The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

FMJRA 2.0: Joy In Mudville

Posted on | September 25, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Joy In Mudville

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It was a rare and pleasant week to be a Senators fan, for the Nats went 5-3 against the Orioles. We split a two-game series at home, then went to Baltimore and took two out of three. Jim Kaat got two of the three wins, Moe Drabowsky blew two saves to account for the two losses, and Jim Bouton won the 13-inning first game at Baltimore thanks to our hitters beating the bejesus out of Mickey Lolich in relief to break a 4-4 tie. John Gelnar gave back one of the runs in the bottom of the inning (which was charged to Bouton), but struck out Lolich to end the game. Nice to be on the winning end of some blowouts for a change.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Fly the Curly W flag!

The Myth of ‘Good’ Public Schools
First Street Journal
Okrahead
Animal Magnetism
The Political Hat
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Why Isn’t Marilyn Mosby In Prison Yet?
First Street Journal
The DaleyGator
Headline Of The Day
American Free News Network
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Rule 5 Sunday: No Shipgirl Can Fight The Future
Animal Magnetism
The DaleyGator
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL

‘Humanitarian Crisis’ Update
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

A Simple Idea: ‘Four or More’
357 Magnum
EBL

The Mayor of CrazyTown, U.S.A.
The Pirate’s Cove
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Call Of The West
A View From The Beach
EBL

Crazy Weekend in the NFL
EBL

In The Mailbox: 09.19.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Crazy People Are Dangerous
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

Ukraine Forces Cross Oskil River, Advancing Toward Svatove, Kreminna
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 09.20.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Simple Question: Who Complained?
The DaleyGator
Okrahead
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 09.22.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Media Shocked: Stacey Abrams Is Unpopular With Black Men
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 09.23.22 (Afternoon Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 09.23.22 (Evening Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending September 23:

  1.  EBL (17)
  2.  357 Magnum (12)
  3.  A View From The Beach (10)
  4.  The DaleyGator (7)
  5.  Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1886

Posted on | September 24, 2022 | Comments Off on Born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1886

Louis Wolfe Gilbert emigrated to the United States as a boy and became “one of the most prolific lyricists of Tin Pan Alley.” He started out as a singer on Coney Island, eventually settled in Hollywood, where he helped popularize Cuban rumba music and “was an innovator in his field, having been one of the first songwriters to begin publishing and promoting a catalog of his own works.” He twice served as director of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Known to friends as “Wolfie,” Gilbert had his breakthrough success in 1912, when he wrote the lyrics for a tune composed by ragtime pianist Lewis Muir.

Way down on the levee in old Alabamy,
There’s Daddy and Mammy,
There’s Ephraim and Sammy.
On a moonlight night you can find them all.
While they are waiting,
The banjos are syncopating.
What’s that they’re saying?
What’s that they’re saying?
While they keep playing,
A-humming and swaying.
It’s the good ship Robert E. Lee
That’s come to carry the cotton away!

When I was a teenage trombonist in the Douglas County (Ga.) High School Marching Tiger Band, “Waiting on the Robert E. Lee” was one of the songs we played, and it never would have occurred to me that this song was co-written by a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine who almost certainly had never been to “old Alabammy,” and yet wrote what became one of the greatest hits of its age, comparable in popularity to “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” From the 1941 musical film Babes on Broadway, here’s a version by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney:

 

Scholars of Critical Race Theory could not be reached for comment, but in defense of Judy and Mickey, I’ll point out that this was the popular culture of the nation that defeated Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini.

This afternoon, “Waiting on the Robert E. Lee” came to mind because I’m in Parkersburg, W.V., where they had a special memorial for my wife’s late cousin, David Scott “Scotty” Wilson. As the obituary said, “Scott held many jobs in his life, but the job that he loved the most was when he worked on the P.A. Denny sternwheeler.” This riverboat plies the Ohio River from Point Park in Parkersburg, frequently visiting historic Blennerhassett Island. Today in memory of Scotty, his whole family took a cruise down the river aboard the P.A. Denny.

It was a splendid outing on a beautiful afternoon, and I’d never been on a riverboat, but I was happy to “join that shuffling throng.”

