The Canadian radical organization Adbusters is attempting to interfere in the U.S. election by organizing a "siege" of the White House. Facebook, which regularly acts against foreign election interference has still done nothing to stop it.
Liberals panic about “election interference” from Russia, which funded some anti-Clinton Facebook ads in 2016. This is a similar example of outside interference in the presidential election. Adbusters has called for this “siege” to occur this September 17 in what will supposedly be a ”civic exorcism” and “spectacular sayonara party for Dear Donald.”
Facebook has specifically promised that it will crack down on “foreign interference.” The social media giant explained in a company blog that it has shut down entire networks, that “targeted the US, North Africa and Latin America.”
Zuckerberg wrote in a September 3 post that Facebook has gone to great lengths to stop “coordinated online efforts by foreign governments and individuals to interfere in our elections.” He acknowledged that “This threat hasn’t gone away” and declared “Just this week, we took down a network of 13 accounts and 2 pages that were trying to mislead Americans and amplify division.” Yet even so, when Facebook has been directly reached for comment regarding Adbusters’ coordinated efforts to meddle in the American presidential election, the platform has refused to take action.
Facebook has been overhauling its policies as the election approaches, including a ban on “new political ads for the week leading up to Election Day,” the Byers Market newsletter reported September 3. Byers Market speculated that this was done to “prevent campaigns and their supporters from making premature claims of victory” and prevent “evidence-free claims of voter fraud.”
Despite all these claims of concern about foul play during the election, Facebook was notified by the Media Research Center of the Adbusters’ interference Sunday and the platform has left the account active.
Liberal media have acknowledged that Adbusters is not only a foreign source, but has a powerful record of stirring unrest in the United States. NPR summarized that “Adbusters is an anti-consumerism magazine based in Vancouver” and that in 2011 it had “proposed a Sept. 17 ‘occupation’ of Wall Street.” That evolved into Occupy Wall Street, a precursor to the current unrest. Facebook’s own Page Transparency section indeed confirms “Page manager location: Canada.”
One photo on the page features what appear to be nods to Antifa and left-wing extremism such as this post declaring the phrase “ANTI-FASCIST FULL MOON” with a black fist. The page currently has more than 120,000 followers.
In late July, Adbusters called upon followers to sustain a massive “siege” of the White House. That post has more than 8,000 comments and 15,000 shares:
“On September 17, 2020, we will lay siege to the White House. And we will sustain it for exactly fifty days. This is the #WhiteHouseSiege.
“We need your voice of wisdom and expertise to pull off a radically democratic toneshift in our politics.
“#WhiteHouseSiege will electrify the U.S. election season — and it doesn’t stop there. Drawing wind from #MeToo, #BLM, #ExtinctionRebellion, and protests against Trump’s lethal bungling of coronavirus, we’ll inspire a global movement of systemic change — a Global Spring — a cultural heave towards a new world order.
“Are you ready for revolution? We are too. Find out more and share your vision with the community at:
“https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/whitehousesiege-tactical-briefing-1”
Adbusters followed up in late August by announcing further:
“Jammers, citizens, activists:
“There are many ways to think about this #WhiteHouseSiege. Is it a beautiful jam? A civic exorcism? A spectacular sayonara party for Dear Donald? All of the above, absolutely — but let us not ignore the dark forces also at work.
“That’s why it’s critical for us the people to show our strength . . . to be there in the hundreds of thousands, invigilators of our great democracy, to remind this authoritarian regime of our significance, our will, and our power. The survival of the American experiment — the American spirit — requires nothing less.
“We will not let Donald Trump steal the election!
“Intrigued? Good. Triggered? Better. This is the #WhiteHouseSiege and you’re invited.
“Bring a tent. And a mask.
“Find out more – hit up adbusters.org and join the movement.
“#Adbusters #BlackspotCollective #MAGA”
This was featured alongside an image of Portland Athena, a “sex-worker” according to the New York Post. She stripped down naked amidst the violent protests in Portland, Oregon and displayed herself toward law enforcement. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is a dog whistle for the same unrest in Portland to be brought to the “siege” of the White House.
Facebook takes aggressive and final action on foreign influencers when it wants to.
Facebook just cracked down on accounts affiliated with Peace Data, NBC reported Sept. 1. “Facebook learned through a tip from the FBI that people formerly associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency,” (which reportedly engaged in inauthentic behavior amidst the 2016 election) ran the fledgling news website.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, reportedly commented that the FBI’s finding "confirms [that] Russian actors are trying to target the 2020 elections and public debate in the U.S.," and that the Russians’ efforts are "not really working."
Violent, far-left riots, however, are a very real phenomenon spreading across the United States. Just don’t expect Facebook to do anything about them.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Facebook headquarters at 1-650-308-7300 or 1-650-543-4800 and demand that the platform mirror the First Amendment. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
California leads the way to electricity blackouts, closely followed by South Australia.
