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Collapse of the Coronavirus Consensus

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand, authoritarian, Covid, zero tolerance

Jacinda Ardern is stepping down as New Zealand’s prime minister. In her teary farewell declaration, she glossed over her main contribution to world history: the policy of “Zero COVID.”

She even gave China a run in that race to medical totalitarianism.

Tellingly, the coverage in the Washington Post went through tens of paragraphs — much of it holding her up as some kind of hero for pushing lockdown and vax mandate policies as if they exemplified her fabled “personal style of consensus-based governance” — before explaining the most likely reason for her resignation: “In recent months, Ardern’s broader popularity had begun to slip” and “her party is widely expected to lose this year’s election.”

My, “consensus” sure evaporated fast.

Top-down commands are of course not consensus, which voters tend to figure out sooner or later. 

The once toothsome, now merely skeletally toothy, politician leaves in ignominy as “the consensus” about COVID shifts worldwide, as people realize they’ve been had: that the lockdowns didn’t save lives (excess deaths now being a big deal around the world) and the vaccines were problematic at best. From the start.

Ardern is not the only politician who rode the wave of the forced pseudo-consensus on coronavirus only to collapse in defeat. New York Governor Cuomo was the first to suffer that disgrace.  There will be many others — not least, perhaps, contenders for the 2024 presidency, Trump and Biden. 

Perhaps more important than the fate of any single politician is what scientists and other “experts” are beginning to admit: that the figures of hospitalizations and deaths that spurred much of the panic constituted demonstrable misinformation. Bad data — which of course we realized here early on.

Unfortunately, the media’s “experts” — like CNN’s and WaPo’s go-to gal Dr. Leana Wen — tend not to leave in infamy, despite their complicity in spreading falsities that allowed politicians to wreak so much damage.

That would require, you see, CNN and WaPo to admit they had spread the dreaded “misinformation and disinformation” which they proclaim only others do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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How Congress Works

Congress, pawns, power

“Who knew that our time-tested and powerful democracy could not survive a few days of debate and disagreement on our most important questions?” asked journalist Glenn Greenwald weeks ago during the House voting for Speaker.

“To hear establishment mavens all tell the story,” he pointed out, “the failure of Congress to smoothly and swiftly and immediately elect a speaker that’s been preordained — with little debate (as it usually does) — has put the U.S. Government on the verge of collapse.

“Apparently, a healthy democracy requires that everyone march in lockstep, follow orders from on high, and never question anything,” he added sarcastically. 

Greenwald is onto something.

“One of the dirty secrets of how Congress works in the modern era,” he explained, “has been that actual members of Congress, your representatives, have very little power — almost none. They’re more like little, tiny chess pieces moved around for a tiny coterie of party leaders.

“It’s a dynamic that has turned Congress into a profoundly anti-democratic institution,” noted Greenwald. “And it’s one of the main reasons why we get so little reform and so much corruption out of [Congress].

“Many Americans remain convinced that the two parties can’t agree on anything . . . can’t make anything happen, when in fact they’re making a lot happen.” Such as making “tens of trillions of dollars fly out the door.”

Mr. Greenwald blames “a small handful of omnipotent party leaders, from each party, who are willing to play the game, join hands and ensure that totally insulated from election outcomes and public debate, the Washington consensus churns on.”

What to do? Greenwald did not mention term limits. But I just did.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights media and media people national politics & policies social media

Twitterpated by the Feds

twitter, censorship, mind control

Elon Musk’s sunlight on Twitter’s backroom censorship dealings has cast a black shadow upon the U.S. Government.

The revelations are called The Twitter Files, and I linked to the first two installments, tweetstormed last week by Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, on Monday. 

But Musk’s released information to his select set of journalists did not stop there.

The third set was also made public by Taibbi, and dealt with the company’s deliberations and politics of January 2021, and the banning of a sitting president — and Twitter’s most popular user — from the platform.

Michael Shellenberger had the honor of delivering to the public the fourth set, showing how Twitter executives changed policies and made up stuff on the fly to ban the aforementioned Donald J. Trump.