Go take your best gal, real pal
Go down to the levee, I said to the levee,
And join that shuffling throng,
Hear that music and song!
It’s simply great, mate, waiting on the levee,
Waiting for the Robert E. Lee!

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!




 

Category: History, Music

A Death in ‘Killadelphia’

Posted on | September 24, 2022 | Comments Off on A Death in ‘Killadelphia’

Everett Beauregard, 23, was just walking down North 35th Street in Philadelphia when he was shot to death by a stranger:

Philadelphia police are searching for a suspect who fatally shot Everett Beauregard, a recent Temple University graduate, on a sidewalk in West Philadelphia at 12:30 a.m. Thursday.
The shooting occurred as Beauregard was walking home from a SEPTA station after a night out with friends. The suspect approached Beauregard from the opposite direction on the 400 block of North 35th Street and fired several shots, police said. One of them struck the Beauregard in the neck, severing his spinal cord.
By the time officers arrived, the gunman was gone and no weapons were found at the scene. Beauregard was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died.
On Friday, police released surveillance video that shows the suspect in the moments leading up to the shooting. The gunman is seen passing Beauregard before turning around and firing at him. He then is seen fleeing north on 35th Street. Four shots were fired, including one as the man left the scene with Beauregard already on the ground.
“Not a word was spoken between the two prior to the offender shooting Mr. Beauregard in the back,” Philadelphia Police Captain Jason Smith said.
Beauregard, 23, a Chester County native, had graduated from Temple in June and had been working as an operations processor for Wells Fargo in Philadelphia, according to his LinkedIn page. He attended Great Valley High School and had volunteered in local and national politics in recent years, including time spent as an intern for Democratic U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle and state Rep. Kristine Howard.
Surveillance footage first shows the gunman in the area near the shooting at 11:20 p.m. Wednesday, investigators said. He was seen walking around with his right hand in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, apparently armed and “looking for trouble,” Smith said.
Police called the shooting an “unprovoked murder,” adding there were no signs of an attempted robbery or an argument.

 

This happened near the campus of Drexel University. There have been 393 homicides in Philadelphia so far this year, but Dana Pico at First Street Journal notes the “white privilege” in this case: Philadelphia media seldom name the murder victims in the city, the vast majority of whom are black. But let a white college graduate get shot and — oh, boy! — that’s big news. Guarantee you that if they catch this perp, he’ll have a lengthy criminal record, having been turned loose by Philadelphia’s Soros-backed DA Larry Krasner. Because “social justice.”




 

Category: Crime, Pennsylvania

In The Mailbox: 09.23.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | September 24, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.23.22 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Found on MeWe

