Woke Calvinism and Biden
Posted: October 24, 2020 Filed under: Mediasphere Leave a comment
Looking at the messaging of the two POTUS candidates, and taking a step back, something struck me. And it isn’t the contrast between the blustering of Trump and the pathetic doddering of Biden, or the contemptible degree to which the media gatekeepers and Big Tech are running interference for one side. No, from a distance, there’s another, deeper story.
It is the stark contrast between the positive, upbeat message of the Trump campaign and the utter negativism of the Biden-Harris campaign. (Pretty much nobody believes Biden will be able to serve out his term if elected.) Trump’s message is basically, “we’re a great country, we have troubles now but we can lick this if we try”. Biden? Judge for yourselves.
I could not help thinking how deeply neo-Calvinist the Democratic Party’s messaging is. “The world is completely depraved, our country is born…
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Fire Reported on the Grounds of the Chinese Consulate, Days Before Closure
Posted: July 22, 2020 Filed under: China, Diplomacy, Global, Mediasphere, War Room Leave a comment
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The U.S. has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston in what a Chinese official called an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the action, which comes at a time of rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies. He warned of firm countermeasures if the U.S. does not reverse its decision.
The unilateral closure of China’s consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China,” Wang said at a daily news briefing.Besides its embassy in Beijing, the U.S. has five consulates in mainland China, according to its website. Read the rest of this entry »
Declassified: Hillary’s Custom Email Server Storage Design Revealed
Posted: December 15, 2019 Filed under: Breaking News, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Email, Hillary, HRC, Parody, Political Satire Leave a comment
Riot Police Storm Hong Kong Airport as Protesters Force Second Day of Flight Cancellations
Posted: August 14, 2019 Filed under: Asia, Breaking News, Foreign Policy, Global, Hong Kong, Mediasphere | Tags: Hong Kong International Airport, Pro-Democracy Movement, travel Leave a comment
Hong Kong International Airport has canceled all remaining flight departures for the second straight day due to protests.
Riot police stormed the Hong Kong International Airport on Tuesday as protests by thousands of anti-government demonstrators forced flights to be canceled for the second straight day.
Travelers at one of the world’s busiest airports were advised that check-in had been suspended and hundreds flights were cancelled, and that they should leave the terminals as quickly as possible and contact airlines for more information.
The clashes appeared to represent an escalation 10 weeks after the protest’s massive, peaceful beginnings in early June, when hundreds of thousands marched in the semi-autonomous city against a now-suspended extradition bill. A Chinese official said Tuesday that protesters “have begun to show signs of terrorism,” and China appeared to be weighing a crackdown on the democratic movement.
Bolstered by anger over the crackdown by Hong Kong police, the protests has grown more confrontational in recent weeks and reached new levels last Monday with a city-wide strike that disrupting traffic and hundreds of flights.
After weeks of issuing warnings, but deferring to Hong Kong authorities to quell protests, Beijing has hinted at a more assertive posture. Chinese paramilitary police were seen in video released by the state holding exercises in Shenzhen, China, which sits across the border from Hong Kong. Images circulated online showing a convoy of armored personnel carriers from the People’s Armed Police traveling to the site. Read the rest of this entry »
A Letter To Our Subscribers, From The New York Times
Posted: August 8, 2019 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: journalism, media, New York Times, NYT Leave a comment
Dear Valued Subscriber,
For a mere $39.99 a month, about what you pay your Guatemalan nanny, you depend on us for thought-provoking personal reassurance, award-winning arrogance, hard-hitting sycophancy, and up-to-the-minute coverage of Orange Man – who is very, very bad.
The New York Times remains the world’s most prestigious Viewpoint Validation Service because we understand the crippling emptiness permeating the wealthy liberal soul – we are that emptiness – and you entrust us to make you feel good, smart and worthy every day.
While News and Opinion whisper watered-down postgrad nothings in your ear, Style and Dining guarantee you’ll be validated on the outside, as well as inside. Style and Dining remain committed to informing you on exactly what Brooklyn thought was cool three years ago. While the city that is our namesake – and the place you’ve built your entire identity around – might be a dead, stale cultural wasteland that no one cares about anymore, our Travel section reminds you that you’re a global citizen. Times subscribers don’t have homes, they have bases.
But even the pre-eminent VVS is vulnerable to mistakes.
As some of you are aware, we failed in our commitment to ferociously guard the sanctity of your echo chamber this week. A headline appeared on our front page suggesting Orange Man spoke against racism. While the headline was factual, it was a flagrant betrayal of the service you expect us to provide and we literally stopped the presses to fix it.
We listened to our readers on how to proceed from there. The headline writer was an elderly holdover from the days when we were a newspaper. But today’s lovepaper business is different. Inspired by the Texas revolutionary Joaquin Castro, our editorial board decided to take out a full page ad in our own paper to publish his home address and pictures of his family. Then we mobilized our 52,247 interns to brigade his employer, us, with phone calls to report that we have a racist in our ranks. The writer was immediately fired. Our interns, known as …. (read more)
Source: Spectator USA, as told to Chadwick Moore
The New York Times Company Tanks 20% After Saying Ad Revenue Will Decline Next Quarter
Posted: August 8, 2019 Filed under: Business, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: media, New York Times, Newspapers Leave a comment
- Shares of The New York Times Company plunged as much as 20% on Wednesday after the publisher said it expects total advertising revenue to fall next quarter.
- The newspaper publisher reported second quarter results on Wednesday that beat expectations for earnings per share but fell short of revenue estimates.
- The New York Times also said it added 197,000 new digital-only subscribers during the period, bringing the publication’s total subscriber base to 4.7 million.
- Watch The New York Times Company trade live.
The New York Time Company saw its stock tumble as much as 20% on Wednesday after the newspaper publisher said it expects advertising revenue to shrink by high-single digits in the third quarter.
[Read the full story here, at Markets Insider]
The publisher reported second quarter financial results on Wednesday. Here are the key numbers:
- Revenue: $436.25 million, compared to $439.25 million estimated by analysts
- Earnings per share: $0.17, compared to $0.15 estimated by analysts
- Operating profit: $37.9 million, down from $40 million last year
The company said it expects total ad revenue to decline in the high-single digits Read the rest of this entry »
Reader Comments: Bailey Franklin Has Grievances That Deserve To Be Heard
Posted: July 17, 2019 Filed under: Education, Humor, Mediasphere, White House Leave a comment
Editor’s Note: We understand Bailey Franklin has some trouble reading and responding to articles in news sites. Lets’s help Bailey.
Bailey, thanks for your comment. First, “tin foil hatted enterprise” should be spelled “tin foil-hatted enterprise”.
Second, your comment — though misdirected — hasn’t been deleted! We’re happy to share your comment.
Finally, Bailey, your grievance isn’t with us, it’s with the article’s author, Andrew C. McCarthy, and the article’s original source, the New York Post.
Here’s our repost, linking to Mr. McCarthy’s article: Read the rest of this entry »
Proving Hitchcock Right, Bird Attacks Are Turning Violent This Summer
Posted: July 17, 2019 Filed under: Art & Culture, Cinema, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, Hitchcock, Hitchcockian, Minnesota, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Nature, red-winged blackbirds, The Birds, Tippi Hedren Leave a comment
Red-winged blackbirds and other species are stepping up divebombing attacks on humans.
Fleming Smith reports: Stephen Vedder used to enjoy peaceful lakeside runs near his Marlborough, Mass., home. This spring, after years of coexisting with an ornery neighbor, those tranquil outings came to an end.
The culprit was a red-winged blackbird.
More than 250 million of the birds live across North and Central America, and this summer some are feeling extra aggressive toward human neighbors—driving them to change walking routes, wear protective headgear or furiously wave arms above their heads as they jog.
“You talk to people about being attacked by birds, and they look at you like you’re crazy,” says Mr. Vedder, a 60-year-old programmer. “This is ‘The Birds’ all over again, but it’s real!”
Many people who have long lived in harmony with the birds have noticed an uptick in their aerial assaults this season. Bird-on-human attacks are growing more common as people encroach on their habitats, says Lori Naumann, information officer at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Read the rest of this entry »
Yellow Vest Anger Burns in France, Fueled by Notre Dame Fire
Posted: April 21, 2019 Filed under: France, Global, Mediasphere | Tags: Civil Unrest, Emmanuel Macron, Paris, Yellow vest protests Leave a comment
PARIS — French yellow vest protesters set fires Saturday along a march through Paris to drive home their message to a government they believe is ignoring the poor: that rebuilding the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral isn’t the only problem France needs to solve.
Like the high-visibility vests the protesters wear, the scattered small fires in Paris appeared to be a collective plea to French President Emmanuel Macron’s government to “look at me — I need help too!”
Police fired water cannon and sprayed tear gas to try to control radical elements rampaging on the margins of the largely peaceful march, one of several actions around Paris and other French cities.
The protests marked the 23rd straight weekend of yellow vest actions against Macron’s centrist government, which they see as favoring the wealthy and big business. Protesters view themselves as standing up for beleaguered French workers , students and retirees who have been battered by high unemployment, high taxes and shrinking purchasing power.
But violence and divisions have marred the movement.
Associated Press reporters saw a car, motorbikes and barricades set ablaze around the Place de la Republique plaza in eastern Paris. The smell of tear gas mixed with the smoke, choking the air.
Paris firefighters — who struggled earlier this week to prevent the 12th-century Notre Dame from collapsing — quickly responded to extinguish the flames at Saturday’s protest. Read the rest of this entry »
This Cuban Cartoonist Drew the Cold War for MAD Magazine
Posted: January 18, 2019 Filed under: Comics, History, Humor, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: Cold War, Mad Magazine, Prohías Leave a comment
The Black Spy and the White Spy have been chasing each other around in MAD Magazine for 56 years
After penning one too many cartoons that were critical of Fidel Castro, Prohías — who was a prominent cartoonist and illustrator in his home country — headed for New York, writes Eric Grundhauser for Atlas Obscura. At the time, he didn’t speak a word of English.
“In New York, Prohías took work in a factory during the day, while working up his illustration portfolio at night,” Grundhauser writes. He changed the appearance of one of his characters from the strip he published in Cuba, El Hombre Siniestro, and gave him a counterpart: Spy vs. Spy was born.
“In 1960, just months after moving to the city, Prohías, along with his daughter Marta who acted as an intepreter, walked unannounced into the offices of MAD Magazine,” Grundhauser writes. “The editors were skeptical of the artist, but his silly spy gags won them over, and he had sold three of the strips to the magazine before leaving that day.”
His reason for going to MAD with his idea, writes scholar Teodora Carabas: he liked the magazine’s name. The Black Spy and White Spy have been a fixture in MAD ever since, appearing in the magazine’s Joke and Dagger Department. The strip’s appeal, which was one of the artist’s signature strengths, was partly its silence, writes Grundhausen. Like El Hombre Siniestro (“The Sinister Man”), the spies’ adventures were wordless, violent and hilarious, drawn in a dramatic style. Many of the jokes aren’t outwardly political, he writes, but Prohías said El Hombre was inspired by “the national psychosis of the Cuban people.” Read the rest of this entry »
‘A Saudi Excuse for Murder’: New York Post Cover for October 16th, 2018
Posted: October 17, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Foreign Policy, Global, Mediasphere | Tags: Embassy, media, murder, New York Post, news, NYC, Saudi Arabia, Tabloid Leave a comment
Source: New York Post
China Paying Vox to Publish Communist Propaganda
Posted: October 13, 2018 Filed under: China, Foreign Policy, Mediasphere | Tags: Explanatory media, propaganda, Vox, Washington Post Leave a comment
Adam Kredo reports: Explanatory media website Vox has been receiving money from a Chinese communist government-backed front organization.
A recent Vox blog post by foreign editor Yochi Dreazen titled, “The big winner of the Trump-Kim summit? China” discloses at the bottom of the piece that the reporting was subsidized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation.
“This reporting was supported by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a privately funded nonprofit organization based in Hong Kong that is dedicated to ‘facilitating open and constructive exchange among policy-makers, business leaders, academics, think-tanks, cultural figures, and educators from the United States and China,'” the post states in a note at the bottom.
CUSEF, as first noted by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, is a front organization backed by the Chinese government and established to spread the party’s propaganda.
“You know CUSEF is chaired by a top official in the Chinese Communist Party’s influence operations network, right?” Rogin queried Vox on Twitter.
“Tung Chee-hwa, CUSEF’s chair, is vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which is connected to the United Front Work Department, the Communist Party agency designed to advance party objectives with outside actors,” Rogin went on to note.
Vox’s ties to CUSEF are receiving increased scrutiny in light of efforts to lawmakers to counter China’s promotion of propaganda in the U.S. media. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] ‘We Are Always on the Verge of Chaos:’ The PJ O’Rourke Interview
Posted: September 30, 2018 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Nick Gillespie, Reason (magazine), The PJ O’Rourke Leave a comment
For the last 45 years, no writer has taken a bigger blowtorch to the sacred cows of American life than libertarian humorist P.J. O’Rourke.
As a writer at National Lampoon in the 1970s, he co-authored best-selling parodies of high school yearbooks and Sunday newspapers. For Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and other publications, O’Rourke traveled to war zones and other disaster areas, chronicling the folly of military and economic intervention. In 1991, he came out with Parliament of Whores, which explained why politicians should be the last people to have any power. Subtitled “A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government,” this international bestseller probably minted more libertarians than any book since Free to Choose or Atlas Shrugged. More recently, O’Rourke published a critical history of his own Baby Boomer generation and How The Hell Did This Happen?, a richly reported account of Donald Trump’s unexpected 2016 presidential victory.
O’Rourke’s new book, None of My Business, explains “why he’s not rich and neither are you.” It’s partly the result of hanging out with wealthy money managers and businessmen and what they’ve taught him over the years about creating meaning and value in an ever richer and crazier world. It covers everything from social media to learning how to drink in war zones to why the Chinese may be more American than U.S. citizens. He also explains why even though he doesn’t understand or like a lot of things about modern technology, he doesn’t fear Amazon or Google, especially compared to people who are calling for Socialism 2.0. Read the rest of this entry »
‘CUFF HUXTABLE’: New York Post Cover for Sept 26, 2018
Posted: September 27, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Bill Cosby, New York Post, news, NYC, Sexual assault, Tabloid, The Cosby Show Leave a comment
Source: Covers | New York Post
[VIDEO] Students Asked What They Thought Of The Kavanaugh Controversy
Posted: September 22, 2018 Filed under: Education, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Kavanaugh Leave a comment
They need more evidence
… Reporters from The Daily Caller News Foundation asked students at George Washington University what they thought of the Supreme Court nominee, the allegations he’s facing and what they would tell him or his accuser.
Almost everyone said if Kavanaugh is guilty, he should not serve on the bench, “even if it was 35 years ago.” But most found it a difficult situation Read the rest of this entry »
Headline of the Year: Author of ‘How to Murder Your Husband’ arrested for allegedly killing her husband
Posted: September 12, 2018 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere | Tags: Crime fiction, Hell on the Heart, How to Murder Your Husband, Mystery, Nancy Crampton-Brophy, Oregon Leave a comment
Life has apparently imitated art for one romance writer.
Storm Gifford reports: In a twist of irony so devious it would have turned Agatha Christie green with envy, Oregon chef Daniel Brophy was found shot to death nearly seven years after his wife of 27 years penned an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband.”
Nancy Crampton-Brophy, the writer of sensuous mysteries such as “Hell on the Heart” and “The Wrong Husband,” was arrested for murder on Sept. 5 — more than three months after the death of her spouse.
“Dan was one of the very few people I’ve known that knew exactly what he wanted in life and loved doing it,” she said at a candlelight vigil two days after Daniel’s demise.
Oregon cops were mum on arrest details such as why Crampton-Brophy, 68, was taken into custody only last week for the June 2 shooting.
“Detectives believe Nancy L. Crampton-Brophy is the suspect in Daniel C. Brophy’s murder,” said Portland police, who refused to discuss motive or evidence. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] What Should Have Happened at the Kavanaugh Hearing
Posted: September 8, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Kavanaugh, Kavanaugh Hearing, Reason, SCOTUS, video Leave a comment
Alternate reality.
Something light to cleanse the palate via Reason at the end of a week that was even stupider and more irritating than expected … (read more)
Source: HotAir.com – Reason
Testosterone May Make Men More Honest
Posted: September 1, 2018 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Hormones, Masculine, Testosterone Leave a comment
Alex Berezow reports: Testosterone does a lot of different things for a men — it masculinizes the body, boosts the sex drive, and contributes to hair loss. Now, researchers think it may also make men more honest.
In recent years, there has been an interest in determining how our hormones affect our economic behavior, such as gambling and financial risk taking. The financial industry is dominated by men, and if testosterone influences decision-making, this potentially has a profound implication for the national economy.
Paradoxically, testosterone promotes pro-social behaviors in some circumstances and anti-social behavior in others. The reasons for this aren’t entirely clear, but it may involve a man’s desire to increase his social status. Previous research shows that testosterone may actually make a man a fairer negotiator.
To investigate such phenomena further, a team of researchers administered testosterone gels to 124 college-aged male volunteers and placebo gels to 118 males. (The total sample size was 242.) They were then given a die and told to roll it, and whatever number came up was the amount of money they were to receive for participating in the experiment. Because they rolled the die in private, they could cheat (by reporting a higher value than they actually rolled). The authors hypothesized that the testosterone group would be more honest.
The results showed that both groups cheated, but the placebo group cheated more, which was consistent with the team’s hypothesis.
The Mental State of M. Todd Henderson by Elaine Ash
Posted: August 29, 2018 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics, Reading Room | Tags: Books, M. Todd Henderson Leave a comment
The Mental State of M. Todd Henderson
by Elaine Ash
As the purge of conservative and libertarian pundits roils You Tube, Twitter, Facebook and anywhere speech is supposedly free, M. Todd Henderson and his political thriller Mental State fight an uphill battle to release in October.
In late 2015, I was hired as a freelance editor by Mr. Henderson, a law professor at the University of Chicago. His book, Mental State, is based on the real-life partially unsolved murder of Florida law professor Dan Markel. In the book, the murder is pinned on the wrong perp.
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[VIDEO] WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING: A Bad Lip Reading
Posted: August 24, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Bad Lip Reading, Press Briefing, Sarah Sanders, White House press corps Leave a comment
How White House press briefings sound in Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ head… Follow on Instagram and Twitter: @badlipreading and Facebook
John Brennan, Heroic American
Posted: August 16, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: CNN, corruption, John Brennan, media, MSNBC, National security, Obama administration, Security clearance, Trump Administration Leave a comment
Democratic Socialism is Totalitarian Slavery
Posted: August 15, 2018 Filed under: History, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Academia, censorship, Democratic socialism, George Orwell, Liberty, Marxism, propaganda, property rights, Slavery, Socialism Leave a comment
How to properly understand this system
S.G. Cheah writes: Have you ever wondered why, despite the continuous systemic failures of socialistic, communistic or fascistic regimes, -as evidently proven by the observable catastrophes of 2018’s Venezuela, Mao’s China, and the Soviet Union — this idea of the Utopian collectivist commune never seem to die? Witness the popular resurgence of this idea in today’s celebratory praise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s push for Democratic Socialism.
The secret to the existence and survival of these ideas is far more sinister than you may have realized.
George Orwell, who was a Democratic Socialist himself, anxiously warned us about this in his book ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’. Ayn Rand laid out their calculated plans in ‘The Fountainhead’. Friedrich Hayek illustrated the imminent dangers of what’s to come if they succeed in his ‘Road to Serfdom’.
Literature is brimmed with thinkers who had alerted us to the dangers of this idea throughout history. What they would have warned us today, which they did in the past, is how Democratic Socialism is simply slavery re-branded.
If you make the argument that Democratic Socialism is slavery, you will likely be accused of exaggerated fear mongering. But are you wrong? Read on to know why Socialism is essentially slavery.
Socialism does away with property rights.
It is a basic tenet of life and liberty that without property rights, no other rights are possible. The problematic error of which most of us tragically hold today is to view property only as inanimate matter because this materialistic view classifies property as being separate and apart from man’s life.
[Read the full story here, at Medium]
The truth is, property is the implementation to life and liberty. It is crucial to understand how the bond between private property and political freedom is an indissoluble one, because an individual’s property is an extension of his own life.
Why property rights is essential to freedom
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Published in 1719.
It is important for people to learn the connection between property rights as being directly protected by liberty, and how this connection ensures life. To help picture this clearly, think of yourself as Robinson Crusoe. Or Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Or if you’re talking to the very young, Matt Damon in The Martian.
These fictional characters illustrate this bond between property and life. When these castaways were shipwrecked alone, the only choices presented to them is either to survive or to perish. In order to live, they will have to employ the use of their mind and direct their body to produce the necessary requirement of survival: shelter, water, food.
Socialist guilt tripping
A socialist will bring up the example: imagine if a year later, another castaway is stranded on the same patch of land as you. Don’t you have the moral obligation to share your shelter, water and food with him? The answer to this is not “yes you’re obligated morally to share” nor “no, you’re not obligated morally to share”, but rather, the correct answer is: “you shall decide”.
Why is “you shall decide” the right answer? It is because the shelter, water and food you’ve created is a product of your mind and body, which is an extension to your very life. Read the rest of this entry »
Karol Markowicz: The Media’s Blatant Hypocrisy — Even About Media-Bashing
Posted: August 14, 2018 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics, Terrorism | Tags: Antifa, Bill de Blasio, Charlottesville, CNN, journalism, media, New York Post, NYPost, Rupert Murdoch, The Press Leave a comment
On Sunday, the Unite the Right II rally of white supremacists fizzled out. Antifa demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va., who gathered to mark the anniversary of the first Unite the Right rally, threw eggs at Secret Service, were arrested for assaulting a man wearing a Make America Great Again hat, launched fireworks and smoke bombs at police and assaulted NBC reporter Cal Perry. Perry had his camera knocked out of his hands while the protester screamed profanities at him.
The story appears on various media sites, and several reporters tweeted about the attack, but the outrage was muted. Instead, nearly every outlet went out of their way to gently describe the Antifa mob. The headlines at CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post made sure to call the group “anti-hate protesters.”
[Read the full story here, at nypost.com]
After two years of constant self-applause, and furrowed-brow concern about President Trump sowing mistrust in the media as well as possibly instigating violence against its members, where is the outrage when a reporter is physically assaulted?
Had it been an alt-right member doing the attacking, is there any doubt the story would lead all news shows and make the front page of all the major newspapers?
Also on Sunday, Mayor Bill de Blasio sat down with Brian Stelter at CNN to continue his crybaby “News Corp is mean to me so I wish they’d disappear” tour. Read the rest of this entry »
In Hollywood, ‘Anything Goes’ Becomes ‘You’re Fired’
Posted: July 23, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: #MeToo, Activism, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hollywood, James Gunn, media, Mob, Twitter Leave a comment
Disney has severed ties with filmmaker James Gunn, who previously directed two ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movies. Photo: Jordan Strauss/Associated Press
Joe Flint reports: Executives and creatives are losing their jobs as the entertainment industry becomes less tolerant of offensive remarks, abusive behavior
Hollywood’s longstanding say-anything, do-anything culture is rapidly turning into one where the wrong words can have career-killing consequences.
Top executives at Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures and Netflix Inc., as well as creative talent who worked on the “Lethal Weapon” television series and “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies have been fired in recent months after allegations of offensive remarks, verbal abuse and other inappropriate behavior that in the past was more likely to have been tolerated, industry veterans said.
“Saying something offensive back in the day wouldn’t necessarily get you fired,” said Tom Nunan, a former high-ranking television executive and executive producer of the Oscar-winning movie “Crash,” about race relations in Los Angeles. “Now the consequences are severe and immediate.”
The recent firings comes in the wake of the #MeToo movement that started in Hollywood with allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and has had repercussions throughout workplaces. Mr. Weinstein has denied accusations of nonconsensual sexual acts. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Remember When Obama Did This In Response To Russian Meddling?
Posted: July 19, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Mediasphere, Russia | Tags: Cyber Attack, Cyberwarfare, Democrats, Dmitry Medvedev, media, Obama, Rush Limbaugh Leave a comment
Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh was on a tear on Wednesday over the media’s response to President Trump’s widely criticized summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Limbaugh dedicated one segment of the three-hour show to providing some uncomfortable flashblacks for Trump’s Democratic critics.
Limbaugh led into the discussion by quoting a June 2018 story by Yahoo’s Michael Isikoff titled, “Obama cyber chief confirms ‘stand down’ order against Russian cyberattacks in summer 2016“:
The Obama White House’s chief cyber official testified Wednesday that proposals he was developing to counter Russia’s attack on the U.S. presidential election were put on a ‘back burner’ after he was ordered to ‘stand down’ his efforts in the summer of 2016.
Here’s the video of Obama’s chief cyber official Michael Daniel revealing the “stand down” order in a Senate Intelligence Committee:
“This is the Obama administration,” said Limbaugh. “They knew the Russians were hacking. They knew Russians were engaging in cyber warfare, and the Obama White House chief cyber official testified that he was told to stand down. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson: ‘We Expanded Family Detention’
Posted: June 25, 2018 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Border, Chris Wallace, Daily Caller, Department of Homeland Security, Detention, DHS, Immigration, Jeh Johnson, video 1 Comment
‘I freely admit it was controversial …’
Scott Morefield reports: Former Obama administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson “freely admitted” to Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday morning that his department “expanded family detention” as well as detained some children alone, but added that he believed the decision “was necessary at the time.”
After showing pictures of detained children from 2014, Wallace noted that “in some cases you separated children from their parents” before asking, “Did you handle it so well?” Read the rest of this entry »
TIME Cover, Corrected
Posted: June 22, 2018 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Illegal immigration, Illegal immigration to the United States, media, Migrants, satire, Time Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Exposing the ‘Ruling Class’ Behind Border Policy Uproar: ‘Their Goal Is To Change Your Country Forever’
Posted: June 20, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Democratic Party, Illegal immigration, Immigration, Migration, Radical Left, Tucker Carlson Leave a comment
Tucker Carlson on Monday blasted the “self-righteous posturing” of politicians and media figures eager to condemn the Trump administration for its border policy.
Before playing a clip of examples, Carlson began the segment by calling the “spectacle of illegal immigrants separated from their children at the border,” an “event in which the elites vie to see who can reach greater heights of rhetorical excess and self-righteous posturing,” rather than a news story.
“So, the same people who support the third term post-viability abortion for purposes of sex selection are now lecturing you about God and sin and the holiness of children. Feel chastened?” Carlson asked sardonically before launching into a few more examples, including Michael Hayden’s comparison of the border situation to Nazi Germany.
“We could go on,” The Daily Caller co-founder said. “There was so much more just like that. The rich and powerful reminding you just how virtuous they are. Read the rest of this entry »
Christopher F. Rufo: Fed Up in Seattle
Posted: June 18, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Amazon, Anarchy, anti capitalist, Drug Addiction, Head Tax, Homelessness, Hyper-progressive, Marxism, Progressivism, Seattle, Socialism, Taxation Leave a comment
Citizens of the ultra-progressive city have lost patience with political leaders’ failure to address the homelessness crisis.
Don’t believe the hype that “Amazon killed the Seattle head tax,” the new levy that the city recently passed on businesses to fund an affordable-housing initiative. The truth behind the city council’s stunning reversal—repealing the tax by a 7-2 vote, just four weeks after passing it 9-0—is that Seattle citizens have erupted in frustration against the city’s tax-and-spend political class that has failed to address the homelessness crisis, despite record new revenues.
“To my astonishment, I’ve heard at least a dozen neighbors, friends, and colleagues whisper that ‘Seattle needs a Giuliani’—that is, the city needs to recognize that, in addition to public programs, we need to get tough on street homelessness and enforce the law.”
As recently as a few years ago, it seemed as if Seattle voters largely viewed our hyper-progressive city council as a harmless oddity in an otherwise tolerant, thriving, liberal city. But times have changed. Now, according to recent public polling, 83 percent of Seattle voters are dissatisfied with how the council has addressed homelessness, 65 percent believe that the local government hasn’t used new tax revenues effectively, and 63 percent believe that the city has enough money to solve the problem but isn’t pursuing the right policies.
[Read the full story here, at City Journal]
Progressives have tried to paint the anti-head tax campaign as corporate astroturfing, but beneath the surface, it’s being driven by this broader shift in public opinion. In just two weeks, the No Tax on Jobs campaign, led by local businesses, recruited 2,000 volunteer signature-gatherers and collected nearly 46,000 signatures—more than double the amount required to qualify as a ballot measure. When I spoke with one of the volunteers in the liberal Fremont neighborhood, he told me: “I’m retired and I wanted to volunteer for the cause. I think the tax is a bad idea: if you tax something, you get less of it. I’m going to collect two pages of signatures and then go home.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Brilliantly Mocks the ‘Magic of the Birth Canal’
Posted: June 6, 2018 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Science & Technology, U.S. News | Tags: Abortion, Birth, Choice42, Health, Logic, Magic, Medicine, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, science 4 Comments
… A few days ago, Choice42 released this deliciously sardonic video entitled “The Magical Birth Canal.” It is a searing take on the pro-abort narrative that says life begins at birth.
Quite simply, it is brilliant …
… Something within that canal confers humanity on a life that has been human from the moment of conception. But pro-aborts prefer to think of the unborn as a mass of tissue not worthy of protection. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] A Bad Lip Reading of the Royal Wedding
Posted: May 23, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Bad Lip Reading, Royal Wedding, video 1 Comment
Source: Boing Boing
[REWIND] March 30, 2016: Tom Wolfe’s View of Trump
Posted: May 19, 2018 Filed under: Art & Culture, History, Mediasphere, Reading Room | Tags: Tom Wolfe Leave a comment
One of the preeminent chroniclers of the sociological circus that is New York City, Tom Wolfe recently spoke to The American Spectator at his Upper East Side apartment about the Big Apple’s most famous resident turned presidential candidate.
TAS: Having written so much about New York City, the rise of Donald Trump must be a subject of interest to you.
Tom Wolfe: It is. There is a lot of distress and contempt for government and he is capitalizing on that. He has also said a lot of things that are politically incorrect. He comes out and says things like, no more illegal immigrants from Mexico, no more immigrants from Islamic countries, and so on, and a lot of people say, “Hey, yeah, finally, someone has come out and said what I believe.”
Trump is not caught up in the whole ethos of politics. He goes from gaffe to gaffe and it only helps him. I have never seen anything quite like it.
You would think, for example, that his refusal to be on a television program with Megyn Kelly [at Fox News] would hurt him. My God, if you can’t debate Megyn Kelly, what are you going to do with Vladimir Putin? But it didn’t hurt him at all. That seemed to help him also.
I love the fact that he has a real childish side to him, saying things like: I am too worth ten billion! Most politicians would play that down, that they have all this money, but he is determined to let people know that. And he wants people to know that five billion of it comes from just his name—that you can start a hotel and call it Trump and it is going to be a success.
TAS: Do you see him as a New York original?
Wolfe: He is a lovable megalomaniac. People get a big kick out of going to his office and behind his desk is this wall of pictures of himself in the news. The childishness makes him seem honest. Read the rest of this entry »
Police Brilliantly Employ Anti-KKK Law to Arrest Mask-Wearing Anitfa Protestors
Posted: April 23, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Activism, Antifa, Communists, Coweta County, Demonstration, Georgia, KKK, Marxism, Newman, Protest, Radical Left, Rally, Socialists, White Supremacists 3 Comments
Counterprotesters are held by law enforcement officers as the National Socialist Movement holds a rally at Greenville Street Park in downtown Newnan on Saturday, April 21, 2018. The far-right hate group also drew anti-fascist demonstrators as well as hundreds of police officers. (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC)
‘Remove your mask, or you will be arrested’
Greg Bluestein reports: Faced with hundreds of demonstrators rallying against a crowd of neo-Nazis in Newnan, local and state authorities turned to a little-known Georgia law adopted in 1951 to combat the Ku Klux Klan.
The law, which makes it illegal to wear a mask at most public events, was cited in several of the arrests of counterdemonstrators who joined a protest Saturday against white supremacists.
And the irony was not lost upon the organizers of the counterdemonstration, who were fuming Sunday that a law aimed at weakening white supremacists was used to arrest protesters who opposed a neo-Nazi rally.
“They were trying to stop us, and we were trying to dial down the racist stuff,” said Jeremy Ortega, a 19-year-old who was among the counterprotesters charged with a misdemeanor for wearing a mask.
He said many of the demonstrators wore masks to avoid being identified and threatened by white power groups.
Barricades and fencing are in place around a city park in Newnan as police prepared for Saturday’s rally by a neo-Nazi group on Saturday, April 21, 2018. The neo-Nazis expected a turnout of 50 to 100, but only a couple dozen showed up. They were well outnumbered by counterprotesters and law enforcement officers. (HYOSUB SHIN / AJC)
“The law, which makes it illegal to wear a mask at most public events, was cited in several of the arrests of counterdemonstrators who joined a protest Saturday against white supremacists.”
“We were peacefully protesting, yet they put guns in our faces and told us to take our masks off,” said Ortega, who added that he is considering filing a civil lawsuit. “It made no sense.”
State and local authorities did not comment on specific allegations of abuse on Sunday. But Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan said the overwhelming security – nearly 700 law enforcement officers were on hand – helped prevent the clashes from escalating.
“Making arrests in a volatile situation is never going to be pretty,” Keenan said.
No one from the white supremacist group was arrested on Saturday, and they largely avoided confrontations with police or the counterdemonstration group. The two dozen white supremacists who attended the rally were separated from the group by an 8-foot fence – and hundreds of armed officers.
‘Remove your mask’
On Sunday, a coalition of counterprotest groups planned a vigil at the Coweta County Jail to criticize what they said was excessive violence by police.
The Huffington Post reported that a contingent of officers approached a group of 50 counterdemonstrators before the rally and demanded they remove their masks or face arrests. The news outlet wrote that officers then “grabbed those who were still masked, tossing them to the ground and handcuffing them.” Read the rest of this entry »
‘SEX CULT!’ New York Post Cover for April 21, 2018
Posted: April 22, 2018 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Religion, U.S. News | Tags: Cult, media, New York, New York Post, news, Newspaper, NYC, Sex, Sexuality, Slavery, Tabloid Leave a comment
Source: New York Post
New York Post Cover for April 18, 2017
Posted: April 18, 2018 Filed under: Breaking News, History, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Barbara Bush, headlines, media, New York Post, Newspaper, Tabloid Leave a comment
Source: New York Post
The NSA Wants a Skeleton Key to Everyone’s Encrypted Data
Posted: April 18, 2018 Filed under: Mediasphere, Self Defense, Think Tank | Tags: Data, Ecryption, NSA, Privacy Leave a comment
Encryption can protect personal data from government intrusion, which means the government wants the key to break it.
Gavin Hanson reports: Like it or not, you are your data. In this day and age, your receipts, social media activity, public records, GPS data, and internet search history are the proof of who you are. And while you may have thought you had secrets, the Federal Government would like the rest of them.
The seemingly innocuous pieces of information we trade away every day create a detailed mosaic of our lives used 
to target advertising and create personality profiles that are exploited by the FBI, political operatives like Cambridge Analytica, and Russian propagandists.
And those are just the legal shenanigans! Instances of malicious hacking that jeopardize social security numbers and other important data are on the rise as well.
But all hope is not lost! There is but one meaningful defense against such intrusions, one used by whistleblowers, banks, the government (often poorly), and college students: encryption.
Encryption, to oversimplify, is the process of putting your data in a combination locked safe, and it’s becoming more popular. Like all passcodes, these combinations are best stored non-electronically.
Automatically encrypted search engines and internet services simplify the process for users. They protect individuals’ data from hacking, theft, and even the government, but they also retain a repository for all the combinations they use to lock data up.
This is the Trojan horse the NSA means to use to gain access to your private data even when it is encrypted.
But that may soon change.
If the executive agencies have their way, the NSA will have a record of every lock combination in use by every company—a skeleton key, if you will, to gain access to your digital home, papers, effects, and aspects of your person without warrant or probable cause—effectively mandating that companies hand over skeleton keys to the locks that they provide to their users, at any time: what they call “exceptional access.” Read the rest of this entry »
Thomas Jefferson’s 275th Celebration
Posted: April 16, 2018 Filed under: Education, History, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Liberalism, Self Government, Tacitus, Thomas Jefferson, US Constitution, Virginia Leave a comment
Studying Jefferson should be a guiding star.
Jamie Gass and Will Fitzhugh write: “Students of reading, writing, and common arithmetick . . . Graecian, Roman, English, and American history . . .,” Thomas Jefferson advised that democratic education “should be… able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.”
Mid-April marks the 275th anniversary of Jefferson’s birthday. Given his world-changing achievements, this milestone is worthy of recognizing – and of being taught in our public schools. His contributions to the American civilization are incalculable; he was a revolutionary, statesman, diplomat, man-of-letters, scientist, architect, and apostle of liberty.
Rather than forcing a titan like Jefferson to conform to our era’s often Lilliputian-style narcissism, we should study history by entering the past with imagination and humility.
In drafting the Declaration of Independence, the most elegant and universally quoted political document in history, Jefferson displayed his greatest talents. He powerfully combined literary language and self-evident truths to shape the legal and political future of the United States.
The first member of his family to attend college, Jefferson loved books and classical learning. He could read six languages, including ancient Greek and Latin, while his 18th-century education taught him timeless principles.
Jefferson’s trinity of great thinkers – Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke – embodied what’s been called the Enlightenment’s “science of freedom.”
But his favorite writer was the ancient Roman historian Tacitus – a brilliant chronicler of warped, tyrannical emperors. Jefferson’s liberal-arts-centric education instilled in him a vigilance for liberty, which made him ever wary of threats to his republican experiment in ordered self-government.
Legal scholar David Mayer effectively summarized Jefferson’s strict federalism: “constitutions primarily [served] as devices by which governmental power would be limited and checked, to prevent its abuse through encroachments on individual rights…” Jefferson despised the corruptions of kings, standing armies, banks, and cities, which he identified with the Roman and British empires. Read the rest of this entry »
‘SYRIA STRIKE’: New York Post Cover for April 14, 2018
Posted: April 14, 2018 Filed under: Breaking News, Foreign Policy, Guns and Gadgets, Mediasphere, Russia, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: media, New York, news, NY Post, Syria, Tabloid 1 Comment
Source: New York Post
pundit from another planet 