Tag: Big Brother

Hickory Tikory Tok

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“The House ran out the clock…”

If it gets to the House, we can hope that’s what happens to Senate bill 686, the RESTRICT Act: Never put to a vote.

That bill is actually peripheral to this post, but is a perfect example of extending surveillance-state tentacles (which we’ll get to).

Ostensibly, the bill defends us against the CCP controlled TikTok spyware – beloved of goofy pre-teens and sinister trans-activists.

I also detest TikTok. Its CCP data gathering on our youth is unacceptable, and its transactivist influencer contingent is culturally corrosive. It should, at least, have age limitations applied to some of its more vile content, with solid parental locking capability. Knock, knock Jeffrey Marsh. We don’t have to respect you even a tiny bit. In fact, we despise you for your pride in being a groomer.

But the RESTRICT bill includes no such provisions; it is written without even reference to ““TikTok,” or parent company “ByteDance,” or even “social media.”” Much less the Chinese Communist Party. That mention could be problematic for Gretchen Whitmer, so I get why the bill can’t name China.

TikTok should be certainly be banned on government devices. In fact, any government employee so unaware of TikTok’s pedigree as to have it on their government device should be fired. It’s not like these people aren’t “woke”, of course they are, it’s that they’re not AWARE. But, ignorance is not only not an excuse, it’s a sign of national security cluelessness. Loose clicks sink ships.

Or, more commonsensically, all government devices could ALREADY be set up to prohibit TikTok installation and block any access to it. Do it by executive order, since it affects only employees – supposedly loyal.

However, there’s no surveillance-state advantage in something so simple.

The RESTRICT Act Would Restrict a Lot More Than TikTok

RESTRICT, as written, simply expands and cements the power of government to abrogate the First Amendment as described below.

We can’t shoot down a Chinese spy balloon while it’s actively, successfully spying, but we can extend state control over Americans watching their kids do silly dances on a Chinese spy app – which the government hasn’t absolutely banned on every device it owns.

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The rest of this post offers links to some articles which may be too long for your interest. I post them even so because they describe, without hyperbole, an imminently serious threat to the Republic of the United States. Even if you don’t want to spend the time now, they may become a reference for you when you need to provide a Progressive you know with reasoned information about the danger to a way of life they don’t even understand as their own. I have a suggestion.

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Who is doing anything about this?

Whether Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter will be successful is a question still in doubt for certain definitions of “success.” I’m looking at it as a defense of Enlightenment values, freedom of conscience being the foundational moral imperative.

I do not think the measure is whether it becomes a profitable business. Musk did not buy it for that reason.

I hope profitability eventuates, because we desperately need a continuing social media space not attached at the hip to, or gripped around the throat by, myriad US agencies forming alliances with private companies eager to subvert the First Amendment.

Significant Twitter personnel changes were a bare start in blunting the public-pirate (AKA fascist) alliance against free speech. More importantly, we have insight to the corruption from Musk’s release of internal documents (the “Twitter Files”) and source code algorithms.

The public’s glimpses into the early stages of the transformation of America from democracy to digital leviathan are the result of lawsuits and FOIAs—information that had to be pried from the security state—and one lucky fluke. If Elon Musk had not decided to purchase Twitter, many of the crucial details in the history of American politics in the Trump era would have remained secret, possibly forever.

That quote is from an important, sober – and sobering – recent history of America’s public/pirate surveillance state.

It’s also long, but if you want to better understand the stakes – and what I hope could eventually be Musk’s success – it is a must read. Incisive and insightful.
A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century – Tablet Magazine
13000 words

Mentioned in the preceding article, a scathing in depth analysis from the Columbia Journalism Review of the mendacious “Russiagate” media coverage.
The press versus the president, parts one through 4
Part 1
6200 words
Part 2
6500 words
Part 3
4800 words
Part 4
8700 words

Running List of All Twitter Files Releases (summarized with links to detail)
? words

Agar Agar

Hershblogger2 Comments

…is a medium used to grow bacteria in petri dishes. Facebook is the social media equivalent.