The fifth batch, ushered into our view by Bari Weiss, again, included an especially interesting tidbit: “Internal correspondence shows those assigned to evaluate Trump’s tweets didn’t see proof of incitement of the Capitol riot” but “[t]hat didn’t stop for massive internal calls to ban the president” — quoting The Daily Mail’s synopsis.

“Between January 2020 and November 2022,” Taibbi tweeted in the sixth outing, “there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth… a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.” Twitter’s “Trust and Safety” team appeared to go out of its way to find excuses to ban accounts, and is egregiously misnamed.

Michael Shellenberger’s contribution in the seventh Twitter File blast is perhaps most shocking of all:

  • The FBI was deliberately lying about the status and contents of the Hunter Biden laptop before as well as after the infamous (and suppressed) New York Post story.
  • The FBI “wargamed” about the laptop with social media executives before the story broke.
  • The FBI “compensated” Twitter for the collusion — to the tune of over $3 million.
  • And the FBI apparently has not stopped — its work with Twitter is ongoing.

To top it all off, Lee Fang supplied the eighth set, complete with poop about Pentagon pressure, propaganda, and “concierge service.”

In sum, the federal government made Twitter its b . . . uh . . . disinformation agent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Yes, Virginia, “twitterpated” is a word!

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Jack’s Right — Mostly to Blame

Jack Dorsey, Twitter, free speech

The latest Twitter revelation has the same “feel of the truth” about it as the Elon Musk-instigated reporting of Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. 

What is it?

“Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has taken full responsibility for the social media platform’s many failings — admitting he ‘completely gave up’ pushing back against powerful activists in the company,” explains Lee Brown in The New York Post.

It is refreshing for someone at the commanding heights of the culture to accept blame, not spread it liberally onto others.

And to clear up loose ends of the mystery.

“The site’s former CEO took full ‘blame’ in a blog giving his ‘take’ on the ‘Twitter Files,’ which have exposed a series of extraordinary behind-the-scenes maneuvers buckling to political pressure, starting with censoring The Post’s exclusive exposes on Hunter Biden’s laptop.” Brown’s report goes on to say that Dorsey “now believes that Twitter should have stuck to three core principles, including keeping the company out of controlling posts and algorithms spreading them — and being “resilient to corporate and government control.”

Well, yes.

Dorsey was overwhelmed by a new investor bloc. “‘I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company,’ he wrote of his resignation just over a year ago.”

The eagerness of the new investors and personnel to manipulate the system for their political causes — the covidian response and the Democratic Party — must have sure seemed insurmountable. And the legacy media’s full-court press, on top of fine-tuned interests of multiple agencies of the federal government, could only have made it worse.

But it’s not an excuse for cowardice, is it?

Still, it is more difficult to stand up against your side’s tyranny — especially when it’s making you rich in the process.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom media and media people U.S. Constitution

We’ll Keep It

Constitution, news media, Trump

An answer is warranted. 

When a former president of these United States asks a question of such magnitude, as Donald J. Trump did last week on Truth Social, how can we not respond?

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party,” Mr. Trump inquired, “do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?”

Trump is, presumably, referring to Elon Musk’s recent release of information about FBI communications with Twitter during the 2020 campaign, with the Feds suggesting that stories about the Hunter Biden laptop were likely Russian disinformation — even though the FBI knew at the time that that it was Hunter’s laptop. For the FBI to work to discourage media platforms from providing such information to the public is deceptive and wrong. It should be investigated and, depending on the evidence, prosecuted to the full extent of the law. 

Such collusion is even more destructive of our democratic system when done with partisan political motives. Which may now be SOP at the Bureau.  

So, let’s answer Mr. Trump’s questions. “No,” per declaring him the winner and sending President Biden packing. And a no-go on a new election. Of course, there is one in 2024, and Trump is a declared candidate.

Yes, the news media is largely dishonest, drunk with their power and deluded into thinking they should keep information from us if it might make us vote contrary to their desires. Moreover, the Deep State is actively colluding with them (and vice-versa) to warp public opinion. 

Trump argues that this new information “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He’s dangerously mistaken.

Who would “terminate” these laws and constitutional provisions? His dear friends in Congress, The White House, the FBI and DOJ? Unelected judges — who’ve already ruled against his campaign? A mob, pray tell?  

No, thanks. That Constitution? We’ll keep it. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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free trade & free markets media and media people too much government

Time & Tide & Race

Daylight Saving Time, racism, race

The big news? Daylight Saving Time may soon be history. “The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the Sleep Research Society and other medical groups have advocated for ending the practice, calling for the adoption of a permanent standard time that would not involve shifting forward each spring and falling back each autumn.”

That’s an important organizational voice for getting rid of Congress’s current jury-rigging scheme for commerce and recreation in America.

It has costs. Imposed on us. On our sleep patterns.

But the passage quoted from CNN was not the news angle that the “Cable News Network” story, by Jacqueline Howard, emphasized.

The deleterious effects of lurching back and forth twice a year is not what CNN headlined. The fact (and commonsense conjecture) that these bi-annual shifts are bad for us? Not as interesting as that it could all be racist.

The title of Howard’s piece is “Daylight Saving Time sheds light on lack of sleep’s disproportionate impact in communities of color.”

The key piece of information? “Growing evidence shows that lack of sleep and sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, remain more prevalent in Black, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino communities, and these inequities can have long-term detrimental implications for physical health, even raising the risk of certain chronic diseases.”

If true, this is a political reason to get the Social Engineering Class to finally balk at the pseudo-Saving chronometer-jiggering laws.

But what does that say about said class? (A class not limited to, but somehow paradigmatically represented by, Democrats?) That they don’t care about the harm they do unless it can be shown to accrue predominantly to racial minorities?

There’s something sick here, oddly racist.

But we can accept this nonsense for the win, if it helps stop our ritual springing forward and falling back.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people

Right-Wing Nudist from Berkeley

nudist

Last Friday, at 2:30-ish in the morning, a man allegedly broke into Paul and Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and attacked 82-year-old Paul Pelosi with a hammer.*

The attack fractured Mr. Pelosi’s skull, forcing emergency surgery, but fortunately he’s expected to make a full recovery. 

Police have arrested David DePape for the assault and numerous associated felonies. The 42-year-old is surprisingly well-known in California politics, long “affiliated with a prominent pro-nudist activism group in the Bay Area,” and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “a sort of ‘father figure’ at a group home in Berkeley.” 

Police have yet to offer any motive for the attack but say the assailant was asking, “Where is Nancy?” Fortunately, the Speaker of the House wasn’t there, but back in Washington. 

Newsweek reports that DePape has “espoused numerous mainstream and right-wing conspiracy theories, including the belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, climate change denial, COVID-19 vaccine and mask skepticism, and other ideas associated with QAnon.”

In recent weeks, DePape was apparently living in a school bus parked in front of his ex-wife’s home. She — a fellow nudity activist, now serving an unrelated prison term — explains plainly: “He is mentally ill.”

Nevertheless, our statesmen strive for a deeper meaning. One they can harness.

“While the motive is still unknown,” tweeted Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), “we know where this kind of violence is sanctioned and modeled.”

Calling it “the direct result of toxic right-wing rhetoric and incitement,” State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Fran) declared, “Words have consequences, and without question, the GOP’s hate and extremism has bred political violence.”

But then consider what former President Barack Obama told a crowd in Michigan over the weekend: “This habit of saying the worst about other people, demonizing people, that creates a dangerous climate.”

Does it? Left, right and all around? You don’t say.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* I’ve never been attacked by a hammer-wielding man, but it sounds especially unpleasant. On the other hand, I have “attacked” myself with a hammer on several occasions, but that was ostensibly unintentional. 

Note: There is still much we do not know about this crime. For instance, just yesterday it was disclosed that “there was a third person inside the house that opened the door for police.” 

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Tyranny Without Limits

Hu Jintao, President Xi Jinping, China

This weekend, at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a unanimous vote of elite communist party officials gave President Xi Jinping his third five-year term.

But the story that made the headlines focused on the physical removal from the main chamber of Hu Jintao, the previous Chinese leader (2003–2013), on the final day. No one is sure what it means, but we cannot unsee the pattern.

“In 10 years of ruling China, Xi Jinping has expunged political rivals, replacing them with allies,” notes The New York Times. “He has wiped out civil society, giving citizens no recourse for help but his government. He has muzzled dissent, saturating public conversation with propaganda about his greatness.”

