Pogo and Kirk Douglas: Today's news for December 9th

(hat tip to Walt Kelly)

The old Pogo cartoon above really gets to the heart of one of our major problems today: We do more harm to ourselves than even our enemies. Case in point:

Cyberscoop:

Georgia’s secretary of state: DHS tried to breach our firewall

Georgia’s secretary of state has claimed the Department of Homeland Security tried to breach his office’s firewall and has issued a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson asking for an explanation.

Brian Kemp issued a letter to Johnson on Thursday after the state’s third-party cybersecurity provider detected an IP address from the agency’s Southwest D.C. office trying to penetrate the state’s firewall. According to the letter, the attempt was unsuccessful.

The attempt took place on Nov. 15, a few days after the presidential election. The office of the Georgia Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing the state’s elections.

“At no time has my office agreed to or permitted DHS to conduct penetration testing or security scans of our network,” Kemp wrote in the letter, which was also sent to the state’s federal representatives and senators. “Moreover, your department has not contacted my office since this unsuccessful incident to alert us of any security event that would require testing or scanning of our network. This is especially odd and concerning since I serve on the Election Cyber Security Working Group that your office created.”

DHS's response:

“The Department of Homeland Security has received Secretary Kemp’s letter,” a DHS spokesperson told CyberScoop. “We are looking into the matter. DHS takes the trust of our public and private sector partners seriously, and we will respond to Secretary Kemp directly.”

The reason why, according to Kemp and his office:

In an interview with Politico, Kemp intimated that the federal government’s hacking fears were overblown, saying “they now think our whole system is on the verge of disaster because some Russian’s going to tap into the voting system.”

David Dove, Kemp’s chief of staff, told CyberScoop the Georgia secretary of state’s office “got a lot of grief” for refusing help from DHS.

“We basically said we don’t need DHS’s help,” because of the contract with the third-party provider, Dove said.

The office of the Georgia Secretary of State would not reveal who the provider is, only saying the company “analyzes more than 180 billion events a day globally across a 5,000+ customer base which includes many Fortune 500 companies.”

In other words, DHS doesn't trust the private sector, so they are trying to shame the State of Georgia into doing things their way. Unfortunately for DHS, their attempt failed and now they have to explain.

Sometimes, I am proud to live in Georgia. This is one of those times.

In other news...

BBC:

In pictures: Kirk Douglas at 100

It is hard to believe that Kirk Douglas is 100 years old today.

He was a master of playing larger-than-life characters, like he did in 1954's Ulysses. On the other hand, he could also portray human frailty, like he did as Vincent Van Gogh in 1956's Lust for Life. In all, his acting career went from 1946 to 2008. To do anything that long, you have to be good at it.

Happy birthday, Mr. Douglas. Take the day off. You have earned it.

Trump and the media

Bill Clinton's former labor secretary Robert Reich has an editorial at the Moyers & Co. website titled, "Trump’s Seven Techniques to Control the Media", with the more telling subtitle, "Tyrants always try to suppress a free press; here's Trump's playbook."

This isn't just a game for tyrants. Presidents since Lincoln have tried to control the Media's message.

But if Reich is truly calling Donald Trump some kind of despot, then we should expect to see a list like this:

1. Jailing journalists.
2. Banning private news companies and installing a state media operation.
3. Using propaganda methods such as posters and ads to sell the government's message. 

Instead, Reich gives us these:

1. "Berate the media". This is a fool's game, which most presidents have learned better, although some still try it. If anything, Trump should thank these progressive idiots in the MSM for working so hard against him. Considering the low opinion the public has of the MSM, they did him a huge favor. 

2. "Blacklist critical media". Government bureaucrats do this, so why not presidents?

3. "Turn the public against the media". Considering how low the Media has rated in public opinion polling for many years, long before Trump ran for president, this is just a case of Trump providing confirmation bias to the public. The MSM made their own bed in this one.

4. "Condemn satirical or critical comments". Saturday Night Live is part of the Media? Yeah, and Jon Stewart is a serious journalist. Cut me a break.

That said, this does show Trump to be rather thin-skinned.

5. "Threaten the media directly". As Reich describes it:

Trump said he plans to change libel laws in the United States so that he can have an easier time suing news organizations. “One of the things I’m going to do if I win … I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

During the campaign, Trump specifically threatened to sue The Times for libel in response to an article that featured two women accusing him of touching them inappropriately years ago. Trump claimed the allegations were false, and his lawyer demanded the newspaper retract the story and issue an apology. Trump also threatened legal action after The Times published and wrote about part of his 1995 tax return. 

