ZERO HEDGE notes the media’s slam of Trump’s 4th of July celebration:
“Putin’s America,”tweeted Anand Giridharadas, a pundit who was genetically engineered in a Monsanto laboratory to appeal to NPR listeners on every possible level.
Giridharadas used these words yesterday to caption a short video clip of two tanks being carted through the streets of DC in preparation for their appearance in a parade for Independence Day, a holiday in which Americans gather to eat hot dogs and drink Mountain Dew in celebration of the anniversary of their lateral transfer from monarchy to corporatist oligarchy.
The military hardware parade is taking place at the behest of President Bolton’s social media assistant Donald Trump, and critics have been vocally decrying it as alien and un-American. Pundits like Giridharadas and Steve Silberman have been saying it’s something Russia would do. The Independent said it’s a spectacle you’d see in “authoritarian regimes such as North Korea, Iran and China.” Adam Best and Charles Pierce both likened it to something that would be done in a “banana republic”, an interesting choice of phrase for a gratuitous display of American military bravado given that term’s blood-soaked origins in US corporate colonialism.
All of these people are of course being ridiculous. There’s nothing alien or un-American about Trump’s parade at all. Jingoistic fetishization of the military is as American as a deep-fried trademark symbol.
All this parade is, actually, is just one of the many, many, many many times over the last two and a half years that Trump has shown America its true face, and Americans haven’t liked what they’ve seen.
“That’s not my reflection!” the Americans scream at the mirror he holds up for them. “That’s Putin!”
“That’s not my reflection!” they protest. “That’s North Korea!”
“That’s not my reflection!” they say. “That’s a banana republic!”
No, America. That’s you. It’s been you all along……..
FDR’s third inaugural parade:
EISENHOWER’s inaugural parade:
JFK’s inauguration:
George W. Bush’s military parade:
MEDIA HYPE
NEWSBUSTERS has a montage of media predictions that were in reality, just a projection of how the view Republicans:
The media hastily have distanced themselves from their projections of street brawls and naked partisanship at the Salute to America event following a largely patriotic, unobjectionable July 4 speech by President Trump. Since TV news audiences are unlikely to hear talking heads acknowledge their numerous false predictions, here is a reminder of the worst of the bunch — ranging from the cynical to the absurd.
[….]
Matthews also foresaw Trump supporters causing violence and chaos in the streets of D.C.:
A lot of people are gonna show up who are pro-Trump. They’re gonna have their Confederate flags flying and their license plates and all kinds of trouble making. There’ll be a lot of other people, they’re gonna meet like in a storm, and you’re gonna have a real conflict.
Perhaps the most absurd concerns about the event were voiced by Esquire writer Charlie Pierce, who appeared to worry that tanks would be falling into the Potomac. “The speech is gonna be dreadful, and there’s all kinds of catastrophes. They’re not sure if the bridges over the Potomac can handle the tanks,” Pierce pontificated on the July 2 All In. He also implied that some unspecified disaster might befall F-35 pilots during their scheduled flyover, citing “the inability to eject” from the plane “without beheading yourself.”…
They collect some other craziness from the media as well:
What do I think? I think that China was using the labs (level 2 and 4) to change – genetically – this coronavirus to have in it’s arsenal as a bio-weapon. But through human or facility errors (or both), it escaped. I highly doubt this release was intentional.
ARTICLES:
Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin (WALL STREET JOURNAL)
The ‘Wuhan Lab Leak’ Theory Looks More Credible Than Ever (NEW YORK POST)
After Mocking And Dismissing Wuhan Lab Theory, Media Now Taking It Seriously (FOX)
U.S. Intel Report Identified 3 Wuhan Lab Researchers Who Fell Ill In November 2019 (NBC)
More Evidence That The Wuhan Lab-Leak Theory Is The Correct One (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)
Facebook Decides to Finally Let You Say Something Previously Verboten About COVID (PJ-MEDIA)
Facebook Lifts Ban on Wuhan Lab Leak Posts amid Renewed Debate over Theory (NATIONAL REVIEW)
CNN Flip Flops and Blames Trump For Their Denial (RPT)
Mainstream Media Finally Reports on Wuhan Illnesses in November 2019 – More Than A Year After First Reported By TGP (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
China Joe Shut Down State Department Probe Into Covid’s Origins — FAUCI: IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A “DERELICTION OF DUTY” TO NOT FUND THE WUHAN LAB (ACE OF SPADES)
Virologist: NIAID Grantee Funded Wuhan Coronavirus Studies Used In Gain-Of-Function Research (JUST THE NEWS)
“Take COVID Lab Theory Seriously,” Say Top Academics (NATIONAL PULSE)
Wuhan Lab DELETED Fauci’s NIH And Gain Of Function Mentions From Old Web Pages In Early 2021 (NATIONAL PULSE)
Wuhan Lab Researcher’s Wife Died Of COVID-Like Illness In December 2019, Former Lead US Investigator Says (DAILY CALLER)
Premiered Apr 7, 2020
Ben Swann — Apr 17, 2020
1-Year Ago:
Media slammed as conspiracies, but later turned out true.
the MSM said ppl who believed the FBI spied on Trump were whacks… turned out true . Mark Levin called it in March of 2017.
