The Patriot Post Digest 3-21-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-21-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Mar. 21, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/54879-mid-day-digest

IN TODAY’S EDITION

The Austin bomber killed himself, becoming a self-solver.
The PC crusade claims more victims, though sanity comes later in one case.
Newsflash: Facebook collects loads of data on its users.
Vladimir Putin was “re-elected,” and America needs to make some moves.
Scott Pruitt’s EPA dumps “secret science” justification for regulation.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

IN BRIEF

Sociopath Austin Bomber a Self-Solver1

By Nate Jackson

In what explosive investigators typically call a “self-solver,” the man believed to be responsible for the recent string of bombings in Austin, Texas, blew himself up early this morning as police closed in on his vehicle. As with all mass killers seeking fame, we won’t name the 24-year-old white male perpetrator. Since March 2, he’s responsible for killing two people and injuring four with four bombs, including one triggered by a trip wire. A fifth bomb exploded Tuesday without incident at a FedEx facility near Austin, and an unexploded sixth device was discovered at another FedEx distribution center. As Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted, “More work needs to be done to ensure no more bombs had been sent before he died.” Part of the terror of the whole thing was that the killer attacked homes through the modern convenience of package delivery, even if the first three packages were left on doorsteps overnight and not delivered by a service.

It’s natural to want to know what motivated this murderer, and there’s speculation over a ideological or political rationale — especially since the two dead men were black. Yet other packages were rigged to detonate at random. Investigators may uncover some underlying motive. But the bottom line is that he was a sociopath, and, over the last 50 years, there has been a drastic increase in the number of these individuals. A huge reason for that is the disintegration of the family, often caused by statist welfare policies. Until we fix our culture, these sorts of things will continue to be a horrific part of American life.

The Mentally Crippling Effects of the PC Crusade2

By Thomas Gallatin

Fear of offense does not good policy make. It is deceitful sentiment masquerading as compassion that capitulates to the dogma of political correctness rather than embracing truth. An example of this compromising mentality was seen at the College of the Holy Cross. The Catholic school has decided to drop its “Crusaders” nickname and “Knight” mascot over concerns that they may be offensive to certain folks, specifically Muslims. The school’s president, Rev. Philip Boroughs, released a statement explaining, “The visual depiction of a knight, in conjunction with the moniker Crusader, inevitably ties us directly to the reality of the religious wars and the violence of the Crusades. This imagery stands in contrast to our stated values. Over the coming months, the College will gradually phase out the use of all knight-related imagery.”

The question now is how long before those “woke” folks at Holy Cross realize that not just the school’s name but its entire reason for existing is “offensive” to Muslims and certainly a few vocal atheists? And the other obvious fact seemingly lost on these academics is the reality that their decision to change the school’s nickname and drop its mascot is itself offensive. By assuming that the term “crusader3” is, as Barack Obama once lectured, a pejorative4, they have insinuated that anyone who would favor the name is guilty of promoting “Islamophobia.” On the contrary, those offended by the term “crusader” are likely ignorant of history.

Meanwhile, in the annals of political correctness run amok, some sanity re-emerged5 at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where President Michael Driscoll overruled a nutty leftist professor’s controversial decision to ban a white male student from her class6, a class he needs to graduate, over his “disruptive behavior.” The student dared to challenge the feminist professor’s instruction that forbade any males from speaking after the class viewed a video lecture TED Talk by a transgender ex-pastor. The male student commented that he rejected the notion of there being more than two genders, and for that he was subsequently banned from the class.

In restoring him, Driscoll asserted, “In a free society, people with opinions you don’t like are allowed to exist, are allowed to speak, and can call you names. People are even allowed to write essays that use violent metaphors to describe their feelings about a challenging situation without fear of punishment.” Hopefully, this kind of commonsense rationality returns to America’s colleges and universities. Concern for protecting the right of free speech should always trump the fear of offense over politically correct hogwash.

Top Headlines7

Congress is still ignoring its spending problem as deadline looms for $1.3 trillion spending bill (Reason8.)

House GOP leaders call for second special counsel (National Review9)

Walkout fallout: School districts hit with backlash over political activism (The Washington Times10)

“March for Our Lives” now operating under dark money nonprofit advocacy group (The Washington Free Beacon11)

FTC probing Facebook for use of personal data (The Hill12)

YouTube suspends major gun manufacturer, bans instructional gun videos (The Federalist13)

Illegal immigrants, who dodged California ICE raid after Dem mayor’s tip-off, re-arrested for new crimes (Fox News14)

The flawed methodology behind studies measuring the cost of climate change (The Washington Free Beacon15)

Abortionist: I cut the vocal cord so the baby can’t scream (CNS News16)

Humor: Ultrasound shows unborn baby holding “Keep Your Laws Off My Body” sign (The Babylon Bee17)

Policy: A chance to really end welfare as we know it (Investor’s Business Daily18.)

Policy: Hero school officer in Maryland sets example for how we stop school shooters (Washington Examiner19)

For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report20.

FEATURED ANALYSIS
This Just In: Facebook Collects Data About Users21

By Lewis Morris

The latest data privacy scandal brewing at Facebook should remind everyone who uses that or any social media site of one simple truth: If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.

What you like, who your friends are, what you buy, your political views, religious affiliation and much more is all commerce to the social media giants. Facebook has made a fortune selling the data it collects from its users to third parties. Now, the dust-up between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica is calling into question what happens with that data and whether the tech giant is acting inappropriately with its users’ information.