Personally, I detest Facebook. But the recent spew of Maim Scream Media™ stories about the company are not what they seem.

These are based on “shocking” revelations, which are neither new nor surprising. Is there really anyone who believes that Facebook does not exploit its users? Does anyone imagine Facebook is not biased toward leftwing politics? Did anyone think that Facebook invented teenage angst?

Before you look at the following links, there are a couple of things you need to know about the Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen. Most important is the fact that as a member of Facebook’s internal Civic Integrity team she was likely involved in the decision to suppress the New York Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop story. Adding credence to the idea that she’s fine with corporate censorship as long as it favors leftists, is her choice of friends: Jen Psaki’s PR firm and Eric Ciaramella’s legal team. Ciaramella is the execrable Adam Schiff’s fake whistleblower regarding Trump’s Ukraine phone conversation – of which Ciaramella had NO direct knowledge.

It is reasonable to suppose that Haugen, a heavy donor to leftist causes and politicians, is not looking to provide balanced information about Facebook’s political censorship. The following links are probably more than you want to read, but if you are interested in Huagen’s motives you should read a couple. Her ‘whistleblowing’ is part of a plan to convert Facebook to a wholly owned subsidiary of Progressive propaganda.

Democrats and Media Do Not Want to Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer its Power to Censor
-Glenn Greenwald, Substack

Human Events Exclusive: Fmr. Facebook Official Frances Haugen Plans to Testify to EU, Called Her Friend Conspiracy Theorist After Becoming a Men’s Rights Advocate/Red Pill Supporter
-Jack Posobiec, Human Events

Facebook ‘operating in the shadows’ says whistleblower, lawmakers demand probes
– David Shepardson and Diane Bartz, Reuters

The point of these next two is that our politicians want the powers other governments are already exercising. It can happen here if politicians are successful in this attempt. Speech is violence, after all, and school boards need spaces safe from parents.

Singapore Passes Foreign Interference Law Allowing Authorities To Block Internet Content
– msmash, Slashdot

Canadian government’s proposed online harms legislation threatens our human rights
– Ilan Kogan, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Canada already bribes subsidizes journalists)

These tell you what’s already happening here:

Democrats’ push for $50,000-per-year journalist tax credit sparks GOP ‘media collusion’ accusations
– Haris Alic, The Washington Times

Accidental leak reveals US government has secretly hit Google with ‘keyword warrants’ to identify ANYONE searching certain names, addresses, and phone numbers
– Natasha Anderson, Dailymail.com

So. I am not on the current bandwagon to pass legislation affecting Facebook. Yeah, social media in general is a leftist shithole, but any Democrat inspired bill is merely intended to cement that.

I do not want the people blocking stories about Hunter Biden, suppressing discussion of alternate CCP virus therapy, banning a former President of the United States for life, or otherwise manipulating opinion, to be taken over by the Feds.

How many divisions has Brett Kavanaugh?

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If a rent moratorium extension had been passed by the Democrat controlled House (which went on vacation instead), the measure would be almost certain to fail in the Senate. Senate Democrats need 10 Senate Republicans to overcome the filibuster.

I think it’s fair to call the extension anti-democratic. It’s election fraud. What’s the point of electing Senators if the Executive Branch is going to ignore the Constitution whenever the House deliberately invites illegal executive orders?

To review:

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

– Joseph Robinette Biden

“I, Brett Kavanaugh, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

“I, Brett Kavanaugh, do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as Justice of the Supreme Court under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

– Brett Michael Kavanaugh

“Because the CDC plans to end the moratorium in only a few weeks, on July 31, and because those few weeks will allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds, I vote at this time to deny the application to vacate the District Court’s stay of its order… clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31.”

– Brett Michael Kavanaugh

How’d that squeamish forbearance work out for ya, Brett? It didn’t work out so well for the rule of law, or the reputation of the Supreme Court.

“I have been informed [the CDC is] about to make a judgment as to potential other options. Whether that option will pass constitutional measure with this administration, I can’t tell you. I don’t know. The bulk of the constitutional scholarship says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster. … But there are several key scholars who think that it may and it’s worth the effort.”