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Does Manhattan’s DA Even Believe Rape Is A Crime?
EBL: The Persecution of FBI Whistleblower Steve Friend
Twitchy: Joe Biden Blames Republicans For Inflation, also, Governor Hair Gel Had A Plan To Eliminate San Fran’s Homeless Problem In 10 Years – Back In 2008
Louder With Crowder: Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) WRECKS Biden’s economic policy in only two minutes, also, Gay rights activist SLAYS against another school board looking to indoctrinate ten-year-olds
Vox Popoli: Correction, Abandoning the Indefensible, and Doug Wilson is a Christian
According To Hoyt: Sorry And A Sad Announcement, also, Let’s Separate State and Education
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo 23 Ep11: the Problem With Problematic Authors, also, Armstrong and the Mexican Mystery
Stoic Observations: What Manner Of Black Man?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: James Bond, Eunuch, Giorgia Meloni: The Woman Of Europe’s Future, and The Sexual Revolution Eats Its Own
American Greatness: Democrats Continue to Lie About Police Deaths on January 6, also, Martha’s Vineyard Residents Wallow in Their Disgusting Hypocrisy
American Thinker: The Current Crime Wave Is Unlike Any Ever Experienced In America, Running the World into the Ground, and K–12: The Science of Illiteracy
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Silent Majority Friday
Babalu Blog: A dozen Cuban July 11 political prisoners on hunger strike, 15 others seriously ill and denied medical care, Three more baseball players flee communist Cuba in the span of 48 hours, and The price of the U.S. dollar in Cuba keeps going up, up, up…
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for September 23, also, Details On Russia’s Mobilization
Behind The Black: Astrobotic gets ESA’s first commercially purchased lunar lander payload, Range gives NASA waiver to launch SLS on September 27th, despite a questionable flight termination system, and Pushback: Professor fired for making joke wins $165K settlement from university
Cafe Hayek: Don’t Trust Antitrust
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Odd Ime Udoka Thoughts Under the Fedora
Don Surber: Mother Africa didn’t want you, also, Hunter may end Democrat privilege
First Street Journal: Do ‘progressive’ prosecutors equal bloody streets?, Being taught about white privilege by The Philadelphia Inquirer, and With 100 days left in the year, Lexington is just one homicide short of tying its all-time record
Gates Of Vienna: Train is Moving!, The Dutch State of the Union, and The Muslim Brotherhood in France, Part 5
The Geller Report: Pennsylvania County Sues Dominion Voting Systems, also, Ron DeSantis Shows Biden How It’s Done
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Fact Checking a Fact Chekist, and Don’t Know Much About History
Hollywood In Toto: How Bad Words Paved Jason Bateman’s Path to Ozark, also, Canceled Stars & Shows Find New Places to Shine
The Lid: Zuckerberg Sued Over Attempt To Control 2020 Election
Legal Insurrection: John Fetterman Campaign Walks Back Idea to Free Second-Degree Murderers From Prison, ‘Road to Hell for America’, Mondaire Jones Called out During House Meeting After Spouting Debunked Lie About Brian Sicknick’s Death, and CDC Officials Now Warning That STD Epidemic in US is ‘Out of Control’
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday: Purdy Edition
Outkick: Albert Pujols Hits 700th Career Home Run, Celtics Coach Ime Udoka Suspended For Entire Season, Woke Off: Malika Andrews Tops Stephen A. In Battle Over Victimhood In Ime Udoka Suspension, and NASCAR’s Latest Ratings Dive Is More Alarming Than You Think
Power Line: Conservatism Is Prohibited, Thoughts from the ammo line, On Feeding Our Future, a Blockbuster Development, and Thought for the Day: Chesterton on Virtue and Vice
Shark Tank: Team Rubio Says Demings Is Hiding
Shot In The Dark: Campaigning 102, also, The Real Enemy
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Southern Imagination
This Ain’t Hell: Fat Leonard Captured, Valor Friday, Air Force cadets told to use use gender-neutral language, and Jennifer Rubin claims that the media is protecting Trump supporters
Victory Girls: Newsom Twists Bible For Abortion Billboards, also, Jan 6 Twitter Whistleblower Bravely Outs Herself
Volokh Conspiracy: Yeshiva University Loses On The Shadow Docket, Wins On The Penumbra Docket
Watts Up With That: America Is Successfully Pursuing ESG = Extreme Shortages Guaranteed, also, LIVE AT NOON CDT: Bankers Reject Net-Zero Transition
Weasel Zippers: Incoherent John Fetterman Tells Crowd, “Send Us Back To New Jersey! Send Me To D.C. For You!”, GOP Lays Out Plan To Fix America, Schumer Immediately Calls It Radical MAGA Whatever Whatever, and In Just Over Two Years Since Biden Was Installed As President, Americans Have Lost $4,200 Per Household
The Federalist: Flint, MI Clerk Resigns After Elections Group Calls Out Lopsided Number Of Democrat Poll Watchers, Democrats’ War On Charter Schools Is Sending Families Into The Arms Of The GOP, Left-Wing Group Writes Playbook For Biden’s Federal Takeover Of Elections, and ‘Woke Homophobia Is Real’
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet: Friday September 23rd, also, What a Fool Believes

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 09.23.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | September 23, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.23.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

h/t Hopalong Ginsberg on MeWe

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL:  Biden Inflation Blues, also, Obama Had Classified Docs in an Unsecured Furniture Warehouse
Twitchy: Iranian Man Learns He Can’t Just Slap A Woman In Public Any More, also, Vet Explains Why Nobody Wants To Enlist Now
Louder With Crowder: Shop teacher Kayla Lemieux with those enormous fake knockers debuts their new poolside look
Vox Popoli: Please Don’t Hit Us, Serbia Calls Out NATO’s Double Standard, and Yes, They ARE Trying to Kill You

