The Front Page Cover
Featruring:
Want to erase yourself from the Internet?
Here's how to do it
by Abby Ohlheiser
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The Generational Divide
By Robin Smith: In politics, demographics are key in messaging, for organizational platform development and for policy priorities.
Demographics are pretty consistent with one fact: Age is a major factor in one's party affiliation. The younger the voter, the greater likelihood said voter is leftist or moderately Democrat in their worldview and philosophy. Logically, the inverse is also often a truism — the older the voter, the greater the likelihood of he or she leans center-Right or far-Right.
An old adage, inaccurately attributed to Winston Churchill (and various others), states: "If you're not a liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're old, you have no brain."
While the fascination is usually on the monikers given for each generation and the corresponding traits, it's the traits found within these age groups that impact the usefulness of the tiered grouping of our adult population.
Using classifications employed by the Pew Research Center, the Silent Generation would currently be 71-88 years of age. This group generally holds a worldview framed by the hardships of war and economic depression — sacrifice, personal responsibility, loyalty and the call to adulthood during crisis. Some 48% of Silents are politically center-Right. Baby Boomers range from 52-71 years old and are likewise largely defined as having a strong work ethic, and being goal-centric, self-assured and more disciplined. And 44% of the Boomers vote to the political Right. The next stratum is Generation X, Americans who are now 36 to 51 years old. This groups tends to be more "me" centric, hence their individualistic approach to social, civic, corporate and political engagement. This is the first generation to live to work, not work to live, and they vote to the Right of center 37% of the time. Finally, Millennials are 18- to 35-year-olds raised to seek constant communication, input and connection. This group is motivated by meaning, with their productivity linked to a purpose that is well communicated or marketed. Just 33% of Millennials vote Right. So what?
As our cultural institutions — education, media, family, faith, government, entertainment and business — move to the left, the immersion of individuals into an environment defined by a "progressive" vision has changed American culture. Interestingly, as adults age with the vivid responsibilities of life, such as parenting, debt, investment, business expansion and countless other realities, a great deal of progressive failures are exposed. One's worldview becomes no longer framed by an academic exercise in social justice, love and tolerance, but by real life.
As we've noted, the more recent one's birth year, the more one's political affiliations tend to be more to the left end of the spectrum. But that may soon change based on early research into Generation Z. These post-Millennials have never known life without the Internet, Islamic terrorism or the hyper-partisan climate at the local, state and federal levels of government. Again, so what?
Some of the oldest of Generation Z voted in the 2016 elections. And the question is, will this be yet another group of youth with an entitled and emotion-based approach to life? Or will it be a generation guided by effective role models and adult leaders?
Based on early unscientific data, these first-time voters, raised during times of recession and personal debt, are more fiscally conservative than their Millennial elders.
A survey of 50,000 high school students aged 14 to 18 years old was shocking: Donald Trump won among participants by 46% to liar-Hillary Clinton's 31%. A majority identified as Republicans in this Presidential Pulse Study's entire polling audience.
Further, those casting their ballots for the first time acknowledged the economy as the most important issue followed by education, gun rights and health care. Fifty-six percent declared the country is headed in the wrong direction. That's a stark departure from the "progressive" mantra that Barack liar-nObama was great and the answer was more of the same through liar-Hillary.
An INC.com article notes that Generation Z identifies honesty as the most important trait of a leader. These kids have a greater respect for older generations, and seem to possess the trait of realism instead of excessive optimism.
That presents an opportunity. Conservatives must not only include the soundness of small government and value of fiscal discipline for the older generations who are more conservative, but the "so what" of meaning and purpose to win the hearts and minds of Millennials and Generation Xers. And endeavoring to win over Generation Z will pay immense dividends.
President Donald Trump spoke quite candidly on the campaign trail, absent the politically correct lexicon of the Left. He pulled no punches in his simple, yet direct, message. Perhaps his populist approach also appeals to Generation Z. Perhaps they've seen what leftism hath wrought and want no part of it.
As always, time will tell, but time also has a way of making people more conservative. That's life experience for you.