– Joseph Robinette Biden, outsourcing his job to “several key scholars.” The “consensus” only matters for “climate change?”

But, just a few days ago he said he did know, “Whether that option will pass constitutional measure.”

“Given the recent spread of the delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available.”

– White House statement

Channeling Stalin’s question, “How many divisions does the Pope have?”, Maxine Waters, clarified that for Mr. Biden:

“I don’t buy that the CDC can’t extend the eviction moratorium – something it has already done in the past! Who is going to stop them? Who is going to penalize them? There is no official ruling saying that they cannot extend this moratorium. C’mon CDC – have a heart! Just do it!”

— Maxine Waters

Either Brett Kavanaugh is not an “official,” or SCOTUS rulings are irrelevant if they inconvenience Mad Maxine. Or both.

Thanks Brett.

96 Tears

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“We’ll be together
for just a little while.
And then I’m gonna put you
way down here.”
-? and the Mysterians

The reasons anyone would prefer Joe Biden for president range from habitual ignorance, to Trump Derangement Syndrome, to race hustling therapeutic totalitarianism*. Unlike what we’re told is the only proper way to regard gender, however, this is not a spectrum. That is, there are only the three camps. They are not mutually exclusive.

The most numerous is the first; those the Democrat leadership regard as “Deplorables… but they’re OUR deplorables.”

Then there is the cabal of elite academicians, main stream media, deep state bureaucrats, social media crony capitalists, and Uniparty apparatchiks. They form the single nationwide Progressive ruling class – who are upset that Beltway corruption as usual is being revealed and threatened.

Finally, there are the anarchist foot-soldiers rioting, looting, and committing murder and arson.

The central point of agreement seems to be that the United States is a malignant society that merits punishment.

I started to list more specific policy reasons not to vote for Joe Biden, but sickened of it. I want to pass along, however, something I received from a friend that prompted the attempt.
Why Did it Have to be … Guns? by L. Neil Smith

And here’s a related piece on the same topic I reread every few months.
Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun

The masks have dropped on much of the collectivist agenda. Perhaps none more so than Biden’s promise to put Beto “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” O’Rourke in charge of banning guns.

*Credit Rod Dreher

Never is heard a discouraging word

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COVID-19 shows we’re more risk averse than post-World War II Americans

Of course. Because the Nanny State has been reaching out from university campuses for decades: Where ‘safe spaces’ segregated by race and ‘gender’ are festooned with the adult coloring books, Play-Doh, blankies, and puppy videos with which the road to serfdom infantilization ‘maturity’ is now paved.

I remain convinced the students who flocked to beaches during Spring Break were foolish given what we didn’t know about the CCP virus. Still, they behaved admirably compared to those adults somewhat older people who now huddle in their houses, swaddled in bubble wrap, providing the fodder for Karen memes, and cheering Governor Witless’ arbitrary edicts.

Balls to you, Google

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Yesterday, TOC examined the Washington Post‘s disgust with Google and Apple for not creating a centralized database so government can retain information about each American’s whereabouts at all times.

I applaud both companies for this nod to privacy, but there is a catch or two when you consider Google’s other activities.

Google appears to fear the possible widespread condemnation of any such tracking app much more than any outcry over other surveillance and thought control initiatives.

Big Tech Is Turning Hospitals Into Real-Time Surveillance Centers

That’s not creepy. Right? I mean who would object to HD video of the insertion of their Foley catheter?

Personally, I regret not having a picture of my testicles when they were the size of volleyballs from IV fluids. It’s hard to get people to believe it. Nobody has ever asked to see a picture, though.

But a video? Think of the viral monetization potential with the right caption. If U of M had been filming it, I’m sure some interns would be streaming it even now.

YouTube Auto Deletes Comments With Terms That Insult Chinese Communist Party

I wonder if YouTube keeps a log of these auto-deleted CCP criticisms in order to match them up with your Google searches for “Wuhan flu.” You know, just in case evidence is needed later in the show-trials.

