Mediaboss Marketing

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

AFP/Getty Images

A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

The conservative media erupted in frustration over the latest stumbles of Senate Republicans trying to advance Trumpcare. The Federalists Ben Domenech pointed a finger at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This is a failure of imagination and policy, he wrote, and a reminder that moderation does not equate to intelligence.

At RedState, Joe Cunningham thanked conservative Sen. Mike Lee for opposing the bill. The bottom line is that the bill was atrocious, he wrote. There was nothing about it that was truly good. The people who will claim Lee and the others are making the good the enemy of the perfect are fooling themselves into thinking they were doing a good thing. The bill was anything but that, much like the House bill, and killing it now means work can actually get done.

The Daily Wires Ben Shapiro criticized moderates who shot down a potential clean repeal of Obamacare after voting for repeals under Obama. This is an excellent opportunity for conservatives to find out who was serious about Obamacare repeal, and who wasnt, he wrote. This should be a litmus test for conservative primary challengers. While President Trump is focusing, laserlike, on offing Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) for the crime of not being sufficiently deferential to Trump himself, Republicans should focus on whether they need Senators who vote to keep in place bad Democratic legislation out of a desire to expand government.

At the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin argued against blaming moderates:

On Twitter, the Weekly Standards Jay Cost avoided laying blame on particular factions altogether:

Additionally, conservative writers hit President Trump for saying he would not own Obamacares failure and praising Republicans for coming so close to passing a bill.

Foxs Sean Hannity endorsed repealing Obamacare and moving on with the rest of Trumps agenda.

The Resurgents Erick Erickson tallied the administrations lack of achievements thus far:

RedStates Jay Caruso agreed and criticized Trumps failure of leadership in his first six months. President Trumps inability to maintain a cohesive mindset on any one issue for more than a few days at a time is partially why he sits so low in the polls, he wrote. He constantly contradicts his people. Hell do something relatively well only to blow it up within days because of his complete lack of impulse control.

The Daily Wires John Nolte admonished the Republican establishemnt for failing to meet expectations over the course of the past eight years.

Who will ever again trust these con men when they try to raise money off of a cause we now know they have no intention of doing anything about, Nolte asked. Who will ever again put any effort into voting for a political party that not only lies to its constituents about its intentions, but is utterly useless in the only two ways that matter: 1) passing promised legislation and 2) defending our president from the fake news medias conspiracy theories?

Excerpt from:
Today in Conservative Media: Who's to Blame for Trumpcare Failing? Everyone's a Target. - Slate Magazine (blog)

Philadelphias Nancy Glass always thought there was a huge piece missing from the publics understanding ofthe 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial: the jury.

Every single day, we broadcast from the area where all the journalists sort of camped out, the former American Journal anchor recalledlast week. I knew about the jury. Thats the thing that bothered me. I knew that there was more to the story from day one. The public had their own reaction, but I knew that the jury was much more complex than that.

On Saturday, Glass, who these days works behind the cameras as a producer and the CEO of Glass Entertainment Group in Bala Cynwyd (formerly Nancy Glass Productions), gets to help tell the jurors side of that controversial verdict. Herfour-night documentary miniseries for Oxygen, The Jury Speaks, openswith a reexamination of the Simpson case that includes interviews with and a revote by a small group of the cases jurors.

On Sunday, the miniseries continues with jurors from Michael Jacksons 2005 trial on child-molestation charges. Mondays installment deals with the jury that acquitted George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, and Tuesdays with the people who in 2003 acquitted Robert Durst (subject of HBOs The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst) in the murder of the neighbor hed admitted dismembering but claimed to have killed in self-defense. A fifth episode, about the 2005 acquittal of actor Robert Blake in his wifes murder, will be available On Demand.

Premiering the week of Simpsons scheduled parole hearing on his sentence for armed robbery and assault with a weapon and coming on the heels of the Bill Cosby mistrial, The Jury Speaksmight seem particularly well-timed, but its just serendipitous, Glass said.

Shenarrates the series, and conducted some of the interviews, something she said she doesnt normally do for her companys productions, which include such series as Animal Planets Tanked,the Travel Channels Dangerous Grounds featuring Philadelphia coffee entrepreneur Todd Carmichael and Investigation Discovery true-crime documentaries such asToo Pretty to Live and A Checklist for Murder.

Read more: A force in the reality TV industry

Frankly, Im not needed for this kind of thing. We have great staff. We have fabulous producers, she said. This was just something I really cared about.

Oxygen, theNBC Universal-owned cable channelwhose original founders included Oprah Winfrey, has recently shifted its focus to true crime, but the channel wants to do crime in a different way, not only the story of a murder, Glass said.

This was, we thought, a very different way to go about it, and to really look at the true story. I think people want to know about the true story. The truth is so flexible nowadays, that perhaps people want to judge for themselves, and not be told whats what. And this way you can. When you hear how the jury thought about it, you can form your own thoughts. You can understand why they did what they did. Or maybe youll be even madder.

And maybe youll feel sorry for the people summoned to sit in judgment. One takeaway from the two episodes Ive seen, on Simpsons and Jacksons cases, was that jurors in those cases had put up with a lot.

