Quick Jots: September 2022

Mar-a-Lago raid
#donaldtrump
I didn't mention this when it was released, but maybe I should just touch on it a bit, given how prevalent it was last month in the news. I just don't know much about it and really didn't think it was such a bombshell. In August, the FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound in search of classified documents he took with him upon departing the White House. There was speculation from the right of the FBI planting evidence. I doubt this is what happened, although, after the three years of Trump-Russia collusion deep state coup attempt, can anyone blame them for having a conspiratorial mind on this? There was speculation from the left the documents that were taken were nuclear secrets that Trump was going to sell to Russia. I can say with fair certainty that this did not happen as it falls on the discredited notion that Trump is in bed with Russia and that he could have done this at any point of time in his presidency. It's also not like nuclear codes as some speculated, would still be valid after he left, anyway. As usual, the left gives Trump too much credit. The most compelling theory was something I heard relayed on The Fifth Column podcast, where Kmele mentioned the theory that Trump is just an idiot and took the files, thinking he was allowed to take them when he wasn't, kind of like the Clintons when they moved furniture out of the White House they weren't supposed to. Kmele pointed at a few times when Trump, like a TV reality show star he was, would be talking to someone and would just randomly, and for no reason, glance at a folder with a furrowed brow, pretending to read it. In all of Occam's Razor's likelihood, that's what happened. Unlike the left, apparently, I seriously doubt Trump has the intelligence required to be a Bond villain.

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine struck down in April
#war
Serves me right for not reading antiwar.com more regularly, but in May, they reported that Russia and Ukraine had a peace deal on the table which would basically just require Ukraine not join NATO. This sounds like a remarkably reasonable peace deal, which would essentially just enforce the US's original promise to not expand NATO toward Russia for one country. But Boris Johnson, then the prime minister of the UK, pressured Ukraine to not sign a peace deal, and we know the UK would run things like this by POTUS. So...great. People are still dying because world leaders want to play political games with Putin. 

Stabbing Spree in Saskatchewan
#gunrights
Ten Twelve people died when a pair of madmen sent on a stabbing spree in Saskatchewan. This occurred just a few months after Justin Trudeau's ban of 1500 types of guns. Only two mass shootings in Canada since the start of the 20th Century have been deadlier. I wonder if Justin Trudeau will now ban knives. 

Zuckerberg: FBI led Facebook to throttle Hunter Biden laptop story
#freespeech #police
Back during the 2020 election, the story about Hunter Biden's laptop was censored across multiple social media platforms and deprioritized on Facebook, while being lambasted as fake at corporate media outlets like the New York Times. A year and a half later, the New York Times admitted that yeah, okay, it was real, while avoiding discussion on what huge impact that was. Zuckerberg states that he never wanted to censor (which seems to jive with his history), stating, "part of how you building something that can serve billions of people is by not telling people what to think." Later, at around 1hr 45min, he talked about how the FBI called up Facebook, just before the laptop story broke, and told them that there was going to be a lot of Russian propaganda that would soon break. In claiming fairness by contracting out to third party fact-checkers, Zuckerberg seemed to not be aware that the Poynter Institute, which Facebook contracts out for fact-checking, is a left-wing organization that has a bias to wanting the Hunter Biden laptop story to be fake. He did say, for what it's worth, that when they take down something they weren't supposed to, "that's the worst."

FBI official resigns over Hunter Biden laptop
#freespeech #police
Sometimes, things just seem to come in waves. An FBI agent, Timothy Thibault, is alleged to have shielded Hunter Biden from the laptop scandal, trying to suppress the story. Funny how nearly no left-leaning organizations reported on this.

Alex Berenson censored by Twitter at the behest of the White House
#freespeech
I missed this last month, but Alex Berenson was banned from Twitter a while back, who has since successfully sued Twitter to reinstate his account. Berenson became a widely known figure for citing studies and scientists that went against the narrative of the COVID regime. He released documents last month that showed Twitter employees discussing via Slack, an interrogation of Twitter employees by the White House. Andrew Slavitt, the chief COVID response team under Biden, pointedly asked why Alex Berenson hadn't been kicked off Twitter yet. Why? Presumably because he was "devastating to my case!!" Four months later, Berenson was banned. These are not private companies kicking people off their platforms at their own discretion. These are private companies pressured by the government, even if indirectly, to censor speech they don't like.

DEI statements
#wokeism #education
It appears that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statements are becoming highly prevalent with more than half of all universities having either implemented or considering it. A requirement to adhere to an ideology for employment serves only to stifle academics and the expansion of intellectual horizons. Especially to conform everyone to such a blatantly racist ideology like "race-consciousness". It's bad enough that Jonathan Haidt has quit academia, due to academic stifling, when he was required to submit a DEI statement for his research, as to how his research would further social justice, whatever his findings were, or if the study was even coplanar with social justice. As if academia need even more proof its studies are largely bunk.

Guns widely used for self-defense
#gunrights
In yet another survey, this time by The National Firearms Survey, in the largest one conducted to date, guns have been shown to be used for defensive purposes far greater than politicians and anti-gun activists give them credit for. The survey shows 1.6 million defensive gun uses per year, which is roughly commensurate with prior studies by Kleck and the CDC. This is roughly 10x the number of gun deaths and injuries per year (which appears to include at least some defensive uses), 35x the number of gun deaths, and 80x the number of gun homicides.

Queen Elizabeth dies
#obituary
The legacy media has been fawning over the British monarchy, the legacy of a terrible governance that has turned into a useless money drain. The Disneyesque charade of monarch worship needs to stop. A black kid gunned down by gang activity in South Chicago is far more tragic and you don't see around the clock news coverage about him. You'd be lucky to see a footnote in the New York Times about him. I'm going to give this occasion in London the attention it deserves among those who are not family or friends. Here it is: