Lefty Google Being Sued!

OCTOBER 22, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER 

THE RNC SUES GOOGLE

People in the industry refer to your email list as your “owned audience,” but it turns out you might not own it after all. The companies that run the major email systems tend to be on the left. My own organization moved away from MailChimp on account of apparent political bias that obstructed our ability to send emails, without restriction, to tens of thousands of email subscribers.

Now, the Republican National Committee is suing Google, alleging that Gmail is discriminating against Republicans during a crucial fundraising season:

The Republican National Committee is suing Google for its allegedly biased diversion of emails into recipients’ spam folders — and says it has the receipts to prove it.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in a California federal court, claims that the party’s email analytics programs have documented a 10-month pattern of email suppression toward the end of each month, “historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful,” the suit complains.
***
Since December, GOP emails to Gmail users who had opted into receiving them reached their in-boxes at a rate of 90% or better on most days of each month, the RNC alleged.

But repeatedly, for two or more days toward the end of each month, nearly 100% of the party’s emails were marked as spam, automatically routing them to an email folder that few users check.

Google denies any bias in its email algorithm. But then, there is this:

Researchers at North Carolina State University who studied email patterns ahead of the 2020 presidential election found that Google’s Gmail algorithm labeled GOP fundraising e-mails as spam at a rate 820% higher than Democratic Party messages, sparking a formal Republican complaint to the Federal Election Commission.

I don’t know whether the RNC’s complaint is well-founded or not, but, given everything we have learned about Big Tech, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. What I will say for certain is that the companies that control email traffic are an often-overlooked, but extremely important, sector of Big Tech.

Who’s Selling The Sex Changings?

OCTOBER 21, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at Power Line:

WHO WANTS SEX CHANGE OPERATIONS ON MINORS?

It isn’t usually hard to understand liberals’ policy positions. They want money and power, and you can generally see how their policies give them more money and more power. But the current “trans” mania is an exception to that principle. Why have liberals gone crazy over an issue–or, perhaps, a fad–that was unknown a few years ago? Over a segment of the population that barely exists? I can’t explain it.

Around the country, doctors and hospitals are performing sex-change operations on minors. Vanderbilt was doing this until a video emerged of a staffer saying how lucrative such operations are. But sex change operations on minors continue. To name just one example, the University of Minnesota is performing such surgeries, out of the limelight.

Are most people on board with sex change operations for minors? That seems impossible. Why would they be?

This survey by Trafalgar, which has been one of our most accurate pollsters in recent cycles, indicates the opposite: an overwhelming majority of people are not on board with the liberals’ bizarre ideology:

Do you believe underage minors should be required to wait until they are adults to use puberty blockers and undergo permanent sex change procedures?

The Trafalgar survey finds that Democrats are opposed to puberty blockers and sex change operations on minors by a relatively narrow 53% to 47%, while independents oppose such procedures on minors by 85% to 15%, and Republicans by 97% to 3%. Presumably there must be a reason why the Democratic Party has chosen sex change operations on minors as a hill to die on, but I can’t imagine what that reason might be.

A REAL GOP Governor For New York State???

October 22, 2022

Shockwave: Zeldin now tops Hochul in poll for New York governor

By Monica Showalter at American Thinker:

Who says blue states can’t go red?

A new poll from co/efficient shows that Republican Lee Zeldin is now leading Democrat incumbent Kathy Hochul for New York governor.

According to Breitbart News:

The co/efficient poll found that 45.6 percent of likely New York voters support Zeldin, just ahead of Hochul’s 45.3 percent. This pollster is the same pollster that predicted Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe last year.

 The result is a shock to leftist, but it’s on-trend, in terms of the red wave building for the midterms, and in terms of Zeldin’s already rising numbers. The trend has now crested above the Democrats, and for the first time in years, a Republican is now leading.

That’s got to come as a cold dunking for Democrats who for years have taken victory in the gubernatorial races for granted, to the extent that they could put a pervy ogre like Andrew Cuomo, a man who is so unpleasant he is said to have no friends and was once called by his own aides the man made for social distancing, into the governor’s chair, and always get away with it.

