RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://dailycaller.com/2023/03/09/twitter-files-congress-censorship-network/

Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi testified to the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday about the online censorship network behind Twitter’s censorship practices.

The House Judiciary Committee invited Taibbi to testify in front of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government as part of a hearing about the Twitter Files, a series of reports on the inner workings of the social media platform based on documents released by Twitter CEO Elon Musk and reviewed by Taibbi and other journalists.

“The original promise of the Internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere,” Taibbi said. “What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise, and use machine learning and other tools to turn the internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role.”

Taibbi is a left-leaning journalist with 30 years of experience reporting primarily for Rolling Stone. Michael Shellenberger, another journalist who reported on the Twitter Files, also testified in front of the Subcommittee on Weaponization.

https://victorhanson.com/our-lethal-frenemies/

Over 100,000 Americans are dying from opiate overdoses per year—mostly fentanyl coming across the southern border. China ships to the cartels the raw product. They refine it and stamp it into pills for export solely to the U.S., deliberately using shapes and sizes to make their export seem similar to other less deadly drugs.

China sees fentanyl as divine nemesis for the 19th-century Opium Wars: Just as Great Britain in the 1830s and 1840s once sent mass death and addiction into China via opium, so it now will do the same as payback to the U.S.

Ditto Mexico. It feels that the loss of the American southwest by intrusive Texans and others in the 1840s is now divinely paid back by millions of Mexicans pouring northward de facto to reclaim lost lands (this fantasy is often explicitly boasted about in radical La Raza literature).

Or as President Lopez Obrador of Mexico recently boasted to a visiting clueless Biden of massive unchecked and green-lighted illegal immigration into the U.S: “Just imagine: There are 40 million Mexicans in the United States—40 million who were born here in Mexico, (or) who are the children of people who were born in Mexico!”

Lopez Obrador strangely thought it reflected well on his Mexico that 40 millions of his own citizens wanted to leave his country as soon as possible and at any cost.

The open border is now a conduit to mass death. Let me be clear: The cartels, the Mexican government (Mexico’s top drug enforcement officer is currently on trial in the U.S. for involvement in drug trafficking), and China are making billions of dollars on the mass death of Americans, a toll each year about 12 times more than all the Americans killed in Afghanistan and Iraq over some 20 years.

AWAY FROM MARCH 1 TO MARCH 9

https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/27/a-partisan-judges-parting-rampage/

Defense lawyers call it “January 6 jurisprudence”—a unique set of rules and laws that only apply to those ensnared in the Justice Department’s unstoppable push to punish individuals who do not believe Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president of the United States. So far, nearly 1,000 Americans have been arrested and charged, mostly on low-level misdemeanors, for their involvement in the Capitol protest as the regime circles its ultimate prize: Donald Trump.

The fundamental “crime” that acts as the basis of January 6 jurisprudence is not necessarily the four-hour disturbance that temporarily delayed the certification process that day. No, the real crime—to hear regime apparatchiks, the media (but I repeat myself), and Democratic Party politicians (including Biden himself) tell it—is promoting the “Big Lie,” the notion that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or stolen.

Efforts to uncover election irregularities or lawfully object to the outcome are under criminal investigation resulting in the unprecedented weaponization of legal and judicial authority conducted by unaccountable prosecutors and judges.

Enabling this farce in the nation’s capital is Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the D.C. District Court. A former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill, Howell was appointed to the bench by Barack Obama in 2010 and elevated to chief judge in 2016. Since then, Howell has steered the government’s yearslong effort to put Trump in handcuffs. She managed the grand jury proceedings for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and is currently overseeing the Justice Department’s latest iteration of its “Get Trump” campaign—a sweeping investigation into alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/are_you_freer_than_you_were_two_years_ago.html

Everywhere you look, you’re told what to think, what to say, what to do, what to buy.  We are enslaved as never before in this country, and half of us want more enslavement and for government to “take care of us,” even at the cost of enslavement.

What does it mean, to be enslaved?  First and foremost, it means that we have lost freedom of choice, and with it, acceptance of the fact that choices have consequences.  That blank stare at the screen that I see in so many viewers reveals just how brainwashed they have become.  Vote for Biden — yes, vote for Biden.  Biden for democracy, Biden for prosperity, Biden for your Social Security, Biden for another COVID check or loan forgiveness.  And half of Americans vote for Biden.

At the heart of freedom is independent thinking, and to think independently, one must ditch the media, even the media one normally agrees with.  It’s not enough to let Fox News do the thinking for us.  We must be ferociously independent, and we must respect one another’s independence.  I enjoy talking with those who have different ideas about the border, the budget, or socialized medicine so long as they are not mental zombies.  Nothing is more refreshing than meeting an actual free-thinking human being, one whose beliefs emerge from independent thinking and true concern for others.

