We have been discussing media rating systems being used to target advertisers and revenue sources for certain cites and companies. NewsGuard and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) have been criticized as the most sophisticated components of a modern blacklisting system targeting conservative or dissenting voices. I recently had a series of exchanges with NewsGuard after a critical column. Now, the House Judiciary Committee under Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is moving forward in demanding documents and records from leading companies utilizing the GARM system, a company that I have previously criticized. It is a welcomed effort for anyone who is concerned over the use of these blacklisting systems to curtail free speech. However, time is of the essence.
The demand to preserve evidence went to various companies, including Adidas, American Express, Bayer, BP, Carhartt, Chanel, CVS and General Motors.
In my new book, I discuss the rating systems as a new and insidious form of blacklisting. Notably, Elon Musk has now filed a lawsuit against GARM and may be able to get more evidence out in discovery on the operations of this outfit.
It is an effort to strangle the financial life out of sites by targeting their donors and advertisers. This is where the left has excelled beyond anything that has come before in speech crackdowns.
Years ago, I wrote about the Biden administration supporting efforts like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. That included Reason.org and a group of libertarian and conservative law professors who simply write about cases and legal controversies. GDI warned advertisers against “financially supporting disinformation online.” At the same time, HuffPost, a far-left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.
Once GDI’s work and bias was disclosed, government officials quickly disavowed the funding. It was a familiar pattern. Within a few years, we found that the work had been shifted instead to groups like the GARM, which is the same thing on steroids. It is the creation of a powerful and largely unknown group called the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which has huge sway over the advertising industry and was quickly used by liberal activists to silence opposing views and sites by cutting off their revenue streams.
Notably, Rob Rakowitz, head of GARM, pushed GDI and embraced its work. In an email to GARM members obtained by the committee last month, Rakowitz wrote that he wanted to “ensure you’re working with an inclusion and exclusion list that is informed by trusted partners such as NewsGuard and GDI — both partners to GARM and many of our members.”
GARM is being used by WFA to achieve what GDI failed to accomplish. The WFA site refers to Rakowitz as “a career change agent” who will “remove harmful content from ad-supported digital media.”
Rakowitz’s views on free speech are chilling and his work shows how these systems can be used to conceal bias in targeting the revenue of sites with opposing views.
Rakowitz has denounced the “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution” and how civil libertarians cite “‘principles for governance’ and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).”
He appears to be referring to free speech. If so, it is deeply troubling. Some of us believe that free speech is a human right, not just an American right. Those “white men” include philosophers from the Enlightenment whose ideas were incorporated in the Framer’s view of inalienable rights like free speech.
The threat against free speech today is being led by private groups seeking to exercise an unprecedented level of control over what people can read and discuss.
Pundits and politicians, including President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, have justified their calls for censorship (or “content moderation” for polite company) by stressing that the First Amendment only applies to the government, not private companies. That distinction allows Obama to declare himself to be “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist.” He did not call himself a “free speech absolutist” because he favors censorship for views that he considers to be “lies,” “disinformation,” or “quackery.”
The distinction has always been a disingenuous evasion. The First Amendment is not the sole or exclusive definition of free speech. Censorship on social media is equally, if not more, damaging for free speech. Those who value free speech should oppose blacklisting systems, as was the case during the McCarthy period. Now that conservatives and libertarians are being blacklisted, it is suddenly less troubling for many on the left.
Rakowitz now wields massive influence over public discourse in this collaboration with corporations and groups like GDI. As was done to the left during the McCarthy period, blacklisting systems are now being used to control public access to information by choking off the revenue of sites.
The current anti-free speech movement is the most dangerous in history due precisely to this sophistication and the unprecedented alliance of corporate, media, academic, and government interests.
GARM and other media rating systems have been embraced by many who would prefer to silence opposing voices than respond to them. Rakowitz was wildly popular at Davos in calling for a “safer” Internet that would target dangerous sites much like GDI: “GARM has been officially recognized as a key project for 2020 within the WEF’s platform on Shaping the Future of Media Entertainment and Culture.”
The House committees are pushing forward with a sense of urgency. It is clear that the investigations in government-supported censorship and these blacklisting operations will end if the Democrats retake the house. It is expected that these companies will seek to delay any disclosures in the hope that the House will change hands and this system will again be allowed to recede back into the darkness.
Meanwhile over in PA Governor Shapiro has a new reason to celebrate PASSOVER!
meanwhile….
An Arizona Republican who falsely claimed to be a legitimate presidential elector for former President Donald Trump — part of a sweeping effort by Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election — has pleaded guilty for her role in the scheme.
Sydney Powel also plead quilty – to doing nothing and negotiated a sentence of “write a non-appology apoology and “cooperate” with willis. ”
Allegedly her cooperative deposition was severly damaging to willis’s case
ATS – you do not seem to grasp – no one cares about your idiotic nonsense. Evertything that was done to challenge the 2020 election was legal and constitutional. But everyone does not have 7.5B to fight lawfare leftist terrorists.
Alternate electors are perfectly constitutional.
Meanwhile in Congress Rep. Rasking is plotting his own J6 2025 if Trump wins.
My understanding of what he seeks to do (sans violence) is perfectly constitutional.
JUST AS WHAT TRUMP AND J6 PROTESTERS SOUGHT.
It is a hail mary – exactly like Trump’s J6 efforts, He will not succeed, but he is free to try – well except for the massive hypocracy that he is seeking to do what he claimed was unconstitutional and illegal.
And even if by some miracle congress actually does what he is asking – Then JD Vance would become president.
Karmula “Cackles” Hairyazz and Timmy “Commie” Faultz in 2024. Because we have had enough of American and it’s time to usher in the One World Marxist Government State. To Hell with the Constitution.
Name one policy either implemented or proposed by Kamala and/or Walz that is unconstitutional.
trump on the other hand is a convicted Felon, is under indictment for numerous other charges.
GFY.
If Trump had killed 34 people, you’d be calling him a convicted murderer.
If Trump had knocked over 34 gas stations and liquor stores, you’d be calling him a convicted thief.
So why do you always chant the “convicted felon” mantra?
Is it because you can’t remember what he did that was so grotesquely consequential? Or is it simply that you can’t think strongly enough for yourself to describe what he did in your own words?
You’re useless, failed humanity.
34 counts of business fraud. He is the world’s greatest con man. But time has caught up with him. Convicted.
ATS – there are so many enormous problems in that case.
It will almost certainly be dismissed relatively quickly because Merchan ignored the executive priviledge that is referenced in the recent immunity decision and allowed witnesses and testimony about both official acts and acts within the outer sphere of the official powers of the president. Worse still Coangelo cited that testimony as critical in his close – that eliminates harmless error arguments.
The most likely result outcome of the Manhatan case is eitehr Merchan regretfully tosses the case and tells Bragg he must start over with a newe indictment that does not use priviledged evidence. Ort the federal courts do that the moment Merchan makes a final ruling.
BTW as a matter of law – Trump is NOT convicted at this time. If he were – Trump would already have appealed.
Trump can not appeal until he is convicted. Merchan is currently trying to delay Trump’s ability to appeal so that he will not be reversed until after the election.
So who is it that is delaying now ?
Alas alas for you leftists and pharasisees
Hypocrits that you be.
You can not escape being devils food.
John Say,
“ BTW as a matter of law – Trump is NOT convicted at this time. If he were – Trump would already have appealed.
Trump can not appeal until he is convicted. Merchan is currently trying to delay Trump’s ability to appeal so that he will not be reversed until after the election.”
He is indeed convicted. Making false claims John? What law says he is not convicted? You chastise others for not citing sources supporting claims yet here you are making claims without supporting them.
Trump was convicted by a jury. Trump can’t appeal until he is sentenced. Trump is set to be sentenced sept 18. Trump is already been found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsification of business documents.
Svelaz-George didn’t even bother with his 5 minute google search this time.
Instead he just made up some nonsense of his own and went with it.
Spastic idiot strikes again.
Read it and weep, you imbecile.
