Category: US Politics

Google documents leaked to Project Veritas show the company referring to popular conservative personalities such as Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager as “Nazis.”

A recent report from investigative journalism group Project Veritas claims that leaked internal Google documents shows a Google employee and a member of a Google “transparency-and-ethics” group calling conservative and libertarian commentators such as Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson, “Nazis.” The email was sent as part of internal communications between the Google “transparency-and-ethics” group and suggests that content published by PragerU, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro should be removed from the “suggestion feature.”

A Google employee named Liam Hopkins can be seen stating: “…if we understand that PragerU, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro et al are nazis using the dog whistles…” The employee further suggests following through with the suggestion of another employee named Meredith: “I don’t think correctly identifying far-right content is beyond our capabilities. But if it is, why not go with Meredith’s suggestion of disabling the suggestion feature?”

 

Following the publication of an undercover video of Google executive Jen Gennai stating that the company was working to prevent another “Trump situation” after the 2016 election; the executive stated in a Medium blog post: “Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings.” Yet here we see Google employees discussing doing exactly that.

Gennai also claims that the Project Veritas video is selectively edited and pushes a series of “debunked conspiracy theories,” about censorship. What Gennai does not address is her direct comments about Google’s view of Congress, the company’s refusal to appear before Congress and her statements claiming that Google will not change its business practices regardless of what Congress says:

Project Veritas has edited the video to make it seem that I am a powerful executive who was confirming that Google is working to alter the 2020 election. On both counts, this is absolute, unadulterated nonsense, of course. In a casual restaurant setting, I was explaining how Google’s Trust and Safety team (a team I used to work on) is working to help prevent the types of online foreign interference that happened in 2016. Google has been very public about the work that our teams have done since 2016 on this, so it’s hardly a revelation.

The video then goes on to stitch together a series of debunked conspiracy theories about our search results, and our other products. Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings. And everything I have seen backs this up. Our CEO has said ”We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda.” He’s somewhat more powerful and authoritative than me.

But despite what the video may have you believe, I’m not involved in any of these products, just like I’m not involved in any of the other topics Project Veritas baited me into discussing (whether it’s antitrust, Congress, or the dozens of other topics that didn’t appear in the video, on which I presumably didn’t say anything that could be twisted to their advantage). I was having a casual chat with someone at a restaurant and used some imprecise language. Project Veritas got me. Well done.

Read the full report by Project Veritas here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

A brigadier-general who served 36 years with the U.S. Army and received two awards for valor, five Bronze Star medals, and two Purple Hearts is running as the GOP candidate to replace New Hampshire Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Brigadier-General Don Bolduc, a lifelong Republican, led one of the first groups in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks in Southern Afghanistan. His record includes serving as Commander, Combined Joint Special Operations Component Commander in Afghanistan, as Deputy Director for US Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and as Special Operations Command-Africa (COMSOCAFRICA).

Bolduc has relentlessly advocated on behalf of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress (PTS). While admitting he had fought against PTS himself, his efforts on behalf of others earned him the nickname of “Captain America” and “Everyone’s General” by his fellow officers and soldiers.

On Monday, announcing his candidacy, Bolduc stated:

During my time of service, I have been in three-quarters of the countries in the world, which included 10 tours of duty in Afghanistan. But regardless of which continent I was on, I never forgot my roots in the Granite State, because no matter where I was, when foreign or tribal leaders would ask where I was from, I would tell them that I’m from New Hampshire. Now, these folks couldn’t point out New Hampshire on a map – but they always responded: “Live Free or Die.” …

In response to encouragement, and after some long conversations with my family I now plan to do what I have been taught and trained to do my whole life: to try and make a positive difference in the lives of the people I love, the state I love, and the country I love. So with your help, that is exactly what I intend to do. … Today, I am announcing my candidacy to represent New Hampshire in the United States Senate. … Let me tell you something – after 36 years in the Army – I don’t give a damn about politics, I’m trained to finish the mission and get the job done.

In late April, WMUR reported that Bolduc was being recruited to run against Shaheen but was reluctant, saying, “My answer is that it’s very flattering and thank you very much. But at this point I’m happy with pushing and pursuing veterans’ issues and teaching at Southern New Hampshire University, where I teach homeland security.” Of his fight to help veterans with PTSD, Bolduc stated, “I’m just trying to raise everyone’s understanding of what post-traumatic stress is, how it affects service members and their families, and I use myself as an example of living proof as someone who has dealt with it and what therapy can do and has done in making me a better version of myself.”

Bolduc added, “Donald Trump is the president of the United States, and as president, we want him to be successful. We have to work together to make that happen.”