Trump will have a hard time with this one, as public figures (especially presidents) are afforded little protection. Between the First Amendment and legal precedent, new laws won't get much traction, and will likely get overturned on appeals.

6. "Limit media access". This one is almost funny. Reich starts out with:

Trump hasn’t held a news conference since July. He has blocked the media from traveling with him or even knowing whom he’s meeting with. 

Earlier in the same editorial, Reich said this:

Last week, Trump summoned two dozen TV news anchors and executives to the 25th floor of Trump Tower to berate them for their reporting about him during the election. For 20 minutes he railed at what he called their “outrageous” and “dishonest” coverage. 

While it may not fit the definition of "news conference", the Media seemed to walk away with news:

According to an attendee, “Trump kept saying, ‘we’re in a room of liars, the deceitful, dishonest media who got it all wrong,’” and he called CNN a “network of liars.” He accused NBC of using unflattering pictures of him, demanding to know why they didn’t use “nicer” pictures. 

Another person who attended the meeting said Trump “truly doesn’t seem to understand the First Amendment. He thinks we are supposed to say what he says and that’s it.” 

"Limit media access" and "berate the media" don't work together. So which is it?

7. "Bypass the media and communicate with the public directly". Obama tried the same thing (remember his White House videos?). Presidents used to make "whistle stop" train tours of the country for the same purpose.

Reich defends this as a problem thus:

The word “media” comes from “intermediate” between newsmakers and the public. Responsible media hold the powerful accountable by asking them hard questions and reporting on what they do. Apparently Trump wants to eliminate such intermediaries.

The problem here is the MSM has abused this privilege by failing to hold the powerful accountable (see Barack Obama's entire presidency). In addition, modern social media allows politicians to communicate directly with the public. If the public is wise (big "if"), they can turn around and see what political analysts have to say about what the politicians are telling us, instead of having the message relayed incorrectly by the media.

Frankly, Reich's entire editorial reeks of bias. It is Trump's right to communicate in any way he sees fit. Although Trump has plenty of flaws, nothing Trump is doing so far fits the definition of "tyrant".

Congress passes health bill (not what you think): Today's news for December 8th

Reuters:

U.S. Senate joins House to pass sweeping new health bill

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to support sweeping legislation that will reshape the way the Food and Drug Administration approves new medicines.

It will also provide funding for cancer and Alzheimer's research, help fight the opioid epidemic, expand access to mental health treatment and advance research into precision medicine.

Two years in the making, the 21st Century Cures Act was passed last week by the House of Representatives and will now go to President Barack Obama to sign into law. Supporters say it will speed access to new drugs and devices, in part by allowing clinical trials to be designed with fewer patients and cheaper, easier-to-achieve goals.

While streamlining drug approvals is a worthy goal, as part of the bill shows, even with a stringent approval process, people still die:

It also calls for $1 billion over two years to battle the opioid epidemic. On Tuesday the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a report showing that in 2014 about 129 people died every day as a result of drug poisoning. Of those, 61 percent are opioid or heroin related.

"Opioids such as heroin and fentanyl - and diverted prescription pain pills - are killing people in this country at a horrifying rate," Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said. "We face a public health crisis of historic proportions."  

Consider that number: 129 people dying every day. Terrorists would kill for those kind of results (pun intended).

Seriously, why do we need the government involved to approve drugs when they end up with results like this? Illegal street drugs can accomplish this, without the breech of trust between the government and Americans.

Yet more proof that government doesn't solve problems. It only creates new problems. This new health bill is the definition of "doubling down on stupid".

In more positive government news...

Vox:

Trump’s EPA pick is an ardent foe of virtually everything Obama’s EPA has done

Donald Trump plans to nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency — a pro-industry, anti-regulation pick that suggests big, big changes could be in store for environmental policy.

The EPA is in charge of creating and enforcing federal regulations around air and water pollution, largely guided by laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, which were first passed by Congress in the 1970s. Under President Barack Obama, the EPA has been particularly active in formulating new rules on coal-fired power plants, cars, trucks, and oil and gas operations — all with an eye toward reducing conventional air pollutants and curbing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Translating that last part: "all with an eye towards fixing a problem that doesn't exist". Climate change has happened since the dawn of this planet, and even extreme change in some cases. But appealing to human arrogance in order to get them to submit to your will is all the rage in progressive circles, and the EPA is one of the best ways government can bring you to your knees.

