Day: April 9, 2019

Blackburn, Klobuchar Team Up to Ask FTC Investigate Online Platforms Over Privacy, Antitrust Concerns

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on Monday called for a Federal Trade Commission investigation into online platforms over privacy concerns, data security and antitrust violations. Blackburn tweeted, “Today, @SenAmyKlobuchar and I urged the @FTC to hold tech companies like @Google and @Facebook accountable for securing their platforms. Tennesseans are rightly concerned about who owns their #VirtualYou.” Today, @SenAmyKlobuchar and I urged the @FTC to hold tech companies like @Google and @Facebook accountable for securing their platforms. Tennesseans are rightly concerned about who owns their #VirtualYou. pic.twitter.com/rQvvY0ZPce — Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) April 8, 2019 The letter comes a few weeks after U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI-01), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, asked for the FTC to probe whether Facebook has violated antitrust laws, The Hill said. Blackburn said in a press release, “Tennesseans are rightly concerned about who owns their Virtual You. They want to be certain that their privacy is protected in both the physical and virtual space. The FTC has a responsibility to hold technology companies accountable for securing their platforms. My hope is that through this bipartisan effort we will shed light on the need to protect competition and online privacy to keep up…

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Commentary: Cardinal Robert Sarah Warns the West Will Disappear

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by George Rasley   Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Vatican’s prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has issued a stark warning to all inheritors of Europe’s Judeo-Christian culture: The “West will disappear” as a result of mass migration and “Islam will invade the world” and “completely change culture, anthropology, and moral vision” unless we bend the arc of our culture back toward its Judeo-Christian roots. Cardinal Sarah’s new book, Evening Draws Near and the Day is Nearly Over, is causing controversy because it explicitly identifies Muslim migration as a harbinger of the collapse of the West. “If the West continues in this fatal way, there is a great risk that, due to a lack of birth, it will disappear, invaded by foreigners, just as Rome has been invaded by barbarians,” said Sarah in a video interview, “My country is predominantly Muslim. I think I know what reality I’m talking about.” Commentators on the Left have been quick to focus on Cardinal Sarah’s remarks about Islam, but the Cardinal’s analysis of the precarious state of Western civilization was much deeper and bears further study by all those who wish to preserve the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage.…

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When Asked If They Identified as ‘American,’ Many US Corporations Stand Silent

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by Tim Pearce   Ten international corporations contacted by The Daily Caller News Foundation got their start in the U.S. but stayed silent when asked if they saw themselves as “American” companies. Nine others responded to TheDCNF’s inquiry by either identifying with their American heritage, obscuring their loyalties or declining to comment altogether. TheDCNF wanted to gauge the commitment of international corporations with roots in the United States to keeping an “American” identity. TheDCNF did not define what an “American” company looks like or list out any principles or ideals that “American” companies are committed to, leaving each business to attach meaning to the name if one chose to stand by it. Representatives for Amazon, Apple, Chevron, General Electric and others did not respond to TheDCNF’s inquiry. A spokesman for the health care giant UnitedHealth Group asked for clarification of the question but never responded after clarification was given. The tech companies Google, Facebook and Twitter – all headquartered in California – are under distinct pressure to increase transparency and be upfront about their commitments, especially as it relates to censored content. Conservatives especially have taken issue with the tech giants’ policies, and U.S. politicians are wary of the companies’ operations in…

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Kevin McAleenan, the Upcoming Leader of Homeland Security

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by Jason Hopkins   Kirstjen Nielsen will officially vacate her position atop the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, leaving Kevin McAleenan as the acting head. President Donald Trump, frustrated over the growing immigration crisis on the U.S. southern border, accepted Nielsen’s resignation after meeting with her at the White House on Sunday. The president went on to announce that McAleenan, the current commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will be taking over her position in an acting capacity. Who is McAleenan and how will he likely manage the surge of illegal migrant crisis? The soon-to-be DHS secretary touts nearly two decades of experience working in immigration enforcement. A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, McAleenan worked for some time as an attorney in California. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, however, prompted him to apply for the FBI, but he ended up working in what is now CBP. He quickly moved up the ranks under both the Bush and Obama administrations. McAleenan was the port director for the Los Angeles International Airport and he served as the executive director of CBP’s antiterrorism office. He was appointed by former President Barack Obama as deputy commissioner of CBP in 2014, and he was awarded the…

