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Mark Judge Says He Avoid Public Speaking Due To Depression, Anxiety
Google Admits Existence Of Censored Chinese Search Engine Project; Dodges Questions At Senate Hearing
Within a Senate privacy hearing on Wednesday – which was seemingly swept out of the media spotlight by the lead up to today’s Judiciary Committee’s hearing involving a Brett Kavanaugh accuser – Google’s chief privacy officer Keith Enright admitted the existence of Project Dragonfly, reportedly a censored search engine for China.
During the hearing, members of the Senate Commerce Committee pressed Enright on how Google’s policies protecting user data would square up with the till-then rumored sanctioned search engine for China.
Before Wednesday’s hearing, Google had refused to confirm or comment on the reports claiming it has begun working on a project called “Dragonfly,” but the Google chief told lawmakers on Wednesday that “there is a Project Dragonfly.”
Enright would maintain while being pressed on the censorship project by Senator Ted Cruz:
“I will say that my understanding is that we are not, in fact, close to launching a search product in China, and whether we would or could at some point in the future remains unclear...
If we were, in fact, to finalize a plan to launch a search product in China, my team would be actively engaged.”
After admitting that “Dragonfly” project did exist, the privacy officer offered dodgy answering, saying that he is “not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of the scope of that project.”
Senator Cruz then asked if he thought that the Chinese government censors what its citizens see, to which Enright responded:
“As the privacy representative of Google, I’m not sure that I have an informed opinion on that question.”
Project “Dragon Fly” was previously reported as the code name for a censored search app in secret development by Google that would be specifically for China and would blacklist any material deemed unfit by the communist regime.
The project first came to light through a report in The Intercept on September 21 that detailed how Google “forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China.”
The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.
The memo was shared earlier this month among a group of Google employees who have been organizing internal protests over the censored search system, which has been designed to remove content that China’s authoritarian Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.
According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained “pixel trackers” that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined. The Intercept
Enright’s remarks on Wednesday echoes those of other Google executives in August that claimed the company was “not close to launching” a search product in China. At that time company heads were admittedly considering how to do business again in the Chinese local market. Chief executive Sundar Pichai said that plans to re-enter China with a search engine were “exploratory” and in the “early stages.”
Google left China in 2010 after clashing with Beijing over censorship of search results and a cyber attack on users of its Gmail email service.
Shortly after project “Dragonfly” became familiar to the public, senior research scientist for Google, Jack Poulson, resigned in protest over the companies work on the censored search product.
Paulson told The Intercept‘s Ryan Gallagher that he felt an “ethical responsibility to resign” over the “forfeiture of our public human rights commitments.”
4 troopers injured in Alexandria chase, crash
Four Louisiana State Police troopers were injured Wednesday after a high-speed chase that ended at Bolton and Rapides avenues, according to a release.
George W. Bush Still Supports Kavanaugh After Hearing On Sexual Assault Allegations
Nashville Cop Charged With Criminal Homicide for Shooting Man in the Back as He Fled
A white Nashville police officer, accused of fatally shooting a black man in the back as he fled, was charged yesterday with criminal homicide.
Daniel Hambrick, 25, sustained three gunshot wounds on July 26: two in his back and one in the back of his head. His alleged killer, Metropolitan Nashville Police Officer Andrew Delke, turned himself in to the authorities yesterday before being released on $25,000 bond. At first, Night Court Magistrate Evan Harris said there wasn't evidence to charge him. But Judge Michael Mondelli of the local General Sessions Court eventually signed off on the criminal charge.
Hambrick's death has renewed the debate over police culpability in controversial, officer-involved fatal shootings. Nationally, it's rare for such officers to face criminal charges. In the Nashville area, particularly when the officers in question were on duty, it's almost unheard of.
Delke's arrest warrant describes what happened in the lead-up to the shooting. Delke, a member of a stolen vehicles task force, was on patrol when he encountered a Chevrolet Impala at an intersection. Both Delke and the Impala had stopped at stop signs, but the Impala "conceded the right of way by not pulling in front of him," the warrant says.
This made Delke "suspicious," and when the Impala eventually continued on its way, the warrant says he "followed behind it." Delke ran the Impala's license plate and discovered it was not stolen. "Nevertheless, because Officer Delke understood that part of the Task Force directive was to make traffic stops, he continued to follow to see if he could develop a reason to stop the Impala," according to the warrant.
Delke continued following the car, and at one point turned on his police lights. The Impala didn't pull over, so he turned his lights off and kept following it "from a distance" until he "lost track" of the car," the warrant says. He drove around searching for it, and eventually found a different four-door sedan that he "mistook" for the Impala. Delke pulled up near the car, at which point one of the "individuals in the area," Hambrick, started to run away. Police have previously said Hambrick was in the car before he started running.
