Fox vs. NPR

A search on Fox News for “Disinformation Governance Board” (the government’s newly created and very Orwellian “Ministry of Truth”):

Mayorkas testifies DHS is creating ‘Disinformation Governance Board’

White House defends DHS ‘disinformation’ board: ‘Not sure who opposes that effort’

Musk breaks silence on Biden disinformation board formation after Twitter buyout: ‘Discomforting’

Hawley rips Homeland Security ‘disinformation’ board for ‘policing’ free speech, instead of protecting border

Jordan asks Mayorkas if new DHS ‘disinformation’ board will look into Fauci, Walensky statements

New Disinformation Governance Board better suited for dictatorships: Gabbard

Biden’s disinformation director referred to Hunter’s laptop as a ‘Trump campaign product’

and many, many more…

A search on NPR for “Disinformation Governance Board”:

Crickets.

And you doubt the bias of the press? Shame on you.

Robert Reich is a hypocrite

Robert Reich, a professor at my alma mater, is a hypocrite. He’s also a partisan liberal tool. But hey – you can’t win them all.

Reich recently wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian regarding Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter, calling Musk’s libertarian vision of an uncontrolled internet “…dangerous rubbish.” Sure, Robert – it’s so much better when it’s controlled by a cadre of partisan far-left elitists who believe that the truth is whatever they decide. I think Bari Weiss said it best:

“… a new consensus has emerged … that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”

It is my belief that Robert Reich thinks he is one of the “…enlightened few…”, and will remain so as long as his far-left friends control social media platforms. Good luck with that, Robert.

In any event, here are some excerpts from Reich’s opinion piece that demonstrate the extreme hypocrisy (and idiocy) of his position:

The Russian people know little about Putin’s war on Ukraine because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies.

Uh… and when Twitter locked out the New York Post for its report on Hunter Biden’s laptop, effectively preventing Twitter users from being exposed to the contents of the report (a report that has since been substantiated), that wasn’t “blocking their access to the truth”? Was it Elon Musk who was responsible for the propaganda and lies substituted in its place? I don’t think so…

At least the US responded to Trump’s lies. Trump had 88 million Twitter followers before Twitter took him off its platform … (Trump’s social media accounts were also suspended on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch and TikTok.)

These moves were necessary to protect American democracy.

So let me see if I understand: it was necessary to silence an American politician to protect the American democracy through which their right to speak is guaranteed? Are you kidding me?!?

And just who is it that gets to decide what is truth and what is lie, and what do we do when it turns out that they are wrong? How does it protect “American democracy” when a report is blocked by social media as false, but later turns out to be true?  Isn’t the real problem that here that the social media companies want to replace their judgement for our own?

Musk advocates free speech but in reality it’s just about power.

And the Twitter board that swallowed a poison pill just to maintain their power, the power to silence any voice not in alignment with their “truth” – that’s not about power? I think I’ll take my chances with Elon, thank you very much.

But here’s where Reich’s hypocrisy really shines (A little background – Reich’s upset that Musk has blocked Reich from Musk’s twitter feed):

What “improvements” does Musk have in mind for Twitter? Will he use his clout over Twitter to prevent users with tens of millions of followers from blocking people who criticize them? I doubt it.

 Free speech means I am free to speak; it does not mean I can force you to listen (or that you can force me to listen to you). It also means that when I control the venue where I speak that I can restrict access as I see fit – as Musk has done by blocking Reich from his twitter feed (a venue he controls). Reich sees this as violating the principles of free speech; however, nothing prevents Reich from responding on his own Twitter feed, which Musk is free to read (if he so chooses and if allowed by Reich). Note that this is far different than blocking your detractors (under the guise of allegedly “false” statements) from Twitter entirely – an action Reich has condoned against some (ex.: Trump).

To put it in simpler terms: If Musk rents a hotel conference room he can control who enters and who can speak, but he cannot force anyone to attend. But Reich, if refused entry to Elon’s conference, can rent his own conference room in the same hotel and invite anyone he wants.  And this is where Reich’s view fails; he believes that it is a violation of free speech to be blocked from Musk’s conference room, but at the same time believes that closing the hotel to his own detractors – i.e.: kicking those with whom he disagrees off the platform entirely – is not. Hypocrisy, or stupidity? You be the judge.

Will Musk use his clout to let Trump back on? I fear he will.

And why shouldn’t he? I agree that Trump’s a tool, but that doesn’t mean that his voice should be silenced. I don’t want my judgement replaced by Twitter’s board of directors; I can decide for myself to whom I will listen – but only if they are allowed to speak. Twitter has no business making that decision for me.  And the fact that Trump had 88M followers is proof that many might disagree with Twitter’s decision. But the truth of the matter is that Reich and his ilk did not want to silence Trump; they wanted instead to silence his 88M followers. And that’s the real danger of supporting selective censorship based on the “truth” as decided by people like Reich.

In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’d be the wizard behind the curtain – projecting on the world’s screen a fake image of a brave new world empowering everyone.

In reality, that world would be dominated by the richest and most powerful people in the world, who wouldn’t be accountable to anyone for facts, truth, science or the common good. [emphasis mine]

You mean people like Jack Dorsey? Mark Zuckerberg? The left-wing elitists who have their ear?

No thanks, Robert – I’ll take my chances with Elon. I’d rather have free speech where I get to decide to whom I’ll listen rather then depend on a partisan entity to decide who I can hear.

Intentional?

