Tag: hypocrisy

Fact-Checking Network Says Online Fact Checks Aren’t Censorship

We now live in a world where “fact-checkers” organize “annual meetings” – one is happening just this week in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These censorship-overseers for other companies (most notably massive social platforms like Facebook, etc.) have not only converged onto Sarajevo but have issued a “statement” that includes the town’s name.

The Poynter Institute is a major player in this space, and its International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) serves to coordinate censorship for Meta, among others.

It was up to IFCN now to issue the “Sarajevo statement” on behalf of 130 groups in the “fact-checking” business, a burgeoning industry at this point spreading its tentacles to at least 80 countries – that is how many are behind the said statement.

No surprise, these “fact-checkers” like themselves, and see nothing wrong with what they do; the self-affirming statement refers to the (Poynter-led) brand of “fact-checking” as essential to free speech (will someone fact-check that statement, though?)

The reason the focus is on free speech is clear – “fact-checkers” have over and over again proven themselves to be either inept, biased, serving as tools of censorship, all three, or some combination of those.

That is why their “annual meeting” now declares, with a seemingly straight face, that “fact-checking” is not only a free-speech advocate but “should never be considered a form of censorship.”

But who’s going to tell Meta? In the wake of the 2016 US presidential elections, Facebook basically became the fall guy picked by those who didn’t like the outcome of the vote, accusing the platform of being the place where a (since debunked) massive “misinformation meddling campaign” happened.

Aware of the consequences its business might suffer if such a perceived image continued, Facebook by 2019, just ahead of another election, had as many as 50 “fact-checking” partners, “reviewing and rating” content.

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Attacks On ‘Cheap Fakes’ Extend Biden Administration’s War On Free Speech

There were two astonishing developments this week in the Biden administration’s continuing attack on free speech. First, just days ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision on whether to uphold the Fifth Circuit’s injunction against the administration’s extensive censorship enterprise, a second White House press secretary strongly encouraged the media to chill political debate. Second, Karine Jean-Pierre was masterful in her delivery of the new Biden attack line on “cheap fakes.”

To set the stage: last year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a federal district court’s finding that the evidence likely established that the Biden Administration, including then spokesperson Jen Psaki, had engaged in a broad attack on free speech in violation of the First Amendment. It issued an injunction prohibiting the White House and other federal agencies from taking “actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce… social-media content containing protected free speech.”

The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which stayed enforcement of the injunction, pending its review. The Court heard oral argument in March. The administration might prevail, despite browbeating social media into blocking core political speech, including criticism of Biden, humor, and discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop. Yes, that same laptop the Justice Department and FBI just admitted were legitimate and tamper-free. A decision is expected within 10 days.

Now, KJP and the administration are doubling down. Attacking a new category of “cheap fake” videos, KJP blasted the media for publishing unaltered video of the president’s frailties. Her objection appears to be that by presenting information about the president out of the context preferred by the administration, this video is, in effect, fake. See here.

While the administration was unclear about the missing context, I infer that it prefers a focus on the presumed majority of the president’s 10 AM to 4 pm, Monday-to-Friday workday during which he is not frozen, wandering aimlessly, mumbling incoherently, or blanking out. I understand that preference, but it is unseemly, and depending on next steps, may be unconstitutional, for a government official, speaking from the White House, to seek to chill free speech.

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Biden Campaign Launches Taskforce to Combat Alleged “Cheap Fakes,” Urges Media Support

The Biden campaign is putting together a specialized task force that has been formed to counter what it considers manipulated portrayals of President Biden in online videos.

According to a staffer, who spoke with Politico, this initiative aims to “mitigate the risks” associated with these videos, which depict the president in various awkward or confusing situations.

Despite pushback on the Biden administration that the videos are actually accurate and have not been manipulated with AI, this move underscores a deepening concern within the Biden administration regarding the circulation of these clips on social media platforms, often highlighted as signs of the president’s deteriorating mental agility.

The issue gained traction following a press conference where White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized the media for distributing footage showing Biden in an unflattering light. Jean-Pierre labeled one such video, which showed former President Barack Obama assisting a seemingly bewildered Biden off a stage, as a “deepfake” and a “cheap fake video done in bad faith.”

Further incidents adding to the controversy include Biden’s peculiar behavior during a G7 summit and a Juneteenth event. In one instance, he was seen wandering away from a group of world leaders and in another, appearing disoriented among dancing attendees.

