Living, as we do, in an increasingly low trust society, the rational consumer of information (and especially news) takes very little at face value. Its hard to know, in fact, just what to make of many news stories until you have some idea what the answer is to the Two Questions:
- Who wants me to believe this?
- Why do they want me to believe this?
According to the Law, “Meaning comes from context.” And without the Two Questions, crucial context is lost.
We know, thanks to Mr. Musk, that the commanding heights of the information creation and distribution system (call it the infosphere) are controlled to a shocking degree by a handful of big corporations, working hand in glove with the government (mainly, I believe, federal law enforcement (DOJ/FBI) and the three letter agencies of the defense and intelligence world).
Pointing to Journolist 2.0 and its corporate and government minders is barely a beginning to answering the first question, though. Within the sprawling coterie that controls the establishment infosphere there are factions, oh yes there are, so the first question can’t be answered beyond a very general “them” until you begin to suss out which faction is pushing a given narrative.
The “why” is often not hard at all to figure out – it’s usually pretty apparent what the agenda is that a given story (or lack thereof) is intended to advance. That said, false flags are hardly unknown and without the “who”, it can be hard to be sure of the “why”.
We have also seen that the critical part of controlling the infosphere is not so much shaping what is reported, but deciding what is not. Hunter Biden’s laptop? The January 6 tapes? Both stories that a decade or two ago would have been massive, leading to, at a minimum, the end of multiple careers and perhaps some name brand People Who Matter going to jail. These days, though? Mentioned only in passing, and then only to sneer at the rubes on the fringes who believe “conspiracy theories”. The “why” of burying both these stories seems pretty apparent – both struck at the root of major factions of our Ruling Class.
After Hunter’s laptop broke cover, almost immediately 51 spooks released a letter pooh-poohing it as Russian disinformation. The first question isn’t fully answered by saying the “who” is “51 spooks”. It was obviously coordinated – who coordinated it? Lo and behold, we have recently learned it was none other than Anthony Blinken, Biden’s campaign manager at the time and now a notably inept Secretary of State. That one was actually pretty unusual, as it is very rare to have a name of a first mover.
The letter from the 51 spooks is very similar to the announcement the morning after Election Day 2020 that it was the cleanest, fairest election in history. Nobody batted an eye at the fact that nobody could possibly know that, first thing Wednesday morning.
So, the January 6 tapes. They were released by the Red wing of the Uniparty (see above re: factions), a brief excerpt was aired once, and then . . . poof. Disappeared. Who is responsible for this story being buried? Fox News, obviously, killed the story. But Fox News greenlit it first, so somebody else moved to kill it (and moved fast and hard). Who, exactly? That remains unknown.
There is another question out there on this video. McCarthy released it only to Fox, and then didn’t say a word or do anything, as far as I know, when Fox buried them. Why not? Why not release them more broadly? What looks like a fairly straightforward answer to the Two Questions (McCarthy, in the library, with a candlestick, I mean, to embarrass a rival faction and push back on their Reichstag Fire narrative) suddenly becomes murky.
A more recent example caught my eye. Out of nowhere, there were multiple stories about people shooting innocent (as far as we know, but, what do we know?) people who accidentally came on their property. Allofasudden, it was literally one such story a day. Where did that come from?
Now, journalists are, by and large, lazy and not very smart. Typical people, really, despite their pretensions. And there’s something people do that I think is related to confirmation bias and our wiring to find patterns. Ever notice that when you buy a new car, you starting seeing that model of car everywhere? Something like this can explain why stories seem to come in bunches – one nutty old geezer perforates somebody who came to his door by accident, and the story breaks cover. When it happens again, it’s going to register on journalists in a way it wouldn’t have before. After a couple of these stories pop above the horizon of the infosphere, every journalist and infosphere operative is sensitized to them. So there is a potential innocent explanation.
But there still remain unanswered questions. Why did the first story break cover? Who decided to highlight, across the nation, these stories? And why? This kind of story has come up before, but always as a one-off. The daily barrage of these stories in recent weeks stinks of coordinated campaign.
The “why” of these stories is to make gun owners look like deranged lunatics (always a favorite) and to undercut the legitimacy of self-defense, the castle doctrine and stand your ground in particular. While this op aligns easily with the ruling class’s hostility to guns, “all of, you know, them” is not a very satisfactory “who”.
