These idiots want to control everyone on Social Media.
There is a growing drumbeat for tech regulation coming from the establishment, the latest example being Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff’s call, made at Davos, for the world to “wake up to the threat from tech giants.” But what kind of regulation are they looking for?
Benioff compared the tech giants to tobacco companies, suggesting that their product is “addictive” and in some cases “bad for people” before alluding to the “manipulation” of elections by “outside forces.”
“I think you’d do it exactly the same way you’d regulate the cigarette industry. You know, here’s a product, cigarettes, they’re addictive, they’re not good for you, maybe there’s all kinds of different forces getting you to do different things …”
The Salesforce.com CEO’s comments echo the narrative of the left, which is that “fake news,” spread through social media and financed by Russia, put Donald Trump in the White House. Aside from the inflated claims and Red Scare-level establishment panic, the subtext of the argument is that users of social media platforms can’t be trusted to choose what information they receive. Unless social media companies limit access to information, they will be manipulated by hostile forces (and many on the left consider Breitbart News and the alternative media to be synonymous with “fake news.”)
It’s a narrative that says the free flow of information is dangerous, because voters are stupid and easily misinformed. It’s a narrative hostile to the idea of human rationality, one that says free speech and the free marketplace of ideas are flawed, because human beings — given the chance — will choose bad speech and bad ideas. Instead, governments and Silicon Valley gatekeepers should act as enlightened overlords, deciding what information the mentally feeble users receive. Rupert Murdoch expressed this opinion last week, when he said Facebook and other social media platforms should pay reputable new sources to atone for the crime of spreading “scurrilous news sources,” referring to the alternative media.
The right wants regulation too, but of a very different kind. Multiple right-wing commentators have called for Google and Facebook, whose market share eclipses old 20th-century monopolies like Standard Oil and the Bell System, to be regulated like utilities.
The impetus is the threat of political bias from companies that now have more influence over the flow of news and information than any other company in history. Facebook, through a recent change to its news feed algorithm, threatens to undercut the success of new media outlets. Google, by tweaking its search results, could swing an election anywhere in the world. Twitter has been the birthplace of entire political movements.
Yet all of these companies are subject to less regulation on viewpoint neutrality than a small-time radio or TV broadcast station, which are subject to the equal time rule (not to be confused with the Fairness Doctrine.) This states that broadcast stations must give equal and equivalent airtime to political candidates who request it. Give a Democrat five minutes, and you have to give his opponent five minutes too.
Unlike Benioff’s suggestion, the equal time rule weakens rather than strengthens the power of information gatekeepers, limiting their ability to choose what the public sees. Instead of one “unbiased” source who claims to offer the whole truth without bias (arguably an impossible feat for anyone, let alone a mainstream news company), the public will see two competing sets of partisan information, and decide for themselves which one rings true. It’s regulation that affirms, rather than denigrates, the intelligence of voters.
Tech companies, despite having political influence that vastly exceed a single T.V or radio station, are subject to no such rule, which means they can kick off or censor political candidates at will — as they’ve done to Roger Stone and Rep. Marsha Blackburn.
In addition to the utility argument, which would subject the tech giants to similar rules on content neutrality that were previously applied to ISPs under Title II regulations, conservatives have also suggested tying social media company’s legal immunity to viewpoint neutrality. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act exempts social media companies from legal liability for posts made by their users — without this protection, there is no way the tech giants could have grown to the size that they have achieved.
The legislation was written with the justification that the Internet offers a forum for “true diversity of political discourse,” and the “user control over what information is received by individuals” must be maximized. Conservatives want to tie the immunity more closely to its justification; if social media companies fail to deliver political diversity (say, by banning their prominent conservative users, as Twitter has done), then they lose the protection of Section 230.
Facebook, by insisting on ranking news content via an algorithm that favors so-called “broadly trusted” sources, instead of letting users decide what they see, is also violating the spirit of Section 230. They aren’t maximizing user control over the information they receive. As with political diversity, this could again be strengthened so that tech companies that meddle too much in their users’ ability to choose their own information sources without giving them a chance to opt-out should also lose the protections of section 230.
