Free Republic

When Facebook makes promises, news outlets make bets, and dozens of outlets did just that when Facebook signaled an increase in traffic for video products in 2017. Now, Facebook seems to be reneging on its promise. Vox fired 50 video producers due to lagging Facebook traffic in February, but conservative news outlets have been on unstable ground with Facebook since 2016. The IJR had a culling of its own, and RARE went out of business entirely. In January, Facebook changed policies and cut the amount of news users will see on the site in general and also made the decision...

Mark Zuckerberg faced a mixture of tough and softball questions at yesterday’s Senate hearing. Many questions were left unanswered, and members of the House will have to pick up the slack today. The toughest questions in the Senate hearing came from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), who grilled Zuckerberg on Facebook’s political bias, its possible status as the “largest publisher in the world”, and its definition of “hate speech.” Democrats, when they weren’t urging Zuckerberg to do more to censor so-called “hate speech,” focused on irrelevant panics like Russian propaganda and “fake...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Tuesday about whether or not the social media platform was biased against conservatives. Zuckerberg acknowledged that Cruz raised a “fair concern” but insisted that Facebook was committed to being a “platform for all ideas.” "There are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship," Cruz said. He read off examples of Facebook suppressing conservative speech, starting with former Facebook employees admitting to suppressing conservative news in May of 2016. Cruz brought up...

Senate Republicans, frustrated by delaying tactics imposed by Democrats on President Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees, are on the verge of altering the Senate rules in order to speed up the process. GOP lawmakers told the Washington Examiner Tuesday that momentum is building for a change in the Senate rules that would shorten the time frame allowed for lawmakers to debate each nominee. One proposal by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., would reinstate a temporary rules change made by Democrats in 2013 that reduced debate time from 30 hours to eight hours for most executive branch nominations and from 30...

A joint hearing with the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to examine Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the use and abuse of data.

Wow. I did not support Ted Cruz in the election two years ago, I supported Donald Trump. I just did not see him as who I wanted, as president. But I just saw Ted Cruz mix it up with Mark Zuckerberg in the hearing, like nobody else there. It was awesome.

With all the talk about Twitter shadow banning conservative commentators, National Review's Jim Geraghty wondered whether the social network also had the gall to go after conservative politicians. So he looked at the number of retweets and likes Senator Ted Cruz's tweets receive on average and compared them to California Democratic Senator Kamala Harris. Harris has only half of Cruz's followers: 1.5 million versus 3.2 million. As such, you'd expect Cruz to be retweeted more often by his followers. Surprisingly, that's not the case. But that's not even the most shocking part. Look at the difference; it's gigantic. Texas Republican...

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, lit into U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and President Donald Trump during an interview in Waco on Tuesday, suggesting the two Republicans were inciting fear in Texas voters. "Let me tell you what the president and our junior senator are doing right now," he said at an event hosted by The Texas Tribune. O'Rourke was being interviewed by the Tribune's CEO, Evan Smith. "They want you to be afraid of Mexicans. When they call them rapists and criminals, and say only a wall will keep them out." O'Rourke is challenging Cruz in the November election....

Texas Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Beto O'Rourke said Tuesday that President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz are inciting fear in Texas voters and called that "bullshit." O'Rourke got to that word after dodging a question on the progress of a Texas ports bill he said he's working on with Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas). "So why hasn't it happened, Congressman?" interviewer and Tribune CEO Evan Smith asked. Instead of answering, O'Rourke said, "Let me tell you what the president and our junior senator are doing right now." "They want you to be afraid of Mexicans. When they call them...

I have seen several news stories today about how much campaign money Beto O'Rourke is raking in for his bid to be elected senator from Texas. However, among all those stories there is NOTHING about his opinion about the caravan from Central America now travelling thru Mexico to reach our border with the ultimate goal of crossing it. I am sure the inspiration for that caravan began with the Democrats looking to embarrass Trump. However, I also think that they are starting to realize that caravan idea will backfire in a big way on the Democrats. One example is Beto...

