Tuesday, January 19. 2021
Sunday, January 17. 2021
Twitter bans Trump over risk of violence, but these leftist profs get a pass
Trump never advocated violence. He did want a protest.
As we are often reminded, the USA was founded as a democratic republic, not as a pure democracy. Many states would not have joined the deal without the original electoral college, or without the two Senators per state (which, as we recall, were originally selected by state legislatures and not by popular vote). They were supposed to be wise old owls to keep things rational - like the House of Lords.
But everything political ends up being power plays. It's a game, and a rough one because careers, money, power, and status are involved. Also, ideological passions which tend to be about power anyway. Politics in the US is not pretty and never has been.
What's The True Agenda Behind The Movement To Abolish The Electoral College?
Saturday, January 16. 2021
Friday, January 15. 2021
Parler being dumped by Amazon Web Services wasn't the first shot. Gab was in 2018. Gab is still around, though it is private now and subscription only. That may be the future for Parler and others like it which fill a need.
But going private isn't the only solution, there are other solutions. But private is probably bes. However, being aware and adept at meeting the Progressive/Leftist challenges to free speech is essential. I am particularly fond of The Mises Institute's approach.
This is a space in which I'm uniquely informed and aware. I've been seeing this slowly developing for years, and it's been a growing concern. I've been told for years "oh it will never get that bad" and now it really is that bad. Many said Net Neutrality was necessary because the provider of the pipes would throttle, reduce and limit ability for sites and apps to work. Ironically, the purported supporters of Net Neutrality are the very same businesses who are throttling free speech - you know, the free speech they felt Net Neutrality was required to prevent OTHERS FROM THROTTLING THEM. Except, they will argue, 'this is different'. It's not. And Net Neutrality would have given these tech oligarchs more power to do this very kind of thing.
That said, because all this has happened slowly at first, then suddenly (due to the Capitol incident), Hemingway's description of bankruptcy fits these moves restricting the freedoms on speech very well. When it's taken, unlike bankruptcy - which is usually noticeable, this is going largely unnoticed and unmentioned. Or, at least, it's being done in a manner many consider 'acceptable'. Because the main beneficiaries are the very groups doing damage to free speech - the tech oligopolists. Who know 'better than you' about how things should be done, how you should live your life, and what you can or should say.
Don't get me wrong. Tech in't bad. Social media isn't bad. It's not inherently evil. It is ambivalent to morality. But individuals themselves can be good or bad, and as a result can have overbearing and long-lasting impacts on our realities. I'm sure Gutenberg was not loved by leaders of the day and "War of the Worlds" certainly sent many scurrying to talk of the damage radio can do. TV was described as a "vast wasteland" and Bill Gates felt there was little commercial value to the internet.
What is happening now requires individual awareness and action. It does NOT require fighting or violence. Just intelligence and smart, cordial and meaningful action. The Progessives are just starting, in my view. I don't believe violence will help solve issues - it will be used to justify positions. But being louder, smarter and more aware will make a difference.
 More Than a Quarter of US Households Will Cut the Cord in 2021
De Blasio hates gifted schooling because it exposes his own failures
Chicago Teachers, Checked Out - Second City public school instructors are not stepping up in a crisis.
San Fran Doctors: Opens The Schools Already!
China slams United States for Big Tech censorship
The Media is Actively Running the Social Media Purge of Conservatives
Save the Constitution from Big Tech
2020’s Spike in Urban Homicides Should Not Be a Mystery
Frank Luntz Looks Visibly Disturbed When His Focus Group Proves People Still LOVE Trump
Another Violent Leftist Arrested at US Capital Protest: Registered Democrat and 34-Year-Old Son of a New York Judge
NOT THE MOST EVIL POLITICAL ACT OF MY LIFETIME…
…but perhaps the dumbest. Impeachment, that is. It is fitting, in a weird way, that the Democrats talked about impeaching President Trump before he was inaugurated, and now have actually impeached him for the second time when he is about to leave office, and the impeachment can have no practical effect. Neither in 2016 nor today did impeachment relate to anything other than the irrational, visceral hatred that Democrats have for Donald Trump.
Unity? CNN's Don Lemon: If You Voted For Trump, You're With The Klan, The Nazis, & The Rioters
Trump re-impeached, supporters silenced, humiliated and threatened
No One Will Let Trump Go Away
US energy independence is on the way out
Restart, Reset or Renew? The Strategy against Iranian Nuclear Ambition
Thursday, January 14. 2021
Wednesday, January 13. 2021
40% of students at U Wisc feel government should restrict speech about climate because it could be dangerous.
I have to link Scott again because he expresses it better than I can. It is at the 12-minute mark.
