“Lorenz deleted the majority of her old tweets this week. Only 3,500 are still available on her page. And the Wayback Machine is helping her hide her past. To the surprise of no one, the Libs of Tik Tok Twitter page is still available via Wayback Machine, allowing Lorenz-type journalists to find any deleted blunders from that account. Almost everyone online would like to erase parts or all of their social media history. Unfortunately, only the privileged like Taylor Lorenz can convince an internet archive company to do their dirty work for them.”
INTERNET ARCHIVE ERASES TAYLOR LORENZ TWITTER PAGE
https://www.outkick.com/taylor-lorenz-wayback-machine/
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“Call it the politician’s dilemma: cheap political advantage versus protecting bureaucrats…On the one hand, if Biden did appeal Mizelle’s decision, it could damage Democrats in the midterm elections, given that the country is mask-weary. On the other hand, if Biden didn’t appeal Mizelle’s decision, it would stand as a lasting blow to the great and almighty power of the CDC. On the other other hand, if Biden did appeal Mizelle’s decision, it could land before the Supreme Court, where hatemongering and quite possibly racist right-wing justices could hobble the CDC even further, maybe even deal a blow to the federal government’s broader regulatory authority.”
One nation under the CDC
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/one-nation-under-the-cdc/
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“…our new way of responding to our enemies – who, remember, chose to break the norm of businesses staying out of social issues – is not designed to shake them down but to shake them up. We are not twisting arms for cash tributes. We are trying to keep perverts away from our kids. It’s very clear – you corporations go make money and run your business and we’re not going to hassle you. But if you use your power to pursue the agenda of our enemies, you are now our enemy, and we will gleefully and without apology use all our power to harm you right back.”
Liberal Corporations Are Confused and Scared Because Conservatives Now Fight Back
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“CNN+ folded after just a month, an extraordinary testament to the cluelessness of major corporate outlets when it comes to reading mass audiences. TV executives treat such failures as unsolvable mysteries. They aren’t. Are you watching commentary, or a commercial? If viewers have to ask, the news operation is toast, and deserves to be.”
The "Gentlemen's Agreement": When TV News Won't Identify Defense Lobbyists
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“Watching Elon Musk take on Twitter is like watching a hockey game or sitting through the Oscars: The beatdown will be the fun part, no matter who wins.
Why it’s so much fun watching Elon Musk slap Twitter in the face
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"...these borrowers skew privileged: Some low-income folks owe a few thousand, but it’s kids from wealthier families who run up most of the debt, earning degrees that leave them well able to repay. (For those with a college degree, unemployment’s now below 2%.). There’s no reason working-class Americans should be footing the bill for college-educated elites — except for a White House that seems to think The Squad speaks for America.”
With student-loan freeze, Biden subsidizes the rich to appease The Squad
https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/is-woke-to-be-the-only-religion-allowed-in-us-public-schools/
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“Why should traditional religion be discriminated against while teachers and coaches are allowed to proselytize their woke belief system, displaying gay-pride symbols and Black Lives Matter slogans in the classroom? Are children any less at risk of coercion or indoctrination by these ideas presented by authority figures whom they’re eager to please?”
Is ‘woke’ to be the only religion allowed in US public schools?
https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/is-woke-to-be-the-only-religion-allowed-in-us-public-schools/
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“The current Democratic brand suffers from multiple deficiencies that make it somewhere between uncompelling and toxic to wide swathes of American voters… The cultural left has tied Dems to “a series of views on crime, immigration, policing, free speech and . . . race and gender that leave the party thoroughly out of touch with its working class roots…Voters are not sure Democrats can look beyond identity politics to ensure public safety, secure borders, high quality, non-ideological education, and economic progress for all Americans. Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans . . . are highly likely to be proud to be American[;] progressive activists are loathed to express these sentiments.”
How to Fix the Democratic Brand
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-the-democratic-brand?s=r
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“These economic blows are just one element in a cascading set of problems all hitting at the same time. It combines the nuclear anxieties of the 1950s and ’60s with the inflation threat of the ’70s, the crime wave of the ’80s and ’90s and the tensions over illegal immigration in the 2000s and beyond. This electorate is not experiencing a malaise, as President Jimmy Carter was once apocryphally said to have proclaimed, but has instead formed into a deep national fissure ready to blow like a geyser in the next election if leadership does not move to relieve the pressure.”
American Voters Haven’t Been Afraid Like This in a Long Time
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/biden-voters-midterms.html
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“It is unclear who paid for Omar’s trip to Pakistan, a state that has become a leader in promoting Sunni Islamism, and in influencing American politics through domestic Islamist franchises and other proxies. State Department Officials denied paying for the trip, and Omar’s office isn’t talking.”