The difficulty is getting more specific than a very general “who”. It’s vanishingly rare to have a name, like Blinken, attached to an infosphere op. And even then, there is a mob of people who have to go along to make it a successful op. There’s the rub – there isn’t a shadowy group pulling strings from some undersea lair. Rather, there is an entire ruling class thoroughly indoctrinated and in a hermetically sealed bubble of values and information. One bird doesn’t make the flock fly over there, instead of over here; one fish doesn’t make the school swim over there, etc. The ruling class’s confirmation bias is constantly self-reinforcing because of the infosphere bubble they inhabit – it’s a self-licking ice cream cone. Combine that with a certain vague class consciousness, the ubiquity of a shared quasi-religious model driving moral righteousness (wokism and greenism being the Current Day creeds), and very little prompting is needed. Once the “why” of an op is apparent and is aligned with the ruling class values, then the op runs itself.
Note how the successful mainstream ops confirm the priors of the ruling class. You, too, my dissident friends, have priors as well Because you want to believe something that confirms your priors, you will be tempted to skip past the Two Questions. Even outside the mainstream infosphere, people are pushing narratives for their own reasons. None of us are immune from selection bias and confirmation bias. Perhaps the easiest way to see this is with anonymously sourced stories – when they something we don’t like, they are easy to dismiss because their sourcing is garbage. But when they say something we do like, how often do we dismiss them because their sourcing is just as garbage as the stories we don’t like?
There’s no magic bullet – we are in the hall of mirrors. In some ways, trying to parse the infosphere is like running a counterespionage operation. The best we can do is navigate between the Scylla of credulity, and the Charybdis of paranoia. The silver lining, I suppose, is that the need to ask the Two Questions has become painfully apparent over the last few years, and its better to know much of what you see is manufactured for someone else’s ends than to be an unwitting pawn.
*squints*
What manner of propaganda is this?
Who wants me to believe this? RC Dean.
Why do they want me to believe this? Hmmmmmm…..
A lawyer, having worked in the health care industry…
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
Or is that just what he wants you to think? A deep cover…
Remember its not just what RC Dean mentioned, but what he didn’t mention. 😳
Lo and behold, we have recently learned it was none other than Anthony Blinken, Biden’s campaign manager at the time and now a notably inept Secretary of State.
Nice payoff.
Good stuff, Counselor, and a good reminder to question the stuff we like, too.
Good essay.
Once again, only centralization and power consolidation makes this even possible.
Both stories that a decade or two ago would have been massive, leading to, at a minimum, the end of multiple careers and perhaps some name brand People Who Matter going to jail.
Do you think so? I’m trying to remember a single scandal where Someone Who Matters paid any real price.
I linked these essays a couple days ago, but I think they go well with yours. I think the IC is the shadowy cabal, using the pols and media as their shock troops.
The MKUltra ecology
Richard Nixon?
A couple presidential candidates had to drop out after getting caught cheating on their wives?
Clinton’s perjury, Bush’s WMD’s, Obama’s issues, all happened with 0 consequences.
I’m sure if I looked deeper there are many more scandals where absolutely nothing happened to the government agents involved.
Nixon should have been tried and hanged for war crimes against Cambodia, Laos and VN. He got off easy.
And Bush, Obama, and possibly Trump should get the same for Yemen.
It’s evil bastards as far as the eye can see.
Didn’t a couple Clinton goons do some time? Or am I remembering that wrong?
Flunkies serve time on occasion. Players don’t.
Disloyal Clinton goons get a lot worse than that.
That reminds me of the “disinformation board” from not too long ago, where Nina Whatsername took the fall. I’m 100% sure that kept going, they’re just hiding it better. Ideas like that, and MKUltra, don’t die, they just slither under a different rock.
In the public, we have work by people like Robert Cialdini concerning persuasion. Why wouldn’t our government agencies want to weaponize that sort of thing?
It’s way too useful not to. Besides adversary X, and even our ‘allies’ must be trying much the same. Probably with much more success in their domestic markets.
Remember that creepy Total Information Awareness program they announced in the early 2000’s, before they shut it down because of the outcry?
Good thing they didn’t go forward with that sort of thing.
Bueno, RC.
Believe noting.
Trust no one.
Lurn to spel.
Fox News, obviously, killed the story. But Fox News greenlit it first, so somebody else moved to kill it (and moved fast and hard). Who, exactly? That remains unknown.
Lack of interest.
I disagree. I think there was a tremendous amount of interest from the average Fox viewer, and Fox has made its name catering to the “underserved” portion of the viewing populace that that the alphabet soup networks contemptuously ignore. The burial of that story, coupled with Tucker’s firing, make clear to me that Fox answers to the same “cabal” (whatever the fuck that means), they just have a little looser leash.
IOW, they act as the media equivalent of controlled opposition. But, in the spirit of the “controlled” part, they’re only allowed to be opposition as far as it benefits the “cabal” (again, whatever the fuck that means).
The burial of that story, coupled with Tucker’s firing, make clear to me that Fox answers to the same “cabal” (whatever the fuck that means), they just have a little looser leash.
