53percenter's Blog

Following recent revelations that Facebook used an app to spy on teenage users for “market research” purposes, the social media giant has refused to apologize for the situation.

Mashable reports that Facebook shows no remorse for their latest scandal in which they were caught possibly spying on teenagers via an app for the purpose of “market research.” Facebook’s VP of Production, Engineering, and Security Pedro Canahuati, attempted to explain the app and Apple’s decision to remove it from their app store in a recent memo published by Business Insider.

Canahuati explained in his memo to employees that Apple had revoked Facbeook’s Enterprise Certificate which allowed the company to distribute apps internally outside of its App Store; Apple restored Facebook’s Enterprise Certificate on Thursday, but the company now has to rebuild  “a few dozen” apps that employees rely on. Later in the memo, Canahuat defended Facebook’s research methods and attacked the media for its portrayal of the app.

Senate Republicans are once again attempting to reform housing finance and the government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Republican Senator Mike Crapo, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, released the outline of a reform plan Friday that proposed breaking-up and privatizing Fannie and Freddie. The two mortgage guarantors have been under government control since they were seized during the financial crisis in 2008.

The proposal might deliver a windfall to the hedge funds and other investors who have been pressing Capitol Hill and the White House to release the companies from conservatorship. But because the outline is vague on many points, that is far from clear. Shares of Fannie and Freddie initially rose more than 5 percent after Crapo released his proposal but then retreated to about half that gain.

Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO and self-made billionaire, got an icy reception in his hometown of Seattle on Thursday after announcing his possible bid as an Independent candidate in the 2020 presidential election.

“Grande ego” and ‘Venti mistake’ were protesters’ clever play on words outside of a downtown Seattle theater where Schultz was set to appear to promote his new book, “From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America,” which tells his rags to riches story.

AP reported: 

The company said in a filing last year that the proposal would not “enhance Alphabet’s existing commitment to corporate sustainability,” noting that Alphabet chief executive officer Larry Page collected a salary of only $1. Alphabet Chairman John Hennessy said at that shareholder meeting that the company would consider diverse candidates for its board, and Google’s human resources head, Eileen Naughton, said the company aimed to increase its share of black, Latino and female workers by 2020.

Democratic presidential candidates who have embraced a proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to establish “Medicare for All” are suddenly struggling to explain whether they would eliminate private health insurance.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) told a CNN town hall earlier this week that she would “eliminate” private insurance, then tried to walk the remark back. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who announced his candidacy on Friday, told reporters that while he supported “Medicare for All,” he would not eliminate private health insurance.

However, both Harris and Booker were co-sponsors of Sanders’s bill, S. 1804, which would in fact ban private health insurance and employer-sponsored health insurance for any benefits also covered by “Medicare for all.”

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse isn’t usually the first one to speak out against the left, but he slammed Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam for his support of “infanticide.”

Sasse joined Fox News host Dana Perino on “The Daily Briefing” Thursday afternoon to discuss the controversy surrounding Northam’s sickening comments about abortion.

Northam’s bizarre comments were made on WTOP Wednesday morning. The governor hinted at post-birth abortion when defending a new abortion bill proposed by Virginia Democrats.

“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable,” Northam said in the interview.

After the birth is completed, Northam said the mother could have a “discussion” with physicians about what to do with the baby next, which seems to imply a post-birth abortion.

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“The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

Sasse was one of the first senators to offer a statement harshly criticizing the governor for his barbaric comments.

“I don’t care what party you’re from — if you can’t say that it’s wrong to leave babies to die after birth, get the hell out of public office,” Sasse said on Wednesday.

Sasse elaborated on his comments Thursday afternoon.

“What the governor of Virginia said was morally repugnant,” Sasse bluntly told Perino. “This isn’t the old Democratic Party argument, 15 or 20 years ago, that abortion should be safe legal and rare.”

The Nebraska senator made an excellent point there. This latest push for infanticide from Democrats should be evidence enough that liberals are drifting too far leftward.

Those who defended abortion years prior claimed it wouldn’t get this extreme, but here we are, even after President Donald Trump warned everyone over two years ago.

“The comments that the governor of Virginia said on the radio are about fourth trimester abortions. That’s not abortion, this is infanticide.”

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) on Gov Northam’s (D) abortion remarks: “If he can’t say protecting a baby girl who survived an abortion is something we as a society all believe in together he should get the hell out of office.”

“2020 presidential candidates should have to answer for this” pic.twitter.com/nm3jR6qUfv

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) February 1, 2019

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Sasse reiterated the great advice he gave Northam in his earlier statement: “get the hell out of office.”

“If he can’t say that protecting a little baby girl who survived an abortion is something we as a society all believe in together, he should get the hell out of office.”

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

A University of Utah professor, writing in the Salt Lake Tribune, responded to legislation sponsored by a state Republican that would ban abortion after 15 weeks by calling the representative “immoral” for sponsoring the legislation. UU law professor and adjunct professor of medical ethics and humanities Teneille Brown also opined, “There is no scientific proof that fetuses feel pain.”

Brown was triggered by H.B. 136, from Republican Utah state Rep. Cheryl Acton, which states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of this part, an abortion may not be performed after the unborn child reaches 15 weeks gestational age unless the abortion is permissible for a reason described in Subsection 76-7-302(3)(b).” Those exceptions include when the mother is endangered, when the baby has a defect that is uniformly diagnosable and fatal, or if the child was conceived as a result of rape or incest.

Brown wrote:

Rep. Cheryl Acton, R-West Jordan, is sponsoring a bill that would prohibit abortion after 15 weeks, a ban that she says is supported by “science.” From her comments on “Radio West” on Jan. 22, it seems that she knows very little about science, and she knows even less about the law.

First, there is no scientific proof that fetuses feel pain. Any scientist who tells you otherwise is extrapolating the neuroscience for political gains. Brain structures necessary for feeling pain form in the first trimester. But while this brain architecture is necessary for experiencing pain, it is hardly sufficient.

The truth is, we have no way of knowing whether fetuses feel pain. Pain is physiological, but it is also subjective.

But in 2013, as LifeSiteNews reported, Maureen L Condic, an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, stated before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (HR 1797): “The neural circuitry underlying the most basic response to pain is in place by eight weeks. This is the earliest point at which a fetus can feel pain in any capacity.”

Live Action reported in April 2017:

A breaking new study has found that preborn babies in the first trimester have “adult-like” patterns of nerves. Researchers “combined whole-mount immunostaining, 3DISCO clearing, and light-sheet imaging to start building a 3D cellular map” and found that “the adult-like pattern of skin innervation is established before the end of the first trimester, showing important intra- and inter-individual variations in nerve branches.” They also found evidence for “a differential vascularization of the male and female genital tracts concomitant with sex determination.” The full study can be seen here.

Brown continued, “So for Acton to cavalierly propose this bill, foisting her personal views on the entire population of Utah without having done her basic homework — well, that is truly immoral.”

As Frances Floresca writes at Campus Reform, Acton conducted an interview with Campus Reform in which she replied to Brown’s charges, saying, “You don’t have to be a scientist or a lawyer or a religious person to know that a human fetus is a human being and that it deserves to be protected from anyone who would harm it, including its mother. (Brown) has some basic facts wrong.” She added that Brown “objects to my description of dismemberment abortion (the type of abortion performed 95% of the time in the second trimester) as ‘barbaric,’ but how else would anyone describe a procedure that involves crushing the skull of a living fetus before extracting its limbs and body parts piece by piece from the womb?”