Archive for the ‘business’ Category

Ach-ptooie, Twitter and Facebook hate conservatives–Hello Parler

Posted: November 8, 2020 by John Ruberry in business, culture, elections, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

I’ve had my fill of Facebook and Twitter blocking friends of mine from posting there and having their accounts suspended. These two social media giants unapologetically back liberal political figures while using their might to crush conservative leaders–as well as rank-and-file supporters of the right side of the political spectrum.

The most recent victim of Twitter bumptiousness is Da Tech Guy himself, simply because he questioned the veracity of the presidential recounts in swing states. It happened today.

Meanwhile there is another social media site, Parler, where free speech is encouraged. I’m @marathonpundit there. Please follow me. While I haven’t deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts–I’ll be spending much less time there. Besides, I don’t want someone to steal my handles there.

On his show radio show Friday night Mark Levin announced his social media transition. Today on the platform he announced, “Hurry and follow me at Parler. I’m trying to encourage as many of you as possible to immediately join me there as I may not stay at Facebook or Twitter if they continue censoring me. And one day I’ll have left their platforms. Parler is a wonderful alternative and is growing, and we need you there ASAP. It believes in truly open speech. Thank you!”

In his well-deserved grilling by the US Senate last month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey couldn’t come up with a solid answer on why he continually blocks President Trump’s Tweets about controversial COVID-19 treatments and election fraud. Meanwhile, a post from the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, questioning whether the Holocaust occurred, remains on the microblogging platform. When asked about if any other world leader, besides Trump, has had Tweets blocked, Dorsey couldn’t come up with any examples. 

Twitter is a Trump-hating and a conservative-hating site. I can’t think of a single incident of a liberal–famous or not–having their posts deleted or their accounts blocked. Just last week, for instance, reputed comedian Kathy Griffin reposted on Twitter her notorious photo where she holds the bloody head of President Trump. Don’t forget, threats of violence against the president violates federal law. What would happen to my Twitter account if I posted a similar shot with Joe Biden?

It’s not just “the guy in his pajamas” Tweeting at home who gets bullied. The New York Post, America’s oldest daily newspaper and its fourth-most read, saw its Twitter account suspended for 13 days because of stories it wrote and Tweeted regarding email revelations alleging graft gleaned from Hunter Biden’s laptop. The Twitter “gods” deemed these reports unsubstantiated–even though the Biden-Harris campaign never denied the Post’s stories. Another reason given by Twitter for the Post’s suspension was its claim that the paper was publishing “hacked” information. But Hunter’s laptop was obtained legally.

Contrast that behavior with Twitter’s non-response to the New York Times’ stories on President Trump’s federal income tax returns. Those returns were possibly retrieved by hacking–and that tax information was almost certainly illegally obtained by somebody.

Facebook isn’t quite as bad as Twitter in regards to censorship but it has a shameful free speech record too. Many of my friends have ended up in “Facebook jail” for pushing the envelope a bit as they challenge the leftist dogma. I’ve never hear about liberals being tossed into “Facebook jail.” And yes, I have liberal friends.

Twitter makes money on ads, mainly thru “Promoted Posts” that appear on its feed. If I am not on Twitter, I don’t see them. Just as when my television is switched off I don’t see commercials there. 

Facebook is downright creepy in its ad strategy. If I click “like” on a story for a sports team, shortly afterwards I’ll see ads on my Facebook page promoting hats and shirts for that team. A few hours after I arrived in Alaska this summer for a vacation this T-shirt ad on my FB page. “I may be in Anchorage but my heart is with the Chicago White Sox.” Does Facebook know when I use the men’s room? It gets worse. A couple of years ago–just five minutes after leaving the wake for a friend of mine–I was requested to write a review on Facebook for the funeral home that hosted the wake.

Facebook takes the predilections and overall activities of its users and essentially sells them to advertisers. In fact they are selling you to advertisers. Yep, you.

But if I’m not there, or not there very much, Facebook and Twitter will suffer. If millions of conservatives follow the same action they’s suffer a lot more.

Let’s think of social media hatred of conservatives this way. Imagine you are a member of an ethnic group that is disliked by the proprietors of the only two restaurants in town. You still eat at these places because sometimes you are hungry and you just don’t have the energy to prepare your down dinner. That is, until you find out that the cooks always spit into your sandwiches. 

Ach-ptooie! 

That’s what Facebook and Twitter is doing to conservatives. Spitting on them. 

Over 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. Let’s see if Facebook and Twitter can endure angering such a large segment of America. 

Patriots, it’s time to spit back.

Ach-ptooie!

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit. You can follow him on Parler @marathonpundit.

Remember the Tea Party Non Riots, The last Straw in SF? History repeating itself, Eucharistic Processions on Oct 17th Please, and How Bad is the Trump Economy? VERY quick thoughts under the fedora

Posted: September 10, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, business, catholic, Church doctrine, crime, culture, economy, education, politics
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Overslept today after putting in some extra time at work and I have to go in early today as well so no time to post so here are some very quick thoughts.

A Quick reminder, remember when the media was united in declaring the Tea Party and the various Tea Party protest a bunch dangerous violent agitators?

You can count the number of Tea Party events over the year that became riots d on the fingers of one hand, in fact you can likely do so on the thumb of one hand or no hands

I think the Nancy Pelosi Salon story combined with the news concerning city gyms in SF offer the best single chance for her GOP challenger in decades.

People don’t like be played for fools and even leftists know that if they punish her on election day they’ll get the seat back fairly quick.

When I was younger I was always amazed at the rise of the Nazi’s in Germany and the Communists in Russia (although less so the latter given serfdom and the Czars). After watching the left over the last several months and the reaction of the public I am much less amazed.

The smartest thing our enemies ever did was to go after our colleges. People are so much easier to buy.

If I was the Pope I would order a coordinated set of Eucharistic Processions led by the local Bishops or Cardinals of sees in October in Reparation for sins. I’d Choose Saturday October 17 the feast day of St. Ignatius.

Either we believe in the Power of Christ in the Eucharist or we don’t, if we do let’s not be shy about it.

Finally a reminder that tomorrow’s Podcast will be at 11 AM rather than at 3 PM.

This is because the Trump Economy is so bad that I have to work on my day off along with going in early yesterday and today to keep up with all the work we don’t have because the Trump economy is so bad

Tariffs on Cruise Lines?

Posted: August 29, 2020 by ng36b in business, economy, News/opinion, trade
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The Pride of America, the only US flagged cruise ship, in Hawaii. Image from Wikipedia.

Cruise ships haven’t had good news in 2020. Many of the first COVID patients in the US, including the people in my area, caught the disease while onboard a cruise vessel. Then cruise lines wanted federal money under the CARES act, even though they aren’t incorporated in the United States, and thus don’t pay US taxes. Combined with the difficulty in cleaning a ship while underway, and cruise lines are facing a difficult return to normal. If stock price is any indication, Carnival Cruise line plummeted from 50 dollars a share in January to almost 8 dollars in April, and is currently sitting around 17 dollars.

Cruise lines have found unique ways to evade US laws and taxes. All but one cruise ship is flagged outside the United States. The flag of the cruise ship allows it to sail in international waters, and dictates what sort of domestic laws apply while onboard. Most cruise ships are flagged in Liberia, Bahamas or Panama. Each of these nations have weak labor laws with limited ability to enforce them. Cruise lines don’t have a minimum wage and get away with significantly lower safety standards. Worse still, if a crime is committed onboard, its notoriously hard to prosecute. A study from the University of Florida found that:

The Cruise Line International Association claims that cruise ships are inherently secure because ships offer a controlled environment with limited access. “However, there has been some startling statistics between 2003 and 2005: 24 people were reported missing and 178 people reported a claim against sexual assault. Additionally, the FBI has opened investigations on 305 cruise-based crimes, from 2000-2005” (Porter, 2006, p.597). The CLIA compares these statistics to U.S. crime rates and harps on being the safest form of transportation and inherently secure. They fail however, to examine the context to which these statistics apply.

Given that Americans make up nearly 75% of cruise line passengers, it seems unfair to have Americans financing a system that is exploiting workers and dodging taxes. The tax dodging makes it easy to undercut any US company trying to start a competitive cruise line. Given the negative attention on cruise lines, its probably time for President Trump to threaten tariffs on the cruise industry.

Cruise ships pay a docking fee and port tariff, based on tonnage, when they dock in a US port. An easy way to encourage better behavior is to raise the port tariffs on non-US flagged vessels, as well as providing a discounted tariff to cruise lines that voluntarily follow US employment and criminal laws. You could have a high tariff, with a discount if the ship pays minimum wages, and a further discount if they follow proper US criminal proceedings. The result is a carrot and stick approach, either getting more money from the industry or enforcing better behavior on the part of the cruise line. Given that cruise lines are struggling, now is the time to negotiate a better deal.

