State Attorneys General Launch Google Antitrust Investigation; Study Claims Google Reflected ‘Very Dramatic Bias’ in 2016 Election Search Results

/1 Comment/in , /by

By Breitbart. State Attorneys General launched the largest, bipartisan antitrust investigation against Google Monday, encompassing nearly every state in the country.

State attorneys general announced Monday that they will begin an antitrust investigation into Google, primarily looking into whether Google’s dominant control of the online search markets and search traffic may have stifled competition, restricted access, and harmed consumers.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton started the conference by noting that the search giant “dominates all aspects of advertising on the Internet and searching on the Internet.”

The investigation includes nearly all state attorneys general– except for California and Alabama. The attorneys general from the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico joined the investigation as well. The probe features Republicans, Democrats, and politicians across the political spectrum.

Google collects more than $48 billion in digital advertising spending annually and captures more than 75 percent of online American searching ads. (Read more from “State Attorneys General Launch Google Antitrust Investigation” HERE)

______________________________________________________

Dr. Robert Epstein: Study Claims Google Reflected ‘Very Dramatic Bias’ in 2016 Election Search Results

By Fox News. Google allegedly offered search results during the 2016 election season that manipulated voters in Hillary Clinton’s favor, according to researcher Dr. Robert Epstein.

The study looked into “politically oriented searches” from a “diverse group of American voters,” Epstein said in an interview airing Sunday on “Life, Liberty & Levin.”

“In 2016, I set up the first-ever monitoring system that allowed me to look over the shoulders of a diverse group of American voters — there were 95 people in 24 states,” he said.

“I looked at politically oriented searches that these people were conducting on Google, Bing and Yahoo. I was able to preserve more than 13,000 searches and 98,000 web pages, and I found very dramatic bias in Google’s search results… favoring Hillary Clinton — whom I supported strongly.”

Regarding the specific results of his study, Epstein claimed the findings showed what he called a sizable bias. (Read more from “Dr. Robert Epstein: Study Claims Google Reflected ‘Very Dramatic Bias’ in 2016 Election Search Results” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Sarah Palin’s Husband Files for Divorce

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Todd Palin has filed for divorce from Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and GOP vice presidential candidate, citing “incompatibility of temperament” and that “they find it impossible to live together as husband and wife.”

Todd Palin, 55, asked to dissolve the couple’s 31-year marriage in a filing submitted Friday in Anchorage Superior Court. The paperwork was submitted on Aug. 29, eight days after the couple’s anniversary.

The filing, first reported by the Anchorage Daily News, only uses initials but details the couple’s marriage date and the birth date of their 11-year-old son, Trig, and asks for an equal separation of assets and debts.

The two have been married since 1988 and have five children: Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper. Todd Palin’s filing asks for shared custody of Trig, who has Down Syndrome.

Sarah Palin, also 55, was elected governor of Alaska in 2006 and resigned in 2009, before the end of her four-year term. She also served as the late Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, ultimately losing the election to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. (Read more from “Sarah Palin’s Husband Files for Divorce” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Watch: Straight Pride Parade Turns to Chaos

/0 Comments/in , /by

BlazeTV correspondentand host of “Slightly Offens*ve”, Elijah Schaffer headed to Boston, Massachusetts, over Labor Day weekend to brave the crowds of black-clad counter-protesters at a “Straight Pride” rally and parade.

Marchers were outnumbered by thousands of counter-demonstrators during the controversial event, which was organized by a group called “Super Happy Fun America,” and clashes left at least four officers with non-life-threatening injuries and led to dozens of arrests, according to the Boston Globe.

(Warning: videos contain explicit content.)

(Read more from “Watch: Straight Pride Parade Turns to Chaos” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Federal Judge Reinstates Order Blocking Trump Immigration Policy Nationwide

/0 Comments/in , /by

A federal judge in California has disregarded a higher court’s ruling to reinstate a nationwide injunction against one of the Trump administration’s new immigration rules.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar issued a court order for a nationwide halt to enforcement of a Trump administration rule requiring asylum-seekers who come through multiple countries to apply for refuge in a safe “third country” along the way.

Tigar had already blocked the rule once before in mid-August, but — after the case was appealed — the injunction was dialed back by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which limited to the injunction to areas within their geographic territory. In effect, this meant that the new policy would only have gone into effect for the time being in Texas and New Mexico, but not in Arizona and California, which are within the 9th Circuit’s territory.

“While nationwide injunctions are not the ‘general rule,’ ” Tigar — an Obama appointee who is a judge for the Northern District of California — concluded in his latest decision, “they are appropriate ‘where such breadth [is] necessary to remedy a plaintiff’s harm.'” . . .

“While a small number of suits present matters and settings for which nationwide injunctive relief is appropriate, federal district court judges have issued nationwide injunctions in situations far beyond that set,” writes Ronald Cass — dean emeritus of the Boston University School of Law — in a 2018 academic paper. “Expanded use of nationwide injunctions—especially broad injunctions against the United States—undermines rule-of-law values, threatens the operation of courts as impartial arbiters of disputes over legal rights, erodes the Constitution’s careful separation of functions among the branches of government, and is at odds with basic aspects of the federal judiciary’s design, including its geographic divisions.” (Read more from “Federal Judge Reinstates Order Blocking Trump Immigration Policy Nationwide” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

U.S. Navy Deploys New Ship-Killer Missile to China’s Backyard; This Stealthy New Missile Just Reached One of the World’s Hottest Flash Points

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Defense News. It can travel more than 100 nautical miles, passively detect an enemy through imaging stored in its computer brain and can kill a target so precisely that an operator can tell it to aim for a specific point on a ship — the engine room or the bridge, for example. And it’s heading to China’s stomping grounds.

The U.S. Navy littoral combat ship Gabrielle Giffords deployed Tuesday from San Diego, California, packing the service’s new Naval Strike Missile, transforming the LCS from an under-gunned concept ship gone awry to a legitimate threat to Chinese warships at significant ranges.

Giffords is the second LCS to deploy this year. The LCS Montgomery also deployed from San Diego in June after a 19-month lapse in LCS deployments as the Navy reworked the way it mans and trains crews for the ships.

Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. John Gay confirmed Giffords’ deployment, saying the ship got underway Sept. 3, equipped with the Naval Strike Missile and the newly mission-capable MQ-8C Fire Scout drone. The Fire Scout, an over-the-horizon surveillance and targeting platform, achieved its initial operational capability in June. . .

When equipped with the Raytheon/Kongsberg-made Naval Strike Missile, or NSM, and Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout for surveillance over the horizon, an LCS sitting off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, could destroy a ship sitting off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. That’s more than 30 miles further than the published range of the current anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, which is in excess of 67 miles. (Read more from “U.S. Navy Deploys New Ship-Killer Missile to China’s Backyard” HERE)

__________________________________________________________

This Stealthy New Missile Just Reached One of the World’s Hottest Flash Points

By Investors. The Navy has reportedly deployed a new stealth missile from Raytheon (RTN) that’s designed to sink ships to the Pacific, where territorial disputes have escalated regional tensions.

The Naval Strike Missile was deployed aboard the USS Gabrielle Giffords, a littoral combat ship, earlier this week from San Diego, on its way to the Indo-Pacific theater, according to Defense News.

The new stealth missile is designed to destroy enemy ships from up to 100 nautical miles away, according to Raytheon, which made it with Norway’s Kongsberg.

The sea-skimming, terrain-hugging missile also emits low-observable signals to avoid detection by enemy radars and uses an advanced seeker for precise targeting, Raytheon says. It can perform evasive maneuvers to counter antimissile defenses as well. . .

The deployment of the Raytheon missile comes as the U.S. ramps up freedom-of-navigation exercises amid myriad territorial disputes in the Pacific, where China is building artificial islands as part of an exclusion zone. (Read more from “This Stealthy New Missile Just Reached One of the World’s Hottest Flash Points” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Surprise: India and Russia Challenging China in South China Sea

/0 Comments/in , /by

India is challenging Chinese influence in the South China Sea with its outreach to regional powers, including Russia, with which it has agreed to launch a maritime route that would partly go through the hotly contested waters, analysts said.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed by India and Russia – two traditional security allies – during a regional economic forum this week, a new Indo-Pacific sea route will extend from the port city of Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, to Chennai, on the Bay of Bengal in eastern India.

The shipping route will partly traverse the South China Sea, the scene of numerous territorial disputes involving China and neighbouring countries over the years.