They both created this problem by taxing, banning, delaying or demolishing reliable coal, nuclear, gas or hydro generators while subsidising and promoting unreliable electricity from the sickly green twins – solar and wind. All supposed to solve a global warming crisis that exists only in academic computer models.
Covid19 has already passed through all 50 states as a single major contagious wave in each state. There were 33 early states where the epidemic was over by June, and 14 late states where the epidemic now is ending.
Every week in America about 51,000 people die from all causes. This number rises and falls during the winter due to flu-like illnesses and goes back to baseline in the summer. No one panics about it, and most people don’t even realize that it happens. This year was worse than normal, but we’ve almost returned to baseline.
But this year — everyone panicked! William Briggs has documented this in his Coronavirus Update series, and this article adds to his analysis by examining state level data.
As Briggs has argued, the most important data is the data for deaths from all causes. Covid19 attributed deaths are subject to interpretation as either died from or died with Covid19, and death certificates can be misleading because of the attribution of cause (here and here.) The bubble burst his week when the CDC reported that only 6% of the total Covid19 attributed deaths were from the virus alone.
In contrast to the Covid19 attributed deaths, the number for deaths from all causes is a hard number. The deaths from all causes number exposes the current mass panic as an historical aberration and confirms the evidence that the mass panic has been engineered by politicians and a biased medical establishment.
The 11 year weekly deaths from all causes graph (here and below,) shows that the 2020 flu season was about normal until it spiked for eight weeks in April and May due to Covid19 (CDC data here and here). The April high of 78,000 was significantly higher than the previous multi-year high of 67,000 in 2018, but just as in previous years, the temporary spike rapidly declined toward baseline.
The 11 year baseline increased from about 45,000 in 2009 to about 51,000 in 2019, generally as a result of increasing population. After this year’s April spike to 78,000, the current weekly all causes deaths number is down to 55,000,about 4,000 higher than the projected baseline. We are at week 32 of the year, and flu season is about to kick in. What does this mean regarding the Covid19 epidemic?
The national number for Covid19 attributed deaths has two peaks of weekly deaths, as illustrated in the graph for Weekly Covid19 Attributed Deaths below (CDC data here.) Since it takes about three weeks for incoming data at the CDC to stabilize at a final value, the last three weeks of data in panel A of the graph will increase. This has stoked fears that the epidemic is still raging across the country, and that a second wave of contagion is beginning.
That’s not what’s happening.
The Covid19 attributed deaths can be divided into two groups: early epidemic states, and late epidemic states. There were 33 early epidemic states where the majority of deaths occurred before June 1, and where the epidemic peaked in April and May. There were 14 late states where the majority of deaths occurred after June 1, and where the peaks were in July and August.
Among the 33 early states, seven states in the northeastern region of the country contributed 71% of the early states deaths: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan.
The majority of the 14 late states were southern coastal states: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, and Arkansas. California was the other coastal state where the main epidemic peak occurred after June 1. Nevada and Arizona are contiguous with California and also peaked after June and were included in the coastal group. The three non-coastal states in the 14 late states group only contributed 1.3% of the deaths.
Geographically, the coastal late states group makes up the southern rim of the country: California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina. The obvious suggestion from these data is that the virus spread out as a single shock wave through the northeastern states first, where the largest death toll was mostly in areas of high population density.
There was a dramatic decline in deaths as the viral shock wave pushed through the less populous interior states. Then, as the viral shock wave began penetrating the more southerly, warmer, coastal states about two months later, the deaths began to increase again as the virus hit more densely populated areas.
Briggs also has argued in his Coronavirus Updates that massive public testing has contributed to panic about the virus. Nationally, we are performing about 5 million tests per week.
However, the following two graphs break down the testing data at the state level, and show that the early states epidemic is over, and that the late states epidemic has peaked and is declining. The state level testing data are from the Covid Tracking Project and can be found here.
Testing in the 33 early states is currently at three million tests per week. In July, the absolute number of positives more than doubled from 64,000 per week to 148,000 per week, but the rise in absolute numbers of positive tests had little to no effect on the deaths per week. This indicates that much healthier people were being tested, and that many of the truly vulnerable had already died in April and May.
The percent positive tests and total positives have been declining for the last 3 weeks, and the total deaths are likely to follow this trend. All of this indicates that the Covid19 epidemic in the 33 early states is over.
In the 14 Late States Testing and Deaths figure, total tests per week peaked at 2.5 million, and then began to decline. In contrast to the numbers for the 33 early states, the percent positive and positive tests per week in the late states began to spike at the beginning of June. Percent positives went from 4% to 13%, and absolute positives went from a low of 40,000 per week to 330,000 per week.
After a four week lag relative to the increase in positives, the Covid19 attributed deaths also began to rise in July, which is what you might expect if the positives are in a truly vulnerable population. However, the percent positives, absolute weekly positives, and weekly deaths peaked in July, and now are declining. This is a strong indication that the epidemic is ending in the 14 late states.
To summarize, the Covid19 epidemic was like the shock wave from a bomb that went off in New York. The shock wave spread throughout the country and finally hit the coastal regions where it is now dissipating. The coastal regions were the last densely populated areas to be hit by the viral shock wave, so that’s where the weekly deaths number increased last, and that’s where the epidemic is ending.
If the late states death rate drops to below 1,000 per week in September, the yearly deaths from all causes will be about back to the 11 year projected baseline. It will have been a bad year, but not as bad as the 1968 Hong Kong Flu or the 1957 Asian Flu. No one panicked then, and no one should be panicking now.
Nevertheless, the hysteria and panic over Covid19 has not abated. And you can expect it to get worse. We are at the beginning of flu season. Deaths from all causes will begin to increase, and you can expect all deaths to be conflated with Covid19. Former CDC director Tom Frieden was leading the way when he recently was quoted as saying,
The second wave is a misconception: It’s the omnipresent risk of explosive spread … That’s what we’re facing.
This is ignorant fear mongering of the most vicious kind. As the data show, the virus is not omnipresent and ready to explode everywhere. The virus faces natural barriers, just like all infectious pathogens, and dies out as it crashes into each successive barrier. The virus has hit its final barrier, the oceans, and is dying out there.
For the whole cycle to start over again, the virus will have to find a new susceptible population of elderly, and then attempt to repeat its first exponential expansion. But this time, we know who the most vulnerable are, there will be immunity in the larger population, and we know how to stop the spread. Quarantine the sick. If we act rationally, there is no reason to expect a repeat of this past April.
Nature controls the virus, not the politicians. The ignorant will always be with us, just like the virus. But the virus is not that hard to figure out. Don’t panic. Keep the big picture in mind. Quarantine the sick. Protect the elderly. Let the rest of us free breathing Americans live our lives.
James G. Robertson is a biochemist who resides in Charlottesville, VA.
Covid19 has already passed through all 50 states as a single major contagious wave in each state. There were 33 early states where the epidemic was over by June, and 14 late states where the epidemic now is ending.
Every week in America about 51,000 people die from all causes. This number rises and falls during the winter due to flu-like illnesses and goes back to baseline in the summer. No one panics about it, and most people don’t even realize that it happens. This year was worse than normal, but we’ve almost returned to baseline.
But this year — everyone panicked! William Briggs has documented this in his Coronavirus Update series, and this article adds to his analysis by examining state level data.
As Briggs has argued, the most important data is the data for deaths from all causes. Covid19 attributed deaths are subject to interpretation as either died from or died with Covid19, and death certificates can be misleading because of the attribution of cause (here and here.) The bubble burst his week when the CDC reported that only 6% of the total Covid19 attributed deaths were from the virus alone.
In contrast to the Covid19 attributed deaths, the number for deaths from all causes is a hard number. The deaths from all causes number exposes the current mass panic as an historical aberration and confirms the evidence that the mass panic has been engineered by politicians and a biased medical establishment.
The 11 year weekly deaths from all causes graph (here and below,) shows that the 2020 flu season was about normal until it spiked for eight weeks in April and May due to Covid19 (CDC data here and here). The April high of 78,000 was significantly higher than the previous multi-year high of 67,000 in 2018, but just as in previous years, the temporary spike rapidly declined toward baseline.
The 11 year baseline increased from about 45,000 in 2009 to about 51,000 in 2019, generally as a result of increasing population. After this year’s April spike to 78,000, the current weekly all causes deaths number is down to 55,000,about 4,000 higher than the projected baseline. We are at week 32 of the year, and flu season is about to kick in. What does this mean regarding the Covid19 epidemic?
The national number for Covid19 attributed deaths has two peaks of weekly deaths, as illustrated in the graph for Weekly Covid19 Attributed Deaths below (CDC data here.) Since it takes about three weeks for incoming data at the CDC to stabilize at a final value, the last three weeks of data in panel A of the graph will increase. This has stoked fears that the epidemic is still raging across the country, and that a second wave of contagion is beginning.
That’s not what’s happening.
The Covid19 attributed deaths can be divided into two groups: early epidemic states, and late epidemic states. There were 33 early epidemic states where the majority of deaths occurred before June 1, and where the epidemic peaked in April and May. There were 14 late states where the majority of deaths occurred after June 1, and where the peaks were in July and August.
Among the 33 early states, seven states in the northeastern region of the country contributed 71% of the early states deaths: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan.
