Quick Jots: April, 2022

Maskless soiree among DC elite
#covid-19
The hypocrites in power are at it again. They were gathered, maskless, at a fancy DC party that less than 1% of Americans can afford to attend. Much of the COVID regime was in attendance, including those that have implemented mask and vaccine mandates. Questioned about Kamala Harris's masklessness, the official White House liar, Jen Psaki, said that Harris is "just human." No, Jen. Kamala Harris is a lizard person. Get it right.

Tuttle Twins sales rocket
#libertarians
Progressives, alarmed at losing their potential loss of monopoly power to indoctrinate and propagandize children, lose their shit at the Tuttle Twins franchise. Connor Boyack had created a children's series that teaches the principles of libertarian ideals. I have purchased several of these books for my son and have given some out as gifts. Many of these books rehash books and essays among libertarians like I, Pencil, Creature from Jekyll Island, and Anatomy of the State. He must have been doing well, given his continual expansion of the series into infant books, magazines, and cartoons. Following the moronic and hypocritical criticism, the Tuttle Twins book sales have rocketed upward. CNN should criticize more libertarian products.

Elon Musk takes over Twitter
#elonmusk #freespeech
Elon Musk, one man with plenty of fuck-you money, and the one billionaire that actually uses it as fuck-you money, made a bid of $44 billion to buy Twitter, which will likely be approved and finalized. He has waxed poetic about making it a free speech platform, but whether that actually happens or not remains to be seen. Either way, it made the Cathedral go insane. Ahem. Uh, more insane than usual. Robert Reich, a former US cabinet member and UC Berkeley professor of public policy, wrote that Musk's "libertarian" vision of an uncontrolled internet is the dream of every dictator on Earth. Yes, if we look at the actions of Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un, just free unbridled internet all across the country. Reich even starts off with how Putin blocks and restrains internet access before going into his incoherent logical gymnastics. Ari Melber on MSNBC bemoaned that one person running Twitter could lead to the banning of one party's candidates or promoting certain views while restricting other views. Like...exactly what has been happening? Did he forget that Trump's account was banned? Or that the Hunter Biden laptop story was blocked with the New York Post account banned? The utter lack of self-awareness is astounding.

I'm not a particularly big fan of Elon Musk, given his consistent business model of gaming subsidies. But damn, has he been entertaining lately.

Dianne Feinstein unfit for office?
Feinstein, at 88, has been described as losing her mental faculties. Her colleagues talk about this being a disservice to the people of California. I disagree. She is doing better than ever. Still not good, but at least now she is unable to destroy the state with as much effectiveness. She and Biden are a great mugshot of politics. 

CNN+ shuts down
#media
CNN+, CNN's online streaming platform was launched on March 29th, to much hype from the parent company. Telling was the 50% off discount from the service's $5.99/mo fee to $2.99/mo for early subscribers, which will be discounted for life. It's not clear exactly what the executives at the company were thinking, launching a streaming service at a time they are hemorrhaging viewers on their cable network, as people have lost trust in the news service. Despite executives claiming an "incredibly successful" launch, the numbers told a different story. Two weeks into the 50% off for life subscription rate, they only drew in a humiliating 10,000 daily viewers. To put this in perspective, if every employee at CNN watched CNN+, they would comprise 40% of their daily views. One month after its launch. the service shut down. Executive vice president Andrew Morse said before the launch, “We are so confident that we’re building something of such value, that people are going to be willing to give up one cup of coffee a month to pay for this service.”

No, apparently people would rather have one mediocre cup of coffee than a month's worth of propaganda beamed into their house. I don't even drink coffee and I'd rather have the coffee.

"Don't say gay" bill
#legislation #progressives
Politics is now just all about reading something that isn't there and screaming into the wind. This bill in Florida has sparked a massive protest, dubbed the "don't say gay" bill. Despite the bill not having the word "gay" in it at all. What the bill actually does is prohibit the teaching of sexual orientation and sexual identity in school from kindergarten through third grade in a manner that is not age-appropriate. I'm not sure I believe this should be done at the level of the state, but is this really that much of a powder keg, that third graders and younger shouldn't be taught sex ed until the following year?

The Myth of Cuban Health Care
#healthcare #socialism
Reason has produced yet another excellent documentary short. If you've been paying actual attention to Cuban healthcare, most of the overarching points are not new. Local healthcare is worse than trash, the policy of doctors being sent around the world was basically human trafficking as Cuba and the WHO reaped the benefits, and there are two systems in Cuban healthcare with the one for the tourists the one that is nice, and the more market-driven healthcare. Unfortunately, not many people know this thanks to people like Michael Moore and Bernie Sanders. Still, there are great stories from former Cuban doctors and some new things about COVID-19 crushing the Cuban healthcare system, shedding more light on the broken system.

Biden creates Ministry of Truth
#freespeech
Well, this one is quite scary. Joe Biden has created, within the Department of Homeland Security, an official propaganda arm, supposedly with the power to at least subtlely quell speech deemed by the government to be misinformation, as decided by the government. I'm sure they would never use this as a tool to silence the opposing party. Those who have read 1984 know it as the Ministry of Truth. Those familiar with Nazi Germany's history know it as Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's chief propagandist. Those who remember the second Iraq War know it as Baghdad Bob. Formal government propagandists have many different names. This one is called the Disinformation Governance Board, run by Nina Jankowicz. In her tweet following her first announcement, she wrote "one of the key reasons the Board was established, is to maintain the Dept's committment (sic) to protecting free speech, privacy, civil rights, & civil liberties."

Seriously? The Department of Homeland Security's job is to hamper privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties in the guise of making the country safer. And this new board has no other purpose than to reduce free speech. Here's a hint to Nina. If you're a government entity and your goal is to silence people for "disinformation", something the government has proven time and again to have an unbelievably poor track record in, you are destroying free speech. These things are mutually exclusive. The First Amendment and the basic concept of free speech don't exist to protect speech the government agrees with. It's to protect speech the government seeks to eliminate.

I expect Nina to recommend that she herself be censored for disinformation, any time now, along with the people that uttered "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor" and "Iraq WMDs". Or Nina again for posting tweets casting doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop story when it was first released.