02/24/20

Bernie Sanders/AOC Manifesto

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Okay, so there is now chatter that since Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is campaigning for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, she would likely become his pick for Vice President.

AOC is much more radical for modern-day political policy than Bernie Sanders, while Sanders has a deep history with communists which cannot be denied and he admits to including full support of Fidel Castro.

Is Bernie or AOC the real problem or is the scary part of all this the supporting of socialism, communism, and Marxism?

If you are energetic enough to read the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, go here.

But to make it easier for you, a more modern-day manifesto is available and it is known as Prairie Fire. Copyrighted in 1974, it is authored by four people you may recognize: Bernadine Dohrn, Billy Ayers, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn. Yes, The Weather Underground.

Just the preface includes in part: Prairie Fire is written to communist-minded people, independent organizers, and anti-imperialists: those who carry the traditions and lessons of the struggles of the last decade, those who join in the struggles of today. Prairie Fire is written to all brothers and sisters who are engaged in armed struggle against the enemy, It is written to prisoners, women’s groups, collectives, study groups, workers’ organizing committees, communes, GI organizers, consciousness-raising groups, veterans, community groups and revolutionaries of all kinds, to all who will read, criticize and bring its content to life in practice. Prairie Fire is based on a belief that the duty of a revolutionary is to make revolution.

How many times has Senator Sanders used the term revolution or movement? You’ve lost count too, eh?

The contents of the Prairie Fire Manifesto (163 pages) is quite interesting and excellent for reference. Just a few items of distinction include:

1. Arm the Spirit

2. Why Revolution is Necessary

3. The Real and Phony Energy Crisis

4. Black Resistance to Slavery and the Rise of the Abolitionist and Women’s Movement

5. Monopoly Capital

6. Imperialism Means Underdevelopment

7. Imperialism Means Racism and Genocide

8. Neocolonialism

9. Imperialism Means Sexism

10. The Palestinian Liberation Movement

Any of that in your recent memory? To review or scan the manifesto, click here.

Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti ...

Bernie has a long history and this piece from the Washington Examiner complete with graphics may help with that evidence.

As for AOC, words and deeds do matter. Her reason to endorse Bernie”

“When I was a baby, my family relied on Planned Parenthood for prenatal care,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Then, Bernie Sanders fought for me. When I was growing up and education was being gutted for kids in the ‘wrong ZIP code,’ Bernie Sanders fought for us. When I was a child that relied on CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] so that I could see a doctor, Bernie Sanders fought for a single-payer health care system … Bernie Sanders did not do these things because they were popular, and that’s what we need to remember.”

“I feel decided,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It would be dishonest of me not to let folks know how I feel about this race.”

“For me, this is not about ‘Why not any other candidate?’ ” Ocasio-Cortez said. “The fact that [Sanders] has been fighting for these issues for so long struck me in a very personal way.” Source

Gotta wonder how much of that is true since her father was an architect and she was a graduate of Boston College. Nonetheless: Ocasio-Cortez is among the first female members of the Democratic Socialists of America elected to serve in Congress. Ocasio-Cortez advocates a progressive platform that includes Medicare for all, a federal jobs guarantee, a proposed Green New Deal, abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, free public college and trade school, and a 70% marginal tax rate for incomes above $10 million. All of that was learned by her work for former Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential bid and her collaboration with MoveOn, Black Lives Matters and Democracy for America.

Some interesting pieces of information right?

02/24/20

How Can AI Help With Real-Life Cold Case Files?

By: Denise Simon | Mind Matters News

AI doesn’t create new ideas in police work; rather, it does the work that police, who must move on to urgent, fresh cases, don’t have time to do.

When no new leads emerge in a murder or a missing person investigation, police must shift their resources to cases that offer new information. Currently, the FBI Uniform Crime Report keeps an estimated 250,000 cold cases on file, on which it co-operates with local law enforcement. Recent developments in AI, however, have shed light on some of these old and cold cases.

For example, in 2018, DNA evidence submitted through a popular genealogy database enabled charges to be laid in more than a dozen cases involving the Golden State Killer who had been living “ under the radar” for decades. According to a recent article in Forensic Science International, in 2018, direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic genealogy databases were used to solve over fifty cold cases of either murder or missing persons.

These uses of AI raise privacy and ethics issues, of course. But they raise those issues precisely because the method actually provides potential new information.

AI doesn’t create new ideas in police work; rather, it does the work that police, who must move on to urgent, fresh cases, don’t have time to do. For example, it can grade information in the files for unseen clues, global positioning, trace evidence, and even chemical analysis. Detectives and volunteers can then have a fresh look once the AI results are merged with DNA lab results, facial recognition, and human analysis to see if a new pattern is worth pursuing.

For example, there is the case of the West Mesa Bone Collector. Between 2001 and 2005, eleven women were buried in an undeveloped tract of land outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. A real estate developer had begun construction there a couple of years later but had to stop because of the mortgage crisis of 2008. In 2009, floods caused human remains to surface in the disturbed soil.

The crime is still unsolved but DNA technology, along with witnesses and satellite imagery, has provided some clues. For example, in 2010, two of the skeletal remains were determined to be misidentified because those two women were identified as alive. Some persons of interest have also been identified as possible suspects.

AI applications in the West Mesa case and others could be sifted and evaluated for false positives and misidentifications. In the past, old and cold cases have often been considered too complex to reopen. But AI might simplify the process and maintain the safe-keeping of relevant information, preventing loss or manipulation.

The globe is a big place, yet it has shrunk in certain ways, due to the ease of international travel and instant communication. INTERPOL, the world’s biggest repository of police cooperation and crime control, is pursuing strategies, along with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, in AI, robotics, future-casting, and facial recognition to keep pace.

They have their work cut out for them. The suspects in the West Mesa case may well have fled to a foreign country where extradition agreements with the United States are not recognized. In any event, there are countless unsolved cases that have international implications, such as the murder of British journalist Jill Dando in London (1999), the death of the Setagaya family in Tokyo (2001), or even the former Vladimir Putin aide, Mikhail Lesin (2015) found dead in a hotel room in DuPont Circle, Washington, DC.

AI could very well prove useful in the case of the Zodiac Killer (late 60s in San Francisco), Tupac Shakur (Las Vegas, 1996) and even JonBenét Ramsey (Boulder, 1996). Did Natalie Wood (California, 1981) really drown? Did D. B. Cooper (Washington State, 1971) really hijack a plane and jump out to never be found? AI may never solve the case of Jimmy Hoffa (Detroit area, 1975); however digitizing the evidence, testimonies, information about suspects could turn up some useful patterns.

Here’s what police are doing with AI today, and some reactions to it:

Here are some other fields in which AI can help solve longstanding puzzles:

Can AI help us decipher lost languages? Yes, sometimes. It depends mainly on the reasons we haven’t yet deciphered ancient texts.

Can AI prove that Shakespeare had ghostwriters? An author’s unique style is like a fingerprint. AI can fill it in and give us some patterns to look at.

and

Does AI challenge Biblical archeology? Many surviving documents are so damaged that they cannot be read using traditional methods. Recently, AI deciphered a nearly destroyed Biblical manuscript, showing that it was the earliest surviving copy.

02/24/20

Trump Goes to India

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

This two-day trip will begin with pomp and circumstance where Prime Minister Modi is returning the ceremonious favor of the Houston ‘Howdy Modi’ event that celebrated Modi’s visit to the United States in 2019.

Image result for trump modi

Trade talks will begin but not in real terms as U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are not part of the travel delegation. Trade talks will be in principle.

Talks could very well include some kind of peace mediation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The U.S. will need assistance in this regard and mutually so as the Taliban one-week quiet period has begun and Pakistan is for the most part on notice to stand with the United States and not with the Taliban-al Qaeda militants known to have sanctuary from time to time in Pakistan including the Haqqani network.

Another important component of the Trump-Modi meeting is China. Military cooperation may be an important topic due to regional aggression by China. You can bet that President Trump will offer India to buy more military aircraft and equipment from the United States.

The bigger part of the talks may well include Venezuela. India is a nation that has not joined countless other nations to recognize Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela and India is a large buyer of Venezuelan oil.

President Trump has grown quite impatient over the regime change in Venezuela.

The United States still has the military option on the table as well as a naval blockade.

The U.S. has put several companies that continue to do business in Venezuela on notice, the official said, including India’s Reliance Industries, Spain’s Repsol, Chevron and Greek shippers. Trump is likely to raise the issue of India’s oil imports from Venezuela with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a two-day visit next week, the official said Friday in a briefing for reporters.

The official asked not to be identified as a condition of participation in the briefing. The Trump administration has long sought to oust Maduro’s regime but has so far failed to replace him with the opposition leader it supports, National Assembly President Juan Guaido. Guaido was a surprise guest of Trump at this month’s State of the Union address.

Trump has ordered his administration to use any tools necessary to build pressure on Maduro with the goal of securing free and fair elections in Venezuela, the official said. The U.S. doesn’t believe that free elections are possible with Maduro in power, the official said.

The U.S. continues to pursue what the official called a “Trump doctrine” to foster democratic governments throughout the Western Hemisphere, akin to the Monroe Doctrine, which warned against European colonization efforts in the Americas two centuries ago. Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua remain impediments, the official said, adding that actions by Russia and China in the region are unacceptable.

The U.S. is also frustrated by Spain, which it believes is too accommodating to Maduro allies who seek to flee Venezuela. Spain has been hesitant to help oust Maduro and remains the biggest barrier in the EU to the U.S. campaign, the official said. More here from Bloomberg.

