Compassionate Biden Moves Migrant Children From Cages Into Humane High-Security Metal Containment Cubes

/in , /by

CARRIZO SPRINGS, TX—Biden has finally ended the cruel and long-standing Trump practice of keeping migrant kids in cages, and has elected to move them into much more compassionate “high-security metal containment cubes.”

“We are proud of our cute little containment cubes,” said Kamala Harris while loudly laughing for some inexplicable reason. “Look at them all neat and tidy, lined up in a row! Hahahahahaha!”

The new administration has assured the American people that the containment cubes are “completely different” than the evil cages Trump used to use, mainly because they are called “containment cubes” instead of cages.

Social workers on the border confirmed the children will be given up to three meals per day, will be allowed to attend anti-racism classes on Zoom, and provided with free air conditioning–at least when the power is working.

Children will be kept in these highly humane holding units until the cubes can be conveniently loaded onto a truck and shipped back to South America.

RELATED POLITICAL SATIRE:

Hitler Vindicated After Historians Discover His Ideas Came From Darwin

Dangerous Conspiracy Theorist Doesn’t Believe Vaccines Work

United Airlines Unveils New Environmentally Friendly Single-Engine Boeing 777

Dr. Fauci Reminds Everyone That We Will Only Have To Wear Masks Until Humans Evolve Organic Face Coverings At Birth

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column by The Babylon Bee is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Understanding How Much Big Tobacco Is Driving Nicotine & Marijuana Vaping

/in , , , , , , , /by

Not only does Big Tobacco continue to find ways to lure children into buying new nicotine products, it is moving in on the marijuana industry to scale pot sales up to or beyond the level of diminishing tobacco sales. Most people are unaware of the growing relationship between marijuana and tobacco companies. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Altria (formerly Phillip Morris) owns 35 percent of Juul, has registered to lobby for pot legalization in Virginia, and is patenting two marijuana vaping devices in the US, according to Cannabis Wire. “Altria supports the federal legalization of cannabis under an appropriate regulatory framework. As a stakeholder in this industry, we intend to work with policy makers and regulators in support of a transparent, responsible, and equitable operating environment for the sale of cannabis,” Altria spokesperson George Parman told the publication. (Emphasis added.)

Big wins for Big Tobacco

The Grocer is an English magazine that caters to grocery and convenience stores in Great Britain. The Brits haven’t caught up yet with American concerns about vaping, first with the EVALI diseases and deaths we experienced last year, second with the stunning increases in vaping by adolescents who have never smoked, and third with the fact that many are vaping THC as well as nicotine.

So, the Brits are selling vape pens and e-liquids in grocery stores. Parents may want to register to access this free article to see some of the best pictures of vape-pen brands available in one place.

It turns out that Altria is not the only tobacco company in the vaping business. Vype is made by British American Tobacco. BAT also is test-marketing Vuse to enable people to vape CBD. Logic is Japan Tobacco International’s vape pen. Subscribe to Logic’s emails and JTI will sell you a starter vape pen for $1.00. Blu is made by Imperial Tobacco. In fact, the top 10-selling vape pens in the UK are all made by tobacco companies. Because the pandemic has shut down most vape shops in England, the vape brands of the tobacco giants have seen soaring sales there.

Think that will change when the pandemic is behind us? Doubtful.

Read The Grocer article here.

At the speed of Juul: Measuring the Twitter conversation related to ENDS and Juul across space and time (2017–2018)

Yoonsang Kim and colleagues at the universities of Chicago and Georgia State as well as VeraCite Inc, in La Jolla, California, collected Juul-related and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) data on Twitter between 2017 and 2018. They found the amount of Juul tweets increased 67 times, from 18,849 tweets in the first quarter of 2017 to 1,287,028 tweets in the last quarter of 2018.

They also found that Juul tweets spread rapidly across the nation. By the end of the study period, people in 84 percent of US counties were posting about Juul.

Further, despite intense scrutiny by the FDA and Juul’s voluntary effort to end its social media account, Juul tweets intensified rather than abated.

Tweets about other ENDS products decreased by 25 percent as Juul tweets increased.

Read full text of this Tobacco Control article published by BMJ Journals here.

Do JUUL and e-cigarette flavors change risk perceptions of adolescents? Evidence from a national survey
Kiersten Strombotne and colleagues from the Universities of Boston, Oxford, and Yale conducted a national survey of 1,610 high school students aged 14-18 who had heard of either e-cigarettes or Juul.

They found, although no scientific evidence supports this, that youth believe certain flavors make e-juice less harmful than other flavors in both Juuls and other e-cigarette brands. The researchers say their findings support the idea that a flavor ban could reduce the appeal of both Juul and other e-cigarettes and result in protecting adolescent health.

Read full text of this Tobacco Control article published by BMJ Journals here.

E-cigarette and cigarette purchasing among young adults before and after implementation of California’s tobacco 21 policy
California raised the minimum age for tobacco purchases to 21 in 2016. Little is known about the effect this T21 law has had on reducing underage tobacco product sales.

Sara Schiff and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles analyzed data from a population-based prospective cohort in southern California the year before and after the state passed T21. This involved 1,609 people ages 18 and 19 before and 1,502 people ages 19 and 20 after passage of the law.

Among past-month users, the researchers also examined where participants purchased tobacco products before and after the law, whether they were refused purchase based on their age after T21, as well as whether participants perceived if it were more difficult to buy cigarettes and e-cigarettes then.

They found negligible changes after the law passed. Some 64 percent of past-month users bought cigarettes from gas stations and 82 percent bought e-cigarettes from vape shops despite their underage status. About half thought it was harder to do so but were still able to. The researchers conclude that better enforcement of T21 is needed to achieve what the law intended: to reduce tobacco use by youth.

Read full text of this Tobacco Control article published by BMJ Journals here.

What parents need to know about teen vaping and what they can do about it
JAMA Pediatrics has published a Pediatrics Patient Page on Vaping for parents of school-age children.

The page summarizes:

  • what the health risks are for teens who vape,
  • how to tell if your teen is vaping,
  • what parents can do to prevent teens from vaping,
  • what parents can do if their teen is addicted to vaping, and
  • sources for more information about teen vaping.

Access this JAMA Pediatrics resource for information about adolescent vaping here.

©National Families in Action. All rights reserved.

OHIO: Decorated Army Veteran Michael Leipold Announces Candidacy for U.S. Senate

/in , , , /by

XENIA, Ohio /PRNewswire/ — Michael Leipold announced he is running for the U.S. Senate in 2022 as a Republican, to replace retiring incumbent Rob Portman. A retired Chief Warrant Officer Four with 22 years of active federal service, Michael is a decorated Apache helicopter pilot, winning the Meritorious Service Medal and the Air Medal for Valor on two occasions. Upon retiring from the U.S. Army in 2015, Michael continued his dedication to public service as a first responder EMS pilot, and has served as a MedFlight pilot for the past six years, working closely with local and state law enforcement, firefighters and medical personnel.

“I am running for the United States Senate because I believe that the citizens of the great state of Ohio deserve better,” Michael said. “Our country is at a pivotal time in its history and needs strong leaders that are transparent in their dealings. Elected officials should have the interests of their constituents as their highest priority, and I aim to change the current climate of the Senate – starting with responsible representation.”

Michael Leipold: Bringing Proven Leadership Skills to the U.S. Senate

A devoted husband and father of eight children, Michael recognizes family as the foundation of his faith and his public service: “Family is everything,” said Michael. “Family is where it begins; it’s your support, and first community.” Michael’s other accomplishments and attributes include:

  • Six deployments as an Air Mission Commander fighting terrorism in combat locations within the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Served in senior level positions as an advisor and Subject Matter Expert.
  • Compassionate civil servant who leads by example, has never shied away from a tough challenge, and is proactive on issues that are important to Ohioans.

