Published on May 13, 2019
The CNN search engine? Google favors stories from liberal news sites, study finds
When it comes to political bias online, left-leaning Facebook and Twitter have been the most common punching bags, but a new study confirms that Google’s search algorithms are also skewed in favor of liberal viewpoints.
Researchers from Northwestern University performed an “algorithm audit” of the ‘Google Top Stories’ box, which is a major driver of traffic to news publishers and therefore prime online real estate. They examined results for nearly 200 searches relating to news events for one month in late 2017 and found “a left-leaning ideological skew.”
The researchers did allow some leeway for Google to defend itself, however, saying that while the left-leaning bias was detected, it is possible that the dominance of particular sources is a result of “successful strategic behavior” by those sources to achieve “algorithmic recognizability” — but whatever the reason, liberal sources still far eclipsed conservatives ones.
CNN, perhaps the outlet most-reviled by conservatives, was Google’s overall favorite source. Of the 6,302 articles appearing on Google’s ‘top stories’ during the month in focus, more than 10 percent came from CNN. The New York Times and Washington Post were up next, garnering 6.5 and 5.6 percent of the results, respectively.
Fox News, the most mainstream right-wing outlet, was the source for only 3 percent of stories appearing in the top box. Then it was back to liberal outlets, with the BBC, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Politico and ABC News filling out the rest of the top 10. Overall, 62.4 percent of the most common sources were left-leaning, while only 11.3 perfect were said to be right-leaning.
Ironically, despite the heavy promotion from Google in the online realm, CNN’s overall audience declined by a colossal 26 percent in April compared to a year earlier — and network boss Jeff Zucker admitted last November that CNN’s audience just “goes away” any time the channel switches from its (overwhelmingly negative) coverage of President Donald Trump to other topics. So it seems CNN is stuck in a vicious cycle; criticized for focusing too much on negative Trump stories, yet not being able to stop for fear of losing more viewers.
Perhaps an even more damning indictment than Google’s detected liberal bias, however, is that nearly all (86 percent) of the stories promoted by the search giant came from just 20 sources across the entire internet, which doesn’t exactly display much of a commitment to diversity of information and opinion.
ALSO ON RT.COM‘Poisonous connection’ of big tech: Google staff confer over anti-Trump search tweak
Publishers selected for the top box receive “a significant boost in traffic” which demonstrates Google’s ability to “pick winners and losers” based on where they decide to direct most of our attention. Such power and bias in favor of major sources could also be linked to the decline of local news, which is competing in an unfair online environment, the study suggested.
The detection of Google’s left-leaning preferences will hardly come as a shock to conservatives, who have been complaining in recent years that powerful online platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google have all shown clear bias against conservative perspectives. The grumbling has not been without cause, either.
Most recently, Facebook slapped a number of popular conservative commentators with permanent lifetime bans — and Twitter has been caught out ‘shadowbanning’ Republicans and is accused of being quicker to suspend or ban conservative users over liberals for alleged rule-breaking.
Yet, while Facebook and Twitter have engaged in what many analysts and critics are calling direct political censorship, the story is more complicated when it comes to Google.
The researchers found that it’s not simply whether a source is left or right-leaning that determines whether it goes into the top stories box. Writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, one of the study authors acknowledged that there appears to be more news produced on the left overall, something which also affects the results. Even so, Google’s curation algorithms were still found to be “slightly magnifying” the already left-leaning skew in online news production.
Then there’s the bias toward timeliness; the fresher the story, the more likely it was to be promoted in the top box. The researchers called this Google’s “predilection towards recency” and said that huge news organizations like CNN which have the potential to quickly generate fresh content “may be better positioned” to garner more attention.
If Google really values diversity, the authors suggest it should acknowledge that high-quality journalism can have a longer shelf life and “consider relaxing the timeliness constraint to widen the scope of sources available to its curation algorithm.”
The results put to bed the notion, promoted by many Democrats and liberals that Google algorithm bias is a myth. Rep. Jerry Nadler last year called the notion of liberal bias online a “delusion” and a “right-wing conspiracy theory” — although Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee is still a chief proponent of the disproven conspiracy theory that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
Google has always denied that it is politically biased or abusing its monopoly position, but it looks like the search engine has plenty of work to do on its curation algorithms before it can convince anyone of its fairness.