~The Patriot Post
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liar-nObama Operative Admits To
Anti-Trump Deep State Spying
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice join Sean Hannity for a discussion of the bizarre revelations made by Evelyn Farkas on the MSNBC Morning Joe program... She was or is an liar-nObama deep state operative and political appointee who confirmed that an operation against President Trump existed and admitted to numerous related felonies in the process. Hannity asks Sekulow to “break this down legally for us, from the issue of surveillance, unmasking, leaking intelligence.” Hannity points out, “She’s not even in the administration anymore.” Sekulow agrees, noting that “At the time she said that she was aware of the information, the intelligence, she was no longer an employee of the State Defense Department. So the first question you have to ask, ‘How did a former defense secretary find out about this information when she was gone?’ So that brings up felony number one, who leaked her that information.” Number two, ‘We were concerned that the liar-Obama officials involved in this would be known by the Trump administration.’ Well guess what? The President of the United States is Donald Trump so of course he would know that. So then it brings up the third issue and the third issue is what in the world did they think that they had that they could justify doing this?”...Why isn't the networks and the media exposing this? http://rickwells.us/sekulow-fitton-obama-operative-admits-anti-trump-deep-state-spying/
Trump’s Budget Cuts Face Resistance
From Republican Lawmakers
by Rachel del Guidice
{dailysignal.com} ~ Republican leaders are voicing disapproval of budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump. “I doubt there’d be a lot of appetite for dramatic cuts this year,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Roll Call... “I just look at it as a conversation. They’ve got their views, we’ve got our views, and we need to sit down and work that out.” According to CQ Roll Call’s Budget Tracker newsletter, Republican leaders such as Cornyn are openly disproving of Trump’s requested $18 billion in spending cuts for the current fiscal year budget, Politico reports... http://dailysignal.com/2017/03/29/trumps-budget-cuts-face-resistance-from-republican-lawmakers/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTnpOaE1ETXlPRFF6TmpSaCIsInQiOiJNd3RTU2l0cjFDWHBKbEhiMnRaOW9UTkJHYm84RzkwWU9SekJxTzFWUUZ5TjNCc3VoY2hldUoxWVFcL2dsVStpRWpsNnliTE9XbFVhdmNSc2tIWlVudjk5V3JWYnNPdFBTclpCM3F2ZTBhWHZTcWhsTG5hQlJlTlg1TjdjYWpEeTgifQ%3D%3D
.The Muslim Brotherhood:
Peddling Sharia as Social Justice
by Judith Bergman
{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ Gehad el-Haddad, official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), is on a mission to rewrite the terrorist and radical history of the MB. He seems to be doing this for the consumption of naïve Americans... These seem only too willing to believe -- in the name of tolerance, diversity and trying to be non-judgmental -- that an organization whose ultimate goal is the supreme reign of Islamic sharia law everywhere -- if necessary through violent jihad -- could possibly value anything even approximating equality and the rule of non-sharia law. "We are not terrorists," wrote el-Haddad in a recent article in the New York Times. The "faith", which el-Haddad avoids naming, is Islam. The very essence of Islam, as sanctioned in the Quran and the hadiths, however, seems to be the belief in a divine mandate to impose the single vision of Islam on the world -- if necessary, through violent jihad. Its motto is:...
.U.S. Commander in Iraq: "I'm Not
Targeting Civilians. ISIS Is."
by SUSAN JONES
{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ "The death of innocent civilians in war is a terrible tragedy that weighs heavily on all of us," Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, told a news conference on Tuesday... "But I know this -- I'm not targeting civilians. ISIS is. And so we will do the best job we absolutely can to prevent this unnecessary loss of life. The best way, though, to put an end to this human suffering is to win in Mosul and win in Raqqa and do it fast." Townsend said the coalition is investigating a March 17 explosion that leveled a building in western Mosul and killed an undetermined number of civilians. "Right now there are a lot of conflicting reports as to what brought down the building or buildings that caused civilian casualties," Townsend said. "What we know for sure is that we did conduct a strike in that area. What we don't know for certain is that that strike is responsible for the casualties in question... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/us-commander-in-iraq-im-not-targeting-civilians-isis-is?f=must_reads
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Democrats: Party of Obstruction
by Daniel Greenfield
{frontpagemag.com} ~ Forget all the pages of the Democratic Party platform. The only real Democratic platform left is the one sung by Groucho Marx in Horse Feathers. “Whatever it is, I’m against it.”... The elected Democrats still surviving amid the trendy restaurants of Adams Morgan and the boutiques of Dupont Circle are convinced that the voters elected them and that taxpayers are paying them to get nothing done. Not one thing. The ordinary leftist wearing a pink hat and clutching a Resistance sign either has no job or a government job. At the pinnacle of this pathetic movement sits the Democratic member of Congress making $174,000 a year, with Nancy Pulosi and clown-Schumer taking home $193,000, and being paid to do nothing...They are not worth a penny.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266274/democrats-party-obstruction-daniel greenfield
.http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266274/democrats-party-obstruction-daniel greenfield
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Want to erase yourself from the Internet?
Here's how to do it
by Abby Ohlheiser
{jewishworldreview.com} ~ For those of us who spend a lot of time on the Internet, there will be the occasional urge to simply disappear - delete your accounts, roll back your Google results and become invisible.
At this particular moment in time, a lot of people seem to be interested in making that a reality - or at least in trying to completely cover up their tracks. Signal, a text and phone-call encryption app that comes with a recommendation from Edward Snowden, recorded a 400 percent jump in downloads after the election. And while landlords, colleges and potential employers have examined the social-media presence of applicants for years, there are signs that this kind of scrutiny is close to getting much more invasive.
A person's digital trail can also serve as the primary gateway to information used nefariously, opposition-research-style, in the online harassment of private individuals.
But what does "disappearing" online mean, anyway? Deleting all your social-media accounts or simply cleaning them up? Is it possible to totally disappear? Should you? Is there some real benefit to having an online presence? And what do you do if you still need to be on the Internet, just not quite as much as you currently are?
I asked Bradley Shear, a lawyer who specializes in social media and privacy, to walk me through a few different ways to try to become invisible. Before we get into the details, it must be said: If you really want to step away from the Internet and leave no digital trace, you're probably going to have to change a lot of things about the way you live day to day. And you're probably not going to like it.
To go the full off-the-grid route, "it's cash, barters," Shear said. "Do not use any electronic device that can lead back to your whereabouts."
But there are also advantages to having a robust digital life, ones that deleting everything will eliminate. So for those of us stuck in the middle, here are a few considerations:
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNTS (OR AT LEAST CLEAN THEM UP)
Having a social-media account is, more or less, ensuring your active participation in letting the Internet learn more about you. Facebook, in particular, knows a lot about you and is very good at tracking what you do across the rest of the Web. (Yes, even when you're not actively using Facebook.)
"You have to think about the digital accounts you currently have," Shear said. "You have a Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon, old Myspace? Anything that has your name on it. You want to either delete content from them or delete the accounts altogether." Once that's done, many of the companies will still keep the data you previously gave them, but at least it won't be publicly shared.
No more social media, fine. But that's nothing compared with what Shear suggests next - getting rid of your Gmail account. "Every time you access it, they have your IP address," he said. For those who use an encrypted email service such as ProtonMail, a life disappeared would also mean you can't send emails to people using a Gmail or Yahoo account.
And if you want your activity not to be tracked across the Web, you would have to essentially use a virtual private network, or VPN, every time you access the Internet, unless you exclusively access the Internet from public machines (such as those at a public library). For search, you can use sites such as DuckDuckGo instead of Google or Yahoo, or any other search engine that tracks you.
If all of that's not going to happen, you could at the very least consider deleting unnecessary content from your social-media accounts. Twitter and Facebook let you download an archive of your data on the platform, in case you're worried about losing those great early tweets from college. And beyond the in-account settings for each service, third-party tools such as TweetDelete allow you to erase years of content automatically.
But even that, Shear noted, doesn't provide perfect results. "Using a service that deletes old tweets is helpful," he said. "However, the Library of Congress is cataloging every single tweet ever."
JustDelete.Me provides a good starting point for people who want straightforward links to the deletion pages of a ton of accounts you might have, along with a bit of guidance on how easy or hard it is to delete each one.
CREATE 'ALTERNATIVE FACTS'
For those who aren't going the full "off the grid" or the "delete all your accounts" routes - which would be most of us, let's be honest - Shear said that one of the most valuable things you can do is to litter the Internet with misinformation about yourself.
"Never have a real birthday," he said. "Always use a throwaway birthday" when signing up for social-media accounts or pretty much any other service online. Use a throwaway email. If a site or an app is asking for a bunch of information that you think it doesn't need from you to provide you with whatever service it is promising, don't do it. If that personal information is required to use that service, then make up some stuff. "You want to provide as many alternative facts as possible," Shear said.
If you've already given such information to a bunch of sites, try to change it. On Facebook, it's possible to change your birthday, for instance. But Facebook has a limit on how many times you can do this, so be careful.
Yes, Shear knows that this means he's essentially advising you to ignore the terms of service for these sites, and he's okay with that. "Feel free to protect your privacy and violate their terms of service," he said.