This, unlike the “solutions” suggested by the left, is again a type of regulation based on an optimistic view of users’ intelligence. The subtext is that users can be trusted to choose their own information sources, without the need to be protected from nefarious influences by Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
The elites at Davos, terrified of the unwashed masses, don’t think users can be trusted. They’re terrified of the choices being made by ordinary people, from the sites they read to the candidates they vote for, and they desperately want to regain control. Unable to countenance that their worldview might be flawed, they’ve convinced themselves that voters are stupid, and led astray by “fake news.”
Heck, even if they’re right and voters are morons, that doesn’t imply the elites are geniuses by process of elimination. They might be even bigger morons! The reason we have free speech isn’t that everyone is perfectly rational, but because no-one is, and therefore no-one should be allowed to go unchallenged. That’s why restoring their ability to control the flow of information, something now being loudly demanded by the left, must be opposed at all costs. Censorship is caused by people who believe that everyone except themselves are idiots.
Apple recently said it had $252 billion in cash or cash equivalents abroad
Apple Inc. AAPL 1.65% said it would pay a one-time tax of $38 billion on its overseas cash holdings and ramp up spending in the U.S., as it seeks to emphasize its contributions to the American economy after years of taking criticism for outsourcing manufacturing to China.
The world’s most valuable publicly traded company laid out its plans Wednesday in a statement that was full of big-dollar figures, though it said that much of the money reflected Apple’s current pace of spending.
Taxing Foreign Profits
Companies have long sheltered foreign profits offshore. Now the tax bill is coming due. How much will they pay?
Apple said it would invest $30 billion in capital spending in the U.S. over five years that would create more than 20,000 jobs. The total includes a new campus, which initially will house technical support for customers, and $10 billion toward data centers across the country. It also will expand from $1 billion to $5 billion a fund it established last year for investing in advanced manufacturing in the U.S.
All told, Apple said it would directly contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next five years, with the bulk—about $55 billion this year, for example—coming from ongoing spending on parts and services from U.S. suppliers. That number also includes the federal tax payment and capital spending.
Chief Executive Tim Cook touted the plans as building on Apple’s support for the nation’s economy. “We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible,” he said in a statement.
The announcement comes after President Donald Trump late last year signed into law a major overhaul of the U.S. tax code, under which companies must pay a one-time tax of 15.5% on overseas profits held in cash and other liquid assets. Apple cited those changes as the reason for its giant tax payment, which it said would likely be the largest of its kind, but didn’t say how much of its $252.3 billion in overseas cash holdings it plans to bring home.
The company said in November that it had earmarked $36 billion to cover deferred taxes on that money, assuming that it would eventually pay U.S. taxes on a portion of it by bringing it home.
Mr. Trump praised Apple’s announcement on Twitter, saying his policies allowed the tech giant “to bring massive amounts of money back to the United States.” He added, “Huge win for American workers and the USA!”
Apple didn’t provide historical comparisons for some of the figures it gave Wednesday. The company previously said it planned $16 billion in capital expenditures world-wide in the fiscal year that ends this September, up from $14.9 billion the previous year. However, Apple doesn’t break out its spending in the U.S., making it difficult to gauge how much of the $30 billion over five years it announced Wednesday is new.
Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., said Apple’s plans are in line with Trump administration goals, but it isn’t clear how many of the commitments are new. And he said the company could deliver on those commitments with existing cash flow—without needing to tap cash holdings.
“It’s a nice number and puts a foot forward in line with where the administration wants to go with adding jobs and building in the U.S.,” he said. But “it’s not clear these investments were impacted in any way by tax reform.”
Apple has faced criticism over the past decade for overseas manufacturing of its iPhones, of which it has sold more than one billion, rather than making them domestically. Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign blasted the company for outsourcing. He later called on Apple to build a factory in the U.S. and last year said Mr. Cook promised to build three plants in the U.S.
Apple has responded over the past year by pointing to its spending on procurement in the U.S. and to the size of the so-called app economy spawned by the iPhone, which the company says has created more than 1.6 million U.S. jobs.