Cruise lines have benefited from America for years under flags of convenience. Perhaps its time they follow the same rules the rest of the United States does.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Lori Lightfoot believes she deserves security on her block, but not Chicago’s peasants

Posted: August 23, 2020 by John Ruberry in business, crime, culture, economy, News/opinion, politics
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North Michigan Avenue in June after Chicago’s first round of looting this summer

By John Ruberry

If you need more proof that America’s elite class feels that there are rules for them but not you, then take a look at Chicago’s floundering mayor, Lori Lightfoot.

America’s third-largest–for now–city isn’t at the abyss, it’s in it. Riots, looting shootings, unsustainable pension debt, and a declining population are what defines her Chicago. To be fair, the public worker pension bomb is largely the creation of Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago for all of the 1990s and 2000s.

Streets are regularly blocked off–not by police–but by protesters who don’t even bother apply for a rally permit. One march eight days ago, which was hampered by a poor turnout, had as its goal to close off off Interstate 90-94, known as the Dan Ryan Expressway, on the South Side. The right to peaceful assemble does not include blocking off an expressway, which, according to a police friend of mine, breaks a state law: unauthorized entry on to an interstate highway. I find it hard to believe that Chicago cops can’t find a law to allow them to arrest people who block traffic elsewhere in the city. 

That march was a Trojan horse for agitators. The protest migrated to downtown, where it ended violently–even Lightfoot has ascertained that fact, telling Face the Nation, “What we’ve seen is people who have embedded themselves in these seemingly peaceful protests [emphasis mine],” she admitted, “and have come for a fight.” Downtown Chicago and the Near North Side earlier that week was struck by widespread looting, and that round of mayhem delivered a blow that the city may never recover from because 70 percent of Chicago’s economic activity comes from the downtown area.

As I wrote in this space last Sunday, Welcome to Detroit, Chicago.

One popular rally site has been the block in Logan Square on the Northwest Side where Lightfoot lives. But backed by a heavy police presence, protests are now banned there.

“I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure,” Lightfoot said last week.

Public figures receive threats regularly. If you don’t like that then don’t run for political office. But Mayor Lightweight is clueless on this fact. She’s clueless on many other things, but that’s another matter.

“That’s not what my wife and my child signed up for,” she declared while defending her action. “It’s not what my neighbors signed up for. We have a right in our home to live in peace.”

Meanwhile, murders in Chicago are up 50 percent this year over 2019 and they were 139 percent higher in July alone. Many business owners and their employees are coping with two rounds of looting in a little over two months. They are dreading increases in their insurance coverage–some are considering closing their boarded-up doors for good. 

So much for the peasants’ right to “live in peace.”

Chicago police officers are working twelve-hour shifts to address the protests that often turn violent and the dramatic spike in shootings. There aren’t cops in Chicago sitting around looking for things to do. Duh! But Mayor Beetlejuice has her praetorian guard in front of here home, who last night arrested six protesters. All of them by the way, are from out of state, which belies the meme of the left that the protests are spontaneous outbursts by locals. 

What else is going on in Lightfoot’s home base in Logan Square? Earlier this month a 14-year-old was told, “You’re a racist and you ain’t gonna do sh*t,” by a man as he allegedly stole the kid’s bike. It’s too bad there wasn’t an army of cops there when that happened, although the suspect was arrested a half-hour later after he allegedly committed two more crimes

And of course there is no army of police officers on each block of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods on the West and South Sides. As for violent crimes in the city it’s not just about guns. Last week a serial stabber of sleeping homeless men was arrested. Will Lightfoot blame knives-from-Indiana for those attacks, one of which was fatal?

On Saturday Black Lives Matter is planning a march on North Michigan Avenue just north of downtown. The area is, for now, known as the Magnificent Mile. It is, for now, packed with many retail stores. Don’t forget, a Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer said of looting, “That is reparations.”  My guess is that the protest will be allowed tp proceed. Many people live on the Mag Mile too. My suggestion to them is to pool their funds and buy a condo for Lightfoot and pay her moving expenses. 

And then there will be no more protests on North Michigan Avenue.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit. 

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