In United States practice, conviction means a finding of guilt (i.e., a jury verdict or finding of fact by the judge) and imposition of sentence.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-609-evidence-conviction#:~:text=In%20United%20States%20practice%2C%20conviction,judge)%20and%20imposition%20of%20sentence.
Why didn’t you say that in the first place? Is it because you’ve never had an original thought in your life?
ATS – if only you would follow the law and the constitution – you would not have to experience so many Judical smackdowns.
You told us that the 14thj amendment case was constitutional – you lost 9-0 –
You told us the 1512C case was rock sold – even Justice Jackson voted against you.
You said that presidential immunity was nonsense. You lost biggly.
And on and on and on.
The only question regarding the Merhcan, Enmoron, Chutkan, Willis and Carrol cases is how quickjly and on which of many constitutional grounds they will be dismissed.
Trump is not a convicted felon – that is not true until you are sentenced. Merchan can still vacate the verdict.
I doubt that he will – but once he moves forward the federal vourts will do that for him.
This is why he has delayed sentencing – and will likely delay it again.
The objective will be to sentence Trump before the election, but with insufficient time for the federal courts to reverse.
The Trump trial is the most dishonest injust trial that I am aware of in US history. There are atleast a dozen reversable errors.
But it is most likely that a federal court quickly determines that Merchan unconstitutionally permitted witnesses to testify about things that were priviledged (and irrelevant) and vacate any verdict. Though there is a small possibility that Merchan will stall until after the eleciton and dismiss himself – as that will avoid the embarrassment of appelate oppinions that rake him over the coals.
The Enmoron decision will likely take longer to vacate – Trump must get past the corrupt left wing nut Manhattan appelate courts, But that case has almost as much reversable error as Merchan.
Both cases suffer from the FACT that SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled that Fraud is a property crime – none other than RBG writing one of those oppinions. You MUST have an ACTUAL Victim, and you must have a real tangible loss related to actual property.
There is a separate problem both at the NYS and US constitutional level and that is there must be a jury trial for anything more than diminimus fines and costs. The specific law that James’s case attempted to prosecute explicitly does not require a jury – because the NY appeals court found that violations could never result in more than diminimus fines.
My expectation is that Carrol and Trump settle for an undisclosed byt tiny settlement – because otherwise she is going to lose very very slowly. She has a seriuous problem with the Clinton vs. Jones defamation case. She has bill of attainder problems with the NY law that poked a hole just big enough to get Trump in the NY statute of limitations. She has no actual damages which are required for a tort.
And that is before addressing the fact that she is not credible. The courts are NOT going to say that she is not credible – they are just going to find another way to throw this out.
Willis is in hot water herself and likely will be removed from the Trump case in GA after which it will die.
Smith will appeal Cannon’s decision – probably already has. It is probable – but not certain that the 11th ct of appeals will reverse.
Her reasoning is sound and consistent with a long list of appointments clause cases not specific to the SC.
Further there are more problems than the appointments clause, there is also that the office of SC was created with Congress passing a law.
Chutkan is going to try to ignore CVannon’s decision – but she will be forced to waste alot of time doing so, and she will be appealed – and that alone kills the DC case – But she is also going to have to hold hearings on the extent to which presidential immunity applies and SCOTUS pretty much said it applies here. Regardless when she ignores the SCOTUS immunity decision – she will be appealed – and that will delay this past the election. But lets say that she magically gets past the immunity decision, and the unconstitutional appointment of Smith, the next problem she has is that the J6 1512C decision has gutted Smith’s case, there are only two charges left and arguably those rest on the 1512C charges. But again lets assume that she magically gets past that. Next the SCOTUS immunity decision also precludes any testimony about official acts – that gits Smith’s witness list – and this is one of Merchan’s many problems.
John Say,
“ Trump is not a convicted felon – that is not true until you are sentenced. Merchan can still vacate the verdict.”
False. Conviction occurs when a jury finds you guilty. Sentencing is just the punishment AFTER conviction. You don’t know how the legal system works, clearly. A jury convicts. A judge issues the punishment (sentencing). Trump is already a convicted felon. All that is left is his punishment (sentencing).
No, a federal court will not intervene because it’s a state law issue. Not a federal law issue. You’re conflating the two as if it were interchangeable. That’s not how it works.
“ Both cases suffer from the FACT that SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled that Fraud is a property crime – none other than RBG writing one of those oppinions. You MUST have an ACTUAL Victim, and you must have a real tangible loss related to actual property.”
Again, WRONG. Because SCOTUS was not referring to STATE law. It was referring to FEDERAL law. Trump was NOT charged under FEDERAL law. You keep grossly misinterpreting and conflating two different issues that are not related to each other at all. SCOTUS ruled that FEDERAL fraud statues were about property crimes. This has nothing to do with NY STATE law which CAN define fraud differently. Each state has their own fraud statutes defining them differently. Federal law does not supersede state law if does not involve constitutional issues.
The evidence against Trump (witness testimony) CAN be used because the actions occurred BEFORE he became president and they were not official acts. SCOTUS let lower courts determine what are and aren’t official acts. But because the falsifying of documents occurred before he took office he cannot invoke immunity and witness testimony CAN be used because they were not related to official acts committed when he was president.
“False. Conviction occurs when a jury finds you guilty. Sentencing is just the punishment AFTER conviction. You don’t know how the legal system works, clearly. A jury convicts. A judge issues the punishment (sentencing). Trump is already a convicted felon. All that is left is his punishment (sentencing).”
Svelaz-George is clearly the most ignorant commenter ever to appear here.
Is this just your “opinion” again Svelaz??
In United States practice, conviction means a finding of guilt (i.e., a jury verdict or finding of fact by the judge) and imposition of sentence. If the defendant fled after the verdict but before sentencing, he or she has not been convicted,
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-609-evidence-conviction#:~:text=In%20United%20States%20practice%2C%20conviction,judge)%20and%20imposition%20of%20sentence.
Article II Section 3
he[the president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,
Failure to enforce the immigration law of the united states is not faithfully executing the law.
Beyond that – Harris has committed to many things that are unconstitutional – and she has at other times said the opposite.
We will deal with what is an is not constitution when Democrats have a platoform.
I am sure there will be plenty that is unconstitutional in that.
As to Walz – lockdowns are unconstitutional – there is no exception in the constitution to the contracts clause which forbids states from interfering in the creation anexectution of contracts.
Forced spocial distancing, forced face masks, and forced vaccintation opr curailing rights for the unvaccinated violates the constitutional right to control of your own body.
I thought that was an important right for democrats.
But then everyone on the left is a hypocrit.
Lincoln, 1863 – the immigration law of the Founders was in full force and effect.
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, 1802 (four iterations for clarity – never legislatively abrogated, but by illicit kinetic force)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof
“. . . either implemented or proposed by Kamala and/or Walz that is unconstitutional.”
Socialized medicine.
Slavery was abolished by 13A.
Not enforcing the laws of the land is uncontitutional.
Netx idiotic request?
What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE. He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!!
Who writes this crap?
Dr Mabuse
Remember Covid? 2020? Trump telling Bob Woodward…what was that?
In 2020, Trump’s utter incompetence in handling the Covid pandemic cost him re-election. He told Bob Woodward of the Washington Post that at its start, “I wanted to always play it down.” When Woodward published Trump’s coldly neglectful remarks, Trump slammed Woodward’s report as “FAKE”. Woodward produced the tapes. Trump lied.
BugAnon- you say: “He told Bob Woodward of the Washington Post that at its start, ‘I wanted to always play it down.'” He should have followed through on that instinctive understanding that the pandemic was being overblown for political purposes. States that “played down” the response to COVID, like Florida, fared much better than states like Democrat-controlled Michigan, that ruined the lives of many of its citizens by treating the epidemic as an existential crisis.
I know people that died from COVID A hole. Play it down? Shut the F up. They are dead because of trumps incompetence.
Remember he said oh it will go away, just gone. poof.
BS, trump killed a million U.S. citizens because of his incompetence.
Look arround the world. The impact of covid in every nation in the world can be predicted by 3 things.