Apparently, that’s no longer. The ogre they put into place to succeed the disgraced Cuomo is every bit as awful as Cuomo in terms of her hostility to the police, her advocacy of bail reform, abortion, the transgender agenda, forced vaccines, COVID lockdowns, the demonization of parents speaking out at school board meetings and a host of other things baleful and repellant to voters. They didn’t care if voters didn’t like what was on the menu, and really didn’t like a mean karen out there shoving it down their throats.

Now they’re looking at defeat if the trends continue and New Yorkers can be wise to any bid to cheat.

According to Breitbart, citing the New York Post, the ongoing national trends are smacking these arrogant New York Democrats upside the head:

“The race has been tightening over the last few weeks and it appears that it is now a dead heat,” Munce told the New York Post. “The shift has been led by predominantly white and Hispanic registered Democrats defecting to support Zeldin, the Republican candidate.”

Additionally, the poll found that Zeldin has a higher favorability rating than Hochul, whose favorability numbers are lower than President Joe Biden’s.
 In contrast to the nasty, scowling, crotchety, and supercilious Hochul, Zeldin has come out as a good candidate — taking the abortion issue off the table by saying he’d keep everything as it is, which seems prudent in a place like New York, vowing to clean up the out-of-control crime situation, including ending the truly grotesque ‘no cash bail’ law which has set criminals free, and showing grace and leadership in the face of an actual assassin who made an attempt on his life. He’s campaigned with faith and done the legwork. 
Now the results are creeping in and sure enough, the red wave is so strong it’s reached the shores of New York. The New York Post is covering the story which could impact the fate of their state. The New York Times, surprise, surprise, is not. That tells us something about how unpleasant this news is to them.
That’s apparently all it takes, and now we see Zeldin in the lead and New York about to save itself from total blue-state destruction. 
Here’s another thing that may make it more likely: New York voters are a practical bunch and have managed to pull themselves back from the brink in the recent past. The memory among some of them is still there. They did elect George Pataki governor in 1995 to demand some results, but the really telling incident was in 1993 when they elected Rudolph Giuliani mayor of New York City. The result was instant transformation, night and day, the revitalization and crime eradication of all New York City and the big economic boom for the city that followed. New York became great again. Things became so safe in New York anyone could walk around the streets of the South Bronx at 3:00 a.m. and nothing would ever happen. I know that because I did it.
It is telling that Latinos and independents are behind this shift. If Latinos even in New York (you know — “live like Episcopalians, vote like Puerto Ricans” as the local saying goes about other ethnic groups) are moving to the Trump side of things, there’ve got to be very deep currents of political change going on throughout the country. 
Anything could happen of course in politics, maybe some sort of incident makes the voters reverse course and go back into their same-old blue shell, or the cheating is too intense, which happened in the last New Jersey governor’s race.
But right now, something does seem to be happening, changing, and the Democrat wokesters are about to get a wakeup call. The Latino and independent voters have had enough. Now the red wave is coming and one can only hope it spreads thoughout New York in time to save it.

The “judge’s motherly patience” MAKES ANGEL OF ONE OF AMERICA’S WORST MURDERERS?

October 22, 2022

Waukesha Mass Murderer Treated With Kid Gloves

By E. Jeffrey Ludwig at American Thinker:

The influence of Critical Race Theory is apparent in the trial of Darrell Brooks for the automobile massacre of six innocent people and injury to 60-plus individuals at a parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin in November 2021.  Additionally, we can see the influence of such disparate movements as feminism, deconstructionist philosophy, and nihilism.  These varied influences have enveloped the trial with an Alice in Wonderland aura, where there is virtuous posturing but not sufficient rationality, dignity, professionalism, and seriousness in play.

The two mainstays of Brooks’s defense, acting as his own lawyer, are (1) that he is not Darrell Brooks and (2) that the court does not have a right to try him as, somehow, it lacks jurisdiction to try murder cases in the state of Wisconsin even though it is a Wisconsin state court.  Thus, he is not the defendant named, and the court is not the proper court.  This is the nihilism inherent in his so-called defense, which, being absurd, is not a defense, yet his right to this non-defense is legitimate under the Sixth Amendment, according to a 1975 Supreme Court decision.  His non-defense being considered a defense is part of our societal dislocation. 

The judge, Jennifer Dorow, provided him with two copies of a paper explaining the nature of the court’s jurisdiction, but he tore up one of them.  Almost every time his name is used by the judge, the prosecuting attorneys, or the witnesses, he objects (imitating lawyers, he says, “Objection!”).  On those many occasions, the judge says, “Overruled,” and then the witness can answer the questions asked about “Mr. Brooks.”  It is a tiresome charade at best, and it identifies the defendant as unserious, a disruptive clown attempting to make a sham out of his trial.  He is saying, “How can I be the defendant if I am not Darrell Brooks?”  These overrulings of Brooks’s objections fail to address the reality that he is belittling the law.

Supposedly in an effort to be fair, we as a society have painted ourselves into a corner where sober realities have begun to disintegrate before our eyes, and that disintegration is actively welcomed by far too many people.  Jacques Derrida and Michael Foucault, French philosophers of the deconstructionist school of philosophy, advanced the views that our language is in some important sense arbitrary, and their views have influenced many during the past 60 years.  For deconstructionists, the denotation/connotation distinction that we have relied upon for a very long time is itself arbitrary, and the essential meaning of words, which we consider to be denotation (derived from Aristotle’s understanding of “essence” — although Derrida emphasized the origin with Plato), is invalid.  They believe there is much more variability in meanings of words than denotation would suggest, so communication is more of a creative act than we normally realize.  Oprah Winfrey’s attempt to replace the importance of The Truth with “My Truth” is an expression of the shift away from denotation and permanence by the above-named deconstructionists beginning in the 1960s.

Deconstructionism in our use of language — i.e., the denial of the denotative — is thus clearly related to nihilism, which skips the step of language and declares all fixed beliefs as unworthy simply because they are fixed and thus block change.  Change for the nihilist might seem chaotic at first but will bring a refreshment of society, as it will lead to the abandonment of oppressive rigidity.

This writer, when first watching the trial of the Waukesha murderer, considered the judge a paragon of patience as she explained every statement made to the defendant, and answered his objections with a big sisterly, considerate tone of voice.  Only when his acting out became too extreme did she temporarily punish him by sending him to another courtroom where his microphone could be muted if his responses or interpositions were offensive.

This big sisterly or motherly patience seemed to dovetail with the intent that there be no impression that this black defendant was being railroaded by white prosecutors or a white judge.  The attempt to portray the American justice system as deeply racist in its prosecutions and convictions has been around for a long time but has accelerated during the past couple of years after George Floyd died in police custody and the policeman in charge of that detail was convicted of murder.

That case and other controversial cases, which led to police reforms and violent protests in recent years, have put the justice system on the defensive.  We have seen more arrested persons released throughout the country without paying bail, and there has been an upsurge in crimes throughout our cities.  However, there are many who believe that we are more moral and correct if we underreact than if, in the name of zealous law enforcement, we overreact and create a climate perceived to be racially oppressive.  The idea of systemic racism in our legal system, developed by Derrick Bell, a professor at Harvard Law School, has morphed into a full-scale critique of law enforcement practices by advocates of Critical Race Theory, notably the Black Lives Matter organization and its affiliates.

Thus, the judge’s motherly patience, as if toward a wayward or recalcitrant child, seemed to be in evidence throughout the proceedings in Wisconsin.  At first, it seemed to me that this was good because it would serve to reassure the critics of our justice system that justice could be served in a white-dominated trial.  However, the idea that justice is served by our willingness to be manipulated as proof of our “love” is inherently false, and I have retreated from my original respect for the judge and the ever-patient prosecution.  This is, I believe, a fruit of feminism, which sees motherly love as a model of the best behavior.  A more severe/fatherly tone would have been better.

The defendant should not be allowed to repeat his endless objections to the proceedings.  Rather, he should have been in the separated courtroom throughout and his microphone muted every time he made nonsensical objections.  The judge should not feel that it is incumbent upon herself to meticulously explain her reasoning regarding many matters of law that Brooks does not understand and obviously does not want to understand.  His attempts to argue with witnesses or with the judge should not only be explained to him as unlawful, but should not be allowed at all, since they only encourage the playacting and pretense of fairness — whereas the trial is, with his inordinate participation, more of a farce than a trial.

Trouble, Trouble, Trouble IN COMMIE RED CHINA?

OCTOBER 22, 2022 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN CHINA, COMMUNISM, SOCIAL MEDIA

HU’S NEXT

Reuters has a good story on the forcible removal of Chinese former President Hu Jintao from the closing ceremony of the Communist Party Congress on Saturday:

Hu, 79, Xi Jinping’s immediate predecessor, was seated to the left of Xi. He was led off the stage of the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing by two stewards, a Reuters witness at the congress said.

Video footage published by AFP showed a steward repeatedly trying to lift Hu from his seat, drawing concerned looks from officials seated nearby. Hu then put his hand on a sheet of paper placed on Xi’s folder but Xi quickly put his hand on the sheet.

Deeper into the story Reuters adds this: “Video of the incident, highly unusual given the meticulous stage management of most such events, was widely shared on Twitter but could not be found on China’s heavily censored social media platforms.”

I think that this is an example of persecution and the art of writing — i.e., communication between the lines under illiberal conditions: “On China’s Twitter-like Weibo, a few social media users alluded to the incident by commenting on old posts featuring Hu, a common tactic used to evade cyberspace censors.” It’s a lesson that might come in handy for us as well.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=powerlineUS&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1583788024390774786&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2022%2F10%2Fhus-next.php&sessionId=392380e769269feb64abd12dbec0f8edce2921e5&siteScreenName=powerlineUS&theme=light&widgetsVersion=1c23387b1f70c%3A1664388199485&width=550px

Hasn’t Adult Biden ALWAYS BEEN CROOKED?

The DOJ Is Hiding Information About Biden’s Attempts To Interfere In U.S. Elections

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD at the Federalist:

OCTOBER 21, 2022

The DOJ is hiding records about Biden’s order telling federal agencies to develop plans to interfere in state election administration.

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is slow-walking its response to a federal court order mandating that the agency forfeit records pertaining to President Joe Biden’s March 2021 executive order that directed federal agencies to develop plans for federal interference in state election administration.

On Thursday evening, the agency filed a motion for summary judgment with the Fort Myers Division of the U.S. Middle District Court of Florida in an attempt to conceal communication records related to Executive Order 14019, which required all federal departments to “consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.” In law, “summary judgment” is a decision issued by a court based on statements and evidence for one party against another without going to a full trial.

The move to shield the records in question from the public comes after a federal judge mandated in July that the agency must turn over documents related to Biden’s order to the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), which sued the DOJ back in April after its officials failed to respond to FGA’s July 2021 open records requests. While the DOJ ultimately turned over a few of the records to FGA last month, the documents were heavily redacted and did not include the DOJ’s 15-page “strategic plan” on how the agency intends to comply with Biden’s executive order.

In their Thursday legal filing arguing for a summary judgment, the DOJ claimed that its Civil Rights Division (CRT) “has submitted a reasonably specific declaration” describing the search that CRT “conducted for records responsive to FGA’s [Freedom of Information Act] request” and that documents withheld or redacted by the DOJ are protected under the “presidential communications privilege.”

“The presidential communications privilege applies to the Strategic Plan because it was ‘solicited and received by the President[’s] . . . immediate White House advisers with broad and significant responsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given the President’ regarding voting rights issues,” the DOJ filing reads. “The Strategic Plan therefore falls squarely within the scope of the presidential communications privilege.”

Most notable in the agency’s arguments, however, is the contention that the release of the information requested by FGA would cause “public confusion” and that “such public confusion would result from disclosure of the Strategic Plan because it contains many proposed actions that the public might construe as ‘future commitments, past actions, or provisions already in place.’”

“DOJ therefore properly withheld the Strategic Plan in its entirety,” the agency claimed.

In response to the DOJ’s continued coverup, FGA President and CEO Tarren Bragdon issued a statement blasting the agency’s behavior, saying that it’s “clear” that Biden’s administration “has weaponized DOJ to hide records and is using the legal process to run out the clock before the midterm elections.”

“DOJ offered flimsy excuses to justify concealing key information regarding their participation in government-funded ‘get out the vote’ efforts,” Bragdon said. “FGA will not stop fighting to uncover these records and expose the full scope of the Biden administration’s mass voter registration scheme. The law and the American people are on our side.”

As reported by Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway, Biden’s executive order isn’t just unethical and unconstitutional, but “a recipe for chaos, confusion, and fraud at a time when election security concerns are particularly fraught.”

“Executive Order 14019 ignores that the Constitution does not give the executive branch authority over elections. That power is reserved for the states, with a smaller role for Congress,” Hemingway explained. Considering that “H.R. 1 and other Democrat Party efforts to grab more control over elections have thus far failed,” she added, “Congress hasn’t authorized such an expansion.”

With the 2022 midterms rapidly approaching, the Biden DOJ has since been ramping up its efforts to intervene in elections under the guise of targeting voter “intimidation” in various states across the country. Most recently, the DOJ’s district attorney in New Hampshire, Jane Young, appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth R. Aframe to “lead the efforts of her office in connection with the Justice Department’s nationwide Election Day Program” for the November elections.

“The Department of Justice has an important role in deterring and combatting discrimination and intimidation at the polls, threats of violence directed at election officials and poll workers, and election fraud,” an agency press release read. “The Department will address these violations wherever they occur.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review.

“Russia Is Different…”

October 21, 2022

Who is Putin… and What if He is Gone?

By Alexander G. Markovsky at American Thinker:

Speaking in Poland in March 2022, President Biden declared, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

Despite the White House’s denial, it is widely understood that the US policy is a regime change in Moscow and, by extension, the promotion of Western democracy in Russia. However, those who wish that Vladimir Putin would go away and work to that end must be aware that the gods often punish men by fulfilling their wishes too completely.

The Western folly is that Westerners measure Putin per their values. But Russia is different; one cannot understand Putin without understanding the Russian national character, which derives from more than a thousand years of history and embraces different values and ideals than those of Western Europeans and Americans.  

So, while we can concede that Vladimir Putin is not Thomas Jefferson and Russia does not pass muster with the National Endowment for Democracy, we should also acknowledge that from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, with the notable exceptions of Czar Nikolas II and President Boris Yeltsin, Russia has been ruled by ruthless autocrats. Considering this background, Putin may be the most moderate leader Russia has ever had. 

Regrettably, if history is any guide, the moderates and democracy do not do well in Russia. Russian Czar Nikolas II, a moderate autocrat, was forced to abdicate after a series of defeats Russia suffered in the First World War ignited a Marxist revolutionary movement.

A few months later, in October of 1917, the democratically elected Provisional Government was overthrown by the grisly gang of Bolshevik terrorists who took power in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and proclaimed a revolutionary doctrine rejecting all established concepts of order. After a descent into a series of upheavals, civil war, famine, and Stalin’s “Great Terror” that took around forty million lives, the country defeated Nazi Germany and emerged as the powerful Soviet Union and the leader of the Warsaw Pact, threatening the world with nuclear annihilation.

In 1991 the communist colossal crumbled and democratically elected president Boris Yeltsin replaced the Marxist-Leninist government. The event was viewed as a triumph of democracy. But the jubilation proved to be premature. Russian democracy demonstrated pathetic frailty by allowing mobsters and heads of organized crime syndicates to get elected to the Duma – the Russian parliament, and shield themselves from law enforcement with parliamentary immunity. Oligarchs and organized crime de facto run the country. They looted the Soviet economy and plunged Russia into chaos and bankruptcy. Saint Valentine’s Day Massacres became a routine method of resolving business disputes.  Order needed to be restored if the country was not to disintegrate.

But, Schools At All Levels Are Lefties!

READING:CONSERVATIVE VOTERS SHOULD DEMAND THAT REPUBLICANS DO MORE AT UNIVERSITIES

Conservative Voters Should Demand That Republicans Do More at Universities

By Todd Carney at REALCLEARPOLITICS:
October 21, 2022

AP Pool

The University of Florida’s recent decision to hire Nebraska Republican senator Ben Sasse as its president spurred debate. Many on the Left predictably lamented having a Republican lead a major university. The Right was divided. Some praised Sasse for his previous university experience and independent voice. Others, including former president Donald Trump, criticized the pick, deeming Sasse a “RINO.” Still others speculated on the role of Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the move.

DeSantis did not pick Sasse to be president of the University of Florida, however – Florida’s Board of Trustees did. But DeSantis has appointed several of these trustees, including the chairman of the board, Mori Hosseini, with whom DeSantis has a close friendship. Prominent Florida journalist Marc Caputo reported, “DeSantis’s man at UF has engineered Sasse’s hiring.”

https://547d489cd923963efe2c77596f7e52dd.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Sasse has a solid conservative voting record and won praise for his time as president of Midland University. But he accomplished little in the Senate. He ran for a second term, though many suspected he had no interest in serving. His resignation confirms these suspicions. Sasse enjoyed sticking his thumb in the eye of Republicans when it suited him. Early in his term, he received media attention for opposing Trump in 2016. He muted his opposition to Trump when he was battling for reelection. After Sasse won the primary for a second term, which guaranteed his re-election, he resumed attacking Trump.

The University of Florida is the main university for America’s fourth most populous state. U.S. News & World Report ranks it the nation’s fifth-best public university. It will be the most prominent university to have a right-leaning president. But Sasse’s record casts doubt on whether he will seize this opportunity to bring real change.

Former governor Mitch Daniels’s presidency at Purdue University offers a useful perspective. Daniels had a stellar conservative record as governor of Indiana, but he retreated from cultural issues and called for a “truce” with liberals on social issues. Daniels took this approach to Purdue. There, Daniels worked wonders, preventing tuition increases and increasing educational offerings. But Purdue recently planned to require critical race theory classes for music students – at least until public backlash made the school backtrack. Purdue also runs a “health equity” initiative, led by former Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who thinks banning abortion is racist, has deemed any criticism of himself racist, and supported mask mandates as late as this past spring. Only time will tell if Sasse follows Daniels’s approach.

DeSantis has sought to reform higher education, by limiting tenure and requiring balance in curriculum at Florida’s universities. If Sasse undermines these goals, it would disrupt DeSantis’s record on education and give Trump an issue to attack DeSantis on in 2024.

The higher-education debate does not end in Florida. Conservatives criticized South Dakota governor Kristi Noem for kowtowing to the NCAA by vetoing a bill to require students to play in their biological gender’s division in sports. Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has sought to end woke efforts at the Virginia Military Institute by putting conservatives on the board of trustees.

A public university in South Carolina conducted research on “gender affirming” care for children, and the University of South Carolina released a “pronoun guide.” The University of Tennessee requires “diversity work” in order for professors to gain tenure. The University of Nebraska allows students to “report” “offensive speech.” These three states have Republican governors and state legislatures.

Less than 10 percent of public university professors are conservative, yet 23 states have Republican governors and state legislatures. These 23 states could do more to support political diversity in academia.

It remains to be seen whether Sasse will make any difference at the University of Florida. But his appointment is a reminder that politicians can influence policy at public universities. Every time they go to the polls, conservatives should ask what candidates are doing to fight the woke agenda on campus – and vote accordingly.

Todd Carney is a lawyer and frequent contributor to RealClearPolitics. He earned his juris doctorate from Harvard Law School.