Category: media and media people

media and media people Second Amendment rights

Self-Defense Is for Everybody

Post author By Redactor
Post date January 21, 2020
2 Comments on Self-Defense Is for Everybody

Last week, Virginia’s infamous black-face governor claimed to possess “credible intelligence . . . of threats of violence surrounding” Monday’s “Lobby Day” gun rights rally in Richmond, including “extremist rhetoric similar to . . . Charlottesville in 2017.”

Major media outlets went on a rampage, repeating his linkage between gun rights supporters and “white nationalists” faster than semi-automatic fire.

“Big media and mainstream media be damned,” announced a Virginia man recorded at yesterday’s event, and tweeted by social media entrepreneur Michael Coudrey.

The unidentified but obviously black demonstrator jested, at first, that he was “out here because I got roped into it by the group of guys you see standing to my right.” But then he explained his opposition to “Governor Northam and the Democrats’ gun control” as well as “every news piece you’ve seen on this this weekend. . . .”

He objected especially to the incessant race angle — “as if it’s nothing but white rednecks and hillbillies out here who care for the Second Amendment. I work at a gun store part-time and I can’t tell you the number of customers I see of all races, all colors, all creeds who care about the Second Amendment.”

His account was corroborated by Julio Rosas, a senior writer at Townhall.com, who tweeted “pictures of people carrying rifles at the #VirginiaRally and more evidence that debunks the narrative that the rally is filled with racists and white supremacists.”

Yesterday, more than 22,000 pro-gun people of all races descended on the capitol in a completely peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights in defense of Second Amendment rights . . . making Richmond the safest city in America.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTE: There was only one arrest at the rally, a woman charged with violating a 1950-era law against wearing face masks (like Hong Kong’s law). Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) voiced her displeasure that there weren’t more arrests.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags 2nd Amendment, guns, race, Virginia

media and media people national politics & policies

Stranger Things 2019

On Tuesday, I seconded George F. Will’s judgment that the biggest story of 2019 was the Hong Kong protest movement.

In America, though, 2019’s top news story must be how the anti-Trump movement morphed from Russiagate, which fizzled upon release of the Mueller Report, to the quasi-impeachment bit over the most yawn-inducing scandal of all time, Trump’s Ukraine Phone Call.

It is certainly a strange story, but there are stranger big stories from last year. I am tempted to assert that the year’s biggest news is actually the Biggest Non-Story: trillion-dollar deficits and ever-increasing debt.

No protest over that enormity. Getting anyone to talk about it is like getting the government to come clean on . . . UFOs.

Which brings us to the absolutely weirdest story of 2019. During this last swing ‘round the sun, multiple sources associated with (and inside) the federal government, admitted that, within the corridors of our un-beloved Deep State, artifacts from crashed ‘and landed’ UFOs were being studied.

After decades and decades of ridicule, eye-rolls, stonewalling, lying, and disinformation about ‘flying saucers,’ several important government bodies — including the Army and Navy — now admit that they almost regularly encounter astounding . . . crafts . . . that are not part of our nation’s official sea and air technology inventory.

These admissions amount to ‘disclosure.’ But it is not an information dump — disclosure is just a trickle, so far.*

Why? Perhaps the idea is that we cannot handle the truth.

Or perhaps they can’t.

Which isn’t really unlike ever-increasing deficits and debt, now that I think about it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Still, even with a mere handful of official and near-official admissions of retrieved UFO tech, the story looms large indeed.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags debt, deficit, UFO

ideological culture media and media people

Thanks for the Memories

Thomas Jefferson, binary code, digital,computer, quote

One thing for which I expressed gratitude, yesterday, was my site’s “Thought of the Day” feature, for it placed in original context a well-known maxim: “If your government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.”

Thomas Jefferson is said to have written that. Back in 2005. Or more accurately, the year 2005 marks the first instance of those words being attributed to the Man from Monticello, according to research by the folks at Monticello.org.

Thank goodness that Mr. Jefferson has the wherewithal to still, hundreds of years after his death, provide erudite quotations to freedom-loving people.

Ah, the mysterious forces found on the Internet.

Yet, what the Internet gives . . . the Internet takes away. Seems another noteworthy American wrote those famed words in 1952 (half a century before a two-century deceased Jefferson).

That’s the rest of the story provided by Mr. Rest-of-the-Story himself, Paul Harvey. In his 1952 book, Remember These Things, the late, great radio commentator wrote to those tempted by government handouts and subsidies:

What have you got to lose, you say? Why shouldn’t I take their offer of free medicine, money for work I don’t do, or crops I don’t grow? Why not?
Here’s why not, and don’t ever forget this. “If your government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.”

Some four decades later, in 1992, Harvey was at the pinnacle of the radio world, his program carried on 1,200 stations along with over 300 newspapers running his derivative weekly column. I was working for U.S. Term Limits to place ballot measures limiting the terms of politicians in Congress and state legislatures, when I received Mr. Harvey’s encouraging call asking about our campaign.

Mr. Jefferson?

He never calls; he never writes.

I guess he’s too busy online.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

media and media people meme Popular responsibility too much government

Overkill . . . for Your Health

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 18, 2019
No Comments on Overkill . . . for Your Health

vape, vaping, law, asset forfeiture, politicians,

News stories about death- and illness-by-vaping keep hitting us. But in most of these stories it is what is left out that is most alarming.

From Washington State’s King County we learn of another case of severe lung disease “associated with vaping.” But the reportage doesn’t mention how the maladies relate to vaping. “KING-TV reports there have been 15 cases of severe lung disease associated with vaping in Washington state since April 2019. . . .” Interesting as far as that goes, but. . . .

In addition to no discussion of causality, the most obvious thing not mentioned in this and similar reports? The numbers diagnosed with severe lung disease caused by smoking — which is the relevant vaping alternative.

The U.S. Government’s agency devoted to diagnosing potentially widespread pathogens and practices is, thankfully, a bit more useful. In a recently published study, scientists have narrowed down the real culprit: “Vitamin E acetate was detected in all 29 patient” samples taken from those under study.

Most had been vaping THC.

There are organizations worse than sloppy news outlets, however. In Massachusetts, the House of Representatives has passed a bill not merely to ban flavored e-cigarettes, but also to levy 75 percent tax on all e-liquids and vaping devices.

Typical government overkill.

But not overkill enough, for the bill doesn’t stop there. Whopping fines against those caught with unlicensed vaping products are also in the bill, as is — aaargh! — civil asset forfeiture.

The “representatives” of Massachusetts’ citizens want to take away their automobiles, boats and airplanes if they cannot prove, on the spot, their vaping products’ legality.

Politicians are far more dangerous than vaping.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Photo by Vaping360

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, law, politicians, vape, vaping

First Amendment rights media and media people political challengers

The Silence Option

gatekeeper, Twitter, Facebook, censorship, political advertising,

“While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said last month in announcing a complete ban on political advertising for candidates or issues, “that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.”

But is it the risk to “the lives of millions” that is at issue here?

Really?

Pressure for social media companies to police “renegade” voices came mainly from the left . . . in Congress and major media. These are the groups with the most to lose by the free flow of political debate, as spurred by paid political advertising, which is what challengers often use to break through the incumbents’ natural advantage.

Congress is filled with incumbents, by definition.

Major media sees itself as gatekeeper for political discourse, and feels threatened by an unregulated online culture.

Accordingly, Twitter’s ban received rave reviews from the political left. “Good call,” progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded. A spokesperson for former Vice-President Joe Biden’s campaign called it “encouraging.”*

“Good,” tweeted Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (also sort of a presidential candidate). “Your turn, Facebook.”

But Facebook is thankfully not bending to pressure.

“[I]f Facebook were to cut off political ads, it could end up undercutting the scrappy, first-time candidates . . .,” reports The Washington Post. “Voters are more likely to see Facebook ads than television ads from challengers, according to the findings, published in a working paper whose first author is Erika Franklin Fowler of Wesleyan University.”

