PEGGY NOONAN: FACEBOOK CONNED REPUBLICANS. BREAK THEM UP.

MUST READ: PEGGY NOONAN WROTE AN OP-ED IN THE WSJ SAYING FACEBOOK CONNED CONSERVATIVE MEDIA PUNDITS IN 2016 INTO BUYING THAT FACEBOOK WAS ON THEIR SIDE. NOW THEY MUST BE BROKEN UP AND REGULATED.

I EDITED FOR LENGTH AND ADDED MY OWN THOUGHTS.

Noonan says, that in 2016, she was invited by Mark Zuckerberg’s office to a meeting, along with 17 other conservative media pundits, to "allegedly" combat systemic anti-conservative political bias at the company. Instead, what they did was turn Republicans against each other and conned them all.

According to a Facebook employee who planned the meeting, part of the goal was to bring in a group of conservatives who were certain to fight with one another.

They made sure to have libertarians who wouldn’t want to regulate Facebook, using the line that a private company can do what it wants, and partisans who would.

Another goal was to make sure the attendees were “bored to death” by a technical presentation after Zuckerberg and Sandberg had addressed the group. Another goal was to uncover new ways to hamstring the right on Facebook.

The power went out, and the room got uncomfortably hot. But the meeting served its purpose.

Afterward, Glenn Beck, one of the invitees, wrote an glowing essay about the meeting, praising Zuckerberg. “I asked him if Facebook, now or in the future, would be an open platform for the sharing of all ideas or a curator of content. Without hesitation, with clarity and boldness, Mark said there is only one Facebook and one path forward: ‘We are an open platform.’”

So the whole meeting was a set-up to co-opt the Right. Never were pawns so happily used.

In the face of today's anti-trust talk to rein in the power of Big Tech -- Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple are spending tens of millions of dollars to build a D-Day army of lobbyists.

Break them up. Regulate them. Declare them to be what they’ve so successfully become: once a pleasure, now a utility.

It all depends on Congress, which has been too stupid to move in the past and is too stupid to move competently now. That’s what’s slowed those of us who want reform, knowing how badly they’d do it. Do it incompetently, but do something.

Why are Republicans so slow to lead? Josh Hawley says “the dominance of big tech” is a “big problem.” They “may be more socially powerful than the trusts of the Roosevelt era, and yet they still operate like a black box.”

He’s right.

But I read about lobbyists coming at Republican congressional leaders and I think, it’s going to be like Mr. Zuckerberg’s meeting with the conservatives in 2016. A tech god will give them some attention, some respect, and they’ll fold like a cheap suit.

If they are as stupid and unserious as their critics take them to be, they will go to the meeting and be used. They should say no and hit send.

This notion that Facebook is an open, neutral platform is almost like a religious tenet inside the company. When new recruits come in, they are treated to an orientation lecture who tells them Facebook is an entirely new communications platform for the 21st century, as the telephone was for the 20th.

If that’s true that Facebook is to the 21st century at the telephone was to the 20th — and I think it pretty much is — then right there is the argument that it’s a utility, and therefore subject to regulation.

I don’t believe the government should be telling Facebook what it can and can’t post (e.g., forcing it to have a quota of conservative posts). But I do think that the government has to take seriously the monopolistic role Facebook plays in the public discourse.

It’s not just Facebook. YouTube is like this too. If YouTube doesn’t like what you’re doing, they can ban you, or demonetize you. And then where are you?

This is likely to fall disproportionately on conservatives, but there’s no guarantee that certain kinds of progressives won’t feel the pressure some day. Americans should ask themselves whether they want the values of Silicon Valley to control the major means of discourse.

Standard conservatives and libertarians are arguing, on principle, that the state has no business telling private businesses what to do, even if it disadvantages conservatives. I can admire their sticking to principle, but this is an example where free-market dogma doesn’t match reality.