The media said what was said to be going on in the nursing homes in New York was a big conspiracy from conservatives. Turned out to be worse than expected.
The MSM said the Hunter laptop story was a conspiracy, and very likely a Russian propaganda operation. Biden even said he had zero discussions with his sone and brother regarding Hunter’s business dealings. This turned out to be patently false
Biden met with Ukranian, Kazakhstan, and Russian business associated of Hunter. There are signed receipts by Hunter when he dropped it off — lol.
the MSM and Big Tech censored evidence and called the idea of Covid escaping a lab in Wuhan conspiratorial. As of this week, Big Tech has backed off censoring these now heavily evidentiary positions.
It was touted that Dominion Machines did not have wireless modems, and were safe for elections. Anyone who thought different was called crazy. Turns out Dominion now admits “human error” can influence the election (per Dominion)
People were called conspiracy nuts for thinking Antifa/BLM dressed up as Trumpers and entered the Capital. Turns out they have arrested one main agitator (seen stoking the crowd) and seized money paid him from CNN. He and some others were Antifa/BLM.
For 2-years the media said Mueller had evidence. The media said Trump said there were good Nazi’s.
Much of this is via ACE OF SPADES and a Facebook convo I was in. In a conversation elsewhere, someone said no one is talking about vaccination passports… I respond with three examples:
Some states have already introduced their own digital health passports with assistance from the private sector, while others are still in development. But the idea is entirely off the table in several states. As a result, vaccine passports have created something of a flashpoint.
The Biden administration and private companies are working to develop a standard way of handling credentials — often referred to as “vaccine passports” — that would allow Americans to prove they have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as businesses try to reopen.
(pic below compliments) A medical doctor and professor who writes columns and regularly appears as a guest on CNN slammed the CDC’s decision to let vaccinated people stop wearing masks, and suggested there should be a mechanism in place – like a vaccine passport – to keep those who choose not to take the vaccine from appearing in public.
Just three examples, and I have not known Big Government to throttle back on grabs for power.
“The ImmunaBand is the outward symbol of the COVID-19 Vaccination. In every interaction with fellow employees and the public, the ImmunaBand bracelet contributes as a silent witness to the power of the vaccine…“
CULT STATUS:
[ ] YES
[ ] NO
[X] DEFINITELY NOT A
I gotta tell you, I feel the shameful red of embarrassment that I did not see the opportunity to fleece religious maniac dullards and exploit the congenitally stupid by selling them shoddy devotional tchotchkies.
They’re such mindless cultists. They’re a veritable mint waiting to be unloaded.
That was the weird PASSPORT part…. but I want to continue because the guys/gals at ACE always make me laugh:
Sarah Silverman — who is obviously no genius anyway, but who is also now radioactively unfunny — made the bold pronouncement that Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner is transphobic.
The colorful and uniquely patterned shirts are making a comeback this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The news outlet reports that part of the appeal of the shirts is the wide variety of styles they come in, which allow the wearer more freedom to express themselves.
The trend was apparently inspired by a shirt recently worn by David Beckham in Miami. The Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello shirt reportedly inspired more people to attempt to pull off the colorful, yet casual look that Beckham went with.
I’ve wanted a Hawaiian shirt for a long time, but didn’t get one, first because I thought, and this is stupid, “What’s with all these flowers and birds? This is gay.”
Then I accepted that flowers and birds and pineapples were essential motifs of the shirt, so I sought a shirt with… less gay flowers and less gay birds. Like, manly flowers. Flowers with biceps. Like, birds with guns and dicks.
Again, this is embarrassing. These are the stupid thoughts my stupid brain has when I’m not minding it.
I do not seek your approval. I only seek your pity.
In 2017, Dr. Shi Zengli — the “Bat Lady” herself, the woman who worried publicly that covid might be one of her own Frankenviruses — stated in a paper that her work was being funded by Anthony Fauci’s NIH/NIAID.
Also note that that MIT biologist says that some of the techniques described in that paper are “gain-of-function” techniques.
But Fauci is a dues-paid member of the Ruling Class. He gets to commit perjury with impunity.
Maybe they’ll award him an Emmy.
WORSHIP YOUR INFALLIBLE GOD-GOVERNMENT:
[I AM INCLUDING THE VIDEOS BELOW]
While the Biden Administration pumps millions into the Palestinian Authority, they refuse to commit to selling Israel more of the Iron Dome missiles that saved so many Israeli lives in the latest Hamas terror-bombardment.
Take a bow, NeverTrump. You put this into office……
It took them long enough, but they finally admitted it after Christopher Wray (FBI head) laughably said it was a death by cop scenario — rather than an ideological Leftist shooting political adversaries Here is THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The FBI quietly admitted Friday that the 2017 Alexandria, Virginia, baseball field shooting that nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise has been classified as “domestic terrorism” carried out by a “domestic violent extremist” targeting Republicans after the bureau previously classified it as “suicide by cop.”
The revelation appears in the middle of an appendix on page 35 of a 40-page FBI-DHS report released on Friday titled “Security Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism.” In a section describing approximately 85 different “FBI-Designated Significant Domestic Terrorism Incidents in the United States from 2015 through 2019,” the Alexandria baseball field shooting appears, with the FBI categorizing the perpetrator as a “Domestic Violent Extremist” and describing the incident thusly: “An individual with a personalized violent ideology targeted and shot Republican members of Congress at a baseball field and wounded five people. The subject died as a result of engagement with law enforcement.”
In June 2017, James Hodgkinson, a man from Illinois who was living out of a van in Alexandria, opened fire at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park after asking GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan, who was leaving practice early, if the players were Republicans or Democrats. Hodgkinson struck Scalise in the hip, hit lobbyist Matt Mika in the chest, and injured two U.S. Capitol Police officers, Crystal Griner and David Bailey. Scalise nearly bled to death and required multiple surgeries before returning to Congress.
Hodgkinson, an avid liberal and supporter of Democratic presidential primary candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was killed by law enforcement. He had posted on Facebook that “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” and joined other groups such as “Terminate The Republican Party” and “Join The Resistance Worldwide!!”…..
THE BLAZE notes a portion of the declassified FBI report:
An individual with a personal violent ideology targeted and shot Republican members of Congress at a baseball field and wounded five people. The subject died as a result of engagement with law enforcement.
Continuing, they also write:
The Republicans also noted that Hodgkinson had a “potential ‘hit list'” in his pocket. The names on that list were GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Morgan Griffith (Va.), Scott DesJarlais (Tenn.), and Jeff Duncan (S.C.).
AS A REMINDER…
… of the recent revelation by Director Wray that got common sense people saying WTF!? BYRON YORK (May 3rd)
….“On Nov. 16, 2017, the FBI briefed those of us who were at the field that day,” Wenstrup said at a House Intelligence Committee hearing featuring FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Much to our shock that day, the FBI concluded that this was a case of the attacker seeking suicide by cop.”
“We were just astonished,” Wenstrup told me in a recent conversation. “We just went, ‘What?’ I said, ‘There’s no way. If you want to commit suicide by cop, you just pull a gun on a cop.’”
Hodgkinson had obviously done much, much more than that. and the suicide by cop theory made even less sense in light of the fact that the Capitol Police who were at the baseball field that day — the security detail for Scalise, a member of the House leadership — were sitting in an unmarked vehicle, wearing plain clothes. Hodkinson would not have known they were police.
Wenstrup also noted that the FBI had not interviewed the members — the victims — in this case. They never interviewed Duncan, who had actually spoken to the shooter. “I asked (the FBI), ‘Who did you talk to?’” Wenstrup recalled. “They took my number, called me the next day. I called them back, and never heard from them again.”
At the hearing, Wenstrup noted that, “Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published products labeling this attack as a domestic violent extremism event specifically targeting Republican members of Congress. The FBI did not. The FBI still has not.”
Now, in light of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which is widely referred to as domestic terrorism, Wenstrup wonders what the FBI was doing. The attack “could have been a massacre,” Wenstrup noted. “The attacker may have believed he could change the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives in one morning.”
[….]
The unanswered question in all this is why the FBI, at the time under the leadership of acting Director Andrew McCabe, did what it did. Even at that time, the bureau was warning Americans of the danger posed by domestic terrorists. and yet the FBI refused to publicly recognize a clear act of domestic terrorism. Was some sort of Trump-era bias involved? Was it bureaucratic infighting? Something else? It’s time the victims in the case — and also the country as a whole — got some answers.
I disagree with Bill Maher on the “Climate Change ‘denial'” thingy (now “Climate Emergency” — see Patrick Moore’s book “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom” for instance), but this is a worthy rant of note:
Study: Majority Of Americans Grossly Overestimated COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates (THE FEDERALIST)
I also think he is partially correct on the weight issue. There are other factors as well. For instance,
Almost 60 percent of patients, 47 percent of women and 67 percent of men, were vitamin D deficient on admission (a level of 25(OH)D <20 ng/mL). The deficiency was worst in men with the most severe pneumonia. The correlation of vitamin D deficiency with death, with an odds ratio of 3.87, was independent of age or comorbidities.
The report, published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, notes that studies involving hundreds to thousands of individuals in the U.S. and Israel showed an association between prior vitamin D deficiency and the possibility of a positive PCR test. Studies involving tens to hundreds of patients in Iran, Germany, Israel, Spain, China, and the UK reported correlations between low vitamin D levels and intensive care unit (ICU) admission, ventilator dependency, and death.
Beside its role in calcium metabolism, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D stimulates defenses against pathogen invasion of the respiratory tract and inhibits the destructive “cytokine storm.” Deficiency has been associated with more frequent viral respiratory infections and asthma attacks.
More than a billion people worldwide are deficient, Dr. DeSmet writes.
About 20 minutes of daily sun exposure to a large area of skin, between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., is needed to make enough vitamin D. Darker-skinned individuals need more. As the weather cools, vitamin D levels will be dropping—note that “flu season” happens when vitamin D levels are depleted after winter sun deprivation. Adults may need 4,000 to 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 supplements daily.
More than 90 percent of nursing home patients are reportedly vitamin D deficient. This might help explain why they account for around half of COVID deaths though they represent less than 1 percent of the population. Does supplementation help? In a French nursing home, COVID survival in patients who had recently received an oral bolus of 80,000 IU of vitamin D3 was 82 percent, compared with 44 percent in those who had not (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.11, P = 0.003—see figure below)….
One studyTrusted Source found that, overall, about 42% of people in the United States were deficient in vitamin D. The figure rose to 82% among Black people and 70% among Hispanic people. (MEDICAL NEWS TODAY)
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) analyzed data from 235 people who were admitted to the hospital with Covid-19. They found that patients older than 40 years old were 51.5 percent less likely to die from the infection if they had a sufficient level of Vitamin D, which they define as being at least 30 ng/mL. (FORBES)
Armstrong and Getty read from and discuss a bit an article in the WALL STREET JOURNAL entitled: The Myth Of American Inequality. See more via my post titled, “Wealth Inequality in America – Critiques On Inequality” (The below video was the update to that post)
Taxes and transfers in the U.S. put its income distribution in line with its large developed peers.
America is the world’s most prosperous large country, but critics often attempt to tarnish that title by claiming income is distributed less equally in the U.S. than in other developed countries. These critics point to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which ranks the U.S. as the least equal of the seven largest developed countries. American progressives often weaponize statistics like these to urge greater redistribution. But the OECD income-distribution comparison is biased because the U.S. underreports its income transfers in comparison to other nations. When the data are adjusted to account for all government programs that transfer income, the U.S. is shown to have an income distribution that aligns closely with its peers.
The OECD measures inequality by determining a country’s “Gini coefficient,” or the proportion of all income that would have to be redistributed to achieve perfect equality. A nation’s Gini coefficient would be 0 if every household had the same amount of disposable income, and it would approach 1 if a single household had all of the disposable income. The current OECD comparison, portrayed by the blue bars in the nearby chart, shows Gini coefficients for the world’s most-developed large countries, ranging from 0.29 in Germany to 0.39 in the U.S.
But there are variations in how each nation reports income. The U.S. deviates significantly from the norm by excluding several large government transfers to low-income households. Inexplicably, the Census Bureau excludes Medicare and Medicaid, which redistribute more than $760 billion a year to the bottom 40% of American households. The data also exclude 93 other federal redistribution programs that annually transfer some $520 billion to low-income households. These include the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. States and localities directly fund another $310 billion in redistribution programs also excluded from the Census Bureau’s submission.
This means current OECD comparisons omit about $1.6 trillion in annual redistributions to low-income Americans—close to 80% of their total redistribution receipts. This significantly skews the U.S. Gini coefficient. The correct Gini should be 0.32—not 0.39. That puts the U.S. income distribution in the middle of the seven largest developed nations.
Gini scores for other countries in the OECD ranking also might shift with better data: The OECD doesn’t publish transfers by income level for other countries. But the change in income distribution for other countries would likely be less drastic. The poorest fifth of U.S. households receive 84.2% of their disposable income from taxpayer-funded transfers, and the second quintile gets 57.8%. U.S. transfer payments constitute 28.5% of Americans’ disposable income—almost double the 15% reported by the Census Bureau. That’s a bigger share than in all large developed countries other than France, which redistributes 33.1% of its disposable income.
The U.S. also has the most progressive income taxes of its peer group. The top 10% of U.S. households earn about 33.5% of all income, but they pay 45.1% of income taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes. Their share of all income-related taxes is 1.35 times as large as their share of income. In Germany, the top 10% pay 1.07 times their share of earnings. The top 10% of French pay 1.1 times their share.
If the top earners pay smaller shares of income taxes in other countries, everybody else pays more. The bottom 90% of German earners pay a share of their nation’s taxes on income 77% larger than that paid by the bottom 90% of Americans. The bottom 90% in France pay nearly double the share their American counterparts pay. Even in Sweden—the supposed progressive utopia—the top 10% of earners pay only 5.9% of gross domestic product in income-related taxes, 22% less than their American peers. The bottom 90% of Swedes pay 16.3% of GDP in taxes on income, 77% more than in the U.S.
Even these numbers understate how progressive the total tax burden is in America. The U.S. has no value-added tax and collects only 35.8% of all tax revenues from non-income-tax sources, the smallest share of any OECD country. Most developed countries have large VATs and collect a far larger share of their state revenue through regressive levies.
When all transfer payments and taxes are counted, the U.S. redistributes a larger share of its disposable income than any country other than France. Relative to the share of income they earn, the share of income taxes paid by America’s high earners is greater than the share of income taxes paid by their peers in any other OECD country. The progressive dream of an America with massive income redistribution and a highly progressive tax system has already come true. To make America even more like Europe, these dreamers will have to redefine middle-income Americans as “rich” and then double their taxes.
We know that the suspect is in custody. He was injured. They have not released any details about who he was, but we did see footage of a White man. He was wearing shorts. No shoes, no shirt. He seemed to be bleeding down his leg and he was handcuffed.
TWITTER THREAD: Here are all the idiotic leftists who immediately jumped to politicize the tragic Boulder shooting to push their narrative, only for it all to fall apart when it turns out the shooter is muslim…
Colorado authorities released the identity of the alleged Boulder supermarket shooter on Tuesday morning. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, is accused of opening fire and killing 10 people during the Monday massacre.
Boulder Police named the Arvada, Colorado, resident as the injured suspect seen in video following the deadly mass shooting Monday at a King Soopers supermarket. The man allegedly opened fire on customers and killed a Boulder police officer, 51-year-old Eric Talley, during the shooting. The deceased victims range in age from 20 years old to 65 years old. A law enforcement press release identified his full name as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa. A Facebook page appearing to be that of the suspect features posts with quotes from the Islamic Prophet Muhammad….
This guy knows all the victimhood buttons to push. Yet while the establishment media will take it all as proof that he is not a jihadi, what about the ISIS sympathies?
Yeah…. what about those?
According to a White House source, Al-Issa “had “ISIS sympathies.” (GELLER REPORT)
Rumble — Larry Elder touches on a previous media and Democrat obsession. That is, that Trump told people to drink bleach or inject disinfectant. PART ONE is here: “Larry Elder Sanitizes the Left (Bleach Lie)”.
Here, Larry Elder knocks it out of the park as usual. I insert a flashback to PART ONE (3:30 to 5:25). Likewise, I include my “Biden Edition” of the President mischaracterizing Trump’s Charlottesville statements (6:08 to 7:15). I also include a phone call Larry took (7:53 to 9:32). At the end of the call I insert another upload I cobbled together to expand what Trump was trying to express (11:11 to the end).
This is an extension of a series I started, the first installment being: “Make Orwell Fiction Again (Hunter Biden Edition)” — I was going to include this, but chose to put it here to keep the other post more on it’s “censorship” topic.
Only a society that can effectively block and censor news, and shut down free expression is the kind the sticker refers to. Non-conservative ideas and news stories can be found readily in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, ABC, NPR, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, etc.
In fact, almost every newspaper WITH THE EXCEPTION of the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and the New York Post, and at times FOX NEWS, have a more conservative leaning bias and news stories to be considered.
L.A. TIMES EXAMPLE
One example is that years ago the L.A. Times carried columns by Dennis Prager (and other conservative voices). Today they carry zero. Here is a good letter to the editor:
To the editor (OCT. 3, 2020): I had to laugh when I read the statement that the L.A. Times’ future depends on diversity in its staff and stories. (“The Times’ reckoning on race and our commitment to meaningful change,” Sept. 27)
The Times’ future — and that of its cohorts in the widely distrusted and reviled “mainstream media” — does indeed depend on diversity. But not the diversity The Times is talking about, a surface diversity of skin color, national origin and sexual orientation.
No, The Times’ future depends on ideological diversity, something it lacks entirely.
The Los Angeles Times of 2020 is a daily Democratic Party mailer, and a particularly vituperative one. More and more of the paper is devoted to opinion, and ostensible news stories themselves resemble op-ed articles. All of it, of course, leans in the same far-left direction.
This does special disservice to the largely left-leaning readership of The Times, who still, four years after Donald Trump’s election, have no idea why much of the country holds them in contempt.
The Times should in fact commit itself to diversity — of thought. For every left-leaning columnist who appears in its pages, The Times should commit to hiring one conservative — and not never-Trump conservatives like Jonah Goldberg, but fierce, proudly pro-Trump conservatives who can expose your readers to facts and arguments they otherwise never have to confront.
Sure, some of these readers would threaten to cancel their subscriptions, and a few may. But The Times would become a must-read instead of the partisan rag it is today.
Jordan Chodorow, Los Angeles
NEW YORK TIMES EXAMPLE
Here for instance is Larry Elder noting Dean Baquet’s, executive editor of the New York Times, admission to the Left not wanting to hear thoughtful disagreement:
Dennis hasn’t changed (I know, I have listed to him for 2-decades), the Democrats and the Left in general have moved leftward.
PEW DATA
The Pew data, however, make it clear that the shift toward the extreme has happened among Democrats, not Republicans.
A new study from the Pew Research Center shows a growing partisan gap in opinions on major issues, driven in part by Democrats’ leftward drift.
Pew found Democrats have moved substantially left on a variety of issues while Republicans’ views remain relatively constant. That was true across social and economic issues; Pew claimed that the split between Republicans and Democrats is more pronounced than any divides by race, gender, or socioeconomic status.
“This poll and some other recent ones show that Democrats are pulling more strongly to the left and Republicans are not pulling quite as strongly to the right as a general matter,” said Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who specializes in American public opinion.
[….]
“The party is being pulled in a more liberal direction, there’s no question about that,” Bowman said. “I mean Elizabeth Warren’s comment a few weeks ago essentially that this isn’t Bill Clinton’s party, we’re not the party of welfare and crime. I think she’s reflecting the views of many of the people in her party. And I think a lot of it happened during the Obama years.”
…Now, while Joe Biden is the new president, it’s Bernie Sanders and his allies who will often be in the driver’s seat making policy. “We’re going to push Joe — the president — as far as we can,” Sanders told CNN.
Wherever that ends up being, it will move this country further to the left than most people thought possible a year ago. Bernie Sanders is proof that if you’re persistent enough, you don’t have to be elected president to be in a position to accomplish your goals.