The campaign’s approach has sparked criticism from various quarters, accusing it of attempting to censor and control the narrative surrounding the president’s public appearances. Social media reactions have been sharply divided, with some users mocking the campaign’s efforts to label these videos as “cheap fakes” and questioning the integrity of the mainstream media’s coverage of these events.

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Biden Camp Caught Red Handed Spreading A Blatant ‘Cheap Fake’

The Biden campaign is at it again, doing exactly what they have accused Trump supporters of doing, creating so called ‘cheap fakes’.

Following this weekend’s massive Trump rally in Philadelphia, which saw an arena full of MAGA supporters and Trump being mobbed by adoring fans everywhere he went, the Biden campaign pathetically attempted to concoct something to disrupt the narrative.

As we highlighted, Trump took a pop at Biden, who is holed up at Camp David practicing standing up.

Trump packed the arena in Philly on Saturday.

But Biden’s meme team wanted to highlight the empty seats in the back corner and compare it to when Biden appeared in the same arena.

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Billionaire Banker’s Daughter Taylor Swift Sings “Fuck the Patriarchy!”, Leaving Some Nonplussed

Billionaire Taylor Swift, whose career was launched with the help of her rich banker father, sung “fuck the patriarchy!” at at her concert, leaving some to wonder how it made dads who had spent exorbitant amounts on tickets for their daughters feel.

The line is taken from the extended version of Swift’s All Too Well track, which was re-released in 2021 with the “fuck the patriarchy!” line added to the lyrics.

It was sung with gusto at one of Swift’s recent ‘Eras’ tour concerts, which the media has been treating with such gushing adoration akin to if Jesus Christ himself was touring the world.

Some accused the billionaire of being “out of touch,” while another wondered aloud, “Just thinking of all those dads who scrimped and saved to get overpriced tickets from touts for their teenage daughters—not to mention the hotel, travel costs, stupid outfits etc—many of them actually going with their kids and sitting through the bloody thing.”

“Then having to hear this bollocks from someone definitely old enough to know better.”

“Who does she think pays for all those girls to go to her concert?” asked another respondent.

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Citing national security, US will ban Kaspersky anti-virus software in July

The Biden administration will ban all sales of Kaspersky antivirus software in the US starting in July, according to reporting from Reuters and a filing from the US Department of Commerce (PDF).

The US believes that security software made by Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab represents a national security risk and that the Russian government could use Kaspersky’s software to install malware, block other security updates, and “collect and weaponize the personal information of Americans,” said US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

“When you think about national security, you may think about guns and tanks and missiles,” said Raimondo during a press briefing, as reported by Wired. “But the truth is, increasingly, it’s about technology, and it’s about dual-use technology, and it’s about data.”

US businesses and consumers will be blocked from buying new software from Kaspersky starting on or around July 24, 2024, 30 days after the restrictions are scheduled to be published in the federal register. Current users will still be able to download the software, resell it, and download new updates for 100 days, which Reuters says will give affected users and businesses time to find replacement software. Rebranded products that use Kaspersky’s software will also be affected.

Companies that continue to sell Kaspersky’s software in the US after the ban goes into effect could be subject to fines.

The ban follows a two-year national security probe of Kaspersky’s antivirus software by the Department of Commerce. It’s being implemented using authority that the government says it was given under a national defense authorization act signed during the Trump administration in 2018.

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The Problem with Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth. One hundred fifty-nine years ago, on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Texas and declared that all slaves in the state were free. The following year, in 1866, residents of the town where Granger had issued the order celebrated the anniversary as “Jubilee Day.” Eventually, the name changed to Juneteenth, and in 1979, it became a Texas state holiday. Then, in 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill designating Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

The West’s abolition of chattel slavery was one of the greatest victories for liberty in our civilization’s history. Using an anniversary like today to celebrate the achievement and reflect on why it was necessary in the first place—or how it could have come about better—should be a rare point of unity in today’s politically fractured America.

But in the years since Biden signed the so-called Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, the holiday has become increasingly co-opted by progressives in media, academia, and politics as a way to push for radical policies like collective reparations or the exclusion of white people from celebrations.

Because of that, most of the rhetoric we see from those promoting Juneteenth sidesteps the actual issue of slavery. They do so because adherents of modern progressivism do not actually believe in self-ownership, the antithesis of slavery.

Only libertarians have a consistent commitment to self-ownership. We believe that nobody has the right to another’s labor. Nobody can justly claim ownership over another’s body or the fruits of their labor. Progressives do not believe this.