The majority of the 14 late states were southern coastal states: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, and Arkansas. California was the other coastal state where the main epidemic peak occurred after June 1. Nevada and Arizona are contiguous with California and also peaked after June and were included in the coastal group. The three non-coastal states in the 14 late states group only contributed 1.3% of the deaths.
Geographically, the coastal late states group makes up the southern rim of the country: California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina. The obvious suggestion from these data is that the virus spread out as a single shock wave through the northeastern states first, where the largest death toll was mostly in areas of high population density.
There was a dramatic decline in deaths as the viral shock wave pushed through the less populous interior states. Then, as the viral shock wave began penetrating the more southerly, warmer, coastal states about two months later, the deaths began to increase again as the virus hit more densely populated areas.
Briggs also has argued in his Coronavirus Updates that massive public testing has contributed to panic about the virus. Nationally, we are performing about 5 million tests per week.
However, the following two graphs break down the testing data at the state level, and show that the early states epidemic is over, and that the late states epidemic has peaked and is declining. The state level testing data are from the Covid Tracking Project and can be found here.
Testing in the 33 early states is currently at three million tests per week. In July, the absolute number of positives more than doubled from 64,000 per week to 148,000 per week, but the rise in absolute numbers of positive tests had little to no effect on the deaths per week. This indicates that much healthier people were being tested, and that many of the truly vulnerable had already died in April and May.
The percent positive tests and total positives have been declining for the last 3 weeks, and the total deaths are likely to follow this trend. All of this indicates that the Covid19 epidemic in the 33 early states is over.
In the 14 Late States Testing and Deaths figure, total tests per week peaked at 2.5 million, and then began to decline. In contrast to the numbers for the 33 early states, the percent positive and positive tests per week in the late states began to spike at the beginning of June. Percent positives went from 4% to 13%, and absolute positives went from a low of 40,000 per week to 330,000 per week.
After a four week lag relative to the increase in positives, the Covid19 attributed deaths also began to rise in July, which is what you might expect if the positives are in a truly vulnerable population. However, the percent positives, absolute weekly positives, and weekly deaths peaked in July, and now are declining. This is a strong indication that the epidemic is ending in the 14 late states.
To summarize, the Covid19 epidemic was like the shock wave from a bomb that went off in New York. The shock wave spread throughout the country and finally hit the coastal regions where it is now dissipating. The coastal regions were the last densely populated areas to be hit by the viral shock wave, so that’s where the weekly deaths number increased last, and that’s where the epidemic is ending.
If the late states death rate drops to below 1,000 per week in September, the yearly deaths from all causes will be about back to the 11 year projected baseline. It will have been a bad year, but not as bad as the 1968 Hong Kong Flu or the 1957 Asian Flu. No one panicked then, and no one should be panicking now.
Nevertheless, the hysteria and panic over Covid19 has not abated. And you can expect it to get worse. We are at the beginning of flu season. Deaths from all causes will begin to increase, and you can expect all deaths to be conflated with Covid19. Former CDC director Tom Frieden was leading the way when he recently was quoted as saying,
The second wave is a misconception: It’s the omnipresent risk of explosive spread … That’s what we’re facing.
This is ignorant fear mongering of the most vicious kind. As the data show, the virus is not omnipresent and ready to explode everywhere. The virus faces natural barriers, just like all infectious pathogens, and dies out as it crashes into each successive barrier. The virus has hit its final barrier, the oceans, and is dying out there.
For the whole cycle to start over again, the virus will have to find a new susceptible population of elderly, and then attempt to repeat its first exponential expansion. But this time, we know who the most vulnerable are, there will be immunity in the larger population, and we know how to stop the spread. Quarantine the sick. If we act rationally, there is no reason to expect a repeat of this past April.
Nature controls the virus, not the politicians. The ignorant will always be with us, just like the virus. But the virus is not that hard to figure out. Don’t panic. Keep the big picture in mind. Quarantine the sick. Protect the elderly. Let the rest of us free breathing Americans live our lives.
James G. Robertson is a biochemist who resides in Charlottesville, VA.
Social media giant Facebook has announced plans to ban new political ads for the week leading up to Election Day on November 3. Mark Zuckerberg announced the ban along with several other changes because he fears “there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country.”
NBC News reports that Facebook has announced plans to ban new political ads in the week leading up to Election Day on November 3. The site will also remove posts that try to suppress or discourage voting according to company CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The decision aims to prevent campaigns and their supporters from making early claims of victory. The announcement is part of series of actions taken by Facebook to address concerns about how the social media site could be used to manipulate the election and includes a warning from Zuckerberg about potential unrest around the U.S. related to the election.
In a note to staff members, Zuckerberg wrote: “The U.S. elections are just two months away, and with Covid-19 affecting communities across the country, I’m concerned about the challenges people could face when voting. I’m also worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country.”
Zuckerberg went on to add: “This election is not going to be business as usual. Since the pandemic means that many of us will be voting by mail, and since some states may still be counting valid ballots after election day, many experts are predicting that we may not have a final result on election night. It’s important that we prepare for this possibility in advance and understand that there could be a period of intense claims and counterclaims as the final results are counted.”
Zuckerberg stated: “This could be a very heated period.” Discussing the move to ban new political ads leading up Election Day, Zuckerberg stated: “I generally believe the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims.”
Facebook also plans to put “authoritative” election information at the top of users’ Facebook and Instagram deeds and will be removing posts containing misinformation about voting or those that try to use the coronavirus pandemic to discourage voting.
Facebook says that “if any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the final results are in,” it will “add a label to their posts directing people to the official results from Reuters.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolanor email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
Pregnant Australian Mother Arrested In Her Home Over Facebook Lockdown Protest Post Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/03/2020 – 11:00
For those that have either mocked or merely ignored the idea that big government may be (is) using the pandemic as an "excuse" to exercise more control over every aspect of your life, we present: Exhibit A.
Zoe Buhler is a 28 year old pregnant mother who lives just outside of Melbourne, Australia. She was handcuffed in her own living room on Wednesday afternoon and charged with "incitement" after officers entered her private property (with a search warrant) and began reading Buhler her rights.
What could have prompted such a robust response from law enforcement? Buhler made a Facebook post that allegedly incited a "anti-lockdown protest" in Victoria. "Anyone from Ballarat please join us in our fight for freedom and human rights!" she wrote on the page.
Video shows Buhler trying to be reasonable and plead with officers, informing them that she has an ultrasound "in an hour".
AUSTRALIAN POLICE ARREST WOMAN FOR ANTI COVID LOCKDOWN FACEBOOK POST, SEIZE ALL COMPUTERSpic.twitter.com/ZSyc9qPxjK
She asks the officers, bewildered: "Excuse me, incitement for what, what on Earth? I’m in my pajamas, my two kids are here. I have an ultrasound in an hour because I’m pregnant." She insisted she hadn’t broken any law by putting up the post and offered one more than one occasion to simply take the post down.
"Actually you are, that’s why we’re arresting you in relation to incitement," the officers told her. Meanwhile, her boyfriend also tried to offer up some common sense, stating: "How about she just doesn’t do the event? It’s not like she’s done it, she made a post."
"You’ve already committed the offense," police responded.
In addition to arresting the pregnant mother over a Facebook post, police then informed her that they had a search warrant and that they needed to seize and confiscate all electronic devices in her home.
Friends of Buhler weighed in to the Daily Mail, stating: "This is absolutely disgusting!! Why don’t they do their job and catch some real criminals. This fear mongering is ridiculous."
Meanwhile the Victoria police said that fines will be issued to anyone that considers attending the protest anyway: "We will have no hesitation in issuing $1,652 fines to anyone who is breaching the restrictions on the day, or making arrests if necessary." The police contend that the protests "put lives at risk".
Alan Jones of Sky News wrote on his Facebook page: "Thankfully I am not the only Australian who thinks this is appalling, disgusting and disgraceful. The only person guilty of incitement is the Premier of Victoria. His outlandish grab for power, his disdain of any accountability is forcing people to behaviour simply designed to take back their freedom."
Buhler was ultimately charged with incitement and released on bail. She is due in court January 25. The post has been taken down.
The Commission on Presidential Debates announced its three moderators for this year’s planned debates.
It is still 50-50 on whether Joe Biden will show up for the events.
Even when he is fed the answers he still goofs up.
Chris Wallace from FOX News — a major Trump hater, Kristen Welker from NBC, another far left Trump-hater and Steve Scully from C-SPAN will moderate this year’s debates.
Wallace is a complete anti-Trumper. The far left FOX News host ruined FOX News Sunday and made it unwatchable. Wallace attacked President Trump in December saying, “I believe that President Trump is engaged in the most direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history.”
Kristen Welker from NBC is a member of the White House Press Corps, a horribly hostile Trump-hating group that thought it was funny to ridicule the president’s White House Spokeswoman on her looks at their annual dinner while she sat on the stage.
And Steve Scully has an interesting resume. He was a former intern for JOE BIDEN!
Scully received an undergraduate degree with honors in communication and political science from American University in Washington, D.C. During his degree he completed a study abroad program at the University of Copenhagen, served as an intern with Senator Joe Biden [5], and in Sen. Ted Kennedy’s media affairs office.
