Tag: hypocrisy

Why Elite Libertarians Failed so Miserably on COVID

A priest friend of mine has been writing for three years against his fellow clerics who went along with the COVID regime, shut their churches, masked their parishioners, and then pushed shots on those who didn’t need them. He said that they forgot the first principle: be not afraid. And the second principle too: put not your faith in princes.

An academic friend of mine has been blasting his colleagues for just as long. He is even the author of a book “Treason of the Experts.”

Many conservatives who had sound opinions on lockdowns and vaccine mandates have gone after National Review and the Trump administration for their apostasies that gave us the biggest expansion of government power probably in world history.

Naomi Wolf has been relentless in calling out the left for their attacks on free association and free speech, in addition to their acquiescence to Big Pharma.

Each of these people say that they have a moral obligation to call out their own tribe.

Now to my own tribe: the libertarians.

For three years, I’ve been reluctant to say anything about the elephant in the room, the near-complete failure of libertarians to stand up to the lockdown and mandate regime. It was a moment in history that was tailor-made for them. Everything in their training taught them to be suspicious of government power and relentless in the defense of liberty.

Instead they mostly went silent. Worse, they became the Praetorian Guard of the lockdown Caesars, giving them cover when they deserved it least. The “radical” libertarians defaulted to a completely conventional careerism, even to the point of manufacturing rationales for terrible attacks on the most vulnerable.

Most organizations associated with the Atlas Network said nothing at all and still have said anything. The Mont Pelerin Society couldn’t muster the words either. Plenty of Twitter libertarians (and Reason Magazine) cheered masking as privacy-protecting disease-spread inhibitors while blasting me for criticizing them. Not even the Libertarian Party spoke out in 2020, a failure which led to a total upheaval in the party last year. Now, the anti-lockdowners are running the show.

Many if not most of the top intellectuals in the libertarian space were completely wrong and totally flopped when it mattered most. A book could be written on all the ridiculous excuses they marshaled to defend the worst attack on liberty in our lifetimes. Yes, many came around later and today pretend like that were right all along but the receipts are everywhere on what they said and did when it actually mattered.

Why haven’t I called them out? I convinced myself that they don’t really matter, so such a focus on internal strife achieves nothing. Maybe that’s right. It seems more true now than ever since they simply made themselves irrelevant by staying silent when voices of liberty were most needed. Now no one seems to care about them even as donor dollars are rightly drying up. My perception was that they (once we) mattered once upon a time, in any case.

In addition, my level of fury about the situation has been so intense that I did not think I could even pen a calm and persuasive article (even if I’ve attacked experts in general).

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Extinction Rebellion leader drives gas-guzzling diesel car and buys imported food from other side of world

Extinction rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbook has been exposed by a fellow shopper as having a diesel car and importing food from the other side of the world.

The 50-year-old, who helped set up XR in 2018, was spotted out and about at a Waitrose store in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Bradbook pulled up to supermarket driving a polluting 1.5 litre diesel car.

The mother-of-two loaded her trolley with goods from across the world, stretching from Chile to Cyprus and India to Italy.

The items were also swathed in plastic and polythene.

An onlooker told The Sun: “Buying fruit flown halfway round the world in non-recyclable packaging then driving home in a ­diesel motor — what a towering hypocrite.

“But at least she wasn’t held up on her way home by idiots who glued themselves to the road.”

Images taken of the eco-activist showed where her items were originally from and suggested she is less concerned about items travelling thousands of air miles.

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‘Self-serving’ North Dakota GOP boosts own meal allowance after axing free school lunch bill

Republicans in North Dakota are facing criticism this week after they voted to boost their own budgets for meal reimbursements, even as they blocked an expansion of a free lunch program for low-income school students.

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reports that the Republican-dominated North Dakota Senate voted to ratify the boost to meal reimbursements for lawmakers and state workers just 10 days after the same institution narrowly blocked a bill that would have expanded the state’s free lunch program.

According to the Forum, the legislation had previously passed through North Dakota’s House of Representatives and would have “dedicated $6 million over the next two school years to cover lunch costs for K-12 students with family incomes below double the federal poverty level,” meaning that “children from families of four making less than $60,000 a year would have qualified.”

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Conservatives Believe They Discovered An Unhinged AOC Burner Twitter Account

Questions are being asked over the discovery of a Twitter account apparently belonging to Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on which she wished death on a conservative journalist and used vile and threatening language against others.

It appears that AOC outed herself as one ‘Zaza Demon’ on the account in response to another Twitter user who commented on a video of the Rep. being confronted by Libs Of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik. 

This is how that went:

Libs Of TikTok Confronts AOC For Violating Committee Ethics Rules – Her Response Is Predictable

AOC zaza demon responded in the first person to the video, writing “Lol and what makes you think that i did anything to support nazis? You’re delusional. Seek help,” before then quickly deleting the response.

After that, scores of other tweets from the account began to disappear, before the entire account was nuked.

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Obama Center is displacing black families by significantly raising neighborhood’s rent, Chicago residents say

South Side Chicago residents recently revealed to the Washington Post that the construction of the Obama Presidential Center has led to a significant increase in the neighborhood’s rent, causing the displacement of long-term residents, including many black families.

