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Mon., July 17, 2017
“I'm not certain (Senate Republicans) actually know exactly what they want to do (on ObamaCare) yet. That's a problem – and that's a leadership problem. They need to have a bold leader and (Senate Majority Leader Mitch) McConnell has got to become a bold, bold leader.” - Former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff
Caught Napping, Print Newspapers are Running to Congress for a Bailout
NEWS FLASH: Newspapers are under siege! A new communications barbarian is at the gate; reaching a wider, different audience and draining advertising revenue! How can newspapers survive?Actually, this isn’t a new story about the encroachment of Internet outlets on the hallowed ground of print newspapers. Indeed, such dire warnings were sounded way back in the 1920s over the arrival of…
Radio.
“The radio is at present one of the most important tools of the propagandist,” wrote Edwards Bernays, the “Father of Spin,” in 1928. “Its ability to reach millions of persons simultaneously naturally appeals to the advertiser. And since the average advertiser has a limited appropriation for advertising, money spent on the radio will tend to be withdrawn from the newspaper.”
So how did newspapers respond to the threat?
Successful newspapers adapted to the new market in a variety of ways, including buying radio stations, assuring their continued existence to this day almost 100 years later.
But one thing they DIDN’T do back then was run to the government begging for protectionist legislation. In that regard, times have indeed changed.
In a New York Sun column this week, Ira Stoll reveals that “Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, New York Times owner Carlos Slim, and Buffalo News owner Warren Buffett, publicly pleading poverty, are asking Congress for a helping hand” in fending off new online advertising competitors.
Uh-oh.
“Whenever President Trump attacks CNN or berates the Washington Post, journalists and free-speech advocates rise up to defend the media and the First Amendment,” wrote David Chavren, president and chief executive of the News Media Alliance, in a whiny op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal last week.
“Meanwhile, a greater threat to America’s news industry looms mostly unnoticed: Google and Facebook’s duopolistic dominance of online advertising, which could do far more damage to the free press than anything the president posts on Twitter.”
Oh, the horror!
“The two digital giants don’t employ reporters,” the river-crying Chavren continued. “They don’t dig through public records to uncover corruption, send correspondents into war zones, or attend last night’s game to get the highlights. They expect an economically squeezed news industry to do that costly work for them.”
So what the legacy print newspapers want Congress to do is exempt them from antitrust laws so they can collude together to battle Google and Facebook for advertising revenue after being caught asleep at the switch when digital advertising, much like radio before it a hundred years ago, arrived on the scene.
“The (News Media Alliance) wants a new law that will let it bargain collectively when its members are up against Google and Facebook,” explains Kai Ryssdal and Molly Woodat the online publication Marketplace.org.
“Normally this could get members into trouble with antitrust regulators, but they’re asking for a special pass because, they said, those two digital giants have too much control over how news gets distributed and they’re sucking up all the ad dollars.”
Cue world’s smallest violins, because as Mr. Ryssdal points out, “They didn’t keep up digitally and now they want special treatment.” And as Ms. Woods adds, “The news business did not transition to digital soon enough to keep these ad dollars.”
In other words, the fat, rich and lazy newspapers screwed up and missed the boat when “The Disruptors” came to town.
“Google and Facebook continue to gobble up the digital advertising market, siphoning away revenue that once paid for the quality journalism that Google and Facebook now offer for free,” whines Jim Rutenberg of the “failing” New York Times.
Google and Facebook, he complains, “are, at the end of the day, the royals of the court. Quality news providers are the supplicants and the serfs.”
The notion that the liberal “fake news” NYT is a purveyor of “quality news” is laughable, as is the notion that newspapers which have enjoyed monopoly regional control over both news and print advertising for decades are now “supplicants and serfs.”
“The truth is that newspapers made money in the past not by providing societal value, but by having quasi-monopolistic control of print advertising in their geographic area,” notes the online publication Daily Stratechery. “Google and Facebook are not profitable because they took newspapers’ reporting; they are profitable because they took their advertising.”
Print newspapers adapted and overcame the disruptive force of radio siphoning off advertising dollars back in the 1920s. And they did it without running to Congress for special, protective treatment. If begging for a bailout is truly their only option today, they’re already too far gone to be saved. They’re doomed.
And guess what? The republic will survive.
Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of Nevada News & Views ONLINE
Sweden just proved Trump right about refugees
By Matt Palumbo
Getty Images
While running for President last year, the self-professed “Democratic-Socialist” Bernie Sanders urged us to look at Sweden as a model for what the United States should be. He was making reference to their economic model, one best described as a “capitalist welfare state:” extremely high taxes with generous benefits (all the kind of government freebies Bernie wants).
He’s taking the wrong lessons from Sweden — as their rates of economic growth have slowed greatly after transitioning from a laissez-faire model to having a large welfare state, but that’s a subject for another article.
Now we have a new lesson from Sweden, this one with regard to its refugee crisis. Both Bernie and Hillary Clinton supported increasing the number of middle eastern refugees into the US — but how has that worked out for Sweden?
As it turns out, when your social safety net is a hammock, there’s little desire for their new residents to work.
Perhaps it seemed like a good idea at the time, or at least humanitarian. Sweden let 163,000 “refugees” into their once-idyllic country last year, and government officials assured wary citizens that they would aid the economy.
But a new report from the state-funded broadcaster says that just 494 — or 0.30306748466258% — have found jobs. Now that’s a low number: You’d have to triple it just to get to 1%.
The figures of migrant unemployment follow a trend in Sweden of high unemployment for foreigners. The unemployment for those born in Sweden is at the lowest point since the 2008 financial crisis at around 4.8 per cent, while foreign born unemployment is at 14.9 per cent.
This means that there are fewer people in Sweden paying tax into the generous “Swedish model” welfare system. Some have said that the influx of foreigners who do not work will strain the welfare system to the point of collapse as foreigners are expected to make up 60 per cent of unemployed residents in Sweden by 2017.
Meanwhile, the statistics for welfare use among Middle Eastern refugees in America are shocking:
Much of the debate over refugee resettlement has focused on moral arguments, but how is it moral to bear the costs of resettling refugees in America when for the same cost we could resettle ten times as many in the Middle East? Refugees resettled in surrounding Middle Eastern countries will also have the advantage of speaking the language — which should help with the job search.
Still need convincing? Here are 18 more reasons why it is crucial to support Trump
This article is a list of many other notable positive actions that the president has taken for which all who treasure life, family, and faith should praise and thank the president. Undoubtedly, I have missed items that should be added to this list. If you are aware of any, please note them by entering them in a comment under the story in Disqus comments.
1. November 23, 2016 — Trump appointed pro-life Gov. Nikki Haley as UN ambassador. This signaled a total reversal of the Obama direction at the United Nations.
2. December 25, 2016 — Trump named strong social conservative, Dr. Ben Carson, as his choice for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Carson was confirmed in the position on March 2, 2017.
3. January 23, 2017 — Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy ban on U.S. funding to defunding International Planned Parenthood and foreign pro-abortion groups. It was not just a repeat of the old Republican policy. In fact, it is vastly stronger.
4. January 25, 2017 — President Trump very publicly called out mainstream media for failing to the cover the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, stated, “We have never seen anything like this.” 5. Trump also sent Vice President Pence and his counselor, Kellyanne Conway, to speak to the March. A president has never sent such senior representatives to speak at this annual event that takes place steps from the White House. Because of President Trump’s actions, the major television networks covered the March for Life 37 times more this year than in 2016.
6. February 2, 2017 – The president spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. He said the world has a duty to stop the genocide of Christians in the Middle East, that we "must never, ever" stop asking God for wisdom, and he declared that America will flourish "when religious liberty can flourish."
7. February 21, 2017 — Melania Trump surprised her husband by leading the Lord’s Prayer at a Trump rally and the president publicly complimented her for this. 8. Donald Trump has consistently been bringing God back into government and invoking His name for the good of the nation. That has been a vast change from President Obama’s mostly secularist but also Islam-fawning approach.
9. April 13, 2017 — Trump signed a law overturning a last-minute Obama-era regulation, H.J. Res. 43, forcing states to fund Planned Parenthood.
10. April 28, 2017 — Trump appointed leading U.S. pro-life activist Dr. Charmaine Yoest to be Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. This was major.