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Holding Ground, Losing War, also, Leave Crimea Alone
American Greatness: FBI Retaliates Against Whistleblower After He Objects to SWAT Raids Against Jan 6 Subjects
American Thinker: Are Democrats Deliberately Choosing Impaired Candidates?, also, Can the GOP Accommodate Two Rock Stars?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Reparations News
Babalu Blog: White House to resume visa processing at embassy in Cuba, but releases no plan to protect American diplomats, Why people still believe in socialism, and Another very old general in Cuba’s military junta dies, so do young Cubans infected with dengue
BattleSwarm: Putin Chooses Mobilization, Sham Referendum, Continuing Humiliation
Behind The Black: How private enterprise is solving the vulnerability of satellites to military attack, Musk: Starship orbital attempt by November, at the latest, and Today’s blacklisted American: Google, Paypal, Venmo team up to blacklist a gay organization
Cafe Hayek: There’s More to It Than That Which Meets the Eye
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: One More Think About All Those Scrubbed Web Sites and Secrets From Parents A Lesson from David, also, The squabbling between Conservatives and Libertarians is disheartening and unnecessary
Don Surber: DeSantis just cost Biden the midterms, also, A crisis so urgent, liberals will act in 18 years
Gates Of Vienna: The Bottomless Corruption of the Ukrainian State, also, Authorizing the Killing Fields
The Geller Report: ‘Climate Emergency’ Is a Hoax, International Study Finds, Air Force Academy Diversity Training Tells Cadets: “Don’t Say Terrorist,” “Include All Genders?”‘ Drop ‘Mom and Dad’, and COMPLAINT FILED: IRS Must Look Into Tax Breaks Zuckerberg Received For 2020 Election Rigging
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, JWST Looks at Neptune, and Welcome to Autumn
Hollywood In Toto: Why ‘Gutfeld!’ Matters Even More Than Conservatives Think
The Lid: Martha’s Vineyard ‘Sanctuary’ Deports 50 Illegal Immigrants. So Why Can’t America?
Legal Insurrection: WH Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Says Biden Didn’t Mean to Say Pandemic is ‘Over’, Gavin Newsom Blames Trump for People Leaving California, 1,800 STEM Scholars Argue Against Proposal in California to ‘Dumb Down K-12 Math’, and WaPo ‘Fact Checker’ Glenn Kessler Spreads Stacey Abrams’ Lie
Nebraska Energy Observer: Memory lane
Outkick: Richard Sherman Takes Unnecessary Shot At Russell Wilson, Yankees Tickets Are Going For As Much As $45,000 To See Aaron Judge Hit #62, Stephen A. Smith Says Ime Udoka Could Get Away With Improper Relationship With Woman If He Were White, and Former Teammate Puts Brett Favre In A Body Bag For Alleged Welfare Fraud
Power Line: Democrats Move to Criminalize Opposition, Thought for the Day: de Jouvenel’s Warning, and The coming Shoganate
Shark Tank: DeSantis Moves To Block Red China From Buying Land Around Military Bases
Shot In The Dark: Pet Peeve, One Definition Of Insanity, and Your Tax Dollars At Work
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – Racial Wokeness: Racial Quotas; Racial Bans; Racism For Cash
This Ain’t Hell: Some good news for a change!, Stolen Valor alleged against Ohio GOP House Candidate, and Kamala Harris meme triggers violent leftist reaction
Transterrestrial Musings: On Putin’s Speech, also, Sweden Moves To The Right
Victory Girls: Ginni Thomas To Meet With Jan 6 Committee, also, Fauci Flips On Lockdown Damage And China
Volokh Conspiracy: Vladimir Putin’s Partial Mobilization Order Strengthens the Case for Opening Western Doors to Russians Fleeing His Regime
Watts Up With That: Polar Bear No Closer to Extinction Than It Was 18 Years Ago as Arctic Sea Ice Resists ‘Tipping Point’
Weasel Zippers: Obama Foundation Is Keeping Tons Of Classified Documents In An Abandoned Warehouse, CA Dem Gov. Newsom Puts Up Pro-Abortion Billboards In Red States, Occasional Cortex Says Because Of “Burdens Of Capitalism” People Can’t Have Kids, and California Looks To Ban Diesel-Powered Trucks To Rectify “Decades Of Racist Practices”
The Federalist: How Activists Use Your Tax Dollars To Sexualize Kids At School, Republicans Using The Democratic Process To Win Local Elections Threatens Democracy, Says NYT, If Matt Walsh’s Reporting Is ‘Dangerous,’ What Is Biden-Backed ‘MAGA Extremism’ Rhetoric That Got A Teen Killed?, and Masters Gets More Support After McConnell Dumps Opportunity To Help Pick Up Arizona Senate Seat
Mark Steyn: Shaming the Shameless

