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Facebook employee said censorship colleagues were “drunk on power”

A Facebook data scientist accused fellow employees of being “drunk on power” for censoring posts supporting Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at the height of last summer’s riots.

The data scientist said some of the censored posts did not violate the platform’s policies as they were discussing whether Rittenhouse was being treated fairly and if he was acting in self-defense. Rittenhouse’s official stance at trial will be self-defense.

Facebook removed many posts supporting Rittenhouse because its policies prohibit the praising of “mass shootings” and “mass shooters.”

In Facebook internal discussions, obtained by the New York Post, most employees agreed with the censorship of pro-Rittenhouse posts. However, one employee, a data scientist, disagreed.

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Investigation underway after Kentucky high school hosts drag pageant featuring male teens in lingerie giving lap dances to staff

An investigation is underway after photos surfaced on social media depicting a homecoming event at a Kentucky high school where male students partook in a “man pageant.”

The male students seen in photos taken at Hazard High School’s homecoming week festivities on Tuesday wore scant clothing, including women’s lingerie, and gave staff members lap dances in the gymnasium, according to The Courier Journal.

Students and staff reportedly took part in a “Man Pageant” and “Costume Day” on Tuesday, according to Hazard High School’s Facebook page.

The photos also showed the students giving a lap dance to Hazard High School Principal Donald “Happy” Mobelini. Mobelini is also mayor of the city.

Other photos removed from the athletics page, where the photos were first posted, showed female students dressed as Hooters waitresses and students and staff reportedly appearing to paddle each other.

Superintendent of Hazard Independent Schools Sonda Combs told The Courier Journal that the district “has a tradition of excellence and academics and everything we do, but the incident is being investigated and once the investigation is complete, appropriate action will be taken.”

She declined to comment on whether the “Man Pageant” was an annual event, or give details on the investigation.

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Florida school board member takes elementary school students on field trip to gay bar: ‘SO honored’

A Florida school board member chaperoned a group of elementary school children on a field trip to a gay bar, according to photos of the trip she posted to social media. 

“I was SO honored to be invited to chaperone Wilton Manors Elementary’s field trip to the incredible Rosie’s! The students and I had a fun walk over and learned a lot about our community! A huge thank you to Rosie’s Bar and Grill for hosting this special field trip every year!” Broward County School Board member Sarah Leonardi posted on her official school board Facebook page Wednesday. 

The post, which was examined by Fox News Thursday morning, shows photos of children in a popular Florida gay bar, Rosie’s Bar and Grill, including a photo of the group posing next to the restaurant’s sign. 

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The Media’s Lies About Colin Powell’s Lies

Former Secretary of State and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Colin Powell received virtually wall-to-wall adulation in corporate media coverage of his death last week.

In the New York Times (10/19/21), Bret Stephens called Powell “an exemplary military leader and presidential adviser.” Stephens’ Times colleague Maureen Dowd (10/23/21) said Powell was “the best America had to offer” and a “great man.” Theodore R. Johnson wrote in the same paper (10/21/21) that “we should take inspiration from Mr. Powell’s accomplishments.”

Powell led, as David Ignatius tells it in the Washington Post (10/18/21), an “extraordinary life of service,” characterized by “a sterling career of public service.” Like Ignatius, Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal (10/21/21) lacked a thesaurus, describing Powell as “a great man” and one of “the great ones.” In another Journal piece, Paula Dobriansky (10/20/21) called him “a true inspiration and a model not only for military leaders and diplomats but all Americans,” a “hero of our time.”

This gratuitous fawning deflects readers from reckoning with Powell’s record. Consider the heinous acts the “great man” admitted to carrying out in Vietnam.  (See Consortium News, 7/8/96.) In his memoir, My American Journey, Powell said of his unit in Vietnam: “We burned down the thatched huts, starting the blaze with Ronson and Zippo lighters.” The “hero of our time” wrote:

Why were we torching houses and destroying crops?  Ho Chi Minh had said the people were like the sea in which his guerrillas swam…. We tried to solve the problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what difference did it make if you shot your enemy or starved him to death?

Similarly, Powell’s “sterling career of public service” involved obstructing the truth of US war crimes in Vietnam. After the My Lai Massacre, when Powell was an Army major posted in Saigon, he was tasked with investigating a soldier’s letter describing US barbarism against the Vietnamese (Columbia Journalism Review, 4/3/09). Powell denied the charges, writing, “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.”

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The Assange Persecution Is Western Savagery At Its Most Transparent

The first day of the US appeal of the Julian Assange extradition case saw grown adults arguing in a court of law that the US government could guarantee that it would not treat the WikiLeaks founder as cruelly as it treats its other prisoners.

I wish I was kidding.

In their write-up on Wednesday’s proceedings, The Dissenter’s Kevin Gosztola and Mohamed Elmaazi report that the prosecution argued that “the High Court should accept the appeal on the basis that the U.S. government offered ‘assurances’ that Assange won’t be subjected to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) or incarcerated in ADX Florence, a super-maximum prison in Colorado.”

What this means is that in order to overturn the January extradition ruling which judge Vanessa Baraitser denied on the basis that the notoriously draconian US prison system is too cruel to guarantee Assange’s health and safety, the prosecution has established as one of their grounds for appeal the claim that they can offer “assurances” that they would not inflict some of their most brutal measures upon him. These would include the aforementioned Special Administrative Measures, wherein prisoners are so isolated that they effectively disappear off the face of the earth, or sending him to ADX Florence, where all prisoners are kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.

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FDA Admits MORE Serious Adverse Effects From Pfizer Vaccine ‘May Become Apparent’ With Widespread Use

A Fact Sheet for Vaccine Providers published on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website admits that “Additional adverse reactions, some of which may be serious, may become apparent with more widespread use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.” The Fact Sheet was issued in response to the FDA granting an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine for people aged 12 and older. The Fact Sheet also notes that the Pfizer vaccine carries risk of the heart conditions myocarditis and pericarditis in addition to numerous other ailments that have been reported in clinical trials, and that “immunocompromised persons…may have a diminished immune response to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.” Recent former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb (pictured above) is now on the board of directors of Pfizer. A contingent of recent Pfizer workers who serve on an FDA advisory committee are trying to get the FDA to authorize a Pfizer vaccine for children aged 5 to 11.

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