“Online advertising lowers the cost and the barriers to entry,” Fowler told The Washington Post.

Which is bad for the political establishment because it is good for challengers, the outsiders.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Perhaps the ban encourages top Democrats for the same reason the president’s campaign manager sounded the alarm: “This is yet another attempt to silence conservatives since Twitter knows President Trump has the most sophisticated online program ever known.”

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags censorship, Facebook, gatekeeper, political advertising, Twitter

media and media people

Whistles Blown

whistle, blower, Epstein, crime, informer,

Corey Feldman, former child actor and defender of Hollywood children from sexual abuse by entertainment industry movers and shakers, had given many clues about who his particular abuser was. On the Dr. Oz show, recently, Feldman still wouldn’t name the name, because, he said, he lacked legal representation on this matter.

Dr. Oz nevertheless revealed the name of the man whom Feldman alleges abused him.

Feldman looked awfully uncomfortable for the rest of the interview.

Meanwhile, the corporate press has been very “conscientious” to protect the name of the “whistleblower” on Donald Trump’s call to Ukraine that has spurred impeachment inquiries. The name has been known for a long time, but was recently and at long-last revealed by Donald Trump., Jr..

The man in question appears to be a Democratic partisan, had worked for Vice President Biden, had been sacked from the White House for being a suspected leaker, and had waited until after he had talked with Impeacher-in-Chief Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Cal.) before filing his whistleblowing paperwork.* Special legislation protects him from being fired from his current government job. But not from being named. Yet the mainstream news outlets “valiantly” protected the man’s identity from the public.

Then there’s the Amy Robach story. Ms. Robach had been caught on tape complaining about how ABC had squelched her Jeffrey Epstein story, years ago, robbing her of a scoop. An ABC employee had leaked the tape, and it became news. ABC figured out who had leaked it, and realized they couldn’t fire her because she had moved on to CBS. So ABC asked CBS to fire her.**

Courteously, CBS complied.

The press seems awfully inconsistent in protecting whistleblowers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. And Jeffrey Esptein didn’t kill himself.

* Amazingly, Mark S. Zaid, the whistleblower’s lawyer, had been talking “coup” in 2017 (see discussion by Ben Shapiro).

** I see no reports naming the worker.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags blower, crime, Epstein, informer, whistle

media and media people

Zucker’s Scold

It was in bad taste.

The “meme” — an altered video — depicted extreme, murderous violence. But it was not “weaponized” as incitement to real violence; it was, instead, “memeticized” contempt against the meme’s “victims,” the full panoply of media outlets along with a few iconic politicians.

The video was very popular over the weekend on social media. It took the church massacre scene from the first Kingsman movie, but with President Trump’s head placed over Colin Firth’s visage, crudely in “meme” fashion, and a few other heads put over other actors’, and the logos of major news outlets superimposed over most of the movie’s victims’ heads.

Cartoonish, yes, but done with élan.

Brooke Baldwin, however, is a paid agent of billionaire president of CNN, Jeff Zucker, and she has her marching orders, as revealed this week by a Project Veritas scoop. So she lit into the president in high moral dudgeon: “Mr. President, why is it taking you so long to condemn this video? You tweet all the time. I don’t want to hear from your press secretary . . . who says you strongly condemn the video . . . I want to hear from YOU.”

What Ms. Baldwin and her boss don’t get is that a growing swath of the American populace does not want to hear from a news reporter scolding demands that the president “condemn” things he had nothing to do with.

Trump didn’t make the meme, after all, nor had it made for him.

Brooke Baldwin’s effrontery shows why someone might make a meme like the one in question.

Not because you deserve to be killed, Ms. Baldwin, but because you deserve derision.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags CNN, Donald Trump, media, memes, news, satire, violence

insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Don’t Tempt Her

Scrolling down @realDonaldTrump’s prolific Twitter feed, I cannot help but wonder: when does the president find time to do his job?

I am not the only one to wonder.

Still, as President, Trump sure is a great . . . troll. “I think that Crooked Hillary Clinton should enter the race to try and steal it away from Uber Left Elizabeth Warren,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “Only one condition. The Crooked one must explain all of her high crimes and misdemeanors including how & why she deleted 33,000 Emails AFTER getting ‘C’ Subpoena!”

Mrs. Clinton responded curtly: “Don’t tempt me. Do your job.”

I wonder if she fumed, under her breath, “do my job!”

CNN, in its report on this Twitter exchange — yes, this is our reality, now, this is the news! — recalled Clinton’s assurance, in March, that though she will continue “to keep speaking out” and “is not going anywhere” (heh heh), she definitely will not run again. CNN did not take Trump’s bait about Clintonian corruption, instead mentioning that “Trump’s invocation of Clinton — whom he has attacked repeatedly in his role as President — comes as the Democratic presidential primary ramps up alongside a House impeachment inquiry into the President centered around his interactions with foreign leaders.”

CNN also neglected to mention that the Hillary Clinton campaign had interacted with foreign leaders — including Ukrainian, it appears — for election advantage.

Which I guess is why we need Twitter — to allow the president to push news the press won’t cover.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Twitter

media and media people responsibility

Science Isn’t Morality

“Scientist” — what an abused term! When a journalist needs an authority to write about some nutty, wildly improbable affront to common sense, a “scientist” will do.

Case in point, turn to Newsweek:

“Tanning salons are more likely to be located in U.S. neighborhoods with higher numbers of same-sex male couples,” writes Kashmira Gander, “according to scientists who fear the industry could be targeting the demographic.”

Well, since gay men — for a variety of reasons surely no one will dispute, and which we need not trouble ourselves with — are more likely to use such services than straight men, one might expect marketers to “target” a likely clientele.

But why the “fear”?

Well, don’t panic, but “[t]anning beds are dangerous. They double your risk of skin cancer. Over time, they also cause wrinkles, skin aging, uneven skin texture and dark spots, so even from a cosmetic standpoint, no one should be using them.”

Well, that latter is not a scientific finding. It is up to consumers to decide what acceptable levels of risk they will take to make themselves appealing for the opposite sex, or — in this case — the same sex.

If scientists made fewer moral and political pronouncements, sticking to statements that they can defend with facts and findings, not only would Newsweek and other magazines be easier to bear (I cannot guarantee more subscribers and newsstand sales, alas), but science itself might gain a bit more credibility.

As it is, it is teetering.

Or so some “studies have shown.”

As for me, I’m not gay, but I am married . . . and a former redhead. Tanning salons don’t profitably pitch their services to me.

Not because of science, but . . .

Common Sense. Which this is. I’m Paul Jacob.

Original image by Alexis O’Toole

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags economics, risk, science

media and media people political challengers

Twitter Abuse

Donald Trump, twitter, censorship, Kamala Harris threat,

“Look,” tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris, “let’s be honest. . . .”

When a politician talks about being honest — presumably “for a change” — it’s gonna be a doozy.

President Trump’s “Twitter account should be suspended.”

“What?” the reader will likely object, “Trump’s Twitter account is the second-best thing about the his presidency!”

The reader wouldn’t be wrong.

We may disagree about the actual best thing, but the presidential Twitter account is indeed one of the things that makes the current chaos bearable. Sure, it is the cause of much of the chaos, but, well, we take our chuckles where we can get them. At least Trump’s tweets are not articulated in standard insiderese.

So, what did Trump tweet that so upset the former California prosecutor?

This: he had come to the “conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!”

Harris publicly called upon Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, to “do something” about the tweet.

He did nothing.

Understandably.

Suspending the account of the United States President because a failing opposition candidate was offended by typical Trumpian hyperbole would br idiotic. Mr. Dorsey has a lot to answer for, sure. But complete and utter idiocy? Not that.

For he knows something: Donald Trump has it within his powers to command every federal agency to cease using Twitter. Trump himself could switch to Gab or Minds or even MeWe — perhaps he should.

The federal government is not required to use a particular social media platform over another, is it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags censorship, Donald Trump, Twitter