Modern American progressivism can be defined by its commitment to what are called positive rights. Where negative rights entail an obligation not to do something, like murder or steal, positive rights refer to the supposed right to be provided with something, like education or healthcare. When backed by the force of law, positive rights produce a legal system where electing not to use your labor toward some specific end is tantamount to a rights violation—which, therefore, warrants the use of force to compel that labor involuntarily.

These days, the coercion underlying progressive programs is shifted from the service provider to the working professionals taxed to pay for them. The average American works the equivalent of thirty-eight days a year exclusively to fund government programs. For the top 1 percent of income earners, the average is sixty-five days. The only problem progressives have with this violent expropriation of wealth through taxation is that there’s not enough of it.

It is ironic that Americans are forced to work to fund a paid day off for federal employees to celebrate the end of involuntary labor. Much more absurd, however, is that much of our taxed income these days is—with the enthusiastic support of the progressive establishment—being sent to the Ukrainian government, which is quite literally enslaving young men and forcing them to fight against the Russians.

And, although it is not active at the moment, the House of Representatives recently passed a bill to automatically register young men for the draft with little to no pushback from progressives.

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Karine Jean-Pierre doubles down on awkward videos of Biden being ‘cheap fakes’ and insists clips are ‘disinformation’ from conservatives

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre continues to say President Biden is being miscast by videos she calls ‘cheap fakes’ after repeated videos of him being guided by other leaders or briefly ‘freezing’ on stage.

She hammered the media and blamed Republicans for attacks she called ‘misinformation.’ She did not repeat the use of another term – ‘deepfakes’ – that she used at her Monday White House briefing.

That is a form of digital altering of video an images, which the White House and Biden backers have not established took place with video from him at the G7 in Italy, at a White House Juneteenth event, or at an LA fundraiser.

‘It’s also very insulting to the folks, the viewers who are watching it. And so we believe we have to call that out. We’ve been calling it cheap fakes. That is something that came directly from the media outlets in calling it that, the fact-checkers and calling it that. And so we’re certainly going to be really, really clear about that as well. And calling it out from where we are, from where we stand,’ she said.

Then she specifically took on some of the Biden incidents that have drawn notice – including one of him walking away from a group of world leaders at the G7 in Italy, only to be guided back to a photo-op by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. 

‘I think there is so much misinformation, disinformation as we’ve been talking about. You talked about the video of the president wandering. And it’s not true. Right? The president wasn’t wandering. He was talking to a parachuter that was right in front of him. And what you saw is the Republican Party really manipulating what was being said and what was being seen by the American people,’ she said.

On Monday at her White House press briefing, Jean-Pierre told DailyMail.com that former President Barack Obama‘s decision to guide Biden after a big bucks fundraiser was a function of their longstanding relationship. 

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Trump Blasts Media, Biden Camp As “Shameless Liars” For Claiming Videos Are Fake

In a speech in Wisconsin Tuesday, Donald Trump called out the Biden campaign and its media mouthpieces as “shameless liars” for suggesting that footage of him wandering around looking lost at the G7 summit and having to be led off a stage by Obama at a fundraiser were somehow faked.

“They have a candidate that has no clue, doesn’t know where he is, and all they can do is lie. Joe Biden is humiliating our country on the world stage” Trump told the crowd, adding “they say the videos of crooked Joe shuffling around are clean fakes,” referring to the recent footage.

Further speaking about Biden’s odd behaviour, Trump asserted “At the G7 in Europe, he had to be rescued by other world leaders, they had to pull him back, then he bizarrely put his face on the Pope’s forehead. What was that all about? That was weird.”

“Did you see the Pope? The Pope is like, ‘What’s happening?’ The Pope didn’t really know what was happening. He said this is strange,” Trump hilariously continued.

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THE IRONY! Dementia-Ridden Joe Biden Just Proclaimed ‘World Elder Abuse Awareness Day’

Joe Biden just made an announcement that is extremely close to his heart.

The 81-year-old, who is becoming more confused and demented with every passing day, has proclaimed June 15th as “World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.”

The White House wrote in a statement:

Older Americans are the heart and soul of our families, our communities, and our Nation.  But every year, up to five million older Americans face some form of abuse.  Around the world, too many are denied the opportunity to age with dignity and security.

During World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, we recommit to standing with elder abuse survivors, shedding light on this important issue, and creating a world in which no older person has to live in fear of violence, abuse, or neglect.

…

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 15, 2024, as World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

I encourage all Americans to be diligent; work together to strengthen existing partnerships; and develop new opportunities to improve our Nation’s prevention of and response to elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

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