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Category: Linkagery

Media Shocked: Stacey Abrams Is Unpopular With Black Men

Posted on | September 23, 2022 | Comments Off on Media Shocked: Stacey Abrams Is Unpopular With Black Men

Of course, by “unpopular” they mean she only gets 75% — Democrats normally get more than 90% of the black vote, but the gap-toothed water buffalo is struggling significantly below that level:

In 2018, Abrams came within 55,000 votes of defeating Republican Brian Kemp thanks to a surge of votes from Black Georgians. She energized voters of color who often skipped midterms with a liberal platform and a history-making appeal to become the first Black governor in state history.
In 2022, however, the Democrat is struggling to solidify her support with African American voters she must mobilize to win the rematch.
A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll underscored her difficulties, showing she has 79% of support from Black voters. While that might appear to be a lofty number, Democrats typically poll at least 10 percentage points higher with Black voters. Among Black men, Abrams’ support dips to 75%, with an additional one-fifth backing Kemp and 6% undecided.
It’s no anomaly. Other recent polls have indicated Abrams has lagging support among voters of color, and Kemp is notching double-digit backing from Black Georgians in a string of surveys released this week.

By the way, in calling Abrams a “gap-toothed water buffalo,” I deliberately repeat one of my favorite tales of liberal campus hysteria: In 1993, at the University of Pennsylvania, a group of pledges from the black Delta Sigma Theta sorority were doing some sort of noisy initiation ritual outside a dormitory when a student named Eden Jacobowitz allegedly shouted at them: “Shut up, you water buffalo! If you’re looking for a party, there’s a zoo a mile from here,” It was immediately declared that “water buffalo” was a racial slur but, in defense of Jacobowitz, it was pointed out that (a) he was from Israel and (b) the Hebrew word for water buffalo is behema, used as slang for “a loud, rowdy person.”

Which is, of course, what I had in mind. Also, she’s fat.

Whether this has anything to do with Abrams’ relatively low level of support among black men, I don’t know. But what mystifies me is that this poll shows that 24% of white voters in Georgia support Abrams. Who are these people? How do they justify supporting this behema?

Eden Jacobowitz could not be reached for comment.




 

Category: Election, Georgia, Polls

In The Mailbox: 09.22.22

Posted on | September 23, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.22.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1847
357 Magnum: All Your Password Are Belong To Us
EBL: Ukrainians Make Progress
Twitchy: Wheels Widens Lead Over Beta*,  also, What Is Pelosi Smoking?
Louder With Crowder: Maren Morris still won’t calm down about Brittany Aldean, also, Guy who went bananas and smashed up a McDonald’s with an axe wants you to know he’s not a bad guy
Vox Popoli: Phase 2 Begins, The Pathway to Proof, and The Cancellation of Dilbert

