AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: New Media Rule: Don’t Say Gay. “The word is conspicuously absent from media coverage of the monkeypox outbreak.”

IN A NEW SECOND AMENDMENT ERA, RECOGNIZING THE CONTRIBUTION OF DON KATES.

“FACT-CHECKING” IS JUST LIES AND PROPAGANDA: ‘We live in an Orwellian hell-scape’: Facebook fact-checks top economist for stating America IS in a recession after Biden refused to admit it.

Facebook placed a ‘fact-checking’ label on a post written by a top economist stating that the United States is now in a recession – a move he termed ‘Orwellian’.

Two consecutive quarters of negative growth is the standard definition of a recession, and Phillip Magness, the research and education director at the American Institute for Economic Research, posted on Facebook a commentary about the country now being in a recession.

The post – which is no longer visible – was marked by Facebook’s fact checkers as being misleading.

‘We live in an Orwellian hell-scape,’ he tweeted.

‘Facebook is now ‘fact checking’ anyone who questions the White House’s word-games about the definition of a recession.’

All the institutions have been corrupted.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Trust the Artificial Intelligence, Part One.

The next political crisis may be triggered by a further loss of trust in authority, coupled with another institutional demand for power. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, faith in institutions was at an all-time low — and falling. In 2022, trust in organized religion was more than four times higher than in Congress. No branch of government was trusted by more than 50% of the public except the military, not even the police.

Yet this loss in institutional trust coincided with unprecedented demands by institutions for a vast increase in power. These included the power to regulate nearly anything in the name of stopping the climate from changing; the power to redefine society by proclaiming new ‘Woke’ values; and the power to control mass movement and require mandatory medication to control a pandemic. Finally, institutions demanded the power to ‘check facts’ in any speech and ‘de-platform’ anyone suspected of uttering misinformation, thus insulating themselves against criticism.

Since the institutions were so mistrusted, they could not ask for these additional powers on their own account, so they invoked the name of science. “Trust the science,” became the new all-encompassing justification. Politicians proclaimed themselves obliged to reluctantly assume dictatorial powers on expert advice to deal with crisis after crisis. They didn’t want more power, they protested, but they reluctantly had to act because the science forced them to. When one by one, these imperative ‘scientific’ measures were withdrawn or modified as their shortcomings became apparent in the public experience, the aura of infallibility was shattered.

Glenn has been writing about the loss of trust often in recent years and Richard’s piece is an important addition. Read the whole thing.

IF IT MOVES, TAX IT: ‘Fee’ on deliveries a gut punch to Colorado.

ALL THE INSTITUTIONS ARE BEING CORRUPTED: West Point is going woke, alumnus warns.

I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not opening a ‘portal to hell.’

In April, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, restarted their particle accelerator – the world’s largest and most powerful accelerator – after a three-year hiatus.

The accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, had undergone repairs and upgrades, and scientists plan to use it to crash protons together and learn more about the origins of the universe.

Nevertheless, social media users are suggesting that the machine has a different purpose. A Facebook post shared July 5 shows a TikTok video of a woman who claims that CERN scientists are using the machine to open a doorway for demons.

“If y’all don’t know about cern it’s a demonic/Evil machine that opens up portals to other dimensions/Hell/other spiritual worlds(not Heaven/or bosom of Abraham)and it brings in demons wicked spirits/High Evil Principalities,” reads the caption of the post.

Similar posts have amassed hundreds of interactions on Facebook and Twitter.

But the claim is baseless.

There is no evidence scientists at CERN are engaged in anything other than scientific-related activities. Physics experts told USA TODAY scientists use the Large Hadron Collider to collide particles at very high energies to study matter.

To be fair, if there’s one thing you’d think we could do in 2022, it’s opening up (well, even more so), a portal to Hell,  but it is Europe, after all. If the Biden administration were in charge, it wouldn’t be a question of if they could do it — it would be a question of what’s the deepest circle they would reach?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): In the Biden era, Hell is probably more worried about a portal from Earth.

DON’T GET COCKY: What the ‘Misery Index’ Really Means: Midterm Misery for Democrats.

FIGHT THE POWER: Federal judge agrees to expedite religious freedom lawsuit against Biden admin.

MILBLOGGER LAUGHING WOLF PRESENT Nuclear 101: Weapons. “While the primary focus is on nuclear weapons and war, I’m going to talk a bit about other types of special weapons as they can and do play a role in a nuclear war and nuclear strategy. So, let’s start by taking a look at the basic weapons.”

This is the second of a multipart series. The first, here, takes a look at our nuclear adversaries.

I’d hoped with the end of the Cold War that public education on nuclear war would never again be so necessary, but here we are.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: The Unexpected Return of Duck and Cover.

HORROR NOVEL PRESIDENCY: Biden Pushes Massive Tax Hike on Workers as Recession Begins: Could the timing here get any worse?