11. May 2, 2017 — President Trump named pro-life activist Teresa Manning, a law professor with a pro-life background who has questioned the effectiveness of contraception, to deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Population Affairs of the Health and Human Services Department (HHS).
12. May 23, 2017 — President Trump's 2018 budget proposal had one goal of withholding all federal funds from abortion-provider Planned Parenthood. As it has turned out, this has proved to be much more difficult to implement than expected, but the effort is consistently being made. Divisions among Republicans in Congress and in the Senate have created severe challenges for Trump’s promises to defund abortions in the U.S. and to repeal and replace the Obamacare disaster.
12. May 23, 2017 — President Trump's 2018 budget proposal had one goal of withholding all federal funds from abortion-provider Planned Parenthood. As it has turned out, this has proved to be much more difficult to implement than expected, but the effort is consistently being made. Divisions among Republicans in Congress and in the Senate have created severe challenges for Trump’s promises to defund abortions in the U.S. and to repeal and replace the Obamacare disaster.
13. May 23, 2017 — Trump hired another top social conservative, Shannon Royce, former chief of staff at the Family Research Council, to serve as the Director of the Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships at HHS
14. April 11, 2017 — President Trump appointed social conservative Roger Severino to head the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a choice celebrated by pro-family advocates and condemned by pro-LGBTQ leftists.
15. April 4, 2017 — The Trump administration withdrew U.S. funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its participation in China's forced abortion regime.
16. June 20, 2017 — In the last of four successful Republicans wins in recent special elections, pro-life candidate Karen Handel beat her pro-abortion opponent despite his having received massive, out-of-state Democrat funding. These wins by conservative candidates were seen to reflect public approval of the Trump presidency that contradicted the claims of the constant Democrat and allied media Trump-hate-generating campaign.
17. June 22, 2017 — The Trump administration told the United Nations: Abortion is not "family planning."
18. July 13, 2017 — Under President Donald Trump, more Christian refugees have been admitted to the United States in the first six months of 2017 than Muslim refugees, a departure from the Obama-era.
Elizabeth Warren Panicked Fundraising Email: Kid Rock Senate Run No ‘Joke’
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren signed on to a fundraising email Friday warning Democrats not to take lightly the prospect of a Michigan Senate run by musician Kid Rock.
“I know a lot of people are thinking: this is some sort of joke, right?” the Massachusetts senator wrote in a fundraising email with the subject line, “Senator Kid Rock (R-MI),” according to the Boston Herald. “Well, maybe this is all a joke — but we all thought Donald Trump was joking when he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced his campaign, too.”
“I know a lot of people are thinking: this is some sort of joke, right?” the Massachusetts senator wrote in a fundraising email with the subject line, “Senator Kid Rock (R-MI),” according to the Boston Herald. “Well, maybe this is all a joke — but we all thought Donald Trump was joking when he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced his campaign, too.”
“And sure, maybe this is just a marketing gimmick for a new album or tour — but we all thought Donald Trump was just promoting his reality show, too,” she added.
The senator’s email comes after Rock — real name Robert James Ritchie — posted a link to a new campaign website, kidrockforsenate.com, on his Twitter account Wednesday.
In a follow-up post on his website Thursday, the 46-year-old Romeo, Michigan, native said his announcement was “not a hoax,” and took a shot at both incumbent Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow and the media, whom he said “once again” were “wrong” about his potential candidacy.
Kid Rock inducts Cheap Trick at the 31st Annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Barclays Center on April 8, 2016 in New York City.
(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (L) greets musician Kid Rock during a campaign rally at the Royal Oak Theatre on February 27, 2012 in Royal Oak, Michigan.
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
According to the Herald, Warren’s email linked to a fundraising page in which the proceeds are split between Stabenow’s 2018 campaign and Warren’s own re-election effort.
Rock has not yet filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. But the “Born Free” singer wrote in his Facebook post that he planned to release new music during his campaign, similar to how politicians release books during their own campaigns.
I have had a ton of emails and texts asking me if this website is real…http://ift.tt/2t4IWQF The answer is an absolute YES.
“I know we both share a love of music. I concede he’s better at playing guitar and I’ll keep doing what I do best: fighting for Michigan,” she wrote.
Rock responded directly to Stabenow using her own language in his Facebook post Thursday.
“Senator Stabenow and I do share a love of music, although probably not the same kind. I concede she is better at playing politics than I am so I’ll keep doing what I do best, which is being a voice for taxpaying, hardworking AMERICANS and letting politicians like her know that We the People are sick and tired of their bullsh*t!” he wrote.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
Oregon Bill Forcing Taxpayers To Sponsor Abortion Is A Human Rights Violation
Demanding that taxpayers participate in a human rights violation is itself a human rights violation, and should be rejected as such.By Cullen HeroutThe state of Oregon is in the process of enacting a law that would force taxpayers to fund abortions. HB 3391, The Reproductive Health Equity Act, passed the Senate last week on a party-line vote and aims to counteract the potential repealing of the Affordable Care Act.
Among other things, the bill mandates that all insurance plans offer coverage for elective abortion without co-pay, including to non citizens, and sets aside over 10 million taxpayer dollars to cover the cost of abortions and other reproductive health services through the state Medicaid program. The bill has already passed both the House and Senate in Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown, a former abortion lobbyist, has confirmed that she will sign it into law soon.
Oregon boasts some of the most liberal abortion laws in the United States, “with no informed consent for women, no waiting for the major surgery of abortion, no parental consent or even parental notification for minors, no ambulance-ready requirements, and no basic safeguards required for all other surgical centers.”
This bill expands on that, and appears to disregard taxpayers in Oregon who object to their hard-earned dollars subsidizing the destruction of preborn human beings. While the Hyde Amendment continues to ensure that federal tax dollars do not subsidize abortion, it allows state tax dollars to reimburse for elective abortions.
This Is a Planned Parenthood Moneymaker
There are currently 11 abortion clinics in the state of Oregon, eight of which are Planned Parenthoods. Not all of the money allocated by this bill will go toward funding elective abortion, of course, but the fact that Planned Parenthood was a sponsor of this legislation makes it clear that they will benefit significantly from it.
At a time when a large chunk of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding is in danger of being cut off, this bill bolsters the funding they receive from taxpayers. It’s no secret that Planned Parenthood is basically an extension of the Democratic Party (remember how much money PP threw into that run-off election in Georgia last month?), and this bill passed the Senate on a party-line vote.
While party-line votes are not necessarily uncommon, Republicans in Oregon’s legislative body voiced several concerns, including that any Oregonian taxpayers should be forced to hand over their money for a practice they find morally abhorrent. Abortion advocates will claim that the morality of abortion has nothing to do with whether it should be funded. But that claim belies the nature of abortion and what it does to an unborn child, a truth that is not lost on the American people.
Even Heavy PR Pushes Aren’t Changing Americans’ Minds
Consider the most recent Gallup poll on abortion. It indicates that attitudes toward abortion have remained largely unchanged since they began doing the annual survey in 2001. One might be surprised given that the last several years have brought us a persistent push from abortion supporters to normalize its atrocities. For example:
In 2015, the #shoutyourabortion campaign was launched, encouraging women who were proud of their abortions to brag about them on Twitter.
Also in 2015, Kerry Washington’s character on the ABC show “Scandal” underwent an abortion while “Silent Night” played in the background. This was roundly cheered by abortion advocates and mainstream media.
Cecile Richards, CEO of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States, persistently urges women to talk about their abortions in the attempt to reduce the stigma surrounding it. And so on.
Yet despite this, the percentage of Americans who find abortion morally acceptable still dangles below 50 percent. It’s noteworthy that while support for other progressive social causes has gone up (same-sex marriage, for example), support for abortion has seen no such increase in support. There is little question that the reason the push to normalize abortion has been unsuccessful is because people are still easily able to grasp the reality of abortion despite the best efforts of those who seek to normalize it.
Forcing People to Pay for a Moral Atrocity
Individuals who reject government funding of abortion do so with good reason. While abortion advocates maintain that abortion is a woman’s right, it’s clear that the objective of every abortion is terminating a human life. Abortion is a direct violation of the innocent preborn child’s right to live and be safe from harm. The right to life is the first and foremost right given to all human beings, and as such, abortion is a human rights violation of the highest magnitude.
