LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS: Did CNBC’s John Harwood fall for fake James Comey account?
If a tweet seems too good to be true, does that mean it’s too good to verify?
Author Archive: Stephen Green
July 12, 2017
GOOD QUESTION: Why’d Army allow soldier who allegedly showed ISIS support to stay active?
Col Gregory A. Gross, who severed as the initial judge in the court martial of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan in 2009, told The Associated Press Tuesday that the Army may have decided Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Kang was just mouthing off and was not a threat.
Gross said he was concerned by the similarities between Kang and Hasan’s case. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.
“He was making all these statements, and giving these presentations,” said Gross, who is currently a civilian defense attorney for military service members.
Noel Tipon, an attorney in military and civilian courts, said there’s nothing in the Army manual on removing soldiers from the service that would address allegations like speaking favorably about a group like Islamic State.
He suspects the FBI wanted to Kang to stay in the Army while they investigated whether he had collaborators.
“They probably said `let’s monitor it and see if we can get a real terrorist cell,’ ” said Tipon, who served in the Marine Corps.
That was my first guess, but after the last eight years — who knows?
FINGERS CROSSED: Monitoring group says ISIS members confirm leader’s death.
A London-based monitoring group with a solid history of accurately reporting incidents from inside war-torn Syria said Tuesday that it had been able to confirm the death of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Russia said in June that there was a “high degree of probability” al-Baghdadi had been killed in a Russian airstrike at the end of May. Moscow first made the claim on June 16, saying it had evidence he was among a group of ISIS leaders targeted at a meeting just outside the terror group’s de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.
U.S. and Iraqi officials cast doubt on the claim then, however, saying they had no evidence to suggest al-Baghdadi was dead. There have been numerous erroneous reports of his demise since ISIS seized a vast swath of northern Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.
The Reuters news agency quoted U.S. military officials in Washington again on Tuesday as saying they had no reason yet to believe al-Baghdadi was dead.
A spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition told CBS News in an emailed statement that, “we cannot confirm this report, but hope it is true. We strongly advise ISIS to implement a strong line of succession, it will be needed.”
That’s some deep trolling by the Pentagon.
GOP SENATOR DAVID PERDUE: Time ‘Running Out’ to Pass Trump Agenda.
A DAY OF ACTION FOR NET NEUTRALITY, A DAY CLOSER TO ACTION ON ANOTHER OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT, AND A FRENZY ABOUT INACTION ON RUSSIA: All that and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Explaining the decline in US entrepreneurship.
From Axios reporter Kim Hart: “The birth rate of new companies collapsed with the Great Recession, and the number of firms that opened during the recovery period is lower than that of any other post-recession period.”
I should note the piece uses analysis from the Economic Innovation Group (EIG). Its analysis from earlier this year, “Dynamism in Retreat,” speculates the startup decline stems from “declining population growth, a sharp decline in startup capital (notably home equity) during the recession, and changes to the regulatory environment,” according to Hart.
Now as it happens, the San Francisco Fed is out with a report on this issue of falling US business formation. It finds that in recent decades “the number of businesses in the United States has moved much more closely with workforce size” and that “[increasing] the labor supply and hence the supply of potential entrepreneurs can stimulate business formation by increasing demand without raising costs.” And now this bit: “Possible strategies could include encouraging more immigration, later retirement, or higher labor participation among women.”
I’m skeptical, to say the least, of any centralized effort to fine-tune national policy to somehow encourage entrepreneurship.
Instead, Washington could follow the wise man’s advice and just “Get the hell out of my way!”
TERRY GILLIAM’S BRAZIL WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: Why must government seem like Idiocracy outtakes?
July 11, 2017
JOHN SEXTON: After Covering The Ejection Of Jews From A Chicago Pride Parade, Reporter Is Moved To The Sales Desk.
Mustn’t disrupt the narrative.
THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE DEVICE: Woman saved from attack when Amazon Echo’s Alexa calls 911.
Eduardo Barros was arrested July 2 after an hours-long standoff with a SWAT team at a home in Tijeras, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to Bernalillo County sheriff’s spokeswoman Deputy Felicia Romero.
The couple was house sitting for the victim’s parents at the time, according to the arrest warrant affidavit and criminal complaint from the sheriff’s department.
The alleged assault began when Barros’ girlfriend received a text message. Barros accused the victim of cheating and “stated he was going to kill her if she called the cops,” the complaint said.
He asked her, “Did you call the sheriff?” the complaint said. An Amazon Echo device in the home overheard this comment, apparently interpreted it as a command to call authorities and placed a call to 911.
Amazon however denies that Alexa has that ability.
Maybe Amazon didn’t program Alexa to call 911, but Alexa programed herself to…
UNEXPECTEDLY: Best-Run States Are Low-Tax Republican, Worst-Run Are High-Tax Democratic, Study Finds.
There were several changes in the rankings from last year. Florida moved from sixth place to first, while Alaska dropped from first place last year to 17th this year, driven mainly by the fall in oil prices. Idaho moved into the top 10.
At the bottom of the heap, Louisiana and West Virginia both dropped down in the 10-worst list, while Hawaii greatly improved, going from 45th place last year 27th this year. Connecticut, Maine and New York also climbed out of the bottom 10 list. But New Jersey fell to dead last from last year’s 48th place.
The report also includes rankings for each individual measure of fiscal solvency, in addition to the overall ranking. Some states do well on some measures, and bad on others. New Jersey, for example, is last on long-run solvency and second to last on budget solvency, but ranks 24 on service-level solvency.
Nearly bankrupt Illinois is in the bottom in all but one of the five individual measures — service-level solvency.
The Mercatus report doesn’t include data on the states’ political leanings or tax burdens, but the implication is clear.
Great study — don’t get cocky.
PLAY “MISTY” FOR ME: Ax-wielding man prompts standoff outside radio studio after song request.
THIS SEEMS PRUDENT: Trump administration considering government-wide ban on popular Russian software.
The Obama Administration, for all of its late worries about Russian meddling, had eight years to implement a similar policy, yet never did.
FAIR SHARE: Seattle Approves Rich-Only Income Tax.
By a vote of 9-0, the council approved an income tax that only applies to wealthy residents, with the 2.25% tax starting at income above $250,000 for individuals and above $500,000 for married couples filing joint returns, the Seattle Times reports. The city estimates that the tax will raise around $140 million a year from Seattle’s 20,000 or so wealthiest residents. Washington state doesn’t have a personal income tax and a 1984 law bans cities and counties in the state from taxing net income, meaning Seattle’s move is certain to face legal challenges, the AP reports.
Opponents vowed to fight the measure, with Washington State Republican Party Chair Susan Hutchison urging citizens to “forcefully resist” the tax and not pay a penny.
Why are Republicans bothering to defend wealthy urban progressives from progressive policies?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: San Jose State Freshmen Charged $250 for Mandatory ‘Diversity And Inclusion’ Training.
Don’t worry, they’ll just roll it into your student loan.
PRIVACY: China Will Block All VPNs by February 2018.
The state has been attempting to clamp down on the use of VPNs by individuals for some time, but their use is still widespread. Last year Fang Binxing, known as the father of the Great Firewall, publicly used a VPN to bypass his own creation and in so doing caused embarrassment.
According to Bloomberg, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, have been given a deadline of February 1, 2018 by which time all VPN connections must be blocked. In doing so, Twitter, Facebook, and Google services will be completely off limits, as will many more China disapproves of.
As well as the demands put on ISPs in the country, the Ministry of Industry and Information technology plans to clamp down on unauthorized VPNs operating within China. Businesses can continue to operate them, but only internally.
Whether the government is capable of achieving its goal of no VPN use is unclear, but one thing is for sure, using a VPN will become much more difficult in China next year. Anyone visiting should assume many services will be unavailable and plan for that.
You’re always taking your chances visiting a Communist nation.
NO. Can Democrats Make Nice with Deplorables?
In the course of describing the Democrats’ class dilemma, the liberal truth-tellers unwittingly show why a solution lies out of reach. They understate Democrats’ entanglement with the identity-politics Left, a group devoted to a narrative of American iniquity. Identity politics appeals to its core constituents through grievance and resentment, particularly toward white men. Consider some reactions to centrist Democrat John Osoff’s defeat in Georgia’s sixth district. “Maybe instead of trying to convince hateful white people, Dems should convince our base—ppl of color, women—to turn out,” feminist writer and Cosmopolitan political columnist Jill Filopovic tweeted afterward. “At some point we have to be willing to say that yes, lots of conservative voters are hateful and willing to embrace bigots.” Insightful as she is, even Williams assumes that all criticisms of the immigration status quo can be chalked up to “fear of brown people.”
No Democrat on the scene today possesses the Lincolnesque political skills to persuade liberal voters to give up their assumptions of white deplorability, endorse assimilation, or back traditional civics education. In the current environment, a Democratic civics curriculum would teach that American institutions are vehicles for the transmission of white supremacy and sexism, hardly a route to social cohesion. As for assimilation, Hispanic and bilingual-education advocacy organizations would threaten a revolt—and they’d only be the first to sound the alarm.
There’s also gentry liberal snobbery, which is the Blue States’ opioid crisis.
JAW, JAW IS BETTER THAN WAR, WAR: Army Training Tells Soldiers Not to Gossip About Transgender Troops.
HUH: Aerospace guru explains why SpaceX reuses rockets – and it’s not to save money.
Jim Cantrell is the CEO of Vector Space Systems. He’s worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and was a founding member of both SpaceX and the Google Lunar X Prize-winning Moon Express. When it comes to the space industry, he’s the kind of guy who you should listen to, and in a recent response to a Quora question about exactly how much money SpaceX is saving by reusing its Falcon rocket, Cantrell revealed the real reason (he believes) the company has pursued reusable hardware so vigorously isn’t actually to save money, but to increase the number of launches the company is able to perform.
“Reusability allows a marked increase in flight rates,” Cantrell explained. “Reverse engineered financial models of SpaceX show that to reach a good strong positive cash flow, they need more than the traditional 10–12 launches per year that sized rocket has demonstrated. Reusability should easily double the amount of flights possible from a mere production and logistics standpoint.”
“Professionals study logistics” doesn’t just apply to military affairs.
AGING: 100-Year-Old Woman Says Plenty of Wine Is the Secret to Long Life.
The science is far from settled, but why take chances?