So if this progressive article is any indication of how anti-progressive Scott Pruitt will be, then bring him on!

Pruitt has been an ardent opponent of these efforts for years. He even calls himself the “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” 

Ever since becoming Oklahoma’s top prosecutor in 2011, Pruitt has joined or led state lawsuits to block virtually every major federal regulation around climate and air pollution that Obama’s EPA has put forward. He sued to stop a major rule to limit mercury pollution from coal plants. He sued to stop a rule to reduce smog pollution that crossed state lines. (Both rules largely survived these challenges.) 

At the moment, Pruitt is part of a lawsuit to block the EPA’s efforts to address global warming via the Clean Power Plan — which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Pruitt has also questioned the science of climate change. In a piece for National Review last May, he wrote: “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.” (That is not true.)  

This is why you always have to look at links posted in articles. Sorry Vox, but linking to the IPCC report on climate change, which is more of a political document than scientific, does nothing to disprove Pruitt's point. The IPCC does not represent ALL scientists. He wins that argument.

In other political news...

Salon:

Sen. Chuck Schumer won’t work with Republicans if they want to kill Obamacare: 

“They broke it, they own it”

In the fallout of the election, leading Democrats were criticized for not providing a clear future. On Wednesday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer challenged that, revealing the party is going to fight like hell to keep the social safety net. 

In an interview with The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, Schumer said that if Republicans repeal Obamacare without a replacement, “They will own it.” The senator explained: “Democrats will not then step up to the plate and come up with a half-baked solution that we will partially own. It’s all theirs.”

Actually, the Republicans offered an Obamacare replacement plan back in June. Whether they go with that one or come up with a new one remains to be seen. So Schumer is being disingenuous.

Speaking of progressive lies...

Reuters:

Pope warns media over 'sin' of spreading fake news, smearing politicians

Media that focus on scandals and spread fake news to smear politicians risk becoming like people who have a morbid fascination with excrement, Pope Francis said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Francis told the Belgian Catholic weekly "Tertio" that spreading disinformation was "probably the greatest damage that the media can do" and using communications for this rather than to educate the public amounted to a sin.

Along this line:

Zero Hedge:

Washington Post Appends "Russian Propaganda Fake News" Story, Admits It May Be Fake

In the latest example why the "mainstream media" is facing a historic crisis of confidence among its readership, facing unprecedented blowback following Craig Timberg November 24 Washington Post story "Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say", on Wednesday a lengthy editor's note appeared on top of the original article in which the editor not only distances the WaPo from the "experts" quoted in the original article whose "work" served as the basis for the entire article (and which became the most read WaPo story the day it was published) but also admits the Post could not "vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's finding regarding any individual media outlet", in effect admitting the entire story may have been, drumroll "fake news" and conceding the Bezos-owned publication may have engaged in defamation by smearing numerous websites - Zero Hedge included - with patently false and unsubstantiated allegations.

It was the closest the Washington Post would come to formally retracting the story, which has now been thoroughly discredited not only by outside commentators, but by its own editor.

The apended note in question:

• Editor’s Note: The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity, which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included on PropOrNot’s list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged the group’s methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post’s story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list.

If the MSM wants to understand how "fake news" happened during the election, they could start by looking in the mirror.

But if the Pope is right, I suppose the Washington Post will burn in Hell for this?

Finally, if you feel like your days are getting longer, you may be right...

Los Angeles Times:

Ancient eclipse records show that days on Earth are getting just a little longer

The latest findings in Earth science are brought to you by ancient astronomers who observed the heavens as much as 2,700 years ago.

Thanks to hundreds of records of lunar and solar eclipses carved in clay tablets and written into dynastic histories, modern scientists have determined that the amount of time it takes for Earth to complete a single rotation on its axis has slowed by 1.8 milliseconds per day over the course of a century, according to a report published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

It may not sound significant, but over the course of 2½ millenniums, that time discrepancy adds up to about 7 hours.

Cows of the world celebrated this news, knowing they have just a little more time to get home today.

(hat tip to Gary Larson)

Van Jones gets it

There is a good interview with CNN commentator Van Jones at Salon. Unlike most of the Leftist Media, Jones understands that all Trump supporters aren't the "deplorables" as Hillary Clinton liked to define them:

I went to Ohio and I went to Pennsylvania and I talked to Trump voters before and after the election, including Trump voters who voted for Obama twice and then voted for Trump. For those people, they didn’t have either set of reactions that I think a lot of liberals expected. For those people, the racially inflammatory, culturally and ethnically inflammatory language was not a turn-on, but it wasn’t enough of a turnoff either, and that’s a different problem. These are not people for whom these comments were delightful, but they also were not disqualifying. They found them distasteful but not disqualifying. 

You literally have counties that went from blue to red in the Rust Belt. That is where the race was won and lost — in a handful of counties in the Rust Belt. When you go to those counties, the people who voted sometimes twice for Obama but then voted for Trump — they will tell you, “We didn’t like some of those inflammatory comments. We wouldn’t want our kids making those kinds of comments. We don’t think those kinds of comments are helpful. But we also did not feel that Hillary Clinton cared about us in any way or was going to do anything for us. She wasn’t talking to us. She was talking to everybody else but us and we thought that at least Donald Trump was trying, so we were willing to give him a chance.” 

Now, that’s disappointing. That’s not the same as saying they’re all part of the alt-right. 

Jones does run off the rails a little when he says:

I think that the people who held their nose and voted for Trump felt that both candidates were flawed. I do think that sexism was operating at least as powerfully as racism if you read between the lines for some of these voters, especially the ones that voted for Obama and then voted for Trump. The thing that they have in common is [they] voted for the two guys against a woman.

Jones was doing so well too. The people who weren't being racist were also not being sexist. Hillary Clinton was never Mother Teresa, or even Margaret Thatcher. Except for a silly minority, voting against Hillary wasn't about her genitalia. Jones had it right the first time before spouting this elitist stupidity.

Fortunately, Jones gets back on track:

My premise is there’s something wrong with us that we need to figure out because, first of all, we’re never going to convince 25 percent of the country that we’re right because they’re hard-core conservatives. If you gave them fake news, real news or no news at all they’re going to be right-wingers, so let’s not worry about that.

Likewise, if they’re sitting around trying to figure out how to convince us to be Republicans, they’re wasting their time. It’s the 50 percent of the people in the middle. Again, the people who went from Obama to Trump — here’s where I think we’re failing. We’re so focused on the people who are at the extreme, who are not going to move anyway.

A businessperson who voted for Trump but who would be outraged if Trump started dragging Dreamers off college campuses and throwing them into vans and driving them off in the middle of the night. Veterans who voted for Trump but [who] would be outraged if they started registering American Muslims who have done nothing wrong and would say, “Listen, I didn’t go over there to fight for this kind of stuff.” It’s the people who are in the middle who voted for Trump, or maybe held their nose to vote for Trump, who we are now just shoving over into Trump’s camp.

We’re building Trump’s coalition for him by basically treating them all as if they’re all “deplorables” and irredeemables or stupid people who we need to fix, and that’s the problem. That’s the elitism. We are operating — listen, both parties suck right now because the liberals think we’re the party of the working people and the poor people and the downtrodden, but we have allowed a strain of very nasty elitism to take root in our party such that we don’t even see it anymore.

Then the Republicans suck because they see themselves as the party of color-blind meritocracy, but they’ve allowed a section of horrible bigots, including outright neo-Nazis, to take up residence in their party and they either deny it or downplay it.

This was the point I was making 2 days ago in "Localizing our disagreements": We need to quit trying to force our own political views down other people's throats, and take our disagreements down to the local level, where they are less likely to find objection. let the Californians have their welfare utopia, just so Georgians can have their conservative utopia. Everyone wins, and we can all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya". A Trump versus Clinton election is what we get when we assume our way is the only way.

Van Jones gets the last word here:

If you’re a right-winger and believe in markets and I’m a left-winger and believe in democratic government, we’re not going to agree. I’m not going to change my mind and you’re not going to change your mind, but we could come up with a public-private partnership through debate that’s better than your idea or my idea. That’s a constructive use of disagreement: I never changed my mind and you never changed yours.

Pearl Harbor Day: Today's news for December 7th

(hat tip to GIF Soup for the gif)

It is an unsettling feeling to reach the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and realize all the sacrifices of World War II may be for naught, as America seems to be engaged in a vicious debate between fascism and socialism, which would have shocked WWII-era Americans.

But the more important question is whether wars are worth it. Consider that the gains of every war in history were eventually lost within centuries. Land may be kept, but governments change, so any "principal" being fought over becomes lost. Fighting "for" or "against" a person or thing becomes moot over time, as the few surviving WWII-era Americans are probably wondering now.

Mind you, this isn't a diatribe against war. It is only a recognition that war should always be the last option on the table. Without the sacrifices of WWII, America wouldn't have made it this far.

On the other hand, WWII could have been prevented. From the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, through FDR's poor handling of diplomacy with the Japanese (some say he intentionally drove them towards war), the missteps leading to WWII are legion. By the time Pearl Harbor happened, there were no choices left.

The lesson of Pearl Harbor isn't "war must be avoided", but rather peace requires effort. If you work towards war, you will get war. But the only way to get peace is to work towards it.

On the topic of fascism...

Bloomberg:

Boeing Sweats Under Trump Spotlight as SoftBank Feels the Warmth

First came Ford and Carrier. Now Boeing and SoftBank are experiencing the power of Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.

The president-elect jumped into corporate affairs again Tuesday, tweeting first to criticize one company and then to hail another. He began at 8:52 a.m. New York time by calling out Boeing Co. over costs to develop new Air Force One jets. Just over five hours later he celebrated a $50 billion investment in the U.S. by Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank Group Corp.

The tweets, coming after Trump last week announced a deal with United Technologies Corp. to cancel plans to close a U.S. factory, dominated news and moved markets even as details in both cases remained sketchy and the impacts unclear. Trump again showed a willingness to use his bully pulpit to criticize or congratulate companies over actions affecting American workers and government spending.

“This is extraordinary,” said Mohan Tatikonda, a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “For a president to get involved at the level of spot locations, spot companies, spot plants, is I think unprecedented.”

In America, perhaps it is unprecedented. But not in history: Adolf Hitler used to pick corporate winners and losers.

A president who’s too eager to pick winners and losers may prompt business owners to seek special treatment in Washington instead of focusing on improving operations, said Anne Krueger, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

“The rule of law is what prevents crony capitalism, and the minute you have the president-elect, politicians or bureaucrats meeting with business owners to dispense special favors it unlevels the playing field,” said Krueger, a former first deputy director of the International Monetary Fund. “We all ought to be screaming now because if we don’t, we’re going to be a third-world country before we know it.”

In other words, our existing crony capitalism is coming out into the open. No more backroom deals.

While transparency is a good thing, wouldn't it be better not to have these deals at all?

By the way, a Boeing 747 can easily cost over $351 million, and that is before any "special" changes are made. Air Force One will undoubtedly require many special changes, the kind which no other 747 will ever need, which will run up the price significantly. So a $4 billion price tag for two such jets isn't unreasonable under the circumstances.

Considering that there is little doubt Trump has bought an airplane before, he is being disingenuous if he claims he doesn't understand how special orders work in aerospace manufacturing.

Speaking of Trump...

Washington Post:

‘He got up there and lied his a– off': Carrier union leader on Trump’s big deal

The Secret Service agents told the Carrier workers to stay put, so Chuck Jones sat in the factory conference room for nearly three hours, waiting for president-elect Donald Trump. He’d grown used to this suspense.

Seven months earlier, at a campaign rally in Indianapolis, Trump had pledged to save the plant’s jobs, most of which were slated to move to Mexico. Then the businessman won the election, and the 1,350 workers whose paychecks were on the line wondered if he’d keep his promise.

Jones, president of the United Steelworkers 1999, which represents Carrier employees, felt optimistic when Trump announced last week that he’d reached a deal with the factory’s parent company, United Technologies, to preserve 1,100 of the Indianapolis jobs — u ntil the union leader heard from Carrier that only 730 of the production jobs would stay and 550 of his members would lose their livelihoods, after all.

At the Dec. 1 meeting, where Trump was supposed to lay out the details, Jones hoped he would explain himself.

“But he got up there,” Jones said Tuesday, “and, for whatever reason, lied his a-- off.”

In front of a crowd of about 150 supervisors, production workers and reporters, Trump praised Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies. "Now they’re keeping — actually the number’s over 1,100 people,” he said, “which is so great.”

Jones wondered why the president-elect appeared to be inflating the victory. Trump and Pence, he said, could take credit for rescuing 800 of the Carrier jobs, including non-union positions.

Of the nearly 1,400 workers at the Indianapolis plant, however, 350 in research and development were never scheduled to leave, Jones said. Another 80 jobs, which Trump seemed to include in his figure, were non-union clerical and supervisory positions. (A Carrier spokesperson confirmed the numbers.) And now the president-elect was applauding the company and giving it millions of dollars in tax breaks, even as hundreds of Indianapolis workers prepared to be laid off.

But this gets better:

Business Insider:

The manufacturer that Trump convinced to keep 1,000 jobs in the US is raising prices

Note this article is a few days old. The "1,000 jobs" number is dubious, at best. Regardless:

United Technologies Corp., Carrier's parent company, said it is raising prices for its heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment by up to 5%, starting January 1. The decision to raise prices was first announced on November 23, the week before the Trump deal was finalized. 

So for keeping only 800 of 1,400 jobs in one plant, they get $7 million in Indiana tax breaks over 10 years, AND they are raising prices another 5% next year. Cha-ching!

Politics is the art of getting someone else to pay for your prostitutes.

The definition of "extremist"

There was one news item today which I decided to leave to a separate post. 

From Reuters:

Web giants YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft will step up efforts to remove extremist content from their websites by creating a common database.

Extremist?

"We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online," the companies said in a statement on Tuesday.

So JUST content from terrorists?

Consider this:

The companies will share 'hashes' - unique digital fingerprints they automatically assign to videos or photos - of extremist content they have removed from their websites to enable their peers to identify the same content on their platforms.

And then this:

But many providers have relied until now mainly on users to flag content that violates terms of service. Flagged material is then individually reviewed by human editors who delete postings found to be in violation.

Twitter suspended 235,000 accounts between February and August this year and has expanded the teams reviewing reports of extremist content. 

In summary, it takes one person to be offended by you, and a human editor to agree, and you can potentially be blacklisted by all the major websites.

On the bright side:

Each company will decide what image and video hashes to add to the database and matching content will not be automatically removed, they said.

However, knowing big companies, I tend to doubt there will be much disagreement.

By the way, guess who we have to thank for this violation of free speech rights?

The European Union set up an EU Internet Forum last year bringing together the internet companies, interior ministers and the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator to find ways of removing extremist content.

Before you say, "But this is just to fight terrorists?" Remember, the Founding Fathers would have been considered terrorists by today's standards.

Mind you, I am not suggesting we support terrorists in any way. But if they feel free to communicate, it just might make them a bit easier to find. Free speech can be ugly, but it also can be revealing. It let's us know who the idiots and the crazies are in the world.  

What worries me is HOW we define "extremist"? Today, it may be terrorists. Tomorrow, it could be any of us.

I am reminded of the poem known as "First they came", by Pastor Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist. 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist. 

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

While this poem may have been specifically about Germans who said nothing in the face of rising Nazi power, it needs to be remembered that history may not repeat, but it often rhymes. It doesn't have to be something as obvious as Nazis stealing our right to free speech.

But the irony is rich that it is the Europeans leading the charge to steal our right to free speech.

Trump meant to do that: Today's news for December 6th

Salon:

Donald Trump’s Taiwan call was all part of the plan, his transition team says

It turns out that President-elect Donald Trump’s spontaneous call to Taiwan wasn’t so spontaneous at all.

According to a report by The Washington Post on Sunday, Trump’s phone call with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan was deliberately planned in order to demonstrate that Trump intends on breaking with decades of foreign policy tradition. The Post cites sources “involved in the planning” of the call who claim that, despite the Trump team’s initial claim that it was a spontaneous congratulatory call, Trump’s foreign policy advisers knew that this was the first communication between the leaders of America and Taiwan since 1979 and prepared it in advance as part of his strategy for engagement even before he officially won the Republican presidential nomination.

This proves once again that nothing in politics is ever "unplanned".

On the other hand:

Much of the concerns about Trump’s foreign policy toward Taiwan prior to this phone call involved the possible harm he could do, rather than the idea that he would take a major diplomatic risk to show support. As Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute wrote in The Wall Street Journal in July, Trump’s isolationist position on the Pacific Rim — including the argument that America should withdraw its military bases from Japan and South Korea so that those nations can defend themselves —- posed a serious threat to Taiwan’s independence from mainland China. 