The age distribution fo the population – much of the third world was little impacted by Covid because Covid is most dangerous to older people.
The overall health of the population – Europe and the US have excellent healthcare systems – that means they have much larger numbers of unheatlhy people – In africa if you are not healthy you die.
The extent to which policies to thwart covid were implimented – the more vigorous the government effort to thwart Covid they higher the number of deaths from all causes.
I would further note that if you look at the overall mortality rate in the US, it started increasing in 2013 after decades of decline,
It is still increasing today. And finally – if you look at the trend line from 2013 to the present – you can not find Covid.
Over a million people in the US died of Covid. With incredibly few exceptions these are people who were going to die of something anyway. That is self evident from the fact that there is no covid spike in US mortality .
Finally a bit over 200K people died of Covid while Trump was president – a bit less than 1M people died of Covid while Biden was president – despite the fact that Biden had a vaccine and Trump did not.
If Trump blundered – so did the enitre world.
If Trump blundered – Biden she as schiff had no clue how to do better.
The only thing that actually worked against Covid was to ignore it, go on about your life and not do stupid things like f#$k up the economy with lockdowns and unemployemmnent and drive people to suicide and illegal drug overdoses.
How many did Biden kill, simpleton?
“They are dead because of trumps incompetence.”
Your friends are dead because of Trump???
What a fvcking loser you are. You dont any more believe that than a man in the moon.
Please tell me eaxctly how you think if Trump had said “Its going to kill us all”, it would have saved your imaginary friends lives.
And what have we learned since ? That Trump was correct, That there was nothing government could do about covid.
You say Trump was incompetent – he was. Because he allowed unconstitutional an ineffective responses to something we had no ability to do anything about.
No one has ever stopped an airborne virus once it gets a toe hold. Wuhan Covid was between 2-3 times as infectious as the Flu and we have NEVER stopped the flu. Arguably we have not even put the breaks on it. We are learnign that not only don’t masks work – not against Covid, not agains the flu, not even N95 masks, but we are learning social distancing did nothing. lockdowns did nothing. that the vaccine may still prove WORSE than the disease. And that the Flu vaccine probably does not work either. At the very least is Might prevent some people who get it from being infected but it does nothing to slow the spread of the Flu.
The left is full of Hubris. Covid was a testament to the fact that man is puny
Left wing nuts like you and Waltz fail to grasp
“what is man that you are mindful of him ?”
There is absolutely nothing we did with respect to Covid that had a beneficial effect.
It was beyond the ability of humans.
This is one of the reasons we should take great care regarding what we do in laboratories.
We have the power to exterminate ourselves. but not the power to stop our on creations.
The only thing that stood a chance was the vaccine – and Trump championed that and is single handedly responsible for ensuring it was delivered in record time.
It is possible that Covid is one of many diseases that we really can not vaccinate against.
It is possible that the vaccine we came up with was not the best choice.
What is true is that the covid vaccines did not work. NOTHING did.
Listening to a selection of Johann Strauss II waltzes, like the sound of “Harris Walz”.
🙂
1-2-3, 1-2-3, open-borders, high-inflation, forever-wars, open-borders, high-inflation, forever-wars, 1-2-3 …
Yeah I see what you mean. 😢
Borders because congress won’t pass the necessary laws of the executive branch to enforce. Fault is Trump’s.
Inflation is up to the Federal Reserve, added by congress not passing appropriate taxation laws.
Wars because there are too many people in a deteriorating climate.
The “necessary laws” of the American Founders regarding immigration:
______________________________________________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, 1802
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
Deteriorating climates make Palestinians hate Jews. Who knew?
Democrats: “Give us money or we won’t do our job.”
Dept. Labor and labor laws are illogical, illegal, and unconstitutional.
David: False, false, and false. You get an F on your paper.
Kansas Elder — That ius what happens when an inoramous does the grading.
What is an “inoramus”.
Sort of a bad time for a spelling error, eh?
I think he’s trying to say “in your anus.”
DBB the necescary laws are already on the books. While Trump was unable to enforce them perfectly – he did so approximately 10 times better than Biden.
“Inflation is up to the Federal Reserve”
Correct.
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomena.
“added by congress not passing appropriate taxation laws.”
Correct, you can avoid inflation by passing crushing taxes to pay for egregious spending and tank the economy.
You will get deflation than rather than inflation. Small amounts of deflation are very good for the economy.
Large amounts of deflation are worse than hyper inflation.
The choice you do not mention is that we can cut spending – then the fed will not need to print massive amounts of money.
“Wars because there are too many people in a deteriorating climate.”
False and False.
The population of both Russia and Ukraine was DECLINING prior to Russia invading.
Outside of the middle east, Africa and South american the rest of the world has Declining populations.
In 2016 the global population was expected to peak at 11B arround 2050.
Today the highest projected peak population is 10.4B by 2080 most projections have the peak at 8.6B by 2050 and declining to 7B by 2100
With current technology such as proven farming methods we can feed a population of over 50B people on the same land we are using now. With technology that is in the lab – we can do an order of magnitude better. And we are only using a tiny fraction of arrable land.
Further if Global Warming – cut the “climate change” nonsense – the climate has been changing throughout the entire existance of the planet. Change is the only universal constant.
If the earth did actually warm signifcantly we would substantially increase our own ability to produce food.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is a hoax.
The beleif that man should do anything about climate change is an IQ test – if you are stupid enough to beleive we must do something – YOU FAIL.
Benson:
So Biden can use executive orders to *open* the border but not to *close* it?!
Inflation is caused by government spending (thanks to D’s) that floods the market with fiat money.
Iran/Hamas invaded Israel because it’s too warm in Tehran? Seriously?!
Congress passed HR2, an actual border bill. nincompoop.
Are you that ill-informed?
Walz is not pronounced Waltz. It’s more like Walls. It rhymes with Such My Balls.
Yea. I know. Typo.
Does it have a cackle in the middle?
With Harris picking Walz as her running mate, a new voter bloc has emerged: never-Trumpers for Trump 😂
@Oldman: Shapiro was the much better choice. Do you think Democrat anti-Semitism played a significant part in the choice?
Did you know the man Kamala is married to is Jewish? You probably do, you just love saying stupid stuff to see what kind of response you will get.
Do you honestly think a man that calls people juvenile names will be elected President of the United States? Get a grip, this will be such a landslide. force the convicted felon off the ticket and get someone that acts at least 18 years old, not the 6 year old whiner you call trump.
The Republican Party has been taken over by the trump cult, the trump cult will cease to exist when trump is soundly defeated in November.
You are an idiot. This is a question that was raised by many including Alan Dershowitz. I was looking for an intelligent person to respond, not a dummy or a drunkard.
S. Meyer, I‘ll throw in my two bits: A rural ex-football coach will go better with the white underclass than a big-city Jew.
Underclass? Are you effing kidding me? There’s an underclass in a democracy?
Your elitism is disgusting.
I take issue with the “white underclass” slur.
My wife is white, grew up poor, rural area.
She has two Master’s degrees, one from the Air War College and is a retired Lt. COL.
She has been to three war zones.
She is classier than you by far.
You mean he’ll go better in Michigan. Kamala knew she could not win if they stayed home. End of story. Unless you’d like to add another chapter of fiction.
SM progressives threatened a holy war at the convention if Shapiro was picked.
My guess is that he WAS the choice that Harris intended and she bowed to the far left.
Mostly I do not think the VP choice matters alot.
Shapiro might have given Harris PA, but he probably would have cost her MI and created a damaging mess at the DNC convention.
Walz gives conservatives plenty of fuel to call Harris/Walz left wing nuts.
But Harris was going to be attacked as a left wing nut regardless.
Glenn Greenwald makes a good argument that the is actually a California corporatist democratic conservative.
That is nothing like a republican conservative. It is more like Pelosi and Obama and not like Biden and AOC.
At the same time he makes a better argument that she is whatever she needs to be to get power.
And that is why the black/east asian attack is quite relevant.
Though Rasmussen dailies are claiming that Harris has already peaked
August is the campaign doldrums. The august polls do not matter that much. Harris will likely get a bump from the convention – if she can avoid Riots and that is why Walz was picked.
There is a possibility that things will go to h311 in August for Harris – if the economy continues to worsen and if things in the mideast get worse. Which seems to be happening.
But even if they do not get that much worse in August – NOTHING is getting better between now and November.
Biden and the FED did not take the necescary recession in 2022 to clear inflation – because that would have given republicans commanding control of the house and the senate. But it also would have resulted in a strong economy by now.
Instead they have been nursing stagflation. and they have pushed the ball ahead as far as it will go.
I am not sure how bad the current recession will be – I am very worried because this appears to be interconnected to global stuctural problems. Japan does not as an example have an inflation problem, they do have a huge debt problem and a huge demographic problem.
Our Data on China sucks but nearly universally China experts say China is going to h311 it is just a question of when.
And China has a history of starting wars to distract from internal problems.
Europe has been weak for a very long time, and has demographic and other problems.
Europe has a version of the problem the US has with Cental and south america – except the european problem is far worse and their mass immigration is coming from the mideast which is FAR more dangerous than a bunch of hispanics fleeing communism.
Atleast one source I trust has said that the Venezeula election was NOT likely rigged much – because the 4Million venezeuallans who have left the country in the past 4 years are the people who would have voted against Madoru. That there may not be enough people opposed to Maduro left in Venezuella to beat him,
Regardless, there is a “new world order” developing.
Globalism used to mean global free trade. There is an excellent PBS series – “the commanding heights:the battle for the global economy”
that addresses the massive victory won by “globalists” – i.e. free traders in the last half of the 20th century.
But just as our education system got corrupted by the left, so has “globalism” – today that means the Davos crowd and WEF
and the socialist world government types.
That type of globalism – dominant in the 21st century is FAILING – baddly.
Trump did not cause that – but he did spot it and has been riding that wave.
The US is no longer capable or interested in its role as the global protector of free trade. We had a choice in the late 20th early 21st century of mainting our ability to project power anywhere in the world or to protect global trade. We opted for power projection.
A US carrier Battle Group is capable of raining H311 on anything in the world. The US navy is militarily more capable than all the rest of the navies in the world combined. But we have 13CBG’s – and that is close to the extent of our naval power. We used to have massive numbers of destroyers operating independently that patrolled the waters of the world. We still have the ability to detach an Aegis frigate as an example to provide portable ABM capability to thwart North Korea as an example. But without parking a CBG near the Gulf we can not protect mideast trade any more.
13CBG’s means 6 deployed, 1 in refit and 6 in port at home. If we try to do more than that we wear men and machines out too quick and start making mistakes. If you put 2 in the mideast and 2 near China – that leaves 2 for the entire rest of the world.
Regardless, the US is slowly leaving the mideast. We are also reducing our Role in NATO – we are not leaving it, but we are not going to keep leading it, and we are not going to keep providing troops. The US is going to expect that Europe take the lead in the national security of Europe and the Mid East (and Africa). The US is shifting focus to the Pacific and the western hemisphere.
Anyway just as in the US we are in the midst of a once a century political realignment – we are also in the midst of a global realignment of trade and of national security interests.
I would note that despite botching some things in the mideast and with Russia that are delaying the US withdrawl from Europe and the mideast that Biden has not MOSTLY deviated from this.
He made 4 mistakes – the botched afghan withdraw – which would have been minor except that it made us look weak.
His stupid reversal on Iran – why in gods name the left thinks that any good can come of anything short of fascilitating the collapose of the iranian regime.
provoking Putin by moving to bring Ukraine into NATO.
Being stupid about energy policy which has left the US too politically dependant on the mideast when we did not need to be.
This is also why a Russian peace deal is not only possible, but necescary.
Europe (and therefore the US) needs to be able to play Russia off against the mideast for their energy needs.
The US is self sufficient, and over abundant by adding Canada, Mexico and South American energy.
But Trump guaranteed Europe energy – which we needed to do, and Biden did deliver on that promise – but at the expense of re-empowering Russia and the mideast.
“Walz gives conservatives plenty of fuel to call Harris/Walz left wing nuts.
But Harris was going to be attacked as a left wing nut regardless. ”
Meh. Choosing Walz hampers Harris’ ability to evade her woke/left/progressive biases, which she is already attempting to do. Won’t matter to anyone who can actually think, but do you doubt that many people without that ability will cast ballots? Choosing Walz vs someone more moderate should cost the Dems at least a few votes. I welcome every one of those votes against the total insanity that would result from a Harris victory.
@ John: I don’t think anti-Semitism was the defining choice for Kamala, though many anti-Semites were involved in the final selection. Progressivism is becoming synonymous with anti-Semitism, so I agree with you.
Based on the little I know, I would have chosen Shapiro as the better campaigner for those undecided if I were in her shoes. She already has the Sanders vote, and the anti-Semitic group has nowhere else to go.
Walz’s management of the summer of violence and arson, I believe, will push those independents leaning left to make a right-hand turn.
You make many other interesting points, which I hope you will refer to later. I will respond briefly to a few now.
I am especially interested in “Instead they have been nursing stagflation. and they have pushed the ball ahead as far as it will go.” This is an excellent way to describe the present situation.
“Globalism used to mean global free trade. There is an excellent PBS series – “the commanding heights:the battle for the global economy” that addresses the massive victory won by “globalists” – i.e. free traders in the last half of the 20th century.”
Globalists won free trade, but that free trade no longer exists as an open market. They failed to protect free trade for all, to satisfy a lust for power and control. The world is suffering while they protect their power at the expense of all others and their governments. The US Navy did a much better job of promoting free global trade.
“A US carrier Battle Group is capable of raining H311 on anything in the world.”
Our sea power was instrumental in massively raising the standard of living throughout the world, and everyone was at least partly satisfied, including China. When the dopes criticize America as an evil empire, they show ignorance as to what an empire is and how much benefit the world obtained.
“Regardless, the US is slowly leaving the mideast.”
US troops should be heard but generally not seen in foreign lands.
Israel can defend itself when the US isn’t pushing billions to its enemies, helping them arm terrorists. Israel is more important to the US than many recognize because it is a significant block to Islamist expansionism.
Russia is not the natural ally of China or Iran, but the Biden administration has miraculously joined these enemies together, making the world a more dangerous place.
“Tolerance is the last virtue of a depraved society. When you have an immoral society that has blatantly, proudly, violated all of the commandments of God, there is one last virtue they insist upon: tolerance for their immorality.” -Dr. James Kennedy
“…tolerance for their immorality.”
Oh, America has that in spades!
So that’s why Turley’s column seems odd. This isn’t about NewsGuard or GDI. It’s about Elon musk suing them because advertisers are not choosing to do business with “X”.
Turley is ‘lending a hand’ to musk without mentioning X. Thats hilarious.
X is threatening advertisers because they are not advertising on his platform. That’s after he literally told them to “Go fvck yourselves”. The free speech absolutist is mad that advertising companies are exercising their free speech declaring they are taking their business somewhere where they won’t be associated with racists and fringe nut jobs.
Jordan is threatening to investigate private companies into submission or self censorship and Turley is throwing his support behind the endeavor. WOW.
George I do not give a crap about NewsGuard or GDI.
I care greatly about the fact that the Federal govenrment is balls deep in funding and directing this nonsense.
Musk can work out his advertising problems as he pleases – Sue Newsgard and prevail if his case has merrit or lose.
I do not care.
But the federal govenrment may not censor directly or through proxies. PERIOD.
Turley suffers from the problem of being a liberal. He does not grasp that Government is a necessary evil not a positive force for good.
he does not understand that the free market best regulates itself.
He supports antitrust nonsense and regulations to thwart allegedly bad conduct.
But monopolies can not exist without government – and again I do not give a schiff about GDI and Newsguard so long as the Govenrment stays out of it.
Efforts to privately regualte speech – such as NJewsgard and GDI – when they are truly private – Will fail.
Bad ideas fail. LET THEM.
But bad ideas do not fail – when government gets involved.