The fact that abortion violates the rights of preborn children is exactly why no government has any business forcing taxpayers to violate their consciences to subsidize it. Founding Father James Madison called conscience an inalienable right, and the most sacred of property. Conscience rights matter, and taxpayers in Oregon are now being forced to violate their consciences and become complicit in a human rights violation. Demanding that taxpayers participate in a human rights violation is itself a human rights violation, and should be rejected as such.
It’s already difficult to stomach the fact that abortion is the law of the land. It’s bad enough that the best we can do is ask women who want to terminate the lives growing in them to use their own money to do so. For years and years, pro-lifers have listened to abortion advocates maintain that abortion is a “private decision” between a woman and her doctor.
But this new law makes it even worse for those who stand against the destruction of defenseless preborn children. It’s no longer a decision between a woman and her doctor. It’s now a decision between a woman, her doctor, and the taxpayer’s wallet.
This Is No Garden-Variety Objection
Now, one could certainly contend that federal and state governments fund many things taxpayers find morally unacceptable. One may not like this thing or that thing the government does with taxpayer dollars. We all have our complaints about how the government uses our money. Yet when it comes to abortion, the magnitude of the issue changes the nature of the complaint.
A taxpayer who objects to public funding of abortion is voicing a different type of complaint than ‘I really wish they wouldn’t use my money for that.’
It is a biological fact that during every completed abortion procedure, at least one innocent human being is killed. A taxpayer who objects to public funding of abortion is voicing a different type of complaint than “I really wish they wouldn’t use my money for that.” Abortion deprives an entire demographic of human beings of the right to live. People who object to a government using their money to end the lives of preborn children should have their concerns respected and honored.
And many people seem to understand that. A poll taken prior to the election last year found that only 36 percent of likely voters support federal funding of abortion. The discrepancy between those who support taxpayer funding for abortion (36 percent) and the percentage of people who believe abortion is morally acceptable (43 percent) is interesting and indicates a sort of dissonance in those who find the practice acceptable. Presumably, some of the people who find it morally acceptable do not support forcing taxpayers to subsidize it, perhaps highlighting their understanding of the nature of abortion and why some people object.
Nevertheless, Democratic lawmakers in Oregon have neglected the conscience rights of taxpayers and will soon enshrine into law a bill that allows taxpayer dollars to fund the destruction of innocent human life. The bill is yet another example of liberal state governments forcing radical ideologies on their citizens. This type of government encroachment on the conscience rights of its citizens should be outright rejected.
Cullen Herout is a pro-life, pro-family writer. He has a passion for writing about life issues, marriage, fatherhood, and creating a culture of life. He is a licensed mental health practitioner and has worked for almost six years with the post-abortion ministry Rachel’s Vineyard. Cullen also hosts a pro-life radio show, which can be heard here. Follow him on Facebook or contact him here.
1984 !!!
Hello! Is this Gordon's Pizza?
No sir, it's Google Pizza.
I must have dialed a wrong number. Sorry.
No sir, Google bought Gordon’s Pizza last month.
OK. I would like to order a pizza.
Do you want your usual, sir?
My usual? You know me?
According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with three cheeses, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and meatballs on a thick crust.
OK! That’s what I want …
May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and olives on a whole wheat gluten free thin crust?
What? I detest vegetables.
Your cholesterol is not good, sir.
How the hell do you know?
Well, we cross-referenced your home phone number with your medical records. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years.
Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetable pizza! I already take medication for my cholesterol.
Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly. According to our database, you only purchased a box of 30 cholesterol tablets once, at Drugsale Network, 4 months ago.
I bought more from another drugstore.
That doesn’t show on your credit card statement.
I paid in cash.
But you did not withdraw enough cash according to your bank statement.
I have other sources of cash.
That doesn’t show on your last tax return unless you bought them using an undeclared income source, which is against the law.
That doesn’t show on your last tax return unless you bought them using an undeclared income source, which is against the law.
WHAT THE HELL?
I'm sorry, sir, we use such information only with the sole intention of helping you.
Enough already! I'm sick to death of Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and all the others. I'm going to an island without internet, cable TV, where there is no cell phone service and no one to watch me or spy on me.
I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport first. It expired 6 weeks ago.
G’day…Ciao…….Helen and Moe Lauzier
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