Just in case far left Wikipedia deletes Scully’s links to Joe Biden here is a screen shot from his page:
Imagine if Donald Trump had done this: An unhinged New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday night threatened physical harm upon the President if he visits New York City again. The rant by the Democrat came in the wake of the President calling for cutting off funds to Democrat-run cities that aren’t standing up to riots and violence. Here’s Cuomo’s threat: “[Trump] better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the street in New York. He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City.”
How did the networks react to this? CBS This Morning on Friday CENSORED the mention of violence against the President. ABC and NBC briefly noted it, but downplayed or disingenuously described what happened. On NBC’s Today, reporter Garrett Haake spun, “New York Governor Cuomo called it an illegal stunt and said the President is no longer welcome in Big Apple.”
He then played a clip of Cuomo attacking, “[Trump] better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the streets in New York.” That’s a little different than saying someone “isn’t welcome.”
Over on ABC’s Good Morning America, Tom Llamas portrayed the President as the one making an “extraordinary attack.”
TOM LLAMAS: Extraordinary attack. President Trump threatening to cut off federal funding to Democrat-led cities including New York and Portland after months of protests. Governor Cuomo firing back at the President.
ANDREW CUOMO: He better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the street in New York.
Reporter Mary Bruce sided with the Democrats: “Leaders of these cities say this is a new low. They are calling it a blatant political ploy intended to go after his Democratic rivals and distract from the devastating pandemic.”
Finally, she got to Cuomo’s threat, but offered no objection:
MARY BRUCE: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo outraged, calling it a political stunt.
CUOMO: He better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the street in New York. He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City.
Still, at least ABC and NBC PLAYED the shocking remarks. CBS This Morning couldn’t even manage that. The show mentioned the move by the Trump to block funds, but not Cuomo’s outrageous attack. Again, imagine if Trump or a Republican Governor had said this?
Actually, we don’t have to imagine. In 1994, then-Senator Jesse Helms made an ill-advised joke about Bill Clinton. The media erupted:
The media’s gaffe patrol has saddled up to ride again, branding conservatives as "outrageous" and "reckless" while ignoring similar statements by liberals. This month’s target was Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). Since the election, he’s been tagged as "archconservative" in U.S. News and Newsweek, while Time preferred the more cuddly "ultraconservative." A recent Washington Post profile of new committee chairmen called him "the avenging angel of extreme conservatism." But nothing could prepare Helms for the thrashing he took from reporters after he said Bill Clinton wasn’t up to the job of Commander in Chief and joked Clinton may need a bodyguard when visiting military bases.
On November 23, NBC Today co-host Bryant Gumbel editorialized: "Helms is slated to be the new chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a prospect that is embarrassing to many Republicans. His two most recent outbursts against the President are just the latest in a long line of outrageous remarks that have earned Helms the disrespect and disgust of people from coast to coast."
The hacks at CBS who covered for Cuomo were sponsored by Toyota. The hypocrites at NBC were sponsored by Capital One. ABC was backed by Progressive. Click on the links to let them know how you feel.
Partial transcripts are below. Click “expand” to read more.
Good Morning America
9/3/2020
7AM tease
TOM LLAMAS: Extraordinary attack. President trump threatening to cut off federal funding to Democrat-led cities including New York and Portland after months of protests. Governor Cuomo firing back at the President.
ANDREW CUOMO: He better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the street in New York.
…
MARY BRUCE: Tom, leaders of these cities say this is a new low. They are calling it a blatant political ploy intended to go after his Democratic rivals and distract from the devastating pandemic. The stunning move this morning is now expected to face stiff legal opposition. It’s an extraordinary political move certain to be challenged in court. Overnight President Trump ordering officials to find ways to cut federal funding to Democrat controlled cities. Claiming local leaders have allowed places like New York City, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Portland to descend into, quote, anarchy during protests for racial justice. Trump tweeting, “My administration will do everything in its power to prevent weak mayors and lawless sis from taking federal dollars while they let them ruin lives and businesses. We’re putting them on notice today.” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo outraged, calling it a political stunt.
CUOMO: He better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the street in New York. He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City.
Today
9/3/2020
GARRETT HAAKE: New York Governor Cuomo called it an illegal stunt and said the President is no longer welcome in Big Apple
ANDREW CUOMO: Forget bodyguards, he better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the streets in New York.
California lawmakers passed a bill Monday that would reduce penalties for adults who have oral or anal sex with a willing minor child if the sex offender is within ten years of the age of the victim.
The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
According to SB 145, the legislation “would exempt from mandatory registration” as a sex offender “a person convicted of certain offenses involving minors if the person is not more than 10 years older than the minor and if that offense is the only one requiring the person to register.”
The measure would allow a judge to decide if an adult who engages in oral or anal sex with a child must register as a sex offender if that person is within ten years of the age of the victim.
In January 2019, the San Francisco Examiner reported on the introduction of the bill by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D), who claimed the current law, which states oral and anal sex between an adult within ten years of the age of a willing minor requires the adult to be registered as a sex offender, discriminates against LGBT individuals.