GO AFTER THE DATA BROKERS, AND DON'T BE LEAKY
Anyone who's ever self-Googled knows that there are a ton of "people search" sites out there that promise to host valuable information about individuals. Usually, this information - phone numbers, social-media profiles, addresses, anything else available from public records or through data collection on the Internet - is sold for a fee (but not always).
For instance, the Intersect looked at one particularly creepy site, FamilyTreeNow, a couple of weeks ago. That site takes all the information about you that can be gathered online and through public records, and presents it free, without requiring a log-in.
Welcome to the fun world of data brokers, the businesses that collect this information to sell it to other businesses. Trying to fully disappear from their databases, Shear warned, is like "whack-a-mole."
Here's how to start: "Look at the first five to 10 pages of your Google results and see who has your name," Shear said. Your information will probably be on sites such as Whitepages, Spokeo and Intelius, for instance. Each of these sites should have a way to opt out, but Shear warns that sometimes the opt-out process can be a scam. If the site requires you to verify your identity before opting out by giving more information about yourself or providing a government ID, don't do that.
If you want to start by requesting an opt-out from each of the major data brokers, this list is a good start. There are hundreds of sites like these, though, so be prepared to spend a significant amount of time on the opt-out process. And, you'll need to plan regular checkups for when your information eventually pops back up somewhere else.
The second part of keeping your information out of the hands of data brokers involves plugging any of your existing digital leaks and preventing the creation of new ones. Have you ever signed up for an account by linking it to your Facebook or Google accounts? That was not smart. Don't do that. Undo it if you can.
What permissions have you given each of the apps on your phone? "Most apps ask for way too much information," Shear warned. Does Yelp really need access to your contact list? For that matter, how much do you need that app that requires a ton of access to your phone and data? If you want to keep your phone, Shear recommended, go ahead and delete every single app you don't actually need. Be brutal.
DON'T GIVE UP
Even doing all of the above wouldn't completely disappear most of us from the Internet - particularly those of us who are older and have a longer digital trail. Should you even try to disappear from the Internet? That might be better rephrased as: Can you really disappear from the Internet?
Toward the end of our lengthy conversation, I used the word "futile," for reasons that might be obvious. But Shear doesn't like that word. It's better, he said, to try to do everything you can to erase your online presence as if it's going to work, because "you might not get perfect results, but it's always worth the effort to try."
{jewishworldreview.com} ~ For those of us who spend a lot of time on the Internet, there will be the occasional urge to simply disappear - delete your accounts, roll back your Google results and become invisible.
At this particular moment in time, a lot of people seem to be interested in making that a reality - or at least in trying to completely cover up their tracks. Signal, a text and phone-call encryption app that comes with a recommendation from Edward Snowden, recorded a 400 percent jump in downloads after the election. And while landlords, colleges and potential employers have examined the social-media presence of applicants for years, there are signs that this kind of scrutiny is close to getting much more invasive.
A person's digital trail can also serve as the primary gateway to information used nefariously, opposition-research-style, in the online harassment of private individuals.
But what does "disappearing" online mean, anyway? Deleting all your social-media accounts or simply cleaning them up? Is it possible to totally disappear? Should you? Is there some real benefit to having an online presence? And what do you do if you still need to be on the Internet, just not quite as much as you currently are?
I asked Bradley Shear, a lawyer who specializes in social media and privacy, to walk me through a few different ways to try to become invisible. Before we get into the details, it must be said: If you really want to step away from the Internet and leave no digital trace, you're probably going to have to change a lot of things about the way you live day to day. And you're probably not going to like it.
To go the full off-the-grid route, "it's cash, barters," Shear said. "Do not use any electronic device that can lead back to your whereabouts."
But there are also advantages to having a robust digital life, ones that deleting everything will eliminate. So for those of us stuck in the middle, here are a few considerations:
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNTS (OR AT LEAST CLEAN THEM UP)
Having a social-media account is, more or less, ensuring your active participation in letting the Internet learn more about you. Facebook, in particular, knows a lot about you and is very good at tracking what you do across the rest of the Web. (Yes, even when you're not actively using Facebook.)
"You have to think about the digital accounts you currently have," Shear said. "You have a Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon, old Myspace? Anything that has your name on it. You want to either delete content from them or delete the accounts altogether." Once that's done, many of the companies will still keep the data you previously gave them, but at least it won't be publicly shared.
No more social media, fine. But that's nothing compared with what Shear suggests next - getting rid of your Gmail account. "Every time you access it, they have your IP address," he said. For those who use an encrypted email service such as ProtonMail, a life disappeared would also mean you can't send emails to people using a Gmail or Yahoo account.
And if you want your activity not to be tracked across the Web, you would have to essentially use a virtual private network, or VPN, every time you access the Internet, unless you exclusively access the Internet from public machines (such as those at a public library). For search, you can use sites such as DuckDuckGo instead of Google or Yahoo, or any other search engine that tracks you.
If all of that's not going to happen, you could at the very least consider deleting unnecessary content from your social-media accounts. Twitter and Facebook let you download an archive of your data on the platform, in case you're worried about losing those great early tweets from college. And beyond the in-account settings for each service, third-party tools such as TweetDelete allow you to erase years of content automatically.
But even that, Shear noted, doesn't provide perfect results. "Using a service that deletes old tweets is helpful," he said. "However, the Library of Congress is cataloging every single tweet ever."
JustDelete.Me provides a good starting point for people who want straightforward links to the deletion pages of a ton of accounts you might have, along with a bit of guidance on how easy or hard it is to delete each one.
CREATE 'ALTERNATIVE FACTS'
For those who aren't going the full "off the grid" or the "delete all your accounts" routes - which would be most of us, let's be honest - Shear said that one of the most valuable things you can do is to litter the Internet with misinformation about yourself.
"Never have a real birthday," he said. "Always use a throwaway birthday" when signing up for social-media accounts or pretty much any other service online. Use a throwaway email. If a site or an app is asking for a bunch of information that you think it doesn't need from you to provide you with whatever service it is promising, don't do it. If that personal information is required to use that service, then make up some stuff. "You want to provide as many alternative facts as possible," Shear said.
If you've already given such information to a bunch of sites, try to change it. On Facebook, it's possible to change your birthday, for instance. But Facebook has a limit on how many times you can do this, so be careful.
Yes, Shear knows that this means he's essentially advising you to ignore the terms of service for these sites, and he's okay with that. "Feel free to protect your privacy and violate their terms of service," he said.
GO AFTER THE DATA BROKERS, AND DON'T BE LEAKY
Anyone who's ever self-Googled knows that there are a ton of "people search" sites out there that promise to host valuable information about individuals. Usually, this information - phone numbers, social-media profiles, addresses, anything else available from public records or through data collection on the Internet - is sold for a fee (but not always).
For instance, the Intersect looked at one particularly creepy site, FamilyTreeNow, a couple of weeks ago. That site takes all the information about you that can be gathered online and through public records, and presents it free, without requiring a log-in.
Welcome to the fun world of data brokers, the businesses that collect this information to sell it to other businesses. Trying to fully disappear from their databases, Shear warned, is like "whack-a-mole."
Here's how to start: "Look at the first five to 10 pages of your Google results and see who has your name," Shear said. Your information will probably be on sites such as Whitepages, Spokeo and Intelius, for instance. Each of these sites should have a way to opt out, but Shear warns that sometimes the opt-out process can be a scam. If the site requires you to verify your identity before opting out by giving more information about yourself or providing a government ID, don't do that.
If you want to start by requesting an opt-out from each of the major data brokers, this list is a good start. There are hundreds of sites like these, though, so be prepared to spend a significant amount of time on the opt-out process. And, you'll need to plan regular checkups for when your information eventually pops back up somewhere else.
The second part of keeping your information out of the hands of data brokers involves plugging any of your existing digital leaks and preventing the creation of new ones. Have you ever signed up for an account by linking it to your Facebook or Google accounts? That was not smart. Don't do that. Undo it if you can.
What permissions have you given each of the apps on your phone? "Most apps ask for way too much information," Shear warned. Does Yelp really need access to your contact list? For that matter, how much do you need that app that requires a ton of access to your phone and data? If you want to keep your phone, Shear recommended, go ahead and delete every single app you don't actually need. Be brutal.
DON'T GIVE UP
Even doing all of the above wouldn't completely disappear most of us from the Internet - particularly those of us who are older and have a longer digital trail. Should you even try to disappear from the Internet? That might be better rephrased as: Can you really disappear from the Internet?
Toward the end of our lengthy conversation, I used the word "futile," for reasons that might be obvious. But Shear doesn't like that word. It's better, he said, to try to do everything you can to erase your online presence as if it's going to work, because "you might not get perfect results, but it's always worth the effort to try."
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