Related: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

RIGGED: ‘A Terrible Decision’: Newly Elected County Delegates in Arkansas Disqualified by Established Republicans.

A grassroots movement to get involved in the Republican party in an Arkansas county has been met with resistance from established seat holders who have argued that the process by which the new members won their seats wasn’t valid.

After 71 people voted out the current chair and delegate seats of the Pulaski County Republican Committee (PCRC) last month in Little Rock, Arkansas, state delegates at the Republican Party of Arkansas’ (RPA) state convention on Saturday voted in favor of the Republicans’ Credentials Committee’s decision to disqualify the new delegates for reasons those new delegates say are untrue. . . .

Justice told The Epoch Times that the purpose of hers and the groups’ decision to get involved was in response to a sense of activism that was stirred in the wake of a national climate that she said appears to have “spiraled out of control.”

“There was how COVID was handled, to the stolen election, and now we have inflation, and it’s really spurring people to get involved locally,” Justice said. “We can’t change anything in Washington, but we can make changes here in our own backyard.”

However, from the beginning, the established Republicans in the county put up a wall, Justice said.

“The attitude was very poor,” she said. “We were clearly not wanted in the Republican party, and they weren’t even trying to hide it.”

Sadly believable.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Biden Presidency Is a Poorly Written Horror Novel. “At first glance, it may seem that NBC News is doing a mini hit piece on President LOLEightyonemillion but that’s not the case at all. This is really just a roundabout way of making it seem like the old boy is robust, sharp, always on the job, and not the feeble, confused guy we see in public.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Inflation Is Everywhere—Even in TV Commercials.

Plus: SPAM goes on lockdown due to inflation in NYC.

Also: Dollar-Store Dinners and Vats of Shampoo Help Families Cope With High Prices: With energy and grocery prices rising, many are cutting their spending on essentials.

And: Home prices cooled at a record pace in June, according to housing data firm.

GOOD: Pelosi expected to visit Taiwan, Taiwanese and US officials say.

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Monkeypox Is About to Become the Next Public Health Failure. “Our country’s response to monkeypox ‌‌has been plagued by the same shortcomings we had with Covid-19. Now if monkeypox ‌gains a permanent foothold in the U‌nited States and becomes an endemic virus that joins our circulating repertoire of pathogens, it will be one of the worst public health failures in modern times not only because of the pain and peril of the disease but also because it was so avoidable.”

SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT: Rand Paul to lead first congressional hearing on gain-of-function research.

IF YOU LET THINGS GET OUT OF CONTROL UP FRONT, YOU WIND UP TRYING TO CATCH UP AND FAILING: Argentina Boosts Key Rate to 60% as Inflation Soars Toward 70%. Their big problem: “Central bank money-printing.”

ANOTHER FAILING INSTITUTION: Last Week’s Bar Exam: Send In The Clowns. “[Last] week, tens of thousands of budding lawyers [sat] for the bar examination. For the second year in a row, the big news is about technology. Last July, Examplify — the software used for remote testing — crashed repeatedly. Just weeks before this year’s exam, test-takers who’d bought new Windows laptops were informed that their devices were incompatible with the test.”

DEAL OF THE DAY: Vabogu 12×42 Binoculars for Adults. #CommissionEarned

MICHAEL WALSH: America’s ‘Transitioning’—but to What?

I BET THEY STILL HAVE A WAY TO GO: Re-Defining Words Hits Peak Absurdity. “It has been overt and in-your-face. Biden’s people attempted to re-frame ideas and concepts and chang the norms of what has been true over time. It’s the same thing the Left has done with the definition of woman, marriage, parents, and recession.”

ALL THE INSTITUTIONS ARE BEING CORRUPTED. Medical Schools Must Go Woke, Accreditor Declares.

EPOCH EDITORIAL BOARD THANKS SUPPORTERS: There was indeed quite an uproar when Twitter last week, without notice or credible explanation, decided to block all links to stories in The Epoch Times. The result was Twitter backed off after only two days.

The editors this morning are thanking everybody, including three U.S. senators, who spoke out against Twitter’s censorship. Thanks to Epoch’s supporters, independent journalism continues for another day to find and report the truth, whatever it proves to be.

CHANGE: How the German Economic Machine Broke Down.

Germany’s economy hasn’t grown for nearly five years. Its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has been weaker than any major advanced economy. Its ability to fill its energy needs is in question. And now the country once known as the economic engine of Europe is teetering on the brink of a recession.

It’s a sharp turn of fortunes for Germany’s large manufacturing sector, which flourished over the past two decades just as other Western nations saw industrial jobs migrate to Asia.

Germany’s big and long-successful bet on manufacturing relied on four engines: Free and open global trade, surging demand from China, an efficient domestic workforce and cheap Russian energy.

Each of those is now sputtering.

It’s easier to weather economic storms when you have reliable domestic energy production.