On June 20th, Boston mayor Marty Walsh announced the appointment of Yusufi Vali as the city’s new head of the Office for Immigrant Advancement (OIA). Vali is the executive director of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), a mosque that is notorious for its deep connections with the Muslim Brotherhood and several terror plotters. More recently, Vali himself oversaw the creation of ISB’s new project, the Boston Islamic Seminary; several members of the faculty are open anti-Semites, and one (Suheil Laher) was even the head of an al-Qaeda charity.

Ironically, it was the American public’s scrutiny of ISB after 9/11 that led indirectly to Vali’s ascension: ISB responded by building relationships with several community interfaith groups, including the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO). Vali worked as a community organizer with GBIO from 2009 to 2012 (when he became executive director of ISB), and that experience laid the groundwork for his deepening relationships with local politicians — which has now brought him to his current position.

Boston’s OIA has much to recommend it for Islamists. It oversees citizenship-application assistance, legal clinics, and classes in civic engagement — all useful resources for Islamists in their work to turn the Muslim community into a potent political force. Moreover, the previous head of the OIA stepped down in December in order to run for a seat on the Boston city council. The position is evidently a steppingstone to electoral office.

Vali is not the first Muslim-American official to be appointed to a government office that provides electoral advantages for the future. For example, City Councilman Alaa Abdel-Aziz, of Paterson, New Jersey, had lost his run for city council in 2016, but was appointed by the council to a vacant seat in September 2018; he then won the election in November. Mayor Sadaf Jaffer of Montgomery Township, Somerset County, New Jersey, had been elected to the township committee in 2017, but was appointed mayor in 2019.

Neither of these officials is overtly Islamist, though Vali’s role at ISB is cause for concern. More alarming is Assad Akhter, appointed to the Passaic County (New Jersey) Board of Freeholders in 2016 to fill a vacancy; he then won re-election in 2017 and 2018. A veteran staffer on Capitol Hill, Akhter was listed in 2012 as one of the founding leaders of the National Muslim Democratic Council (NMDC), a political-organizing group meant to help American Muslims gain influence within the Democratic Party. His fellow NMDC leaders included Islamists such as radical Linda Sarsour and CAIR-Sacramento director Basim Elkarra.

It is natural for well-meaning politicians to want to appoint Muslims to government posts, to be more inclusive to an embattled minority group — and perhaps more importantly, to claim political credit for such inclusiveness. The risk such politicians face is that politically prominent Muslims, the kind of people who are more likely to get such appointments, are typically the ones who sought out political prominence. For some, it may simply be a matter of civic responsibility or personal ambition; but others are motivated by Islamism, which sees political supremacy as a religious duty.

Worse, it appears that few politicians appear to understand the risk. An example of excellence was Esam Omeish, who was appointed to a Virginia immigration commission by then-Democratic Governor Tim Kaine in 2007. At the time, Omeish was president of the Muslim American Society (MAS), which is widely known to be a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. Kaine was forced to withdraw his appointment after video surfaced of Omeish publicly calling for jihad against Israel, saying that Palestinian terrorists had “elevated their worship” of Allah, and continuing that “we need to share with them their hardships and their jihad.”

Mr. Kaine was apparently blindsided by Omeish’s extremism; but he shouldn’t have been. Omeish’s leadership of MAS should have been a massive warning sign, and should have triggered much more due diligence by Kaine’s team than was seemingly carried out.

As American Muslims increasingly participate in the civic arena, it is critical that politicians learn to distinguish Islamists and avoid giving them power — especially if government appointments end up short-circuiting the democratic process and giving Islamists all the advantages of incumbency. Islamism is a dangerous ideology that calls for using government power to implement religious goals. Let’s not make it any easier for the Islamists.

Dr. Oren Litwin is the associate director of the Islamism in Politics project of the Middle East Forum.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says that she and other House Democrats are prepared to follow the Senate’s lead and work on an emergency funding bill to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis at the United States-Mexico border.

There’s just one catch, though: it’ll likely come with “radical riders” that would nullify existing immigration laws and allow illegal immigrants and asylum seekers to use minor children to bypass parts of the asylum inquiry.

Fox News reports that Pelosi and other House Democrats are abandoning their claims that the crisis at the border is “manufactured,” and, under pressure both from the public and the Trump Administration, and ready to negotiate on a bill that would provide emergency funding to the Department of Homeland Security, so that officials on the border can better house and care for the shockingly high number of asylum seekers currently detained and awaiting adjudication on their claims.

The Trump Administration has been begging Congress to authorize the emergency spending, warning the House and Senate repeatedly that the Department of Homeland Security and United States Customs and Border Protection aren’t equipped to handle the 100,000-plus asylum seekers either presenting themselves or being caught at the southern border every month.

The number is more than ten times what DHS and CBP are equipped to handle, and many of the migrants must face at least temporary detainment before being given a hearing or a hearing date on their hardship claims.