Senator Kamala Harris is the most left wing Senator — even more Left” than Bernie:
In 2018, Harris was ranked the fourth-most left-wing. But by 2019 — a year she spent running for president — Harris had moved to the furthest extreme.
She was an early co-sponsor of the Senate version of the “Green New Deal” of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as well as the “Medicare for All” bill introduced by Sanders, which would have eliminated all private health insurance.
Harris also supported granting free health care to illegal aliens, slashing military budgets, and other radical proposals.
GovTrack explained its ratings: “Our unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by how similar the pattern of bills and resolutions they cosponsor are to other Members of Congress. The score can be interpreted as a conservative—liberal scale, although of course it only takes into account a small aspect of reality.” The most conservative score is 1.00; the most liberal score possible is 0.00.
Harris ranked #100 — the “least conservative,” or most liberal, Senator on the list, and the only one to score a “0.00”:
#90 0.16 Sen. Chris Van Hollen [D-MD] #91 0.15 Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL] #92 0.14 Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-MN] #93 0.12 Sen. Richard Blumenthal [D-CT] #94 0.10 Sen. Edward “Ed” Markey [D-MA] #95 0.09 Sen. Mazie Hirono [D-HI] #96 0.07 Sen. Cory Booker [D-NJ] #97 0.07 Sen. Jeff Merkley [D-OR] #98 0.03 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY] #99 0.02 Sen. Bernard “Bernie” Sanders [I-VT] #100 0.00 Sen. Kamala Harris [D-CA]
The New York Times called Harris a “pragmatic moderate” in its coverage of Harris’s announcement as Joe Biden’s running mate. [RPT editorial: LOL!]
Axios’ Jonathan Swan reports on the increasing leftward shift of Democrats, calling it “striking,” while noting that many formerly liberal fringe ideas are now mainstream in the Democrat Party. Be sure to like, subscribe, and comment below to share your thoughts on the video.
What’s happening: You see it in many of the major domestic debates of our times.
Show less
Support for a big government “Green New Deal” to fight climate change. Watch the 2020 candidates jump on this bandwagon.
Support for Medicare for All, calling for a much bigger government role in health care, beyond the Affordable Care Act.
A rush away from tough-on-security as crucial to immigration reform, which until recently was seen by most Democrats as essential to not looking soft on crime or terrorism.
In all three cases, these topics are shaping up as the new litmus tests for liberal activists heading into 2020.
Why it matters: These ideas and their champions are coming to the fore at a moment when there are real opportunities to begin to realize them.
You can see this shift in one important number: the number of Democrats proudly calling themselves liberal.
Gallup said yesterday that 51% of Democrats self-describe as liberal, a new high “following gradual increases since the 1990s.”
In 1992, when Clinton first won, 25% self-identified as liberal, 25% as conservative and the rest as moderate.
And across the spectrum, the country’s traditional lean in favor of conservatives has narrowed: 35% of Americans told Gallup they’re conservative, 35% moderate and 26% liberal………
A family member commented on a sticker on the back-window of my van by affirming the idea of “Make Orwell Fiction Again.” (Click to Enlarge) [This will be a continuing series to address this idea]
However, knowing that his only form of news is essentially late-night [political] comics, CNN, and NPR… he meant it in a differing way than both the novel, and I meant it. So, below will be the beginning of a series of articles with small excerpts that I will continually add to in other posts. And note as well that what we have is a marriage of Orwell as well as Huxley as expressed in the quote from Joshua Charles’ book, Liberty’s Secrets: The Lost Wisdom of America’s Founders, found here: Orwell vs. Huxley (Big Tech Update)
MOST MEDIA EXCLUDES CONSERVATIVE IDEAS
Only a society that can effectively block and censor news, and shut down free expression is the kind the sticker refers to. Non-conservative ideas and news stories can be found readily in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, ABC, NPR, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, etc.
In fact, almost every newspaper WITH THE EXCEPTION of the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and the New York Post, and at times FOX NEWS, have a more conservative leaning bias and news stories to be considered.
One example is that years ago the L.A. Times carried columns by Dennis Prager (and other conservative voices). Today they carry zero.
TWITTER/FACEBOOK CENSOR MAJOR NEWS STORY
THE NEW YORK POST was censored for many weeks… scrubbed from Twitter as well as Facebook. Here is what my past Twitter looked liked when trying to share the story:
Armstrong and Getty cover Glenn Greenwald resigning from the “free speech” news outlet he founded. The article mentioned them of Glenn’s is this one: “Article on Joe and Hunter Biden Censored By The Intercept”. [As an aside, I added MUCH MORE of the Tucker interview.]:
….The U.S. media often laments that people have lost faith in its pronouncements, that they are increasingly viewed as untrustworthy and that many people view Fake News sites are more reliable than established news outlets. They are good at complaining about this, but very bad at asking whether any of their own conduct is responsible for it.
A media outlet that renounces its core function — pursuing answers to relevant questions about powerful people — is one that deserves to lose the public’s faith and confidence. And that is exactly what the U.S. media, with some exceptions, attempted to do with this story: they took the lead not in investigating these documents but in concocting excuses for why they should be ignored.