The Times forgot to mention the genocide against Uyghurs or the full extent of CCP censorship or repression or the stepped-up harassment and threats to invade democratic Taiwan, but the article does convey that Xi is a thug of totalitarian proportions. 

“What is happening is potentially very dangerous,” Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a political scientist at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, argued back when the limit was repealed, “because the reason why Mao Zedong made one mistake after another was because China at the time was a one-man show.” 

Those “mistakes” cost millions of Chinese their lives. One-man totalitarian rule is bad news for everybody everywhere. Xi’s personal power makes China more repressive at home as well as more dangerous and aggressive abroad. 

“For Xi Jinping, whatever he says is the law,” Lam added. “There are no longer any checks and balances.”

Lam meant internally, but, for better or worse, we are likely to see what checks and balances and defenses there are outside of communist-run China. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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X Lives Matter

mind control, PSYOP

I don’t usually comment on fashion. But at a recent show in Paris, this rather famous rapper who calls himself Ye but who used to call himself Kanye West sported newly designed black-and-white T-shirts with the slogan “White Lives Matter” on the back. Squarely in the territory of ideological fashion, I can comment without too much embarrassment.

There was some furor. 

It is unfashionable, politically, for anyone — even a black man, or especially a famous black man — to admit the obvious truth that “White Lives Matter.”

It appears that chic faux-lib’rals regard the slogan “Black Lives Matter” as some sort of trademark that precludes extension to other races. Only people of color may use an “X Lives Matter” kind of branding.

Idiotic. And racist. But ABC News laid out the case as if it were clearly established truth: “The [White Lives Matter] phrase has been described by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center as a white supremacist hate slogan that originated in 2015 as a racist response to the civil rights movement Black Lives Matter.”

And yet a statement like “White Lives Matter” or “Human Lives Matter” can only be hate speech if you think one usage defines words forever.

Which of course is precisely what some are trying to establish here.

Why? Well, the better to engage in angry, hateful ideological pseudo-discourse: shaming; marginalizing; de-humanizing.

Ye also posed with Candace Owens, a conservative commentator for The Daily Wire, wearing those shirts, and that, too, really annoyed people.

Not that it should. Ye was once married to a white woman, and Candace is married to a white man. They are making a commonsense point here: if you can’t say your spouse matters, what kind of spouse are you? And if you cannot extrapolate that mattering principle more generally, what kind of human are you?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pawns in Their Shame

immigrants, illegals, Chicago, busses

“Let me say loud and clear to Greg Abbott and his enablers in Texas with these continued political stunts,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told a September 1 news conference, “Gov. Abbott has confirmed . . . he is a man without any morals, humanity or shame.”

Abbott’s alleged shame is busing a small percentage of the migrants streaming into Texas on to Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C. The bussed are volunteers: the migrants can choose to go or not. 

Not too shockingly, however, the mayors in all three cities are crying foul quite “loud and clear.” Which only makes the Texas governor’s point. Abbott wants to dramatize the cost, seeking federal help so Texas doesn’t bear the brunt of the massive influx of folks illegally crossing the border — a record 1.7 million last year, estimated to hit 2.1 million more this year.

What particularly peeved Mayor Lightfoot was the lack of any “level of coordination and cooperation” from Texas authorities. At issue? “Those huddled masses yearning to breathe free in the United States,” Washington Post columnist Ruben Navarrette, Jr. explains, “usually arrive with empty pockets.” They have needs.

Last Wednesday, 147 more migrants arrived in Chicago, where Lightfoot has declared they will be welcomed. But . . . well . . . within hours she sent 64 of those individuals to a hotel in (Republican-voting) Burr Ridge, some 20 miles from downtown Chicago. 

Bussed, no less.

Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso blasted the fact “that nobody from the city, from the state called and told me.” 

“This isn’t about them, the migrants are fine,” he insisted, but went on to complain that “they’re being used as political pawns by the governor and mayor.”

Add U.S. congressmen and especially the president to that list of shameful bussers, for Abbott’s tactic mimics the federal government’s transporting of migrants from border areas to other parts of the country. 

Sure migrants are pawns in their game. We citizens should sympathize, for we are pawns in their shame.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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