The tax overhaul’s one-time levy on overseas cash is often referred to as a repatriation tax, although it applies whether companies leave their foreign profits overseas or bring them to the U.S. It is intended as a transition from the previous tax system, under which the U.S. taxed all world-wide profits of an American company except those kept overseas, to the new system, in which the U.S. won’t tax most foreign profits at all. Companies may choose to pay the one-time tax over eight years.
The $38 billion in taxes Apple owes reflects its growth in the decade since Congress last reduced taxes on overseas holdings. In 2006, Apple recorded a tax charge of $51 million as it repatriated $1.6 billion in cash held overseas for the fiscal year.
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Christmas may be over but WSJ’s Richard Rubin keeps the holiday spirit alive by explaining who’s getting presents and who’s getting coal with the GOP tax bill.
Apple’s accumulated foreign profits of $252.3 billion amount to just over a quarter of the U.S. tech industry’s total, a Wall Street Journal analysis of 311 large public companies found, and about 9.5% of the $2.65 trillion in foreign profits reported by all companies in the analysis.
A tax obligation of $38 billion would work out to about 15% of the S&P 500’s total obligation under the repatriation tax, based on figures from the Journal analysis and a separate analysis by Zion Research Group. Altogether, the Joint Tax Committee estimated last month, the tax should raise about $339 billion over 10 years from all companies—meaning Apple could account for 11% of the total.
The changes in U.S. tax law triggering Apple’s $38 billion tax obligation don’t affect the company’s responsibility to repay Ireland €13 billion ($15.9 billion) in unpaid taxes in Europe, according to a spokesman for Ireland’s Department of Finance. Apple has challenged the ruling.
Apple also told employees Wednesday it is issuing each of them a bonus of $2,500 in restricted stock, according to a person familiar with the matter. The planned bonus, reported earlier by Bloomberg, adds Apple to the growing list of companies that are rewarding employees due to the new tax law, including AT&T Inc. and ComcastCorp.
If Apple brings home a large share of its overseas cash it could decide to apply some of it to more buybacks and dividends. Apple has returned $233.9 billion to investors since fiscal 2012.
Mr. Sacconaghi expects Apple to provide an update on potential increases to those programs when it reports quarterly results in April or May, when it typically announces such plans. That would give it a chance to see how much cash other companies plan to return to shareholders from overseas holdings—moves that could please investors but aren’t as helpful to public perception as investments in jobs. “No company with that much cash wants to be the first to do a significant buyback,” he said.
Apple’s announcement said it currently employs 84,000 people in the U.S., 4,000 more than it said a year ago.
The company said it would offer more information later this year on its planned new campus. The facility is expected to be located outside of California and Texas, where the company already operates campuses: in Austin, Texas, and its new $5 billion headquarters, Apple Park, in Cupertino, Calif.
—Theo Francis, Richard Rubin and Natalia Drozdiak contributed to this article.
Corrections & Amplifications
Apple had $252.3 billion in cash and marketable securities held overseas as of the end of November. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated it had $246 billion overseas.
Illegal Immigration can be stopped if we stop giving free shit away.
U.S. immigration agents raided dozens of 7-Eleven stores before dawn Wednesday and arrested 21 people in the biggest crackdown on a company suspected of hiring undocumented workers since President Donald Trump took office.
Some 98 of the convenience stores nationwide — from Los Angeles to New York — were targeted by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose top official described the raids as a warning to other companies that may have unauthorized employees on their payrolls.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents serve an employment audit notice at a 7-Eleven convenience store Won Jan. 10, 2018, in Los Angeles. Agents said they targeted about 100 7-Eleven stores nationwide Wednesday to open employment audits and interview workers. Chris Carlson / AP“Today’s actions send a strong message to U.S. businesses that hire and employ an illegal workforce,” ICE’s Acting Director Thomas D. Homan said in a statement. “ICE will enforce the law, and if you are found to be breaking the law, you will be held accountable.”
Homan did not say why ICE went after the Irving, Texas-based convenience store chain, which has 60,000 franchises worldwide and is famous for its Slurpee drinks. ICE hit stores in 17 states and Washington, D.C., and gave managers and franchise owners three days to provide the agency with the immigration status of their workers.