Nearly a week since U.S. President Donald Trump fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul advised against appointing former U.N. Ambassador and White House Chief of Staff John Bolton. Trump’s first choice, retired Navy special forces officer Robert Harward, who served under Defense Secretary John Mattis, turned down the position last week and reports say the White House has ruled out former CIA Director David Petraeus, who was ousted as the nation’s top spy amid a scandal over his sharing confidential documents with his mistress. Flynn resigned last week amid questions on whether he discussed sanctions with...

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has written for Newsmax Magazine, would be an excellent choice to replace Mike Flynn as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, Sen. Ted Cruz says."One person I think would be very, very strong is John Bolton. He's someone who understands the world, he understands the threats of radical Islamic terrorism," the Texas Republican told CNN's Manu Raju on Friday.

Hugh Hewitt has been all over this idea lately.(TWEETS-AT-LINK) Bolton was a candidate for Secretary of State during the transition period, then a candidate to be a key undersecretary at the Department under Rex Tillerson, and then more recently … nada. His name hadn’t been mentioned in connection lately with any major staffing positions, which is odd given that Trump reportedly came to admire him from his appearances on Fox News. (Also a key qualification for KT McFarland in landing her job as deputy NSA, apparently.) Bolton had two big problems in landing a job at State. One: Rex Tillerson...

Won't Get Fooled Again The Who We'll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgment of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song I'll tip my hat to the new constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again The change, it had to come We...

America’s anti-fracking enviros had a strange benefactor. While allegations of the Donald Trump campaign colluding with Russians to alter the presidential election outcome remain unproven at best, a clear money trail and U.S. intelligence reports demonstrate Russia’s active campaign of funding U.S. environmental groups. On March 1, U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), released a report on “Russia’s Social Media Meddling in U.S. Energy Markets.” The report details Russia’s motives in interfering with U.S. energy markets, influencing domestic energy policy, and manipulation of Americans via social media propaganda. “This report reveals that Russian agents...

Giving an interview at the SXSW conference in Austin Texas over the weekend, the Democratic nominee opposing Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said American civilians should not be permitted to buy an AR-15 rifle. El Paso Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, is proud of his campaign’s claim that he shuns political action committee (PAC) money. He criticized Senator Cruz for taking $300,000 from the National Rifle Association and boasted that his campaign has taken $0 from the NRA. He told a story about a woman at a town hall who asked him if he could stand up to the NRA. O’Rourke explained...

Over the weekend, both the Senate and the House approved $225M in funding for the Iron Dome. The bill passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and by a 395 to 8 vote. Opposition to the funding of the Iron Dome demonstarted an unfortunate bi-partisan measure – four Democrats and four Republicans voted against it. The four Democrats were Keith Ellison (MN-05), Zoe Lofgren (CA-19), Jim Moran (VA-08), and Beto O’Rourke (TX-16); The four Republicans were Justin Amash (MI-03), Walter Jones (NC-03), Tom Massie (KY-04), and Mark Sanford (SC-01). Rep. Ellison explains vote on “Meet the Press”: “Because a ceasefire...

Although much of the mainstream media such as The New York Times and CNN has recently gone ga-ga over the candidacy of Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke (D) who currently is running for the U.S. Senate from that state, Vox wasn't quite so kind in analyzing how he did in Tuesday's Democrat primary. In fact they called him a "Loser (sort of)" since he underperformed despite running against nonentities in his primary. Vox's loser label for O'Rourke came in their politics reporter's, Andrew Prokop's, assessment of the Texas primary election:

The congressman who tried silencing federal law enforcement sources from exposing terrorist camps in Ciudad Juárez is contradicting the U.S. government’s assessment of the famously crime-infested Mexican city by proclaiming that it’s “far safer” than it was years ago. It appears to be a frantic effort on the part of Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat who represents El Paso Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives, to counter reports of Islamic terrorists operating in the area and joining forces with the sophisticated drug cartels that have long controlled the region. Judicial Watch broke that story last fall after receiving detailed...

NOT a photoshop. That is Beto on the left as part of the Punk Rock Band Foss. You can also see the pic in this Rolling Stone ARTICLE.