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media and media people social media

Hidden Dissuader

“It’s one thing to let people post UFO content about crop circles in Arkansas,” Ciaran O’Connor was quoted in a recent Washington Post article, talking about YouTube competitor Rumble. “It’s another to allow your platform to be used by someone claiming vaccines are actively harmful and that people should not take them based on conspiracies and misinformation.”

As a cited expert for the Post’s hit piece, O’Connor is the big gun, whom reporter Drew Harwell uses to conclude his vivisection of the upstart video platform: “There’s a duty of care and responsibility as your platform grows and scales up.”

After a year and a half of government lies and flip flops about the novel coronavirus and its treatments, coupled with Big Tech censorship, we must not allow O’Connor’s bald “vaccine” assertions to go unnoticed, but we have other fish to fry.

Sizzling on the platter? Ciaran The Expert.

Who is he?

Well, writes Harwell, O’Connor’s “an analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a counter-​extremism think tank in London that has worked with Google on a European fund targeting online hate speech.”

Rumble, claims O’Connor, has “become one of the main platforms for conspiracy communities and far-​right communities in the U.S. and around the world.”

But let us consult one of those right-​wingers, Rumble investor and online commentator Dan Bongino, to learn something more about this “Institute for Strategic Dialogue.”

Bongino points out that the institute gets its funding from various governments, including our own, as well as from Rumble’s competitors Facebook and YouTube. 

And several more subdivisions of YouTube’s parent company also support this critic of Rumble.

The Post, of course, disclosed none of that.

You know, cuz Journalism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

The Abortionists’ Cartoon Advice

Let it not be said that Planned Parenthood lacks for principles.

When Donald Trump offered a deal, last year, to fund Planned Parenthood only if the organization would stop doing abortions, the company immediately clarified the situation. “Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept,” said the outfit’s executive vice president. “Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable.”

And, for Planned Parenthood, abortion is indeed critical. “The Trump administration needs to stop playing political games that would put access to the full range of safe reproductive care at risk,” said Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D‑NY), “or they will get the fight of their lives.”

Well, that fight was won by Planned Parenthood. The politician who once said he would “shut down the government” over the abortionist enterprise has caved after various roadblocks. Trump signed a stopgap omnibus spending bill, last week, which continues to funnel $500 million towards the outfit.

So, as if to celebrate, a Pennsylvania branch of the abortion mill — er, “reproductive care” service — engaged in a bit of ebullience, a “light-​hearted” tweet:

We need a disney princess who’s had an abortion

We need a disney princess who’s pro-choice

We need a disney princess who’s an undocumented immigrant

We need a disney princess who’s actually a union worker

We need a disney princess who’s trans

This caused a firestorm.* And not because its Disney obsession was silly. The problem? The tweet showed that Planned Parenthood is really, really committed to valorizing the killing of fetuses. And that its agenda is far, far left.

The outfit should be left without taxpayer funds.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The Tweet was quickly removed.


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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Extremist Over-​reaction Syndrome

As public political discourse descends to new lows, what is a common-​sense person to do?

Well, not go over the deep end.

What is that end?

Maybe it is Trump Anxiety Syndrome, the haunting fear that Donald Trump may become the next president.

Hey, I don’t support The Donald, but I always try to avoid syndromes.

Besides, I know many of his supporters. They are not as crazy as folks on the left think they must be. Indeed, East and Left Coast elites think that Trump is Hitler, and that his supporters are Nazis and white supremacists — as per a Saturday Night Live mock TV ad, just aired this weekend.

That’s way off, and those with common sense to apply should stop the demonization. It is not winning over Trump supporters.

Indeed, one plausible theory about the rise of Trump mania is that it is a reaction to previous unhinged leftist sneers and extremist excesses.

Extremes breed extremes. Calling someone who hates Nazis a Nazi might even make them hate Nazis less. Smart people don’t encourage that.

So, you oppose Trump? Seriously? Then, let’s consider emphasizing reason over bile. Avoid ad hominems and demonization. Left, right or center, the only workable Trump opposition will be done with facts and arguments … that address the real, legitimate concerns that led to Mr. Trump’s popularity.

And maybe try a bit of charity — at the very least to his admirers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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SNL, Trump, extremism

 

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folly general freedom ideological culture meme nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Ignore Those Pesky Extremists!

We have nothing to fear from BIG GOVERNMENT!


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Elizabeth Warren, Extremists, extremism, Tea Party, Big Government, Statism, collage, photomontage, illustration, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, meme, memes