Category: media and media people

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insider corruption Internet controversy media and media people social media

Child Corpses Pile Up

fake news, Hunter Biden, laptop, propaganda, legacy media

Two podcast conversations recently went viral, capturing the attention of millions. 

The first was on Triggonometry, where New Atheist luminary Sam Harris let his Trump Derangement Syndrome swing free, sans rational hinges. The second was on The Joe Rogan Experience, where Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg fielded a question regarding the same story — Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Mr. Harris called the Internet’s suppression of the Hunter laptop news “an eleventh-hour” way to rid America of a completely selfish, utterly unpredictable president — Donald Trump. “At that point,” Harris elaborated, talking about the run-up to the 2020 elections, “Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement: I would not have cared.”

The linkage between Hunter’s racket and Joe Biden himself did not seem to concern him, either.

The suppression of the laptop story by Twitter was also echoed on Facebook. The week after Harris’s unhinged rant, Joe Rogan queried Mark Zuckerberg, who calmly explained that the FBI warned Facebook against “Russian disinformation” and how his social media company then algorithmically suppressed the story without ever actually censoring the story as such.

While Zuckerberg absolved the FBI of specifying “Hunter Biden” as the keywords, and the FBI denies any ability to direct a company to suppress any “disinformation,” that’s hardly pertinent: apparently it’s easy for Leviathan Government to get Behemoth internet companies to play along.

This is an important issue upon which to stake future reputations. Comedian Bill Maher sided with principle and (yes) liberalism against leftoid-insiderish conspiracy on his show, while talking to Rob “Meathead” Reiner. The former All in the Family star professed ignorance of any of the pertinent facts.

Which is precisely what social media’s censorship and algorithmic suppression aimed to accomplish. But for more voters than just Meathead.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Words Not to Use

China, Taiwan, press conference

“Today, I confess, I am proud — proud of my profession.”

Sky News host Andrew Bolt was referencing the tough questions posed to Xiao Qian, China’s ambassador to Australia, following the ambassador’s speech last week to journalists at the nation’s Press Club. 

After Xiao talked about “a possible opportunity to reset the relationship between our two countries,” what with a new Australian administration — and complained that media coverage of China was “mostly not positive”— the questions began. 

The ambassador was asked first about the arrest, imprisonment and secret court proceedings against journalist Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen. Next, he was questioned on whether China might consider ending trade embargoes imposed after Australian officials requested an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Ambassador Xiao evaded answers on both matters.

Then came the issue of China’s threat to invade Taiwan. “I’d rather not use the word ‘invasion,’” offered Xiao, “when we talk about China and Taiwan.” 

Asked if 24 million Taiwanese shouldn’t get to choose their own path, the ambassador replied, “The future of Taiwan will be decided by 1.4 billion Chinese people.”

“In fact, that’s not even true,” explained Bolt. “It is going to be determined by the Chinese dictatorship,” he added, noting the complete lack of any democracy under Chinese Communist Party rule.

Citing a recent statement by the Chinese ambassador to France that China would “re-educate” the Taiwanese after a military takeover, Ben Packham with The Australian requested a comment. 

“There may be a process for the people of Taiwan to have a correct understanding of China,” Xiao acknowledged.

“Along the lines of the camps you have in Xinjiang?” Packham inquired. “That’s a re-education process isn’t it?”

“I’d rather not use the word ‘re-education,’” offered Xiao.

Words scare the genocidal totalitarians running China.

Speak up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom media and media people national politics & policies

The Natural Immunity We Need

CDC guidelines

“This is two years too late,” said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, “but it’s a good step.”

Interviewed by The Epoch Times, Dr. Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, is talking about new official COVID-19 guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC no longer recommends

  • the six-foot “social distancing” rule, which led to maximum comfort for paranoiacs, introverts, and Scandinavians in supermarkets and other public spaces;
  • that the unvaccinated quarantine after exposure;
  • testing for the asymptomatic; and
  • contact tracing outside of hospitals and places like nursing homes.

Bhattacharya’s interpretation of all this is that the “CDC is admitting it was wrong here, although they won’t put it in those words.”

Much of the new regimen is the result of understanding that natural immunity is a huge factor in the epidemiology of the disease. Bhattacharya’s complaint is that this has always been the case, and that the CDC and government lockdowners should have recognized this early on.

While the expert class has inflicted much damage, the CDC continues to whistle past the graveyard. “We’re in a stronger place today as a nation,” the author of the new guidelines insists, “with more tools — like vaccination, boosters, and treatments — to protect ourselves, and our communities, from severe illness from COVID-19.” 

But to get those mediocre-at-best vaccines past regulatory hurdles, government-directed medicine suppressed information about (and public discussion of) the most basic tools we have to treat new diseases. Governments at many levels, along with social media companies and CNN and many doctoring outfits, actively suppressed a number of treatments that could have saved lives, with HCQ and Ivermectin being only the most infamous.