This.
Tucker wasn’t fired, he was put on ice.
IOW, they act as the media equivalent of controlled opposition
Yup. They confirm the spectrum of allowable thought.
How do you figure?
Did Tucker’s ratings dip the night he aired them?
I saw Schumer blasting Fox for showing them and then it was like it never even happened.
It looks more like the government pressured Fox than they decided no one wanted to see anymore.
The kangaroo court just gave some Proud Boys a long stretch in prison, one wasn’t even at the Capitol. Tucker was the only one at Fox who’d even mention it.
Demoralization is a hell of a tool.
Uh, they clearly conspired to think about maybe insurrecting given the text message evidence that doesn’t exist. And Tucker led the charge. ///MSM
When was the last sedition conviction? Even the commie spies (and they were commie spies) weren’t charged with that.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but there are two things I’ve been thinking about lately.
“Within the sprawling coterie that controls the establishment infosphere there are factions, oh yes there are…”
There is a lot of talk about “The Left”, but I agree with you, in reality there are factions such as Greens, The Woke Mob, Deep State (subdivided into agencies), etc., and while in general their interests align, I think they all see each other as useful idiots. Do we really think that the alphabet agencies are building “carbon neutral” server farms to spy on us?
“There’s the rub – there isn’t a shadowy group pulling strings from some undersea lair.”
I also agree with this. For example, some people see the WEF as having one evil leader. I think it’s more like a club, where all the members read the same books, watch the same TED talks, and attend the same meetings. They just all think the same way, so no need to issue commands. If magically all the Glibs were put in charge of government agencies, I think we’d all do the same thing without having to check with each other.
Radically new dress code?
Fridays are Hunter Biden dress up day.
” I think it’s more like a club, where all the members read the same books, watch the same TED talks, and attend the same meetings.”
Yeah, this is a major point. I continue to be astonished (I know I shouldn’t be) with friends and colleagues, who ask me if I’d read a certain book or watched a certain documentary or listened to someone’s podcast with a statement along the lines of “it’s very persuasive” or “it was really insightful” to which I want to respond, “no, it was very confirmatory.” Even friends with whom I’ve had conversations and exposed them to info that they had never heard of, keep going back to the same source/s with no questions.
The only source I trust implicitly is Glibs.
Who wants you to trust Glibs?
Why do they want you to trust Glibs?
It’s all connected!
https://tenor.com/view/conspiracy-charlie-day-crazy-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-qanon-gif-23738584
Right in the pocket of big monocle, you fool.
What you describe here is what the NRx boys call a ‘prospiracy’ – instead of a deliberate agenda put into place by the wealthy and influential, it’s the natural result of shared class associations among the same people. There’s no need to conspire among people who all think the same way as you do.
I thought this was going to be about when Vic Sage passed on the mantle of The Question to Renee Montoya!
Whatever, I don’t have to go to work for a week.
Fantastic write up; semi-independent but related to the two questions is a maxim that I’ve found to be true much more often than not: follow the money. Following the money (and by extension, the power that comes with money) can often help you answer the two questions.
Take the Kung Flu vaccine mandates and suppression of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine etc. It’s very easy to conclude from that sequence of atrocities that there is/was a shadowy and evil cabal of lunatics scheming to sterilize and/or kill off large swaths of the population. However, I argue that the most banal and venal motive of money is a much more parsimonious explanation.
What better way to make a shitload of money than to have the government force people to buy your product? Not letting a crisis go to waste, let’s use this novel virus to push our experimental (but, and this is key, not at all brand new) vaccine technology on the populace. Congress critters and executive branch flunkies with sizable amounts of our stock will also benefit enormously so getting them on board will be easy. Also, in order for our experimental therapy to be legally allowed, there can be no authorized treatments for the condition, so we need to make sure than any existing drugs which can treat or be beneficial are made radioactive.
Thus we have the answer to our two questions:
Who? Pharma companies and the usual suspects in the upper echelons of DC.
Why? $$$$$$
The corollary why of the reason that ivermectin and hydroxycholorquine were aggressively attacked goes to the original why in that if doctors were allowed to prescribe them it would threaten the money-making scheme.
The fact that the clotshots are, indeed, apparently more harmful than helpful and do, in fact, have some serious and occasionally deadly side effects is irrelevant to the original reasons. It’s not that Big Pharma/The Cathedral *wanted* to hurt and kill people, they just didn’t care if they did en route to making a fortune. If the shots had worked perfectly with no side effects so much the better and I’m guessing that people would be a lot less willing to dig into the two whys; even though digging into those whys would be just as important given the outrageous human rights violation of forcing people to take a medication under threat of modern-day exile.
