Labels

Quick Jots: December 2021


Stossel v Fact Blockers
#media
Several of John Stossel's videos had been taken down by Facebook in recent months. It's no secret (well, maybe to some) that several people, even within the scientific community, have been censored by so-called Fact-Checkers companies like Facebook employ to suppress opinions that fall outside the allowable spectrum. Even posts that are links to peer-reviewed studies have been censored. The lab-leak theory was perhaps one of the more high-profile cases where the fact-checkers were eventually proven wrong. After these fact-checkers mischaracterized Stossel's content and claimed certain facts were incorrect, despite their own scientists disagreeing with the fact-check, Stossel filed a lawsuit against Facebook for defamation. The lawyers huddled and provided the argument that Facebook and its fact-checkers were mere "opinion" and therefore not subject to any libel claims. This is a fairly standard defense, but they must have missed one, subtle thing: They refer to themselves as FACT-CHECKERS. If it's not libel, then it is definitely fraud, labeling their opinions as fact.

Russiagate hoax
#corruption
Okay, I'm really late to this one; I was waiting for more buzz to ramp up around this, but that never seemed to happen and then I simply forgot about it. Michael Sussman, a Clinton lawyer, was indicted a few months ago over lying to the FBI about the Russiagate story. This all but concludes that the whole Trump-Russia collusion thing that went on for three years was a complete fabrication. This is the second allegation in this ordeal, with a guilty plea from an FBI agent for submitting a false FISA Court request to spy on Trump aide Carter Page. Greenwald, in his article, made no bones about implying that Hillary Clinton was in on the scam.

Senate votes down Rand's arms sale block to Saudis
#legislation #randpaul #mikelee #berniesanders #war
The Saudis have been committing genocide against the people of Yemen since the late Obama years and the United States has been assisting in this for that long with arms sales, among other things. Rand Paul teamed up with Mike Lee and Bernie Sanders to write a bill to block an arms sale at $650 million to the Saudis. The senate decided they like how hundreds of thousands of people, including 85,000 children are dying and have no problem splashing blood all over Americans' hands in the process. The bill was voted down 30-67. Lee and Paul, the only two Republicans in the senate that one can argue have at least a slight bit of libertarian streak in them, were the only two Republicans that voted yes, to block the sale. A slew of establishment Democrats joined forces with the establishment Republicans to cast their vote in favor of murdering children. The Biden Administration released a statement condemning Lee, Paul, and Sanders's attempts to block the munitions sale to known child murderers.

US boycotts Winter Olympics in Beijing
#china
The United States has declared a diplomatic boycott from the Winter Olympics over the Chinese Communist Party's continued human rights abuses, particularly in Xinjiang. Athletes can still attend, but they won't be represented, which means it's more withholding branding than anything. The UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Lithuania have joined in on the "boycott". China, after initially throwing a hissy fit, claimed that the US wasn't even invited to participate in the Winter Olympics. "You can't fire me! I quit!"

One question remains: If the Olympics were held in the United States, should other countries boycott it over its ties to the human rights abuses in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Somalia? Is democide really that much worse than genocide? Someone ask Joe Biden, quick.

Siobhan Haughey sets a world record!
#hongkong
Following her impressive double-medal in the Summer Olympics, Hong Kong swimmer Siobhan Haughey has set a world record in the 200m freestyle! In an interview, she said, "This is a huge moment for me and my country. I'm Hong Kong's first-ever world champion & world record holder. I hope this is just the start for me and other swimmers in my country." Bham! I sure hope she doesn't get introduced to Peng Shuai.

Julian Assange closer to extradition
#media #julianassange
A British high court has allowed for Assange's extradition to the United States, in a big blow to journalist freedom. Assange will be tried under the Espionage Act. Although people charged under the Espionage Act exploded under Obama, Assange will be the first journalist (since Obama, anyway) to be charged under the law, setting a dangerous precedent as the First Amendment gets shredded further. Don't be fooled by charlatans claiming the First Amendment only covers some special class of citizens. It was meant to protect the general mass spread of information, as the Reason article linked above explains. Assange was hated by conservatives in 2010 by uploading footage showing the US Army killing journalists and civilians (intentionally or not) under George W. Bush. This made him somewhat of a hero on the left, but that abruptly ended when he exposed Hillary Clinton's campaign malfeasance in 2016. Since then, he has had a bipartisan target on his head, which culminated in this pursuit over his leak of Chelsea Manning's documents. These documents revealed lies perpetrated by the US deep state and the Obama Administration in its war in Afghanistan, including civilian casualty counts and special ops usage. Unfortunately, Trump proved to be too stupid to understand the value of pardoning Assange on his way out the door in 2020. Reporters Without Borders issued a condemnation of the ruling.

Nancy Pelosi likes stocks
#nancypelosi
In response to a bill that would forbid Congress to trade individual stocks, Nancy Pelosi, one of the richest Congresspeople in DC said, "We are a free-market economy [LOL!] They should be able to participate in that."

