Archive for 2021
January 14, 2021
THE ACADEMY HAS CHOSEN SIDES: Harvard Law School all in on discrediting any and all dissension about the 2020 election.
NO AGITATORS/PROVOCATEURS JANUARY 6? He saw four distinct groups of them and J. Michael Waller knows professional agitators when he sees them, having been trained to be one and observing hundreds of demonstrations and protests since the 1970s. Just a sample:
“Then, from the north, a column of uniformed, agile younger men walked briskly, single-file, toward the inaugural stand. They came within two feet of me. Their camouflage uniforms were clean, neat, and with a pattern I couldn’t identify.
“Some had helmets and GoPro cameras. Some uniforms bore subdued insignia, including the Punisher skull. These were the disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. I had seen them in groups of two or three among the marchers on Connecticut Avenue from the Ellipse.
“Now there were a good three dozen of them, moving in a single, snakelike formation. They were organized. They were disciplined. They were prepared. ‘We’re taking the Capitol!’ the first or second announced.”
FIGHT THE POWER, STICK IT TO THE MAN: UPitt faces repercussions after prof is silenced for expressing unpopular view.
EMERGENCY EVENT: Surviving The Big Tech Purge. “The swift takedown of Parler by Google, Apple, and Amazon Web Services, together with the deplatforming of Donald Trump, Trump supporters, and conservatives, should be a wake up call.”
NEXT UP FOR CENSORSHIP WILL BE RIGHT MEDIA: But, as with AOC’s comments quoted by Just the News, it will be called “media literacy.” That’s another term for what I believe Orwell called enforcing RightThink.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Your All-Too-Frequent Reminder That Jake Tapper Is Filth. “There were many like Tapper who use to be more coy about their bias but Trump forced them to peel off their human masks and reveal their biased lizard alien faces.”
THE ESTABLISHMENT WON, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LOST: That’s The Lid’s elegant summary of the second Trump impeachment. Few words, many implications.
NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: SpaceX’s Starship SN9 prototype fires up rocket engines three times in one day.
COULD EUROPE SAVE US FROM OURSELVES? WHAT A ROLE REVERSAL… Facebook and other tech giants could soon face a flood of court cases in Europe over data privacy.
THEY’RE ANGRY IN PART BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN TOLD TO SHUT UP OR GOTTEN REMOVED FROM THEIR FORMER HOMES: Meet The Billionaires Behind Signal And Telegram, Two New Online Homes For Angry Conservatives.
GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED ON WHERE WE’RE HEADED: Ben Weingarten explains in The Federalist that, while President Donald Trump is the Left’s immediate target, the ultimate targets are anybody who opposes the Left:
“Trump has personified this dissent, but the effort to delegitimize, de-platform, and ultimately destroy him and anyone around him is merely the opening scene of the ‘Godfather’-like settling of scores with all who threaten the ruling class’s power and privilege. This effort will directly harm not just the thousands of peaceful patriots who had descended on Washington D.C., and their tens of millions of like-minded neighbors across the country, but all Americans.”
IT WAS MEANT TO OBSCURE THE REAL PROBLEM: Trump’s Twitter ban obscures the real problem: state-backed manipulation is rampant on social media.
Since 2016, our team at the Oxford Internet Institute has monitored the rapid global proliferation of social media manipulation campaigns, which we define as the use of digital tools to influence online public behaviour. In the past four years, social media manipulation has evolved from a niche concern to a global threat to democracy and human rights.
Our latest report found that organised social media manipulation campaigns are now common across the world — identified in 81 countries in 2020, up from 70 countries in 2019. The map below shows the global distribution of these 81 countries, marked in dark blue.
In our report, we focus on the use of “cyber troops”, which are teams from the government, the military or political parties which are committed to manipulating public opinion on social media. Cyber troops regularly conduct what we call “computational propaganda” campaigns.
Read the whole thing.
A “BOLD” HIRING MOVE WOULD BE HIRING SOMEONE WHO WORKED IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Is A Pandemic The Right Time To Make Bold Faculty Hiring Moves — At Yale And Elsewhere?
SCOTUS: Supreme Court May Finally Reverse Kamala Harris’s Attack on Free Speech. “Back in 2015, Attorney General Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) demanded that two conservative nonprofit organizations, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), hand over their donor lists. This demand threatened to reveal the identity of donors, potentially subjecting them to threats and harassment for supporting these groups. It also flew in the face of a 1958 Supreme Court decision upholding Americans’ right to support causes they believe in without government harassment.”
IT’S A GOOD BEGINNING: The Times That Try Men’s Souls.
TECH CHOOSES SIDES: Airbnb canceling and blocking DC reservations during inauguration week.
The stark move comes just days after the company said it would step up its safety plan ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration. The company previously said it would ban individuals who were involved with the U.S. Capital riot on Jan. 6 or associated with known hate groups.
The company said Wednesday that it has already identified “numerous” individuals who were either associated with hate groups or otherwise involved with the riot, and have banned them from Airbnb’s platform.
It’s basically China’s social-credit scheme implemented through corporations for (implausible) deniability.
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY? An excellent primer for pro-lifers on dealing with the three major claims of pro-abortionists.
SOME DOMESTIC TERRORISTS: Danger! Your Neighbor May Be a Domestic Terrorist.
Why, they might do your lawn when they do theirs because “I had the mower out.” Only leftists could manage to be terrified of normalcy. But they are.
WERE THOSE PIPEBOMBS MEANT AS DIVERSIONS? Catherine Herridge, formerly of Fox News and more recently with CBS News, reports investigators think those pipebombs found at the RNC and DNC on January 6 may have been intended to divert law enforcement away from the Capitol itself at a crucial moment. That would also suggest somebody with a command and control structure for the planned riot.
Herridge also notes that the crucial window for understanding the timeline of January 6 events is between 12:45 and 1:15, before President Donald Trump finished his speech to the gathered protestors. If that is true, and there are abundant reasons to think it is, then it’s difficult to ascribe to Trump responsibility for inciting the riot.
Law enforcement documents obtained by CBS News reveal pipe bombs were planted at both the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters before the U.S. Capitol. @CBS_Herridge reports on the questions remaining about the intent and coordination of the bombs pic.twitter.com/urvl2qRfGB
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 13, 2021
DEATH PENALTY ON VIRGINIA’S GREEN MILE: Hans Bader predicts Virginia Democrats will go after life sentences once they do away with the death penalty. And then after they abolish life sentences, they will abolish ….