RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2022/12/16/the-latest-edition-of-the-twitter-files-reveals-the-cozy-relationship-between-twitter-and-the-fbi-n1654314

Over the past couple of weeks, Elon Musk has treated us to a regular exposé of what went on behind the scenes at Twitter before he took it over. Musk has relied on independent journalists tweeting the information in threads to get it out to the public.

Part six of the Twitter Files dropped on Friday afternoon, and, in this installment, Matt Taibbi revealed how closely the Twitter folks worked with the FBI and other agencies to silence “election misinformation.”

Taibbi reported that the relationship between the FBI and Twitter was cozy, even chummy. In fact, Taibbi suggested that the social media giant operated as if it were a “subsidiary” of the FBI.

“Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” Taibbi tweeted. “Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”

Taibbi noted that, while some of the emails were anodyne and humdrum, most of them consisted of requests for Twitter to review and take action on information relating to what the FBI deemed “misinformation” relating to elections. And the FBI’s involvement in rooting out “misinformation” led to bureaucracy on a massive scale.

https://www.city-journal.org/affirmative-distraction

The United States has a problem with persisting racial inequality. It is, in part, a legacy of our ignoble past: the institution of chattel slavery and a century of unfreedom and unequal citizenship for African-Americans after emancipation. Americans have a moral imperative to redress the consequences of that past. But affirmative action isn’t the remedy for this problem. It’s a distraction.

That doesn’t mean that affirmative action should never be practiced, that it’s morally wrong, or that it can never be a suitable policy. Those are separate questions. Racial inequality is deep and abiding, showing no sign of going away, and we are a lesser nation for it. Yet while affirmative action helps to obtain an adequate representation of diverse ethnic groups at elite institutions of higher education, it imposes serious costs.

Institutionalizing the practice of preferential affirmative action when assessing African-Americans for selection into highly competitive arenas—in other words, using different standards when judging the fitness of blacks competing with others for access to certain venues—is inconsistent with the goal of racial equality. It invites us to become liars—to pretend that false things are true. It invites us to look the other way. It’s not equality; it’s the opposite of equality. Knowing that I’m being judged by standards that are different and less rigorous by virtue of the fact that my ancestors suffered some indignity is itself undignified.

Racial preferences persist because they represent the path of least resistance. If an administrator of a selective institution saw that blacks were a minuscule percent of his student body, he would want to change that. If he found that admitting African-American students at a lower percentile of performance would ease his public-relations problem, then he would do it. But when thousands of people in that same situation make the same decision and place it beyond criticism, the goal of equality suffers. Failing to address ourselves to the developmental disparities manifest in test scores, as well as failing to change the dynamics of human development at the root of black underrepresentation in elite and selective venues, means failing to solve the inequality problem.

Head counts are no substitute for performance, and everyone knows it. No policy can paper over the racial dimension of academic disparities. True equality would seek to remedy the foundational circumstances reflected in the underrepresentation of African-Americans at the Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Tech, Holy Cross, or Harvard. I’m for racial equality, not patronization. Don’t patronize my people, inflict on us the consequences of a soft bigotry of low expectations, or presume that we’re not capable of manifesting excellence in the same way as any other people. Don’t judge blacks by a different standard.

https://www.newsweek.com/waste-abuse-paycheck-protection-program-opinion-1766582

JAMES PIERESON AND ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI

When COVID-19 began to infect Americans in early 2020, Congress appropriated $787 billion under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to allow businesses and nonprofits to pay employees when they were forced to close. These payments were made in the form of low-interest loans that would be forgiven if the funds were spent on salaries, wages, and related expenses. PPP’s purpose was to maintain payrolls and incomes while the country fought through the early months of the virus.

A recent study from OpenTheBooks, an organization devoted to transparency in government spending, reports that more than 95% of these loans were forgiven, and many were sent out to wealthy organizations, including top law and accounting firms, country clubs, and even family offices that were facing little financial concern.

OpenTheBooks reports that $1.4 billion in forgiven PPP loans went to some of the largest law and accounting firms in the country. Nearly half of the largest 300 law firms in the United States took payments from the program, as did three-quarters of the largest accounting firms. Overall, some 25,000 law and accounting firms received $13 billion in PPP loans. While those firms may have qualified for the payments, it is questionable whether they really needed them.

Among law firms, Boies Schiller Flexner, led by long-time Democratic Party counselor David Boies, received the maximum of $10 million in forgiven PPP loans, even as the firm billed clients for $480 million during 2020 and 2021 and equity partners in the firm received $4.5 million each in average profits. Meanwhile, partners and employees in the firm donated $1 million to candidates during the 2020 and 2022 campaign cycles, almost all of it to Democrats.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/15/whistleblower-warning/

“You may have money, but you have no class.”

As Sir Bedivere (Terry Jones) put it in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” who is this who is so wise in the ways of finance and etiquette? Perhaps Thornton Mellon (Rodney Dangerfield) to Dr. Diane Turner (Sally Kellerman) in “Back to School”? 

Not even close. 

The tweeter was former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, responding to Elon Musk’s tweet of “my pronouns are/Prosecute Fauci.” The Tesla-Twitter boss also got a rise out of Alexander Vindman, star witness of the “bombshell” 2019 impeachment hearings against Donald Trump. Vindman compared Musk to the famed Nazi propagandist he misspelled as “Geobbles,” like some compact car or Star Wars character. 

Musk also caught a blast from Baylor virology professor Dr. Peter Hotez. Like Sollozo with mobster Bruno Tattaglia in “The Godfather,” Hotez is on Anthony Fauci’s payroll for big money. Hotez wants those who criticize Fauci to be prosecuted under hate crimes laws, so it’s no surprise he wanted Musk to take down his tweet. He didn’t, and Musk also got a rise out of Keith Olbermann. 

Back in his sportscaster days, Olbermann fancied himself a wit by describing NBA star Arvydas Sabonis as “Our Vidas.” Rebranded as a media sage, Olberman suggested that Fauci sue Musk. The former MSNBC star also wondered “what terrorist or foreign influence is involved” and what can be done to stop Musk. Fauci’s tweet chorus thus proves instructive about Musk and Trump alike.  

President Trump achieved energy independence and put Americans back to work at record levels. Trump started no new wars and got allies to pay more for their own defense. Trump’s Abraham Accords expanded the prospects for peace in the Middle East. Trump also took out master terrorists Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qasem Soleimani. 

https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/15/celebrate-elon-musk-but-dont-lose-sight-of-big-techs-structural-problem/

The story of Elon Musk’s acquisition, transformation and public rehabilitation of Twitter is nothing short of remarkable. Here is that rarest of confluences: A right-leaning (or at least right-sympathetic) mega-billionaire privately acquires a disproportionately influential public company out of genuine public-spiritedness, perhaps even a hint of noblesse oblige, and an earnest commitment to preserving open discourse in our modern digital public square; exposes grievous previous company wrongs for the whole world to see in a dramatic unveiling of the eponymous “Twitter Files”; and makes decisive personnel decisions to toss out core leaders of the wretched and corrupt old regime, and begins to chart a promising new path forward.

There has been no equivalent story in my adult lifetime, and there is unlikely to be a similar story again any time soon. This is not the type of corporate development one typically reads about in The Wall Street Journal or sees discussed on CNBC. The story is a unicorn.

The remarkable nature of the Elon Musk/Twitter saga, and the specific revelations about Twitter’s blacklisting of the infamous 2020 campaign-era Hunter Biden laptop story and its censorship/shadow-banning of myriad other right-leaning content creators, has led many on the Right to fete Musk with praise — at times, even fawning adoration. To be sure, that praise is wholly warranted: Musk has thus far proven wrong the skeptics who were unsure just how big an impact he might be able to make at Twitter, answering the call of his civic duty as the world’s wealthiest man. Indeed, he has gone above and beyond his civic duty.

But as transformative as Musk has been in the nascent stages of his Twitter ownership, it is crucial to not forget the bigger picture.

Twitter, though the preferred communicative organ of the American political class and the broader commentariat, pales in comparison to most other Big Tech platforms in terms of its reach. In terms of pure social media platforms alone, Facebook is orders of magnitude more popular than Twitter globally, and is over four times as popular just in the U.S. based on number of users. Facebook’s fellow Meta subsidiary, Instagram, is also roughly three times as popular as Twitter based on volume of American users.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/12/15/how-did-bidens-gender-fluid-nuclear-luggage-thief-get-a-high-security-clearance-n1653972

In the end, he just had too much baggage. Sam Brinton, the Biden administration’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy at the Department of Energy, is now out of a job after being charged with felony theft and grand larceny for taking bags that didn’t belong to him at the Minneapolis and Las Vegas airports. But Old Joe Biden’s handlers still have a great deal to answer for regarding Brinton. Most notably, there’s this: how did this clown who appeared far more interested in showing himself off wearing women’s clothes than in actually dealing with nuclear waste get a high-level security clearance?

There will probably never be any answer to that question, given the sycophantic Leftist establishment media, but it remains an urgent question given the likelihood — actually, the outright certainty — that this administration will continue to appoint people more for their symbolic value than for their abilities.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/12/15/google-goes-full-on-racist-will-start-marking-the-race-of-business-owners-n1654000

Remember the old “Whites Only/Colored Only” signs on water fountains and bathrooms in the old Jim Crow South? Thanks to Google, that kind of open, in-your-face racism is back with a vengeance. Google is so concerned that you not be racist that it is doing the most racist thing a major corporation has done at least since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: it is planning to mark the race of the owners of various businesses so that racists of all varieties can patronize only the stores of their favored group. Have Google’s far-Left ideologues really thought this through? If they really want to eradicate racism, this is just the way not to do it.

Jeremy Kauffman of LBRY.com tweeted Thursday that “Google has launched a new campaign called ‘Buy Black’ that encourages people to shop based on the race of the store owner. Stores in search and map results will be given icons indicating the race of the owner to make this easier.” Kauffman also pointed out that Google has been pushing this initiative hard for the last month: on Nov. 17, it published a video called “Buying All Black” and subtitled “A Google #BlackOwnedFriday Anthem,” featuring Ludacris and Flo Milli.

“We’re celebrating the third #BlackOwnedFriday,” Google announced happily, “with 70+ Black-owned businesses, a new track, and a block party in Atlanta. Join Ludacris and Flo Milli on their journey searching and shopping Black-owned, and then shop the 100+ products you’ll see throughout the video. Watch the music video, shop the products, and search to support Black-owned on Black Friday and every day.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-hidden-meanings-behind-hanukkah-and-christmas/

For centuries, Hanukkah and Christmas have been linked in the popular imagination through incidental timing. This year, Hanukkah’s next-to-last day falls right on Christmas. But those holidays have far more important things in common than timing or gift-giving.

In their unique way, each holiday celebrates human dignity and freedom, thus reflecting the fundamental values of their respective sister religions, Judaism and Christianity.

Hanukkah commemorates a revolt led by Jews in the second century B.C. against Antiochus IV, who ruled Israel for the Seleucid Empire, one of four that emerged after Alexander the Great’s generals divided his vast holdings following his death. Antiochus sought to eradicate the Jews’ identity, in accordance with the Greek worldview’s secular focus.

“The Greeks looked down at the Jews for having, in their eyes, a very primitive faith,” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said. “The Greeks had Homer’s Iliad, the Odyssey. They had Greek tragedies, poetry, philosophy. They look at this idea of prayer and faith and belief in God as something very primitive. So they banned it.”

Yet that faith, expressed in the 10 Commandments and the Torah, represented a turning point for human civilization. It reflected the idea that God values human freedom, especially since God is the ultimate free being in the universe, and God created humanity in his free image.

“The 10 Commandments are not a list of rules,” Dennis Prager wrote. “The commandments prove that God wants mankind to be free: ‘I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’ Following the commandments actually frees us from the terrible consequences of sin, making our lives better.” (Emphases in original).

Nevertheless, Antiochus banned any vestiges of Jewish religion and culture, including the Torah. He even desecrated Jerusalem’s Temple by erecting statues to Greek gods and goddesses and by sacrificing pigs to them. Antiochus went so far as to proclaim himself “epiphanes,” Greek for “divine manifestation.”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/12/14/how-i-learned-to-love-free-speech/

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has exposed the liberal elites’ fear of free speech. His relaxation of its content-moderation policies has sent the blue-ticks into meltdown. Many are so horrified at the prospect of encountering views that differ from their own, they are now threatening to leave the platform altogether. So why have so many on the liberal-left given up on free speech? Why do they seem to have forgotten the dangers of censorship?

Meghan Murphy is a feminist journalist and podcaster. In 2018, her Twitter account was permanently suspended for ‘misgendering’ trans activist Jessica Yaniv. The ban was lifted by Musk last week. She joined Brendan O’Neill on the latest episode of his podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. Listen to the full episode here.

Brendan O’Neill: I wanted to get your view on Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. You have already benefited directly – you recently had your account reinstated after being banned in 2018. But do you think there’s a danger in relying on a powerful billionaire to give us the right to speak freely?

Meghan Murphy: I was excited about the Musk takeover even before I got back on Twitter. I was thrilled at witnessing the meltdown online. I was enjoying the panicking and the flouncing. You had all these people trying to go off to Mastodon, or saying they’ll have to start a new social-media platform – good luck with that. There have been so many attempts to do this over the past four years and unfortunately none of them worked. I wish they had, because I think more platforms would be useful. But nothing has taken off.

I believe Elon Musk really does value free speech. I trust this billionaire more than others, perhaps. But one lesson I hope we have learnt – and something that I’ve certainly learnt – is to not put all of our money in one place, not to bank on only one platform for our speech.