Tag: news

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Melting in the Force of Opposition

snow flake, news, Covid, censorship

Is it time to bring back the pejorative “snowflake”?

We got used to the term in the early days of woke political correctness, but maybe the most egregious snowflakes are the elites in government and Big Pharma.

They melt when anything is said challenging their narratives about disease and cures and public health measures.

An article on online censorship in The Epoch Times, by Naveen Athrappully, discussed recent revelations that Representative Jim Jordan (R‑Ohio) calls “the Facebook Files” — all about COVID-​19, and the official Government Narrative surrounding it.

In July 2021, “President Biden accused Facebook of ‘killing people’ by not censoring COVID-​19 content that the administration perceived to be ‘misinformation,” Mr. Athrapully explains. “The White House wanted Facebook to remove humorous or satirical content that it thought suggested the COVID-​19 vaccine wasn’t safe. The Biden administration even wanted to remove honest information about the vaccines.” [Emphasis added.] 

I mean, wouldn’t you add the emphasis? Forbidding even honest and true information that might give an inconvenient take surely goes too far. Facebook’s communications documents say that the Surgeon General wanted the social media giant “to remove true information about the side effects if the user does not provide complete information about whether the side effect is rare and treatable.” Astounding!

This level of touchiness, this obsession for control, shows a remarkably fragile bearing on the part of bureaucrats. The winds of doctrine and the gales of opinion? Mustn’t let that whirl around!

It’s the fainting couch set who most desire to control speech.

These government officials should be fired on principle. 

Every. Last. Snowflake.

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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First Amendment rights Internet controversy social media

Collusion!

censorship, mind control, news media

Yes. Active collaboration every step of the way.

Material produced during the discovery phase of a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of censorship is confirming what was already obvious: Big Tech’s ongoing censorship of social-​media opinion about the pandemic has been undertaken largely at the behest of government.

A few of the emails confirming this:

  • April 16, 2021. Twitter emails White House officials about briefing them on “vaccine misinformation.”
  • July 16, 2021. Facebook emails the surgeon general that “our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.”
  • July 23, 2021. The Facebook official tells HHS how Facebook will be “increasing the strength of our demotions for COVID and vaccine-​related content that third party fact-​checkers rate as ‘partly false’ or ‘missing context.’ ”

There’s mucho mas where that came from.

The public does not yet possess the requested documents from the Department of Justice of communications between DOJ officials and social-​media officials. Getting those has been like pulling teeth. Why? Chances are 99.999 percent that they’ll only further confirm our thesis that over the last few years (at least) the federal government has been routinely violating the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. 

To do so, it delegates the job of gagging people to private firms in order to pretend that the coercive power of government is not itself being used to gag people. 

But marching orders are marching orders.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people

The Uninvestigated

We have long relied upon journalists in major media to cover actual news. And investigate leads to juicy stories of major import to clear up confusion.

But the mainstream media has become mainly propagandistic: “journalists” today rarely “report,” they propound and pontificate. And help spread disinformation for major political factions.

Is it really that bad?

Well, one way to test how bad is to track juicy news leads that get left unexplored.

In June I commented on Harvard’s Dr. Charles Lieber, arrested and charged with not reporting his activities with the Chinese at the Wuhan labs — which have been associated with SARS-​CoV‑2. In October, Lieber sued Harvard for not backing him up in his legal troubles with the U.S. Government.

There could be a huge story here. Or maybe a mere bureaucratic snafu.

But it is not “in” the news; I cannot find any decent reporting on it.

From the beginning, the idea that the virus could have been grown in a lab “to help discover new vaccines” (or even as a cultivated bioweapon) has been a real possibility.

A year after its public acknowledgment, there is still disagreement.

While we expect reporters to dig deep, instead we see a plethora of premature declarations — as at egregious “fact-​checking” sites — that the matter is settled. “Leading researchers have debunked this notion,” as Snopes confidently stated in February. But since then, the origins of the pandemic have remained murky. And allegations of bioweaponry keep re-appearing.

The World Health Organization is on the ground in Wuhan now, investigating.

Belatedly.

Long past time for American reporters to get on the beat.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people

Violence Against Objective Reporting

violence, journalism, reporting, news, facts

Facts matter. As do their honest expression. But given the “reporting” in recent months about “mostly peaceful protests,” you may wonder whether reporters agree.

Some do. Here’s the Charleston Post and Courier: “Brooms and dustpans replaced rocks and spray paint Sunday as an army of volunteers descended on Charleston to clean up the demoralizing mess left by an angry mob that smashed, burned and pillaged much of the city’s central business district.”

“Hundreds of New York City Businesses Were Damaged, Looted in Recent Unrest,” according to a Wall Street Journal headline. An article in the Minneapolis StarTribune tells us: “Buildings damaged in Minneapolis, St. Paul after riots.” Riots. There’s a word.

Reporters have reported (i.e., done their jobs) on rioters destroying small businesses around the country, and even killing people.

But too many supposed news-​hounds shy away from honest reporting. Recently, U.S. Attorney Bill Williams of Oregon chastised a TV reporter for refusing to name openly criminal behavior … in this case, that of Portland rioters trying to destroy a courthouse.

The newsperson sought to blandify the thuggery as “late-​night demonstrations” or “late-​night activity.” Williams stressed the difference between “lawful, constitutionally protected protest” and criminal conduct. “This is just mindless violence, and anyone who defends the violence is enabling this to continue.”

The reporter wasn’t swayed. “I’m not a police officer, I don’t get to distinguish that.…”

The assumption being that such determinations are up to … police and courts? 

But legal culpability is not at issue. 

What is? Facts: a window was broken; a fire started; property vandalized; person assaulted.

If you feel disallowed from imparting evident facts to the public, a profession requiring you to do so all the time isn’t for you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people

Zucker’s Scold

Donald Trump, Kingsman meme

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.

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Donald Trump, Kingsman meme

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