appears to show the event at a shopping mall.

In other capital cities such as London, “Allahu Akbar” rung out in memory of the victims.

Meanwhile, according to one Guardian journalist, “New Zealand television journalists and anchors are wearing headscarves for their live broadcasts and using Arabic greetings.”

Another image shows an armed female police officer wearing a hijab as a show of support to the Muslim community.

CAP

Al Noor mosque prayer leader Imam Gamal Fouda called for governments “around the world” to “bring an end” to hate speech by cracking down on “anti-Muslim rhetoric” by individuals and media outlets.

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Illegal Alien Shoots and Kills Sheriff’s Deputy, Wounds Officer After Overstaying Visa

This visa overstay led to the death of a law enforcement officer.

By

An illegal alien living in Washington state killed a Sheriff’s Deputy and wounded another police officer during a road rage incident on March 20, according to federal law enforcement.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Juan Manuel Flores Del Toro, 29, was a Mexican citizen who entered Laredo, Texas, in 2014 on a temporary agricultural worker visa,” said a USA Today report.

According to ICE, there is no record that Flores Del Toro ever left the United States after his visa expired, and likewise there is no record that he ever re-applied to extend his visa.

Like half the illegals in the United States, he simply stayed despite the expiration, and was never deported. The end result was the death of a Sheriff’s Deputy and an injury to another police officer.

Flores Del Toro died of his injuries in a local hospital shortly after the incident.

According to the report:

Officers on Tuesday tried to stop Flores Del Toro’s vehicle after receiving a complaint about his driving that authorities described as “road-rage type event.” They chased him until he stopped in a house trailer park near Kittitas, about five miles from Ellensburg, the city where Flores Del Toro resided. Police say he got out of the car and shot at them with a handgun.

Sheriff’s deputy Ryan Thompson, 42, was killed and Kittitas police officer Benito Chavez, 22, was shot in the leg, shattering his femur.

Thompson was married with three children. Chavez joined the three-person Kittitas police department last July, officials said.

Visa overstays actually outnumber illegal border crossings again in 2018, as they have for seven consecutive years, according to the Center for Migration Studies.

As reported by Big League Politics, the abuse of the visa program by illegal aliens results in crimes such as the molestation of a 7-year-old by an illegal alien who had been arrested eight times.

Big League Politics will continue to track the flood of criminal illegal aliens staying in the U.S. after their visas expire.

Meanwhile, America is no closer to a sane immigration policy as leaders of both parties in Washington, D.C., work against President Donald J. Trump in his effort to secure the border.

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