Sorry, the problem is that InstaPundit has been demonetized by Google, for unspecified “dangerous” content. Between the overall trend of ad revenue decline — which hits everyone — and the trend of cutting advertising to right-leaning sites, and now this, ad revenue is down about 90% from its high, I’d estimate, and it may get worse. (The Amazon revenue, which we’ve been phasing out anyway, is similar). At some point I’ll probably have to go to some sort of subscription model — maybe one that lets you buy out of the ads — or a purely donation-supported model.
In the meantime, if you’d like to support the blog you can donate via Stripe or subscribe to my Substack. It’s all much appreciated.
Wow. The weird thing is that back in the day — the first decade of the 21st century, when blogging was invented — the people running Silicon Valley were, if not conservative, certainly libertarian in their general attitude. Companies like Google, Amazon and PayPal were run by people with the plainly capitalist goal of getting rich, and so were inclined to support advocacy of free enterprise, deregulation, lower taxes, etc.
“Demonetizing” is censorship, period, and it didn’t start happening — the orchestrated attempt to shut down independent online publishing — until Obama’s second term. There was a left-wing blogosphere (the “moonbats,” as we called them) and a right-wing blogosphere (the “wingnuts,” as the Left called us), and the existence of two oppositional blogospheres was a fact of life everyone in the game understood.
What happened? It was several factors. Obama’s popularity made leftist politics the “cool kids” thing, and the callow youth had an intolerant attitude toward opposition. Almost as soon as Obama was elected, they began denouncing all criticism as “racist,” and embraced a no-holds-barred approach toward perceived enemies. Well do I remember my experience in 2011 being swarmed by an angry “Occupy” mob that was trying to storm a conference in D.C. where one of the Koch brothers was in attendance. Because the Kochs had supported the Tea Party movement (and free-market advocacy generally), this made them EVIL in the eyes of that brain-dead zombie horde of “Occupy” protesters.
That general idea — exercising the “heckler’s veto” on anyone who disagrees with them — has been used by the Left to organize advertising boycotts of talk radio, Fox News, etc., and so when social media platforms started shutting down conservatives (I was banned from Twitter in 2016), it was merely an extension of the same mob mentality that mobilized the “Occupy” zombies. By the time Twitter (and Facebook and YouTube) began their wholesale “deplatforming” of conservatives during the Trump years, the independent blogosphere was already largely a thing of the past. People decided that venting their spleens on Twitter was sufficient, and so there was no need for the hassles of maintaining a regular blog.
But you could not effectively monetize Twitter. You were giving Twitter your content, and Twitter was monetizing that traffic for themselves. I was happy to use Twitter as a means of promoting the blog, but I was never under any illusion about the transactional nature of Twitter’s business model. When Instapundit and Ace of Spades subsequently stopped using Twitter, it was not so much as a protest against the banning of myself and others as it was an acknowledgement that Twitter was (and is) a parasitical growth that exploits its users.
The vague accusation that Instapundit promotes “dangerous” ideas — well, dangerous to whom? Google doesn’t want to answer that. In fact, when you get banned from their Adsense platform (as I was in 2013), you’ll find it impossible to get any answers at all from them.
Everything we learned from the release of “The Twitter Files,” and everything Republican-led congressional committees have exposed about the relationship between government agencies and Big Tech, tells us that this censorship is not random or coincidental. It is targeted and orchestrated, and the fact that they’ve now targeted Professor Reynolds (known as “the Blogfather,” because he inspired and encouraged so many others bloggers) tells you that no one is safe from this repressive regime.
Still sufficiently worn out from the convention that I called in sick to the Security Site tour and just went home, where I slept for five hours before rising to take care of this.
Silicon Valley delenda est.
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Online dating is for losers. Ask yourself, who uses dating apps? People who can’t get a date with anyone who actually knows them in real life, that’s who. Merely by downloading a dating app, you’re making a statement about yourself, and it’s not a good statement, OK? Beyond the fact that the people on dating apps are all losers — if they were winners, they wouldn’t need the app, see? — some of them are actually dangerous. As I’ve said before, “Dating apps are a great way for women to meet violent sexual predators.” But hey, it’s not like there are any dangerous people in New York City:
An accused serial predator who met his victims on the popular dating app Hinge was behind bars Tuesday after threatening to carve up a terrified girlfriend with a knife in her Queens apartment.