Michael is a strong advocate of Constitutional rights and equality, national security, Veterans’ rights, term limits, and the sanctity of life. Michael also firmly believes in the “America First” doctrine, and is prepared to represent Ohio businesses and workers in Washington, ensuring that an economic boom works for all Americans. Helping to confront the opiate pandemic in Ohio is a top local priority for Michael, and he is member of the American Counseling Association, having personally assisted those with addiction disorders in their recovery.

As a U.S. Senator, Michael will bring teambuilding and leadership skills, a steady presence under extreme pressure, and an impeccable character devoted to traditional Biblical values to the U.S. Senate. To learn more about Michael Leipold’s full platform and candidacy, visit him at: www.Leipold4Senate.Republican

©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: NBC Goes Full On Nazi in Vile Anti-Jew Episode of ‘Nurses’

/in , , , , /by

The left’s relentless campaign against the Jews is reaching critical mass, mainstreaming, dehumanizing the Jewish people.

Another disgusting and dishonest scene from an NBC television show to demonize Jews. Jewish law does not prevent medical grafts from different genders, but the far-left writers of “Nurses” don’t care. Its just awful.

Can you imagine if it was the Black community, or the Muslim community, or the LGBTQ community that was being slandered on a nationally televised show. All hell would break lose. The CEO of NBCUniversal is a Jewish American named Jeff Shell. Yet he allows these vicious blood libels and slanders to appear on some of NBC’s most popular shows. Shame on him.

With ‘Nurses’ Episode, NBC Again Shows it Detests Jews

By Israelly Cool, February 24, 2021

Following my post on Michael Che’s “joke” about the Jewish state only vaccinating Jews – a mendacious libel that can only serve to promote the idea that us Jews think of ourselves as above all other life forms – I received a torrent of abuse. Besides the overtly antisemitic tweets, there were those who claimed the joke was only criticizing Israel, and thus could not be construed as antisemitic.

I would like to see how these same people now try to explain away this latest example of overt antisemitism from NBC:

While Israel is not explicitly mentioned, this is promoting exactly the same idea as the SNL sketch – that Jews only value Jewish life and not the lives of non-Jews.

This is, again, entirely false. And maliciously so.

Judaism holds all human life as being sacred. For this reason, donating an organ to save a life is one of the highest act of virtue one can do. So of course a Jew can donate an organ (that you can live without when you are alive, or any organ after death, but under certain conditions) to save any human life, and can also receive an organ from Jew or non-Jew alike. We even see this in Israel where Jews and Arabs donate organs for each other’s use.

Here is a petition. You may also reach out to NBC at these e-mail addresses. Don’t be SILENT https://actnow.ajc.org/vsnl3xs

E-mail addresses: jeff.shell@nbcuni.com, contact.nbcnews@nbcuni.com, NBCNewsMediaRelations@nbcuni.com, snlstandbyline@gmail.com

RELATED ARTICLE: Saturday Night Live Finds Antisemitic Blood Libels Funny

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permenently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadowbanned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on social and with your email contacts.

7 Ways You Can Be Less White

/in , /by

More and more corporations are requiring their employees to be less white, in an attempt to stop racism forever. But it’s hard to know how to do that, since at first blush, that SEEMS really racist and impossible. But it’s not. It’s actually really easy if you follow these seven simple steps:

1. Burn all your Live, Laugh, Love signs. This is the first step to renouncing whiteness. Find every last “Live, Laugh, Love” sign in your home, every “Too Blessed To Be Stressed” trinket, and every “All I Need Is A Little Bit Of Coffee And A Whole Lot Of Jesus” mug and burn them as you think about your inherently sinful whiteness.

2. Rip off your skin. This is an easy one!

3. Kill yourself. Even easier! For best results, rip off your skin, then kill yourself.

4. Announce that you identify as a person of color. Wait, never mind. This one might be cultural appropriation. You also might be mistaken for a conservative trying to come up with a third joke.

5. Throw out all your ranch dressing. Ranch dressing, mayo — it’s all gotta go.

6. Take dance classes. This is a hard step, but it’s worth it. As you learn to dance to a beat, your whiteness will begin to melt away.

7. Hate yourself every waking moment until you have sufficiently atoned for your whiteness. Oops! Spoiler alert: you’ll never sufficiently atone for your whiteness. Better go back to step 3.

There you go! Racism ended forever!

RELATED POLITICAL SATIRE:

LaCroix Tells Employees To Be More White

Get Smarter in 5 Minutes

Hasbro Releases Exciting New ‘Fauci Says’ Game

Disney Warns Viewers That The Muppet Show Is From A Different Era When Comedy Was Culturally Acceptable

YouTube Wins 2020 Teacher Of The Year Award

Amazon Introduces ‘Kindle Bonfire’ Feature That Lets You Burn Digital Books

Calling Someone Without Texting Them First Officially Classified As A Hate Crime

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column by The Babylon Bee is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Left Is Out To Demoralize America — We Cannot Let Them Win!

/in , , , , , , , /by

The left is out to demoralize America.  Both definitions of the word demoralize come into play in the case of leftist demoralization of America.  The first definition of demoralize is to “cause (someone) to lose confidence or hope; dispirit.”  The second definition of demoralize is to “corrupt the morals of (someone).”  If the left can cause people to lose their confidence or hope then they are more likely to fail their morals and fall to the corruption of the left.  Immorality is the left’s moral code.  We cannot let them win.

The left has no morals.   Truth is irrelevant to the left.  The left facetiously uses the word “equity” to disparage and discriminate against tens of millions of patriotic God fearing Americans.  The left makes up facts to meet their twisted agenda.  They twist laws to put right of center people in jail while ignoring laws that allow hardened criminals to run free in our neighborhoods and destroy cities.   The left’s hate for the values that the right cherishes is squarely in their bull’s eye for destruction.  The left is:

  • Repealing bail laws to let or keep criminals out of jail.
  • Not prosecuting laws that are intended to keep hardened, repeat criminals in jail and off the street.
  • Filling the ranks of top level national security positions with people who support the Council on American Islamic Relations, Antifa, Black Lives Matter and the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Working to allow hundreds of thousands of foreigners with criminal records, terror associations, and cartel relations to cross our borders and stay in our neighborhoods every year.
  • Allowing unfettered entry into the United States from countries previously blocked because of their terror linked citizens.

Some people say the left’s extreme no holds barred policies that are focused on wrecking America are all about grabbing power.   So are millions of Americans really willing to turn their neighborhoods into havens for repeat, hardened offenders, illegal criminal aliens and imported terrorists?   Has the left’s zeal for power blinded them to the realities of what America will become under their reckless policies?  Maybe.  But I believe what motivates their blinded, reckless disregard for rational laws and public safety is their utter hate for people who are right of center, especially people of faith.

I am convinced after decades of being in the middle of the cultural battle to defend our values that the left has a deeply rooted hate for the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.  Jesus is quoted in John 15:18-20 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”  John 15:18-25 explains the spiritual nature of the left’s hate.

Thankfully, as long as we have a voice we must:

  • Stand with and show support for rational policies of public officials and oppose irrational ones.
  • Express support to judges that issue rulings congruent with the United States Constitution that defend our values.
  • Encourage judges to make America’s public safety the priority over political correctness and leftist intimidation.
  • Urge Corporate America to stop advertising with networks and websites that promote leftist propaganda that inspires hate toward Christians, Jews and conservative minded patriots.
  • Encourage companies to stop supporting public policies that side with leftist extremism.
  • Defend the people in the media who are boldly reporting the truth and naming the people who are advancing leftist extremism.
  • Call upon certain members of congress to oppose bills that advance leftist extremism.
  • Provide reports to Americans regarding the consequences of the left’s free pass to criminals and terrorists.
  • Call on state and local officials to fill in the gap left void by the Biden administration.
  • Pray that the impact of the left’s horrific policies will change the hearts and political thinking of millions of Americans toward sanity and civility.

Some Americans are despondent over the political and social changes that are taking place.  We must not be deterred.  We must continue to stand.  We will continue to stand and make a difference.