As my colleague Lee Fang put it on Sunday: “The partisan double standards in the media are mind boggling this year, and much of the supposedly left independent media is just as cowardly and conformist as the mainstream corporate media. Everyone is reading the room and acting out of fear.” Discussing his story from Sunday, Taibbi summed up the most important point this way: “The whole point is that the press loses its way when it cares more about who benefits from information than whether it’s true.”…
So we’ve all been talking a lot about the investigation into Hunter Biden and how the mainstream media seems to have finally caught up to the fact that yes, it’s real and it’s Russian disinformation as some tried to claim before the election.
Now that they think Joe Biden won, they’re free to just say “oh, well, here’s this thing.”
Never mind that they consciously suppressed it from the American people and completely failed in their supposed job prior to the election.
We saw a lot of conservatives chastising the media today for what they did.
But I wanted to talk about another group.
We expect the Democrats to cover for Biden. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told CNN it was a “smear” straight from the Kremlin. CNN’s Jeff Zucker said in his morning conference call to impress upon people this stuff about Hunter was just more “Russian disinformation.” A lot of mainstream media has become little more than Democratic operatives at this point.
There’s a group that we don’t expect and for sure shouldn’t be playing this game and that’s the intelligence community.
But they have and they did in this instance as well.
There were 50 former senior intelligence officers who signed a letter saying that Hunter Biden’s emails had all the signs of a Russian disinformation campaign……
MEDIA “DISCOVERED” STORY AFTER BIDEN ELECTED
Except the story was [and still is] 100% true. It was Russian disinformation UNTIL BIDEN WON, then the media discovered it’s veracity.
…After the New York Post’s reporting was dismissed and characterized by members of the media as a “baseless conspiracy theory,” a “smear campaign,” and “Russian disinformation,” Wednesday’s announcement from Hunter Biden was ultimately too much for the media to ignore.
All three major networks’ evening newscasts addressed the controversy, with “NBC Nightly News” spending the most time on the subject, clocking in at roughly one minute and 16 seconds of coverage while “CBS Evening News” came in a distant second, with roughly 45 seconds of coverage, followed by ABC’s “World News Tonight” with roughly just 30 seconds.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper reported the breaking news as it happened during his program, which was quite the opposite tone that he took during the election when he dismissed the allegations against Hunter Biden as “too disgusting” to repeat on-air.
Tapper’s colleagues Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper also mentioned the explosive development on their shows, while CNN anchors Erin Burnett, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon avoided the subject….
Jake Tapper declares Hunter Biden claims ‘too disgusting’ to repeat on CNN: ‘The rightwing is going crazy’ — CNN is among other major news outlets that continue to downplay the growing Biden controversy (FOX)
CNN boss, political director spiked Hunter Biden controversy, audiotapes reveal: ‘We’re not going with’ story — Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe vowed he will release ‘raw recordings’ of the over 50 conference calls every day until Christmas. (FOX)
Ric Grenell calls out CNN’s Jake Tapper for belatedly covering Hunter Biden story — ‘This story broke in October. You didn’t do it then,’ former acting DNI scolded the CNN anchor (FOX)
1984 JUMPS TO #1 ON AMAZON AMID EXPANDED CENSORSHIP
JUST THE NEWS notes the jump to #1 of 1984 on Amazon
As “big tech” companies have moved to silence conservative voices on the Internet, mega-marketer Amazon reports on Sunday that its overall top-selling book is 1984, a decades old novel that portrays a society completely controlled by government “Thought Police.”
The spike in sales comes amid a rush of shutdowns in which these moves occurred in rapid succession:
Twitter on Friday booted Donald Trump from its platform and erased the entire history of his tweets;
Facebook deleted a grassroots organization for disenchanted Democrats, WalkAway;
Apple and Google banned the messaging platform Parler from its app stores;
and Amazon said it imminently will ban Parler, which is used by many conservatives, from company servers.
As of Sunday morning, Amazon book sales showed that the top-selling book is the dystopian novel published by George Orwell more than 70 years ago. The classic novel, published in 1949, depicts how government Thought Police eavesdrop on citizens in their own homes, searching for heresy of any kind. Anyone whose beliefs deviate from the official norm are declared “unpersons” who never existed.
Reviewers on Amazon drew parallels between the book’s plot and current events in the United States.
“Born and living in communist Romania I went through the same ordeal described in 1987,” wrote Constantin Turculet, who is listed as making a verified purchase. “After 40 years I managed to escape to America, only to find after 35 years of living in freedom that this country is pushed toward the same horror scenario I thought mankind will never forget.”…
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Later ages are always surprised by the casual brutality of totalitarian regimes. What those innocent ages neglect is the unshakeable (though misguided) conviction of virtue that animates the totalitarians. The historian John Kekes, writing about Robespierre in City Journal some years ago, touched on the essential point. If we understand Robespierre, “we understand that it is utterly useless to appeal to reason and morality in dealing with ideologues. For they are convinced that reason and morality are on their side and that their enemies are irrational and immoral simply because they are enemies.” That is the position of conservatives in American culture today. (AMERICAN GREATNESS)
A former Twitter CEO took measures to ensure messages critical of President Obama wouldn’t circulate too widely on the platform during a 2015 question-and-answer session, according to a new report.