The Silicon Valley bigs are gathering all kinds of personal data, and exploiting it for profit. There has never been a business like this one, one that poses such extraordinary dangers of personal and political liberty. This is not merely about freedom of expression. Facebook, Google, and the others are heavily involved in "behavior modification."

Don’t you realize that all of this is going to be used against you, sooner or later?

Clinton’s Telecommunications Act of 1996, along with Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, totally upended the rules that had kept America’s broadcast industry competitive, and would have presumably done the same for cable and internet.

Consolidation (monopolization in new dress) has been the name of the game ever since, which effectively killed local radio, local newspapers, diversity in the music industry and journalism across the board. At the same time it allowed big conglomerates to effectively take over TV and radio, newspapers, and entertainment in general, as well as cable and social media.

This is not just a problem for America, these companies pose a global threat. They have more power and influence than any past Pope, Chinese emperor or Ottoman sultan ever had. This will be a test of every state in the world on how to deal with this massive problem.

You can’t have a free market without a policeman. If the government does not protect competition and prevent or break up monopolies, it leads straight to Oligarchy. Which is where we are now. Monopolists get really seriously big time rich. Then they buy Congress and the government. Which is what they've done. Then they own us all.

HEY PEGGY NOONAN, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US ALL THIS IN 2016? BECAUSE IT DIDN'T AFFECT YOU THEN AND YOU DIDN'T CARE OR HAVE THE FORESIGHT TO SEE IT. WE KNEW IT WAS COMING. YOU DID NOT. WE LIVE IT EVERYDAY.

On June 2, one week before Peggy Noonan's op-ed, President Trump tweeted: "Peggy Noonan, the simplistic writer for Trump Haters all, is stuck in the past glory of Reagan and has no idea what is happening with the Radical Left Democrats, or how vicious and desperate they are. Mueller had to correct his ridiculous statement, Peggy never understood it!"

Looks like he goaded her into finally writing something constructive!

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/facebook-peggy-noonan-imperious-twerp-mark-zuckerberg-caesar/

TEENAGER CJ PEARSON LOST HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH GRANDPARENTS OVER POLITICS.

TEENAGER CJ PEARSON SAYS HE HAS LOST HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS LIBERAL GRANDPARENTS OVER HIS CONSERVATIVISM.

CJ PEARSON: "For five years I have made a name for myself as a proponent of conservatism and a supporter of President Trump. A young, black male with a set of principles that count as a rarity within the community from which I hail.

For the past five years I have watched as my relationship with my grandparents deteriorated. Bonds which I believed to be life-long are fading for no reason other than my politics.

I come from a house divided. Not only by political ideology and affiliation, but by generation. Both my grandparents – who have raised me since birth – are proud, card-carrying Democrats.

My grandparents grew up in a time in which blackness inherently meant liberalism, or leftism. A time when the color of their skin dictated their politics. We no longer live in such a time.

I refuse to allow the box that society put them in to hold me captive as well. Trump supporters are brutalized in public. Right-leaning personalities are targeted on social media. People are struggling to make ends meet because of liberal intolerance.

But for everything gained – from opportunity to notoriety – it has not come without a hefty price. The single biggest casualty is my relationship with two people who I love more than anything: my grandparents."

WHILE SAD, THE 2016 ELECTION EXPOSED THE TRULY INTOLERANT PEOPLE FOR WHO THEY REALLY ARE. TURNS OUT UNCONDITIONAL LOVE WAS A LIE!

COURAGEOUS PEOPLE LIKE CJ, WHO STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT REGARDLESS OF WHAT OTHER HUMANS THINK, ARE MY HEROES.

REAL RELATIONSHIPS BEAT SUPERFICIAL POLITICALLY CORRECT PANDERING EVERY DAMN DAY.

HOW THE DAYCARE FRAUD SCAM REALLY WORKS IN MINNESOTA.