Until last week, however, when certain Members of Congress began referring to the detention facilities along the border as “concentration camps,” Democrats seemed more than willing to ignore the problem. Now, though, they’re being called upon to do something cooperative to address the strain. For Democrats, the need has embroiled leadership in an identity crisis: many Democrats are opposed to any restrictions on immigration but they also do not want to be blamed for allowing a humanitarian crisis to fester further.

The Senate is looking at a bipartisan $4.5 billion emergency funding bill with few strings attached — though it does call on the President to address immigration reform promptly. In the House, though, Nancy Pelosi and progressive Democrats are reportedly trying to hold financial aid hostage to an agreement to ignore some of the most pressing parts of immigration law.

The bill authorizes $934.5 million for “processing facilities, food, water, sanitary items, blankets, medical services, and safe transportation” and “$866 million to reduce reliance on influx shelters to house children,” according to Town Hall, as well as “$200 million for an integrated, multi-agency processing center pilot program for families and unaccompanied children, with participation by non-profit organizations,” and money to pay for legal services, and to assist jurisdictions “experiencing a significant influx of migrants and non-profit organizations serving those communities.”

There are also options in the bill to authorize funding for legal aid and to hire on temporary caseworkers to make sure unaccompanied minors and children separated from their parents are cared for and reunited with their caregivers as soon as possible.

But GOP sources told Fox News that these emergency funding programs come at a cost that won’t be borne by taxpayers. The Democrats are trying to force riders that “would stop border agents from conducting any asylum interviews,” thus keeping the burden on immigration courts the same. Andother “would prevent the funds from being used by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to share information on sponsors of child migrants, potential sponsors or their households with DHS.”

That might have the effect of allowing child and human trafficking operations to proliferate, and would tie HHS’s and DHS’s hands when they come across smuggling rings.

Worst of all, the Democrats may be looking at a rider that Republicans are calling a “poison pill” — one that allows illegal immigrants who come accompanied by a minor child to bypass certain aspects of the immigration interview process.

That rider “allegedly includes language that would require the federal government to prospectively notify illegal immigrants that if they bring an unaccompanied child into the country and sponsor them, their illegal status would in no way be used against them, a source said, and that the child will be delivered to them without any reservation,” Fox News reports.

Finally, it seems Democrats are seeking to subvert President Donald Trump’s recent agreement with Mexico and prevent the United States government from forcing some asylum seekers to remain in Mexico until their claims can be properly adjudicated.

The Senate is expected to pass their emergency funding bill this week. The controversial House bill is still in the draft stage, so it may not make it to the floor.

A Google insider who spoke anonymously to Project Veritas claims the company is devoted to preventing anything like the 2016 election of Donald Trump from happening again.

The insider who spoke to Project Veritas also drew attention to the covert suppression of non-progressive voices on YouTube, a Google-owned platform, said that stopping President Donald Trump and other politicians like Trump has become a priority for the tech giant.

The insider claimed that the company did a “complete 180 in what they thought was important,” abandoning earlier ideals of self-expression and “giving everyone a voice” in favor of crackdowns on “hate.”

Previous leaks from Google support the insider’s account of a dramatic shift in thinking following the election of Trump. An internal company document titled “The Good Censor” leaked to Breitbart News last year admits that the company has undergone a “shift towards censorship,” in part as a response to the events of 2016.

Earlier in the year, recently-fired Google software engineer Mike Wacker spoke of a colleague who informed him that a manager at the company said the tech giant “need[s] to stop hate [speech] and fake news because that’s how Trump won.” 

Via Project Veritas’ interview with the insider:

There’s this façade about what they’re doing, but what they’re actually doing, what the employees are actually seeing inside the company is different. And, people need to know what’s going on with Google, and that they are not an objective piece – they’re not an objective source of information. They are a highly biased political machine that is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again.

Right after Donald Trump won the election, in 2016, the company did a complete 180 in what they thought was important, before they thought self-expression, and giving everyone a voice was important, but now they’re like, “Hey, there’s a lot of hate.” And because there’s a lot of hate and misogyny, and racism, that’s the reason why Donald Trump got elected.

They started talking about the need to combat hate and racism online, and also at YouTube. They had the same talks by the CEO, Susan, and they talked about combating that and getting rid of unfairness.

Watch the full interview with the Google insider below:

Project Veritas also obtained undercover footage revealing yet another Google executive declaring the company’s intention to intervene in its products to stop Trump in 2020. “Responsible innovation” head Jen Gennai was recorded stating that Google shouldn’t be broken up because smaller companies couldn’t prevent “another Trump situation.”

Are you an insider at Google or any other corporation who wants to confidentially reveal wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari at his his secure email address allumbokhari@protonmail.com. 

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.