John Say, but you do care. Government is not “balls deep” in funding NewGuard. GDI is still only an index and does not encourage or tell advertisers not to spend o money on conservative sites. That’s Turley’s BS claim.
NewsGuard received one grant in 2021. That’s it. Yet Turley implies they are government funded. GDI does the same thing NewsGuard does except it gets support from the government. It’s not unconstitutional or illegal for government to offer grants. The government is NOT censoring anything. They can point out policy violations and can point out issues to private entities. It’s private entities that have the final say on whether to censor or remover content. SCOTUS already determined that the states did not have standing to sue because lower courts showed that the states were not able to show the government was censoring content or coercing private companies. They must first prove that government is indeed coercing or directly censoring content.
“ Efforts to privately regualte speech – such as NJewsgard and GDI – when they are truly private – Will fail.”
That’s the problem. They are NOT regulating speech. Turley and most conservatives losing their minds over these two entities mistakenly keep thinking these companies are in the business censoring conservative speech. That is not true. All they do is compare websites, blogs, and news organizations using readily transparent criteria and rank them accordingly. That’s it. That information allows anyone to determine for themselves if they want to spend money or associate themselves with whatever organization they choose. You know, that free market thing. Conservatives are upset that the majority of sites ranked as poor or not very credible or bad are conservative sites. That’s NOT censorship or discrimination. It’s just the result based on their criteria. Instead of crying foul and accusing them of censorship they should be exercising THEIR free speech by disagreeing with the rankings and explaining why. But they don’t want to do that because they prefer to accuse them of censorship and threaten investigations so that they would self censor or stop ranking. Which is itself censorship.
These sites have can set conservative sites are bad, not credible, and rank them however they please. People who disagree can either choose to ignore them or create their own indexes.
The Heritage Foundation has its own index, the “Freedom Index”. Various other conservative sites have their own ranking systems. Turley has already asserted that he does not support ranking sites or indexes, but these have been around for a very long time and he never once complained, until GDI and NewsGuard started ranking conservative sites poorly. He’s bothered by the fact that they CAN do that and he is ignoring the fact that it IS free speech. But strangely he’s against it simply because he doesn’t like it. Free speech is going to involve things you don’t like and don’t agree with. Turley should know that, but somehow he remains ignorant of the fact.
“Government is a necessary evil not a positive force for good.”
That statement begs for qualification. Minimal government *may* be a necessary evil (I lean in that direction, but am not 100% convinced) but the massive entity that we suffer under that describes itself by that term is totally unjust and unjustifiable. Frankly, I regard it as different not only in scope, but in kind.
Sue the Anti Free Speech/Censor/Radical Lib Dem/Globalist, for a large sum $$$$$$. All these Radical Libs/Censor/Globalist/Left wing Radical Dems, scream when you go after their $$$$$$$$$$$.
Radical libs, censorship, globalism, the left wing, and communist principles are illicit and unconstitutional and cannot exist in America.
The Communist Manifesto is not the Constitution.
Americans are maximally free while government is severely limited and restricted.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
America was taken off the course of the Founders with the denial of not-prohibited and fully constitutional secession.
Reprehensible slavery must have been abrogated through legal and constitutional means.
Existing immigration law must have been stringently adhered to.
The best evidence of the failure of the judicial branch is the totally corrupt and ultimately reversed and constitutionally corrected decision of the Supreme Court of 1973, Roe v. Wade.
I think Elon missed the book how to make friends and influence people.
His idea…Just file a suit against them for a few million dollars. That is sure to bring advertisers back in droves.
I’m sure Elon is in desperate need of your advice. Because he is clearly not doing well in life without it. If only he could benefit from your wisdom he might turn his life around and be successful at something 🤣
Again, you have reading comprehension skills. I never said anything about giving Elon needing my advise. He has done quite well scamming people to buy his stock. There is a great article in Arstechnica today, check it out. The last paragraph is quite good…Here it is because I’m not sure you are capable of finding the article…
This is no longer really a car company. This is really a stock promotion—I know this is the oldest cliche for long-time Teslaheads, but it’s a stock promotion company that is increasingly, implausibly masquerading as a car company,” Niedermeyer said.
he has $400B poretty sure he has no peoblems making friends and influencing people.
Suing censors is not suing advertisers. These groups are engaged in tortuous interferance in contract.
Let the courts sort it out.
But otherwise keep government out of it.
That is where I part with Turley.
He’s not suing censors. He’s suing advertisers because they are not advertising on his platform. These groups are engaging in free speech. It’s as simple as that. Elon is the one who told them to “go fvck themselves” when they chose to take their business elsewhere. It’s literally a complete free market decision and HE is upset after telling them off.
Government has free speech rights like everyone else. The only thing to cannot do is censor others.
Government has free speech rights like everyone else.
Cite it.
And then explain what that means. “Government”
Such an idiot.
Defamatory “information” has been weaponized against disfavored businesses so as to intimidate advertisers against buying ads with the disfavored business. It’s all version of “they’re weird,” straight from middle school. It’s so depressing to me that so many assign weight to clique-think. Are they children?
OT
Kamalalanomics!
Note to Fed: Cut the rates for my presidential race!
Let inflation tear up and ruin the little people.
I don’t care.
Just cut the rates for my presidential race.
We are in a recession – we are not going to get inflation in a contracting economy.
It probably is early to reduce interest rates.
That does not mean that the first order of business for Trump is MASSIVE spending cuts.
John Say, we are not in a recession.
George
Yes we are. See how easy that was?
Spastic idiot.
OT
“TAKE THE GOOGLE SEARCH SEGMENT FOR PUBLIC USE”
_______________________________________________________________
“Google loses antitrust case over search”
“A federal U.S. judge ruled Monday that Google has illegally held a monopoly in search and text advertising. The court homed in on Google’s exclusive search arrangements on Android and Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices. The Department of Justice and a bipartisan group of attorneys general from 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed similar but separate antitrust suits against Google in 2020.”
“A federal U.S. judge ruled Monday that Google has illegally held a monopoly in two market areas: search and text advertising.
“The landmark case from the government, filed in 2020, alleged that Google has kept its share of the general search market by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance. The court found that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which outlaws monopolies.”
– CNBC
__________
The Search segment of Google MUST be “taken” for public use after just compensation under the 5th Amendment.
Antitrust laws are illegitimate, illicit, and unconstitutional.
Competition is the free and constitutional dynamic that allows free enterprises in the free markets of the private sector to address monopolies.
If entities cannot or will not compete, the monopoly is valid and may be “taken” for public use as basic infrastructure.
Congress has no enumerated power to regulate to compel individual, enterprise, or corporate behavior; government exists to provide maximal freedom to private individuals, and government is severely limited and restricted to merely facilitating that maximal freedom through the provision of security and basic infrastructure.
Google Search is “general Welfare”—ALL WELL PROCEED—or basic infrastructure as are roads, water, internet, electricity, post offices, airports, rubbish collection, sewers, etc., per Article 1, Section 8.
Google Search is a commodity or service used in similar amounts and frequency by, not one, some, or a few, but by general, or all, Americans.
Why do I have the sense that offended parties will inevitably sue the —- out of the likes of Newsguard and GARM?
Regarding GARM, responsible media in the United States of America, by definition, must report from the perspective of the American Founders, their Constitution, their Bill of Rights, and their Naturalization Acts, lest they be found anti-American and unpatriotic, which, of course, they are.
As but one example, they must have met the standard of responsibility and reported on the antithetical, unconstitutional, and momentous American inflection point at which Lincoln suspended the Constitution, including habeas corpus, and high-criminally took up arms to illicitly and unconstitutionally deny not-prohibited and fully constitutional secession, progressively and “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” from the Constitution to the Communist Manifesto and the abject “dictatorship of the proletariat (i.e. hired help),” understanding that, in a society of laws the laws must be stringently adhered to, and the moral and noble pursuit of the abolition of reprehensible slavery must have been conducted through legislative and legal means.
What Newsguard and GARM furtively and insidiously intend to do is solidify the dominion of the Communist Manifesto in America.