In addition to cooperating on the planned maritime route, India and Russia could ramp up their alliance in the military and technological spheres, according to a joint statement released at the economic forum in Vladivostok. . .

“This could signal that India’s cooperation with Russia is now coming to a substantial phase,” Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview. (Read more from “Surprise: India and Russia Challenging China in South China Sea” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Bahamas Hurricane Damage ‘Like Nuclear Bomb’

/0 Comments/in , /by

Head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has compared the damage from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas to that of a nuclear bomb.

Mark Green said he had taken a flight to observe the damage caused by the storm on Grand Bahama and the Abacos islands.

Dorian ripped through the Bahamas last Sunday with category five winds with some gusts reaching 300km/h (200mph).

So far 43 people are confirmed dead however the number is expected to rise.

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis called the loss of life “catastrophic and devastating”. (Read more from “Bahamas Hurricane Damage ‘like Nuclear Bomb'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Top Air Force Official Shoots down Allegations That Democrats Claim Prove Trump Corruption

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Air Force responded over the weekend to a report that claims an Air Force unit went miles out of their way during a routine mission to Kuwait in order to stay at President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland. . .

“As our aircrews serve on these international airlift missions, they follow strict guidelines on contracting for hotel accommodations and all expenditures of taxpayer dollars,” [Brig. Gen. Edward] Thomas said, according to the Associated Press.

“In this case, they made reservations through the Defense Travel System and used the closest available and least expensive accommodations to the airfield within the crews’ allowable hotel rates,” he explained. “While we are still reviewing the trip records, we have found nothing that falls outside the guidelines associated with selecting stopover airports on travel routes and hotel accommodations for crew rest.”

Politico reported Friday the House Oversight Committee is investigating why the joint Air Force and Alaska Air National Guard unit made the “unusual” stop at Trump’s resort in March.

The inquiry is part of a broader, previously unreported probe into U.S. military expenditures at and around the Trump property in Scotland. According to a letter the panel sent to the Pentagon in June, the military has spent $11 million on fuel at the Prestwick Airport — the closest airport to Trump Turnberry — since October 2017, fuel that would be cheaper if purchased at a U.S. military base. The letter also cites a Guardian report that the airport provided cut-rate rooms and free rounds of golf at Turnberry for U.S. military members.

(Read more from “Top Air Force Official Shoots down Allegations That Democrats Claim Prove Trump Corruption” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Loser Hillary Is Taking an Active Role with a 2020 Dem’s Campaign

/0 Comments/in , /by

Clinton is reportedly advising Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination. The two women have remained in steady contact since Warren launched her campaign in February, NBC News reported.

However, according to NBC, it’s not clear how often the two communicate because both sides do not want to discuss the communication. . .

It’s hard to know exactly how many times they’ve reached out to each other — or precisely what they’ve discussed — in part because neither camp wants to reveal much of anything about their interaction and in part because they have each other’s phone numbers, and there are many ways for two high-powered politicians to communicate that don’t involve their staffs.

One source was aware of just one additional call between Warren and Clinton since then. But a person who is close to Clinton said the contact has been substantial enough to merit attention, describing a conversation between the two as seemingly recent because it was “front of mind” for her.

. . .

There’s no doubt that securing Clinton’s exclusive support would provide a boon for Warren, a far-left progressive who may have trouble earning the trust of moderate Democrats — the exact people who supported Clinton. (Read more from “Loser Hillary Is Taking an Active Role with a 2020 Dem’s Campaign” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Trump Had Secret Meeting Planned with Taliban

/0 Comments/in , /by

President Donald Trump revealed on Saturday that he had a secret meeting planned with leaders of the Taliban to try to bring peace to the country, and that he canceled at the last minute when he learned that they were responsible for an attack that killed an American soldier.

“Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday,” Trump tweeted. “They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position?”

“The Pentagon announced Friday that Sgt. 1st Class Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz was killed in Afghanistan,” CNN reported. “Barreto, a 34-year-old paratrooper from Morovis, Puerto Rico, died when a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint near NATO headquarters and the US embassy in Kabul. Barreto is the 16th US service member to be killed in Afghanistan in 2019, and three other American service members have been killed in recent weeks.”

(Read more from “Trump Had Secret Meeting Planned with Taliban” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE