Paul Chesser

Censorship Epidemic on Facebook, Google, Twitter Drives Users to Alternatives

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Sundar Pichai/IMAGE: YouTube

By now the election interference by Big Tech – specifically Facebook, Google, and Twitter– is indisputable.

Also indisputable is that Congress will be powerless to alter their behavior, with at least another two years of guaranteed gridlock preventing the removal of Big Tech’s exemption under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says the online companies are like telecoms AT&T and Verizon (meaning they are protected from litigation) rather than news producers like the New York Times and Fox News (not protected from litigation).

Sure, you can expect more hearings like the one before the Senate Commerce Committee the week before Election Day, in which CEOs Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Sundar Pichai (Google) and Jack Dorsey (Twitter) were berated about their corporate underlings’ bias and censorship.

But it was just a repeat of previous Congressional theatrics: a lot of noise, and no action.… Read More ➡

Is Apple Lobbying Against Uyghur Human Rights?

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Tim Cook in China

Disclosure reports required by Congress show that Apple Inc. hired a firm to lobby on its behalf with regard to the “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act,” tech news Web site The Information reported last week.

Whether the company is for or against the legislation is not known.

The bill has 88 co-sponsors, from Democrat “Squad” Congresswomen Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) on the far left, to conservative House Freedom Caucus members Mark Meadows (a former Representative from NC, now President Trump’s chief of staff) and Jody Hice (Ga.) on the right.

The legislation seeks to ensure that goods manufactured in the Xinjiang region of China, where hundreds of thousands of minority Muslim Uyghurs are persecuted and forced to work “at a fraction of minimum wage or without any compensation,” do not enter the United States market.

According to statements of … Read More ➡

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink To Be Biden’s Treasury Secretary Fresh Off China Partnership?

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

Perfect timing?

BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink just got permission in August from regulators in China to start a mutual fund business there, a next step in the firm’s ever-expanding portfolio of investment activity with the communist nation.

At the same time there’s an election next week, and many expect Democrat Joe Biden to win. Fink’s name is often floated as his possible Treasury Secretary. He reportedly wanted the job in a Hillary Clinton administration, but then she lost.

Biden might like the China-enthusiast Fink for the role, since the former vice president was recently implicated as a potential beneficiary of investment in a scheme cooked up by his son Hunter and his business partners with now-bankrupt CEFC China Energy. A 2017 email – captured in a now-famous laptop computer left and ignored by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop, and then turned over … Read More ➡

LeBron Gets Another Trophy, Drives Fans Away From NBA

Posted on by Paul Chesser
LeBron James

The Los Angeles Lakers last night became champions of the virus-altered 2019-2020 basketball season; the NBA has purged itself of the portion of its audience it has accused of “systemic racism;” and the communist government is again allowing its games to be broadcast in China.

So life is good for the Lakers and its superstar LeBron James, the face of the league. He got everything he wanted.

James took a lot of criticism this year for his outspokenness on racial justice issues, following the deaths of blacks Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake in situations he believes were maliciously botched by police. He – and most of his NBA colleagues, including Commissioner Adam Silver – blamed a law enforcement system and its officers they believe are hopelessly racist, regardless of what the facts behind high-profile cases have revealed. So they painted “Black Lives … Read More ➡

Senator Scott, Rudy Gobert Go on Offense Against NBA China Hypocrisy

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Rick Scott/PHOTO: Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons)

Florida’s two Republican senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, have been among the sharpest critics in the upper chamber of the human rights abuses, censorship, espionage, and other bad conduct by the Chinese. They have consistently called upon American companies to pull back on doing business in, or with, the communist country until the tyrannical government cleans up its behavior.

So the lawmakers can’t be happy about the latest development in Orlando, where the National Basketball Association this year has held its abbreviated season (in what they call the “bubble,” keeping all teams in one city to mitigate against the effects of COVID-19), and is now in the midst of its championship series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat. As I will explain in a moment, Chinese-style censorship has come to central Florida.

All summer the NBA drew attention because … Read More ➡

Larry Fink’s Appeasement of Climate Activists is Failing

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

For all the boasts and claims that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has made in recent years about the need for corporate “accountability” with regard to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities, and that they are a better long-term investment prospect, he has consistently fallen short in the eyes of experts who evaluate those things.

First there was the academic study released in August that found that despite claims to the contrary by major financial firms – including BlackRock – that ESG factors did notinoculate investors against the stock market downturn that was attributed to the COVID crash of the global economy, nor did sustainability priorities aid in the subsequent limited recovery.

And now it turns out that one of BlackRock’s non-profiting investment priorities ballyhooed by Fink – climate change – is not all he cracks it up to be.

A report released last month by … Read More ➡

Not Content to Censor Conservatives, Zuckerberg Now Seeks to Meddle in Election

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Mark Zuckerberg

It didn’t take long after Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that free speech would reign on Facebook– and specifically that political candidates would not have their posts removed or altered ahead of the 2020 elections – for him to renege.

The company announced earlier this month it would ban any new political ads during the week leading up to the Nov. 3rd election. But Facebook has continued its censorship throughout the year, despite Zuckerberg’s declaration last fall.

And Zuckerberg seems more-than-prepared to meddle in the election and its results before, during, and after the results come in. While he does not appear to support any political candidates or PACs this cycle (his name doesn’t show up in campaign finance reports, unlike in the past), he and the Silicon Valley leftists in his employ wield Facebook’s potent platform to amplify messages they want to give wider attention to, … Read More ➡

Disney Partners With Chinese Communists on Mulan Movie

Posted on by Paul Chesser
‘Mulan’ publicity photo/Disney

The long list of corporations and organizations “woke”-en by the Black Lives Matter/”systemic racism” narrative – but that blind themselves to China’s human rights abuses and therefore do business with the communists there – continues to grow.

The rush to virtue-signal for BLM already seemed to include almost every major corporation following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, in their confrontations with police. Even Chick-fil-A’s CEO projected his own white guilt onto fellow evangelical Christians, calling for them to “repent.” Yet tears for those under the boot of the ChiComs are largely missing.

Now we’ve got a major corporation – Disney – who worked closely with the local Chinese government agencies that are running re-education camps that imprison Uighurs, a Muslim-minority group. The BBC reported on Monday that the current release of the live-action “Mulan” was filmed in Xinjiang, where as … Read More ➡

American Universities Urged to Divest From China

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Donald Trump & Xi Jinping/IMAGE: YouTube

In another broadside against the People’s Republic of China, a top official in President Trump’s State Department last month urged American universities to divest their endowments from Chinese-owned corporations; to closely monitor or shut down on-campus activities that promote Chinese propaganda; and to protect research centers from Chinese theft of intellectual property.

This followed the President’s attacks on the Chinese communists for releasing and then covering up the threat from the Wuhan coronavirus. Also his trade war, with huge tariffs on China’s exporters, has caused the Far East nation great pain.

And regarding investments, a special working group of the administration’s top financial regulators, led by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, recommended the Securities and Exchange Commission impose stronger transparency rules for foreign companies that are listed on American exchanges. The step was primarily directed at China, whose companies’ financial disclosures are … Read More ➡

Study Debunks BlackRock Claims that ESG Funds Did Better During COVID

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink

So-called environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities, as applied to investment principles, have seen a massive influx of cash during the COVID-19 pandemic – so much so that influential financial firm leaders have celebrated them as better performers than normal “make-a-profit” funds.

But is that really true?

Mega-firm BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink have called greater attention to ESG, beginning early in 2018 with a letter to more than 1,000 publicly traded companies urging them to elevate issues such as climate change and diversity higher in their considerations as they go about their business.

“Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” he wrote. “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

CNBC reported earlier this month that the amount of assets in funds that follow ESG … Read More ➡