©Florida Family Association, Inc. All rights reserved.

ACTION ALERT: Mainstream Contributors to Sexual Exploitation on NCOSE 2021 Dirty Dozen List Revealed

/in , , , , , /by

List Includes: Amazon, Chromebook, Discord, EBSCO, Netflix, Nevada, OnlyFans, Reddit, SeekingArrangement, Twitter, Verisign, & Wish 

Washington, DC (February 23, 2021) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has revealed that Amazon, Chromebook, Discord, OnlyFans, and Wish are among its 2021 Dirty Dozen List of mainstream contributors to sexual exploitation. This year’s list features several entities that have profited from the COVID-19 crisis by taking advantage of worsening social and economic vulnerabilities and harnessing the dramatic increase in online activity.

“Our list highlights institutions that are facilitating and even profiting from sexual exploitation. Most of the targets greatly benefited from the pandemic, like Google, that saw shipments of Chromebooks double in 2020, but refused to proactively turn on safeguards for the millions of devices going to schools – leaving kids at risk of exposure to pornography and even predators. Others, like OnlyFans, took advantage of the increased vulnerabilities caused by COVID-19. Another target, Wish, irresponsibly advertises on Pornhub, thereby keeping this known exploiter in business,” said Lina Nealon, director of corporate and strategic initiatives for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. 

“Corporations and popular brands shape our culture and influence the ways we communicate, what causes we support, and even how our children are learning in school. Unfortunately, many are also perpetuating harm and violence.

“These ‘Dirty Dozen’ are hereby put on notice. We encourage the public and governments to join us in holding these entities accountable, pressing on them to change exploitative policies and to prioritize human dignity over profit.

“We are also highlighting entities on our Watchlist – Snapchat, TikTok, and Visa – as they have made some improvements within the last year, but still have steps to take to fully confront and end harmful business practices with the appropriate urgency these issues demand,” Nealon added

The 2021 Dirty Dozen List includes:  

  1. Amazon – Amazon, the world’s titan of e-commerce, logistics, data storage, and media, also peddles endless amounts of sexual exploitation. As a social platform, Amazon’s Twitch is rife with sexual harassment, predatory grooming, and child sexual abuse. As an online retailer, Amazon is in the business of selling incest-themed porn, sex dolls, photography books with eroticized child nudity, and more. As a media creator, Amazon Prime Video inserts unnecessary, gratuitous nudity and simulated sex scenes into many of its original programming, while providing faulty parental controls. As a web host, AWS is host to many hardcore violent pornography and prostitution websites. Learn more and take action: EndSexualExploitation.org/Amazon
  2. Chromebooks – Google’s refusal to turn on safety features for Chromebooks distributed to schools has resulted in countless students being left exposed to sexually explicit material and sexual predators on their school-assigned devices. More than 40 million students and teachers worldwide were using these popular devices prior to the pandemic. Millions more received Chromebooks for virtual schooling after COVID-19 hit. Instead of helping, this trillion-dollar tech giant chooses to place the burden on overwhelmed schools and parents while leaving children at risk. Demand digital safety in schools: EndSexualExploitation.org/Chromebooks 
  3. Discord – The popular platform Discord allows users to connect and chat with each other in real time and it boasts over 100 million active monthly users. Discord has inadequate age verification procedures in place and relies on user reports to moderate much of its content. Hundreds of private and public channels are rife with sexually graphic, violent, and exploitative content, and children are at risk of exposure, grooming, and other predatory behavior. Discord must do more to protect kids: EndSexualExploitation.org/Discord  
  4. EBSCO – EBSCO Information Services is the leading provider of online learning resources for schools and libraries. Though they market their products as “age and curriculum-appropriate,” graphic sexual content and live links to prostitution and pornography websites are easily accessible to K-12 students. EBSCO recklessly hosts material harmful for kids under the guise of education. EBSCO must make its products safe for minors: EndSexualExploitation.org/EBSCO   
  5. Netflix – Netflix is a staple of at-home entertainment for over 150 million subscribers who stream their content. Mixed in with the hours of entertainment, though, is sexually graphic and degrading content. Netflix has improved its parental control system and added content warnings, but many Netflix Originals still contain gratuitous amounts of nudity or graphic sexual violence which are triggering for survivors and which normalize sexploitation without addressing the very real harms. Encourage Netflix to stop producing voyeuristic content: EndSexualExploitation.org/Netflix 
  6. Nevada - Legalized brothels in Nevada have proven to be a failed experiment. They also violate the U.S. Constitution’s  Thirteenth Amendment which bans involuntary servitude and slavery because of the trafficking associated with them. Evidence shows that a legalized sex trade increases demand from sex buyers and therefore increases sex trafficking as exploiters try to satisfy the market. Survivors are exposing the ugly truth about life behind brothel doors. By legalizing brothels, Nevada is profiting from sexual exploitation and abuse—just like any other pimp. Nevada is Not Safe for Women: EndSexualExploitation.org/Nevada
  7. OnlyFans - OnlyFans makes money off of vulnerable people’s bodies – especially the bodies of women and minors. Exploiting financial insecurities deepened by the COVID-19 crisis, OnlyFans promises fast cash, empowerment, and even fame. While “Fans” may pay fees for nude images, videos, and livestreams, it is the “creators” who pay the high price of psychological, emotional, and physical harm that the sex industry imparts. Expose OnlyFans for enabling sexual exploitation: EndSexualExploitation.org/OnlyFans
  8. Reddit – Reddit, known as the “front page of the Internet,” has become a hub of exploitation where sex buyers and other sexual predators meet to exchange non-consensually shared intimate images, hardcore pornography, and to give advice to each other about how to use and abuse. Prostitution, sex trafficking, and child sexual abuse material is also easily found on the site because Reddit refuses to institute strong policies and, despite being worth $3 billion, refuses to spend money on moderators and technology solutions to reduce sexual abuse and exploitation material surfacing on their site. It’s time Reddit was made accountable. Take action at EndSexualExploitation.org/Reddit 
  9. SeekingArrangement – SeekingArrangement is a “sugar dating” platform, “sugar dating” being just another term for prostitution. This company targets college students and people suffering from the economic uncertainty of COVID-19 in order to groom them to be sexually used by wealthier, older men. While the Apple App Store does not carry this prostitution app, Google Play does. #TimesUp for SeekingArrangement: EndSexualExploitation.org/SeekingArrangement
  10. Twitter – Sexual exploitation is rampant on Twitter. Twitter allows countless posts and accounts that function as advertisements for the trading of child sexual abuse materials (i.e. “child pornography”), sex trafficking, prostitution, and pornography. Twitter also fails to adequately respond to child abuse and sex trafficking victims when they are being exploited on the platform. Twitter must be held legally accountable: EndSexualExploitation.org/Twitter 
  11. Verisign – Seventy percent of all webpages identified as containing child sexual abuse images were found on .com and .net domains according to the 2019 report from The Internet Watch Foundation. Verisign, a publicly traded U.S. company with annual revenues exceeding $1.23 billion, has exclusive management over the .com and .net generic top-level domains. While some other registries and registrars are working to disrupt domains associated with child sexual abuse material, Verisign refuses to take meaningful action and instead inhibits attempts to protect children. Congress must act. Take action at: EndSexualExploitation.org/Verisign 
  12. Wish – Wish, a top ten retail shopping website and app used by over 500 million people, is one of the few mainstream corporations still working with the world’s biggest sexual abusers—MindGeek and Pornhub—even though child sexual abuse material, depictions of actual rape and sex trafficking, and non-consensually shared intimate videos abound on the websites. Not only that, but Wish’s profits rest on the marketing of child-like sex dolls, spycams advertised as useful for filming women nude without permission, and misogynistic apparel. Wish is shopping made exploitative. Call on them to stop prioritizing profits over people! EndSexualExploitation.org/Wish

The Watchlist includes:    