According to the arrest warrant, Delke chased Hambrick. As they were running, Delke "saw a gun in Mr. Hambrick's hand" and told him to "drop the gun," warning he would shoot if Hambrick did not comply. Delke "decided to use deadly force" when Hambrick appeared not to listen.
Surveillance video from a nearby school shows Hambrick being shot. It appears the officer stopped for a moment, then fired while Hambrick was still running:
Delke was not wearing a body camera, and there was no dash camera on his vehicle. Last year, the Nashville Metro Council set aside $15 million for all officers to receive body cameras, though Councilman Steve Glover says this would actually cost $50 million. Just 20 Nashville cops currently wear body cameras.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Delke was reassigned to a desk job. He has since been decommissioned, meaning he's still getting paid but is effectively suspended from the force. He's due in court October 30, and his attorney, David Raybin, says he plans to plead not guilty.
Delke's case may be unique for the Nashville area. The New York Times reports that neither Delke's attorney nor a spokesman for the prosecutor's office could "recall any other case in which a Nashville police officer had been charged with such a crime for an act that happened while on duty." The Nashville Tennessean agrees: "no Nashville police officer in recent memory has been charged after shooting someone while they were on duty."
Nashville isn't alone. Since 2015, at least 3,677 cops across the country have shot people fatally. Since 2005, fewer than 100 have faced criminal charges. Only 32 have actually been convicted, with roughly half of those convictions resulting from guilty pleas.
Professor Slams Kavanaugh: "A Right-Wing Creep Obsessed With Overturning Roe v. Wade"
Authored by Abigail Marone via Campus Reform,
An associate professor at Georgia Southern University shared his distaste for Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Twitter, but later backtracked on many of the comments after he was asked by Campus Reform to elaborate.
“Pull back the nomination and name some other right-wing creep obsessed with overturning Roe v. Wade” Jared Yates Sexton tweeted on September 23.
“For me, the label is earned as this: Kavanaugh is a longtime Republican who has espoused conservative ideals, thus the term right wing, and personally I find the allegations against him - that he attempted to assault a woman, that he forced himself on another, that as of this morning he’s been accused of participating in drugging women in order to assault them - supremely creepy” Yates Sexton told Campus Reform.
“I’m not going to say all creeps are right wing. There are liberal creeps, libertarian creeps, anarchist creeps. It just so happens this one is right wing.” He did not elaborate on his comments about overturning Roe v. Wade.
“Just assume everyone in Trump’s orbit and everyone he chooses for positions is completely terrible. It saves a lot of time” he tweeted on September 16.
“My comment about everyone Trump nominates being terrible was hyperbole and a reaction to the exhaustion of all these scandals,” Yates Sexton admitted to Campus Reform. “It’s just so exhausting and the Kavanaugh thing was a very rotten cherry on top of a toxic sludge sundae.”
Yates Sexton also shared his thoughts on Kavanaugh’s virginity.
“Kavanaugh says he was a virgin in high school, and I'm sure, in his mind, this is saying he was naive or that he wasn't sexual in nature, but subconsciously, this is the toxic masculinity at play. He's saying, back then, he couldn't have assaulted her. He wasn't man enough.”
“A president caught on tape talking about sexually assaulting women nominating a man for the Supreme Court who’s being accused of sexual assault and now rape - is ripe for a discussion of how our culture’s patriarchal ideas of masculinity are problematic and help create rape culture, which is what the Me Too Movement is considering.”
He also acknowledged, “I wasn’t saying Kavanaugh’s defense was intended to frame any of this, but that subconscious perceptions and rhetoric constantly influence language.”
“The Republican Party needs to go away” because they are willing to do “anything to defend a man accused of rape” he tweeted on September 20.
Georgia Southern University told Campus Reform they had no comment on these “personal, political statements by an employee.”
Editor's note: Campus Reform encourages civil discourse and acknowledges professors' First Amendment right to free speech. The purpose of this article, like any other, is to present the facts and allow our readers to form their own opinions.
NY Times Opinion Twitter Account Apologizes for ‘Insensitive’ Poll About Christine Blasey Ford
The New York Times’ opinion Twitter account apologized and deleted a tweet that asked followers if they found Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony “credible.” The Twitter poll was posted during Ford’s testimony about the alleged assault she claims took place at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh who also testified on Thursday. “Christine Blasey Ford is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Do […]
The post NY Times Opinion Twitter Account Apologizes for ‘Insensitive’ Poll About Christine Blasey Ford appeared first on Accuracy in Media.
Montgomery County Police Explain Why They’re Not Investigating Christine Blasey Ford’s Allegations
Video of fight that led to shooting death of LSU's Wayde Sims released by police
Navy to commission fast attack sub USS Indiana on Saturday
The USS Indiana, the U.S. Navy's newest fast attack submarine, will be commissioned this Saturday at 10 a.m. at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Feminist Author Wants Rape Survivors To Ambush Jeff Flake ‘For The Rest Of His Life’
Broaddrick accuses Dems of 'double standard'
Juanita Broaddrick
Juanita Broaddrick, who credibly has accused President Bill Clinton of raping her when he was Arkansas attorney, accused Democrats, as they were set to hear Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser Thursday, of employing a “double standard.”
Speaking to media outside the Senate building where the hearing was set to take place, Broaddrick said Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 at a high school party is “no comparison” to what happened to her.
Broaddrick said Ford had no evidence while she had “the who, what, when, where and how and had five people that I told, not even counting the woman who found me 30 minutes after the rape with a swollen busted lip, torn clothes and in a state of shock.”
Democrats have vowed, even before Kavanaugh became the nominee, to attempt to block President Trump’s choice to replace swing-vote Anthony Kennedy. Democrats fear Kavanaugh would become the deciding vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that established a right to abortion.
The Daily Wire reported that Broaddrick “crashed” the Kavanaugh hearing, and ripped Democrats there for “the biggest double standard I’ve ever seen.”
“How they can take these accusations and run with them, and laugh at mine for so many years is the biggest double standard I’ve ever seen?” she asked. “It makes me angry that they left [Clinton] in office.”
Broaddrick charged Democrats deliberately ignored her substantive claim of rape by Clinton.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the senator who received Ford’s accusation more than six weeks ago, was in office during independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation into Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.
“It’s absurd,” Broaddrick told Fox News earlier. “Not one Democrat would look at my deposition with the independent counsel. Oh my gosh, they did not want to know about it.”
In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, she recalled 1999 when “along with every other Democrat,” Feinstein “refused to read my deposition to the independent counsel.”
“They would have nothing to do with it. That shows you the difference in the double standard that existed back then and still does today,” Broaddrick said.
At her Thursday news conference in Washington, she said she has “20 times more evidence for my rape by Bill Clinton than Dr. Ford has against Kavanaugh.”
“Democrats turned their backs on me. They refused to read or acknowledge me in 1999 when I went public with my story. Democrats turned their backs on me,” she said.
Billy Cannon statue unveiling cancelled after shooting death of LSU basketball player Wayde Sims
Michael Savage Asks: Is Dr. Ford Tied to the CIA?
Liberal Activists, Pundits Accuse Kavanaugh Of ‘Mansplaining’ To Dianne Feinstein
Kavanaugh blasts 'phony question' from Durbin, resists call for FBI investigation
Scalise takes on challengers in debate, defending tariffs and stance on guns
Man sorry for claiming Kavanaugh sexually assaulted his friend
(Daily Caller) A Rhode Island man who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting his friend apologized on Wednesday and said he “made a mistake.”
The man called Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s office and claimed that Kavanaugh and Mark Judge, a high school friend of Kavanaugh, drunkenly sexually assaulted one of his friends, according to interview transcripts released by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A committee investigator asked Kavanaugh about the allegation during an interview on Tuesday, which he denied.
GOP senator at Kavanaugh hearing: 'Porn star lawyers' are driving the news cycle
CNN Published Flimsy Kavanaugh Allegation After Twitter Account Associated With it Had Already Retracted
On Wednesday, new accusations were leveled against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Among them were the allegations by a client of Michael Avenatti and two from people who elected to remain anonymous. One of those, about an alleged assault in Rhode Island, was basically a rumor, and it was recanted by the person who apparently started it. But CNN ran with the story anyway. After that recantation.
The Rhode Island allegation was among the details revealed when the Senate Judiciary Committee released transcripts on Wednesday from their interview of Kavanaugh. The transcript included the details of the alleged assault, which had been relayed to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse‘s (D-RI) office and thus brought to the committee. Lawmakers also included several tweets, read verbatim to Kavanaugh, from the account of the man who made the claim.
The account that sent those tweets recanted the accusation an hour before CNN ran their story, which detailed the charge without noting that the person had recanted.
Contributor to FoxNews.com Stephen Miller tweeted about the timing Wednesday night.
