Jan 13

Journalists are in an organized effort to push censorship on Substack

New York City. Columbia School of Journalism. Jan. 13, 2024. “The Atlantic” Magazine, a far-left, pro-government extremist publication, recently published an article entitled Substack Has a Nazi Problem. The article made a number of factual claims, including a claim that large numbers of “nazis” are now on the Substack platform writing profitable columns with mountains of regular readers, subscribers and advertisers, and otherwise enjoying uncensored life.

Soon the claims were joined by the usual suspects.

Washington Post, The Guardian, Financial Times, MSN News, Yahoo, Business Insider, and Rolling Stone all wrote pieces expanding on the supposed issue.

But an independent journalist named Jesse Singal, investigated the matter. It turns out that almost every claim made by the establishment platforms was either untrue or quite exaggerated. Not a single “nazi” seems to be making any money to speak of on Substack. No “nazi” writer or Substack page appears to have achieved even a 4-digit subscribership.

The Atlantic’s hit piece even took statements found on supposed Substack “nazi” pages entirely out of context. Indeed, some statements, such as

In all, writes Singal, there has been a “fairly contrived effort to endlessly link the word Substack to the word Nazi.”

But why?

The answer, it seems, is that the West’s contemporary journalists are of an increasingly singular bent. As a group, journalists are now more concentrated on “the left” than ever before. And this isolated journalist establishment is increasingly united in an effort to spread and promote censorship of anti-government ideas throughout the western world.  

Jan 07

Washington Post has lost half its online readers, and is losing $100 million annually

The pro-government extremist Washington Post newspaper has been losing readers for years. People just won’t pay to read government propaganda.

Now there are reports that the Post’s losses are accelerating. Four years ago, the Post boasted 139 million monthly visitors. By the end of last year (2023), it had less than 60 million. Of the 60 million audience who still read WaPo, less than one in five read more than a single article per month, while less than one in 500 actually convert to a paying subscription. See here.

Dec 30

Freedom of Information Act data show 220 ambulance calls in Westchester & Duchess Counties listing “vaccine” as the reason for the calls

Westchester, New York. December 2023.

We know from ICAN and Aaron Siri’s FOIA request of the CDC’s V-Safe data that 7.9% of all 10.1 million vaccine recipients reported requiring medical care to treat a vaccine adverse effect. Of those requiring medical care, almost 11% (87,700 people) visited the emergency room or hospital. Statistically, about 15% of ER patients arrive by ambulance.

Now we have reports from EMS ambulance drivers in Westchester and Duchess Counties of New York. The ambulance staff report that many of their calls in the past three years involved medically distressed patients who were recently vaccinated. In all some 220 ambulance calls listed vaccination as the reason for the calls. See here.

Dec 29

European governments are so outraged about Alex Jones being back online that they’re threatening to shut down X entirely in Europe unless Elon bans all independent media from the platform.

European Union. Dec. 28, 2023. Government control freaks in the EU are triggered at the thought that they may lose control over information and news.

Governments worldwide have been caught repeatedly, secretly funding and directing “news” outlets to produce only pro-government “news.” Around 2008 it was estimated that spending on secret pro-government propaganda by the US government alone was over 70 billion dollars annually.

“The evidence we currently have is enough to formally open a proceeding against X,” Margrethe Vestager, the 27-nation bloc’s executive vice president overseeing digital policy, said in a statement. “The Commission will carefully investigate X’s compliance with the [Digital Services Act] DSA, to ensure European citizens are safeguarded online.”

Under the law, which came into effect in August, a company can be fined up to six percent of its annual global income or banned from operating in the EU if it is found to have breached the sweeping legislation.

Revolver News writes:

The bottom line is that the globalists are feeling a tremendous loss of control. Their unpopular policies are failing worldwide, and they’re pointing fingers at independent media outlets like Revolver and InfoWars. It’s not because these media sources are spreading lies; rather, they’re revealing truths about political and globalist elites. And if there’s one thing these charlatans despise more than anything, it’s the truth.

Dec 28

High earners are fleeing socialist California in droves, taking massive revenues with them.

Productive people and entrepreneurs have always fled high taxes and life-choking regulations. It has been widely reported that California has lost population for the past few years. But it has not been widely reported that those leaving California are starkly different from those immigrating to California.

“State budget analysts recently projected a record $68-billion deficit in the next fiscal year thanks to a 25% drop in personal income tax collection in 2023. Some city, county and other local taxing authorities, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, have also recorded revenue declines.”

According to a report in the LA Times and MSN news:

California is heavily dependent on high earners to meet government fiscal needs. Tax filers in the top 1% of income, earning around $1 million and above, have typically accounted for 40% to 45% of the state’s total personal income tax revenue, said Brian Uhler, deputy legislative analyst at California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, which estimated the $68-billion budget deficit.

But it’s not just the super rich such as Elon Musk, who moved from California to Texas in 2020 and brought his company Tesla with him a year later, or movie star Mark Wahlberg, who left Los Angeles for Vegas last year. There’s been a broader exodus of ordinary Californians in the upper-income spectrum as well.

In the tax filing years 2020 and 2021, the average gross income of taxpayers who had moved from California to another state was about $137,000. That was up from $75,000 in 2015 and 2016, according to migration and personal income data from the Internal Revenue Service.

IRS and other data show that Texas has long been, by far, the top destination for Californians. And in the years 2015-16, an individual or couple who had moved from California to Texas reported an average income of $78,000, about the same as Texans who relocated to California. But by 2020-2021, California transplants in Texas reported an average income of about $137,000, while tax returns from former Texans who moved to California showed an average income of $75,000.