Nadler opposed contempt charges against AG Eric Holder in 2012
Published on May 13, 2019
While House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler spearheads the campaign against Attorney General William Barr, he opposed the same charges against former Attorney General Eric Holder back in 2012. One America’s Pearson Sharp explains how Nadler’s long-standing feud with President Trump could be playing a part in his agenda against the attorney general.
World Renowned Transgender Researcher Briefly Suspended by Twitter for Sharing His Findings
Twitter is now suspending scientists whose findings contradict their terms of service.
By
A world renowned psychologist and scientist in the field of transgenderism, pedophilia, and sexual orientation had his Twitter account briefly suspended by the tech giant Sunday after sharing his latest scientific findings.
“Ray Blanchard served on the gender dysphoria working group and chaired the paraphilia working group for DSM V. He is a world expert in the field. Twitter has just suspended his account for a thread setting out his findings from A lifetime of research. Unreal,” Helen Joyce of The Economist said, attaching a photo of the suspended account.
DSM V is the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by doctors and psychiatrists in diagnosing mental illnesses.
Apparently, Blanchard’s scientific findings did not mesh with Twitter’s terms of service. The microblogging giant flagged him for violating its rules against “hateful conduct.” In six Tweets, Blanchard laid out his beliefs based on his research:
My beliefs include the following 6 elements:(1) Transsexualism and milder forms of gender dysphoria are types of mental disorder, which may leave the individual with average or even above-average functioning in unrelated areas of life.(2) Sex change surgery is still the best treatment for carefully screened, adult patients, whose gender dysphoria has proven resistant to other forms of treatment.(3) Sex change surgery should not be considered for any patient until that patient has reached the age of 21 years and has lived for at least two years in the desired gender role.(4) Gender dysphoria is not a sexual orientation, but it is virtually always preceded or accompanied by an atypical sexual orientation – in males, either homosexuality (sexual arousal by members of one’s own biological sex) . . . or autogynephilia (sexual arousal at the thought or image of oneself as a female).(5) There are two main types of gender dysphoria in males, one associated with homosexuality and one associated with autogynephilia. Traditionally, the great bulk of female-to-male transsexuals has been homosexual in erotic object choice.(6) The sex of a postoperative transsexual should be analogous to a legal fiction. This legal fiction would apply to some things (e.g., sex designation on a driver’s license) but not to others (entering a sports competition as one’s adopted sex).
After significant backlash, Twitter reinstated Blanchard’s account.
“Twitter has unlocked my account and graciously apologized for their error. My sincere thanks to the people who expressed their concern during the past 24 hours,” he said Sunday night.
Twitter has become known for its censorship of conservative ideas, including that transgenderism is a mental illness, which, as proven by Blanchard, is not so much a political idea as a scientific one.
COURT: NXIVM Witness Confirms Sex Cult Illegally Bundled Money For Hillary Clinton Campaign
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A former NXIVM member testified Monday in the trial of cult leader Keith Raniere that the sex cult illegally raised money for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Big League Politics first reported this bombshell information, which is now confirmed by a witness under oath.
The New York Post reports: “Bronfman funneled thousands of dollars into Clinton’s campaign coffers — far in excess of legal limits to contributions — to “curry favor” with the powerhouse political family, according to Mark Vicente, a documentary filmmaker and former member of the Nxivm group that is accused of keeping women as sex slaves.
“Clare Bronfman approached other people and said she would like to make a campaign contribution but she couldn’t make it above a certain amount,” Vicente testified in Brooklyn federal court Monday.
“I wrote a check. She paid me back.”
New York Post passage ends
NXIVM whistleblower Frank Parlato appeared exclusively on The Campaign Show with Patrick Howley on Patriots Soapbox (Sunday nights, 6-PM Eastern) to discuss Keith Raniere’s trial, which begins Tuesday.
Raniere’s sex slaves are poised to testify against him, as prosecutors prepare to submit evidence that NXIVM illegally bundled money for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Parlato made it clear that Clinton was happy to accept the money. (COURT DOCS Confirm Prosecutors Attempting To Introduce Clinton Evidence).
Parlato described how NXIVM imported teenage girls from Mexico, how the cult viewed Chuck Schumer as a “friendly” Democrat ally, and many other bombshells. WATCH.
Democrat senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand’s family ties to the NXIVM sex cult are coming to light, raising serious questions about her relationship with the cult that she once denied knowing about.
Gillibrand’s father and stepmother, who are second cousins, were both heavily involved in the cult in the period shortly before they got married, according to eyewitness accounts from ex-NXIVM employees who spoke on the record to Big League Politics, and according to court documents proving that Gillibrand’s father Doug Rutnik was employed by NXIVM.
Gillibrand’s father served as a broker between NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere — whose initials were branded on his female sex slaves — and then-New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer to resolve Raniere’s financial problems with the state, according to ex-employee whistleblower Joseph O’Hara, whose revelations are printed below.
Gillibrand’s stepmother Gwenn Belcourt got “hooked” on the cult as did Bill Clinton’s close friend Richard Mays, according to the whistleblower. Nancy Salzman, the NXIVM president, acted as a personal “guru” for Gillibrand’s stepmother.
Ex-cult employee Frank Parlato — who exposed the fact that Raniere was branding women — is working with Big League Politics to uncover the deep longstanding links between Gillibrand, the Clintons, and NXIVM.
“The very first time I ever met Gillibrand she was at an event for Hillary Clinton in the Hall of Springs in the State Park. This was in 2006. I was at a table with a Russian friend and Mike Roohan and his wife. I was on the Democratic committee at the time and was given two comp tickets. Gillibrand came up to me introduced herself and said she was running against John Sweeney. This was before all the stories of his drunken behavior came out. He was still congressman kickass at that time. I promised my support and wished her well. i than commented to Mike that with her baby voice and demeanor that she was a lightweight. Boy was I wrong. But the kicker was when the mixing was over and Clinton went to speak. Gillibrand sat with one of the front tables. Yeah the three front VIP tables were all brought by NXIVM and she was sitting with Nancy Salzman. You can quote me on that,” said witness John Tighe in a statement provided to Big League Politics.
Nancy Salzman has pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy while her daughter Lauren Salzman admitted to enslaving a woman, stating in court, “I knowingly and intentionally harbored Jane Doe 4, a woman whose identity is known to me, in a room in the home in the Northern District of New York” and “threatened to deport Jane Doe 4 back to Mexico if she did not complete labor requested by myself and others.”
JOSEPH O’HARA TELLS BIG LEAGUE POLITICS HIS NXIVM STORY
Joseph O’Hara was living in Saratoga Springs at the time, and a woman he met socially called him up out of the blue and asked for him to meet with the leaders of NXIVM.
“I agreed to meet with them. We met the very next day. We had coffee and that’s when I was introduced to Nancy Salzman, the president of NXIVM, and she described to me the various problems they were having,” O’Hara said, referring to lawsuits, public relations issues, and governmental issues stemming from trying to get a building permit for a NXIVM center.
“I said give me a day or two,” O’Hara said. “After I thought about it, I wrote back to them and said I don’t think there’s anything I can do personally but I can play centerfielder and pull in people you need. I think you need a bigger law firm on this. Yes I can get you a PR firm that can come in and help you. That’s what I proposed to them, that I would be a middle man.”
“They hired me in October of 2003 and I worked for them for 15 months. At the end of 2004 a variety of issues had come up and I resigned.”
O’Hara, whose official title was “consultant,” said he “met primarily with Keith” Raniere and with bookeeper Cathy Russell and legal liaison Kristin Keefe. O’Hara remembers Raniere vividly.
“I thought he was a little strange. He was an odd fellow. Before I met him I had been told a lot about him. I guess when I met him I was a little underwhelmed,” O’Hara said, referring to a tall tale about how Raniere supposedly tied a record in the hundred-yard dash. Raniere held volleyball games with the women in his cult, but O’Hara did not attend.
Kirsten Gillibrand’s Father Doug Rutnik Acted As A Broker Between NXIVM and then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
“I had known Doug Rutnik for a number of years. He was one of the people I thought of immediately for a couple of the problems that he (Raniere) had,” O’Hara said, including the fact that Raniere agreed to pay a certain amount of money to New York State stemming from the bankruptcy of his previous venture Consumer’s Buyline. “Keith never made the payments. I think it was around 45 or 50 thousand dollars.”
“I contacted Doug, and explained to him the situation. Doug could be the broker between Keith and the attorney general” O’Hara said. The attorney general was then Eliot Spitzer.
“Doug and I, Nancy and Keith had lunch at a little club. Keith came in and looked like a young middle-aged business exec. Doug said let’s check this out a little further,” O’Hara remembers. NXIVM was trying to get a license for a school.
The meeting occurred at the Fort Orange Club in Albany in 2004, according to O’Hara.
O’Hara hired a third party attorney in Albany to take a 5-day executive course at NXIVM, and the attorney expressed concerns about the group potentially not paying taxes and “living off the grid.”