“Absent bases in Japan, the U.S. cannot realistically deter Chinese military attacks on Taiwan,” O’Hanlon wrote. “This reality could lead China to contemplate the use of force with much less hesitation than it has shown to date.”

The MSM used to accuse Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush of being "mavericks", but this takes maverick to a whole new level.

Perhaps this is best explained by the following:

Wall Street Journal:

Donald Trump Shuffles the Ideological Deck

If President Barack Obama sought to usher America into a postracial era, it is increasingly apparent that President-elect Donald Trump is opening the door to the postideological era.

In fact, it’s nearly impossible to identify a clear ideological bent in the incoming president’s early moves. It’s probably a mistake to try, because the definitions of left and right, liberal and conservative, are being scrambled right before our eyes.

Some Trump moves so far track with his populist outsider campaign image. Others are moves a conventional conservative could make. Some on his team would have been comfortable picks by any standard-issue Republican; some could as easily have been made by a Democratic president-elect.

The editorial goes on to point out some of the conflicting things Trump has done.

But the real worry here is what "shuffling the ideological deck" means. Is he just showing us some weird new ideology that we just haven't figured out yet? Is there a method to this madness, or is it just madness?

At least the Republicans won't stand in his way:

Washington Post:

Republicans are already making it clear: Trump can do whatever he wants

We’ve never had a president whose business created as many potential conflicts of interest as Donald Trump, and at the same time we’ve never had a president who cared less about conflicts of interest as Donald Trump. Indeed, he and his children are making it quite clear that they will use the presidency as a tool to make as much money as they can. 

And Republicans, particularly members of Congress, have apparently decided that if Trump does it, it’s okay.

While this editorial is concerned with Trump's conflicts of interest between being a worldwide businessman and being president, the memory of how the Republicans dealt with George W. Bush is still fresh.

During the Bush administration, the Republican-controlled Congress had a quid pro quo deal with Bush: Give us what we want and we will give you what you want. Sadly, when the Democrats took over Congress, that quid pro quo didn't go out the door. It just leaned a little more to the Left.

As long as the Republicans think that Trump is good for their "brand", he will get carte blanche from them. But if he challenges them without public opinion on his side, or even without the Republican base on his side, don't be surprised to see a Republican revolt.

On to other government news...

Washington Post:

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste

The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post.

Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.

The report, issued in January 2015, identified “a clear path” for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology.

To put this in perspective, that money could build a company the size of Kellogg Company (the cereal maker) every year, for 5 years. That is roughly 165,000 productive jobs, lost to military waste.

Finally, one last post-election analysis (I hope):

Huffington Post:

Why Hillary Clinton Lost

Hillary Clinton’s top aides would like the world to know they are morally superior to Donald Trump and his staff, who ran an ugly campaign courting white nationalists. The Clinton crew is right. And it doesn’t matter. 

At a vicious Harvard University post-mortem seminar on the 2016 election, Clinton field marshals excoriated Team Trump. “If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost,” Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri declared. “I would rather lose than win the way you guys did.” 

There are three possible choices to be made in the logical universe in which a political party is running a fascist campaign. People can 1) join the fascists, 2) lose to the fascists or 3) defeat the fascists. The Clinton campaign wants credit for not choosing door No. 1. Their job was to make option three a reality. History will remember them for number two. 

Clinton ran against the single most unpopular candidate in the history of American presidential polling, and lost. Was this because Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee? Because FBI Director James Comey recklessly interfered? Because a tiny fraction of the electorate voted for Jill Stein? Because Clinton didn’t really bother to campaign in the Rust Belt? Why, yes! In an election decided by 110,000 votes, just about every factor can be considered decisive. 

But Clintonia’s (persuasive) defense of its own righteousness helps explain why the election was close to begin with. Trump ran a deeply bigoted campaign that whipped up and played off of white resentment. But his dominant performance among white working-class voters wasn’t due to his campaign message alone. Much of Clinton’s poor performance resulted from her campaign’s strategic decision to not even contest the demographic. A good chunk of the Democratic Party intelligentsia applauded Clinton for taking the moral high ground, declaring the entire white working class to be a deplorable racist swamp. The notion that economic issues played literally no role ― zero ― in Trump’s appeal became a common Democratic talking point. Democrats were Good People, and anyone even considering voting for Trump was a Bad Person.

Who would have guessed self-righteousness doesn't win elections?