It’s not that Big Pharma/The Cathedral *wanted* to hurt and kill people, they just didn’t care if they did en route to making a fortune
Agreed; we need an updated Hanlon’s Razor – “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by greed” (and, I suppose, sociopathy).
Skip the sociopathy. Greed is a better answer 99.99% of the time, and doesn’t give them an out, or make you look silly. Citing that or psychopathy is like reading the Silence of the Lambs. Fun, but doesn’t help with things.
Always default to an acceptable, plausible answer. Not one that relies on viewpoint.
What about my preferred version: Never attribute to incompetence that which can be adequately explained by malice.
What’s your Iron Law on libertarians, again?
robc’s rules of libertarians:
1. Everyone agrees with libertarians on something.
2. No two libertarians agree about anything.
I guess you are claiming #2 applies here.
Nah. I was trying to remember it them the other day.
Very pithy!
To bolster this, I’d say Pharma companies got something beyond their wildest dreams.
1. Government will pay for you to develop a product
2. Government will shield you from liability
3. You get to keep all the patents
4. You get to control manufacturing, government will prevent others from producing this product
5. You get to control the price
6. Government will mandate everyone use the product and will buy it from you
7. Government officials and media will push your product and demonize anyone who questions it
You can also bypass all the clinical trials and approval processes. Just test it on the general population.
Yes, forgot this one. And any bad results will be covered up for you.
One starts to wonder how many anonymous chilling phone calls are received with the message “You know, your health may suffer if you keep pushing this narrative. Remember what happened to (so and so).”
I’m trying to remember the movie/TV quote where the paranoid guy is saying that whenever a new president is elected they get taken into a secret room and shown a new angle of the Kennedy assassination.
That sounds like something from The Lone Gunmen
I don’t think I’ve ever watched that. And I know this is going to bother me the rest of the day (or until I forget about the quote).
From memory:
“What do you think happens?”
“After the president is elected, they take him down to a secret room, with a single screen on it. They sit him in a chair, and show him the Kennedy assassination from the angle that shows the truth. They then turn to the president, and ask, ‘Any questions, Mr. President?’
Then the president says, ‘What are my orders?'”
I thought each president got a DIFFERENT angle, so that they are confused about the truth.
It was a Bill Hicks bit.
That’s hilarious.
Might be my favorite conspiracy theory yet.
Then they get shown the Lincoln Slave Coliseum – he didn’t free all the slaves.
Why would it have to be a secret room?
I wonder if Trump got all the secret room info that previous Presidents received.
Chuckie “Moobs” Schumer did warn Trump that the intelligence agencies had many ways of coming after him.
I think it’s more like a club, where all the members read the same books, watch the same TED talks, and attend the same meetings. They just all think the same way
And… cut to Wizard: “Back where I come from, there are men who do nothing all day but good deeds. They are called phila-, er, er, philanth-er, yes, er, good-deed doers, and their hearts are no bigger than yours. But they have one thing you haven’t got – a testimonial.”
A testimonial, and a really really big boat. And their consensus definition of “good deeds” is not in any way required to conform to yours.
Most of us here grew up in a high-trust society. Making the transition to low-trust is tough in middle-age.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_trust_and_low_trust_societies
“Out of nowhere, there were multiple stories about people shooting innocent (as far as we know, but, what do we know?) people who accidentally came on their property. Allofasudden, it was literally one such story a day. Where did that come from?”
Here’s today’s installment:
https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/calcasieu-parish-man-arrested-after-shooting-14-year-old-playing-outside-crime-louisiana/289-4dbd4268-31e0-48f3-9809-84869d81d945
She’s obviously bad at hiding.
I have recommended A Deepness in the Sky before, and mentioned that its theme was basically “Fuck Off, Slavers!” (literally). But there is another important thread in it about the dangers of Ubiquitous Surveillance.
It has been popping back into my mind a lot recently. That doesn’t exactly apply to this thread, but it is related.
I really need to read that. I loved Fire Upon the Deep and Children of the Sky.
I havent read Children.
Fire is better space opera. Deepness is better literature.
Dont get me wrong, Deepness is a great SF story too. But it jumps that gap. It has themes and shit. I mean, Fire does too, but Deepness is something else entirely.
Plus, being a prequel, there are some great easter eggs if you have read Fire.
You can’t make it up:
Snowflake seems aboot right.
Sad. The head of an alleged church to be represented in nice non denominational fall and winter decor.
Ooh! Ooh! On the old crown, the little arrows along the bottom point to the right, but on the new one they point to the left!
That’s ermine.
Love the Hillary tweets below, where she says “In Canada, red is my color”.
While wearing green.
This is a great piece. Thanks.