The Spanish flu app

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I don’t want to send any traffic to this totalitarian screed, so no link.

Apple and Google are building a virus-tracking system. Health officials say it will be practically useless.
The tech giants have refused officials’ pleas to allow the collection of location data and to help contact-tracing teams learn where new infections have spread.

It’s a Washington Post article, execrable even by their abysmal standards. It assumes the CCP virus pandemic logically requires suspension of individual rights. The poor official’s pleas have been ignored. Well… not so much pleas as authoritarian demands.

Let’s start with some truth in headlining: It’s a people tracking system, not a virus tracking system. Viruses do not carry cell phones. Too bad.

The authors do go so far as to quote, without rebuttal, the director of research at a D.C. think tank “devoted to reducing the power of monopolies,” that if virus exposure tracking apps do not default to continuously tracking the location data of every individual, and record this in a centralized, health official accessible database:

“You have a private government [Google and Apple] that is making choices over your society instead of democratic governments being able to make those choices.”

Freedom respecting government does not pose this choice, except to informed volunteers. The WaPo scribblers do not even consider leaving privacy choices to individuals: Mob-majority governments which routinely reveal private information to health officials is the only useful approach. The Chinese Communist Party’s social credit program has already incorporated this insight. We don’t need that here.

Daring Fireball nails it, and gives a great overview creating no WaPo traffic. RTWT

WaPo reporters Reed Albergotti and Drew Harwell parade before us a series of public health officials and Progressive Think Tank spokesperps unleashing their inner fascist. It is discomfiting that the WaPo can find so many. Albergotti and Harwell conclude that Apple and Google are to be roundly castigated for placing individuals over the collective.

They are telling us salvation is in trusting the politicians and bureaucrats who oversaw such luminaries as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, secured the DNC email server, and were held accountable (not) for the 21.5 million stolen records at the United States Office of Personnel Management (Including fingerprints!), 26.5 million at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, 76 million at the National Archives and Records Administration, and 191 million from the U.S. Voter Database. Just to mention some of the more egregious examples of government care for citizen’s information.

And this talk about “private government,” with no mention of Hillary’s bathroom email server is hilarious. And this,

“If it’s between Google and Apple having the data, I would far prefer my physician and the public health authorities to have the data about my health status,” she said. “At least they’re constrained by laws.”

…displays appalling ignorance of certain former Secretaries of State and Presidential candidate’s approach to public information. Here’s a woman whose health had a legitimate public interest. But, when she collapsed next to a NY bollard, we were told to ignore it. OK. Ignore me too, unless I tell you differently.

These critics of individual rights, you’re likely aware, are mostly the same people cheering on Facebook and Twitter in the quest to label as “hate speech” anyone who disagrees with the CDC, WHO, or the Chinese Communist Party theories of CCP virus contagion. And they seem blind to the fact that the actual monopolies are the governments and apparatchiks they promote.

I’ll admit it is a consistent political philosophy if you view individuals whose decisions you don’t like as deplorable. They should not speak freely (and corporations should stop them from doing so) and the government must be made aware of your whereabouts at all times (by those same corporations). These Quisling-wannabes have become known colloquially as ‘Karens’.

There certainly are public health officials who would disagree with the point, content, tone, and totalitarian policy suggestions of this ‘news’ article, but the ‘journalists’ couldn’t be bothered to find even one.

Such complaints about Google and Apple are surprising only to the extent the complainants haven’t suggested we each be assigned a personal tracking drone.

If the Weimar Republic had invented the WaPo preferred app in 1918 to track Spanish flu, Mengele would have inherited it. You could imagine he’s the culmination of the petty tyrant public health officials WaPo reporters seek out in order to write stories bashing private enterprises still devoting at least lip service to individuals and to freedom.

Apple and Google are building a virus-tracking system. Health officials say it will be practically useless. OK, so don’t use the data individuals choose to send you.

When you let me directly and precisely monitor your every move, I’ll think about letting you monitor mine. Fair’s fair.