Archive for 2020
September 6, 2020
‘YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM:’ The Fight To Control Who Reports From Portland.
“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM!” is a cry you hear incessantly at protests in Portland, Oregon, always shouted at close range to your face by after-dark demonstrators. You can assert that, yes, you can film; you can point out that they themselves are filming incessantly; you can push their hands away from covering your phone; you can have your phone record them stealing your phone—all of these things have happened to me—and none will have any impact on their contention that “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM” and its occasional variation, “PHOTOGRAPHY EQUALS DEATH!”
I cannot say who came up with these anti-camera battle cries. But it’s easy to understand why protesters use them: to shape the narrative the country sees about the protests. And that narrative, in my estimation after many weeks covering street clashes in a city where I lived for 15 years, is 90 percent bullshit.
I wondered, the first time I attended the protests at the federal building back in July, who all these young people with PRESS emblazoned on their jackets or helmets were. I asked one such guy who he worked for.
“Independent Press Corps,” he told me. As it turned out, dozens of other young PRESS people happened to work for the same outfit, which I at first assumed was a fancy way of saying “I want to report stuff and stream it on my Instagram.”
This turned out to be naive. The IPC is an organized group in league with the activists, and it is usually their footage you see streamed online and recycled on the news: mostly innocent protestors being harassed and beaten by police.
Found via Will Collier, who tweets, “Commie thugs in Portland have adopted the media intimidation tactics of middle eastern terrorists. What a non-surprise to learn that the @nytimes acquiesces and supports their propaganda.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Amid Riots, Washington and Lee University Offers a Class on ‘How to Overthrow the State.’
I REALLY WANT A MANNSCHENN DRIVE BUT I’LL TAKE WHATEVER WORKS: Gravity, Gizmos, and a Grand Theory of Interstellar Travel.
September 5, 2020
A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK COMMENTS: “Probably the only thing to say on Jeffrey Goldberg’s confirmation-bias exercise is that you should look up Andrew Rosenthal and supermarket scanners. What’s happening isn’t new. Very little is.”
Here’s the New York Times’ scanner lie. Journalism is worse now than it was then. But that’s not because it wasn’t awful then.
OPEN THREAD: Don’t it make you wanna rock and roll, all night long?
THINK OF THE PRESS AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE OPERATION AIMED AT NORMAL AMERICANS AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG: The Media’s Racist Nationalization of News.
AMMUNITION IS A HUMAN RIGHT. THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD GIVE EVERY AMERICAN 10,000 ROUNDS A YEAR FREE. COVID hoarding hits ammunition supplies; ammo shortage continues to get worse.
I say this because I’ve learned from the left that if you call something a “human right,” scarcity magically ceases to exist.
BECAUSE HE’S A DEMOCRAT, AND THAT’S WHAT THEY DO? Why did Joe Biden meet with a racist anti-Semite in Kenosha?
WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD WHERE GLENN GREENWALD IS THE VOICE OF TRADITIONAL JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS: Journalism’s New Propaganda Tool: Using “Confirmed” to Mean its Opposite: Outlets claiming to have “confirmed” Jeffrey Goldberg’s story about Trump’s troops comments are again abusing that vital term. “In other words, all that likely happened is that the same sources who claimed to Jeffrey Goldberg, with no evidence, that Trump said this went to other outlets and repeated the same claims — the same tactic that enabled MSNBC and CBS to claim they had ‘confirmed’ the fundamentally false CNN story about Trump Jr. receiving advanced access to the WikiLeaks archive.”
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN! Get Ready for COVID-19 FEMA Camps.
NOW OUT FROM CHRISTOPHER NUTTALL: Knife Edge (The Empire’s Corps Book 17).
NEWS YOU CAN USE: As American Gun Sales Hit Record High, Tips for New Owners.
HELPFUL ANALYSIS FROM KURT SCHLICHTER: Why Trump Doesn’t Just ‘Send In the Troops.’
HEY, WHO HAD KAMALA HARRIS AS VACCINE TRUTHER ON YOUR 2020 BINGO CARD? ‘I will not take his word for it:’ Kamala Harris says she would not trust Trump alone on a coronavirus vaccine.
As Never-Trumper Josh Jordan of tweets, “This is grossly irresponsible. We’re all skeptical of how Trump is trying to influence the process, but Harris could’ve said ‘If the proper safety testing is done, I would absolutely take the vaccine.’ This kind of statement from her carries a lot of weight — she knows better.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Concealed Carry Made Simple.
SEATTLE CLOSES PARK TO PREVENT OUTDOOR WORSHIP SERVICE: This notice sounds innocuous enough, just a legitimate public health measure. The reality is officials closed the park because it was the planned site for a worship time organized by a group of local churches, assisted by Sean Feucht. Feucht’s ministry organization has organized 19 services in 19 cities during July and August.
“This is the height of hypocrisy for the City of Seattle to turn a blind eye to riots, looting, and AntiFa, while refusing to let Christians gather in a public park to sing and worship,” Feucht said in a statement in response to the closure notice. “First the government shuts down churches. Now it’s shutting down parks to stop us from worshipping. Time to stand up church!”