Snapchat – A third of US teens named Snapchat as their favorite social networking app. Unfortunately, this popular platform has been used by sex traffickers and predators to groom, abuse, and sell people, including kids.  Children as young as 13 have also been exposed to graphic sexual content through Snapchat’s Discover stories as sexual abuse, pornography, and prostitution accounts proliferate on the site. Snapchat’s made improvement recently, but it can still do much more to protect minors. Insist Snapchat make its space safer for teens. EndSexualExploitation.org/Snapchat 

TikTok - TikTok has close to a billion monthly users – and many of them are minors. This incredibly popular app was considered a predator’s playground, as the platform enabled easy access to children by strangers. We applaud several major changes TikTok made in 2020 which include enhanced safety features for teens and extensive Community Guidelines. It is encouraging progress, but it is still too early to tell how well these changes will be implemented and we remain concerned about the extent of harmful content accessible by young users. Tell TikTok to keep up the trend of protecting kids. EndSexualExploitation.org/TikTok 

Visa – Visa rightly cut ties with Pornhub in 2020 after public outcry regarding the rampant sex trafficking and abuse videos on the porn website. However, Visa intentionally re-initiated a relationship with MindGeek (owner of Pornhub) and other pornography websites so long as they only published studio-produced videos. This action legitimizes an inherently abusive and exploitive industry. Further, Visa processes payments for brothels and prostitution websites. Call on Visa to reject profits from sexual abuse: EndSexualExploitation.org/Visa

The Dirty Dozen List is an annual campaign highlighting 12 mainstream entities for facilitating, normalizing, and even profiting from sexual abuse and exploitation. Since 2013, the Dirty Dozen List has led to major victories in stemming sexual exploitation: catalyzing significant improvements at Google, Netflix, TikTok, Hilton Worldwide, Verizon, Walmart, the U.S. Department of Defense, and many more mainstream players. 

©National Center for Sexual Exploitation. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Announces Ambitious Goal Of $100 Per Gallon Gas By End Of First 100 Days In Office

/in , /by

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In spite of Democrats’ best efforts to curb the use of fossil fuels, stubborn Americans continue to use them to power their automobiles and heat their homes. Biden is responding to this crisis with an ambitious new plan to raise the price of gas to $100 per gallon by the end of his first 100 days in office.

“Listen– all these fossil fuels, they gotta stop! Gotta stop!” Biden said to the Secret Service agent pumping gas into his presidential limo. “We gotta do something about these selfish Americans and one-horse kangaroo herders burning all these fuels without consequences. I know consequences. Just ask Corn Pop and his buddies. When I’m done with ’em, these Americans will never burn a gallon of gas again, Jack!”

The administration has announced the “Gas Prices To The Mooooon” campaign– a series of executive orders designed to drive the price of fuel up to make it unattainable to anyone except John Kerry.

When confronted with the question of how Americans will afford to get around with $100-per-gallon gas, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested they stay home and eat some ice cream instead.

Currently, the average price stands at $2.53 per gallon and rising, which experts say is likely Trump’s fault.

RELATED POLITICAL SATIRE:

Media Immediately Stops Covering Ted Cruz Story After He Puts On Andrew Cuomo Mask

To Fight White Supremacy, Coca-Cola Discontinues Vanilla Coke

Help Is On The Way: John Kerry Personally Warms Texas By Flying Private Jet Around

Bill Gates Warns Of The Sacrifices We’ll Have To Make In Stirring Speech Given From His 650 Million Dollar Super Yacht

Support Grows For All Of Congress To Be Permanently Relocated To Cancun

Ted Cruz Determined Unfit To Be A Politician After He Admits He Was Wrong, Apologizes

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column by The Babylon Bee is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

SATAN’S MINIONS: The Financiers of Michael R. Pence — Part 3

/in , , , , /by

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes…Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” –  Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” – Blaise Pascal, French mathematician

“Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.” –  Hannah Arendt

Motivated mainly by ego, Mike Pence and his wife Karen craved the upper echelons of political power.  Pence always looked to those with money and power who could advance his political goals.  One of them was his good friend, David McIntosh, a well-known Trump hater who served as executive director of Vice President Dan Quayle‘s and Bush’s Council for Competitiveness.  But McIntosh was only the beginning, the DeVos and Koch organizations were the financiers with serious money.

Club for Growth

McIntosh, the pro-amnesty president of Club for Growth (CFG), left his congressional seat to seek the governorship of Indiana in 2000 which opened the door for Pence to run for Indiana’s 6th district.  McIntosh introduced Pence to the chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Van Smith, who ran a manufacturing and real estate empire from headquarters in Muncie and could help fund Pence.  After years of being on Indiana radio, Pence was well-known and Van Smith encouraged his run. Smith worked with Pence and even helped him achieve the gubernatorial nomination.

Vice Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, Kelly Stanley was Pence’s fund raiser for his 2000 election to Congress.  (As Lou Dobbs often stated, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce promotes globalism.)

In 2012, Pence scheduled a fund raiser with GOP Governor-elect Nikki Haley and she ultimately became Trump’s UN Ambassador.  Haley collaborated closely with VP Pence during her tenure as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. As head of the transition team staffing the Trump Administration, Pence likely is largely responsible for NeverTrumper Haley gaining the sensitive and high-profile post when a South Carolina business friend asked Trump to appoint Haley so their more conservative Lt. Governor could take over. An indicator of the tight connection between Pence and Haley is that in their gubernatorial campaigns in Indiana and South Carolina, they shared the same principal campaign consultant, the young Georgian Nick Ayers.

The Club had been created with the aid of the Koch brothers’ political machine and advised about 1,500 donors, a number of whom were Wall Street investors.  They sent checks to the organization.

CFG had financed Pence’s good friend Jeff Flake for his first term in Congress.  Flake stated that every two weeks as much as $15K in checks arrived at his doorstep from people he didn’t know.  This was when founder Stephen Moore was the president and was so disinterested in social issues that he banned the word “abortion” at club meetings.  (Anti-gunner Pat Toomey succeeded Moore as president.)

After Pence appeared for inspection, he was selected to be one of ten newcomers favored by the club. Pence collected a bit more than $3,100 from a CFG account and an additional $62,400 in checks forwarded to him by the club.  Others filled his coffers with more than $1 million.  His list of contributors included Amway heir Dick DeVos and J. Patrick Rooney of the Golden Rule Financial insurance company.

Pence followed CFG’s open global markets and free trade agreements. After he spoke at the 2000 RNC for Bush/Cheney, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, now a convicted felon, pro-amnesty majority leader Dick Armey and Republican whip Tom Delay attended rallies in Indiana to boost Pence.  Pence adopted Armey as a mentor.

Dick and Betsy DeVos

Pence was appealing to many organizations, but especially to the DeVos Family Foundation which was built on the Amway home products company by Dick’s father, Richard.  Betsy’s father was Edgar Prince and her brother is Erik Prince, founder of the private military company Blackwater USA.  Prince’s private military force had a $1 billion contract to provide services in Iraq.  It billed the US taxpayers roughly $450K per year per man deployed in country, which was about six times the amount paid to an American soldier.  Privatization in action…transferring government function to businesses.

Erik is the Vice President of The Prince Foundation founded by his parents, Edgar and Elsa Prince.  They have donated millions of dollars to alleged American conservative Christian groups as Alliance Defense Fund, Council for National Policy, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Promise Keepers and American Family Association.

Betsy DeVos is known for her support for school choice, school voucher programs, and charter schools.  Columnist Diane Kepus researched Betsy DeVos and knew she would be a disaster; her two articles on DeVos are well worth your time, Link and Link.

What most people don’t realize is that when one penny of federal tax dollars (which is given to the states) goes to support a religious, private, or home school child via choice or vouchers, all the federal regulations go with those funds.

