Republican
lawmakers on Tuesday criticized Google during a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing over allegations of bias against and censorship of
conservative groups on the tech giant’s platforms. Also during the hearing, the father of Virginia reporter Alison Parker,
who was shot and killed in August 2015 while conducting an interview on
live television, called on Congress to further regulate Google and
other tech giants. Andy Parker testified on Tuesday that “the
unimaginable pain felt” by his family “was amplified after the killer
uploaded videos” of his 24-year-old daughter’s murder to YouTube. He
added that Google and YouTube needed to self-police what’s posted.
“In essence, [Google] wanted me to watch my daughter’s murder and explain to a robot why it should be removed.” — Andy Parker
The hearing, which came on a busy day on Capitol Hill
for Silicon Valley’s behemoths, was the second in recent of months in
which tech companies were grilled over accusations of discrimination
against conservative viewpoints and the suppression of free speech. “Google’s
control over what people hear, watch, read, and say is unprecedented,”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
said. “Google can, and often does, control our discourse.” Cruz added: “The American people are subject to overt censorship and covert manipulation” by Google’s algorithm. Google’s
vice president of global government affairs and public policy, Karan
Bhatia, defended the tech giant – arguing that the company has no
political bias and does not monitor content posted on its platforms.
Bhatia noted that the company does censor or take down some content, but
denied that there was any political motivation behind that. “We work hard to fix our mistakes,” Bhatia said. “But these mistakes have affected both parties and are not a product of bias.” He
added: “We are not censoring speech on our platforms... We do have
community guidelines against uploading, for example, videos that have
violent imagery.” Later in the hearing, Cruz criticized Google’s
executives for their broad support of former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, saying that 88 executives
at the company contributed to her campaign. “You know how many contributed to Donald Trump?” Cruz asked. “Zero, goose egg.” Democrats
on the committee defended the tech giant against the bias accusations
but didn’t spare the company when it came to criticism that it did
little to remove violent and disturbing imagery and videos from its
platforms. The Democrats’ criticism was bolstered by Parker’s
testimony. He has worked to press Google to remove all footage of his
daughter’s murder from its platform, with Google informing him that he
could flag the content for removal. “I pledged to honor my
daughter’s memory and advocate for sensible gun laws so that others
wouldn’t suffer the same fate as Alison,” Parker testified on Tuesday,
adding that his advocacy resulted in threats to him and his family. “They
have taken the gruesome footage of my daughter’s murder, edited it into
videos and flooded YouTube and other social media platforms with
hate-filled diatribes maligning us.” Parker
said he “implored Google and YouTube to take down the footage of her
murder and the related conspiratorial content,” adding that Google
responded by suggesting he flag the content he found offensive. “In essence, they wanted me to watch my daughter’s murder and explain to a robot why it should be removed,” Parker said.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Andy Parker, the father of Virginia
reporter Alison Parker, who was fatally shot in August 2015 while
conducting an interview on live television, called on Congress to begin
regulating Google and other tech giants.
“I never have, nor will I ever watch any of it for obvious reasons,” he added. He
said others have watched and flagged the videos on his behalf but the
video of his daughter’s murder was still up as of Tuesday and had more
than 700,000 views. He said he communicated with Google and even
met with representatives but since the meeting “there has been nothing
but silence” until he got an email from the company on Tuesday morning. “I
understand that the general purpose of this hearing is to consider
whether Internet gatekeepers such as Google should or should not censor
the speech of the politically unpopular, however, it is important to
note that turning a blind eye to targeted harassment over the Internet
in the name of preserving free speech has real-world and life-altering
consequences,” Parker testified on Tuesday. He added, “If
[Google] cannot properly protect citizens from online harassment, hate
speech and moment-of-death videos, I call on Congress to step in and
make sure that proper protections are in place for private citizens like
me who are continually harassed and exploited.” Parker went on to say, “We should protect the First Amendment, but it’s time for Google and social media to be regulated.” “Why
should a father have to search for, flag, and watch videos of his
daughter’s murder?” Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, the ranking Democrat on
the committee, asked. Bhatia argued that the company was working to remove the videos but has so far been unable to take down every one. Earlier,
senators grilled Facebook on its plans to launch a new digital currency
when it was still battling problems with privacy and other issues,
during a Senate Banking Committee panel. Arizona
Republican Sen. Martha McSally said she doesn't trust Facebook because
of repeated privacy violations and "repeated deceit." Facebook
executive David Marcus argued the company wants to innovate on behalf of
its users. He said if another country were to build a successful
digital currency first, the system might be out of reach of U.S.