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Atrocity At Vanderbilt, Gays Against Groomers Get Financially Deplatformed, and Why Does The NEA Want Kids To Learn Butthole-Licking?
American Greatness: Joe Biden Was Deeply Involved With Selling U.S. Natural Gas to the ChiComs, New Docs and Whistleblowers Reveal
American Power: ‘Crime Is a Construct’: My Morning With the Park Slope Panthers, also, Putin Orders Draft of Reservists for War in Ukraine, Threatens Nuclear Response
American Thinker: The Jab Put Me on a Journey I Didn’t Expect — Or Want, also, A Figurehead Fiddles While America Burns
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: DeSantis campaign launches ‘Cubans against Karla Marx’ t-shirts, Cuban dictatorship desperately trying to attract Canadian and Russian tourists to its apartheid hotels, and Rabid Cuban communist journalist who spewed propaganda and bullied colleagues now living in U.S. under new name
BattleSwarm: Republican Senators Ask For Special Prosecutor For Hunter Biden, also, Ian McCollum and Nicholas Moran Team Up To Talk About The German .50BMG (Or Lack Thereof)
Behind The Black: Russia launches three astronauts to ISS; China launches Earth observation satellite, OneWeb announces delivery of 36 satellites to India for launch, Ingenuity completes 32nd flight, and Pushback: NY cops fight city’s COVID jab mandate
Cafe Hayek: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Meet the real engine of equality”
CDR Salamander: What NATO Must Do 01JAN24
Chicago Boyz: 
Da Tech Guy: Prediction: If You Think the Cigarette Lawsuits & Settlements Were Something Wait Till the Transgender Suits Against Children’s Hospitals Start Coming, Philly: A Soros’ surrogate faces blowback, and An Army of Sollozzos and Barzinis at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Don Surber: Making VD great again, Harvard: 55% fear socialism, 45% fear MAGA, and Nine states Republicans can flip
First Street Journal: The Dummkopf from Delaware really doesn’t have a clue, also, What a surprise! Lithium prices are increasing as countries push electric cars
Gates Of Vienna: The Red-Green Fusion, also, Requiem for a Culture, Part 1: The Sentinel
The Geller Report: Google Rigged The 2020 Election, 950 Pages of Leaked Internal Documents Show, also, Democrat Who Murdered Teen Acted On Biden’s ‘Republican Extremism’ Rhetoric, Cited It To Justify His Act
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, The Fornax Dwarf, and When North Korea Is Embarrassed To Be Your Ally 
Hollywood In Toto: Conservatives Still Lagging (Way) Behind in Culture War Fight, also, Amy Schumer’s Cancel Culture Fears Are Fake News
The Lid: Nikki Haley Responds To Sunny Hostin’s Racist Attack On Her Name
Legal Insurrection: Mar-a-Lago Raid: 11th Circuit Grants Partial Stay of District Court Special Master Order As To Documents Marked Classified, PayPal, Venmo, & Google Purging Wrongthink, Biden Admin Plans to Regulate Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets, and Man Admits Running Down and Killing Teenager, Claiming He Was a ‘Republican Extremist’
Michelle Malkin: They’re All Open-Borders Hypocrites
Nebraska Energy Observer: Lupus Tenebrosus: Chapter 24
Outkick: Joe Burrow Says He Quit Social Media To Focus on Winning, Cringe Russell Wilson Is Back, Phoenix Suns Owner Robert Sarver Intends To Sell Team, and Yankees Superstar Aaron Judge Hits Historic 60th Home Run; One Away From All-Time AL Record
Power Line: Take a Lemon, also, A Video Interlude: About Those Electric Vehicles
Shark Tank: Rick Scott & Others Call Out FDA For Ignoring Baby Formula Applications
Shot In The Dark: The DFL’s No Good, Very Bad Day Part I: Polled, The DFL’s No Good, Very Bad Day Part II: Police On My Back, and The DFL’s No Good, Very Bad Day Part III: Follow The Money
The Political Hat: Wokeness Sneaks In Sub Rosa, also, Michigan Schools — Out: Education. In: Dismantling Society
This Ain’t Hell: Army SMA says don’t do mandatory training. Huh?, Potential additional Russian military mobilization, Americans more concerned about socialist left than about MAGA Republicans, and Semper Supra- USSF Announces Anthem
Transterrestrial Musings: Ukraine Thoughts And Trends, also, Another Aspect Of The Genocide
Victory Girls: The Incredibly Brave Hijab Burning Women Of Iran, also, Andrew Cuomo Big Mad That Democrats Dumped Him
Volokh Conspiracy: Did Nina Totenberg Have a Conflict of Interest in Covering Justice Ginsburg?
Watts Up With That: Collapse Of Energy, Food, Transportation Systems Prompt Calls for Government Nationalization of Industries
Weasel Zippers: NTSB Says All Vehicles Need Device To Detect If You Are Drunk, DeSantis Reveals Consent Forms Illegals Signed BEFORE Going To Martha’s Vineyard, Poll: Americans Trust Republicans More Than Dems To Handle The Economy By 52% To 38% Margin, and Putin Admits His Army Too Pathetic And Ragged To Beat A Third World Hellhole Like Ukraine, Needs Nuclear Weapons To Win
The Federalist: Budget Analysts Conclude Biden Policies Will Add $4.8 Trillion To National Debt, McConnell Abandons Arizona Senate Race To Maintain A GOP He Can Control, Inside The Mysterious Disappearance Of The Young Adult Dystopian Genre, and Will Fake News Purveyor Catherine Cortez Masto Vote To Confirm Biden’s Radical FCC Nominee?
Mark Steyn: A Land of Selective Laws