Look around you at the Central Planning, Control of the Means of Production (unconstitutional regulation), Redistribution of Wealth, and Social Engineering, accomplishing Karl Marx’s slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” without any possible legal basis or citable section in fundamental law, and thank “Crazy Abe” Lincoln. NewsGuard and GARM do.
…” the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents.”
Here Turley is flat out lying. Only because he doesn’t like the fact that GDI is only offering information that advertisers can use to make a choice. They are not discouraging anyone from anything. This is no different than the Heritage foundation’s “freedom index” or the many other rating indexes conservatives sites use to ‘inform’ voters or anyone so they can make a choice. You don’t see him criticizing conservative sites for doing the exact same thing. This is where turley loses credibility.
The GDI or NewsGuard create a list of sites and rate them according to transparent criteria that anyone can scrutinize and they apply it to everyone they rate. That is literally an exercise in free speech. If they find mostly conservative sites rating low or bad it’s up to conservatives to speak up a disagree instead of whining and threatening investigations to force them to self censor because they don’t like what they said. The irony is so thick and Turley is clearly oblivious to it because he’s attacking these rating organizations for the audacity of scrutinizing his blog and telling others that it sucks or is questionable or that it may merit some credit. They CAN do that and Turley is upset about it. Instead of accusing them of censorship he should do what he always preaches, use more speech, make his case as to why his site shouldn’t be the rate they say it is.
Turley is happy that Jim Jordan is threatening to investigate these organizations hoping they will self censor and stop “targeting conservatives”. That is the very definition of government censorship. Free speech means there will be others calling conservative sites bad, rate them as poor, and provide information for others to decide if that is the case. Turley is against that. He’s anti-free speech when it comes to others doing what conservatives do all the time. The hypocrisy is as rank as a giant pile of days old cat turds.
Wrong on multiple counts.
Turley is not lying – his statements are accurate.
The heritage freedom index is an index of transparent and objectively measuable freedom of different COUNTRIES.
It is notr used to boycott countries – though you could. It is data to give us an idea how policies work in different countries.
There is a very strong correlation between standard of living and freedom index ranking.
Most of the rest of what you claim conservatives do is rate political candidates. Not businesses.
That said there is nothing wrong with Transparently openly and entirely privately rating businesse using whatever criteria those on the right or the left wish.
There is a massive problem when government is a part of it.
If left wing nuts want to pony up their own money – not public money to coerce advertisers – spo long ad public resources are uninvolved – go for it.
If these ratings organizations do not provide value for consumers and for the companies that rely on them – they will be abandoned.
Just as we are seeing corporations abandon DEI and ESG – because the create problems they do not fix them.
The problem is not what these organizations do. It is not their lack of transpaerency, it is not their lack of obnjective and verifiable criteria.
All those free markets will sort out.
It is that government is part of this.
7
No, Turley is indeed lying. You don’t show how his statements are accurate for obvious reasons. Nowhere does GDI say or insinuate that conservative sites should be avoided or that advertisers should not put their advertising money on them.
All they do is provide information for anyone to make the choice themselves. Turley doesn’t like it simply because most poorly ranked sites are conservative. So what? They CAN do that based on their criteria. It’s free speech. Turley, instead of following his own advice chose to hurl accusations of censorship and discrimination against conservative sites.
Government is NOT part of NewGuard. GDI may be the exception but they are still only providing information so anyone can make a choice based on it. It’s absolutely not censorship. Turley and others want to call it censorship so they can cow these companies into self censoring THEIR free speech right to rank sites according to their criteria.
The fact that you are so gullible and susceptible to slanted messaging, –and then turn in around and spout it out as though your thinking is superior to others’ …is truly frightening.
Debby is on schedule to nuke Washington, D.C.!
https://www.dw.com/en/hurricanes-release-energy-of-10000-nuclear-bombs/a-40627056
One wishes that was not a crass exaggeration.
Back in the 1920s-1930s the great critic of all-things-America was H.L. Mencken. In essence he revealed America was an Ad Hoc uncivilized country. Even then, the there were religious hacks, demagogues and slick salesman who’d sell the very illiterate population on every fad, and every form of self-emulation. Nothing has changed much since then. We’ve accepted the fact that unlike all other World Countries, the US will NEVER become an actual civilization.
And yet there is no nation in the world as diverse, there is no nation with more than 20M people with as high a standard of living.
There is no nation that people elsewhere want to go to as badly.
Whatever we are doing – we are doing better than everywhere else – atleast until recently.
And that is what MAGA is about
Turley seems to be the worst free speech advocate while asserting to be a champion for it.
NewsGuard and GDI are exercising free speech. They are free to rate, and opine about the organizations they look into. Calling their free speech right to rate, and review every news organization and blog and publish the information for anyone to use and judge for themselves as censorship is laughable. The professor position is merely complaining that others get to exercise their free speech rights to judge others including him.
Turley needs to practice what he preaches. Free speech means NewsGuard or GDI can say conservatives are bad or not worth spending advertising dollars on the same applies if they said liberals are bad and they are not worth spending advertising dollars on. Turley wants to shut down these entities because they are exercising the very thing Turley supports, free speech. It’s really ironic that Turley doesn’t get it and it shouldn’t be surprising. Turley doesn’t like that these rating organizations may be saying conservative organizations are bad or not worth considering. Instead of whining and calling it censorship ( which is not) he should use MORE SPEECH to counter it. Not try to censor them by accusing them of censorship and inciting others to harass the organizations into silence.
Free speech means you’re going to get speech you don’t like, speech saying conservatives are bad, funds shouldn’t go to conservative organizations, or blacklisting. All of that IS free speech. Just as it is for those calling liberal media to be canceled, defunding, boycotted, calling liberal organizations bad, Marxists, communists, etc. It’s all free speech. But Turley bristles at the notion that conservative organizations can be rated, called bad and offer information that others can use to decide for themselves. He calls that censorship. He’s wrong. Turley is railing against those who are exercising the very thing he holds dear and calling it censorship. The solution is very simple according to Turley, more speech.
“Instead of whining and calling it censorship ( which is not) he should use MORE SPEECH to counter it.”
Absolutely. We need more free speech about why it is good to force 14 year old girls to give birth to a baby after being raped by the pastor or lay leader in their church.
More free speech about why it is a good thing to imprison librarians if I find a book in their library I disapprove of.
More free speech on why those convicted of a felony can’t vote but they can become President of the U.S.A.
And absolutely we need more free speech to deny the science of sex with the very idea that maybe, just maybe there is more than XX, and XY for human beings. Please explain that one.
What’s to explain? If you disagree with any of the issues you posted post your disagreement and defend it. That’s the point Turley always makes, but in the case of these ratings organizations he’s totally abandoning it in favor of chastising and accusing these organizations into self censorship because he doesn’t like what they do.
Exactly. and if I have a product to sell, I do not want it next to your post promoting 12 year old girls having the baby created by her rapist at the church. I also don’t want my ad next to you discussing how trans people don’t deserve to live. No thank you. I will take my ad dollars elsewhere. but Musk thinks he is god or something. Thou shalt advertise on X next to my shi-ty posts. If you don’t advertise, pay me (and my lawyers) anyway. Nice guy that Elon isn’t he.
Logic eludes you, You seem to think that connecting two things in a sentence makes them logically related.
“Absolutely. We need more free speech about why it is good to force 14 year old girls to give birth to a baby after being raped by the pastor or lay leader in their church.”
We need more 14yr old girls murdering the corner grocery because a pastor raped them.
See anyone can do this.
“More free speech about why it is a good thing to imprison librarians if I find a book in their library I disapprove of.”
So if your school librarian starts providing copies of Hustler to 3rd graders they should be promoted ?
“More free speech on why those convicted of a felony can’t vote but they can become President of the U.S.A.”
The constitution is why.
Of course felon means something different apparently depending on your politics.
For most of us a felony is a wrong doing where force is used to do serious harm to others – such as rape, murder assault, and therefore subject to serious punishment – even capitol punishment.
A felony is not a debate over the appropriate language to use in your notes to yourself that are purportedly being used to deceive people in the past through time travel of something private that they do not have a right to know.