Lock Them Up And Deport The SOB’s.
“Businesses that hire illegal workers are a pull factor for illegal immigration, and we are working hard to remove this magnet,” Homan said. “ICE will continue its efforts to protect jobs for American workers by eliminating unfair competitive advantages for companies that exploit illegal immigration.”
Derek N. Benner, another top ICE official, warned that Wednesdays’s raids were “a harbinger of what’s to come.”
“This is what we’re gearing up for this year and what you’re going to see more and more of is these large-scale compliance inspections, just for starters,” Benner, acting head of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, told The Associated Press. “From there, we will look at whether these cases warrant an administrative posture or criminal investigation.”
Benner said they’re not just targeting big companies. “It’s going to be inclusive of everything that we see out there,” he said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents serve an employment audit notice at a 7-Eleven convenience store on Jan. 10, 2018, in Los Angeles. Chris Carlson / APIn its own statement, 7-Eleven said it was aware of the ICE raids and stressed that each franchise is run by “independent business owners” who are “solely responsible for their employees, including deciding who to hire and verifying their eligibility to work in the United States.”
“7-Eleven takes compliance with immigration laws seriously and has terminated the franchise agreements of franchisees convicted of violating these laws,” the statement read.
Trump ran on a promise to crack down and deport undocumented workers. And under him, ICE has reportedly made nearly 40 percent more arrests.
The raids on Wednesday grew out of a 2013 ICE investigation that resulted in charges against nine 7-Eleven franchisees and managers in New York and Virginia who allegedly used more than 25 stolen identities to employ over 100 people who were in the country illegally.
Eight of the accused wound up pleading guilty and were ordered to pay more than $2.6 million in back wages. The ninth was arrested in November.
The Dow Jones industrial average is trading above 25,000 points for the first time early Thursday, breaking another 1,000-point milestone. The market was rising broadly after a survey showed strong hiring by U.S. private businesses. Banks are leading the way as interest rates jump. European stocks are also rising.
KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor’s 500 index climbed 12 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,725 as of 10 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 147 points, or 0.6 percent, to 25,069. The Nasdaq composite added 18 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,084. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gained 5 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,558.
The Dow reached 24,000 on Nov. 30, just 23 trading days ago. Stocks have climbed since then as investors hoped the Republican-backed tax package would boost company profits this year. The law cuts the U.S. corporate tax rate substantially. The Dow broke through five 1,000-point milestones in 2017, on its way to a 25 percent gain for the year.
SURVEY SAYS: ADP said private U.S. businesses added 250,000 jobs last month as health care, retail and professional services companies hired more workers. The survey suggests businesses are optimistic about the economy and expect more demand. The government will release a jobs report Friday that covers both private companies and governments. Economists forecast that will show a gain of 189,000 jobs, according to a survey by data provider FactSet.
Meanwhile business activity in the 19-country eurozone reached its highest level in almost seven years. That’s based on a survey of manufacturing and services companies. One of the reasons stocks have done so well over the last year is the improved health of the global economy as European countries and both developing and advanced nations around the world experience better growth after years of struggles.
European stock indexes climbed. France’s CAC 40 leaped 1.6 percent while Germany’s DAX gained 1.5 percent. In Britain the FTSE 100 edged 0.3 percent higher.
BONDS: Bond prices sank, sending yields higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.48 percent from 2.44 percent. Banks made strong gains in early trading as increased interest rates mean they can make more money from mortgages and other loans. JPMorgan Chase gained $2.01, or 1.9 percent, to $109.51 and Wells Fargo rose $1.11, or 1.8 percent, to $62.67.
CHIP DIP: Intel continued to stumble after security researchers at Google discovered serious security flaws in its computer processors. It lost $1.90, or 4.2 percent, to $43.36 after a 3.4 percent decline Wednesday. Intel said it’s working to fix the problem and that it’s not the only company affected.
Rival Advanced Micro Devices said it believes its chips are safe and its stock jumped 83 cents, or 7.2 percent, to $12.38. Most of Intel’s rivals made big gains Wednesday.
