PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Eric Holder: If I Run for President, It’ll Be From Concluding I Could Unify the Country.
—The Washington Free Beacon, yesterday.
● Holder: U.S. a ‘nation of cowards’ on race discussions.
—CNN, February 19th, 2009.
JEAN-LOUIS GASSÉE: Mark Zuckerberg Thinks We’re Idiots.
With the Guardian’s new exposé, things are different for Facebook: They’re much worse. The company is in a new kind of defensive stance as it tries to explain how the data of as many as 57 million users was aspirated by a researcher named Aleksandr Kogan and handed over to Cambridge Analytica, a political influence peddler.
After a few days of silence, Zuckerberg talked to the New York Times, to CNN, to Wired and Recode to explain what happened and, more important, to tell us what his company intends to do to put things right.
Carefully reading and re-reading Zuckerberg’s words puts me ill at ease. Of course, simply complaining that Facebook’s CEO sounds well-rehearsed won’t do. He’s a pro at managing a major crisis. Persphinctery statements are part of the fare (from the NYT interview):
“Privacy issues have always been incredibly important to people. One of our biggest responsibilities is to protect data.”
But we quickly get to the misrepresentations.
Read the whole thing.
MICHAEL WALSH: WHAT FRIGHTENS THE LEFT MOST? THE CONSTITUTION.
What the Left is really afraid of is that the census might be used to identify individuals or concentrations of illegals and thus alert the authorities to their locations. This is why the rogue state of California has declared itself a “sanctuary” (note the corruption of the Christian term) and is vigorously opposing the exercise of the federal government’s lawful authority within its state lines. Indeed, Xavier Becerra, the Golden State’s attorney general, has already filed suit against the move, even though California has no legal control over either immigration or the census.
So now you see what the Left is, at root, afraid of. Not simply guns or crackdowns on illegal immigration, but of something far more fundamental. They fear, and therefore hate, the Constitution of the United States.
Read the whole thing.
ANDREW MALCOLM: Holy Moly! Look What You Pay In State And Local Taxes.
I’m afraid to look:
According to the Census Bureau, last year alone state and local governments collected a record $573 billion just in property taxes. That’s about $1,759 for each one of the estimated 326 million Americans.
Add to that another record — $386.2 billion — in sales and gross receipts taxes.
And another $405 billion in income taxes.
That’s almost $1.4 TRILLION. Quite a haul for governments. And yet, as the Wall Street Journal reports (subscription), state and local governments are hiking taxes and fees even more, claiming budget crunches.
Now go look at the condition of your local infrastructure or the test scores at your local high school, and ask what you’re getting for all that money.
As I keep saying: We have much more government than we need, and far less than we pay for.
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TYLER O’NEIL: David Hogg’s Sister Complains to First Lady Melania Trump About ‘Cyberbullying’ From Laura Ingraham.
Flashback: David Hoggs Says ‘Our Parents Don’t Know How To Use a F**king Democracy So We Have To.’
“It’s like when your old-a** parents are like, ‘I don’t know how to send an iMessage,’ and you’re just like, ‘Give me the f**king phone’ and you take it and you’re like, ‘OK, let me handle it,’ and you get it done in one second,” Hogg said. “Sadly, that’s what we have to do with our government because our parents don’t know how to use a f**king democracy, so we have to.”
“They’re pathetic f**kers that want to keep killing our children,” Hogg said of the NRA. “They could have blood from children splattered all over their faces and they wouldn’t take action, because they all still see those dollar signs.”
Charming lad.
CAN WE FIND OUT WHAT THEY DRANK AND GIVE IT TO CITIZENS TODAY? Colonial Americans Drank Roughly Three Times as Much as Americans Do Now.
LOOKS LIKE THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GOP is forcing Dems to go on the record about repealing the 2d Amendment.
HERE’S A LINK TO MY APPEARANCE ON DANA LOESCH’S NRATV SHOW last night. My part starts at about 36 minutes in.
RASMUSSEN: Most Voters Aren’t Swayed by Stormy Daniels’ Claims.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters closely followed news reports about the Daniels interview, with 21% who followed those reports Very Closely. Forty-five percent (45%) didn’t pay close attention to the “60 Minutes” interview, including another 21% who didn’t follow news reports about it at all. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
But only 39% attach any importance to the Daniels interview when it comes to their perceptions of the president and the job he is doing. Fifty-six percent (56%) don’t. This includes 17% who say the interview is Very Important to their perceptions of Trump and 34% who say it’s Not At All Important.
Perhaps in part that’s because a new high of 52% believe when most reporters write or talk about Trump, they are trying to block him from passing his agenda.
That seems low.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Keep Facebook From Spying on You Without Deleting Your Account.
“IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?” MAY NO LONGER BE A RHETORICAL QUESTION: Pope Francis: ‘There Is No Hell.’
BRIDGET JOHNSON: Put Zuckerberg Under Subpoena, Argues Judiciary Committee Senator.
“WHAT IS THE HALF-LIFE ON THE LEFT DEVOURING ITS OWN THESE DAYS?” The BBC asks, “Is the new movement against gun violence that is sweeping America too white and too rich?”
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HEADS UP: China is reportedly taking the first steps to pay for oil in yuan instead of US dollars this year.
Shifting just part of global oil trade into the yuan is potentially huge. Oil is the world’s most traded commodity, with an annual trade value of around $14 trillion, roughly equivalent to China’s gross domestic product last year.
A pilot program for yuan payment could be launched as early as the second half of this year, two of the people said.
Regulators have informally asked a handful of financial institutions to prepare for pricing China’s crude imports in the yuan, said the three sources at some of the financial firms.
“Being the biggest buyer of oil, it’s only natural for China to push for the usage of yuan for payment settlement. This will also improve the yuan liquidity in the global market,” said one of the people briefed on the matter by Chinese authorities.
I’m curious to see how much faith international markets are willing to place in the yuan, now that China is moving away from Communism-by-consensus and back to one-man rule.
IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Coffee may lower risk for clogged arteries, study says.
Flashback, NYT: The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru — How Ben Rhodes rewrote the rules of diplomacy for the digital age.
It’s almost as though there’s one set of standards for inexperienced Republican appointees, and a completely different set for Democrats.
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ANN ALTHOUSE: Why are colleges rejecting the prominent high school activist David Hogg? “So it’s almost as if the schools are repelled by him (in secret) — the way many gun-rights people are repelled (openly). What’s up schools? Are your values phony? Do you want pliable mush minds to shape and not an irksome, pesky, know-it-all, loudmouth kid? This is — I hypothesize — what happens when institutions internalize political activism and why youthful political activism cannot be what it was in the 1960s.”
Plus: “I haven’t watched David Hogg’s political speeches, only this video. To my eye, he looks stressed and troubled. I don’t know how independent he is, who if anyone is using or abusing him, how much sleep he gets, how confused and addled he may feel after such an intense time in the spotlight.”
HERE WE GO AGAIN? GOP seeks to avoid Dem upset in Arizona.
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