“And absolutely we need more free speech to deny the science of sex with the very idea that maybe, just maybe there is more than XX, and XY for human beings. Please explain that one.”
Out of every 1000 humans born 999 of them have either an XX or an XY sex chromosome pair. That is the science.
I will be happy to discuss the SCIENCE of how we should deal with the 1:1000 As to the rest – claiming that someone with XX sex chromosomes is male or someone with XY chromosomes is female is “denying the science”
You are free to decide that you are a bird if you wish. None of us can stop you.
You can “identify” however you wish – no one can stop you.
But the rest of us are NOT required to share your delusion.
George your arguments are absurd and logically self contradictory.
You have not learned critical thinking.
“he should use MORE SPEECH to counter it.”
That is precisely what he is doing.
“Not try to censor them by accusing them of censorship and inciting others to harass the organizations into silence.”
By your own argument – that is just more free speech.
These left affiliated groups are engaged in harrassing others to restrict advertising to places that do not self censor in the way that these groups prefer.
You are fine with that – you say that is free speech. I agree – so long as they are not government influenced.
But then you came back and say that when Turley wants harrass these groups for their conduct – somehow that is no longer freee speech.
How so ?
If advocating censorship is free speech,
Then advocating for Censorship is free speech.
If advocating for harassment is free speech
Then advocating for harassment is free speech.
I keep telling you over and over the critical factor – the point at which it become unconstitutional is when GOVERNMENT – aka FORCE is involved.
John, you’re missing the point.
Turley is complaining that these companies ranking sites and news organizations are engaging in censorship because they are “encouraging” advertisers not to use conservative sites. That is absolutely not true. He is falsely insinuating that they are telling advertisers not to buy ads on conservative platforms. He’s also insinuating these rankings are unfairly biased against conservative sites because the top 10 worst sites ranked are conservative. He accuses them of engaging in censorship because they are ranked as such and that they are “encouraging” others not to spend money on conservative sites.
What he is NOT doing is explaining why conservative sites shouldn’t be ranked as they are. Crying “censorship” is not making a relevant argument against the rankings. It’s a lazy approach for someone like Turley.
“But then you came back and say that when Turley wants harrass these groups for their conduct – somehow that is no longer freee speech.
How so ?”
No, that’s not what I’m saying. You’re not paying attention. Turley is a staunch free speech advocate. He’s always on the side of free speech and anything contrary to he claims is anti-free speech. Turley is opposed to what these companies do because he incorrectly associates it as a form of censorship. He’s bothered by the idea that others can judge and scrutinize his blog or that of other conservative sites and say they are ranked to worst. So he accuses them of censorship because their rankings are favoring liberal sites more than conservative ones. Then adds the ‘ominous’ involvement of government to falsely imply that this is a government effort to censor conservatives. That’s not true.
Turley is not making any effort to explain important distinctions because if he does he undermines his whole argument. His target audience are gullible conservatives and MAGA supporters who don’t bother to research or exercise a modicum of skepticism about Turley’s claims. He relies on them to keep reading his columns and gain support by falsely accusing the ‘left’ and expose their ‘agenda’.
Turley is being a hypocrite when he condones Jim Jordan’s investigation of these companies whose purpose is to cow them into self censorship by accusing them of engaging in censorship and publicly and falsely claiming they are censoring conservative views. In essence Turley is supportive of anti-free speech efforts by republicans without directly involving himself.
“All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. ”
Maybe it is conservatives, libertarians and independents that put most of the crap on social media that advertisers abhor.
Exactly! Turley is being disingenuous when he claims these rating organizations discourage advertisers or individuals from associating with conservative sites. That’s not true. All they are doing is offering anyone information to decide for themselves if those sites are what they claim to be or not. There are ratings for everything. Turley is essentially complaining that Consumer Reports is censoring the bad products because are “encouraging” people not to buy or use these bad products according to their criteria. Never mind the fact that Consumer Reports is exercising its constitutional free speech rights to say these things are good or bad according to their criteria. Turley is opposes that ability which is…..an exercise of free speech.
“Exactly! Turley is being disingenuous when he claims these rating organizations discourage advertisers or individuals from associating with conservative sites. That’s not true.”
Of course it is true. It is precisely and openly their intent. You are being incredibly stupid and lying not only about things that are self evident but that you have openly said you seek to do.
“All they are doing is offering anyone information to decide for themselves if those sites are what they claim to be or not.”
No one needs your help to decide for themselves – your being incredibly paternalistic.
I do not provide information to others about the advantages of blue socks vs. red socks unless I actually want people to choose blue socks.
The open purpose of advertising is to persuade.
No one spends money to inform others of choices that the do not care what choice is made.
“There are ratings for everything.”
False and irrelevant.
“Turley is essentially complaining that Consumer Reports is censoring the bad products because are “encouraging” people not to buy or use these bad products according to their criteria.”
First you are correctly noting that the intent is to encourage people to buy or not to buy. So can we quit pretending that you are just engaged in a purely neutral process that you do not even care about ?
Next, you are complaining that Turley is rating the raters. If NewsGuard rating websites is perfectly acceptable – what exactly is wrong with Turley noting that NewsGuard is a viewpoint biased and crappy rater ?
The correct response to bead speech is more speech. Absolutely Turley wants to put NewGuard out of business by persuading people through free speech not to trust them.
That is no different from Newsguard trying to defund Conservatives by undermining advertisers trust in them.
You really are completely clueless.
You claim that it is just free speech to provide information about various websites.
It is also just free speech to provide information about those who rate websites – and it is especially valueable information to know they are doing so in a politically biased fashion. That they are NOT even close to neutral and that they make disproportionately large numbers of false ratings errors based on viewpoint.
That is just free speech.
As is typically – you are incapable of reasoning beyond the first order.
“Never mind the fact that Consumer Reports is exercising its constitutional free speech rights to say these things are good or bad according to their criteria.”
” Turley is opposes that ability which is…..an exercise of free speech.”
No Turely is literally rating the raters and he has found them to be biased and not even follow their own criteria – and that is an excersice of free speech.
“It is precisely and openly their intent. You are being incredibly stupid and lying not only about things that are self evident but that you have openly said you seek to do.”
No John that is NOT their intent. It is you who is being stupid. Turley is already lying about their intent. All they do is provide information and lets others decide for themselves what to do with it. They are not encouraging, or insinuating that they choose something at all. It’s clearly self evident, but you and Turley don’t want it to be true because the point of Turley’s argument is to falsely accuse these organizations to his most gullible readers so that they can complain about it to their representatives with the false insinuation.
The plain reading of these two ranking organizations to those who truly have reading comprehension abilities will show that.
“All they are doing is offering anyone information to decide for themselves if those sites are what they claim to be or not.”
No one needs your help to decide for themselves – your being incredibly paternalistic.”
You’re not making sense. I’m not the one doing the rankings John. Those private companies are, and they have every right to do what they are doing. You are not being forced to use their information as is anyone else. It’s simply there for anyone to use. What makes you think I’m the one offering this information? So what’s with the accusation that I’m offering help on anything?
“Turley is essentially complaining that Consumer Reports is censoring the bad products because are “encouraging” people not to buy or use these bad products according to their criteria.”
First you are correctly noting that the intent is to encourage people to buy or not to buy.”
John, really? You have reading comprehension problems too?
No, that’s not what I’m noting. Geez man, pay attention. The purpose of putting encouraging in parentheses is to point out the false claim Turley is making. I’m making a comparison using a different example of Turley’s false claim. Pay attention John.
You shouldn’t be accusing others of lacking in critical thinking when you clearly demonstrate you’re the one with the issue.
“Turley is opposes that ability which is…..an exercise of free speech.”
No Turely is literally rating the raters and he has found them to be biased and not even follow their own criteria – and that is an excersice of free speech”
No, he wasn’t rating the raters. He was accusing them of bias without analyzing their criteria in depth. He found them to be biased only on the basis of the low rankings of conservative sites without ever comparing them to liberal sites. He just wanted to portray conservatives as victims of unfair rankings and called it censorship.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The answer is Turley.