Minnesota, remember the daycare fraud investigation from Fox 9 that revealed suitcases full of cash were leaving the Minneapolis airport for North Africa and the Middle East? Many wondered just how the daycare fraud is perpetrated. Here's what I learned:

1) The so-called "working" parents will apply for daycare assistance for each child. That amounts to a benefit of roughly $1,000 per month, per child. That means a family with 4 children will receive a daycare benefit of $4,000 per month or $48,000 per year, paid for by Minnesota taxpayers.

2) Another "community" member will open a daycare facility. They will hire the MOTHER of the 4 children as an "employee."

3) The mother will work at the daycare facility for minimum wage for a maximum of 25 hours per week caring for HER OWN CHILDREN so that she can prove she is "working" and qualifies for daycare assistance.

4) The daycare facility will bill the state $4,000 a month for caring for her 4 children - and pay the mother $400 a month in income for caring for HER OWN CHILDREN - and pocket the rest. Often, much of that money will be sent back to their country of origin. Some critics believe the parents receive additional kick-backs for their participation. Or, sometimes, there aren't ANY children AT ALL...the facility is empty...and the state is billed for non-existent children.

5) Because the mother works only 25 hours a week, she is still entitled to free healthcare through Medicaid or ObamaCare, free food stamps, cash assistance, daycare assistance and subsidized housing for up to 10 years. Meanwhile, Minnesota-born citizens wait in line.

6) The daycare facility will often build a kitchen and call it a "restaurant" and hire workers (mothers of more children who receive free daycare) to feed all the families.

7) The daycare facilities are not open to "everybody" and are often full.

8) If the family has subsidized housing, the low wage she is being paid at the "daycare" facility will ensure they are qualified to continue to receive subsidized housing or Section 8 FOREVER.

9) New refugees are trained in on the scheme when they arrive and are taught how to manipulate and maximize the system. This is an international scam - which has been going on in Australia and the UK for over a decade. Minnesota spends $13 billion on welfare benefits every year, and some $250 million of that is just on daycare assistance alone.

10) Ilhan Omar and Keith Ellison, as well as the Democrat and Republican leadership in Minnesota, are ALL complicit in the scheme. Lawmakers refuse to investigate and avert their eyes. Left unchecked, welfare fraud will bankrupt Minnesota.

BTW, IT'S NOT JUST DAYCARE FRAUD. Foodstamp, PCA and housing fraud too. Here's some more truth about refugee housing privilege in Minnesota:

Refugee public housing residents in Minneapolis will no longer need to pay their normal monthly rent when they travel to their homelands. Instead, they will pay only $75 per month to hold their public housing units for their return. Meanwhile, native-born, low-income Minnesotans, who are on waiting lists for public housing, will just have to wait.

Abdi Warsame, a City Council member, who was born in Somalia and trained in London, told the board that refugees having to pay rent when they want to save to travel to their homelands is an unfair burden. Refugees receive federal Supplemental Security Income, which is halted when they leave the United States. The most common reasons for their travel abroad include visiting families left behind or participating in the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are expected to make at least once.

The Minneapolis Housing Agency board now has two members from the refugee community: Mohamud Tamir and Abdullahi Isse. Wait a minute. I thought refugees were fleeing persecution. Why would they want to vacation in their homelands and how can they afford a $3,000 flight home?

Here's what a Facebook friend who worked for the Minneapolis Public Housing authority says:

"Taxpayers are paying for it in a way. The refugees often have decent paying jobs, enough so that they paid maximum public housing rent of $500 or thereabouts. Once they reached maximum rent they could stay as long as they liked and make even more money and their rent was capped at $500. So they occupy what is supposed to be low income housing, their rent is not market rate, they are taking an apartment away from a true low income family that needs it and we subsidize it (and then they get to pay $75 a month to hold that unit for them when they leave the country.) Saw it with my own eyes."

Nice huh? Come here to Minnesota as a "refugee" from another country and you get rent capped at $500, you can live there forever and then pay $75 a month to keep your unit while you fly home to visit relatives, in the country you had to flee because of "so-called persecution," on $3,000 flights. Minnesota - how did we become so stupid?