Climate Cultist Prince Charles Blames COVID On ‘Climate Change’
Florida puts New York to shame in rational pandemic policies
Defying common sense, Andrew Cuomo’s crazy vaccine rules bring ‘chaos’
End Covid Now - Use our existing vaccination channels with broad distribution to stop the pandemic.
Ignore the Teachers Unions and Open the Schools. “Keep the schools open,” said Anthony Fauci.
Barbara Boxer, Now Formally Working for China
Wikileaks files: Forwarding from Western Rifle. You might want to forward as well.
Bawer: What now? Terrifying times lie ahead.
From October, How I Switched From Never-Trump To Never-Biden
ANTIFA Forces Portland Book Store to Stop Selling Andy Ngo’s Book About ANTIFA
Uganda Blocks FaceBook and Twitter To Block The Tech Monopolies' Power to Interfere In Their Elections; Twitter Bizarrely Declares That the Free Flow of Information over the Internet is Critical During Elections
World Leaders Denounce Big Tech Censorship of President Donald Trump
National Association of Realtors Bans Free Speech
President Trump Takes a Hit for the Team
At Taki:
Fucking idiots.
Oh, did I violate the unwritten rule that crass language is most effectively employed as punctuation for effect rather than, say, an opening statement?
If so, my apologies. Now back to the cussing.
“Fuck you…WAR.” Thousands of you tweeted that old Breitbart clip last week, back when you were still ON Twitter, before rightists were purged en masse as “insurrectionists”…before they migrated to Parler, and Amazon, Google, and Apple crippled the platform.
“Screw your optics; I’m going in.” That was the theme of last week. War!
How’d that work out for ya, huh?
Trump Campaign Official Denied Entry into TV Studio for Interview — Told He’s On a “List of People They Won’t Allow In”
PBS Top Lawyer Says Gov Should Build 'Enlightenment Camps' And Remove Children From Trump Supporting Homes
Orwell vs. Big Tech
The Democrats Will Go On Impeaching Trump Forever. Welcome to the permanent anti-Trump party.
Book: Formula for Failure in Vietnam: The Folly of Limited Warfare By William Hamilton
Tuesday, January 12. 2021
Greenwald in How Silicon Valley, in a Show of Monopolistic Force, Destroyed Parler. In the last three months, tech giants have censored political speech and journalism to manipulate U.S. politics, while liberals, with virtual unanimity, have cheered.
On Thursday, Parler was the most popular app in the United States. By Monday, three of the four Silicon Valley monopolies united to destroy it.
Is this about monopoly power, or just politics?
Related, World Leaders Denounce Big Tech Censorship of President Donald Trump
Sunday, January 10. 2021
Mrs. Bulldog and I went into the city to meet our boys for brunch and decided to visit the "new" Penn Station which is formerly the US Post Office (across the street from the "old" Penn Station and Madison Square Garden). It is designed to handle what were very crowded spaces in Penn (ugh...some nights were unbelievable, especially when trains broke down) and provide a bit of a 'link' to the past as the old Post Office's architecture and interior were somewhat similar to the original Penn Station, which was destroyed (tragically) years ago.
I have included 2 pictures. I am not impressed. The open interior, with glass ceiling that lets a ton of light in, is excellent. What was formerly an interior parking area is now the main part of the terminal. Beyond that, as Mrs. Bulldog said, "The great train halls of Europe need not worry of competition."
It is antiseptic, utilitarian and lacks a soul. Clean (though new), bright, cheery - these are all positives, but in terms of originality and whimsy, there is none. I found nothing interesting or inspiring. Where Grand Central has all kinds of angles and views to catch your eye and keep you interested, Moynihan Train Hall has none. It's boring and uninspired.
But maybe it's not supposed to be inspiring. Millions will pass through there on the average week, mostly commuters to Long Island and New Jersey. Who needs to be distracted?
Continue reading "Moynihan Train Hall"
Not by the election, but because he screwed up, finally, in his last week in office. Bad timing for a rally, some crazy people showed up. Expect Trump to be Nixonized by the media.
Scott claims he's been the best, most effective president in our lifetimes. Could be.
Big tech is staging a digital coup. Big tech has been given the keys to the kingdom and they're not giving them back. They have the tools and the power to block dissent and they are using them.
Amazon Joins Apple And Google In Cutting Off Parler
The leftist tech monopolists and billionaires continue their purge
ACLU To Twitter: Er … You Sure You Want To Ban Speech, Guys?
Nikki Haley Likens Trump Twitter Ban to Act of Chinese Communist Party
It is notable that the left is so motivated to cancel speech, while conservatives seem to welcome differences of opinion. Why?
Saturday, January 9. 2021
As for so many if not most people, Trump's fate was in himself, not in his stars. Hubris is part of it.