In September 2021, former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama broke ground on the Obama Presidential Center in the South Side of Chicago. The center, located on a 19-acre lot, will include a public library, playground, community centers, and a museum.

The $500 million project has been largely financed by private donors. The construction, which is still ongoing, is estimated to bring $3.1 billion to the community. In addition, it is predicted to generate another $16.5 million in state and local tax revenue.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, Obama told the audience that the center would “give back to Chicago and the South Side in particular.”

“The Obama Presidential Center is our way of repaying some of what this amazing city has given us,” he stated.

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Attorney Who Represented Survivors of Sex Crimes Arrested for Child Pornography

An attorney in West Palm Beach, Florida, who represented survivors of sex crimes was recently arrested with possession of child pornography.

Michael T. Dolce, 53, appeared in West Palm Beach federal court for his first appearance in the case on March 30, the Southern District of Florida U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a release.

According to the release, citing the criminal complaint affidavit, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Dolce’s apartment and found that Dolce was “actively downloading child pornography using peer-2-peer software.”

“Nearly 2,000 images and videos of child pornography were recovered from his devices,” it stated.

At the March 30 hearing, Dolce agreed to submit to pretrial detention while reserving his right to later challenge it, reported the Miami New Times. His arraignment is scheduled for mid-April, according to the outlet. He faces a child pornography possession charge, which has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The office of Leonard Scott Feuer, Dolce’s attorney, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

Dolce’s LinkedIn profile describes him as a “highly regarded trial lawyer and political activist” whose practice “is dedicated to representing survivors of sexual crimes, including child and adult victims, and adult survivors of child sexual abuse.”

According to the LinkedIn profile, he was a partner at the Palm Beach Gardens office of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll since late 2015. But his name is no longer listed on law firm’s website as of the time of writing.

According to an archived entry on the firm’s website, Dolce was the leader of its Sexual Abuse, Sex Trafficking, and Domestic Violence team.

In a statement to multiple outlets, the firm said it was “stunned and saddened” by the allegations against Dolce. A spokesperson confirmed Dolce was “terminated and is no longer affiliated with the firm.”

“We are focused on attending to the needs of our clients and staff and continuing to cooperate fully with the investigation,” the spokesperson added.

Separately, Dolce’s LinkedIn profile states that he has been on the board of directors of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence since 2011.

He also served on the advisory board of Florida’s Children First, according to a now-deleted entry on the legal-aid organization’s website. The non-profit group is dedicated to representing “at-risk children, especially those in foster care.”

According to the website’s entry, Dolce founded a political committee called “Protect Our Kids First, Inc.” Separately, he also served on the Florida Bar’s Legal Needs of Children Committee, and on the governing board of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in West Palm Beach.

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Doublespeak: State Department warns about online censorship then threatens to “hold platforms accountable”

In a startling display of doublespeak at the Summit for Democracy 2023, United States (US) Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned about more countries “using the internet to try to control speech” and claimed that the Biden administration is trying to promote an open internet before threatening to “hold platforms accountable” for so-called “harms.”

Blinken raised the alarm about the internet “growing more closed, more insecure, more siloed by the day.”

He continued by stating: “More countries are putting up firewalls and shutting down access, using the internet to try to control speech, quash dissent, spread misinformation and disinformation.”

The Secretary of State followed up by claiming that the Declaration for the Future of the Internet (a 60-country commitment to bolstering “resilience to disinformation and misinformation”) reaffirms the US’s commitment to an “open network of networks that respects democratic principles and human rights.”

After lambasting other countries for closing off the internet and positioning the Biden admin as a paragon of openness, Blinken pivoted and said, “We have to do better at addressing some of the risks that come with the open internet.”

He then proposed a “delicate balance” between “openness and security,” “protecting speech and preventing incitement,” and “fostering innovation and limiting the power of Big Tech.”

Not content with suggesting a balance between protecting speech and censoring speech that the Biden administration deems to be “incitement,” Blinken then threatened consequences for platforms that don’t fall in line.

“The President’s…made clear that we need to be able to hold platforms accountable when they fail to address the harms caused by their technology, from the content they spread to the algorithms that they use.”

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“Grandma of the Police Officers Association” in California Arrested for Importing Fentanyl From China and Other Countries

As the drug crisis in America rages on as opioids and fentanyl pour across our unsecured border from the Mexican drug cartels supplied by Chinese “pharmaceuticals,” an unsuspecting trafficker has emerged.

San Jose Police Officers Association police union executive Joanne Marian Segovia was arrested on Wednesday for attempting to import a synthetic opioid called Valeryl fentanyl.  If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Police union president Sean Pritchard told the New York Post that Segovia was like “the grandma of the POA…this is not the person we’ve known, the person who has worked with fallen officers’ families, organized fundraisers for officers’ kids…”

Segovia was allegedly importing packages of drugs from China, Canada, India and other countries and disguising them as common items such as makeup, chocolates, and food supplements.  She has received at least 61 packages at her home from 2015 through 2023.

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