The natural immunity we need to encourage most is skepticism toward government bureaucrats and Big Pharma flacks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people term limits

Meet the Personal Interest

term limits, politicians, public good

“Poll after poll finds American voters believing the country is on the wrong track,” Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, told viewers last Sunday. “And if there’s one other thing that Democrats and Republicans have in common these days, it’s that they don’t trust Washington to fix it.”

Is this a smart electorate or what?

Todd compared today’s public mood to October 2001, just after the 9/11 terrorist attack. Back then, solid majorities of both Democrats and Republicans “had trust in that Republican control of government. Twenty years later, these numbers have collapsed among both parties. . . . Republicans down to just 9 percent trust in government to do what’s right most or all of the time.

“It’s a Democratic government,” he added. “That’s why the Democratic number’s a little higher here [29%], but this is really troubling.” 

And then Mr. Todd even posed the right question: “How did we get here?”

Calling the public “very cynical” — shouldn’t you be, if paying attention? — Todd explained that most Americans don’t believe “that most candidates that run for office . . . do it to serve the community. Only 21% think people run for office in order to worry about the greater good — 19% of Democrats think this, 24% of Republicans.

“A full 65% think most candidates run for office to serve their personal interests, nothing else,” he added. “And this is across the board — 66% of Democrats believe this, 63% of Republicans.”

Todd suggested “this may be bigger than any polarization problem that we have.”

It is bigger. But it’s an easy problem to solve. Just takes two words to bring back public trust in those who represent us, in them not just representing themselves, their personal career interests.

Term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture media and media people

Showcialism, Schmocialism

Venezuela, socialism, Hugo Chávez

Americans have never gotten into “socialism” like the rest of the world. This places pushers of socialistic ideas in a tricky situation. So they often defend socialism in less than honest ways. 

William Neuman, formerly of the New York Times, is a current example of this. St. Martin’s has just published his Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela, and boy, do we get a story.

Hugo Chávez called himself a socialist, repeatedly, but Neuman won’t accept it. Why? Venezuela was basically ruined by Chávez and his henchmen and successors. So the former New York Times reporter provides excuses. 

Which is not to say I have read his book, or will. I am entirely trusting a review by Jim Epstein, at Reason, and agreeing per a plethora of other examples with Epstien’s critique of Neuman’s denialism.

While Neuman insists that Chávez was, in effect, a SINO (Socialist In Name Only), using the s-word just as cover — “showcialismo” — Epstein takes us back to reality. “One classic definition of socialism is government control of the means of production. Chávez nationalized banks, oil companies, telecommunications, millions of acres of farmland, supermarkets, stores, the cement industry” and on and on. Now wonder, then, that “nationalization led to deterioration, abandonment, and collapse.”

Neuman cannot blame socialism, oh no. So he lamely argues it was just “bad management.”

But that is what socialism is, and must be. Even when managed by the very best experts, those experts must fail, in the end, because they lack the expertise that counts — the know-how that is spread out among all participants in society. 

Markets leverage that knowledge best.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom media and media people privacy

CDC’s Covert Data Crime

CDC, Covid, surveillance

The Centers for Disease Control has been criticized so often over the past couple of years — justly, only about 90 percent of the time — that one almost hesitates to add to the pile.

But hey. If the CDC stops saying and doing awful things, we can stop slamming it for saying and doing them.

The latest is the agency’s apparent use of Big Data to surveil cellphone users in ways the users never suspected or authorized.

Vice reports that the CDC paid for location data “harvested from tens of millions of phones” in the U.S. to track patterns of compliance with curfews, visits to churches and schools, and “monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation.”

CDC documents obtained by Vice suggest that although the pandemic was the rationale for getting the data, the CDC has planned to use it for other purposes too.

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, is calling for an investigation. “Just because data exists, doesn’t mean that the government should be using it to track Americans.”

He adds that “the government is becoming way too big, and way too powerful.”

Sounds like a new development. But, depending on how you’re measuring it, the metastasizing of the federal government goes back to the Civil War era — or at least the New Deal. So may I suggest a revision, Senator, starting with verb tense?

“Has become.” 

Has become way too big and powerful. 

And is getting even more so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Internet controversy media and media people social media

TikTok Dox War

TikTok, doxxing, censorship, blacklist

Merriam-Webster says that to “dox” is “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.”

Here is a sentence to illustrate the usage: The person behind the popular Twitter account “Libs of TikTok” — featuring video clips of left-wingers talking about their crazy agendas, thereby confirming the crazy left-wing agendas that mainstream media often pretend don’t exist — has been doxxed by the Washington Post.

Well, the doxxer, Taylor Lorenz — the notorious and teary-eyed reporter on the social media beat — did not act alone. At least one Post editor must have okayed her action.