In August of 1933, Dr. J. Gresham Machen, gave the speech, The Necessity of the Christian School. He was Professor of New Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa. The lecture was given at the Educational Convention held in Chicago under the auspices of the National Union of Christian Schools.  Here is a portion of what he said:

Every lover of human freedom ought to oppose with all his might the giving of Federal aid to the schools of this country; for Federal aid in the long run inevitably means Federal control, and Federal control means control by a centralized and irresponsible bureaucracy, and control by such a bureaucracy means the death of everything that might make this country great. Against this soul-killing collectivism in education, the Christian school, like the private school, stands as an emphatic protest.

Pence’s devoted financier, Betsy DeVos was nominated after Michelle Rhee was dropped. DeVos was lauded for Education Secretary by Jeb Bush as she sat on the board of his Foundation of Excellence in Education which promoted common core.

Diane Kepus’ fears were founded.  Mike Pence played an important role in the confirmation of Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary. Amid protests from Democratic critics and teachers’ unions that DeVos, a billionaire charter school supporter with no public-school experience, was unqualified for the position, the Senate deadlocked in a 50-50 tie. Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against DeVos. Normally we wouldn’t laud their votes, but this time they were right.  On February 7, 2017, Vice President Pence cast the historic tie-breaking vote to confirm her, the first-time a vice president has been called on to break a tie in a cabinet nomination.

Betsy’s brother Erik Prince had long been a Pence backer.  Betsy and Dick DeVos were impressed by Pence’s support for their pet project of charter schools.  One wonders if Pence and DeVos back American tax-funded charters by Islamic Imam Fethullah Gulen, Rudolph Steiner’s Anthroposophical Waldorf Schools, massively growing in China, and Communist Chinese charter schools.  Chinese investors are putting millions into Florida Chinese charters.

Pence compensated one of his expansive financiers with a cabinet position in the Trump administration…a job where she kept President Carter’s cabinet level Education Department as rotten as it has been since its creation. In 1867, President Andrew Johnson signed legislation creating the first Department of Education. Its main purpose was to collect information and statistics about the nation’s schools.  By 1880 John Dewey was promoting his progressive education turning students into functional illiterates.

Koch Brother Organizations

For years, Pence has been a loyal political ally of the biggest GOP dark money donors. He is a major beneficiary of Koch family money. The Koch organizations did not endorse, nor did they fund Trump in 2016, but they love Pence.  Charles Koch once likened the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to being asked to choose cancer or a heart attack.

A steady flow of Koch money has filled Pence’s campaign coffers and he has employed many former Koch staffers in his political offices.  Koch Industries and Koch Enterprises became top donors during Pence’s Congressional career.  Pence’s close friend, Kellyanne Conway is one of many people who has worked for both Pence and Koch-affiliated groups.  As Governor of Indiana, Pence hired Koch Industry’s then-communications director, Matt Lloyd, to work for him.  Lloyd was a longtime Pence staffer in Congress.

Pence’s long-time adviser and former chief of staff, Mark Short was president of Koch’s Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce from 2011 to 2016. Short was previously a Senior Fellow at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, a CNN contributor, as well as Chief of Staff to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and the House Republican Conference.

Peter Navarro told us the truth about Marc Short.  He said, “Marc Short, VP Pence’s Chief of Staff, worked with Pence in allowing the Big Steal to move forward – He’s “not a good guy.”

In June of 2017, 16 of 23 senior white house officials had ties to the Koch brothers, including Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway, Jeff Sessions, Mick Mulvaney, Rob Porter and Don McGahn.  Even Treasury Secretary Mnuchin helped them out with a change in tax laws.  The Trump administration was packed full of Koch operatives, brought in by their water boy, Mike Pence. Here is a shocking list of the Trump transition team Koch beneficiaries.

Heritage Foundation

In 1991, Pence became president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation (IPRF), which is part of the State Policy Network. Link They are satellite affiliates of the Heritage Foundation whose goals and interests are similar to the Koch’s.  The IPRF was a small group back when Pence was president, but in the years since it has amassed an enormous budget thanks in great part to the largess of the Koch network of donors.

Koch money massively funds the Federalist Society and they chose the list of names for Trump appointments to the Supreme Court. Link  Heritage Foundation also provided a list of “conservative” names to Trump for Supreme Court Justices, and Heritage has received funding from organizations connected to the Koch brothers. In 2012, the Heritage Foundation received $650,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, which was one of the Koch Family Foundations before it closed in 2013. The Lambe Foundation contributed at least $4.8 million to the Heritage Foundation between 1998 and 2012.

Heritage Foundation is controlled-opposition, and has received funding from Koch’s Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, including $53,300 in 2010 and $69,850 in 2012.  The Koch brothers have donated millions of dollars to Donors Trust through the Knowledge and Progress Fund.

Kochs are key funders of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN).  ALEC was founded by Heritage Foundation’s first president, Paul Weyrich.  Stephen Moore, founder of Club for Growth is on the board of ALEC because like the Kochs, and ALEC, they are all promoting another constitutional convention that would ultimately destroy our 1787 Constitution.

Pence spoke at the ALEC meeting in Indianapolis in the summer of 2016 and met with the Kochs in Denver in 2017.

David Koch was on the board of Trustees of Rockefeller University.  He was also on the board of Earth watch Institute, an environmental, sustainability, Agenda 21 group and the board of the globalist new age Aspen Institute formerly headed by now deceased new age environmentalist Maurice Strong.  Strong was the driving force behind the birth and imposition of UN Agenda 21.

Stem-cell research is supported by the Kochs and David also signed onto an amicus brief for the supreme court supporting gay rights and gay marriage.  Running as the Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate in 1980, David Koch backed a platform calling for the full legalization of abortion.

Heritage Foundation has acquired millions in funding by other pro-abortion advocates, besides the Koch Foundation.  Richard Mellon Scaife donated over $30 million and took out a full-page WSJ ad in 2004 claiming Americans should be pleased to give tax dollars to Planned Parenthood.

Shelby and Kathryn Davis gave millions to Heritage.  Kathryn was a longtime advocate of women’s rights through the League of Women’s Voters and Planned Parenthood, a committed environmentalist who also endorsed global education initiatives. Davis was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Wellesley College trustee for 18 years.

Mike Pence has now joined Heritage as a “distinguished visiting fellow.”

Koch Campaign for Amnesty

The billionaire Koch brothers campaign for amnesty and cheap labor shows they are open border, mass immigration, and mass amnesty despite opposition from the American people.  Koch ads pushed amnesty by using the words of the D.C. political establishment, which is unified not only on mass immigration, but also on endless free trade, and foreign interventionism.  House Speaker Paul Ryan was with them. Koch money even supported Andrew Cuomo as Governor of New York, who had publicly stated, “America has never been great.”

A campaign launched by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and the LIBRE Initiative, all groups funded by Koch brothers, consisted of advertisements, lobbying efforts and grassroots organization. This was a multi-year, multi-million-dollar campaign to tout free trade and oppose Trump’s tariffs, and to defy our President’s goals.

In a January 2018 White House bi-partisan immigration meeting with Trump, Pence declined to support Trump’s plan to change the law so that immigration rules help Americans, and he instead touted a quick amnesty for ‘DACA’ illegals.  Pence sided with his pro-immigration buddies Flake and Ryan rather than with President Trump.

Jeff Flake and other pro-amnesty Senators were there by invitation to urge the administration to cave to the big business lobby, which wants an expansive amnesty in which DACA illegal aliens are given work permits so that wages can be kept stagnant, rather than rising for Americans.  All these pro-immigration Senators were brought into DACA discussions with Trump by Vice President Mike Pence, an ally of the pro-mass immigration, and pro-Constitutional Convention GOP mega-donors, the Koch brothers.  Charles Koch is now attempting to get Republicans to work together with Democrats to get amnesty passed for the millions of illegal aliens in America.

And if you still think Koch organizations are conservative, the Charles Koch Foundation has partnered with Soros’s Open Society Foundations  to launch a foreign policy think tank.

Conclusion

For all his piety, Pence doesn’t seem to be bothered by the devils who finance him.

©Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

Wikipedia Co-founder SLAMS site’s far-left bias, its ‘neutrality long gone,’ ‘it’s is a joke’

/in , , , , /by

Wikipedia is a far-left propaganda resource and has been for years. We have long known, and railed to no avail. Wikipedia is a joke and no one with a measure of integrity and/or scholarship goes near it.

Wikipedia is but one cog in an immense propaganda machine inundating the body politic with lies and disinformation – like all totalitarianism regimes.

  • He said: ‘The days of Wikipedia’s robust commitment to neutrality are long gone’
  • Sanger said he is now working on a new ‘Encyclosphere’ project but said he has hope Wikipedia could be ‘fixed’
  • His own Wikipedia page documents a long history of criticism against the site he co-founded 

Co-founder says Wikipedia’s neutrality ‘long gone,’ cites leftist bias

“And then when the rest of the media and tech became insanely far left, Wikipedia naturally went along with the trend,” he tweeted.

By: Dave Boyer – Washington Examiner, February 21, 2021:

The Fox analysis cited the two main pages for “Socialism” and “Communism” that span 28,000 words but lack any discussion of the genocides committed by socialist and communist regimes, in which tens of millions of people were murdered and starved.

“The omission of large-scale mass murder, slave labor, and man-made famines is negligent and deeply misleading,” economics professor Bryan Caplan, who has studied the history of communism, told Fox News.

In a blog post, Mr. Sanger said examples of bias on Wikipedia “have become embarrassingly easy to find,” pointing to the entries for former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

“The Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal — or, of course, the developing ‘Obamagate’ story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump,” Mr. Sanger posted in May 2020. “A fair article about a major political figure certainly must include the bad with the good.”

He said the entry about Mr. Trump shows that Wikipedia’s neutrality “is a joke.”

“Just for example, there are 5,224 none-too-flattering words in the ‘Presidency’ section,” he wrote. “By contrast, the following ‘Public Profile’ (which the Obama article entirely lacks), ‘Investigations,’ and ‘Impeachment’ sections are unrelentingly negative, and together add up to some 4,545 words — in other words, the controversy sections are almost as long as the sections about his presidency.”

He said Wikipedia frequently asserts “in its own voice, that many of Trump’s statements are ‘false.’ Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so, especially without attribution.”

The Wikimedia Foundation said in a statement that Wikipedia “is a living, breathing project, and is always evolving just as our shared understanding of a topic does.” It said the foundation does not directly control the content on the site, which is written by volunteer editors.

The spokesperson also pointed to a Harvard study that “shows how the more people edit an article, the more neutral it becomes,” Fox News reported.

Daily Mail:

His own Wikipedia page documents a long history of criticism against the site he co-founded.

Sanger’s woes with the company were first revealed in 2004 when he wrote an article for the website Kuro5hin.

Sanger’s article claimed that Wikipedia, which calls itself ‘the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,’ is not perceived as credible by librarians and academics because it lacks a formal review process and is ‘anti-elitist.’

In 2007, Sanger criticized Wikipedia again after the launch of Citizendium, another wiki-based encyclopedia he created to address the ‘flaws’ with Wikipedia.

Sanger said Wikipedia was ‘broken beyond repair’ and had ‘a whole series of scandals’ from ‘serious management problems’ to ‘frequently unreliable content,’ according to IT News.

The techie again distanced himself from Wikipedia in September 2009 when he claimed: ‘I thought that the project would never have the amount of credibility it could have if it were not somehow more open and welcoming to experts.’

‘The other problem was the community had essentially been taken over by trolls to a great extent. That was a real problem, and Jimmy Wales absolutely refused to do anything about it,’ Sanger told Internet Revolution.

Sanger sent a letter to the FBI in April 2010 claiming that Wikimedia Commons was hosting child pornography, according to a BBC article.

‘I think Wikipedia never solved the problem of how to organize itself in a way that didn’t lead to mob rule,’ Sanger said in an interview with Vice in November 2015.

‘People that I would say are trolls sort of took over. The inmates started running the asylum.’

In the Vice interview, Sanger equated the alleged trolls that took over the platform with modern-day social justice warriors.

He again called Wikipedia ‘a broken system’ in a May 2019 interview with 150Sec, his page noted. He said the leaders did not ‘come up with a good solution’ ‘to stop bad actors from ruining the project.

Sanger described Wikipedia as ‘badly biased’ in a May 2020 blog post in which he claimed the site no longer had an effective neutrality policy.

‘The notion that we should avoid “false balance” is directly contradictory to the original neutrality policy. As a result, even as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science,’ he wrote.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permenently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadowbanned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on social and with your email contacts.

Black Conservatives Vie to Replace California’s Governor Newsom

/in , , , /by

Anyone who thinks the conservative movement isn’t inclusive is not paying attention. When it comes to candidates conservatives will support, the only thing that matters is the ideas and principles they’ll fight for. Two young black conservatives who are running for California governor exemplify this fact, because the ideas they’re promoting are as interesting, if not more interesting, than anything coming from their more established conservative competitors.

Errol Webber, a 34 year old immigrant from Jamaica, now living in Los Angeles, has been producing documentary and narrative films since he was a teenager. His acclaimed documentary “American Promise” chronicles the struggles parents go through to assert their right to school choice for their children.

Webber’s positions on the issues are staunchly conservative, including supporting school choice, defending “religious, medical and economic freedoms,” investing in vocational education, increasing competition in medicine and reducing taxes and regulations.

Major Williams, a 41 year old resident of Pasadena, made a name for himself in 2020 by running for mayor of that city. He came in third place with 8.4 percent and forced the top candidates into a runoff. His gubernatorial campaign website reveals a candidate that has the courage to take positions that more established candidates would never dare.

In particular, Williams calls for expanding California’s oil and gas drilling in order to increase tax revenues, create high paying jobs, and – crucially – offset California’s hypocritical and damaging reliance on foreign oil, much of it imported from Venezuela. Williams is a budget hawk, a supporter of the 2nd amendment, and favors deregulation. His positions on the issues are bold, thoughtful, and thoroughly conservative.

If proponents of the Newsom recall succeed in forcing a special election, expect to see Williams and Webber’s names on the ballot. Their campaigns are going to surprise a lot of people, because they both have reach on social media. Williams has 43,000 followers on Facebook, over 172,000 on Instagram. Webber has nearly 129,000 followers on Twitter.

California’s conservatives can learn a lot from these candidates. For starters, the courage to take positions that are right for California, even if they’re wrong for the special interests that run California. We wish both of them well.

EDITORS NOTE: This Winston84 Project column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Facebook Stomps On Small Publishers

/in , , , , , /by

This is personal. Facebook’s bullyboy tactics could crush MercatorNet.

Facebook unfriended all of Australia last week. Locked in a battle with the Federal government over legislation which would force it to pay for links to news publications, it wiped Australian news sources from viewer’s feeds.

So when you checked your Facebook feed on February 18, you didn’t see anything from The Australian, The Guardian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph or, initially, the Bureau of Meteorology, Western Australia’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services, Western Sydney Health, South Australia Health, various state health services and some state Governments. This is in the middle of the fire season and a Covid-19 pandemic, for which many people rely on Facebook for updates.

You also didn’t see anything from MercatorNet or BioEdge, our related publication about bioethical issues. They’re news sources; they’re published in Australia; and they’re cancelled.

Basically, Facebook has screwed us.

Websites like MercatorNet grow when readers share links to stories that they like. There are other ways to achieve this, but the most powerful and efficient one is through Facebook. MercatorNet’s marketing plan is based on Facebook. And now Facebook has stomped on us like Godzilla squashing an ant. Do not ask me what I think of Mark Zuckerberg.

Let me try to be objective for a moment. What are the issues behind Facebook’s astonishing decision?

Traditional news media are in danger of extinction. Everywhere newspapers are losing circulation to internet news sources. Nearly 1,800 newspapers closed in the United States between 2004 and 2018, including more than 60 dailies and 1,700 weeklies.