Their sequestration was a nightmare, Glass said of the Simpson jury. (She hadnt seenFXs American Crime Story: The People v. O.J., andits jury-focused episode, A Jury in Jail: I didnt watch any of it, because I covered it too much, she said.)

What most people dont understand is being sequestered means you cant watch TV [without supervision], you cant read a newspaper, you have supervised phone calls, so you really cant talk about much because somebody else is listening. You cant talk to each other about the case. Its really awful. Ten months, they were sequestered, and they didnt all like each other. In the beginning or end, she said.

Getting even asmall group of jurors together from old cases proved challenging.

Some of them have died, some of them are sick, and some just dont want to talk about it anymore or be identified, she said. Because these jurors had been battered, some singled out for humiliation during the trial one woman recalls being known as the fat juror or harassed afterward by people who disagreed with the verdicts.

They had to listen to this and then they are torn apart in the press. And some of them were afraid, Glass said.

It doesnt gain them anything to talk. But here they wanted to talk, because someone wanted to hear their side of the story. Someone wanted them to lay out exactly what happened. And whats interesting is, as a viewer, you might change your mind on a case and you might not. But it certainly gives you a lot more to think about.

The Jury Speaks. 9 p.m. Saturday-Tuesday, Oxygen.

Published: July 18, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: July 18, 2017 3:01 PM EDT

We recently asked you to support our journalism. The response, in a word, is heartening. You have encouraged us in our mission to provide quality news and watchdog journalism. Some of you have even followed through with subscriptions, which is especially gratifying. Our role as an independent, fact-based news organization has never been clearer. And our promise to you is that we will always strive to provide indispensable journalism to our community. Subscriptions are available for home delivery of the print edition and for a digital replica viewable on your mobile device or computer. Subscriptions start as low as 25 per day. We're thankful for your support in every way.

Original post:
Nancy Glass revisits OJ case as a producer in 'The Jury Speaks' - Philly.com

The South African Internet user population passed the 20-million mark for the first time last year reaching 21 million and is expected to grow to at least 22.5 million in 2017.

Based on Stats SAs estimate that the South African population reached 55.9-million people in June 2016 the companies said this means that the country will reach the 40 percent Internet penetration mark this year.

Finally reaching the point where we can say every second adult South African is connected to the Internet is a major landmark because Internet access is becoming synonymous with economic access Reshaad Sha Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Director of DFA said in a statement.

This contrasts with a report last year by the ITU the UN specialised agency for information and communication technology (ICT) which found that almost 75% of people in Africa are "non-users".

The agency said: "By the end of 2016 more than half of the world's population 3.9 billion people will not yet be using the Internet. While almost one billion households in the world now have Internet access (of which 230 million are in China 60 million in India and 20 million in the world's 48 Least Developed Countries) figures for household access reveal the extent of the digital divide with 84% of households connected in Europe compared with 15.4% in the African region."

To illustrate the surge of Internet penetration in South Africa however a previous PWC Southern Africa report quantified the number of Internet users in South Africa at 8.9 million in 2011 which was nearly twice the 4.6 million total in 2008. This growth had principally been driven by a surge in the number of mobile broadband users which jumped to 5.8million in 2011 from only 600000 in 2008 PwC said.

More than half of the worlds web traffic now comes from mobile phones according to a January 2017 report the Digital in 2017 Global Overview report from We Are Social and Hootsuite.

It also stated: "Mobile social media use in Africa increased by nearly 50% in 2016 although at just 12% penetration across the region theres still plenty more room to grow."

The Internet Access in South Africa 2017 report released today reveals that the single most common use of the Internet among South African adults is:

- communication reported by almost a third (31%) of respondents followed by

- social networking (24.9%) and

- information (23.7%) both reported by almost a quarter of respondents.

- Only then comes entertainment at 22.1%.

The report includes data from the Target Group Index (TGI) survey conducted by Ask Afrika a market research organisation.

The question on primary uses of the Internet was answered by a sample representing 4.1 million South African adults across all income and education levels.

While communication is the single most important use email is reported by only 16 percent of respondents "indicating that it is becoming a less important element of the communications mix as social media becomes a default channel" the report said.

Shopping and finance is cited by only 15 percent of respondents confirming previous World Wide Worx research that showed e-commerce was still not a major element of South African retail in general.

The findings emphasise the potential of the Internet to enhance lives when we have greater penetration across all segments and demographics said Arthur Goldstuck managing director of World Wide Worx. Over time we will see higher proportions of people engaging in a wider range of activity but the barriers to more active use will first have to come down.

Sha added: A countrys capacity to connect its economy to the Internet and to make these services available and accessible to its citizens and businesses is key to its success in the digital age."

Read the rest here:
Ecommerce, email low but communication social networking and information drive increasing Internet penetration in ... - Times LIVE

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on June 29, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions' methodical dismantling of the Obama administration's criminal justice policies is rolling forward Wednesday as the Justice Department announces plans to step up efforts to seize property and money suspected of being used in crime or obtained through illegal activity.