regulations and sanctions. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Since
I’ve been tough on President Trump’s attacks on the Democratic
freshmen, and since the media outrage has been deafening, and since all
House Democrats (and four Republicans) voted for a resolution condemning
his tweets, I’ll begin by giving the floor to the president’s
supporters. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said yesterday he
does not believe the Trump attacks are racist. “I believe this is about
ideology. … This is all about politics,” he said. Newt Gingrich
said Trump believes “the more he can get the country to look at the
so-called squad, the more he can get them to realize how radical they
are, and how fundamentally anti-American their views are; in the long
run, the better off he is.” Maryland GOP congressman Andy Harris
said the tweets are “obviously not racist,” but “when anyone disagrees
with someone now, the default is you call them a racist and this is no
exception.” He said Trump “could’ve meant go back to the district
that they came from or the neighborhood they came from,” though the
president has specifically talked about Ilhan Omar and Somalia. Fox
News’ Jesse Watters said while his mother views the tweets as racist,
“Mom’s not going to scare me off. These were not racist. This was about
patriotism. When did ‘Love it or leave it?’ become racist? Not only
leave it, hey, come back and help us fix our problems.” And the
president himself tweeted yesterday that “I don’t have a Racist bone in
my body!”, adding: “The Democrat Congresswomen have been spewing some of
the most vile, hateful, and disgusting things ever said by a politician
in the House or Senate, & yet they get a free pass and a big
embrace from the Democrat Party. … Why isn’t the House voting to rebuke
the filthy and hate laced things they have said?” What
the Republican Party now wants—or is forced to want, since most members
believe it’s political suicide to take on Trump—is to blur the debate. In
this view, it’s not about Trump saying the women should “go back” to
where they came from before returning, it’s about the left-wing
extremism of AOC, Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. This, I
believe, was Trump’s strategy all along, to create enough of a
firestorm that they become the face of the Democratic Party and his own
initial attacks become beside the point. That’s what Lindsey
Graham did in mildly suggesting that his golfing buddy “aim higher”
while trashing the freshmen: “We all know that AOC and this crowd are a
bunch of communists. They hate Israel, they hate our own country.” (His former House colleague Joe Scarborough accused him of “McCarthyism.”) A relative handful of Republicans, meanwhile, spoke out against the president’s attacks on the four women: Mitt
Romney: “Destructive, demeaning and disunifying.” Lisa Murkowski:
“There is no excuse for the president’s spiteful comments–they were
absolutely unacceptable and this needs to stop.” Tim Scott, the only
black Republican in the Senate, chided Trump for “unacceptable personal
attacks and racially charged language.” There are big challenges
here for the media as well. I said yesterday on “America’s Newsroom”
that news outlets should be cautious about branding Trump’s attacks as
racist, as if it were an undisputed fact. CNN, CBS, ABC and, after an
internal debate, the Washington Post are among those who have done so in
straight news stories and segments. My view is that readers and
viewers are smart, especially when the president uses language that
closely mirrors the historic “go back to Africa” taunts against blacks. Cover the story aggressively, lay things out, and they can make up their own minds. Don’t act like the opposition party. A larger question is whether the media are playing into the president’s hands. A New York Times editorial accused Trump of the politics of distraction: “His
comments elicited precisely the sort of media coverage and public
outcry that he thrives on. So he did what he usually does: He went a
step further… “Mr. Trump’s aim of stoking an endless culture war
puts his political critics in a bind. They can take his bait and fight
back, participating in the divisive distraction he’s designed to
energize his supporters, or they can ignore his outbursts and risk
normalizing his terrible behavior.” The
fact is that a president can command media attention any time he wants,
and that was true in the pre-Twitter age as well. And when a president
makes divisive accusations of this magnitude, and the other party
explodes in outrage, which is a very big story that can’t be minimized
or ignored. To do otherwise is to try to stage-manage the news for political reasons. And besides, it never works.
