(Times of Israel) Previously unseen Dead Sea Scroll fragments, which had been stored in cigar boxes since archaeologists unearthed them in the 1950s, were identified and unveiled at an international conference on Tuesday in honor of the 70th anniversary of the scrolls’ discovery in Jerusalem.
The tiny fragments, all thought to be taken from Qumran’s Cave 11, are game changers and provide new puzzle pieces towards completing the picture of known published scrolls, experts said.
(Newsweek) Former NBA star Dennis Rodman—the unsanctioned, amateur American ambassador to North Korea—said his meetings with Kim Jong Un brought “awareness” to the U.S. which has helped usher in the upcoming nuclear talks. Although Trump has previously ridiculed both Rodman and Kim Jong Un, the U.S. president’s most recent comments suggest he wants to help lead a proposed nuclear meeting.
Speaking with TMZ Monday, Rodman said he gave the supreme leader of North Korea a copy of President Donald Trump’s 1987 book The Art of the Deal during his last visit to Pyongyang in 2017. Rodman said that he doesn’t want to “take all the credit” for the nuclear program meeting, but his work as a “sports ambassador” helped usher in friendlier discourse between North Korea, South Korea and Trump, or just “the ability to talk.”
Opponent: 'Does the state really want to go back to the days where women are found in bloody pools in back alleys?'
A big logo created from pictures of Facebook users worldwide is pictured in the company’s Data Center, its first outside the US on November 7, 2013 in Lulea, in Swedish Lapland. The company began construction on the facility in October 2011 and went live on June 12, 2013 and are 100% run on hydro power. JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images
There’s no doubt that some broadcast networks have adopted such an anti-conservative political position that they could be considered partisan organizations like the Democratic National Committee. Their commentators are nearly unanimous in their daily criticism of the President Trump and his policies.
With social media following suit and now reaching a “crisis level,” a coalition of leading conservatives is calling out the CEOs of companies such as Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter for their obvious bias.
Newsbusters, a service of the Media Research Center, reports MRC President Brent Bozell and dozens of others issued a joint statement urging social-media companies to start playing fair if they “wish to have any credibility with the conservative movement and its tens of millions of supporters.”
That social media is plunging leftward politically isn’t in dispute. The various platforms have repeatedly censored conservative organizations, news, speakers even religious leaders.
“Social media censorship and online restriction of conservatives and their organizations have reached a crisis level,” the statement says. “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s hearings on Capitol Hill only served to draw attention to how widespread this problem has become.”
The statement said social media firms “have banned gun videos and rejected pro-life advertisements.”
“They have skewed search results and adjusted trending topics in ways that have harmed the right. Firms have restricted and deleted videos, even academic content. Conservative tech employees have found their speech limited and their careers harmed. And top tech companies have given preferential treatment to anointed legacy media outlets that also lean left. These same tech titans then work with groups openly hostile to conservatives to restrict speech.”
Their opinion is affirmed by others. Fast Company, a monthly business magazine, for example, said Facebook has been “hyper-partisan.”
“Like the stages of grief, first the company denied the problem and over the last few months has admitted it and then slowly announced it would implement ways to try and fix it. But just how big is this problem? According to a Medium post by the Boston Globe’s director of audience and Nieman fellow, Matt Karolina, it was and remains a big one,” the report said.
The conservative leaders wrote that the social-media companies, first, need to provide transparency.
“We need detailed information so everyone can see if liberal groups and users are being treated the same as those on the right. Social media companies operate in a black-box environment, only releasing anecdotes about reports on content and users when they think it necessary. This needs to change,” they said.
Secondly, the social media platforms must clarify the definition of “hate speech.”
“‘Hate speech’ is a common concern among social media companies, but no two firms define it the same way. Their definitions are vague and open to interpretation, and their interpretation often looks like an opportunity to silence thought. Today, hate speech means anything liberals don’t like. Silencing those you disagree with is dangerous. If companies can’t tell users clearly what it is, then they shouldn’t try to regulate it.”
Third is a need for “equal footing” for conservatives.
“Top social media firms, such as Google and YouTube, have chosen to work with dishonest groups that are actively opposed to the conservative movement, including the Southern Poverty Law Center. Those companies need to make equal room for conservative groups as advisers to offset this bias. That same attitude should be applied to employment diversity efforts. Tech companies need to embrace viewpoint diversity,” the conservatives said.
Fourth, and last, the First Amendment needs to be considered.
“Tech giants should afford their users nothing less than the free speech and free exercise of religion embodied in the First Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. That standard, the result of centuries of American jurisprudence, would enable the rightful blocking of content that threatens violence or spews obscenity, without trampling on free speech liberties that have long made the United States a beacon for freedom.”
Along with Bozell, signers include former congressman and Army officer Allen B. West of MRC’s Censorship Project, Media Fairness Caucus Chairman Lamar Smith, Live Action President Lila Rose, Jerry Johnson of the National Religious Broadcasters, ACT for America founder Brigitte Gabriel and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.
Others are former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Citizens United President Dave Bossie, Senate Conservatives Fund chief Ken Cuccinelli, Weyrich Lunch chairman Morton Blackwell, Ron Robinson of Young America’s Foundation, American Family Association President Tim Wildmon, Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe, Kelly Shakelford, Cleta Mitchell, Penny Young Nance, Mathew Staver, Frank Gaffney, Brian Brown, Patrick Reilly and Tim Huelskamp,
The Gateway Pundit blog said it’s “no accident” that conservatives are censored on Facebook.