02/24/20

How Social Media Echo Chambers Dupe the Public

By: Frank Salvato

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Social media has become a staple in our society. Through these platforms, we stay connected with family and friends, create “cyber friends”, glean information, and take action on events and issues that are important to us. As social media spheres become more politicized they also become more compartmentalized. This leads to the danger of producing large member echo chambers that increasingly become ineffective in their goals.

We’ve all seen the posts on platforms like Facebook. Something outrageous is rightly exposed and hundreds or thousands of people have “liked” (or indicated anger) at the post. Some reply to the post with comments and some, albeit less often, share the post with like-minded friends, family, and groups. But outside of an individual’s sphere of influence – and since like-minded people tend to belong to the same groups and circles – the “outrage” has a shelf life and usually ends with the perpetrators of the outrage not feeling any heat for their bad actions.

A 2018 Pew Research Center report identified that two-thirds (68 percent) of Americans get their news and information from social media. And while 57 percent of that group “expects” the bulk of any information gleaned from social media to be “inaccurate” – not false, but inaccurate, an alarming 42 percent believe the information is accurate. That means roughly one-third (28.56 percent) of Americans believe that the information floated on social media is “accurate”.

The largest group in that percentage is Facebook, weighing in at 43 percent. This is the social media vehicle that pushed “groups”; intra-social media circles that compartmentalize people into likeminded pods, i.e. “groups.” While this structure allows for like-minded people to commiserate amongst themselves, most often it facilitates the illusion of successful activism in the face of outrage by way of creating “echo chambers”.

A perfect example comes in a story about an AP history class at Loch Raven High School in Towson, Maryland. During a lesson, the teacher displayed a slide that equated President Trump and his administration to the Nazis of Germany and the Communist Party under Stalin.

“A slide used in an Advanced Placement history class at Loch Raven High School in Towson shows a picture of Trump above pictures of a Nazi swastika and a flag of the Soviet Union. Two captions read ‘wants to round up a group of people and build a giant wall’ and ‘oh, THAT is why it sounds so familiar!’”

To be sure, this type of political indoctrination propaganda should never be displayed in a classroom. It is blatantly biased and promotes a political agenda. Our education system should be charged – exclusively – with teaching our children how to think, not what to think. Sadly, we do not teach critical thinking skills today, but I digress.

I posted this story to the One America News Network Facebook group (among many others) stating: “Everyone should contact Principal Janine Holmes ([email protected]) and demand this teacher be fired. #Politics #StopTheIndoctrination”. To which one member replied, “What, you don’t think the principal knows about it?”

To his credit, I do understand what he was saying. Yes, I am certain that Principal Holmes knew about it. I suspect that she even agreed with it. But this comment illustrates my point.

If Principal Holmes’ email address wasn’t included in that post how many people would have simply “liked” (or selected the angry emoji) and commented on the post without actually doing something about it? How many would have taken the time to search out the contact information for this principal in an effort to express outrage? To that end, I wonder how many actually did email the principal. The outrage of the overwhelming number of group members, regarding this teacher’s action, will, sadly, remain ineffective; it will remain in the echo chamber of that group and the groups that exist within the spheres of its members having no effect on the situation whatsoever.

Additionally, many members of one conservative group are members of the many other conservative groups, constituting a larger but still compartmentalized circular echo chamber. This further isolates any social outrage rendering it ineffective in achieving meaningful change. While a person may feel they have done something to create a loud voice to push back against an outrage; feel they have done their part to combat cultural erosion, they have, in fact, done very little.

Without including the information necessary to take action (i.e. an email address, phone number, or website link) – and without each and every one of us taking the time to act on that call to action, the outrage, and effort needed to affect real change remains compartmentalized and ineffective.

Social media echo chambers are where great intentions go to die. This is especially true for conservative-minded group echo chambers. Progressives and Justice Democrats understand this and that’s why they can routinely – and for the most inane of reasons – produce large-member pressure vehicles (emails, phone calls, letters, and protests) at a moment’s notice.

Until conservatives and constitutionalists understand that meaningful action takes more than a “like” and a comment, the Leftists amongst us will continue to win incrementally. Until conservatives and constitutionalists come to grips with the reality that – for now – Leftists organize to action better than we do, the country will continue on its path to becoming a socialist democracy.

Frank Salvato is a managing partner at TR² Consulting Group, LLC. He is the host of The Underground podcast as heard on iHeart Radio, Pandora, Spotify, and anywhere podcasts are heard. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His analysis has been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, and Accuracy in Media, and is nationally syndicated. Mr. Salvato appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel and is the author of six books examining internal and external threats facing our country. He can be heard twice weekly on “The Captain’s America: Third Watch” radio program syndicated nationally on the Salem Broadcasting Network and Genesis Communications affiliate stations.