Report: Google Protected Executives Accused of Sexual Misconduct for Years

A new report from the New York Times alleges that the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe at Google protected executives accused of sexual misconduct for years, even keeping an executive’s mistress on the payroll.

A report from the New York Times titled “How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the ‘Father of Android’” outlines how the progressive tech giant Google protected three executives that were accused of sexual misconduct for more than a decade. The article notes that Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile operating system, left the company in October and was given a “hero’s farewell” by executives at the company. Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, commented on Rubin’s departure in a statement saying: “I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next. With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion-plus happy users.” The New York Times notes that in their farewell to Rubin, the company failed to mention that Rubin was leaving the company after a claim of sexual assault by a Google employee with whom Rubin had been having an extramarital relationship.

The article states:

What Google did not make public was that an employee had accused Mr. Rubin of sexual misconduct. The woman, with whom Mr. Rubin had been having an extramarital relationship, said he coerced her into performing oral sex in a hotel room in 2013, according to two company executives with knowledge of the episode. Google investigated and concluded her claim was credible, said the people, who spoke on the condition that they not be named, citing confidentiality agreements. Mr. Rubin was notified, they said, and Mr. Page asked for his resignation. Google could have fired Mr. Rubin and paid him little to nothing on the way out. Instead, the company handed him a $90 million exit package, paid in installments of about $2 million a month for four years, said two people with knowledge of the terms. The last payment is scheduled for next month.

Even more worrying is the fact that this is not the first time that Google has covered up for an executive accused of sexual misconduct. The article goes on to say: Mr. Rubin was one of three executives that Google protected over the past decade after they were accused of sexual misconduct. In two instances, it ousted senior executives, but softened the blow by paying them millions of dollars as they departed, even though it had no legal obligation to do so. In a third, the executive remained in a highly compensated post at the company. Each time Google stayed silent about the accusations against the men.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/25/report-google-protected-executives-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-for-years/

Mexican Journalist Murdered in Acapulco —17th in 2018

A Mexican journalist in Acapulco, Guerrero, died in a hail of gunfire after a team of shooters chased him down. He was the 17th killed this year.

This week, Gabriel Soriano Kuri, a radio journalist with Radio y Television de Guerrero, was riding in a company truck after covering a public event hosted by state officials when a team of gunmen chased him and a colleague. Paramedics rushed to the scene but the journalist there shortly after. Law enforcement revealed the victim was struck twice by 9mm bullets while his colleagues were spared. Ironically, at the public event, Guerrero Governor Hector Astudillo Flores praised his state’s “improvements” in public safety.

Despite government rhetoric, Guerrero continues to see record-setting levels of violence as rival cartels fight for control of the region’s drug production and distribution routes. Acapulco was previously considered a bustling tourist destination. However, the unending cartel violence significantly international tourism. Soriano’s murder comes less than a month after a team of gunmen shot and killed Sergio Martinez Gonzalez in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Martinez ran the online news outlet Enfoque and reported on threats received prior to his death.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2018/10/25/mexican-journalist-murdered-in-acapulco-17th-in-2018/

Cardinal Zen: Pope Francis Has ‘Natural Sympathy for Communists

The redoubtable Cardinal Joseph Zen said Thursday that the recently inked deal between the Vatican and China over the naming of bishops spells the “annihilation” of the Church in China. In an op-ed for the New York Times titled “The Pope Doesn’t Understand China,” Cardinal Zen — the retired bishop of Hong Kong — speculated that the new deal, which concedes an unspecified role in the appointment of bishops to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is fruit of the naivete of Pope Francis.

“Francis may have natural sympathy for Communists because for him, they are the persecuted,” Zen wrote. “He doesn’t know them as the persecutors they become once in power, like the Communists in China.” And while supporters of the accord say that it brings unity after longstanding division between the underground Church loyal to the pope and the “official” church approved by the Chinese authorities, in reality it is “a major step toward the annihilation of the real Church in China,” Zen said. “Pope Francis, an Argentine, doesn’t seem to understand the Communists,” Zen added, perhaps because of his experience in South America he sees them as defenders of the poor against oppressors. The cardinal recalled that after China severed relations with the Vatican in the 1950s, Catholics and other believers were arrested and sent to labor camps. “I went back to China in 1974 during the Cultural Revolution; the situation was terrible beyond imagination. A whole nation under slavery. We forget these things too easily,” Zen said. “We also forget that you can never have a truly good agreement with a totalitarian regime,” he said.

The beginning of the end, he proposed, was when Slovak Cardinal Jozef Tomko “who understood communism” was replaced in 2002 by a “young Italian with no foreign experience” in overseeing the Church’s international missionary work. The newcomer “began legitimizing official Chinese bishops too quickly, too easily, creating the impression that now the Vatican would automatically second Beijing’s selection,” Zen said. “Today, we have Pope Francis,” Zen said. “Naturally optimistic about communism, he is being encouraged to be optimistic about the Communists in China by cynics around him who know better.”

In the face of recent experience, the cardinal said he has revised his earlier opinions regarding the pope’s choices of aides. “I was among those who applauded Francis’s decision to appoint Pietro Parolin as secretary of state in 2013,” he said. “But I now think that Cardinal Parolin cares less about the Church than about diplomatic success. His ultimate goal is the restoration of formal relations between the Vatican and Beijing.” Zen also likened China to the situation in Cuba, where a Francis visit in 2015 accomplished little besides media hype. “But what did Francis’s visit to Cuba in 2015 bring the Church? The Cuban people? Almost nothing. And did he convert the Castro brothers?” Zen asks rhetorically.

What the new accord will actually achieve, Zen warns, is the suppression of the good bishops of the underground Church who are faithful to Rome. “The Vatican’s deal, struck in the name of unifying the Church in China, means the annihilation of the real Church in China,” he said. Zen said that if he were a cartoonist he would “draw the Holy Father on his knees offering the keys of the kingdom of heaven to President Xi Jinping and saying, ‘Please recognize me as the pope.’” The cardinal ends his essay with an appeal to the underground bishops and priests of China, asking them not to start a revolution, which would only mean their ruin. “Go home, and pray with your family,” he said. “Till the soil. Wait for better times. Go back to the catacombs. Communism isn’t eternal.”

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2018/10/25/cardinal-zen-pope-francis-has-natural-sympathy-for-communists/