You are attacking Turley’s free speech – because he is correctly pointing out that your “watchers” themselves need watching – because they are more corrupt, erroneous and biased than those they are watching.
No, I’m criticizing Turley’s position because he’s complaining of others exercise of free speech is unfair. He made zero effort to fully analyze their criteria or methods. He simply used the fact that conservative sites ranked poorly and used that as a basis to claim their criteria is flawed. He never showed why they were erroneous or corrupt. As a lawyer he should have fully analyzed the criteria in depth and judged it on its merits. But that would have undermined his argument that they simply targeted conservative sites because they are conservative.
Those “watchers” are private companies who rank everyone based on their criteria. You or anyone else is NOT required to use it or choose to even look at it. That’s it. This is not some secret agenda to drive conservative sites into obscurity or discourage others from using them. That’s all in your head John.
Maybe it is conservatives, libertarians and independents that put things on social media that left wing nuts abhor and wise to censor.
To the extent that advertisers inquire into the views of others it is in order to sell to them, not in order to exclude them.
You would be discriminating.
“ You would be discriminating.”
No, you would be informed and able to make a your choice. If others choose not to advertise with conservative organizations or sites it’s their choice. It’s no discrimination or censorship.
And if people chose to defund NewsGuard as a result of Turley’s post – that too would be their choice.
Yes, that would be correct.
The vindictive tone is apparent.
Choice = discriminate.
If turley points out the failure of these organizations to work transparently and honestly and their obvious political bias – that is his choice.
BTW censorship is a choice.
Conservatives destroyed 25% of the shareholder value of AnHeiser Busch over putting Dylan Mulvany on Bud light cans – that is censorship, it is also free speech it is also free choice, it is also discrimination, it is also legal, it is also constitutional.
And you are free to criticise it.
Is english your first language – because a great deal of your logical errors come from a failure to understand the meaning of words.
Censorship is unconstitutional and illegal when done by govenrment or government proxies or agents.
No George there is no govenrment right to free speech. There is a government power to speak but only when it is necescary and proper in order to perform another government power explicitly delegated int he constitution and even then – that speech can not violate the first amendment.
John,
“If turley points out the failure of these organizations to work transparently and honestly and their obvious political bias – that is his choice.”
But he didn’t point out the failure. He intentionally ignored the organizations open and transparent criteria and methods they use. They even make it a point to emphasize that their criteria and methods are open to anyone if they want to scrutinize it. Turley didn’t bother to mention it. It was his choice be dishonest about his argument.
“Choice = discriminate.”
That’s not always true. The two have different meanings in our society.
A choice is an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. Discrimination is to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit.
There is a clear nuance to the two terms. Your attempt to conflate the two without context is dishonest at best.
“Conservatives destroyed 25% of the shareholder value of AnHeiser Busch over putting Dylan Mulvany on Bud light cans – that is censorship, it is also free speech it is also free choice, it is also discrimination, it is also legal, it is also constitutional.”
That’s not censorship. That’s a boycott. They are not the same thing. You’re incorrectly conflating a lot of things in that paragraph. They do not mean the same thing. Only a very few you get right.
“Is english your first language – because a great deal of your logical errors come from a failure to understand the meaning of words.”
I understand meanings just fine. It seems you are the one having problems. Your conflating of different meanings to mean the same thing without proper context does not mean you are correct. It’s not as simple as you think it is.
“No George there is no govenrment right to free speech. There is a government power to speak but only when it is necescary and proper in order to perform another government power explicitly delegated int he constitution and even then – that speech can not violate the first amendment.”
Yes, the government does have right to free speech. You cannot cite anything in the constitution or statute that says they don’t and no the absence of one does not mean they don’t have the right. The government has the right to speak whenever they want. Not only when it’s necessary and proper, but it’s essential for its purpose as a governing body.
Can you cite anything in the constitution that prohibits the government from having the right to free speech? Any statute? You chastised me for not posting sources supporting my claims. Yet here you are not posting sources supporting your claim.
He doesnt have to cite it, you imbecile.
The purpose of the Consitution is to LIMIT government and define the rights of THE PEOPLE.
Its function does not include bestowing “rights” on the governement by omission. LMAO dumbest thing you have ever said, and thats saying a lot.
This attack on speech, the coordinated blacklisting, etc. will continue until there a severe criminal penalties against and people like Rakowitz can be arrested, prosecuted, and hopefully convicted.
In short, Jordan’s investigation may uncover information and Musk’s suit may uncover more, but no one will truly be held accountable.
I’d favor bringing back public stocks for those offenses, and possibly tar and feathering.
Held accountable for what exactly? Rating or black listing IS protected speech. You can say bad things about conservative sites with impunity rating organizations can do that if they so chose. Pursuing investigations and threatening to hold them accountable IS censorship of that speech. Free speech means speech that you don’t agree with goes along with speech you agree with. Not just what makes you feel better or comfortable.
“Held accountable for what exactly?”
For anything we choose.
I can hold McDonalds acountable for putting too many or too few pickles on my burger.
I can choose not to buy from them.
I can choose to give them a bad review.
I can blacklist them.
“Rating or black listing IS protected speech.”
It is – there are some constraints – such as defamation and tortuous interferance with contracts.
“You can say bad things about conservative sites with impunity rating organizations can do that if they so chose. ”
Mostly correct – they can not defame them, and they have to be careful about interfering with contracts.
Turley can also impugn the raters.
“Pursuing investigations and threatening to hold them accountable IS censorship of that speech.”
Government absolutely may investigate – particularly the involvement of govenrment, and it can hold government accountable.
I would further note that YOU are the one that says government has the right to free speech – if that were true – then why can’t those in government threaten to hold these people accountable. That would be free speech.
“Free speech means speech that you don’t agree with goes along with speech you agree with. Not just what makes you feel better or comfortable.”
Correct – Turley can point out the failures and biases of these left wing nut organizations and the rest of us can “hold them accountable” in whatever legal way we chose.
Except to the extent that government is involved this would be perfectly legal.
That does not make it moral.
Nor does it mean that the rest of us can not criticize these blacklisters, and boycott companies that use them.
Bud light went woke and its consumers burned 25% of their sales and market capitalization to the ground.
Disney went woke and that has cost them 50% of their shareholder value.
Tractor Supply went woke got caught and reversed course – appologizing all the way to avoid the fate of Disney and Bud Light.
John Deer went woke got caught and also reversed course quickly.
Major marketing firms in the US are recomending that their clients refrain from woke advertising and DEI corporate management.
The houses job is to cut off any governmetn funds being used for this and to fire and possibly charge criminally anyone in government involved in this.
It is our job to “Watch the watchers.”
This is not hard. Pick some broad market company – preferably one that has a strong base of conservative consumers, and boycott them for using left wing nut advertisement rating services.
Bud Light them.
The left is trying to defund conservativeds – lets defund the left.
If I had a business and advertised on a social media platform, I’d want to know if my ad appears next to crazy sh-t. Crazy sh-t could be…white supremest, black supremest, religious misogamy, VP wanna bees having sex with a couch, naked people, AI produced fake ads of a politician, etc. Could be a long list. There is no way I could monitor the ads on the various social media sites. So, I pay a company to keep tabs on what is next to my ad. One day they inform me my ad was next to a picture of a white supremest with a confederate flag at a trump rally. I inform the offending social media platform I do not want my picture next to sh-t and this is sh-t. I give them my list of verboten posts and tell them if it happens again, I’m gone.
Something wrong with that scenario?
Yes. Let us say you complained and they decided to de bank you, and remove you name from Google search’s first page. You will be powerless because there is no one to appeal to. They are all in it together vs little old you.
Google is not the only search engine out there. Plus there are other platforms available to use. It’s a private organization if they choose not to let on the first page but the last one it’s up to them, not you. But you have the choice to take your business elsewhere.
Verizon is not the only phone company out there. Plus there are other platforms available to use. It’s a private organization if they choose not to let progressives calls get through until the 5th ring it’s up to them, not you. But you have the choice to take your business elsewhere.