The four progressive congresswomen who are currently in a nasty feud with President Trump offered a not-so-subtle warning to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, the next time she "singles them out." Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass, often referred to as "The Squad," sat down with "CBS This Morning" host Gayle King on Tuesday as the House voted to formally condemn Trump over tweets that Democrats labeled as racist. King asked the congresswomen if they've been in contact with Pelosi. "Our teams are in communication," Ocasio-Cortez responded. "But shouldn't you be meeting face-to-face?" King asked. "She's
the new member, not the speaker," Tlaib interjected. "She has every
right to sit down with her at any moment, any time with any of us. She
is Speaker of the House. She can ask for a meeting to sit down with us
for clarification." Tlaib
continued, "Acknowledge the fact that we are women of color, so when
you do single us out, be aware of that and what you're doing, especially
because some of us are getting death threats, because some of us are
being singled out because of our backgrounds, because of our experiences
and so forth." King followed up with Ocasio-Cortez, asking if she
was "interested in having a conversation" with Pelosi, which
Ocasio-Cortez responded, "Absolutely." Last week, the four congresswomen had an ongoing public spat with Pelosi, which got very heated after Ocasio-Cortez suggested that the speaker was "singling out" them
because they were "women of color." Pelosi previously dismissed their
vocal opposition to the House's approval for border funding. Their
feud, however, seemed to have evaporated on Sunday after Trump targeted
them on Twitter, suggesting they should "go back" to the countries they
came from despite how three of the four congresswomen were born in the
U.S. and all four of them are U.S. citizens. Trump's tweets were formally condemned by the House,
resulting in a 240-187 vote. Four Republican lawmakers joined the
Democrats, including Reps Will Hurd, R-Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick,
R-Penn., Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Susan Brooks, R-Ind., as well as Rep.
Justin Amash, I-Mich.
Republican Scherie Murray is launching a campaign Wednesday
for the New York congressional seat held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez. (Courtesy of Murray campaign)
EXCLUSIVE -- Scherie
Murray, a New York businesswoman who immigrated from Jamaica as a child
and is active in state Republican politics, is launching a campaign
Wednesday for the congressional seat held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Fox News has learned. In a phone interview, Murray, 38, confirmed her intention to run for the New York congressional seat as a Republican. “There
is a crisis in Queens, and it’s called AOC,” Murray told Fox News. “And
instead of focusing on us, she’s focusing on being famous. Mainly
rolling back progress and authoring the job-killing Green New Deal and
killing the Amazon New York deal.” Murray, who was born in Jamaica
and moved to the United States when she was 9, is officially launching
her campaign Wednesday with an introductory video that takes sharp jabs
at the 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez.
'There is a crisis in Queens, and it’s called AOC.' — Scherie Murray
“Your
representative in Washington chooses self-promotion over service,
conflict over constituents, resistance over assistance," Murray said in
the video. "Queens and the Bronx needs someone who will create jobs
instead of turning them away." Asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s brand
of Democratic socialism, Murray said, “I think it’s far, far to the left
and it is not connecting with everyday Americans.” As for
"Medicare-for-all," which Ocasio-Cortez has embraced, the Republican
said: “Medicare-for-all, I think a lot of people are happy with their
current health insurance.” And on the Green New Deal, the left-wing
proposal to address climate change pushed by Ocasio-Ortez, she said: “We
know that it certainly will kill jobs.” Murray joins four other Republicans who have filed to run for the seat: former police officer John Cummings, medical journalist Ruth Papazian, construction contractor Miguel Hernandez and entrepreneur Antoine Tucker. No
Democrats have yet announced a primary challenge to Ocasio-Cortez,
though there's been speculation that establishment Democrats could rally
behind a primary challenger. Ocasio-Cortez shocked the political world
in 2018 by defeating longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in a Democratic primary. Whichever
Republican candidate emerges from the primary field will face a steep
uphill climb in the overwhelmingly Democratic district. But Murray and
others are looking to paint Ocasio-Cortez as more of a celebrity than a
lawmaker, while stressing their ability to work across party lines. Murray's
new campaign video, which doesn’t mention President Trump or the
Republican Party, portrays Murray as a bridge-builder. She is a former
state committeewoman of the New York State Republican Party. Asked
during the interview if she considers herself a Trump supporter, she
said “yes.” She said she is in the process of talking with national
Republicans about her campaign, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott,
a prominent black Republican in Congress. She expressed disgust over the recent spat between Trump and Ocasio-Cortez and her allies.
Trump has taken heat for telling Ocasio-Cortez and other minority
progressives to "go back" to where they came from – provoking
accusations from Democrats that Trump's comments are racist. “I
think it’s disgusting, to be quite honest,” Murray said of the
controversy, without specifying which part of it disgusts her. “I think
we are missing the point of why we’re elected to public office: to
legislate on policy, to deliver results to those kitchen table issues
that are affecting everyday Americans.” Murray later clarified her
thoughts on the back-and-forth, saying of Trump's tweet, "Is that how I
would have worded it? No. Do I think the president is a racist? No."