The incident allegedly occurred during a May 2015 “#AskPOTUS” event on the platform, when former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo purportedly ordered the creation of an algorithm to suppress the messages and used employees to manually scrub any critical content missed by the software.
Costolo kept the decision secret from company executives for fear that someone might object, several sources told Buzzfeed….
The tech companies are just emboldened now. That’s all.
TONY BOBULINSKI AND LEFTIE LEGAL SCHOLAR, JONATHAN TURLEY
Yep, there were MANY disgusting videos on Hunter Biden’s laptop: him sexually abusing underage girls, including a family member, smoking crack, etc. But what was more disgusting was covering up a real news story [evidence of pay to play in the Ukraine and China] by almost all news outlets (print or media), as well as the censoring of it on social media. However, as Jonathan Turley notes wisely about NPR….. the designation as “a distraction” shows a bias rather than a news outfit, video precedes Turley’s article for context:
Tony Bobulinski will attend Thursday night’s debate as guest of President Trump.
JONATHAN TURLEY [Lefty Legal Scholar] notes this about Tony Bobulinski giving AMPLE evidence of who “the big guy” is:
A former business partner to Hunter Biden, Tony Bobulinski, has made a bombshell statement that not only are the emails on the Biden laptop authentic but the reference to giving a cut to “the big guy” was indeed a reference to former Vice President Joe Biden. More emails are emerging that show Hunter Biden referring to his family as his asset in these dealings.
The emails that have attracted the most attention refer to an actual meeting of Joe Biden with these foreign figures and one referring to a proposed equity split of “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” Bobulinski confirms that “H” was used for Hunter Biden and that his father was routinely called “the big guy” in these discussions.
Another email Bobulinski being instructed by James Gilliar not to make any mention of the former veep’s involvement: “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.”
Bobulinski said he was brought on as CEO by Hunter Biden and James Gilliar and stated that he believes Joe Biden was lying in denying any knowledge of these dealings, stating Hunter “frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals.” He added that “The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities even though some were from communist controlled China.”
I am the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings which was a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family. I was brought into the company to be the CEO by James Gilliar and Hunter Biden. The reference to “the Big Guy” in the much publicized May 13, 2017 email is in fact a reference to Joe Biden. The other “JB” referenced in that email is Jim Biden, Joe’s brother.
Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my Chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing. I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true, because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line.
I realized the Chinese were not really focused on a healthy financial ROI. They were looking at this as a political or influence investment. Once I realized that Hunter wanted to use the company as his personal piggy bank by just taking money out of it as soon as it came from the Chinese, I took steps to prevent that from happening.
I have written for years that Hunter Biden was clearly influence peddling and he contradicted his father’s denial of any knowledge of his dealings. The media can continue to hold its breath for weeks to try to avoid the obvious in this story. That could well guarantee Biden the presidency but it will destroy the media’s credibility for years.
THIS CENSORSHIP PUSHED BIDEN INTO THE “WIN” COLUMN
…For the post-election survey, The Polling Company interviewed 1,750 Biden voters in seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, six of which (excluding North Carolina) were called for Biden. The voters were asked about their knowledge of eight news stories, all of which the liberal media had downplayed or censored.
The survey showed “a huge majority (82%) of Biden voters were unaware of at least one of these key items, with five percent saying they were unaware of all eight of the issues we tested,” reported the MRC.
For instance, despite the #MeToo movement and the media coverage it garnered, the survey found that 35.4% of Biden voters were unaware of the serious allegations of sexual assault made by Tara Reade against Joe Biden. Reade had worked for Biden in the 1990s.
“If they had known about Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations, 8.9% told us they would have changed their vote — either switching to Trump or a 3rd party candidate, not voting for any presidential candidate, or not voting at all,” said the MRC.
“By itself, this would have flipped all six of the swing states won by Biden (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), giving the president a win with 311 electoral college votes,” said the organization.
Another important story buried by the major media was the Hunter Biden laptop story, which showed that Joe Biden was aware of his son’s business dealings in the Ukraine and in Communist China.
Yet 45.1% of Biden voters said they were unaware of the laptop story.
“According to our poll, full awareness of the Hunter Biden scandal would have led 9.4% of Biden voters to abandon the Democratic candidate, flipping all six of the swing states he won to Trump, giving the President 311 electoral votes,” reported the MRC.
Similar results were found when Biden voters were asked about the other six censored stories – Kamala Harris’s radical left-wing policies; positive economic and job reports; Middle East peace deals brokered by Trump; energy independence; and the swift vaccine production as a result of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed.
“Looking at all eight of these issues together, our poll found that a total of 17% of Biden’s voters told us they would have changed their vote if they had been aware of one or more of these important stories,” reported the MRC.
“This would have moved every one of the swing states into Trump’s column, some by a huge margin,” said the MRC. “The President would have trounced Biden in the electoral college, 311 to 227.”
The MRC noted that the Biden voters who said they would have voted differently had they been properly informed by the media, did not have to vote for Trump for the president to have won a second term.
“Just by choosing to abandon Biden, these voters would have handed all six of these states, and a second term, to the President — if the news media had properly informed them about the two candidates,” said the MRC. (Emphasis added.)
