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« on: August 21, 2019, 12:47:02 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 8-21-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Aug. 21, 2019
https://patriotpost.us/digests/64972-mid-day-digest
THE FOUNDATION
“The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.” —George Washington (1789)
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/64969-founders-quote-daily
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Democrats know Medicare for All is unpopular, but don’t buy their retreat.1
Facebook is making changes after an audit of bias against conservatives.2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9.
IN BRIEF
Dems Feign Backing Away From Medicare for All10
In an effort to court the increasingly hard-left base of the Democrat Party, several current Democrat presidential candidates eagerly jumped aboard Sen. Bernie Sanders’s socialist bandwagon to cosponsor his Medicare for All bill two years ago. This represents the future, they all insisted, parroting Sanders’s insistence that health care is a right. The Medicare for All cosponsors touted their support for the socialist program … until recent polling data showed that a majority of Americans aren’t fans of the obvious policy boondoggle.
Now every Democrat presidential candidate save Sanders is running away from Medicare for All as if it were toxic sludge. Sen. Kamala Harris (CA), the first cosponsor of the bill, had been one of its most vocal supporters, but she has clearly struggled in her herky-jerky attempts to distance herself while attempting to claim that she was never fully onboard. “I have not been comfortable with Bernie’s [Medicare for All] plan,” Harris stated on Tuesday. This sentiment certainly doesn’t comport with her position back in 2017 when she defended cosponsoring the bill as “the right thing to do.” Nor does it jive with Harris’s claim this past April that “Medicare is the most popular health plan in the country because it works.”
But Harris isn’t the only Medicare for All cosponsor clearly flip-flopping, as Sens. Cory Booker (NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), and even Elizabeth Warren (MA) are also seeking to distance themselves from a politically unpopular policy.
So, are Democrats suddenly having a change of heart? Not likely. In truth, they’re merely realizing that despite all their moralizing rhetoric surrounding Medicare for All, the vast majority of Americans want to keep their current health insurance. Recently, Harry Reid, a political pragmatist if there ever was one, was asked whether Medicare for All is “problematic” for Democrats. “Of course it would be,” he answered. “How are you going to get it passed?” Reid further advised Democrats to run on the message of “improving ObamaCare” because, he argued, “People understand that. They would appreciate that. It locks in many important things.” That, by the way, is Joe Biden’s plan11.
Many Democrat presidential candidates are attempting to rhetorically tack back toward the center. However, the question now is, having gone so far to the extreme Left, can they find their way back to even semi-reasonable ground without being exposed as complete sellouts willing to say anything to get elected? If Harris’s sinking poll numbers are any indication, then the answer is no.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/64967-dems-feign-backing-away-from-medicare-for-all
Is Facebook’s Audit Merely Window Dressing?12
Former GOP Sen. Jon Kyl was tapped by Facebook to conduct a Robert Mueller-like investigation into accusations of the company’s bias against conservatives. Kyl publicly released his findings Tuesday. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed13 he wrote:
Facebook placed no restrictions on how I could conduct the work. My team at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP began conducting interviews in May 2018. We cast a wide net to include as many aspects of conservatism as possible — from organizations focused on Christian values or protecting free expression to those focused on tax policy and small government. We identified individuals, groups and lawmakers who either use, study or could potentially regulate Facebook, and interviewed 133 of them. To encourage them to speak freely, we told interviewees we wouldn’t publish their identities. We presented our preliminary findings to Facebook in early August 2018 and have been discussing them with the company ever since.
A year later, we now know that Kyl “found conservatives’ concerns generally fall within the following six buckets: Content distribution and algorithms. … Content policies. … Content enforcement. … Ad policies. … Ad enforcement. … Workforce viewpoint diversity.” We’ve addressed many of those concerns in the past, and we won’t rehash it all here, but the short of it is that Facebook certainly seems to discriminate against conservative viewpoints in each of those “buckets.”
But Kyl says, “Facebook has made several changes that are responsive to our findings, and we understand more are being considered.” Those changes include things like an oversight board for content-removal appeals, explanations and transparency for algorithms, four more staff to deal with complaints, and ad-policy changes that would effectively allow for more pro-life content14.
We’d generally conclude two things. First, Kyl obviously wants to show that he was “effective,” so winning some concessions from Facebook is a feather in his hat. Second, Facebook has a vested interest in the appearance of fairness. Axios, which first reported15 the findings, sums up the leftist view of the optics: “While there has been little evidence that Facebook is knowingly biased against conservatives, the release of the audit, and further continuation of it, shows that company takes the allegations seriously.” Not that it matters to conservatives, Axios gripes: “Accusations of political bias against Facebook and Big Tech have become a political weapon wielded by conservatives. It’s doubtful an audit will stop that effort.”
Pardon us, but conservatives didn’t make this a political weapon. Facebook did by its proven biased standards16, Axios’s cavalier dismissal of “little evidence” notwithstanding. And we have little reason to believe that Facebook’s response to a chummy audit — even by a Republican for the smoke-and-mirrors purpose of “objectivity” — is anything but window dressing. In that sense, Axios is right and, as Kyl put it, “Conservatives no doubt will, and should, continue to press Facebook to address the concerns that arose in our survey.”
Remember, Facebook claims to be a platform for users to express opinions freely, but it behaves like a publisher in choosing what content is acceptable. Having it both ways is not conducive to free speech.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/64960-is-facebooks-audit-merely-window-dressing
ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY
Featured Analysis: Dems Use Mass Shootings as Pretext for Gun Confiscation17 — The renewed push for an “assault weapons” ban is both wrong and mendacious.
More Americans Have Negative View of College18 — Pew finds Republicans and Independents are souring on institutions of higher learning.
Grassroots Perspective: Trigger Warnings19 — Today’s “woke” “progressives” would never invite Martin Luther King to speak at a college.
Video: Trump’s Deregulation20 — John Stossel says President Trump has cut a lot of regulations — but increased some others.
Video: You Can’t Fix Other People, but You Can Fix Yourself21 — Want a better life? Want to make the world a better place? Take responsibility.
TOP NEWS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
DENMARK VOYAGE CALLED OFF: Yesterday, President Donald Trump intoned23, “Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time.” He continued, “The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!”
MIXED SIGNALS: “The White House pushed back late Tuesday on claims by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that President Trump had purportedly said universal background checks were off the table… Earlier in the day, The Atlantic published an article saying Trump had opted against expanding federal background checks, citing a ‘person briefed on the call.’ But a White House official told Fox News that ‘meaningful’ new background checks remain a legislative option, and denied that Trump said he supported universal background checks.” (Fox News24) |
