Mediaboss Marketing

BY: Andrew Kugle June 10, 2017 5:01 am

Back in November, Democrats were blaming former FBI Director James Comey for Hillary Clinton's historic election loss to political newcomer Donald Trump. Clinton supporters continued to castigate Comey as Trump officially entered the White House and started to govern.

Fast forward to the present, however, and Democrats cannot stop praising Comey for his integrity and strength.

Comey, who Trump fired on May 9, testified Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee on his firing and the FBI investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, among other issues. The media hyped up expectations in the days leading up to the hearing, saying that Comey's testimony would be "blockbuster," "explosive," and a "political super bowl."

Comey testified that Trump told him in a February meeting that he hoped the FBI chief could "let go" the investigation into Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Comey also testified that Trump asked him to pledge loyalty, which caused Comey to be concern about the independence of the FBI. Comey's statements have fueled speculation about whether Trump committed obstruction of justice.

Democrats were quick to defend Comey's integrity and honesty, a few months after they questionedwhether the former FBI director should resign or be fired.

Follow this link:
Democrats Love Comey Again - Washington Free Beacon

Actor Diane Guerrero, ofOrange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin fame, had kept herfamilysimmigration and deportation experiencea secretuntil about a few years ago. She revealed much about her personal trajectory in her book, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided.

Donald Trumps negative rhetoric on the campaign trail about immigrants, depicting them as criminals and rapists, prompted herto speak out, she said during arecentepisode of Salon Talks.

Herimmediate family, originally from Columbia,was deported when she was just 14;Guerrero was born in the U.S and allowedto remainher butwithout them. I needed to share my story, just to share sort of the other side of who an undocumented person is andwhatfamilies are affected by deportation and overall sort what our system looks like; that we have millions of families here going through the same thing, shesaid.

Young people often bear the brunt of family separation, Guerrero explained. These are the people who are not considered by the politicians making decisions in D.C. and by a lot people who dont understand the immigration system and who dont care to fix it.

She decriedthe out there to do this or that and [that] no one is offering up solutions. And right now the rhetoric is poisonous and its dividing us and its not really helping the country. When asked what progress would look like to her, she said she wants to see an immigration reform bill passed, citing former PresidentBarack Obamas efforts to attempt such reform and expandthe Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has been stopped time and time again.

Right now, I would like to see the country unite, said said. I would like to see people voting in 2018 for a Congress that is representative of them and their families, and Id like to see some sort of reform pass. Id like to see the visa system updated. Added Guerrero: If we start there, then we can see what happens.I mean we havent tried anything different.

When questioned about another type of negative imagery that emerged recently when comic Kathy Griffin shared a bloody, severed image of President Donald Trumps head, Guerrero replied,I dont necessarily think that what she did was helpful but I dont really think its that important. I mean whats important is the overuse of police brutality thats important. The separation of families thats important. Whats happening with the environment thats important.

Catch more of her conversation about immigration reform on Salon.

Read the original:
WATCH: Orange Is the New Black star gives a personal spin on immigration reform - Salon

To the editor:

Why dont they just get in line?

This is the question many ask when it comes to immigrants attempting to enter our country to work. At this point, it is important we acknowledge that under our current immigration laws, it is simpler to come here illegally than legally.

We need immigrants to fill labor shortages, and immigrants want work. A reformed guest worker program should encourage law abiding, taxpaying, industrious seasonal laborers to work through a period of intense labor needs, and then allow them to go back home to family.

At present, there are seasonal opportunities for agricultural workers and other less skilled workers; however, this process is not streamlined and quite fastidious. An employer must petition for the worker, and the worker must, in some cases, be able to provide proof of a certain level of income or education.

The demand for workers who would like to immigrate to the Unites States is higher than the number of spots available each year, with significant labor shortages. The result: backlogs for workers hoping to come to the United States legally. The path to citizenship for some immigrants can take decades.

American Farmers and Ranchers currently serves over 130,000 Oklahoma members with grassroots chapters in 162 communities across the state.

AFRs immigration policy, as approved by its membership, reads as follows: We support a documented guest worker program for immigrant laborers that results in these individuals paying taxes, obeying local, state and federal laws with the option of returning to their home country. We support immigration laws that provide a system of identification, classification and taxation. We support the development of new authorization documents that cannot be manipulated or duplicated.

Each year, thousands of acres of Americas farmland goes unplanted and hundreds of millions of dollars of produce rots in the fields. Our Oklahoma farmers are being robbed of opportunities to diversify and produce niche market, labor intensive crops. Consequently, our economy, both rural and urban, suffers employment and revenue loss. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Oklahoma currently ranks 23rd when it comes to farming revenue, this includes all agricultural and animal related products.

