RUTHFULLY YOURS

Social media is often abuzz with politics—from immigration and gun control to infrastructure and tariffs. Rarely is the social media itself the topic of discussion. But now is long past time for that discussion.https://amgreatness.com/2018/03/07/great-social-media-purge-no-one-safe-2/

It is certainly no secret that social media companies are overwhelmingly left-wing, fueling the fake “Russia” conspiracy theory, and endlessly bashing President Donald Trump. But now, the social media giants of the Internet—Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (one of the main subsidiaries Alphabet, which is the corporate parent of Google)—have been preparing their next big, heinous move: an attempt to ban right-wing voices outright from their platforms.

It started small, with random small-scale conservative accounts being banned from Twitter in small batches. Since December of 2017, a handful of fringe figures have also been banned from Twitter, including white nationalist Jared Taylor, alt-Right Internet personality Anthime Gionet (also known as “Baked Alaska”), and anti-Semitic congressional candidate Paul Nehlen. But this wasn’t the extent of it. While this period saw the banning of mostly fringe figures, a handful of larger voices were also no-platformed, including paleoconservative YouTuber James Allsup and longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone.

Then in late February, Twitter went all-out and banned more than 2,000 right-leaning accounts at once. These attacks were dismissed by the Left, who wrote off all of these accounts as either Russian bots or Nazis, without any evidence to support their claims.

The French statesman Talleyrand famously observed about the Bourbons, “they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” Something similar might be said about New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Once upon a time he was the avatar of a new age of economic interdependence that would lead to global peace. No two countries that each had a McDonald’s, he wrote, would ever go to war with each other. Then came the Balkans Wars in the 1990s. So much for the flat and interdependent world that Friedman purported to have discovered.

In a column of February 18, Friedman was in familiar form. Which is to say flat earth mode. Once more, his judgments were sweeping and apodictic. He declared a “code red” on the state of American democracy. “President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.”

The piece attracted more than 2,700 comments, “a personal record” according to Friedman, who credited the powerful public response to its being “the right column at the right time.” Funnily enough, he wasn’t even supposed to file a column that day. It wasn’t his turn in the weekly rotation. But he was so annoyed by Trump’s tweets in response to special counsel Robert Mueller’s most recent round of indictments that he emailed editor James Bennet to ask if he could file a bonus column, just for the web. “Not my day. Not in print. And it may be the most widely circulated column I’ve ever written,” he told CNN.

It is hard to know what exactly Friedman was so worked up about. It can’t be the Mueller indictments themselves, because nothing in the document released by the Department of Justice on February 17 suggests any collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign, much less Trump himself. It specifically describes the campaign staff who interacted with the paid Russians trolls as “unwitting.”

This week, a major news story broke. A 2-year-old girl was photographed looking at a really terrible painting of Michelle Obama.

“‘A moment of awe’: Photo of little girl captivated by Michelle Obama portrait goes viral,” the Washington Post cheered. “Little girl awestruck by Michelle Obama’s portrait believes she’s a queen,” urgently reported CNN. The sum total of this story is that a little girl looked at a portrait of Michelle.

Eat your heart out, North Korea. Our fake news propaganda is even tackier than yours.

Recently, a photo was released of Barack Obama meeting with Louis Farrakhan. The photo had been suppressed all these years to protect Obama’s career. Farrakhan was the racist leader of a hate group who had praised Hitler and described Jews as “satanic”. And yet he had met with the future president at a Congressional Black Caucus event. A CBC member, Rep. Danny Davis, had even praised Farrakhan.

You might think there’s a story in all that. And you would be wrong.

There isn’t a single Washington Post story on the photo. Not one. The same paper that believed its readers needed to be informed that a little girl had been photographed looking at a bad painting of Michelle Obama hasn’t found the time to report on the cover up of a meeting between top Democrats, including a future president, and the leader of a racist hate group that had once allied with the KKK.

It’s not that the Washington Post can’t report on Farrakhan. Or use Farrakhan to attack a president.

In ’15, the Post ran, “The bigotry of Trump and Farrakhan” and in ’16, “Why the Nation of Islam is praising Donald Trump”. Its stories about Obama and Farrakhan insist that the two men hate each other. A ’15 piece even attempted to link Farrakhan to Clarence Thomas, instead of Obama.