The bill would put an end to “blatant discrimination against young LGBT people engaged in consensual activity,” Wiener said:
This bill is about treating everyone equally under the law. Discrimination against LGBT people is simply not the California way. These laws were put in place during a more conservative and anti-LGBT time in California’s history. They have ruined people’s lives and made it harder for them to get jobs, secure housing, and live productive lives. It is time we update these laws and treat everyone equally.
Currently in California, judges may decide whether adults who have “penile-vaginal intercourse” with minors close to their age must register as a sex offender.
Wiener said the current law targets LGBT individuals because they do not engage in penile-vaginal intercourse.
“This is such horrific homophobia,” Wiener said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s irrational, and it ruins people’s lives.”
The Chronicle‘s report stated that, in 1975, California decriminalized oral and anal sex between consenting adults, but adults who engaged in these practices with minors were treated as sex offenders.
In a tweet, Wiener urged his followers to read an Associated Press “fact check” story about the controversial bill that minimizes its impact with the headline, “Bill Would Not Legalize Pedophilia in California.”
“The bill is the subject of a massive misinformation campaign by MAGA/QAnon,” Wiener posted.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”
– Anonymous
Have you noticed that the government’s answer to every problem is more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty?
The Great Depression. The World Wars. The 9/11 terror attacks. The COVID-19 pandemic.
Every crisis—manufactured or otherwise—since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government to expand its reach and its power at taxpayer expense while limiting our freedoms at every turn.
Indeed, the history of the United States is a testament to the old adage that liberty decreases as government (and government bureaucracy) grows. To put it another way, as government expands, liberty contracts.
To the police state, this COVID-19 pandemic has been a huge boon, like winning the biggest jackpot in the lottery. Certainly, it will prove to be a windfall for those who profit from government expenditures and expansions.
Given the rate at which the government has been devising new ways to spend our money and establish itself as the “solution” to all of our worldly problems, this current crisis will most likely end up ushering in the largest expansion of government power since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
This is how the emergency state operates, after all.
From 9/11 to COVID-19, “we the people” have acted the part of the helpless, gullible victims desperately in need of the government to save us from whatever danger threatens. In turn, the government has been all too accommodating and eager while also expanding its power and authority in the so-called name of national security.
When it comes to the power players that call the shots, there is no end to their voracious appetite for more: more money, more power, more control.
This expansion of government power is also increasing our federal debt in unprecedented leaps and bounds. Yet the government isn’t just borrowing outrageous amounts of money to keep the country afloat. It’s also borrowing indecent sums to pay for programs it can’t afford.
The government’s primary response to this COVID-19 pandemic—flooding the market with borrowed money in the amount of trillions of dollars for stimulus payments, unemployment insurance expansions, and loans to prop up small businesses and to keep big companies afloat—has pushed the country even deeper in debt.
By “the country,” I really mean the taxpayers. And by “the taxpayers,” it’s really future generations who will be shackled to debt loads they may never be able to pay back.
First, the government requires taxpayers to pay a portion of their salaries to the Social Security Trust Fund. The government then turns around and borrows from Social Security to cover its spending needs. Then the government raises taxes or prints more money in order to pay out whatever is needed to the retirees.
It’s a form of convoluted economics that only makes sense to government bureaucrats looking to make a profit off the backs of the taxpayers.
According to the U.S. Debt Clock, each taxpayer’s share of the national debt is $214,000 and growing.
As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reported in 2019, before COVID spending pushed the country over the fiscal cliff, “Interest payments will rise from $325 billion last year to $928 billion by 2029, a nearly threefold increase. If tax cuts and spending increases are extended, interest will exceed $1 trillion and set a new record as a share of the economy. The federal government will spend more on interest than on Medicaid or children by 2020. By 2024, interest will match defense spending.”
Bottom line: The U.S. government—and that includes the current administration—is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are the ones who will have to pay for it.
Despite the tax burden “we the people” are made to bear, we have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used, but we’re being forced to pay through the nose, anyhow.
We have no real say, but that doesn’t prevent the government from fleecing us at every turn and forcing us to pay for endless wars that do more to fund the military industrial complex than protect us, pork barrel projects that produce little to nothing, and a police state that serves only to imprison us within its walls.
All the while the government continues to do whatever it wants—levy taxes, rack up debt, spend outrageously and irresponsibly—with little thought for the plight of its citizens.
This brings me to a curious point: what the future will look like ten years from now, when the federal debt is expected to surpass $78 trillion, an unsustainable level of debt that will result in unprecedented economic hardship for anyone that does not belong to the wealthy elite.