Handcuffed defendant Herman Brightman, 30, was held with bail following his arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on a seven-count indictment. He is accused of menacing the 28-year-old woman during the chilling Aug. 7 attack following a quarrel at her home, authorities said as the defendant stood mutely in a beige sweatshirt and a COVID mask.
The 5-foot 9, 220-pound suspect, who also goes by the name Nazir Griffiths, climbed on top of the woman, poked her with the tip of his blade and placed his hands on her mouth before threatening her life, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. Brightman and his victim had met on Hinge months earlier, her office said.
“This defendant terrorized his girlfriend in her own home,” the prosecutor said in a statement. “Wielding a knife, he threatened to gut her, he threatened to kill her. She is fortunate to have escaped with her life.”
Brightman faces additional accusations of threatening two women in the Bronx and a third in New Jersey after contacting them through Hinge, with law enforcement sources saying the FBI was considering bringing charges against him.
In the August attack, Brightman allegedly asked his girlfriend which part of her body she wanted him to cut first before directing her to turn up music playing in the background and peering out a window to check for neighbors before stating his intention to kill her. The defendant taped her mouth shut, bound her wrists behind her back and ordered her to sit in a corner of the room, prosecutors said.
The attacker spent the next six days inside the apartment before the victim convinced him to leave, according to authorities. He initially faced only misdemeanor charges until the case was declared domestic violence, leading to new charges and the decision to call for his imprisonment, the DA’s office said.
The defendant asked for a chance to speak as Tuesday’s hearing wound down, but the judge rejected the request.
Though Brightman claims on his LinkedIn page to be a nurse practitioner at the prestigious Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a hospital spokesman said they have never employed anyone by that name. Assistant District Attorney Marina Shew said the defendant had attempted to trespass at the hospital and also falsely claimed a job at Stony Brook University Hospital on Long Island. . . .
Before Brightman threatened to slash his girlfriend, he busted her computer monitor during an argument in her Queens Village apartment where he was staying after they began dating, sources said.
The fight escalated, with the defendant destroying her cell phone with a knife before threatening to butcher the woman and tying her up, they added.
The victim was eventually able to calm Brightman down and convince him to untie her, a source said. He broke down in tears at some point, the source added, and the victim was able to go to work.
Six days later, the source said, the victim told Brightman he had to leave the apartment because she had relatives coming to visit. The attacker complied, the source said, and the woman called him a short time later to end the relationship.
Brightman wasn’t done, the source said, and he asked another one of his victims, a 30-year-old Bronx woman, to call the Queens victim, apparently in an attempt to smooth things over.
But when the two women spoke, they bonded over their shared experiences with Brightman and decided to report him, the source said.
On Sept. 8, they each filed a report with the NYPD, with the Queens woman leaving to stay with relatives in Pennsylvania over fears of Brightman’s wrath, according to the source.
The Bronx woman was victimized on Sept. 6, according to court papers, in a confrontation in front of a Mott Haven building on Cypress Ave. in which he allegedly punched the woman in her arm and then grabbed her in a chokehold, one arm around her neck, the other covering her nose and mouth.
Two days later, Brightman attacked the same woman three blocks away, hurling an orange construction cone that struck her in the foot, court papers said. He then allegedly flung a 2-liter bottle of soda at her but she sidestepped it.
Brightman was arrested on Sept. 14 and charged with criminal obstruction of breathing, misdemeanor assault, harassment and weapons possession. Police tacked on a charge of obstructing governmental administration because he allegedly spit in an NYPD sergeant’s face as he was being placed in a holding cell.
He was released without bail and immediately rearrested for the Queens case. He was again released without bail because the charges, all misdemeanors, were not bail eligible, though he was ultimately indicted for second-degree kidnapping, a felony.
But while he was free, Brightman on Sept. 28 attacked another Bronx woman in her apartment on Metropolitan Ave. in the Parkchester section of the Bronx, authorities said.
“I’m going to show you who I truly am,” he said to the 29-year-old victim, according to court papers. “You think I am playing with you?”
When the victim tried to leave, he blocked the door and then threw a glass vinegar bottle at her, court papers stated. The woman retreated to her bedroom and locked the door. Brightman allegedly kicked it in, repeatedly punched her in the head and choked her until she lost consciousness, authorities said.
“Look at me,” he allegedly said before the victim blacked out. “I have nothing to lose. My dad is dying. We don’t work together anymore.”
The woman regained consciousness but the beating continued, the papers said, with Brightman yanking her to the ground by her hair.
“Kneel down,” he allegedly commanded. “You ever been beat before? This is a night you will never forget. You are not going to make it out alive tonight.” , , ,
So far as we know, he hasn’t killed anybody yet, but unless they put him behind bars, it’s probably just a matter of time. How did this monster keep getting arrested and released? Is this some kind of “criminal justice reform,” to turn loose violent predators? Meanwhile, feminists — who claim to care about “violence against women” — haven’t said a peep about Herman Brightman, for some reason . . .
Still a little tired from Son of Silvercon. It was a great time, though, and we’re already working on next year’s convention.
Silicon Valley delenda est.
In 2021, the Democrat-controlled legislature of Illinois did the nation a huge favor. In redrawing their state’s congressional districts, Illinois legislators lumped together parts of the 16th and 18th districts, thereby setting up a possible Republican primary between two incumbents, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (from the old 16th District) and Rep. Darin LaHood (from the old 18th). There was never any doubt who would win that primary in a 66% Republican district, and thus Kinzinger “retired” from Congress — immediately taking a job as a comentator on America’s least-watched news network, CNN. The anchors on CNN are always careful to introduce Kinzinger as a “former Republican congressman,” a description that is true in two senses: Kinzinger is no longer a congressman, and he hasn’t really been a Republican since November 2016, becoming a flaming bonfire of Trump Derangement Syndrome even worse than David French. So the ex-Republican ex-congressman was all over CNN today, gleefully celebrating the wretched mess in the Capitol:
CNN commentator Adam Kinzinger said Tuesday on CNN’s “News Central” that he was “very proud” of the 20 Republicans who voted against Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for speaker.
Kinzinger said, “I’m impressed that there’s 20. I was worried this morning because a lot of the hard opposition to Jordan had been capitulating in the last 24 hours, like Mike Rogers from Alabama, Ann Wagner from Missouri. They were ‘hell no’ until they were all in. This is embarrassing for Jim Jordan.”
He continued, “I think this is going to be hard for him to fix. I mean the only thing I can imagine is if he starts cutting deals and those deals include things that he’s never supported in the past. For instance, if he says I’m committed to bringing Ukraine funding on the floor he may be able to peel off one or two of those. If he says I’m committed to whatever it is, I don’t know, maybe he can get to his number, but I think this is hard.”
Kinzinger added, “The easiest thing to do if you’re a Republican is to vote for Jim Jordan the first time and go away the second time. I think you could see even more peel away on the second round, or he consolidates. Who really knows? I think it’s going to be very hard for him to become speaker now.
He concluded, “That doesn’t mean they’re not going to use blistering pressure on Fox News, NewsMax, OAN to activate the base to scare the crap out of those people. There’s a lot of brave people in those 20 that I am very proud of them today.”
The fact that Kinzinger considers the anti-Jordan GOP congressmen to be “brave people” means that they are all knaves and fools. And the fact that Kinzinger hates Jim Jordan means that Jordan must be OK.
Make Jim Jordan the next speaker, and make Adam Kinzinger sad.
Ken Buck is still a “No” on Jim Jordan for Speaker because he doesn’t like Donald Trump.
Ken Buck’s district voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
If you’re a Republican from CO-04, call 202-225-3121 and teach the Congressman a civics lesson.. pic.twitter.com/fG47pawWBk
It was a very long weekend at Son of Silvercon, but we all had fun, and everyone wants to come back next year, so I guess we will. This week’s appetizer is courtesy of Rule 5 Texan on the Twitters. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.
Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican backed by former President Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor’s race, holding off a crowded field of candidates. The win is a major victory for the GOP as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years.
Louisiana has a so-called “jungle primary,” with all candidates from every party, and this usually results in a run-off to decide the election because no candidate gets a majority, but Landry got 52% to win outright. His nearest Democratic rival got 26%, while four other GOP candidates split 13% of the votes between them. In other words, this was at least a 2-to-1 GOP landslide. What do you think this suggests for 2024? Perhaps it’s merely a local election that signifies nothing as a nationwide trend, but we’ll wait and see what happens in Kentucky next month.