That kind of thinking is independent of party or ideology, but it is inherently conservative since it is conservatives, not liberals, who think deeply and compassionately about choice, consequences, self-reliance, and human happiness.  One cannot think in this way if one is a liberal or progressive.

After all, the ultimate goal for progressives is global enslavement under the aegis of a world government following the abolition of nation-states and the destruction of individual freedom.  The progressive world order would look a lot like North Korea, which we would do well to study if we wish to understand the enemy we face.  Most North Koreans are not forced to support Kim Jong-un — they love Kim Jong-un because long ago they surrendered their freedom of thought and traded their human rights in exchange for what they believed to be the security of an average 2,032 calories per day, much of it noodles and vegetables.

When Kim speaks, there is silent acquiescence to every syllable, and, again, not just for fear of disagreeing.  Within a totalitarian state, most people want to agree.  On April 15, the Day of the Sun (the anniversary of the birth of North Korea’s founder and eternal president, Kim Il-sung), the crowds that gather are not just bussed in or conscripted from nearby apartment blocks, as some believe.  They worship Kim Il-sung and his heirs not because they are afraid to think for themselves, but because they have lost the ability to think for themselves.  And that is what progressives wish for America.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-forgotten-town/

A catastrophic train derailment has unleashed toxic fumes and pollutants into the air and water of East Palestine, Ohio, leaving the town’s inhabitants reeling with uncertainty about their future. The once-thriving community now stands in a state of disarray, with residents left wondering whether they will face long-term health consequences and whether their town will ever be the same again.

Despite the severity of the situation, weeks after the disaster, President Joe Biden has failed to visit. To make matters worse, he decided to instead visit Ukraine. This move has only served to exacerbate the sense of betrayal felt by the people of East Palestine. With this move, he has turned the concept of “America first” on its head, treating Americans last, and leaving many Americans feeling as if they are last in line for his attention and concern.

The people of East Palestine are not political pawns to be ignored or overlooked. They are hardworking citizens who deserve compassion, empathy and a strong leader who will take their concerns seriously. Rural America has been hit hard in recent years, and East Palestine is no different. It is time for our elected officials to prioritize the needs of all Americans, regardless of their location or background, and work toward creating a brighter future for everyone.

East Palestine is a town that has endured its fair share of challenges. Once a bustling community centered around coal mining, the town has been dealt a severe blow by the industry’s decline. Job losses and economic hardship have become a way of life for many residents, despite the valiant efforts of local leaders to attract fresh investment and industries. Compounding the town’s woes is the opioid epidemic, which has wreaked havoc on the lives of many, leaving them struggling with addiction and the resulting social and economic consequences.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-season-for-swamp-draining-21cf59f5?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Two weeks ago this column shared the cheery news that the 118th Congress had so far managed to avoid doing anything of consequence to us. The lucky streak continues and this welcome respite from the misguided frenzy of Biden lawmaking could be just the start. Now some taxpayers are beginning to dream that Beltway lawmakers might be able to achieve even less than nothing—an actual reduction in the burdens Washington imposes on the citizenry.

Lisa Rein and Jacqueline Alemany report for the Washington Post:

At a House hearing this month on fraud and waste in pandemic aid, some Republicans zeroed in on one group in particular for criticism: the federal employees overseeing the money.
“Fire people if they don’t do things they’re supposed to do,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said. “That is our biggest problem in the federal government. Nobody can be held accountable.”
That sentiment is animating a newly empowered GOP House majority eager to ramp up scrutiny of the army of civil servants who run the government’s day-to-day operations. The effort includes seeking testimony from middle- and lower-level workers who are part of what Republicans have long derided as the “deep state,” while some lawmakers are drafting bills that have little chance of passing the Democrat-led Senate but give Republicans a chance to argue for reining in the federal bureaucracy of 2.1 million employees.

Why not take the chance, especially given the surging cost of maintaining this vast unproductive enterprise? The Post report continues:

…House Republican leaders have told almost all of their committees to come up with plans by March to slash spending and beef up oversight of federal agencies in their jurisdiction.

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/social-justice-shrinks-how-identity-politics-infected-therapy/

In winter 2019, Leslie Elliott enrolled as a graduate student in Antioch University’s Mental Health Counseling program. At first, she found it to be a stimulating master’s program — informative and clinically relevant. Then she took a required course in “multicultural counseling.”

“We were taught that race should be the dominant lens through which clients were to be understood and therapy conducted,” says Elliott, a mother of four who’d majored in psychology.

Elliott’s professors taught her, for example, that if clients were white, she was supposed to help them see how they unwittingly perpetuate white supremacy. “We were encouraged to regard white clients as ‘reservoirs of racism and oppression.’” White women, one professor told a class, were “basic bitches,” “Beckys” and “nothing special.”

If the client were black, Elliott was told to ask how it felt to sit with her, a white counselor. If the client felt at ease, “my job — regardless of what brought him to therapy — was to make him more aware of how being black compounded, or perhaps caused, his problems.

After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the three-year program intensified its emphasis on race and oppression, making clear that counselors were to be foot soldiers in the culture wars. “Incredible as it sounds,” says Elliott, “we were encouraged to see ourselves as activists and remake ourselves as social change agents.”

“Critical social-justice therapists” is what Aaron Kindsvatter and others call this new breed of mental health professional graduating from programs across the country. Last year, Kindsvatter le his tenured position at the University of Vermont to pursue private practice in Burlington, where he has treated a handful of clients who were, in his words, “victims of indoctrination attempts” by their “authoritarian” therapists. To be clear, Elliott and Kindsvatter are not talking about a mismatch in sociopolitical views wherein, say, a client is conservative and the therapist is liberal or progressive. To be sure, such a
discrepancy can — though by no means inevitably does — create tension. Studies have shown, in fact, that therapeutic relationships were stronger when clients felt comfortable disclosing their political views to the therapist and when the therapist was accepting of those views.

https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/social-media-mental-illness-epidemic?utm_medium=email

A big story last week was the partial release of the CDC’s bi-annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which showed that most teen girls (57%) now say that they experience persistent sadness or hopelessness (up from 36% in 2011), and 30% of teen girls now say that they have seriously considered suicide (up from 19% in 2011). Boys are doing badly too, but their rates of depression and anxiety are not as high, and their increases since 2011 are smaller. As I showed in my Feb. 16 Substack post, the big surprise in the CDC data is that COVID didn’t have much effect on the overall trends, which just kept marching on as they have since around 2012. Teens were already socially distanced by 2019, which might explain why COVID restrictions added little to their rates of mental illness, on average. (Of course, many individuals suffered greatly). 

Most of the news coverage last week noted that the trends pre-dated covid, and many of them mentioned social media as a potential cause. A few of them then did the standard thing that journalists have been doing for years, saying essentially “gosh, we just don’t know if it’s social media, because the evidence is all correlational and the correlations are really small.” For example, Derek Thompson, one of my favorite data-oriented journalists, wrote a widely read essay in The Atlantic on the multiplicity of possible causes. In a section titled Why is it so hard to prove that social media and smartphones are destroying teen mental health? he noted that “the academic literature on social media’s harms is complicated” and he then quoted one of the main academics studying the issue—Jeff Hancock, of Stanford University: “There’s been absolutely hundreds of [social-media and mental-health] studies, almost all showing pretty small effects.”

In this post, I will show that Thompson’s skepticism was justified in 2019 but is not justified in 2023. A lot of new work has been published since 2019, and there has been a recent and surprising convergence among the leading opponents in the debate (including Hancock and me). There is now a great deal of evidence that social media is a substantial cause, not just a tiny correlate, of depression and anxiety, and therefore of behaviors related to depression and anxiety, including self-harm and suicide.

First, I must offer two stage-setting comments:

Social media is not the only cause; my larger story is about the rewiring of childhood that began in the 1990s and accelerated in the early 2010s. 

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/fact-check-pete-buttigieg-is-a-capable-and-competent-leader/

Claim: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, sometimes referred to as Alfred E. Neuman, is a “capable and competent” leader who can stand up to former president Donald Trump.

Who said it: The Lincoln Project, sometimes referred to as the Lincoln Pervert Project. “Until capable and competent leaders stand up to Trump, he will continue to deflect,” the controversial super PAC wrote in a tweet that linked to an article about Buttigieg blaming Trump for the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Context: The Lincoln Project is comprised of Democratic activists and extremely online “former Republicans” who enjoy grifting almost as much as they enjoy acting like boorish man-children. They will support any politician who appeals to their donors—rich liberals driven insane by Trump—and Buttigieg is one of the most beloved Democrats among this particular demographic.

Analysis: We couldn’t find any evidence to support the claim that Buttigieg is a “capable and competent” leader, just as we couldn’t find any evidence to support claims that the transportation secretary is a “star of Biden’s cabinet.” There has been a multitude of transportation-related scandals on his watch, and he has handled each one of them with the political deftness of a humanoid McKinsey consultant who learns Norwegian in his spare time.

This should not come as a surprise. Riding a bicycle and wanting to be president after serving eight years as mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest city in Indiana, do not make someone qualified to run the U.S. Department of Transportation