Tuesday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables, at least Monday is over but it’s cold comfort because there’s a lot of week left…

The Democrats’ Anti-Semitism Problem Isn’t Going Away

Via The Federalist

This weekend, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Rep. Ilhan Omar, a woman who had previously argued that Jews had hypnotized the world for their “evil” deeds, claimed that Americans only supported Israel because of American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) “Benjamins”— and then retweeted a person pointing out that she might as well call all Jews “hooked nose.”

Though Nancy Pelosi, who put Omar on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, offered a condemnation of the Minnesota congresswoman’s comments, many progressives jumped immediately to her defense. Some of them implored Omar to stop deploying these ugly tropes because they undermine her completely reasonable positions towards the Jewish state. (Omar has since apologized, promising to avoid these tropes when peddling her anti-Semitism.)

The problem is that “anti-Zionism,” the predominant justification for violence, murder, and hatred against Jews in Europe and the Middle East, is a growing position on the American Left. While Omar embraces the worst caricatures of this ideology, it’s her core contention regarding the Jewish state–not her clumsy “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”-style insults, which are just a manifestation of her underlying position—which are most consequential.

One of the dishonest argument I often see is that Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who we recently found out wrote a piece for a publication of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, are merely being “critical of Israel.” Yet, no serious person has ever made the claim that being critical of Israel’s policies is anti-Semitic. Israel has had both left-wing and right-wing governments over the years. And like governments in any liberal democracy, they can be corrupt, misguided, or incompetent. Millions of Israelis are critical of their own nation’s policies every year without any fear of repercussions. Israel isn’t Iran or Turkey, countries that most of Israel’s critics never disparage.

Read the entire article HERE.

Are The Democrats Bent On Suicide?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“By the end of the Green New Deal resolution (and accompanying fact sheet) I was laughing so hard I nearly cried,” tweeted the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel: “If a bunch of GOPers plotted to forge a fake Democratic bill showing how bonkers the party is, they could not have done a better job. It is beautiful.”

The Green New Deal, say its authors, has as a goal “stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, the elderly, the unhoused, peoples with disabilities, and youth.”

Fifty years after the Great Society, apparently half the country consists of victims of oppression.

Who are their oppressors? Guess.

Among the endorsers of this Green New Deal is Sen. Cory Booker, who compares the battle to stop climate change to fighting the Nazis in World War II. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have all endorsed it. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls climate change “an existential threat,” was an original co-sponsor.

Nancy Pelosi has more sense. Interviewed last week, the speaker batted the Green New Deal aside: “It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive. The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”

With her own agenda and priorities, Pelosi does not want to be dragged into having to defend a document that reads like it was written by the college socialists club.

The question, though, is why Democrats, who, if nominated, are likely to face Donald Trump in 2020, are signing on to so radical a scheme.

Read the entire article HERE.

YouTube Will Determine What ‘Conspiracy’ Is and Stop Recommending Such Videos

By Michael Krieger

While the evolution of Google’s YouTube from a free expression platform into something entirely different has been underway for a while, it just took another step in a very short-sighted and restrictive direction. NBC News reports:

YouTube has announced that it will no longer recommend videos that “come close to” violating its community guidelines, such as conspiracy or medically inaccurate videos…Chaslot said that YouTube’s fix to its recommendations AI will have to include getting people to videos with truthful information and overhauling the current system it uses to recommend videos.

There’s a lot to unpack here so let’s get started. First, it appears YouTube has announced the creation of a new bucket when it comes to content uploaded to the site. It’s no longer just videos consistent with company guidelines and those that aren’t, but there’s now a category for “conspiracy or medically inaccurate videos.” This is a massive responsibility, which neither YouTube or anyone else seems fit to be judge and jury. In other words, YouTube is saying it’s comfortable deciding what is “conspiracy” and what isn’t. Which brings up a really important question.

“Conspiracy” and covering up conspiracies is a fundamental part of the human experience, and always has been. It demonstrates extreme hubris for a tech giant to claim it can differentiate between a legitimate conspiracy to explore, versus an illegitimate one.

Read the entire article HERE.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Wrote Column For Nation Of Islam Publication

Via The Daily Caller

Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib in 2006 wrote an op-ed column for Final Call, a Nation of Islam publication founded by Louis Farrakhan, in the latest tie to emerge between the congresswoman and anti-Semitic figures.

Tlaib authored the column in 2006, while working as the advocacy coordinator for the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), two years before she first won election to the state legislature. Tlaib was described as a “guest columnist” in the article, which argued against deporting immigrants found guilty of “minor offenses.”

Final Call describes itself as “the official communications organ of the Nation of Islam” and was founded by the group’s leader, Farrakhan, according to Final Call’s website.

Farrakhan’s history of unapologetic anti-Semitism including describing Jews as “satanic” and praising Hitler as a “very great man,” was well established by 2006.

Read the entire article HERE.

Soros-Funded Activists Demand Tech Companies Stop Aiding GOP

Via Newsbusters

Silicon Valley is full of opportunities for political donations. But a Soros-funded organization wants to make sure any support goes to the correct side of the political spectrum.

Politico reported on February 9 that major tech companies, such as Google and Facebook, offered “the same technical assistance,” as well as financial aid, to the Republican party as they did to the Democrat party in 2016. George Soros-funded Color of Change objected to tech giving the GOP any support. “It’s no longer acceptable for these companies to play both sides like they’re equal,” said the group’s President Rashad Robinson.

He also said that tech companies that “invested resources and money into a candidate who believes that there were good people on both sides of what happened in Charlottesville” were “going to have to be held accountable for it.” That was an unsubtle criticism of President Donald Trump’s comments following riots in Charlottesville.

Read the entire article HERE.

Be sure to subscribe to Def-Con News to get Breakfast For The Brain in your morning mailbox.