This is not just a problem in Oklahoma. Because U.S. fresh fruit and vegetable growers have not been able just to maintain the domestic market share they held from 1998-2000, imports of those food products have increased 80 percent. Many of those products also are not produced under the same labor and production regulations that guarantee food safety equal to U.S. products. Consequently, this country and individual communities have suffered a loss of jobs in packaging, transportation, food processing, retail and other sectors.

When it comes to immigration reform, American Farmers and Ranchers urges legislators and congress to immediately address this issue. It is imperative to our nation that we move away from policies that hurt this countrys economy.

The rest is here:
LETTERS: Immigration reform necessary for farmers - Stillwater News Press

A First Amendment issue is brewing in federal court over a local Wisconsin ordinancethe nation's firstthat requires publishers of augmented reality mobile games like Pokemon Goand Texas Rope 'Em to get a special use permit if their apps require gamers to play in Milwaukee County parks.

A Southern California company called Candy Lab, the maker of Texas Rope 'Em, is suing the county over the requirement that was adopted in February in the wake of the Pokemon Gocraze that resulted in a Milwaukee county park being overrun bya deluge of players. The permit, which costs as much as $1,000, requires estimates for crowd size and the event dates and times. It also calls for plans about garbage collection, bathroom use, on-site security,and medical services.

Candy Lab says it's impossible to comply with the permit for it fledgling app. Candy Lab can neither realistically answer the permit's questions(PDF) nor afford to pay for the other requirements like on-site security when users of its platform hunt for a winning hand in its augmented realityversion of Texas Hold 'Em. Like Niantic's Pokemon Go, Candy Lab's app is built to be played in designated parks and other areas. These types of mobile apps provide users with an augmented and interactive view of the park.

Candy Lab said the county is free to regulate the park however it sees fit. But what it cannot do is impose a permitting process on a game publisher, the company said. The requirement for a "special event permit"amounts to a prior restraint of speech in violation of the First Amendment, the company claims in its lawsuit. (PDF)

Just like the Constitution protects a book publisher from requiring a permit to release a book, Candy Lab says the same is true for augmented reality games that are played in public spaces."They are tying to shoehorn us into this existing permitting scheme for events that are finite in time," Brian Wassom, Candy Lab's attorney, said in a Friday interview. "They're passing two-dimensional laws in a three-dimensional world."

But the county views it from a different dimension, one where augmented reality games like Texas Rope 'Em are not protected by the First Amendment.

"Texas Rope 'Em is not entitled to First Amendment protection because it does not convey any messages or ideas. Unlike books, movies, music, plays and video gamesmediums of expression that typically enjoy First Amendment protectionTexas Rope 'Em has no plot, no storylines, no characters, and no dialogue. All it conveys is a random display of cards and a map. Absent the communicative features that invoke the First Amendment, Candy Lab has no First Amendment claim," the county said. (PDF)

The county said it was aware of the 2011 Supreme Court ruling against California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. In coming to that conclusion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, (PDF) the justices said that video games amounted to speech protected under the First Amendment.But that doesn't mean the same is true when it comes to augmented reality, according to the county.

"No court has yet determined whether an augmented reality game receives First Amendment protection," the county notes in its response to Candy Labs' federal lawsuit."As explained in Brown, the reason that video games receive First Amendment protection is because they communicate ideas and messages through literary devices or through features distinctive to the medium. ...In other words, video games will be protected under theFirst Amendment if they include sufficient communicative, expressive, or informative elements to fall at least within the outer limits of constitutionally protected speech."

Texas Rope 'Em, the county maintains,"has no storylines, no characters, no plot and no dialogue. The player simply views randomly generated cards and travels to locations to get more. That is not the type of speech that demands First Amendment safeguards."The county also claims the app is an illegal form of gambling not entitled to First Amendment protection.

Wassom, the attorney for Candy Lab, told Ars that the county's argument is "ridiculous."

"Those are features of a particular expression of a game," he said. "That doesnt make it not entertainment and not speech."

Niantic, the maker of Pokemon Go, told Ars that "continued innovation and responsible game play, rather than regulation, is the way that developers, players, and their communities will realize the potential of this technology for civic engagement, creative expression, and health."The company said it is working with Milwaukee to help placate its concerns.

"We have worked with parks departments, in Milwaukee and other communities, to optimize the distribution of gameplay including removing or relocating some gameplay locations while adding new ones in other areas and also by adding the ability to control the hours of operation for game locations to conform with local rules," Niantic said.

Wassom said that Candy Lab would formally respond in court to the county's arguments on Wednesday. US District Judge JP Stadtmueller in the Eastern District of Wisconsin has set an April 2018 trial date if no settlement is reached.

Listing image by Candy Lab

View post:
Augmented reality lawsuit provides augmented view of 1st Amendment - Ars Technica

At the beginning of May, Turkeys president Recep Tayyip Erdoans first post-referendum foreign visit was to meet Indias prime minister Narendra Modi. Despite Erdoans controversial pro-Pakistan statement just before the trip, the pair was pictured sharing friendly hugs as the two vowed to tackle terrorism and extend economic relations.

It was hard not to notice the similarities between the political journeys of these two strongmenand what is happening to their countries. Both have been using religion to cling to power, and pushing back the secular fabric of Indian and Turkish politics.

Both are right wingers who employ nationalist rhetoric, and both became politically stronger as they sought to polarise the multicultural societies they govern. Modi and Erdoan also claim to be reforming the stagnating economies of their respective countries, turning them into rising global powers.

The two leaders come from modest economic and educational backgrounds but have successfully adopted strong man images which are extremely appealing to their respective constituencies. They brand the long established political workings of their countries as elitist and promote populist policies. The strong resemblance of the two leaders has not gone unnoticed.

Erdoan is a product of political Islam in Turkey, which was pushed back under the earlier secular regimes for decades. He came to power with the ambitious ideal of changing the very character of the nation. And he has slowly but surely achieved his goal.

His party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) gained sweeping victories in elections, and in 2014 he was elected as president in a referendum. Since then, Turkey has gone into democratic reverse, becoming an increasingly authoritarian country. Civil rights have been undermined and the country is more polarised than ever. Increasing communal violence during election periods is just one example.

The Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also came to power in 2014, motivated by the agenda of Hindutva, the notion that India is the homeland of only Hindus. Since Modi became prime minister, minority groups, particularly Muslims and Christians, have been regularly attacked and are living in a very hostile environment. Modi supporters have stepped up their campaign against inter-religious marriages and the eating of beef. Mass conversions to Hinduism are enforced by his party activists.

Both in India and Turkey, the authoritarian tendencies of these two leaders have brought serious danger to democracy and human rights.

Modis dominant style of leadership has reduced the scope of dissent. Activists are also voicing concerns over the intensifying climate of religious intolerance and political interference in academic and cultural institutions. In response, the state is using coercive powers to suppress opposition on the pretext of national security and Indian identity.The media is under constant pressure to be subservient to the regime.

In Turkey, ever since the attempted coup in July 2016, human rights violations have became ever more visible. As soon as the putsch was quashed, a state of emergency was declared (it has been almost a year now). Emergency decrees have been used to purge thousands of members of any kind of opposition. Academics, journalists, and politicians have been dismissed from their positions, arrested or silenced.

As in India, these purges have been conducted under the pretext of national security. Many civil society organisations have been banned from receiving foreign funding and forced to close down. The media is under constant pressure to be subservient to the regime. The referendum that gave Erdoan even more executive powers as president changed the regime of Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential one.

Erdoan is not prepared to let go of power, nor is he shy about letting the world know that he does not care about what the West thinks. He is more interested in forming alliances in the East, and happy to ignore Western criticisms about human rights and democracy.

Despite the similarities between the two leaders and the changes they are making, India is better placed than Turkey in terms of freedom and democracy. Democracy watchdog Freedom House defines Turkey as a partly free country where there is no press freedom, while it defines India as a free country with a partly free press. According to the World Democracy Index, Turkey is a hybrid regime while India is defined as a flawed democracy.Turkey is a hybrid regime while India is defined as a flawed democracy.

Compared to Turkey, then, India has a better democratic frameworkbut it is under constant threat. Modi is continuing to win key state-level elections. His party is on the verge of gaining a majority in the upper house of the parliament and having one of its members elected president. A lack of effective opposition and a subservient national media are helping Modi on his way. The future of the countrys democracy is seen by many as high risk.

Erdoan and Modi have seriously damaged the secular character of their countries and managed to centralise power in their own hands. Both countries have previously been examples of modern states with secular values. But the rapid deterioration of democracy in Turkey and India now poses serious challenges for peace and stability in their respective regions. No doubt the two men will meet again soonthey have plenty in common, and much to discuss.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

Read the original post:
Narendra Modi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan are two of a kind: strong ... - Quartz