Once again, Gov. Newsom is blaming “gun crime” on guns rather than criminals:

Newsom blames guns for Sacramento mass shooting: ‘Scourge of gun violence’

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth covering again: Liberals seem to be allowing crime – so-called “gun crime” in particular – to increase by not prosecuting criminals, then blaming guns for the problem. The goal: repeal of the 2nd Amendment.

These were criminals. Want proof? A stolen gun was found at the scene. And you really think that more gun laws would have prevented this shooting event? Really?

UPDATE: Of course it was CRIMINALS with guns, not law-abiding citizens, who committed these heinous shootings. The first arrest is of an ex-felon who was charged with – wait for it – “assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon“.

Sacramento police make first arrest in mass shooting that left six dead, a dozen wounded

Ok, Batman, so riddle me this: What gun law not already in place in California would have stopped this convicted felon from acquiring and using a firearm? They were ALREADY banned from possession firearms due to their past violent behavior, and yet they carried one anyway BECAUSE CRIMINALS DON”T OBEY THE LAW!

More laws targeting or punishing law-abiding citizens simply won’t work because these are CRIMINALS who ignore the law – both those who supply the guns and those who use them. We need to simply lock them up if we want it to stop.

Buying votes with your money, episode #232

RUFKM?!?

The latest from liberal fantasy-land, where money grows on trees fertilized by congressional bullshit:

Democrats propose bills to send gas payments to Americans, some funded by taxing oil companies

Are people really so stupid that they believe having the government interfere with a free market won’t have catastrophic effects? Or is it simply that they don’t care as long as they get theirs?

Excerpts from the article:

Democrat Reps. Mike Thompson, John Larson, and Lauren Underwood are proposing a plan similar to the COVID relief payments sent to Americans during the pandemic that would send $100 per month to individuals each month the national gas price exceeds $4 per gallon. In the bill, couples would receive $200 plus $100 for each dependent.

Uhh…and how do we pay for this? Oh – by taxing the oil companies. Yeah, that makes sense… they’d never pass on these tax cost to their consumers, would they?

“The Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax would provide consumers guaranteed relief while maintaining American competitiveness and reducing pressure on inflation by attacking corporate profiteering,” the press release for the bill reads. “Under the Khanna/Whitehouse bill, large oil companies that produce or import at least 300,000 barrels of oil per day (or did so in 2019) will owe a per-barrel tax equal to 50 percent of the difference between the current price of a barrel of oil and the pre-pandemic average price per barrel between 2015 and 2019…”

I get it… they’re going to tax the oil companies based on how much more the oil costs them. Yeah, that’s fair… no way that will come back to bite us in the ass, not with the government involved and all…

The sad thing is that at least one of these proposed laws will likely pass. People are simply too stupid (thank you, American education system and the teacher’s unions) to realize that the math simply doesn’t work. I guess it’s handy that Americans rank 30th out of the 35 OECD member nations in math; it allows politicians to use the people’s own money to buy their votes.

On a side note, I think it’s hilarious that Republicans are considered less educated than Democrats today. Given the state of the American educations system I’d consider it a compliment. Clearly “educated” no longer means “intelligent”.

Buying votes with your money, episode #231

Yeah, this can’t be good…

Newsom’s plan for free gas cards will drive prices, inflation even higher, expert warns

I love this quote:

Newsom said in a statement that his administration is “taking immediate action to get money directly into the pockets of Californians who are facing higher gas prices as a direct result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”

But, wait… whose money are you giving to Californians, Gov. Newsom? Oh, that’s right – their own! You’ll send the state further into debt – a debt to eventually be born by the taxpayers at an inflated cost (interest, government overhead, etc.) – to provide temporary “relief” for high gas prices (and pushing them higher in the process). Smart move, Ex-lax.

This is like telling people, “Don’t worry! We’ll charge some money to your credit card and send it to you (with a fee, of course) to help in these times of need!”  But why would Californian’s accept such a useless solution? It’s because they’ve been taught by California’s “progressive” politics (Really? Can we still call it “progressive” when California has the highest poverty rate among U.S. states?) that it’s only a game of musical chairs and that someone else will always get stuck with the bill. Each Californian demands their unearned payday believing that someone else (the mysterious “rich”) will end up paying their share of the bill. In short, progressive Californians are too excited about “free” money (pronounced “stupid”) to realize that they will always pay in the end.

Good luck, California. You’ll need it when you finally realize that there is no such thing as “free” money.

It’s a MAD world…

We’ve been operating on the theory for years that “Mutually Assured Destruction”, or MAD, would prevent the use of nuclear warheads. After all, what kind of psycho would launch a nuclear attack knowing that the only significant outcome would be their own destruction?

Whoops! We forgot that one day it might be an actual madman whose hand is on the button…

Biden calls Putin a ‘war criminal’ after saying Russia is inflicting ‘appalling devastation’ on Ukraine

If this helps…

… then why limit it to health care workers?

Bill makes it felony to threaten, attack health care workers

What’s the purpose of these laws, and their “hate crime” analogues? Is it to exact revenge for their victims? Or is it to deter such attacks by making them painful for the criminals? Either way, why am I – an ordinary citizen not part of some special interest group (pronounced “voting block”) – not offered the same opportunity for revenge and/or crime deterrence? And if these enhanced penalties work, thereby reducing crime against the selected group, why don’t we increase the penalties for attacking all residents?

Oh… because that would make sense. It would also decimate the soft-on-crime policies of liberal DA’s.

If we want a return to law and order, then we need to lock up the criminals – and punish them equally for each crime irrespective of the class/group status of the victim (or the class/group status of the perpetrator!).