Elsewhere among tech stocks, Google parent Alphabet climbed $11.30, or 1 percent, to $1,102.82 and Intuit added $2.44, or 1.5 percent, to $161.60.
MORE TESLA TROUBLE: Electric car maker Tesla again said it fell short of production goals for its new Model 3 sedan, which is intended to be its first lower-cost car. The shares skidded $8.47, or 2.7 percent, to $308.78.
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 7 cents to $61.70 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, shed 7 cents to $67.77 a barrel in London.
ASIA: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 advanced 3.3 percent in the first trading day of the year. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.8 percent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.5 percent.
CURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 112.79 yen from 112.52 yen. The euro climbed to $1.2083 from $1.2018.
It’s About Damn Time We Cut Off These Terrorist Sponsors
Trump: ‘No More’ Aid to Pakistan, ‘They Have Given Us Nothing but Lies and Deceit’
President Donald Trump lashed out at Pakistan on Twitter just a few minutes past 7:00 a.m. Eastern time on New Year’s Day, expressing frustration at Islamabad’s inadequate efforts against terrorism and implying that U.S. foreign aid will be terminated as a result.

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!
7:12 AM – Jan 1, 2018
* 18,41018,410 Replies 34,74034,740 Retweets 93,20393,203 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
It is not yet clear whether the “no more” exclamation means the complete or partial termination, or temporary suspension, of American aid to Pakistan.
If the complete termination of U.S. foreign aid does indeed become official policy, it would be a far more dramatic step than withholding all or part of America’s $255 million in military assistance to Pakistan, a measure reportedly under consideration by the administration over the past few days after Pakistan refused to allow U.S. interrogators access to a captured terrorist from the hostage-taking Haqqani network.
In August, President Trump said the “next pillar” of his strategy for battling terrorism would involve a “change in our approach to Pakistan.”
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Trump accused Pakistan of giving “safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror.”
“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond,” the president said. ”These killers need to know they have nowhere to hide – that no place is beyond the reach of American arms.
The Trump administration withheld $50 million in military aid to Pakistan over the summer because it felt Islamabad was not doing enough to bring down the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. There was some criticism at the time that despite his strong complaints about Pakistan refusing to help fight the Taliban or even actively colluding with it, Trump was dealing more harshly with Egypt over human rights violations by its government.
The Pakistani military rescued a Canadian-American family held hostage for years by the Haqqanis in October. Concerns have been raised that even this rescue might have been the result of a deal between the Pakistanis and the militant network, which has long been suspected of enjoying special favors and protection from elements of the Pakistani security apparatus. The prisoner Pakistan refused to allow the United States to interview was tied to the kidnapping of this Canadian-American family.
On Thursday, Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor warned the United States against taking “unilateral” military action on its soil and denied his country was not doing enough to fight the Taliban and its allies, promising that the results of Pakistan’s counterterrorism operations would be “seen in subsequent years and months.”
After making this declaration, Ghafoor implied Pakistan could actually do more, once its concerns about Afghan refugees are addressed. “If there are any facilitators and abetters inside Pakistan that can only be addressed if the 2.7 million Afghan refugees are sent back to Afghanistan,” he said.
According to the federal government, for fiscal year 2012, “The United States remained the world’s largest bilateral donor, obligating approximately $48.4 billion—$31.2 billion in economic assistance and $17.2 billion in military assistance.” However, “obligated” funds are not the same as “dispersed.”
The U.S. disbursed $33.2 billion—$19 billion in economic assistance to 184 countries and $14.2 billion in military assistance to 142 countries. Out of the top six U.S. foreign aid recipients, five of them were Muslim countries. And yet it seems the U.S. can’t buy good press in the Middle East.
The UN boasts 193 members, and the U.S. provided economic assistance to 184 of them, or 96% of the countries in the world. To be sure, the amount of assistance drops significantly after the top 10 countries or so, but still.… Of course, State Department officials might claim that some of that money is to help the poor. But China has the second largest economy in the world—and is a major buyer of U.S. debt. So we borrow money from China in order to give them financial assistance?