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Carol Swain Commentary: How Leftist Politics Influences the Democrats’ Open-Borders Policy

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by Dr. Carol M. Swain   Congressional Democrats often claim their open-borders immigration policy is “compassionate” — but their so-called compassion doesn’t extend to American citizens or legal permanent residents. In fact, the Democrats’ compassion is calculated and strategic — anything but sincere. The immigration situation gets worse every year. It has become a crisis that is undeniable. Senator Lindsey Graham recently announced that border officials are now predicting the arrival of more than one million illegal aliens to the U.S. this year, based on the surge of apprehensions in March. “Just met with Acting [ICE] Director Ron Vitiello,” Graham tweeted. “If March numbers hold, we are on track for 1.2 million illegal immigrants coming into the country in 2019.” The immigration crisis is reminiscent of a 1960s ploy concocted by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. Their underhanded aim was to change the welfare system in America by overwhelming “the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.” A similar tactic is underway now. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan says, “The surge numbers are just overwhelming the entire system.” Likewise, Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security Secretary under former…

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Grassley Explains Why He Doesn’t Want To See Trump’s Tax Returns

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by Nick Givas   Sen. Chuck Grassley explained why he wasn’t interested in seeing President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns, on “Fox & Friends” Monday. “Listen, you’re asking me as chairman of the Finance Committee, we would have an opportunity to see [Trump’s tax returns] too. I don’t want to see them,” he said. “I am not going to request them and you’re asking me in regard to Trump. I want to tell you that I look at this not from the point of view of Trump, but what is legitimate for Congress to do looking at people’s tax returns,” the Iowa Republican continued. “It’s not to know who the tax returns are. It’s supposed to serve a legislative purpose.” Grassely also said there should be an expectation of privacy with regard to personal tax information and expressed concerns about weaponizing the IRS to neutralize political enemies. “In fact the privacy of your tax returns are guaranteed by Section 6103,” he continued. “We want to make sure that what [former President Lyndon B. Johnson] did, what [former President Richard] Nixon did or what [former President Barack] Obama did — going after conservative organizations, that the IRS is not used for political purposes. But if you…

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Commentary: And Then When That Didn’t Work…

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by Victor Davis Hanson   Right after the 2016 election, Green Party candidate Jill Stein – cheered on by Hillary Clinton dead-enders – sued in three states to recount votes and thereby overturn Donald Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. Before the quixotic effort imploded, Stein was praised as an iconic progressive social justice warrior who might stop the hated Trump from even entering the White House. When that did not work, B-list Hollywood celebrities mobilized, with television and radio commercials, to shame electors in Trump-won states into not voting for the president-elect during the official Electoral College balloting in December 2016. Their idea was that select morally superior electors should reject their constitutional directives and throw the election into the House of Representatives where even more morally superior NeverTrump Republicans might join with even much more morally superior Democrats to find the perfect morally superior NeverTrump alternative. When that did not work, more than 60 Democratic House members voted to bring up Trump’s impeachment for vote. Trump had only been in office a few weeks. Then San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer toured the country and lavished millions on advertisements demanding Trump’s removal by impeachment – and was sorely disappointed when he…

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Look to States for Preview of Havoc the ‘Equality Act’ Would Wreak