Between them, Google and Facebook have sucked up 81 percent of online advertising in Australia. News media only have about 19 percent.

The media companies can only fight back with government help. In Australia they have proposed a statutory media bargaining code and the government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is backing it to the hilt. The idea is that Google and Facebook will be forced to compensate the media companies for using the news that they display. Google has agreed; Facebook gave the Australian Government the finger.

Facebook acknowledges that news in a Facebook feed “enriches” a user’s experience. But it claims that it adds almost no commercial value. It also says that fewer than 5 percent of clicks on Facebook come from news stories. Why should it be forced to pay for giving a free platform to news organisations? The new law, it says, “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship” between its platform and publishers who use it to share news content.” (Translation: Facebook is a for-profit company, not a goddam charity.)

Furthermore, as they say, “the internet wants to be free”. The internet will be broken if users have to pay for links. Other countries, particularly in Europe, are waiting to see what happens in Australia. So Facebook has to make a stand here or it will be forced to strike deals with traditional media companies everywhere.

You know what? I sympathise with Facebook’s frustration. Behind the Australian government’s proposal is Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd, which owns more than half of the country’s newspaper market. Zuckerberg probably feels that Rupert Murdoch is using the Australian government to shake him down to subsidize a dying industry. He’s probably right.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who loathes Murdoch, recently tweeted: “You cannot argue with a straight face that Zuckerberg has a monopoly on the internet, while ignoring the objective reality that Murdoch has a monopoly in print. The answer is to subject both companies to a Royal Commission, not side with one billionaire against the other.”

But leave that for another day.

Today’s issue is that Facebook is using raw commercial power to blackmail a sovereign nation. It is displaying contempt for the government and for its users in Australia. In its battle to stay unregulated, it is creating immense collateral damage.

The fact that Zuckerberg fails to face up to is that Facebook has become a quasi-public utility and now it is abusing its monopoly power. World-wide, it has 2.6 billion users. It is the principal source of news for many of those readers. Without news in their Facebook feed, democracy dies in the hearts of those users. If they don’t read MercatorNet (or The Australian) in their feed, they’re not going to search out the websites. They’re going to look at more cat videos.

Facebook’s chess game displays not just arrogance, but staggering immaturity. Commercial companies serve the public and have to act in a socially responsible way. Facebook seems to be channeling the bullyboy capitalism of the United Fruit Company.

As the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology, pointed out: “The social network is destroying its social license to operate. Facebook actions mean the company’s failures in privacy, disinformation, and data protection will require a bigger push for stronger government regulation.”

Sure, Facebook has a case. As Salvatore Babones writes in Foreign Policy, “If Australians don’t want to pay for news about their own country, it’s hardly the responsibility of foreign companies to foot the bill for them.”

But that doesn’t excuse its reckless, kick-sand-in-your-face tactics. In this battle of monsters, it’s crushing innocent bystanders – like MercatorNet.

COLUMN BY

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet More by Michael Cook.

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Fight Back Locally! Second in a Series of Posts on Community Organizing

/in , , , /by

With the Democrats in complete control of Washington, DC, your work must now center on local organizing against policies coming down from on high, and honestly your energy should have been focused there for the last couple of decades as you know the hard core Leftists long ago set their sights on winning mayoral races and county government contests.

Because my request from readers came in response to a post about what one could do now that Biden/Harris are opening our borders and planning to admit 62,500 third world refugees, many from countries that hate us, by September 30th, I focused my first in the series post on the Refugee Admissions Program.

All of the information I am giving you is commonsense. I just hope by saying it it will inspire you to do it!

That first commonsense lesson instructed those of you who want to fight back to get your facts first. That applies to whatever issue you want to pursue locally.

By the way, one really appealing issue is to get involved in ensuring election integrity at your local election board. Or, maybe it is fighting for the Second Amendment like these folks did!

OUTSTANDING: West Virginia County Becomes Second Amendment Sanctuary

Here is my first post on Community Organizing 101 which you can find in the right hand side bar of both RRW and ‘Frauds and Crooks.’

What do we do now? Fight Back Locally!

Getting ready for Chairman Joe’s refugees in Montana (your state too!)

Here is news from Missoula, Montana I will use as a case study where the refugee industry, that only got a foothold in the state a few years ago (see my extensive Montana archive at RRW), is gearing up for new arrivals.

From Montana Public Radio:

Missoula Resettlement Group Prepping For Nation’s Refugee Increase

An international group [IRC works around the world and works closely with the UN that picks the refugees–ed] helping refugees resettle in Missoula plans to expand its operations. The announcement came after news that President Joe Biden is significantly increasing the number of refugees that the U.S. allows into the country.

[….]

She [IRC staffer in Missoula] said Missoula’s IRC office currently has four full-time staff members, plus some part-time help and a few workers from programs like AmeriCorps. It is also looking to add five new full-time staff members to start. The group has resettled more than 370 people in Montana since 2016.

This could be happening where you live!  Have you checked the maps I provided?

I assume you have done some homework since last week and figured out if your community/city/county is a resettlement site and who is responsible for their placement in your area.

The next step is to find kindred spirits, fellow patriots, at both the grassroots level and among local elected officials.

If possible, you need to have a friend or two on whatever your elected governing body is.

And, as for like-minded fellow citizens, find a few, both to help do the work and to give you a boost in spirits, as things are going to get rough.  Do not throw up your hands if you can’t find more than a couple of people who are as concerned as you and willing to fight.

It doesn’t take dozens, it only takes a few who don’t care about the abuse you will likely receive.

I’ll use Missoula as an example.  That story above aired this past week. Folks there are already doing this I hope, but what must happen is that there must be a media explosion against the idea of expanding the IRC’s office (by the way, the IRC is headquartered in New York City).

Hey, and this doesn’t just apply to Missoula, all across the state there should be attention brought to the Missoula resettlement because once they get established they will be targeting other locations in Montana especially if the idea of a Chinese meatpacking plant sees the light of day again.

Letters to the editor, and especially social media outrage should first focus on a message that some rich people from NYC want to change Montana while Montana has many Americans out of work and struggling to survive the pandemic. 

Montana surely has not run out of poor people!

Blast local elected officials who will promptly tell you they can’t stop the federal government, so what, make them uncomfortable. 

Also, the Biden Administration is getting rid of extreme vetting of refugees and has opened up resettlement from all Muslim majority countries, so there remains a potential for terrorists and criminals of all stripes to get in through the program.

And, don’t forget the health issues posed by refugees.  They will tell you that refugees are screened for all sorts of health problems but I assure you they are getting in with latent TB and HIV and who knows what else.  The cost of their medical care falls on you.

So, this week, for whatever issue around which you plan to organize locally, find like-minded citizens and elected officials to network with, to share information and to provide support.

And, if you see some news item, like the one in Missoula, be ready to speak up boldly and fearlessly.  They will call you names and try to intimidate you, but do not fear their hateful words.

Ask yourself every day: What work have I done today to save us all from the Socialists’ war on my community and to help Make America Great Again?

RELATED TWEET:

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Harvard Study: An Epidemic of Loneliness Is Spreading Across America

/in , , , , , /by

The lockdowns sure haven’t helped.

Loneliness among Americans has been growing in recent years, but the policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically exacerbated the problem. A new report by Harvard University researchers finds that 36 percent of Americans are experiencing “serious loneliness,” and some groups, such as young adults and mothers with small children, are especially isolated.

Researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s “Making Caring Common” project analyzed data from an October 2020 online survey of 950 Americans. “Alarming numbers of Americans are lonely,” they conclude in their paper, and those surveyed “reported substantial increases in loneliness since the outbreak of the pandemic.”

Young adults are the loneliest group. According to the research findings, 61 percent of young people ages 18 to 25 reported feeling lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time or all the time” during the four weeks preceding the fall survey. Forty-three percent of these young adults indicated that their loneliness had increased since the pandemic and related lockdowns began. These results echo similar findings of other Harvard researchers who found that nearly half of young adults were showing signs of depression amid the pandemic response. And in August, the CDC reported that one in four young adults in this age range had contemplated suicide during the month of June.

Mothers with small children were another group experiencing high rates of loneliness according to the recent survey analysis, with more than half of mothers reporting serious loneliness. Forty-seven percent of these mothers said that their loneliness increased during the pandemic response.

While everyone has been forcibly cut off from normal social interaction as a result of government lockdown measures, social distancing mandates, and other public health orders, young people and mothers with small children may be particularly harmed by these policies. In many cases, older teenagers and young adults have been unable to meaningfully connect with their peers during school closures and remote learning plans. Additionally, social distancing requirements on many college campuses have halted normal social interaction and can contribute to loneliness and depression among this cohort. As a fall semester article in BU Today, a publication of Boston University, explained: “BU’s aggressive coronavirus safety protocols—no large groups, fewer in-person classes and meetings, and restrictions on the amount of people allowed in an elevator, laundry room, and even around a dining hall table—can equal loneliness.”

For mothers with small children, being disconnected from other mothers, as well as lacking in-person support from family members and friends, can take its toll and make days with little ones seem even longer and more intense. Additionally, as the Harvard researchers found, periodic daycare and school closures have made the last year particularly challenging for mothers.

In their paper, the researchers cite developmental psychologist, Niobe Way, who says: “We are in danger of alleviating one public health problem—the transmission of disease—while exacerbating another.” Indeed, economists have been pointing out these tradeoffs of the pandemic response since last spring. As FEE’s Antony Davies and James Harrigan wrote in April: “Regardless of whether we acknowledge them, tradeoffs exist. And acknowledging tradeoffs is an important part of constructing sound policy.”

Loneliness in America has been a mounting concern for decades. In his groundbreaking 2000 book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam documented the growing alienation of Americans, as previously robust aspects of civil society that fostered connection, such as bowling leagues, faded away.

More recent research showed that loneliness was worsening prior to the pandemic. In 2018, a joint Kaiser Family Foundation and Economist survey found that one in five Americans “often” or “almost always” felt lonely or socially isolated, and results from a large-scale Cigna report released in January 2020 found that three out of five Americans reported being lonely.

Lockdowns and related pandemic response measures amplified feelings of loneliness and isolation, as local businesses and organizations were shut down or forced to reduce capacity and change operating procedures. Restaurants, bars, coffee shops—even playgrounds—have been closed in many areas, limiting opportunities for social connection. Several states continue to restrict the number of people allowed in one’s own home, including Vermont where residents have been prohibited from interacting with anyone outside of their immediate household since November.

Not surprisingly, loneliness has deepened as a result of these lockdowns and restrictions that sever individuals from their communities, and mental health continues to deteriorate. Youth suicide and depression rates are increasing, and drug overdose deaths are climbing. The tradeoffs of these strict pandemic response policies are becoming increasingly clear.

The most obvious solution to the accelerating loneliness epidemic during the pandemic response is to lift the lockdowns and related public health policies that keep people cruelly separated from one another.

In their new paper, the Harvard researchers acknowledge the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on increasing rates of loneliness but continue to endorse the current policy response, including indicating that we “may need to enter another lockdown phase as new variants spread.” They argue for sweeping efforts to combat the loneliness epidemic both during and after the pandemic response.

While the Harvard researchers acknowledge that individuals can take some action to ameliorate loneliness by identifying and reversing their own negative feedback loops, they focus most of their attention on a “collective” response to loneliness in America.

Specifically, they criticize what they call “this age of hyper-individualism,” saying that we must “restore our commitment to each other and the common good.” To achieve this, the researchers recommend “national, state, and local public education campaigns” that highlight the loneliness epidemic. They recommend that schools, colleges, and workplaces provide more resources to combat loneliness, and they urge a much larger role of government in this process. “The federal government should greatly expand its commitment to national service for young people, and state and local governments can do much more to promote many forms of organized service that bring people together to work on common problems,” the researchers state.

More pressingly, the study authors explain that we must shift from “Americans’ focus on the self” toward “the common good.” The undermining of the individual in favor of the collective, or “common good,” typically means empowering government with more authority to try to fix social problems. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said: “I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it… On the other hand, the individualistic or libertarian argument is a sophisticated and subtle one. If there’s something wrong with society, if there’s a real social evil, maybe you will make better progress by letting people voluntarily try to eliminate the evil.”

Still, the Harvard researchers are right to point out that the loneliness epidemic is a result of disconnection from community. Encouraging this community connection is a goal that can be best achieved through a robust civil society, or the non-governmental, voluntary institutions of our lives—such as extended family, church, clubs, sports leagues, and benefit societies—that have been tragically eroded at the same time that government has grown and taken on roles that were previously reserved for families and communities. An expanded role of government in trying to combat the loneliness epidemic, or any other social problem, will only make matters worse.

In his 1835 book, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville reflected on the vitality of American civil society. He wrote:

“Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes…”

Tocqueville warned that as these voluntary institutions and associations become usurped by government power, individuals slowly lose their free will. He wrote: “Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

The steady rise of government influence in areas that were previously the domain of civil society has been documented most recently by Howard Husock in his book, Who Killed Civil Society? The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Bourgeois Norms. Husock explains how non-governmental organizations and community nonprofits increasingly rely on government funding that can dilute their local impact. He writes: “Thousands of organizations, which were once independent of the government and funded by their communities, are instead government contractors now. Today, the U.S. government enters into some 350,000 contracts with 56,000 nonprofit organizations. In doing so, our federal government has changed not only the source of funding — it has changed the character of civil society and its ability to serve local communities best.”

The loneliness that many Americans currently feel is heartbreaking. Big government’s ascent prior to the pandemic, and the role of government in responding to the pandemic with coercive measures, have contributed to and exacerbated the loneliness epidemic. Relying less on government and more on the voluntary fabric of civil society can make us all happier, healthier, and more connected to each other and to our communities.

COLUMN BY

Kerry McDonald

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019). She is also an adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute and a regular Forbes contributor. Kerry has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter on parenting and education here.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Media Informs Ted Cruz You Can Only Travel During A Crisis If You’re A Democrat

/in , /by

CANCUN—Ted Cruz is really ignorant of how to be a politician. The guy traveled during a crisis in his state, and he isn’t even a Democrat.

What an idiot!

The media informed Cruz of his faux pas as soon as he landed in the Yucatán Peninsula, shouting at him that he’s not allowed to travel during a crisis, since he has an “R” next to his name.

“You can only get away with traveling during a crisis if you specifically tell people to stay home and then don’t stay home yourself!” screamed a CNN journalist on the scene as Cruz landed. “Oh, and of course, you have to be a liberal!”

A Univision reporter shouted, “Ay, Caramba!” which is reportedly a Spanish phrase meaning, “Your hypocrisy is unforgivable because you are a Republican, you moron!”

“Well, y’all, I shore am sorry,” Cruz said from his resort in sunny Cancun. “I hadn’t realized I would only get a pass for this if I was a liberal. Boy, howdy, am I in hot stew now, ya hear?”

At publishing time, Cruz had flown back to Texas and promised to do better, or at least to switch parties before he traveled during a crisis next time.

RELATED POLITICAL SATIRE:

Heroic Ted Cruz Travels To Cancun To Lasso The Sun And Bring It Back To Texas

Biden Announces He Will Give Up Executive Orders For Lent

‘Greetings Thrillseekers, Music Lovers, Conversationalists All Across The Fruited Plains,’ Booms Rush Limbaugh’s Voice Across Heaven’s PA System

‘Boy, We Sure Could Use Some Of That Global Warming About Now!’ Says Every Conservative Uncle In The Country

Rookie Mistake: Man Becomes Transgender After Holding Wife’s Purse For More Than 10 Seconds

Ben Shapiro Honors Rush Limbaugh With 0.3 Seconds Of Silence

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column by The Babylon Bee is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.