One year ago we commented that Trump's 2020 adversary would be himself. That is a tragic hero.
Heather always gets it right: Trump's Exit
Driscoll at Insty: Kicked out of the comedy club
Nearly two-thirds of college students think government should have power to punish ‘hate speech’: survey
"Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach".
Bryn Mawr College Agrees to ‘Reparations Fund’ Following Student Strike That Shut Campus for Weeks
President Trump Says He Will Not Attend Joe Biden’s Inauguration on January 20th
Non-traditional as expected, but the magnificent bastard would be a huge distraction
Peggy Noonan:
Mr. Trump is a sick, bad man and therefore, as president, a dangerous one. He has grown casually bloody-minded, nattering on about force and denouncing even his own vice president as a coward for not supporting unconstitutional measures. No one seems to be certain how Mr. Trump spends his days. He doesn’t bother to do his job. The White House is in meltdown. The only thing that captures his interest is the fact that he lost, which fills him with thoughts of vengeance.
I guess she doesn't like him
The tech monopolies have sprung into action
Big Tech Launches Massive Coordinated Cyber Attack on 74,000,000 Trump Voters — GOP SILENT
Biden Plays Race Card: ‘If It Had Been BLM Protesting Yesterday, They Would’ve Been Treated Very Differently’…
Very true
How Warnock and Ossoff painted Georgia blue and flipped the Senate
China Starts Collecting On Its Investment In The Bidens
Friday, January 8. 2021
Hopefully calm will be restored as the nation moves back toward some semblance of whatever it is we consider 'normal' for the last 9 months. I hope things continue to improve as we move out of the Covid scare and fear mongering (yes, Covid is real, I had it as have many friends, but no it's not so bad for 95% of the people who get it). If we can move past all this, my job opportunities may improve.
Then again, who knows? I know few of you are on Facebook, but I am (or was). It allowed me to reconnect with friends and family and it's a useful tool. I've also shared Maggie's articles there with my friends, and met many other people who I share interests with. I am well aware of the privacy issues, but I know how to navigate them (part of my everyday job) and manage them effectively. There is, however, one thing I can't manage. It's the real problem we're facing today. It's the reason I deactivated my Facebook recently (after letting people know how they can reach me if they want/need to).
I am aware of many HR Departments doing sweeps of social media to find things out about people. I have heard several stories of pro-Trump people losing job offers. This doesn't surprise me at all in NYC today. The shift here has been significant from not just hating Trump to full-fledged belief that anyone who supports him is a deranged psychopath. I have never been a Trump supporter, but that doesn't mean anything because I've never hated him, either. It's best to hate him with the passion of a thousand suns in order to win approval with many organizations today.
I haven't loved him, haven't hated him, I've merely tolerated him, and realized his persona was a massive problem but that he was accomplishing some good things. I was for honesty and balance of thought and reason. Today, you can't be that way. You have to be a true believer, or at least not come across as a believer of "the other side". In other words, it is almost a requirement to be Progressive to be "acceptable". Such is the nature of modern definitions of Diversity - be like us or you're not acceptable. I'm all for Diversity. Diversity of thought, and respect for other views, without accepting the enforcement of those views on others by law, social shame, or other means of behavioral modification (brainwashing via education, for example).
Continue reading "A Dose of Reality"
Tucker: The Republican Party must look after its voters, not its leaders:
Just for a moment, let's think about what life will be like next month. Two weeks from Thursday, Donald Trump will no longer be in control of our nuclear arsenal. He will not have command of federal agencies or even, most likely, his own Twitter account.
The rest of us, and this is key, will still be here. We've got nowhere to go. So what is life going to be like for us on Jan. 20? Not many people seem to be thinking about that, up to and including the people we pay to think about it. Donald Trump thinks almost exclusively about Donald Trump, but so does almost every single Democrat and Republican in the Congress. Who's got your concerns top of mind? Who wakes up in the middle of the night worried about your family? As far as we can tell, no one.
Thursday, January 7. 2021
I hate to say it. but there it is. He was never ordinary (which is why he was elected), but now, with just a few days left, people are fleeing his leadership. Heroes have great strengths and great weaknesses.
‘I can’t stay’: Mick Mulvaney resigns his Trump administration post
Former AG Barr: Trump Betrayed ‘His Office And Supporters,’ ‘Orchestrated A Mob’ Over Election Loss
Stephanie Grisham, Top Aide to First Lady Melania Resigns
Wednesday, January 6. 2021
Tuesday, January 5. 2021
I agree with Ponnuru: It is time to throw in the towel.
Furthermore, I do not think Trump is doing himself any favors by talking the way he is. A graceful exit is the way to do it, and let history judge it all.
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