Doug Rutnik’s Second Cousin, Gillibrand’s Future Stepmother, Got Very Involved
“Doug said I know somebody else I could send in. It’s his cousin Gwenn Belcourt. She comes back with rave reviews and Doug gets hired. Keith comes up with the money and pays off the attorney general.”
Thus, Gillibrand’s father acted as the broker between NXIVM and attorney general Eliot Spitzer after Gillibrand’s future stepmother Gwenn Belcourt gave NXIVM her full seal of approval.
“Doug was the one, I don’t know who he talked to, but he was the one who got the okay for…NXIVM sent Doug the check, and it was expressly to resolve the issue over Consumers Buyline. And then the issue went away.”
“Gwenn and I met. Doug said let’s have Gwenn go in and take a week-long course. She went in and she wrote up a report and was extremely positive. No issues with the schooling. No issues with the curriculum” at the NXIVM Center, O’Hara recalled.
“He told me this is my second cousin Gwenn. She was engaged at the time. She was a lawyer, someone Doug trusted.”
“Things were happening, one right after the other. Gwenn comes in, she writes the report, and Doug is doing work for them.”
“Meanwhile Gwenn does her thing and she starts taking more classes on her own. We paid for the one class she took…at some point Doug says, this is getting a little weird with Gwenn. He said she broke off her engagement because Nancy told her she needed to re-think her life. Nancy Salzman became Gwenn’s personal guru. She wanted to bring Gwenn in as full-time in-house counsel.”
“I know that she was taking a lot of classes at NXIVM,” O’Hara said of Gwenn Belcourt.
“NXIVM initiates a lawsuit against me and Doug, and Gwenn is still involved in NXIVM at that point. Doug goes in like a rescue mission. He finally convinces her what’s going on there and she leaves NXIVM. The next thing I know all of a sudden he said Gwenn and I are dating now. Shortly after that they’re engaged.”
“For several years, I saw them after they were married,” O’Hara said, noting that the couple was no longer in the cult.
Clinton Friend Richard Mays and Gillibrand’s Stepmother Gwenn Belcourt Both Got “Hooked” on the Cult
“I had done work down in Arkansas, I had met Richard (Mays) down there. He had great connections with Governor Clinton. His lieutenant governor Tucker became governor. I was trying to get in to make a presentation to the governor. Richard got me the meeting. He got me the meeting with Jim Guy Tucker,” O’Hara said.
“One of the other problems Keith had, he had an unpaid bill in Arkansas and he wanted to get an exoneration in Arkansas so he brought Richard Mays in and he got involved. Richard Mays started taking classes and got his daughter taking classes” at NXIVM.
“There were people who got hooked on it. Richard Mays was one. Gwenn Belcourt was another,” O’Hara said.
“I Had Created This Monster”
O’Hara said that he uncovered Raniere evading taxes and illegally obtaining private investigator information on his enemies, which led him to quit. NXIVM then waged lawfare against him.
“They destroyed me. I had created this monster. They didn’t know how to get political consultants. They didn’t know how to hire former senator D’Amato, they didn’t know how to hire Richard Mays out of Arkansas, best friends with the Clintons. They had all these people now in their arsenal and they destroyed me in short order,” O’Hara said.
Raniere once admitted in a videotape pulled from the Internet, “I am just a demon.”
PROOF RUTNIK WORKED FOR NXIVM
Former NXIVM employee Frank Parlato provided Big League Politics with copies of the court documents in NXIM’s suit against Rutnik, which prove Rutnik’s employment by the group. (READ THE FULL DOCUMENTS HERE).
“I worked as the publicist,” Frank Parlato told Big League Politics. “We ran into a major disagreement and we split. At the time I worked for them I thought they were a little peculiar but it wasn’t until the end that I realized they were a downright evil group.”
“There are women on the record who are now adults who have accused Raniere of statutory rape and there are some very suspicious incidents where Mexican girls came under the perimeters of Raniere’s control and left under suspicious circumstances. They came from Chihuahua Mexico. I reported this to the authorities,” Parlato said.
“Her father Doug Rutnik came to work as a consultant for NXIVM…he was fired, they sued him, and he had to pay them $100,000,” Parlato said, referring Gillibrand’s father.
Parlato is the NXIVM whistleblower who blew the lid off the case, including the revelation that NXIVM leader Keith Raniere’s cult was branding women with his initials.