According to the video, the government is anticipating trouble (read: civil unrest), which is code for anything that challenges the government’s authority, wealth and power, and is grooming its armed forces (including its heavily armed federal agents) accordingly to solve future domestic political and social problems.
The training video, titled “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” is only five minutes long, but it provides a chilling glimpse of what the government expects the world to look like in 2030, a world bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots.
And then comes the kicker.
Three-and-a-half minutes into the Pentagon’s dystopian vision of “a world of Robert Kaplan-esque urban hellscapes — brutal and anarchic supercities filled with gangs of youth-gone-wild, a restive underclass, criminal syndicates, and bands of malicious hackers,” the ominous voice of the narrator speaks of a need to “drain the swamps.”
Drain the swamps.
Surely, we’ve heard that phrase before?
Ah yes.
Emblazoned on t-shirts and signs, shouted at rallies, and used as a rallying cry among Trump supporters, “drain the swamp” became one of Donald Trump’s most-used campaign slogans.
Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Now the government has adopted its own plans for swamp-draining, only it wants to use the military to drain the swamps of futuristic urban American cities of “noncombatants and engage the remaining adversaries in high intensity conflict within.”
And who are these noncombatants, a military term that refers to civilians who are not engaged in fighting during a war?
They are, according to the Pentagon, “adversaries.”
They are “threats.”
They are the “enemy.”
They are people who don’t support the government, people who live in fast-growing urban communities, people who may be less well-off economically than the government and corporate elite, people who engage in protests, people who are unemployed, people who engage in crime (in keeping with the government’s fast-growing, overly broad definition of what constitutes a crime).
In other words, in the eyes of the U.S. military, noncombatants are American citizens a.k.a. domestic extremists a.k.a. enemy combatants who must be identified, targeted, detained, contained and, if necessary, eliminated.
Funny how closely fact tracks fiction these days.
Just recently, in fact, I re-watched Escape from L.A., John Carpenter’s 1996 post-apocalyptic action film that imagines a future (2013, in fact) in which the United States has elected a president for life who runs the country according to his own theocratic moral law. Anyone who runs afoul of the president’s moral laws is stripped of their citizenship and either electrocuted or deported to the island of Los Angeles, a penal colony where lawlessness reigns supreme.
In the late 20th century, hostile forces inside the United States grow strong. The city of Los Angeles is ravaged by crime and immorality. To protect and defend its citizens, the United States Police Force is formed. A presidential candidate predicts a millennium earthquake will destroy L.A. in divine retribution. The earthquake measuring 9.6 on the Richter scale hits at 12:59 P.M. August 23rd in the year 2000. After the devastation, the Constitution is amended, and the newly elected president accepts a lifetime term of office. The country’s capital is moved from Washington, D.C., to the president’s hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia. Los Angeles Island is declared no longer part of the United States and becomes the deportation point for all people found undesirable or unfit to live in the new, moral America. The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped among the shorelines, making any escape from L.A. impossible. From the southeastern hills of Orange County to the northwestern shore of Malibu, the great wall excludes L.A. from the mainland. The president’s first act as permanent Commander in Chief is Directive 17: once an American loses his or her citizenship, they are deported to this island of the damned, and they never come back.
Carpenter is a brilliant filmmaker whose dystopian visions of the future are eerily prescient, but this film is particularly unnerving: environmental disasters; engineered viruses used like weapons to control the masses; riots and looting that leave the populace longing for law and order; religion used like a weapon; martial law; surveillance that keeps every citizen under the government’s watchful eye; and a growing awareness that the only path to freedom left for humanity is to shut down the government and start over again.
We’re almost there now.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, unless we make some effort to reject the sorry excuse for representative government that we have been saddled with, the future that awaits us – whether it’s the future envisioned by the Pentagon in its training video or the future imagined by Carpenter – will be a living nightmare from which there is no escape.
Attorney General Bill Barr went on with Wolf Blitzer on CNN on Wednesday. During the discussion Wolf Blitzer tried to defend the Democrat plan to send out MILLIONS of ballots to voters this fall for the general election. Blitzer thinks this is perfectly fine and acceptable.
Bill Barr WENT OFF!
Attorney General Bill Barr: Now what we’re talking about is mailing them to everyone on the mailing list when everyone knows the lists are inaccurate. People who should get them don’t get them which is one of the major complaints in states who have tried this. And people who get them are not the right people… Sometime multiple ballots go to the same address. You think that’s any way to run a vote?
Bill Barr went on to say that it is absolutely insane to push this fraudulent system when the country is so divided at this time.
Bill Barr is right.
Democrats don’t give a damn they just know it is an opportunity for them to steal the election this year.
WOW!! I’ve never seen AG Bill Barr this angry. It’s clear HE IS AGAINST MASS VOTE BY MAIL. pic.twitter.com/vRhZPQbh1M