*According to a recently seen banner, “0% Latino, 100% Pendejo”

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Category: Linkagery

Simple Question: Who Complained?

Posted on | September 21, 2022 | Comments Off on Simple Question: Who Complained?

British journalist Toby Young reports that PayPal shut down the accounts of his Daily Sceptic site, as well as the Free Speech Union, a non-profit he created. When he inquired about the cause of this deplatforming, Young received an email that included this bit of boilerplate “explanation”:

PayPal’s policy is not to allow our services to be used for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance. We regularly assess activity against our long-standing Acceptable Use Policy and carefully review actions reported to us, and will discontinue our relationship with account holders who are found to violate our policies.

To which Young responds:

That message was a bit weird since it didn’t explicitly accuse the Daily Sceptic of promoting “hate, violence or racial intolerance”, or say that that was how we’d violated its precious policy. But it certainly implied it. To which my response is: How exactly? Or, more profanely: What the f*** are you talking about?

The obvious solution to this problem is to file a lawsuit for breach of contract, and perhaps also for defamation, since it is obviously false that Young is a promoter of “hate, violence or racial intolerance.” Through the process of discovery, Young hopefully would be able to find the answers to a few crucial questions, including what it was exactly that led to this deplatforming. Young’s site has bucked the conventional wisdom on several issues, including COVID-19 policy, transgenderism and the war in Ukraine, any one of which might have caused a complaint.

More importantly, who filed this complaint? Because how likely is it that PayPal would deplatform a popular site on the basis of a complaint from a random anonymous nobody? Doesn’t it seem more likely that, as with the case of Twitter banning COVID-19 policy critics Naomi Wolf and Alex Berenson, government pressure was involved in this decision?

This is what’s wrong with the arguments of those who defend deplatforming when done by Big Tech corporations — at what point do such actions become indistinguishable from government-imposed censorship? If these business exhibit a clear partisan bias in their decisions to ban people then (a) isn’t it likely that one party will benefit politically from this bias? and (b) once that party controls the government, isn’t it likely that they’ll leverage Big Tech to punish or silence critics of government policy? At some point on this trajectory, it becomes corporate-sponsored totalitarianism.

For example, how far are we permitted to go in criticizing U.S. policy in Ukraine before somebody at the State Department decides to have a friendly chat with lobbyists from Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc., to explain why such criticism should be suppressed? And if the government can do this over Ukraine policy (or COVID-19 or transgenderism), then why shouldn’t they do this on every controversial issue?

Different people are going to have different opinions as to where the lines should be drawn in such matters — really, does a private company have an obligation to provide services to neo-Nazis or Islamic radicals? — but it is important to know why such decisions are being made. There ought to be some kind of requirement for corporate transparency in these matters, because otherwise people will get banned without even knowing what caused the ban or who made the decision.

(Hat-tip: John Tierney at Instapundit.)




 

Category: Conspiracy Theories
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