“Her father’s wife, her stepmother, was also a member of NXIVM…Doug got her into the cult, Gillibrand’s father got Gillibrand’s future stepmother into the cult. Doug left the cult because he was sued. Clare Bronfman after her father was sued donated money to Gillibrand. Gillibrand accepted it.”
“One is inclined to call her a liar,” Parlato says of Gillibrand.
Pentagon Moves Forward: Transfers $1.5 Million For 80 More Miles Of Border Wall
By Hank Berrien
On Friday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan confirmed that the Pentagon has authorized an additional $1.5 billion to extend the wall along the U.S.-Mexicoborder 80 more miles.
Shanahan stated, according to Stars and Stripes: “The Department of Defense is fully engaged in addressing the crisis on our southwest border, with more than 4,000 servicemembers and 19 aircraft currently supporting the Department of Homeland Security. Today, I authorized the transfer of $1.5 billion toward the construction of more than 80 miles of border barrier. The funds were drawn from a variety of sources, including cost savings, programmatic changes, and revised requirements, and therefore will have minimal impact on force readiness.”
The additional $1.5 billion comes after the transfer of $1 billion for an additional 60 miles of wall in Yuma, Arizona and El Paso, Texas, that was made in March.
Fox News reports, “But the plan to divert Pentagon funding has sparked criticism from congressional Democrats, who accused Shanahan of not seeking approval to ‘reprogram’ the funds without congressional authority. Shanahan and other senior defense officials claimed in response they did not have to get permission from Congress despite the objections from Democratic lawmakers.”
The funds being transferred come from the Afghan Security Forces Fund, which describes itself as providing “assistance to the security forces of Afghanistan to include the provision of equipment, supplies, services, training, facility and infrastructure repair, renovation and construction, and funding.”
AP reported in late February that Shanahan visited the southern border and asserted, “How do we get out of treating the symptoms and get at the root of the issue? I don’t want to just add resources and not fix the problem.” AP wrote, “Shanahan said he was not volunteering the Pentagon to take over any part of border control, which is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security. But he said his visit led him to question whether there should be a ‘wholesale redesign’ of the way border control is done by the federal government.”
The Hill reported on Friday that Democrats would fight against transferring money for the wall:
The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced a bill that would prohibit using military construction funds on a border wall. The prohibition, included in the fiscal 2020 military construction and veterans affairs appropriations bill, would prohibit funds from the 2015 through 2020 fiscal years from being “obligated, expended or used to design, construct, or carry out a project to construct a wall, barrier, fence, or road” along the U.S. southern border. And House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told Shanahan during a panel hearing in March that the Pentagon would likely lose the reprogramming authority if it moved forward with the $1 billion funding transfer.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) added, “Funds for the wall should not be stolen from previously approved vital military construction projects that are a higher priority than any wall … Military construction dollars should be used only for the purpose they are provided, which is to support the Department of Defense’ mission, service members and their families.”
From Burkini to Obesity: Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Features Morbidly Obese Bikini Model
May 10, 2019
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit featured a morbidly obese bikini model this week as part of their new push for ‘diversity.’
Hunter McGrady, the young woman featured in Sports Illustrated SI 2019 is no doubt very pretty, however, she is morbidly obese.
“For too long we have heard talk that we need of diversity in media, but what exactly does that look like. The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and not only recognizing our individual differences, but accepting them wholeheartedly.” Hunter said in a SI column when asked what her thoughts on diversity are. “Differences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs or other ideologies need to be fully embraced as the very fabric that make up our modern understanding of the world today.”
Morbid obesity is one of the leading preventable causes of cancer and should never be celebrated –it is not ‘diverse,’ it is very unhealthy.
People who are morbidly obese, which is defined as being 100 pounds over his/her ideal weight, increase their chances of getting many different types of cancers.
Super morbidly obese women are 7 times more likely to develop endometrial cancer (cancer of the lining of the uterus) than normal weight women.
Obesity is not something that should be promoted or celebrated.
“Exposure to diversity is the catalyst that will ignite tolerance, acceptance and understanding.” – Hunter McGrady
A couple weeks ago, Sports Illustrated glamorized the oppression of women and promoted Sharia law by featuring a Muslim woman donning a hijab and burkini.
“We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Halima Aden is the newest member of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuitfamily, making history as the first Muslim model to wear a hijab and burkini in the magazine,” SI wrote.
The oppression of women and morbid obesity is now being celebrated by Sports Illustrated Swimsuit under the guise of diversity. Let that sink in.
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