The Morning Briefing: Google on the Hill Today and Much, Much More

Good Tuesday morning.

Here is what’s on the president’s agenda today:

The president meets with the Senate minority leader and the House speaker-designate (Chuck & Nancy)
President Trump signs H.R. 390, the “Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018”

Google to testify today

The CEO of planet Earth’s massive panopticon known as Google will appear before the House Judiciary Committee today. Here is a transcript of CEO Sundar Pichai’s remarks. One hot issue sure to come up is if how Google manifests political bias. Google owns YouTube, so I hope YouTube’s violent deplatforming and censorship of dangerous center-right operations like PragerU are on the agenda today.

“We are a company that provides platforms for diverse perspectives and opinions—and we have no shortage of them among our own employees,” he will say, according to the prepared remarks. [Liz sez: LULZ! Paging James Damore.]

“Protecting the privacy and security of our users has long been an essential part of our mission,” he will say. “We have invested an enormous amount of work over the years to bring choice, transparency, and control to our users. These values are built into every product we make.”

Here’s a good read from the NYT yesterday about Google’s surveillance. Go read it.

Emails show Google tried to block Breitbart from advertisers

Well this is just wild, isn’t it?!

Google employees sought to block Breitbart from Google AdSense less than one month after President Donald Trump took office, leaked emails from the company reveal.

Google employees sought to use alleged “hate speech” as a pretense for banning Breitbart from taking part in the advertising program, the emails show.

Barring Breitbart from the advertising program would have a devastating effect on the site’s ad revenue as Google accounts for roughly 37 percent of all digital advertising revenue.

Google has 90%+ of the search engine market. Here is the “judge and jury” in action:

Richard Zippel, a Google publisher quality manager at the time, similarly noted that Breitbart was being watched closely. “When sufficient violations have been found we’ll take action at the site level,” Zippel wrote. It’s unclear whether Zippel is still a Google employee.

It’s time for these tech companies to be treated like a utility or a publishing venue since they are making decisions and curating their content, picking and choosing who can use their services. You don’t see the power company debating whether or not to provide electricity to the Breitbart offices or other perceived political adversaries do you?

Bust ’em and break ’em up.

44 ex-senators worried U.S. is ‘entering a dangerous period’

I am worried too! I am worried because although the voters of the United States elected Donald J. Trump as president in 2016, an unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy along with political adversaries angry they are not in political power any more are sabotaging the Trump agenda and have set him up to take a fall for espionage or any number of crimes they can find in their unlimited witch hunt. Overthrowing a duly elected president is worrisome indeed. Let’s see what these clowns are upset about:

“We are on the eve of the conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and the House’s commencement of investigations of the president and his administration,” the 44 ex-lawmakers wrote in an op-ed published by The Washington Post. “The likely convergence of these two events will occur at a time when simmering regional conflicts and global power confrontations continue to threaten our security, economy and geopolitical stability.”

Oh. I see.

“It is a time, like other critical junctures in our history, when our nation must engage at every level with strategic precision and the hand of both the president and the Senate. We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld.”

Did Obama have an independently operating executive branch? Did Bill Clinton?

BTW, it’s 32Ds and 10Rs. And not real Rs, I mean Rs like Chuck Hagel, Al D’Amato, and Alan Simpson. In other words, Republicans who would need to win the support of voters if they still held office. But they don’t so they don’t really matter.

Y’all see what’s really going on here, right?

Historical picture of the day

A stream of mourners cross the plaza in front of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem Dec. 11, 1978 to pay their last respects to former Prime Minister Golda Meir, who died in Jerusalem at age 80. The casket, draped with the Star of David flag, lies on a black catafalque as two army chaplains read psalms while police honor-guard stands by. (AP Photo/Aris Saris)

Other morsels:

Facing Defeat, Theresa May Delays Brexit Vote in Parliament

America’s wealth is concentrated in the swamp

Warren No Longer Speaking at Immigration Conference With Controversial Women’s March Leader

Dylann Roof admirer charged with Ohio bomb plot

U.S. arrests religious leaders, activists at border protest

Hatch: ‘I don’t care’ if prosecutors are arguing Trump broke the law

Jared Kushner Calls Conditions In Gaza And West Bank Unacceptable

Not a surprise. Anti-Semitism in EU worse over past 5 years: survey

Man accused of plotting large-scale attack at Ohio synagogue

Awful. 9-year-old committed suicide after classmates taunted ‘kill yourself’: family

Report details how USOC, agencies botched response to Nassar allegations