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by Monica Burke   Sexual orientation and gender identity policies have been used at the state and local level to attack businesses and charities, allow males into women’s sports and spaces, and politicize medicine. Even though the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the effects of these policies, politicians are blindly pushing further forward to expand their reach. That’s not equality. That’s madness. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently delivered on her promise to introduce the so-called “Equality Act,” which would elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to protected classes in federal anti-discrimination law. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] The Equality Act would definitely have a negative impact nationwide. Yet many Americans are already subject to sexual orientation and gender identity policies at the state and local level. Twenty-four states have passed sexual orientation and gender identity laws and the consequences for residents of those states have been disastrous. That includes laws that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, public accommodations, housing, and education, as well as bans on counseling for individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction. Moreover, an estimated 400-plus cities and localities across…

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Army Corps of Engineers: 450 Miles of New Wall Will Be Completed by the End of 2020

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by Robert Romano   “Around Dec. 2020, the total amount of money we will have put in the ground in the last couple of years will be about 450 miles. That’s probably about $8 billion, in total about 33 projects.” That was Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, giving President Donald Trump a report at Calexico, Calif. on how much new wall would be constructed by the end of 2020. Semonite broke down the figures: That’s 82 miles as of right now mainly from renovating existing fencing, another 97 miles by the end of this year, and then another 277 miles the year after that. That includes the new 30-foot steel slats. That’s actually pretty impressive given what a hard time President Trump had the first two years working with Congress, which itself was not unsubstantial, but simply not enough to get the job done. Plus getting it approved was like pulling teeth. That funding included $1.6 billion from 2018 for replacing existing fencing with new steel barriers and $1.375 billion in 2019 for more steel barriers that came after the partial government shutdown earlier this year. In addition, with…

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Attorney with Reported History of Ethics Problems to Chair Shelby County Democratic Party

Chris Butler

State Rep. London Lamar, D-Memphis, won’t chair the Shelby County Democratic Party. Michael Harris, an attorney with a reported history of legal and other ethical problems will instead covet the position, according to The Daily Memphian. This, after a three-hour party convention this past weekend, according to the website. Officials suspended Harris’ law license in 2017 because of a number of ethics violations, including excessive fees, failure to perform services for which he was paid, unauthorized practice of law, dishonesty, and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, The Daily Memphian reported. “Harris was also ordered as part of his plea to the misconduct allegations to pay $22,975 in restitution to nine former clients,” the website reported. “Harris, compliance and employee relations director at Advanced Primary Care LLC, began making his case to the group by asking ‘everyone who has made one mistake’ to raise their hands and asking everyone in the crowd to look around the room.” Harris reportedly told people at the convention that he made a mistake, but his “heart was in the right place.” “Harris said he still owes $1,832 in restitution plus fees connected to restoring his law license,” The Daily Memphian reported. “He also…

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Indiana’s Pete Buttigieg is Surging in the Democratic Presidential Sweepstakes

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by Kathleen Struck   Seems like just about no one can pronounce his name. But more and more people want to know about him. Four months ago, Pete Buttigieg (whose name is pronounced boot-edge-edge), the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was a flat line on the political landscape outside of, well, Indiana. But after announcing a presidential exploratory committee in mid-January, he’s everywhere: CNN. Vox. Stephen Colbert. Bill Maher. New York Times. Washington Post. Fox. And CNN again. While lacking in stature among a Democratic political field strewn with U.S. senators, House members, a former governor, and likely, a former vice president, Buttigieg boasts an impressive resume. The son of an immigrant from Malta, Buttigieg attended Harvard College around the same time as Facebook founder and fellow millennial Mark Zuckerberg. He received a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, spent seven months in Afghanistan in the U.S. Navy Reserves as an intelligence analyst and driver and worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company. Reportedly he speaks seven languages, some of them fluently, including Spanish and Norwegian. And in 2011, he was elected mayor of his hometown, South Bend, population 100,000. “People are looking for something completely different,” Buttigieg told…

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Klobuchar Hauls in $5.2 Million in First Quarter, But Trails High-Profile Candidates