“This was the plan. In January 2017, Facebook began making algorithm changes to make sure conservative news was no longer so influential. The Gateway Pundit Facebook traffic has consistently decreased with each algorithm change.
“A March 2018 study by The Outline organization found conservative publishers were hit the hardest by Facebook algorithm changes. The study also showed that The Gateway Pundit was hit the hardest. In March 2018 Western Journal also published a study that found conservative publishers were hit the hardest by the recent Facebook algorithm changes. The report found that liberal publishers actually saw a 2 percent increase in traffic. Conservative publishers lost an average of 14 percent in traffic.”
The Gateway Pundit noted Facebook official Campbell Brown, a former anchor on NBC and CNN, told attendees at a recent technology and publishing conference that Facebook would be censoring news publishers based on its own internal biases. And they did.”
Just this week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced his company increasingly will censor “controversial” political content. He explained he has ordered that news organizations be ranked based on trustworthiness, as assessed by his loyalists.
Then, he says, the news is either suppressed or amplified.
He said it’s not enough to have online tools, he wants them used for “good,” as he defines it.
He was meeting with leaders of left-leaning or far-left groups such as the Huffington Post, CNN and New York Times.
Commentators at PJMedia agreed, pointing out that for a short time Facebook added a line to posts asking, “Does this post contain hate speech?”
“Then, just as suddenly as the ‘hate speech’ identification options appeared, they disappeared on Tuesday morning,” the report said.
Quoting Buzzfeed’s documentation of Zuckerberg’s plan to eliminate “final remaining conservative voices on Facebook,” Gateway Pundit said, “There should be no doubt left. Facebook is determined to shut out conservative pro-Trump voices.”
U.S. cigarette manufacturers must begin posting warnings next month about the dangers of smoking on websites and product packaging, a federal court said.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump has called courts unfair and political and repeatedly assailed the 9th Circuit, the U.S. court system’s westernmost division, where some of his key immigration policies have stalled.
Other observers describe America’s judges as conservative or liberal, implying they bring an ideology to their decision-making that goes beyond a careful assessment of law and precedent. That view has made the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of federal judges fraught, with each party battling to block nominees they view as unsympathetic to their positions.
But is there any evidence politics plays a role in judicial opinions? An Associated Press review suggests it might.
French President Emmanuel Macron stumbled into an awkward (Freudian?) slip during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday.
Macron, in an effort to thank his host, turned to Turnbull and declared:
“I wanted to thank you for your welcome,” Macron said. “Thank you and your delicious wife for your warm welcome.”
It’s unclear what word Macron was going for, or whether he was earnestly calling Aussie first lady Lucy Turnbull delicious. For what it’s worth, the French translation of delicious, “délicieux,” has a decidedly less flirty connotation than its English counterpart. It’s typically reserved for food, e.g. un pain au chocolat délicieux.
Macron’s gaffe in Sydney comes hot off of his speech in Washington D.C. before a joint session of Congress, in which he delivered — in English — a rousing call for cooperation between the two allies on global affairs ranging from the fight against terror to climate change.
Watch his Sydney flub above, via AP.
[image via screengrab]
—
People suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, might find some relief by using the popular party drug ecstasy, a small study suggests.
(Washington Times) House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte Tuesday urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate allegations that top Obama-era Department of Justice officials tried to shut down the FBI probe into the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 presidential election.
“At a minimum the allegations deserve further scrutiny to determine whether the FBI was hampered in any way by top officials in the Department of Justice, top officials of the FBI itself, or senior officials of the Obama Administration,” Mr. Goodlatte wrote in a letter to the Attorney General. “Please confirm that the DOJ will take immediate steps to investigate this matter and hold any wrongdoers accountable.”
An inspector general report on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe released last month detailed an August 2016 phone call from a high-ranking Justice Department official. Mr. McCabe thought the call was made to scuttle the FBI’s Clinton Foundation investigation while Hillary Clinton was running for president, according to the report.
"Teen Mom 2" star Jenelle Evans is accused of pulling out a gun during a road rage incident while her 8-year-old son, Jace, was in the car.
A Morning Joe segment derailed on Wednesday after co-host Mika Brzezinski suggested that the alleged raid on Donald Trump’s doctor was intended to cover up evidence of a sexually transmitted disease.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle appeared on Morning Joe to discuss her report that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly repeatedly called Trump an “idiot” in private conversations, and made an analogy about those who choose to work for the president:
“It’s truly like every time I’ve ever dated an awful jerk out there and then thought, you know what? I’m going to be the girl to change him,” Ruhle said. “And every person that touches President Trump thinks that: I’m going to be the girl that turns this guy around.”
“And nobody can, because this is who he is.”
The MSNBC host added, “we know from Kellyanne Conway, unless you show true worship of the grand master wizard that is the president, then you’re outskies with him.”
“I like this analogy from Stephanie,” MSNBC’s Elise Jordan said. “You leave [the White House] with the political equivalent of an STD, to talk about something that Donald Trump worries about constantly.”
“It’s something that you just don’t get rid of easily,” Jordan added.
Joe Scarborough then made a reference to the president’s famous quip that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in the 1990s was his “personal Vietnam.”
“Donald Trump would even say that this would be like one of his staffers’ personal Vietnams,” Scarborough joked.
“Wait a minute!” Mika Brzezinski exclaimed. “Maybe that’s why they raided his doctor’s office?”
Enjoy the painful silence that ensued that comment, as well as Scarborough’s tactful segue, above via MSNBC.
[image via screengrab]
—