In 2014, a company called Global Science Research (GSR) distributed a personality quiz on Facebook that it claimed was for academic research purposes. The quiz was downloaded by 270,000 users and, with their permission, collected data on them and their ubgone27 — expanding the total to some 50 million people. GSR sold the data it collected to consulting firm Cambridge Analytica22, which then used the information for one of its clients, Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-21-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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One item of note that will probably not be widely reported is that the Trump team only used the Cambridge Analytica data during the primaries. During the general election, the campaign found that data provided by the Republican National Committee was much more reliable.

Former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie went public23 with the details about how the data-mining took place. Initially, he wanted to work with Facebook to go over what happened, but Facebook had other plans. “We were going to work on this in a cooperative manner. There’s obviously a lot of issues that need to be discussed. But, you know, I didn’t set out to crusade against Facebook. Suddenly they issue this press release and ban me.”

Facebook also suspended Cambridge Analytica last week. Lawmakers and privacy experts, however, are looking for answers from Facebook about its privacy policies. Facebook “goes into this endless hairsplitting that people should have known,” said22 Marc Rotenberg, president and executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit advocacy group. “No one could have known that their friends were disclosing their personal data on their behalf. It’s entirely illogical, and it breaks the consent law.”

Facebook claims that its policies are clear and that the company takes its users’ privacy very seriously. Or at least it takes privacy seriously depending on who is using the data.

In 2012, Barack Obama’s campaign24 used Facebook to gather data on voters. Over one million people downloaded an Obama 2012 Facebook app that gave the campaign access to users and their friends, totaling upwards of 190 million people — nearly four times the Cambridge Analytica haul. Facebook, which was billing itself at the time as a resource for political candidates looking to reach voters, had no problem with this use of its users’ data. Obama was “the man,” after all. And the Obama campaign’s use of the social media giant was considered a game-changer and lauded for its ingenuity. But the Trump campaign’s use is being called conspiratorial and exploitative.

The double standard is too obvious to ignore. Facebook is no friend to Republican or conservative causes. Its supposed campaign against fake news25 has amounted to little more than a campaign to scrub users’ feeds26 of information that Facebook’s thought police deem inappropriate. Its competitors do the same thing. Twitter, YouTube and Google all routinely game their algorithms27 so that you see only the content they want you to see. And they sometimes will ban “offenders” outright, a large majority of whom happen to share conservative viewpoints. Not only conservatives but other “undesirables,” too — YouTube just updated its terms to ban huge swaths of videos on gun-making13.

How to get real news that can be trusted is not an easy question to answer (other than subscribing to The Patriot Post28, of course). But what can be done in the short term is for people who use these social media sites to do their best to protect themselves and their privacy and stay away from third-party apps that will collect and sell your information. Again, however, if you’re using a free product like Facebook, you are the product.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

America Must Act Now to Thwart Putin’s Aggression31 — Putin has won another six-year term, but there are things Trump can do to counter his growing power.
The EPA Gets Much-Needed Transparency Reform32 — Scott Pruitt moves to make sure the public can view the science behind recommended regulation.
Trump Targets China With Tariffs33 — He seeks to hit back at China’s government-sanctioned theft of American companies’ intellectual property.
Bob Woodward on Today’s Leftmedia Journalists34 — “Reporters have at times become emotionally unhinged about it all, one way or the other.”
Video: Unemployed Men Feel Emasculated35 — “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe gives his perspective on the effect of unemployment on men in the U.S.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Ben Shapiro: Stop Making Children Into Moral Authorities36
Michelle Malkin: Another Fatal FBI Fumble in Florida37
Marc. A. Thiessen: No, Liberals Don’t Hate America. And Conservatives Are Not Racists.38
John Stossel: Climate Exit39
Walter Williams: Not Always Like This40
For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion41.

SHORT CUTS

Upright: “If there is one enduring lesson from ‘Dirty Jobs,’ it’s the fact that those people as a group are having a better time and were more connected to their work than the vast majority of people I know who make great white-collar livings. It’s just an inconvenient truth.” —Mike Rowe

For the record: “President Trump is right in saying that a special counsel should never have been appointed to investigate the so-called Russian connection. There was no evidence of any crime committed by the Trump administration. But there was plenty of evidence that Russian operatives had tried to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and perhaps other elections, in the hope of destabilizing democracy.” —Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz

Bitter much? “[An Ivanka Trump presidency is] not going to happen. … We don’t want any more inexperienced Trumps in the White House. … I think the American people have seen for themselves what happens when a reality-TV candidate wins. I really believe there’s an enormous amount of pent-up energy to take our country back away from the Trump administration.” —Hillary Clinton, who probably thinks a Chelsea Clinton presidency is entirely plausible

Memo to Hillary: “The election’s over and is past. … The reality is we have to [focus on] this coming ‘18 election — forget 2020.” —Sen. Cory Booker

Setting the record straight: “I think that people’s distrust of [Hillary] isn’t that everybody is sexist or misogynist; she vexes people and they don’t know what to make of her.” —former Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri

The BIG Lie: “As the attacks on me and my fellow Black representatives in Congress intensify, I want to be clear: this is a smear by factions on the right who want to pit the Jewish community and the Black community against each other, and distract from the hatred and bigotry on display by the president and the white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville this summer with their anti-Semitic chants and Confederate flags. I declined to dignify questions raised about Mr. Farrakhan because I know they are inherently political, and are designed to separate me from people who I work with every day on issues of importance for Americans of all backgrounds.” —Rep. Keith Ellison

And last… “Odd that CNN isn’t wall-to-wall with [this week’s] school shooting survivors grateful for the armed security guard that saved their lives.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor

Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families. We also humbly ask prayer for your Patriot team, that our mission would seed and encourage the spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis

Nate Jackson, Managing Editor
Mark Alexander, Publisher