Sessions will encourage a return to broader use of a controversial type of asset forfeiture where local officials pull the feds into an investigation in order to ease the process of seizing assets from criminal suspects. Critics complain that the practice reverses the typical presumptions in the legal process by allowing law enforcement to take property without proving a crime occurred.

Story Continued Below

In many cases, suspects never challenge the seizure, but are also never convicted or even charged.

Sessions told a district attorneys conference in Minneapolis Monday: With care and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures. No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime. Adoptive forfeitures are appropriate as is sharing with our partners."

Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning in your inbox.

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder essentially abandoned the forfeiture practice in 2015, amid complaints that it was prone to abuse and encouraged police and sheriff's departments to carry out seizures in order to win more funds to buy equipment and vehicles. Holder allowed a heavily restricted version of the program to resume last year.

The new effort appears intent on returning the forfeiture program to its former glory, although officials emphasized that Sessions is implementing new safeguards that will make it more difficult to conduct seizures of less than $10,000 and will require more information from local officials about the basis for a seizure when no criminal charges were filed.

While other high-profile aspects of the Obama's administration's criminal justice reform drivesuch as shorter sentences for drug convictsreceived a mixed reception on Capitol Hill, the effort to limit asset forfeiture enjoyed enthusiastic support from an ideologically diverse group of lawmakers. The practice has long been a bugaboo for libertarian and conservative activists who view it as a short-cut around the Constitution's requirement that guilt be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Indeed, some Republican lawmakers were among the first to express alarm in advance of Sessions announcement. Rep. Darrell Issa of California noted that many states have taken steps to rein in such seizures, often requiring that they be linked to a criminal conviction, but the federal move amounts to an end-run around those efforts.

This is a troubling decision for the due process protections afforded to us under the Fourth Amendment as well as the growing consensus weve seen nationwide on this issue, Issa said. Ramping up adoptive forfeitures would circumvent much of the progress state legislatures have made to curb forfeiture abuse and expand a loophole thats become a central point of contention nationwide. Criminals shouldnt be able to keep the proceeds of their crime, but innocent Americans shouldnt lose their right to due process, or their private property rights, in order to make that happen."

Get breaking news when it happens in your inbox.

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

While the issue has led to an unusual alliance between liberal Democrats and some staunch conservatives, the forfeiture practice has the enthusiastic backing of many local law enforcement officials, who see it as a vital lifeline for cash-strapped agencies. Those arguments have also found a receptive audience among some in Congress, particularly with those such as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) who have been pressing for a more aggressive response to the opioid epidemic.

While forfeiture can take place in any kind of criminal investigation, the vast majority of the money and property seized through federal programs has stemmed from drug investigations and Sessions has said he is particularly eager to wield the tool against drug traffickers.

Missing out on the latest scoops? Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning in your inbox.

Read this article:
Sessions to step up drug-war seizures - Politico

The idea of a hostile country hijacking computers deep inside the United States sounds frightening. But is it really so different from what countriesincluding the U.S.have always done in the name of espionage?

That was a question posed to Gen. Keith Alexander, a former director of the NSA, at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference on Tuesday in Aspen, Colo.

Alexander responded by saying there's a clear distinction between countries using computers to spy and to attack.

"Its intent. Cyber war is to inflict damage while spying is to learn secrets," he said, adding that every nation engages in cyber-spying.

As a examples of computer activity that rises to the level of cyber war, Alexander pointed to the alleged attack on Sony by North Korea, and to attacks in Ukraine aimed at the company's economy and infrastructure.

Get Data Sheet , Fortunes technology newsletter.

The distinction between spying and cyber war is important since the latter has the potential to trigger military retaliation, or invoke responses under treaties like NATO, while espionage is considered less serious.

Nations are going to test us in cyber space," said Alexander without elaborating as to whether recent hacking activities directed at the U.S. approach the level of war.

Alexander and others on the panel also discussed what the United States should do to protect itself against cyber attacks. According to Oren Falkowitz, the CEO of an anti-phishing service called Area 1 security, a lot of this responsibility should fall to the private sector.

Its just not the role of the government to protect everyone in this country, he said, explaining that businesses should be responsible for securing their own networks unless critical infrastructure is involved.

Falkowitz also downplayed the cyber threat posed by new technologies like artificial intelligence, stating that 95% of all hacks begin with phishing, so there is no reason for hackers to pursue more exotic AI-based tactics.

Gen. Alexander, who now heads a company called IronNet Cybersecurity, was less sanguine about the AI threat.

As countries look to cyber as an element of national power, theyll turn to AI and other new tech," he warned.

Meanwhile, another U.S. company is having considerable success in using an unorthodox techniquepaying hackersto protect companies from cyber attacks. The company, HackerOne, runs programs called "bug bounties" that involve inviting a large network of friendly hackers to attempt to break into a company's network, and then rewarding them if they are successful.

The bug bounty programs have proved so successful that even the U.S. military is using them. Last year, the military paid HackerOne to run a program called "Hack the Pentagon" that flushed out numerous computer vulnerabilities.

Go here to see the original:
Spying or Cyber War? How to Tell the Difference - Fortune