So, did McCarthy go to Fox knowing that it would ultimately be spiked?
Presumably Tucker still has the footage, no?
I think Fox has it, not Tucker personally.
The fact that McCarthy hasn’t said anything or released it to somebody else is telling.
He was allowed to view the footage and use it on the show but I don’t think he is in possession of it.
Lovely turn of phrase and on point.
Conspiracy theories these days are just spoiler warnings.
Last weeks conspiracy is next weeks fish wrapper.
I posted this yesterday, but let’s check in with Belingcat.
They’re not actually trying trying to convince anyone with such blatant bullshit, they just want to give the left talking points for their agenda.
Belingcat is a NGO run disinformation group, no?
IIRC, they are a CIA front.
At this point, all NGO’s are CIA fronts.
So, is there a verified pic of the shooter (Mauricio Garcia)? I know somebody posted the wrong mugshot of him. I’m just curious about whether he has any visible tats in another picture that line up with the tats shown in the Belingcat story.
Did he have a record? Cops usually get pics and descriptions of tats when they book a fool.
https://rmx.news/germany/germany-mohammed-now-most-popular-first-name-for-newborns-in-berlin-but-the-name-is-also-soaring-in-popularity-across-the-country/
Totally not an invasion.
Racist. Diversity is our (their) strength!®
Well, this snuck up on me.
A couple of additional thoughts:
(1) Velocity. It seems to be quite helpful to have a Narrative foregrounded for only a limited time. So people don’t have too much time to think about it or for inconvenient facts to surface. The nutty gun nut shooting random passers-by is already on page two. The news cycle now seems focused on the crazy homeless guy who got ganked in the subway by the white supremacist. My guess as to the why is “its riot season, and we didn’t pay political price for the Saint Floyd riots, so let’s fire up the erosion of civil order again.”
(2) Dammit. I forgot it already. Ah well, maybe it will come back to me.
Aside from constantly slobbering on his geriatric, flaccid knob.
Hillary Clinton: “I don’t think [Joe Biden] gets the credit that he deserves from the press or maybe some large segments of the people”
She is right, you and he don’t get the credit you deserve for what you have done. You both have a lot things you should be credited for doing and and being actually called out and charged with.
Lets start with the superficial and move to the down right felonious.
Dusty in here.
Stupid pollen.
Why isn’t that J6 footage public property and available to anybody?
I crack myself up.
Hillary Clinton: “I don’t think [Joe Biden] gets the credit that he deserves from the press or maybe some large segments of the people”
*guffaws, slaps knee*
I mean, they could congratulate him on a lifetime of grift, corruption, and perversity. Maybe give him an award.
It was going to be her grift, corruption and perversity! She earned it!
most qualified candidate ever
Oh, Tulsi.
Based Tulsi Gabbard on transgender insanity:
“They are asking us to take something that is clearly not real and believe that it is real … Are we going to live in a society of common sense and reality or are we going to buy into this insanity and this fantasy?”
RFK Jr’s running mate? I’ve never voted for a Democrat but that might be the exception.
Yeah no. JFK the Younger’s position on the Second Amendment alone is a deal-breaker.
Yes, but you want them to win the primary.
Kennedy versus Trump is the stuff of nightmares for the agencies and the DOD.
It would be a neo-con nightmare.
I want Tulsi to be Trump’s SecDef.
That would be Douglas Macgregor.
That works too.
Does not work for me. I have personal experience with that asshole. Really smart, but should never be in charge of other people.
It’s been quite interesting to see MacGregor gone from Iraq invasion lite hawk to anti war dove.
I think he too would need a Congressional exemption.
I will take Tulsi as Prez at this point.
I voted for her in the last D primary, so might as well go full bore.
Live not by lies
I personally have wanted to (and might have) seeded the media with absurd stories. It’s fairly easy. But Dean points out that making that fly around the echo chamber requires a kind of self-licking ice cream cone. So how does such a bubble begin? Can we determine that and stop it early?
Bruh, did you even go to Columbia J school?
My vague-ish answers;
1) The “who” is answered by saying (and you touch on it) that Progressivism is well and truly a religion. That’s why it works this way, where the priestly class and the wannabes say the public stuff, and their NPC believers know what to do or say. It’s OLD. Without copypasta-ing the whole thing here, it’s Romans 1:18-32.
2) Why? Kulturkrieg against the old religious order and the civilization that grew up around it. EVERYTHING they do is Kulturkrieg, without exception. If you find yourself agreeing with anything the Proggies in the US Government are doing today, then you need to back up and realize they’ve slipped on in on you. That one thing you’re nodding along with is there to separate you from somebody else who’s on your side.
I don’t think there’s a more rational answer than that. This is a religious thing.
Oh, and the money/grift part of it – are they really doing it all just to line their pockets. No. Well yes and no. It’s in there, but is NOT the core/original reason behind the who and the why.
The grifters are riding the religion for their own benefit. And they get to steer things a little, since they’re savvy enough to say/do the right things. But grift isn’t the actual foundation of this.
God WANT’S you to make money, that is how you know you are doing the right thing!
Some companies, movie studios, etc., have shown that they’re willing to take a financial loss just to boost the social esteem of their bosses.
Kulturkrieg against the old religious order and the civilization that grew up around it.
The civilization (and civic ethos) is as much if not more pagan (Greek and Roman) than Judeo-Christian.
Yes
28-32 hits dead on:
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Bolding mine.
“those who do such things deserve death”
If and when the Burning Time comes and the lampposts are decorated with those would rule or degrade us, I really don’t think I’m going to shed any tears for them.
Unfortunately, when the Burning Times are upon us, many more than the guilty or deserving will be swinging from the lampposts.
Taking it to the extremely weird, this Texas shooter story is way over in Jussie Smollete territory with the Russian social media profile. Loads of people are questioning it.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1655952021604945925?t=Bxjxyb8NmKr2KRd3GRP-Gw&s=19
In this thread the lefty says the profile is real because it has his birthday, photos of the receipts of the gun purchase, pictures of the mall and best times to visit, and open boxes of ammo….
Ok, forget a Hispanic guy in Texas posting only in Russia to a profile that has zero interactions ever….
Who posts photos of their receipts for anything? Let alone a gun intended for a mass shooting?
Found by the guy from the company funded by the CIA?
This sounds like a joke. Like, it is so goofy even repeating it makes you sound like a nut
The narrative is composed of all the buzzwords of things the left doesn’t like. I.e. Russia, guns, extreme right, white-supreme…
Someone said the social media profile looked like it was designed by an AI.
I said last night they were overegging the pudding. Receipts? Hahaha 🤣
We bring the receipts /Seamus
Who knew AI was so literal?
So how does such a bubble begin?
1) Preposterous claim
2) this is repeated as “Sources say” [preposterous claim]
3)NYT reports [preposterous claim] as established fact
Anonymous sources are the most reliable because they are risking their jobs.
It is so common it is a trope now. Axios reports “sources say crazy thing may have happened” under a headline that goes way beyond that. NYT then says that crazy headline is being reported … and suddenly it is a fact.
4) All other media outlets then report on what NYT has reported.
Thus completing the modern ‘vetting’ of a story.
WP:RS
Who? Aliens.
*puts on sunglasses*
Move along, citizen. Nothing to see here.
So who wasn’t compromised by Epstein?
Damnit, I was hoping it was the pope.
Patience, Grasshopper.
Patience.
Was he really arrested or tossed out?
https://nationalfile.com/nlpc-chairman-arrested-at-buffett-shareholder-meeting-for-linking-bill-gates-to-jeffrey-epstein/
He did get to speak at the podium before being thrown out. I assume he got in there by owning some share of Buffett ‘s fund, so trespassing would be off the menu.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/i-really-touched-the-third-rail-on-a-mention-of-jeffrey-epstein-shareholder-peter-flaherty-breaks-silence-following-his-arrest-after-criticizing-warren-buffetts-ties-with-bill-gates-vi/
Arrested & charged.
Arresting a guy on the agenda for trespassing, that may not get far. Sounds like he’ll have a case in a lawsuit.
“It was totally consensual until you broached the subject of anal. At that moment, POOF! It instantly became rape!”
Somebody’s definition of ‘broaching’ is different than mine.
Re-subscribes to the National Enquirer and Midnight Sun. Easier to believe.
In a different time
Sgt Powell “I never know if you are telling the truth or bullshitting me”
Me: “Have I ever bullshitted you?”
Sgt Powell: “See, you’re going it now”
Me: Puts down a personal copy of “How to Succeed in the Army”
Explain how any of this constitutionally dubious horseshit stops shootings.
President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass gun control legislation and said he would “sign it immediately,” as the nation reels after another mass shooting on Saturday.
At least nine people dead, including the suspect, and seven others were wounded during the mass shooting at a shopping center in Allen, Texas.
“Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.
“Once again I ask Congress to send me a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Enacting universal background checks. Requiring safe storage. Ending immunity for gun manufacturers. I will sign it immediately. We need nothing less to keep our streets safe,” Biden said.
Cars kill more people than guns. End immunity for automobile manufacturers.
They are working on ending car ownership.
None of it is intended to do anything to people that already break the law. The intent is to fuck over people that obey the law.
And make otherwise law abiding people into criminals.