CNN published a story about the boat accusation at 9:00pm. They tweeted it out at 9:00pm. The story has no mention of the accuser recanting on twitter, which was tweeted at 7:50 pm, over a full hour before publishinghttps://t.co/EbLJIS5Xeq pic.twitter.com/ua98cJW8gn
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) September 27, 2018
The story itself was such flimsy material that no news outlet should have treated it as credible. An unnamed male told Whitehouse that in 1985, an unnamed female with whom he was acquainted once told him that she was sexually assaulted by “two men named Brett and Mark.”
The man did not witness the incident. He instead anonymously alleged that an anonymous female friend told him about it. And it does not identify Judge and Kavanaugh, but instead that two guys named Brett and Mark assaulted her.
The unnamed man who called Sen. Whitehouse also claimed that “he and another individual went to the harbor, located the boat the victim had described and physically confronted the two men, leaving them with significant injuries.”
His story was me and my buddy beat up two guys in 1985 that a woman we knew said assaulted her. Also they were named Brett and Mark.
Kavanaugh was asked about this because Sen. Whitehouse brought the charge to the committee. When the information came out, CNN not only wrote about it, but their coverage began referring to there being “five allegations.”
Partisan Senate hearings aren’t expected to adhere to courtroom or journalistic standards, even if they ought to, and the fact that Kavanaugh was asked about the Rhode Island accusation is a piece of news. But to report the allegation without highlighting how flimsy it is, and to treat it as one equal part of five total accusations is already bad reporting. It is worse that the absurdly thin premise on which the story was based was already dead and withdrawn before CNN even wrote about it, and before the “five allegations” had become part of the network’s ongoing coverage, which it was for several hours.
In Chris Cuomo‘s coverage, he said it was “hard to credit” the anonymous allegation, but as you can see in the image, the “five allegation” chyron remained, and neither he nor the article had yet included the flimsiness of the provenance nor the Tweet that was later added in a very late update.
Kavanaugh, in the interview with the committee, denied the near-allegation: “No, I was not in Newport, haven’t been on a boat in Newport. Not with Mark Judge on a boat, nor all those three things combined. This is just completely made up, or at least not me. I don’t know what they’re referring to.”
Reached for comment, CNN told Mediaite… nothing, they didn’t reply.
This accusation was treated as one among several, giving the impression to viewers and readers that there was a groundswell of accusations against Judge Kavanaugh. But the Rhode Island story would normally never meet the standard for publication by any serious news outlet. The hook that it was asked about by the committee should not abrogate the network’s responsibility to treat it with the appropriate amount of skepticism, and certainly not to fail to check the account cited in the report to even see if the person was credible or had made any contrary claims. Had they checked, they would have found the answer was “no” to the former and “yes” to the latter.
[Featured image via screengrab]
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Kavanaugh Finally Faces Feinstein — Destroys Her Allegations Against Him
Watch Brett Kanavaugh unleashed on Senate Democrats
Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh Thursday unleashed on the Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee, who first hid an accusation of sexual impropriety that a woman brought again him, then trotted it out at the last minute in his confirmation process, assuring a disruption of an orderly transition.
His 44-minute opening statement took them to task for their misbehavior.
It also warned that the Democrats were taking the Senate process to confirm judges to a new low that would scare qualified candidates.
“Thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed I may never be able to teach again,” he said. “I love coaching more than anything … Thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again.”
He said he expected the confirmation procedss to be challenging, but never expected “it would devolve into this.”
He warned if the “mere allegations” are enough to “destroy a person’s life and career, we’ve all abandoned the basic principles of fairness and due process.”
See the statement:
Fired Up! Lindsey Graham Slams Democrats Over Kavanaugh Witch-Hunt
CNN’s John King: ‘Brett Kavanaugh Went Full Trump Today’
Speaking during a break in the Thursday proceedings, CNN’s John King said Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh went “full Trump” during his heated, Democrat attacking testimony in front of Congress.
The comment came during a conversation about whether or not the handful of Republicans thought to be most on the fence may be swayed by Kavanaugh’s fiery testimony or if his Trumpian tactics would actually turn them off.
“And what makes the moment so fascinating is that the four Republicans we’re watching most closely, on the committee — Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse — then Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins,” King said, are inclined to vote for Kavanaugh because they think he’s part of the “pre-Trump Republican Party” and one of them.
He continued on: “Does their calculation change at all? Are they swayed by a Donald Trump nominee who became a Trump fighter today attacking the Democrats, the Clintons?” and saying things like, “‘You called me evil. You’ve destroyed my family.'”
King then said this, referring to the nominee adamant self-defense: “Brett Kavanaugh went full Trump today” before concluding, “So does Kavanaugh’s embrace of Trump help him with the four key senators or hurt him? That’s the question.”
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]