President Trump in his first year has succeeded at realizing many long-time conservative goals like tax reform and deregulation, to name a few. But for NeverTrump grumps, these achievements seem to intensify their bitter-ender anger at a political parvenu. Puffed up with self-regard about the purity of their “principles,” many have doubled-down on their criticisms of Trump’s brash, vulgar demeanor, coming off like the pompous Judge Smails sputtering over Al Czervik’s trashing of the Bushwood Country Club.

The latest outburst came from columnist Mona Charen after she lectured the CPAC attendees about their hypocrisy over the recent sexual harassment disclosures. Writing for The New York Times––the premier gate-keeper of “correct” opinion –– Charen reprised her scolding of Trump supporters that signaled to progressive monitors she is free from the Trump pox. But all she achieved beyond a pat on the head from progressives was to remind Trump voters why they rejected over a dozen establishment Republicans and then the deplorable Hillary Clinton in favor of an insurgent bulldozing his way through the stale received wisdom of those Republican politicians and pundits who’d rather be liked than win.

Most of Charen’s column comprises her self-congratulation about her “bravery,” and her claim that she and other NeverTrumpers “built and organized this party,” but now have been turned into “interlopers.” She criticizes as cowards Republicans who don’t trash Trump, and who have let “bad actors take control of the direction of our movement.” It’s interesting how Charen let slip the NeverTrumpers’ anger at the “Trumpified” common people who have crashed the elite’s private soirée, as though a political party is a swanky country club rather than a mechanism for mobilizing support for policies that serve all party members rather than a narrow political class.

This is the same thinly veiled snobbery, by the way, regularly indulged by arch-NeverTrumper Bret Stephens, who has joined David Brooks as another Times house-conservative. Stephens was delighted with Charen’s performance, and in his own column delivered perhaps the most useful explanation for why millions of Americans turned against the establishment and its mouthpieces:

Liberals tend to admire NeverTrumpers, because they see them as conservatives with a moral sense and, perhaps, a brain. By contrast, MAGA Republicans — whether of the fully or merely semi-Trumpified varieties — detest NeverTrumpers with an animus they can scarcely extend to liberals or progressives.

The New York Times published a story on March 1, based on anonymous sources, claiming that Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., had met with House Speaker Paul Ryan to blame Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., for leaking texts between Mark Warner and the attorney for a Russian oligarch connected to the author of the salacious and unverified dossier the FBI used to secure a wiretap against a Trump campaign affiliate.

It was a weird story for many reasons. For one, it was the first time the paper had even mentioned these encrypted texts, despite their newsworthiness and the dramatic twist they gave parts of the Russia investigation.

For another, the story was denied publicly by Burr, who told CNN that the account was simply wrong.

For another, it turned out that no members on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence had even seen the texts, according to Nunes and others on the committee.

But the weirdest part about the story is that The New York Times is a frequent recipient of actual leaks from House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee. On Feb. 27, Democrats on the committee leaked Hope Hicks’ testimony directly to The New York Times. In fact, Nicholas Fandos, the very same reporter on the anonymously sourced story about House Republicans supposedly leaking, received a leak from Democrats on the committee, which he immediately published under the headline, “Hope Hicks Acknowledges She Sometimes Tells White Lies for Trump.”

Quinn Norton is an engaging, funny, and stylish writer on technology and the odd communities that inhabit our digital world and make it so scary. She is also, to quote her own description, “a bisexual anarchist pacifist, prison abolitionist, & vegetarian. Currently I’m fretting about fair trade standards and ethical food.” What’s not to like?

Obviously that’s the question editors at the New York Times asked themselves not long ago, and they arrived at the same answer Edwin Starr reached when he wondered what war was good for: absolutely nothing. Earlier this month they decided to offer her a job on the paper’s editorial board. She decided to accept the job, thereby touching off a revolt from Times readers that resulted in her firing. It was six hours between the moment the Times announced her new job and the moment the Times let her go—in Internet time, roughly the equivalent of the Hundred Years’ War, except with more acrimony. The ejection of a slightly unconventional leftist from the opinion pages is the latest in a series of incidents that might give pause to the Times’s less excitable readers.

You would think Norton’s bisexuality, anarchism, pacifism, vegetarianism, and anti-prison activism would place her only slightly to the left of most people who take the Times as their daily meat. Indeed, her anxiety over ethical food should have been enough to seal the deal all by itself. But there were blemishes on her leftism, and Times readers quickly discovered them. A proctological probe of her Twitter feed showed that in years past she had used racial and sexual slurs and had once referred to a neo-Nazi as a “friend.” With protests spouting from various social media, the Times editors quietly backed Norton toward an open window and gave her a gentle push.

A few brave souls came to her defense. In the dimly remembered past—two years ago, let’s say—their explanations would have struck nearly all Times readers as exculpatory, and Quinn Norton, appropriately chastened, would have kept her job. Wired magazine, for instance, decreed that Norton’s ironic use of anti-gay language was covered by something called “in-group privilege,” a kind of Get Out of Jail Free card that she’d earned as a member in good standing of the “queer community.” The ugly racial talk and the Nazi friend were part of her larger evangelization efforts to racist louts. She was just code-switching, slipping into their lingo during her many attempts at online conversion.

I understand why most of the media is focusing on the fictional Russian collusion, Hope Hicks resigning and rumors about Jared Kushner. Since they hate Trump, they certainly wouldn’t focus on how well the economy is doing, which shows up in the following articles on the Drudge Report on March 1st

Jobless claims plunge to 49-year low…

Manufacturing Expands at Fastest Pace Since ’04…
US crude oil output hits all-time high; Takes out 1970 record…
Foreign Holdings of U.S. Securities Rise to Record $18 Trillion…

I do find this article in the WSJ, that was also published on March 1st, funny. They state that foreign investors aren’t buying as many government bonds, while the above bullet point says foreign investors hold a record amount.

I also find the following to be funny: Does Fed control Trump 2020 destiny?

Predictions about the 2020 election are absolutely nuts. I will give the authors a clue. If the economy continues to do so well that the fed believes they need to continually raise rates, Trump will probably do pretty well against the leftists who want bigger government and who want more people to be dependent on government. My guess is the majority of people will be happier with better jobs, less regulations and lower taxes, versus more food stamps, more regulations and higher taxes.

Some other headlines that most of the media are virtually ignoring:

Great consumer confidence along with business confidence;
Higher home ownership;
Declining minority unemployment, and;
Women’s employment at an 18 year high.

It is no wonder that Trump is around 50% approval in Rasmussen, which is around 7% higher than Obama at this point in his presidency. And it is also no wonder that almost all the media ignores the Rasmussen poll while touting low numbers in Gallup and CNN polls. They do enjoy misleading the public to push their agenda.

Every child knows intuitively that losing is not fun. Toddlers will steal a coveted toy right from the hands of an unwitting playmate in the ultimate power move; grade-schoolers will weep openly on the soccer-field sidelines after the usual 1-0 loss; and just try to console a sophomore girl whose latest crush asks someone else to the Homecoming dance. The need to win and get what you want is as basic a human instinct as breathing and shoe shopping.

So, it must really hurt the tender feelings of the puerile talent pool at CNN that the Investigation, Discovery, and Hallmark channels have more viewers than they do. They must really want to pout and kick their little sister over the fact that Fox News had more than double the number of viewers than they did in 2017, and their right-wing rival has been the most watched cable news network for 194 months in a row. To make matters worse, the biggest bully in school, Donald Trump, keeps giving them social-media wedgies on Twitter every week. Even when they try to fight back by explaining how an apple is really a banana or something, everyone makes fun of them.

Being unpopular really stinks.

The CNN roster of reporters and anchors is loaded with some of the most immature whiners in television news. The network’s White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, is Arnold Horshack to Sarah Sanders’ Mr. Kotter, the annoying (but not nearly as loveable) class dunce trying to get attention from his eye-rolling teacher. On Monday, Acosta tussled with Sanders about whether Trump would have run into Stoneman Douglas High School to “save the day” during the February 14 shooting and worried that schools will become like “the Wild West.” Alisyn Camerota pouted that NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch was using explosive rhetoric against the media: “How dare you?” she wailed.