Everything that party does is bait and switch. They know there isn’t enough support to do what the want, so they lie about it. Instead of “We want to eliminate all private gun ownership”, they want “Common sense laws to stop mass shootings.”
Like I said yesterday about EV’s: there’s no support for “We want everyone to drive 75% less” or “We don’t want you to own a car”, so they mandate everyone drive an EV while they KNOW there isn’t the power to charge them.
And they cost more, which is just another bonus to stop the serfs from leaving the reservation. /Mixing all the metaphors
Scary campfire stories
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University and the head of the school’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab, was cautious in answering those questions after the verdict. The author of Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right, Miller-Idriss said the effort to stop the flow of radicalized people into the Proud Boys is only beginning, and while the verdicts are historic, they may distract us from a deeper threat. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Aymann Ismail: What was the reaction to this verdict in extremism circles?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss: Everybody feels, and should feel, that it’s a good day for democracy, to see that there’s a real consequence. It’s a serious consequence, and it stuck. They proved seditious conspiracy. That’s amazing, I’m glad that the message is out there.
But at the same time, from the prevention position—I can’t help but think, how many resources do we have to keep putting into the security, the carceral end of the spectrum? After Jan. 6, I think the change in budget was $2 billion just to improve security at the Capitol. We have a tiny fraction of that for prevention. We keep securitizing—lockdowns of the city every time there’s an inauguration, more fencing. Which, once something criminal has happened, obviously you have to go down that path. But I would like to see just as much energy into, like, preventing people from going down these rabbit holes of propaganda. We’re seeing record-breaking hate crimes, a steady rise in every form of domestic violent extremism, and rising support for political violence. More and more people are headed down that pipeline. It takes a tremendous amount of resources to keep locking people up. Where is the effort in preventing it to begin with?
TW; Slate titillating prurience
Speaking of self perpetuating preposterous claims. My hairdresser’s cousin went to school with a guy who knew somebody who said he got intimidated by some skinheads. Hate crimes are everywhere!
You don’t know how much it hurts every time I drive past a Cracker Barrel.
This is a safe space. You can tell us.
“. We’re seeing record-breaking hate crimes,”
Yeah, but enough about young black men attacking Asian women.
It’s obvious to everyone with half a brain that the Neolibs want to lock up, deplatform, censor, and otherwise harass everyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with their views and policies and because the laws in this country are Byzantine and not self-evident they can do just that once the target’s on your back. Combine that with a controlled opposition Republican Party and a cowed judiciary and we’re screwed. Keep your head down and try not to be the nail that sticks up.
Keep your head down and try not to be the nail that sticks up.
This. It may be too late for some of us, though.
I want to be the nail sticking up (that was driven thru the bottom side of the board).
Are they innovating new ways to polarize and be extremist?
I still shake my head at this sort of thing. As if that Lab is ever going to find anything other than rampant polarization and extremism that just keeps getting bigger and bigger (and thus needs more and more money to study).
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.Kf5DTnmJD8EpSS-FcV1BzgHaHa
That’s a man, baby!
The Ur Karen.
Damn, that’s a jawline that’d make Kirk Douglas proud.
missing the cleft
Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right
One of these things is not like the other!
They proved seditious conspiracy.
No, they didn’t.
I’m glad that the message is out there.
The message that the government will jail political opposition on trumped up charges with no evidence?
preventing people from going down these rabbit holes of propaganda
We have to destroy free speech in order to save free speech.
PERIL? AYFKM?
President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass gun control legislation and said he would “sign it immediately,” as the nation reels after another mass shooting on Saturday.
Tightening the screws on the heretics always promotes unity and healing.
I think these shootings are orchestrated to kickstart the repeal of the 2nd amendment. Find a mentally ill enough person, ratchet up the rage, hate, and paranoia, put a gun in his hands and give him the barest reason to shoot a bunch of kids, and blammo. Another object lesson for us icky people.
Don’t tell me that’s not entirely plausible, if not probable.
All my life there were weirdo nutcases saying that Lee Harvey Oswald was prepared and conditioned by the CIA and was just the fall guy.
They always sounded completely insane.
And now?
It seems like the security state hired a bunch of low IQ “studies” majors as diversity hires and now they are incompetent at this sort of psyops… which is why we can suddenly see it everywhere.
Yeah, I used to roll my eyes and make fun of those people. Not anymore but I do draw the line at chemtrails and Hollow Earth theory. I will hear those people out now though.
If the Earth is hollow, I just want to know how I can move there.
You just go to the edge of the Flat Earth, and rappel down.
You mean like the Uvalde shooter with top shelf gear?