Not so long ago, Lorenz claimed to oppose online “harassment” (criticism), lamenting that she was a victim of it in consequence of her brave work as a left-wing smear artist. But then, in a smear-laden Post column, she revealed the identity of the hitherto anonymous publisher of Libs of Tik Tok, even including a link to private information about her day job.

The link has since been deleted.

For now, Libs of Tik Tok, bane of progressives for heretically showcasing their very own words, is still on Twitter. (Although the publisher suspects that it’s “a matter of time before I get suspended.”)

The other good news is that even if the LoTT creator loses her nine-to-five job as a result of being Post-doxxed, she’s now got another remunerative position. Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon says he’s made a deal with her “that will turn her heroic, high-risk work into a career.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people national politics & policies

Shut Up, Spouse

Virginia "Ginny" Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court

“Stand down and let your better half do the job,” was the specific advice syndicated-columnist Kathleen Parker recently offered a woman, explaining that this woman’s “biggest mistake is that she thinks she’s important.”

Adding for emphasis: “She is not.”

Parker is not writing about Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, or Dr. Jill Biden. Her subject? Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Recollecting Ginni attending her writing seminar decades ago, Parker describes Ginni then as a “sweet, eager-to-learn 40-something,” who was “quite likable.”  

“But,” claimed Parker, “something has happened to the Ginni Thomas whom I knew then.”

What exactly? 

“Today,” we are told, “she’s entrenched with various hard-right conservative groups” and is “anti-feminist, anti-affirmative action, and, perhaps worst of all to her critics, pro-Donald Trump.”

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! . . . seems Ginni Thomas dares to hold opinions with which Parker disagrees.

Moreover, explained the columnist, Ginni “has not been idle in politics, advocating for issues that, importantly, could come before the court on which her husband serves” — as virtually any issue under the sun could. Parker connected Ginni’s political participation to calls “on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases in which his wife has been active.”

Every spouse of a Supreme Court justice has (or arguably should have) political views of his or her own. And the right — and propriety — to act on them. 

Though Parker’s whole column is rich, the cream of the irony has to be first listing Ginni Thomas as an “anti-feminist” and then suggesting she shut up and leave politics to her husband.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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It’s Complicated

China, Taiwan, war

“You are living proof of this nation’s democracy,” former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently told his hosts in Taipei, Taiwan, accepting an award honoring his work to strengthen relations between our two countries. He was referring to a small group of protesters outside his hotel. 

“And,” Pompeo added, “you remind me of home.”

The Republican was making a simple but pertinent point. In a world of growing authoritarianism, genocide and war, Taiwan and America share very essential political values: Freedom, democracy, respect for human rights.

The visit irked China, of course, which claims Taiwan as a province and doesn’t like Americans stopping by, especially meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen . . . whom the Butchers of Beijing refuse to refer to as “president.” 

Totalitarians often seem especially displeased with the words people utter. Upon his arrival, Pompeo spoke of the beautiful island nation as — get this! — a “great nation,” further traumatizing the Chinese. 

In bigger news, however, Pompeo urged the United States to recognize Taiwan as a free and independent nation. It is, indeed. And I applaud the Trump Administration for opening up all manner of nation-to-nation dialogue and cooperation, and the Biden Administration for continuing that policy.

But it’s complicated.

The Chinese have long threatened to launch a bloody invasion in order to “reunite” Taiwan’s territory with the repressive People’s Republic of China (PRC) against the will of the Taiwanese. The PRC claims that any official announcement of “independence” by Taiwan or similar recognition by the U.S. is provocation for war.

Rather than fretting about the “independence” label, let’s concern ourselves with the strategic and tactical military means for Taiwan to resist the embrace the Chinazis have already clamped upon Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Gain of Dysfunction

Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland

Early in Putin’s war, rumors and assertions and “memes” about Russian forces attacking U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine quickly spread online.

The corporate press’s “official” “fact” “checkers” mocked the idea, of course. 

But then something . . . inconvenient . . . happened. Senator Marco Rubio asked Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland point blank: “Does Ukraine have chemical and biological weapons?”

Her response was not, as Glenn Greenwald notes, what he was expecting. “Ukraine has biological research facilities,” she answered,* “which, we are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.”

It turns out that the United States has long been working with Ukraine “to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.” And the relationship between defensive biological research and offensive is quite close, Greenwald suggests: “research that is classified as ‘defensive’ can easily be converted, deliberately or otherwise, into extremely destructive biological weapons.”

If this is at all puzzling, note those fact-checkers, again. These “defensive” warriors in the memetic arena are supposed to serve as antibodies to “misinformation” in the realm of spreadable ideas. By reflexively debunking any new attack on accepted government-approved opinion, they serve as spreaders of their own misinformation.

As in the war of ideas, so in the war of biological contagions.

The next question is: Does it make sense to place our labs on the border of our enemy?

But then, I thought it was a bad idea to subsidize biological research laboratories in Wuhan, China.

Our leaders think they know better.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Greenwald leaves in Nuland’s uh-stutters and the like. I’ve cut them.

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