MK – Page 13 – iftttwall

U.S. Tech Giants Are Too Big, Too Powerful and Now Are Running Into Serious Trouble

Today’s post will explain why I think the U.S. tech giants are in the early stages of destroying themselves. It will focus on two of the biggest names in the space, Facebook and Google. Both face serious issues that are only now truly coming to a head and rooted in two primary factors, size and politics.

Facebook is further along in the process of being in serious trouble, so let’s start there. The social media company currently has 2.2 billion active users worldwide, which amounts to well over half of all human beings online at the moment (estimated at 3-4 billion). In other words, the company already has a tremendous share of global potential users. Since everybody already knows what Facebook is, you have to assume those who aren’t using it (like me), aren’t using it for a reason. Such people aren’t about to be convinced. Thus, you have to ask whether or not meaningful growth in active users is remotely realistic for Facebook. I would argue not.

There are many reasons to bet against Facebook significantly growing active users in the years ahead, but the main hurdle seems to be keeping the users it already has actively engaged. Specifically, I think there are two types of users Facebook risks losing going forward. These people might not “delete Facebook” per se, but their engagement with the platform may drop meaningfully.

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2LJSvhz
via IFTTT

Liberty Links 7/28/18 – Facebook Stock Drops 19%, Loses $120 Billion in Value

If you appreciate my work and want to contribute to independent media, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit the Support Page.

Facebook Stock Drops 19%, Loses $120 Billion in Value (Looks increasingly like a bear market for stocks has begun, MarketWatch)

In Recording, Netanyahu Boasts Israel Convinced Trump to Quit Iran Nuclear Deal (Meddling? The Times of Israel)

Ecuador Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over to the U.K. What Comes Next? (Terrible news, The Intercept)

Imran Khan Set to Become Pakistan’s Prime Minister (BBC)

Julian Assange Interviews Imran Khan (I highly recommend this, you’ll see all countries are basically dealing with the same problems, YouTube)

Venezuela to Remove Five Zeroes from Ailing Currency (Can’t make this up, Reuters)

Millennials Are so over U.S. Domination of World Affair (Generational cycles rule the world, The Conversation)

Liberalism and Empire (Very good short read, Current Affairs)

Safety Deposit Boxes May Not Be Safe After All (CBS Sacramento)

U.S. News/Politics

See More Links »

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2K5AHrn
via IFTTT

Centrism is Dead (And It Never Really Existed)

It’s a common refrain these days to hear people lament a decline of the so-called “center” in American politics. We’re supposed to look on in horror as “moderate” Republicans and Democrats become an engaged species of liberty-fighting patriots steamrolled by frothing, insane hordes of populist barbarians on their left and right flanks. They’re the voice of reason, lovers of apple pie and staunch defenders of our constitution and all that’s good and right in the US of A. We’re encouraged to run back into the blood soaked arms of establishment politicians like John McCain and Hillary Clinton — the only ones standing between us and the Donald Trumps and Bernie Sanders of the world. The center cannot hold, so we’re told.

It’s a nice story, the only problem is it’s complete and total nonsensical garbage. This mythical “center” is nothing more than a failed status quo attempting to rebrand itself in the wake of being outed as the corrupt charlatans they are. Russia, Trump and Bernie Sanders didn’t destroy healthcare, bailout criminal bankers and invade Iraq based on fake news. No, moderate Republicans and Democrats did that. The so-called celebrated center did that.

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2LprJuA
via IFTTT

Are Establishment Democrats Trying to Lose?

“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

– Barack Obama to bank CEOs in 2009 (he sure protected them)

I’m only half kidding with the title here. No, I don’t think establishment Democrats are actually trying to lose, but I agree with the sentiment that they’d rather continue to lose to Donald Trump with someone like Hillary Clinton, than win with someone like Bernie Sanders.

The fight within the Democratic Party is very real and ultimately comes down to two groups with completely different understandings of reality. The big donor, Wall Street side of the party still wants to claim everything’s normal and fine with the exception of Donald Trump. As soon as he can be removed we can all go back to American exceptionalism; or so they claim. Easy peasy. In contrast, the other side acknowledges things are very, very rotten and huge change is imperative. To summarize, one side wants to go right back to the Presidency of Barack Obama (with some added militarism), while the other is saying the status quo needs to go.

Forget for a moment what you think of leftist populist ideas, they’re at least willing to admit our country is systemically broken and corrupt, while the other blames everything on Trump and Russia. This isn’t a minor difference within a happy marriage, it’s the sort of conflict that ends in divorce. We remain in a justifiably populist moment in American history, and corporate Democrats want to fight right-populism with Hillary Clintonism. That’s never going to work.

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2LmmYlB
via IFTTT

Liberty Links 7/21/18 – A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora’s Box for DIY Guns

If you appreciate my work and want to contribute to independent media, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit the Support Page.

Top Links

A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora’s Box for DIY Guns (Wired)

Tony Podesta Offered Immunity To Testify Against Paul Manafort (If this is true, people will go nuts, Zerohedge)

The Blue Pill Presidency (Excellent piece, Counterpunch)

Russiagate Is Like 9/11, Except It’s Made Of Pure Narrative (Caitlin Johnstone, Medium)

Tucker Carlson Interviews Russia Expert NYU Professions Stephen Cohen (YouTube)

Detente Bad, Cold War Good (Craig Murray)

Amazon Gets Tax Breaks While Its Employees Rely on Food Stamps(The Intercept)

Marijuana May Help Fight Cancer (The New York Post)

Bourdain Confidential (Lengthy interview of the late Anthony Bourdain, Popula)

500-Pound Goliath Grouper Eats Shark as Shocked Florida Fishermen Watch (Fox News)

U.S. Politics/News

See More Links »

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2JNiYVo
via IFTTT

Lunatic Politics (Part 2) – It’s Becoming Impossible to Have a Conversation

More and more people are becoming aware of and concerned about the level of political dialogue going on right now. We’ve gotten to a point where I’m seeing almost no intelligent debate about any serious issue. Russiagate now consumes such a massive amount of our collective energy, it feels we’ve become nearly incapable of discussing anything else. Even worse, Russiagate has morphed into a creepy D.C. establishment religion where merely demanding evidence for the wild claims being made gets you labeled a traitor or Putin agent. Ironically, average Americans don’t care about the issue.

When Gallup recently asked Americans what the most important (non-economic) problem facing the country today is, the amount of people saying Russia was so low they couldn’t even attribute a number to it.

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2JD1R8D
via IFTTT

Lunatic Politics (Part 1) – Russiagate is a Religion

As the Snowden documents and David Sanger’s great new book and other books make plain, and as U.S. officials are wont to brag, the U.S. intelligence services break into computers and computer networks abroad at an astounding rate, certainly on a greater scale than any other intelligence service in the world. Every one of these intrusions in another country violates that country’s criminal laws prohibiting unauthorized computer access and damage, no less than the Russian violations of U.S. laws outlined in Mueller’s indictment…

It is no response to say that the United States doesn’t meddle in foreign elections, because it has in the past—at least as recently as Bill Clinton’s intervention in the Russian presidential election of 1996 and possibly as recently as the Hillary Clinton State Department’s alleged intervention in Russia’s 2011 legislative elections. And during the Cold War the United States intervened in numerous foreign elections, more than twice as often as the Soviet Union. Intelligence history expert Loch Johnson told Scott Shane that the 2016 Russia electoral interference is “the cyber-age version of standard United States practice for decades, whenever American officials were worried about a foreign vote.” The CIA’s former chief of Russia operations, Steven L. Hall, told Shane: “If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all.” Hall added that “the United States ‘absolutely’ has carried out such election influence operations historically, and I hope we keep doing it.”

Lawfare: Uncomfortable Questions in the Wake of Russia Indictment 2.0 and Trump’s Press Conference With Putin

Nothing gets the phony “Resistance,” corporate media and neocons more hysterical than when Trump isn’t belligerent enough while meeting with foreign leaders abroad. While the pearl clutching was intense during the North Korea summit, the reoccurring, systematic outrage spectacle was taken to entirely new levels of stupidity and hyperbole during yesterday’s meeting with Putin in Finland.

The clown parade really got going after compulsive liar and former head of the CIA under Barack Obama, John Brennan, accused Trump of treason on Twitter — which resistance drones dutifully retweeted, liked and permanently enshrined within the gospel of Russiagate.

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2NWafDL
via IFTTT

Liberty Links 6/30/18 – 72% Think Traditional Media Reports Fake News

If you appreciate my work and want to contribute to independent media, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit the Support Page.

Top Links

72% Think Traditional Media Reports Fake News (Axios)

California Has 48 Hours to Pass This Privacy Bill or Else (Important article on the tool of direct democracy/referendums, Gizmodo)

Pro-Trump Conspiracy-Monger “QAnon” Calls for Regime Change in Iran (QAnon is one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever encountered, MintPress News)

Meet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Millennial, Socialist Political Novice Who Beat Her Establishment Democratic Rival in a Huge Electoral Upset (Business Insider)

The Coming Collapse (Chris Hedges, TruthDig)

U.S., Ecuador Coordinating About Future Of Assange Asylum (Caitlin Johnstone, Medium)

BOJ Is Now A Top-10 Shareholder In 40% Of All Japanese Companies; Owns 42% Of All Government Bonds (And they tell us Bitcoin is the absurdity, Zerohedge)

Head of Prominent Charity That Campaigns Against Child Abuse Is Arrested for ‘Trying to Arrange to Rape Multiple Children as Young as Two’ (Typical, The Daily Mail)

The Beginning Of The End Of The Bilderberg Era (Very good read of the geopolitical situation, The Strategic Culture Foundation)

The Remaking of Class (The New Republic)

How My Unschooled Child Learned to Read Financial Statements (FEE)

U.S. Politics/News

See More Links »

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2yWIXJQ
via IFTTT

Where Do You Draw the Line in Today’s Crazed Political Environment?

If you vote for Trump, then you the voter, you, not Donald Trump, are standing at the border like Nazis going ‘you here, you here’.

– Donny Deutsch on MSNBC last week

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

– Friedrich Nietzsche

With each passing day, Trump’s hardcore supporters and detractors become more deeply entrenched in their respective corners and grow more hysterical. With every turn of the news cycle, we see two groups increasingly and equally convinced that only they and their allies can save the nation from total ruin. As someone who isn’t a cheerleader for any politician or political party, it’s fascinating to watch. It’s also made me consider where to draw the line when it comes to political action or commentary.

from Liberty Blitzkrieg https://ift.tt/2yUdvw7
via IFTTT