Yeah, of course she would say that. Her husband trades massive amounts of stock and is a wealthy venture capitalist. Pelosi's damage control unit was quick to point out that she as an individual doesn't own any stock and she is not at all involved in the decisions to trade. Yeah, if you believe that, I have some Enron stock to sell you. 

I would normally go with the reporting rules, but given that many in Congress have skirted the reporting rules with no punishment handed out...screw them. I have no problem with the bill.

Hong Kong records lowest voting turnout
#hongkong #china #elections
The Chinese Communist Party issued new voting rules that state only Beijing-approved candidates may run for election. Only 30 percent of people bothered to vote, illustrating that approximately 70 percent of the people exhibit intelligence. Some lacking intelligence may have not been able to figure out how to vote and some people with intelligence may have cast an empty ballot. I'll assume they cancel out. I'm not sure who Beijing thinks they're fooling, thinking that a ballot that only includes approved candidates is any kind of choice at all. Good thing I live in the United States, where I'm allowed to choose between TWO parties, as establishment lackeys tell me. Of course, candidates from these two parties often are the same thing but in different wrapping paper, so that means...........well, shit.

Cuomo may have to repay $5mil in book proceeds
#andrewcuomo
Andrew Cuomo may have to repay five million dollars in advance book proceeds, as ruled by an ethics board. There is a question as to whether the ethics board has this power, but given that the premise of the book was about how he was so great leading New York in a time of COVID, I would say this falls under the category of fraud. Apparently, a bunch of his staff worked on his memoirs, which is a serious breach of ethics given that the people of New York probably wouldn't be too willing to pay for people to work for his personal gain. The Cuomo damage control unit claims that staffers worked on the memoirs "on their own time". What? On their own time? Without pay? What was Cuomo's stance on the minimum wage anyway? Yikes. Well, I hope Andrew has spent the remainder of the proceeds on hookers and blow, and now has to borrow money from Chris to repay the advance. Chris still has a job, right?

UCLA withdraws from bowl game due to COVID
#covid-19
No, it's not because North Carolina had games or due to some misguided fear of a superspreader event. UCLA had too many COVID cases and couldn't safely field a team. How is this possible? I mean, LA County has a vaccine mandate and everything. 

Omicron variant far less deadly
#covid-19
Well, will wonders never cease? It turns out the hyperventilating crowd in the political and journalistic arenas was wrong yet again! Multiple studies have been showing that the Omicron variant is less deadly but more infectious than before, somehow following decades of infectious research showing that over time, viruses evolve to become more infectious and less deadly. A South African study showed that people infected with the Omicron variant had an 80 percent lower chance of requiring hospitalization. Okay, some people highlighted this early study saying that one likely factor was that the population had high immunity. Okay, well, here is a study from Scotland that says Omicron variants result in a two-thirds lower likelihood of hospitalization compared to previous variants. Jacob Sullum at Reason also noted that in the UK, COVID numbers have shot up while deaths have increased slightly. Additionally, in the US, cases went up 3x while deaths only went up 50%. 

Stand News taken down
#hongkong #china
The National Security Law in Hong Kong has taken down yet another victim. Stand News has been shuttered with six people associated with the publication arrested, for daring to report accurate news that does not reflect the CCP's reality.

Jared Polis declares end to state of emergency
#covid-19 #jaredpolis
The governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, has declared the state of emergency to be over, declining to renew the mask mandate for Omicron and stating that everyone who declines to get vaccinated can live (or not) with their decision, but there will be no vaccine mandate. This is extremely welcome news as a Democrat has veered toward the path of freedom. However, and I don't want to criticize him too much, but, Jared Polis, is perhaps the most libertarian Democrat around today, particularly when he was a Congressman. So with that, I ask, what took him so long? Now, throwing "Democrat" into "libertarian" is one hell of a qualifier, but still, he has done work with libertarians, even penning an article for Reason, even if it was a solicited article that attempts to make the case for libertarians to vote for Democrats (Rand Paul wrote an article for voting Republican and Robert Sarvis one for voting Libertarian). Still, thank you, Jared, for making the right move. Better late than never.

Elon Musk and Elizabeth Warren Twitter fight
#taxes #elonmusk #elizabethwarren
Elon Musk has been rocking the Twitterverse lately with some epic tweets. Elizabeth Warren boomer-tweeted yet another facepalm-worthy hot take that would be bad, even for someone who is not a self-described policy-wonk.

To which Elon shot back a few tweets, with this one as the clear winner:

And then he topped it off with the zinger:

Warren's sycophants rounded the troops and echo-blasted the often heard but not often thought-through script of billionaires needing to "pay their fair share" of taxes. Of course, "fair share" is never defined other than the well-thought-out quantity of "more", much less is it ever logically derived why they should be paying more in taxes or the actual efficacy and expenditures from taxation. Musk later clarified that he would be paying $11 billion in taxes this year. I wonder how many of those parrots, when pressed on a number, would arrive at anything close to that amount.

Labels:

Popular Posts