Not too many of the last two generations will know what the Hell this post’s header picture ^^^ is about.
Tech Goliaths in Serious Need of David’s Rock Upside the Head(s)…
Ian Miles Cheong: The Internet Accountability Project Takes The Fight to Big Tech. And we’ll be joining them.
“For far too long, Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have gotten away with profiting from human-sex trafficking, revenge-porn, the opioid epidemic and drug addiction, terrorism, and other forms of human misery, along with engaging in egregious business practices like snooping, spying, political bias against conservatives, employee abuses, and anticompetitive conduct,” Davis said.
“Enough is enough. It’s time to re-boot Big Tech, upgrade and reformat the sweetheart laws that protect them, and enforce the antitrust, consumer- and employee-protection, and similar laws already on the books,” he added. “We are pleased that 50 state attorneys general, along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, have taken the bold and courageous steps of investigating Big Tech’s ‘bad acts,” and we will support other government officials in their efforts to investigate and hold Big Tech accountable.” …
“It is critical to protect innovation and ingenuity in the tech space, but to do so mindfully. Big Tech should not be allowed to become the arbiters of communication in America without input from citizens and policy makers,” said Rachel Bovard, who has served in various roles in the House and Senate, including as legislative director for Senator Rand Paul.
“It is important for those on the Right to begin discussing whether our public policy has kept pace with Big Tech, who now owns our data, much of our privacy, and in many cases, is pulling the levers of our political communication. IAP is here to help facilitate that conversation.” …
Stop the video. Rewind the clip. Watch the steam go from the ears to the head, forming a crown, not of apostolic succession but apocalyptic surrender. Picture, too, a trio of technicians off-camera: engineers in white coveralls—men pacing inside a 1967 Ford Econoline—struggling to grab the toggles on a remote control, while the man in charge radios headquarters to shut Mark Zuckerberg . . . down.
Zuckerberg’s latest failure to pass the Turing test is a warning to those wayward Disney Imagineers who, through a combination of intellectual vanity and theft of intellectual property, assembled a CEO from pneumatic valves, hydraulic fluids, threaded rods, metal reeds, and magnetic tape.
Zuckerberg’s assertion that Facebook is a democratic system, with its own currency and soon-to-be Supreme Court, proves one of three things: Either Zuckerberg believes what he says, which constitutes a revolution in the definition and management of a for-profit corporation, as well as a revolution in thought, that Zuckerberg can and does think, or our erstwhile leader—a Lincoln of Adamsean stature—is a very bad liar.
Facebook is a democracy in the same way Twitter is an online version of the Algonquin Round Table. Which is to say it is not; which is to say we have no say; which is to say what Zuckerberg says rules, all courts, boards, and committees to the contrary.
Some words, also, about Zuckerberg’s choice of words.
Our republic is mortal, our rights eternal.
Whether America endures, democratic in spirit and republican in practice, whether the truths we hold remain self-evident, whether we hold our government accountable, whether the government defends our national bank account of justice and opportunity—all this depends on our decision to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity.
We have a social contract, not a social media contract….
Breitbart: Facebook Admits It’s a Publisher in Court Filings
CNBC: Twitter exec says it’s OK for autocrats to have accounts as long as they follow its rules
WJ: Facebook Created Over 100 Pro-ISIS Pages, Meantime Censoring Conservatives
Among its options, it may spin the satellite TV unit into a separate company or sell it to a rival, such as Dish Network, according to the report, which cites unnamed sources.
A source familiar with the matter told The Dallas Morning News there are no discussions between Dish and AT&T because of regulatory concerns. Federal regulators stopped a deal between the two companies in 2002, citing consumer harm.
AT&T declined to comment.
The report about a potential DirecTV sale comes about a week after an activist investor publicly questioned AT&T’s business strategy and succession plan. In a 23-page letter, New York-based hedge fund Elliott Management criticized decisions by company management and called for the divestment of “any assets that do not have a clear, strategic rationale for being part of AT&T.” One of those, it said, is DirecTV.
Elliott holds a $3.2 billion stake, or 1%, in AT&T. It said its recommendations would drive AT&T’s stock price above $60 by the end of 2021.
AT&T paid $67 billion, including debt, for DirecTV four years ago. With it, AT&T became the largest pay-TV provider in the country. The move also signaled the company’s growing interest in the world of entertainment.
But Elliott said in its letter that the pricey acquisition was a mistake that has had “damaging results.” AT&T closed the deal just as customers were shifting away from traditional cable and satellite TV subscriptions, it said….
Heading Into Off-Season Hardball…
VDH: Trump’s Total Culture War
Donald Trump is waging a nonstop, all-encompassing war against progressive culture, in magnitude analogous to what 19th-century Germans once called a Kulturkampf.
As a result, not even former President George W. Bush has incurred the degree of hatred from the left that is now directed at Trump. For most of his time in office, Trump, his family, his friends and his businesses have been investigated, probed, dissected and constantly attacked.
In 2016 and early 2017, Barack Obama appointees in the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice tried to subvert the Trump campaign, interfere with his transition and, ultimately, abort his presidency. Now, congressional Democrats promise impeachment before the 2020 election.
The usual reason for such hatred is said to be Trump’s unorthodox and combative take-no-prisoners style. Critics detest his crude and unfettered assertions, his lack of prior military or political experience, his attacks on the so-called bipartisan administrative state, and his intent to roll back the entire Obama-era effort of “fundamentally transforming” the country leftward.
Certainly, Trump’s agenda of closing the border, using tariffs to overturn a half-century of Chinese mercantilism, and pulling back from optional overseas military interventions variously offends both Democrats and establishment Republicans…
To make things worse for his critics, Trump’s economy is booming as never before in the new 21st century: near-record-low unemployment, a record number of Americans working, increases in workers’ wages and family incomes, low interest rates, low inflation, steady GDP growth and a strong stock market.
Yet the real source of Trump derangement syndrome is his desire to wage a multifront pushback — politically, socially, economically and culturally — against what might be called the elite postmodern progressive world….
Jeffrey Lord: Corey Lewandowski’s Home Run: Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee Democrats humiliated.
Under Chairman Jerrold Nadler, the committee has become infamous as a political clown show, with Nadler’s fellow Democrats turning a committee with the job of an impartial oversight of the administration of justice into a partisan lynch mob intent on impeaching a president for no other reason than that he won the 2016 election.
Corey sat down at the witness table, looked Chairman Nadler and his fellow Democrats in the eye, and effortlessly hit a political home run, saying this of the Mueller report:
It is now clear the investigation was populated by many Trump haters who had their own agenda — to try and take down a duly elected president of the United States. As for actual collusion or conspiracy, there was none. What there has been, however, is harassment of this president from the day he won the election.
Bingo.
Calmly, dispassionately — not to mention with a dash of humor — Lewandowski easily swatted away the rantings and railings coming in his direction. He rendered his questioners, like those long-ago Chicago Cubs mercilessly badgering and berating Babe Ruth, humiliated and scorned.
The mass humiliation of Nadler and his fellow Judiciary Committee Democrats was not lost on commentators on the liberal cable nets. Courtesy of Rush Limbaugh, who put together a montage of fuming anti-Trumpers and Never Trumpers that went like this…
What Corey Lewandowski did this week was shine the spotlight on the foaming irrationality of those obsessed with Trump and suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Those afflicted with TDS have no idea how crazy, not to mention intolerant and contemptuous of their fellow Americans, they appear….
Tyler O’Neil: Groundbreaking $4.8M Lawsuit Threatens to Unearth SPLC’s Secrets
Over the past two years, the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has faced numerous lawsuits for defamation and other claims. The SPLC earned its reputation by suing the Ku Klux Klan, and in recent decades it has accused various organizations of being “hate groups,” listing them along with the KKK in a cynical attempt to raise money and destroy its political enemies. While the SPLC paid a $3.375 million settlement to Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz last year, none of the many lawsuits against the SPLC has threatened to reveal its secrets — until now.
Every lawsuit against the SPLC has been stalled or dismissed or settled, with none reaching the discovery process — a legal process by which a plaintiff can investigate the internal documents of the organization or person he or she is suing. On Tuesday, a judge dismissed a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) lawsuit, claiming CIS attempted to shoehorn a defamation claim into a racketeering claim. CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian told PJ Media his group is considering an appeal.
The discovery process threatens to reveal the SPLC’s hidden documents. This is a big deal because the organization had a serious shake-up in March, when it fired its co-founder and cleaned house at the top in response to claims of sexual harassment and racial discrimination. The secretive SPLC did not even reveal the employee letter that led to this massive shake-up, and there is likely more dirt still to be uncovered….
MORE:
John Sexton: Rep. Meadows: Comey’s congressional testimony at odds with what he told IG Horowitz, new referral needed
Chuck Ross: ‘O Reports’: State Department Provides First Glimpse At Christopher Steele’s Pre-Dossier Intel Reports
Steven Emerson: The Orwellian Universe of Linda Sarsour
Rush Limbaugh: If Everyone Knows the New York Times Lies, Why Should Anyone Read It?