Anthony Gockowski

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) revealed Monday that her presidential campaign raised $5.2 million in the first fundraising quarter of 2019, which ended Friday. The Minnesota senator currently has $7 million in cash on hand after transferring some funds from her Senate campaign account. Klobuchar announced her candidacy on February 11, meaning she was able to raise the $5.2 million in roughly seven weeks, but the figure pales in comparison to some of her more high-profile competitors. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), for instance, raised $6 million in just the first 24 hours of his campaign. Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, meanwhile, raised $9.4 million in the 18 days between announcing candidacy and the close of the quarter, according to Business Insider, which reports that O’Rourke raised $6.1 million in the first 24 hours. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who declared candidacy in January, raised a total of $12 million, while Sanders led the pack with $18.2 million in total donations. Klobuchar does have a slight lead over Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who raised $5 million since launching his campaign. Dark-horse candidate Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised $7 million in the first quarter of 2019. Klobuchar’s campaign said it had nearly…

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Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown Blasts Trump on Obamacare Repeal, Calls on Governor and Attorney General to ‘Do More’

Andrew Shirley

Monday, Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein, in a joint press conference at PrimaryOne Health in Ohio, pledged to oppose President Trump’s recent efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), nicknamed “Obamacare.” As previously reported, the court case Texas v. Azar ruled that the ACA was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had previously ruled that the Individual Mandate component of the law was “unconstitutional under the Interstate Commerce Clause, but could fairly be read as an exercise of Congress’ Tax Power,” but upheld the bulk of the law. From this, Texas Federal District Court Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that because the mandate was unconstitutional, the ACA is, by default, unconstitutional. For several months, the ruling has sat pending with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In late March, the Department of Justice, at the behest of President Trump sent a letter to the court, stating that they agreed with the Fifth Circuit Court’s ruling and, “Because the United States is not urging that any portion of the district court’s judgment be reversed, the government intends to file a brief on the appellees’ schedule.” Should the court affirm this ruling, the ACA could be overturned within the year. On August…

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Kasich: ‘I’m Not Setting Myself Up to Be a Trump Critic’

Anthony Gockowski

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich discussed his differences with the president in a recent interview ahead of a speaking appearance at Drew University in New Jersey. After leaving office, Kasich joined CNN as a political commentator and has announced his sixth book, which will be released in the fall. As The Ohio Star reported, he’s also started a new non-profit with several prominent Trump critics, but Kasich claims that his feuds with the president aren’t personal. “Not personally. Go back and take a look at the things I’ve done. It’s been very issue-based. My difference with President Trump is he has been in a position where he’s appealed to his base,” Kasich told USA Today in a recent interview. “I’m more of a uniter than a divider. I don’t like to fight with other people. That’s kind of where our differences are. But as far as calling him names and things like that, I’ve never done.” Kasich said he’s only critical of the president when he “deserves it,” and pointed to the recent controversy surrounding federal funding for the Special Olympics as an example. “I’m not setting myself up to be a Trump critic. But if I have a voice…

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Tennessee Legislators Scared to Fight Civil Asset Forfeiture Abuse, Says State Rep. Martin Daniel

Chris Butler

Members of the Tennessee General Assembly won’t tackle civil asset forfeiture abuse because they fear a backlash from law enforcement, said State Rep. Martin Daniel  (R-Knoxville). Daniel serves on the legislature’s Civil Justice Subcommittee. Daniel told The Tennessee Star Monday that for the past three years he’s filed bills “that would have substantially reformed the problem.” Daniel said his colleagues don’t show his bill much, if any, support. And there’s a reason for that, Daniel said. “Law enforcement likes to have this revenue, I would assume, because there’s not a lot of accountability and transparency. They can use this money to spend it any way they want to without the legislature’s or a county commission’s oversight,” Daniel said. According to Justiceactionnetwork.org, Tennessee law enforcement officers can use civil asset forfeiture to seize and sell people’s property. They can do this “based only on their suspicion that it has been involved in criminal activity, without having to charge the citizen with a crime.” Law enforcement officers can sell or auction this property to supplement their budgets. Officials in Tennessee, Justiceactionnetwork.org went on to say, have seized and forfeited more than $85.9 million dollars in property between 2009 and 2014. These same…

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