The income gap between those coming into California and those going out is even bigger when it comes to Florida, which, as far away as it is, has become a top five destination for emigrating Californians. Statistics show more older Californians are likely to move there. Florida, like Texas and Nevada and Tennessee, another more recent hot spot for Californians, doesn’t have a personal income tax.

In California, the top tax rate for personal income is 12.3%.

Dec 24

Polling reveals that Americans have never had less trust in “institutions.”

Polling reveals that Americans have never had less trust in “institutions.” 

For 50 years, Gallup has routinely asked people how much they trust major media outlets.  Over time, those who say they have absolutely no trust in mainstream media went from being the smallest segment of the population to the largest segment of the population.

              A similar history can be told regarding Americans’ trust in Congress, the Presidency, all of government, academia, and medicine.  As government has taken increasing control over these institutions, peoples’ trust in the institutions has plummeted.

              Now those who call themselves “liberals” are in a state of panic.  Increasingly, they perceive “liberalism” to be nothing but an effort to save “institutions” from popular hatred.  Of course, their self-awareness

“Trust in institutions has deteriorated substantially,” said Kay Schlozman, professor of political science at Boston College. Schlozman said she believes in government and the things it provides, such as national defense and access to health care, but “I also can very much understand why the American people can be cynical about government.”

Confidence in the country’s foundational institutions has ebbed and flowed historically, though there’s been a long-term downward trend since at least the 1970s. See here.

Dec 24

New Survey: Germans’ feelings of freedom to express their political opinions is lowest in 70 years

Yellow: Germans who feel they can speak freely. Red: Germans who feel they CANNOT speak freely.      

        If anything, the grip of “political correctness” is stronger in Europe than in the U.S.  The prescribed (and sometimes mandated) ideology of socialism, equality of outcomes, anti-mobility, anti-automobility, trust in government, and the climate doomsday religion is repeated incessantly–every hour–by every official and corporate platform in Germany.

Polling shows the percentage of Germans who now feel unfree to express their opinions is higher than the percentage who feel free to speak. And for the most part, feelings of freedom exist only for leftist elites. See here.

              The online philosopher Eugyppius writes on December 22, 2023 that surveys are regularly taken of German attitudes, including Germans’ assessment of their individual freedom. The German “Freedom Index” score recently registered an abysmal -0.8.

“Since the 1950s, they have been asking Germans whether they feel they can express their political opinions freely. . . . This year, only 40% of their respondents said they felt free to express their political opinions.”

Eugyppius writes that “Surprisingly, that number – which if anything seems implausibly high to me – actually represents an all-time low.”

Not surprisingly, this feeling of being stifled is registered most prominently among the working classes.  While “[a] clear majority (75%) of Greens alone feel that they can speak their minds, and so here we learn who feels best represented by our present discourse.”

“51% of those with university degrees or an Abitur feel their political expression is unhampered, while clear majorities of everybody else say they cannot speak their minds.”

“The opinions which govern German society, as I’ve written many times before, are not those of most people, but rather of an increasingly insular, university-educated urbanite class, who are relatively affluent, who vote overwhelmingly Green and who constitute no more than 15% of the population.”

Dec 22

Socialist California loses population for 3rd straight year

Sacramento. 12/22/23. California–once the most popular destination for Americans on the move–has been under socialist rule for decades. And now residents have been fleeing the high-tax, high-regulation state continuously for three years.

See here.

The tyrannical government of California has banned gas-powered lawnmowers, locked down the population, and mandated masks and injections throughout State schools and universities.

Socialism is a curse that should be wished only upon one’s enemies.

Dec 22

Tucker Carlson announced a new podcast – and it’s already the nation’s 3rd most popular on Spotify, before it begins.

Glenn Greenwald. 12/21/2023. Carlson’s podcast–although it doesn’t even exist yet–is about to pass the NYT’s The Daily. “Roughly half of the top 50 news podcasts are independent media.” See here. “Corporate media is still in full denial about this.”

“Mainstream” information sources–meaning those that are government supporting and (secretly) government supported–simply are no longer mainstream. Readers and viewers are becoming aware that platforms such as NYT, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc. are just pro-government content. Readers and viewers simply won’t pay or invest the time to hear the same government messaging all day long, day after day.

CNN–with massive corporate support and advertising, and being shown at all times at every airport, hotel lobby and train station–only produces one show (Erin Burnett) with over 100,000 viewers in the coveted ‘under 55’ age range. (Even 5th-rate libertarian podcasts get that many viewers.) Greenwald writes that “It’s an absolutely dying medium: rapidly so.”

Dec 21

Study: Government Regulations Cause Average American to take 2 Fewer Trips per Year

WASHINGTON -. U.S. Travel Association. 12/21/2023.

Air travelers take an average of two fewer trips per year at a projected total cost of $71 billion to the U.S. economy—according to a new U.S. Travel survey from Ipsos. 

“When nearly 60% of recent air travelers find the experience the equivalent or worse than going to the DMV, it is a concerning signal that demands action,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman. “

The impact of traveler frustrations equates to 27 million avoided trips in total and $71 billion in losses for the U.S. economy, including $4.5 billion in lost tax revenue. (Ipsos, Longwoods International and U.S. Travel) 

Half of air travelers said they would travel more in the next six months if the experience were less of a hassle. Similarly, business travelers would take an average of two more trips per year if travel frictions improved, resulting in 18 million additional trips and $52 billion in economic impact. 

Freeman noted the numerous ways the federal government is failing travelers, such as outdated security screening technology, inconsistent waits at Customs and airport security checkpoints, and months (or years)-long delays for U.S. visitor visas. 

“The security screening experience travelers encounter today is effectively the same as it was 21 years ago when the TSA was established,” said Freeman. “While air travel is safer than ever, the process for most air travelers has not evolved. Screening processes and technologies in the United States are falling behind those in other nations. It’s time to lead the way.”