Here’s the thing. I think it’s really important to note that the arrests and the charges didn’t really slow the Proud Boys down. They just pivoted to other opportunistic issues and trends that are out there. So, now they’ve hopped onto the “drag show story hour” bandwagon. They’re showing up, protesting either violently or with the whiff of violence. It’s part of the awful normalization of political violence that they’ve helped bring about. It no longer seems surprising to have violent, potentially armed people prepared to enact violence at a children’s story hour at a library. This stuff has spilled into every domain of our public lives—libraries, school board meetings, local bookstores, etc. They’ve been active over the last several months. They’re just moved on to other things.
Gaslighting so hard there is a serious risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Listen, all they’re trying to do is prepare your kids for a good fingerbanging in the local library bathroom by a guy dressed like a circus clown. You don’t have to get all huffy about it.
protesting either violently
Not likely.
or with the whiff of violence
Demonstrated by simply being present.
Gaslighting so hard
Projecting harder than a Casio.
our Ruling Class
Might I suggest capitalizing our as well, since it is specifically ours and it neatly makes the acronym ORC (which is perfectly descriptive).
Are they innovating new ways to polarize and be extremist?
Never Not Polarizing.
Always Be Extreming!
Coffee is for closers!
Tard Tuesday: How Dare You Use Our Tactics!
Now that’s a Ray of Sunshine!
Especially after I got doe reading this horror story.
What amazes me is how stupid they are to think that only they can do that.
They are inevitable. They are the end of history. They are our glorious future.
“steady whittling away of American liberty.”
Erosion of civil liberties is just a far-right conspiracy theory.
Tard Tuesday: Thirty Years And Hearsay A Conviction Makes
Now do Tara Reade.
The legal system is fucking retarded. That woman’s about as reliable as a two dollar watch in my opinion.
See Tundra’s link below. Some women will lie, cheat, steal, and kill for social standing. They’re as ruthless or more so in that pursuit as men can be for dominance.
Nine Angry Democrats.
I would love to see how they proved sexual abuse and defamation but I know they didn’t.
Holy shit! This is the ultimate “don’t stick it in crazy!”
Mormon mom accused of poisoning husband with fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule is seen promoting her kids’ bereavement book a MONTH before she was arrested for his murder
Absolutely stone cold.
Psychopaths exist. We encourage them at our own peril.
Yeesh, she had practiced on him before too sounds like. Physically attractive, sure, but not worth dying over.
Why, why, why, would you stay with somebody you thought was trying to kill you?
After finding out that Richins had tried to change his life insurance policy, Eric changed the beneficiary of his will and his power of attorney to his sister without telling his wife because he was scared she might ‘kill him for the money’, a warrant states.
Shouldn’t have kept it a secret from her.
So the sister could die, too?
Depends on how well the siblings got along…
I don’t think that’s very likely, but still, valid point.
This is admittedly beside the point, but what is a Mormon doing drinking a Moscow Mule? 🤔
Getting murdered, apparently.
Jack Mormons
↑
Trump guilty of sexual battery but not rape.
Strange world.
I might go with “convicted” rather than “guilty”.
Isn’t it really just liable and not even convicted?
Not according to CNN
That was my thought.
Fair point.
Alternate headline:
“Trump writes check to woman who fantasized about rough sex with him.”
That really should be the Bee headline.
Civil case – liable for damages, not convicted.
I heard that the pussy-grab tape was their “evidence”.
Whatever. The whole point is to try to kill Donald’s candidacy.
I do draw the line at chemtrails and Hollow Earth theory.
Is that the Hollow Earth with incredibly hot prehistoric babes in skimpy fur bikinis? Because I am totally on that bandwagon.
For you.
Trump guilty of sexual battery but not rape.
Forty years ago? Totally legit.
Based on a change in the law from last year.
🙄
I don’t see how she could prove by preponderance of the evidence that he ever even touched her.
Prove? Evidence?
The trial was in Manhattan, you know. They could have skipped the whole trial part and gone straight to reading the verdict.
Yeah…but free sandwiches!
Oh c’mon, we just had a real conviction in DC because of the ABSENCE of evidence!
She doesn’t even know what year it happened, let alone what day, yet the experience left her so traumatized that it put her off men forever.
She claimed he raped her, standing up, in a dressing room, in a public dressing room with other people around, on some unspecified date in either 1995 or 1996. Totally believable.
Reminds me of Soviet or Nazi showtrials where the guilty would be accused of morality crimes so that it was even easier to smear their reputations. Except the powers that be are apparently trying to legitimize kiddy diddling.
For you.
*shakes spear*
Totally not a euphemism.
Captain Shakespear.
Sure not I. I am the only person who has ever achieved or will ever achieve complete objectivity, and the only reason everyone else can’t see it is because they are blinded by their personal biases.
Dear Diary
Today I met an honest man…