Ilhan Omar Singlehandedly Raises Pakistan-India Tensions
===============
“Disney, with the full weight of the showbiz culture behind it, thought it was playing with house money. What could go wrong by proclaiming yourself to be opposed to homophobia? Plenty, it turned out. American consumers are irritated with companies that take partisan political positions on controversial topics. It now appears obvious that Disney never should have injected itself into the debate in the first place. So its new tack is to avail itself of the opportunity of choosing tactful silence and hoping the whole thing blows over. The WSJ: “Disney . . . declined to comment on criticism from lawmakers. Inside the company, some executives have expressed disappointment that Disney has become politicized, said people familiar with their thinking.”
In Florida, Disney Is Throwing in the Towel
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/in-florida-disney-is-throwing-in-the-towel/
===============
“After a week or so, in brutal, Darwinian competition for attention, arguments against Musk blossomed into something more colorful. From Axios, a company committed in writing to never sharing an opinion, it was “reported” that Elon, once likened to Iron Man, was now behaving “like a supervillain.” His ownership of Twitter would lead to World War III, the case was made elsewhere. In one of my favorite moments of derangement, NPR helpfully reminded us that Elon is an imperialist. The basis for such an incredible charge? In the tradition of America’s Apollo Moon landing, one of the most celebrated accomplishments in human history, Elon wants to settle Mars, an uninhabited desert planet 155 million miles from Earth. This is just like colonial-era Britain’s brutal conquest of half the world, when you think about it. The takes were all extraordinarily stupid, and yes, I loved every single one of them.”
Left’s objection to Elon Musk is about one thing — they want to control speech
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“The constellation of extremism NGOs and academic centres fill their rosters from social classes where certain interests, prejudices and worldviews are near hegemonic. Those interests happen to strongly overlap with the incumbent governments in both Canada and the United States, who are of course content for likeminded organisations to define who is an extremist and who is an upstanding citizen deserving of an online presence. This political alignment grants access to funding opportunities, as well as platforms in a sympathetic media environment, for progressive extremism experts, who can in turn paint targets for politically sympathetic moderators in Silicon Valley and pressure them to act. The threat to free speech and civil liberties posed by this arrangement should be obvious to all but the most partisan. This is not just a cheap pop at progressivism. It should barely need saying that the danger would be just as real if the industries at hand were dominated by conservatives and if conservatives ruled the roost in Ottawa and D.C. But at present, they aren’t and don’t.”
Jihadi John created online censorship
===============
“…this is what [Dwoskin and the Post] are saying: when the media industry holds people to account, it's noble and justified; but when people outside media hold people to account, it's an act of targeted harassment. The media then insist these acts of targeted harassment (as they define it) are newsworthy, and the cycle repeats itself….At the very least, The Washington Post should wean itself from the idea that mentioning someone means targeting them for harassment, or make peace with the criticism of its self-dealing double standard.”
If Elon Musk Is 'Targeting' Twitter Employees, Isn't The Washington Post 'Targeting' Elon Musk?
https://reason.com/2022/04/27/elon-musk-washington-post-harassment-twitter-tiktok-media/
===============
“Body positivity sells itself as a feminist response to the overbearing demands that beauty standards make on women — a rebellion against the male gaze. But it can become just another set of demands to be carried. This atmosphere of judgement is even more acute for those at the heart of the body positivity movement. What’s pitched as a sisterhood of self-love can be as spiteful as any other community based on looks…Is there an ethical difference, really, between pressuring women to get thin and pressuring women to stay fat? In both, the female body is treated as a public object and not a person. … There’s money in insecurity at any size. That’s why clothing brands like Snag match their plus-size tights range with self-love branding. It’s why Cosmopolitan puts fat models on the cover. It’s why Victoria’s Secret has hired Paloma Elsesser as an ambassador. And it’s why Hagen’s book found a publisher.”
Being fat isn’t feminist
https://unherd.com/2021/08/being-fat-isnt-feminist/?=refinnar
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“This is the elite argument against free speech in a nutshell: “If you favor ‘all legal speech,’ you really just want to slander, threaten, and harass. Now please let me tiptoe up to libel myself, as I tell millions of New York Times readers I ‘assume’ you’re a racist itching to use the N-word.””
Savor the Great Musk Panic
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“The administration therefore finds itself in the increasingly insane position of claiming to be in a new Cold War with China while simultaneously haranguing India for its human rights record, nationalist ruling party, and lack of sufficient hostility to Russia; it likewise remains committed to publicly insulting and icing out Saudi Arabia—the world’s swing oil producer, a Eurasian great power, and the holder of hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. currency reserves. Whatever moral or domestic political itches this kind of performative diplomacy might scratch, it doesn’t say much for the sincerity of Washington’s official China policy..”
Why America Only Pretends to Compete With China
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/why-america-only-pretends-to-compete-with-china
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“If Obama, or President Biden for that matter, was serious about curtailing the power of the tech oligarchs, they would put aside the culture war rhetoric and act in the national interest by using antitrust laws to break up tech monopolies. That might actually restore political agency to American citizens and political sovereignty to the government. So why hasn’t that happened, and indeed won’t ever happen? Because the Democratic Party relies on the tech companies to fund its political campaigns and regulate what kind of information reaches voters.”
Elon vs. Obama
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/elon-vs-obama
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