She added, "But I want to get back to the core of why we’re even talking
about this – there is a crisis at our border." Murray, who grew
up in Southeast Queens and worked for the city’s Jamaica Bus Depot as a
teenager, founded a television production and advertising company called
The Esemel Group in 2004. She said her business generated employment
for minorities in New York City. She said she no longer works for the
company and is now a full-time mother. The GOP primary will take place in June 2020. Winning
a general election in New York’s 14th congressional district would be a
long shot for any Republican: In 2018, Ocasio-Cortez’s GOP opponent,
Anthony Pappas, won just 14 percent of the vote. But Murray still
insists a Republican could win – even in a Democratic-controlled
district – because of dissatisfaction with Ocasio-Cortez. “A
Republican can win the district,” she said. “There is an absolute path
to victory when you look at a general election campaign.”
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway responded to critics Monday after formally defying a Hatch Act-related subpoena from the House Oversight Committee.
Her opponents are concerned about her effectiveness at her job and hoped to silence her, Conway said Monday on "Hannity."
"I'm concerned that there's such a weaponization and politicization of this thing called the Hatch Act," she said.
The
Hatch Act limits political activity by federal workers. Congress
approved the Hatch Act in 1939 to limit partisan activity by federal
employees to ensure the government functions fairly and effectively.
The
Office of Special Counsel -- separate from the office formerly run by
Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- opened two cases focused on
allegations Conway violated the Hatch Act by engaging in “both official
and political activity” -- during her media appearances and on her
Twitter account, @KellyannePolls.
The report stated, "Ms. Conway
regularly participated in official media interviews in her capacity as a
White House spokesperson to answer reporters’ questions about the
Administration. Beginning in February 2019, Ms. Conway, during official
media appearances, engaged in a pattern of partisan attacks on several
Democratic Party candidates shortly after they announced their candidacy
for President,” detailing instances involving Sens. Cory Booker
and Elizabeth Warren, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
The OSC
stated that in one Feb. 19 interview on "Fox & Friends," Conway
“insinuated that Senator Booker was ‘sexist’ and a ‘tinny’ ‘motivational
speaker,’” and claimed Warren, D-Mass., was “’lying’” about her
ethnicity.
Conway said that no matter how heavy the pressure is on
her to keep a low profile, she will continue to publicly support the
president's policies.
"They're not going to silence me," she said. "They're not going to take away my First Amendment rights."
Conway also “attacked” O’Rourke for not “thinking the women running are good enough to be President.” Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
agents are being wrongfully criticized and attacked by misinformed or
intentionally misguided people, according to Mark Morgan, the acting CBP
commissioner said.
Law enforcement and the intelligence community
are likely successfully tracking potential threats against the agency
and its infrastructure, Morgan claimed Monday on "The Ingraham Angle."
"It's absolutely dangerous," he said of some of the opposition to the agency's mission of border enforcement.
"I have full confidence that the law enforcement mechanisms and intelligence agencies are watching these groups."
"A lone wolf or violent extremist are very hard to prevent," he said, referring to a 69-year-old Antifa activist shot and killed by Washington state police after attacking an ICE facility in the Evergreen State.
The group Seattle Antifascist Action described assailant
Willem Van Spronsen a "good friend and comrade" who "took a stand
against the fascist detention center in Tacoma" and "became a martyr who
gave his life to the struggle against fascism."
Van Spronsen was armed
with a rifle and incendiary devices when he launched his assault on
the Northwest Detention Center around 4 a.m. Saturday, according to the
Tacoma Police Department.
Employees reported he was throwing 'incendiary devices' and setting
vehicles on fire and the first officers on the scene said he was wearing
a sachet and carrying flares.
In light of van Spronsen's attack, Morgan slammed some of the rhetoric from agency opponents and critics.
"The
rhetoric that's out there from our own elected leaders -- they're
attacking the men and women of ICE, they're attacking the men and women
of CBP," he said.
"It's unjust, it's unfair, it's misinformed, and
outright sometimes, they're just lying to the American people and it's
undoubtedly fueling this."
Of the comparison between border
detention facilities and World War II-era concentration camps, Morgan
said the two are completely different.
"In the concentration camps, the Nazis were killing people. Customs and Border Protection are saving lives," he said. Fox News' Travis Fedschun contributed to this report.
