I suppose the irony is that America, a country founded by citizens with little tolerance for government, has mutated into a government that has little tolerance for its citizens.
Interesting how the new government assumed the states' debts, and monetized it. And the new bondholders were a rich few in places like New York and Massachusetts. Guess it was Hamilton's idea...
Could be a rabbit hole, though, to explore that here!
An important rabbit hole… The Broadway show “Hamilton” is only the latest and slickest whitewash…. (wow! a black man protraying a white man who monetized the whole country!… dumb woke ignorance)
yes, and thats happened only because of the governments ability to counterfeit funds for everything it wants to do. iy cant even tax us enough for all the meddling it wants to achieve. we need to get the feds back in their lane.
My friend directly lost his job yesterday because of this. He writes for an independent heterodox online publication and was laid off yesterday. His boss said they were downgraded BY NEWSGUARD after they published COVID lab leak theory articles and they lost revenue and grants DIRECTLY due to this downgrade. EDIT: well he DID write for for the outlet...
Re Matt's; "...Newsguard’s customers include universities and libraries..."
Interesting T-rad's friend's company lost grants. It might be worth investigating if similar grants to libraries and universities are tied to using Newsguard or similar services. We only hear about tech platforms being censored but not much about universities.
Too much litigation etc involved at the moment. Wish he was willing, but I can understand his reticence. Newsguard is the reason that was expressed to him, but as it isn't provable it could be awkward for him if that turns out not to be the case. Add to that the possible (?) threat of the feds and well...
So, what’s the problem here? Newsguard is expressing its opinions about another media source’s accuracy and trustworthiness. Emphasis on the word “opinions.”
The suit Matt describes in this column is, at bottom, a defamation claim — News Consortium is claiming that Newsguard defamed News Consortium. More specifically, News Consortium is suing Newsguard for expressing an opinion.
You can read my full comment on this issue below. (roughly #269 in this comment section). But it concerns me to see a veteran journalist like Matt Taibbi reporting on this lawsuit without pausing to notice that “A” is suing “B” for “B’s” expression of opinion — the lawsuit itself might well be an attempt to censor “B.” Defamation claims have long been used as a tool of censorship — and of course Matt knows that.
And oh, look. The Biden maladministration is beginning another round of "help the underrepresented minority homeowners". Because that worked so well the last time.
TAXES DON'T FUND SPENDING AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. Congress creates new money every time they pass an appropriations bill. I know that the phrase "taxpayers' dollars" catches everyone's attention, but the government can pay for what it wants without you.
Well, true. But every trillion dollars created by the government reduces the value of my money. So it is taking from me even if it wasn't my taxes that paid all of for their spending.
My father lived through the REAL inflation in Germany in 1923. The U.S. dollar went from 2 marks in 1920 to 5 billion marks in November 1923. People would get paid in cash and right away spend all of it as it would be worth nothing in a day (except to burn to heat the house).
The tail is wagging the dog. Thanks for doing what you can to keep these wolves in check Matt.
"But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of government, to educate themselves, and to involve themselves in the political process. Without that, he said, the wolves will take over." —Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
My suspicion has long been that the D.C. grant/award system is another tax dollar guzzling industry inhabited by sycophants and hustlers who turn on a dime to line their pockets and parrot the "party line". The joined at the hip corporate/surveillance bureaucratic monstrosity, (citizen tax dollars in the front door earmarked and dispersed to special interest insiders out the back) appears to be a major weapon of what is obviously a war on American values and the middle class. Like all grifters, the perps have to threaten and silence legitimate truth and inquiry. In this case "we the people". Hence Billy Gates, Klaus Schwab, the Davos crowd and the international war on free speech. It's a purely criminal enterprise.
The journalist Chris Hedges has been the only Substack leader I've seen to platform the UBS whistle blower Stephanie Gibaud. Central bankers and criminal financiers are/were/have always been the enemy of freedom. A few years back the Taibbi report that HSBC, BOA and other financial grifters were busted knowingly laundering cartel drug money and walked was no surprise. The 2008 looting and gutting of American industry and economic base? Ukraine was/is a poster child for money laundering and the numbered Swiss account. Sleepy Joe B., obviously not the only D.C. grifter, was neck deep. Would a perp willing to sell the White House be willing to sell out "we the people"? A look through any windshield affirms the Hedges observation that "capital" has abandoned America.
The grift has been going on for over half-a-century. Whitney Webb has two neurotically dense books "One Nation Under Blackmail" volumes 1 and 2.
She gives names, dates, places, motives, connections, and suspicions at a frenetic pace, so much that it's actually difficult to consume without corkboard, pins, and red string, but if you're a fairly old codger (or codgeress), these names pop out of your memory like pin worms.
I tell you, it is utterly amazing. I don't know her. I don't have anything to do with her. Her books are amazing.
Sold at fine bookstores near you... hopefully, but if not... then, well, you know:
You're correct--It all ain't lost at all but it is all in all hard to see what it all is but I'm pretty sure it ain't human. It's a delusional corporate fascist vision of some chemically castrated heavily medicated dormitory born and bred cyber wired Big Foot creature that subsists on crickets and lives inside a hologram with no sense of time and no connection to history who willingly spends ten hours a day performing repetitive tasks in a suicide netted factory for arcade tokens and the right to patriotically die in state owned euthanasia center. (Sorry!! The "..pops out of your memory like pin worms.." phrase triggered my neurosis.)
Thank you for the heads up. I'll check out Ms. Webb's "..Under Blackmail...."
Let me return the favor. At the end of his life C.G. Jung wrote a book called AION. It is as you say "dense". But the psychologist Edward F. Edinger wrote a short accompanying commentary that can be either be read alone or used as a guide when reading Jung's work. My "...A-Bomb 20th Century retro/pathology not politics/brand new age/salvation in the Constitution.." rant is based in a large part on the insights in those books. Likewise, for fun, if you still possess a healthy sense of paranoia and wonder Cormac McCarthy's double volume THE PASSENGER/STELLA MARIS might be the subtle brutality you're looking for.
Lot's to reply to... I'll be brief. As for "it" not being human, I think C.G. Jung would align them more with a very particular subset of human... anti-human maybe... but point taken... when squinting at what they're saying they want... humanity doesn't immediately come to mind.
Thank you for the AION pick, I'll rush to get it. I bought 2 Jung books last week, so I'm prepped.
Also... The Passenger... I read it over a month ago. Somehow his best book (not thought possible) and ranking in my top 1 or so all-time best books (Blood Meridian does not like being crowded up there, but both climbed in my mind, due to its limited space, no choice I'm afraid). My one contest to Passenger's relevance in this discussion is that, when he broaches our particular arena of conversation, he bows out by saying something like "You know what that sounds like."... i.e. sounds like a conspiracy theory... i.e. crazy... without elaborating his position. But we're looking more living Alicia's life every day.
Many, I would imagine. It would make sense that it's a similar deal to the high-dollar jobs that SEC and Treasury people get when they are done making government work for Wall Street. While Newsguard salaries likely can't touch Goldman Sachs, they're certainly better than government salaries.
If they have a DoD contract, you can bet they will hire more military, NSA, CIA people in order to expand their reach into the federal fisc and expand their censorship offerings.
I would like all voters to have mandatory civics exams before voting . Just like a drivers license a voters license has responsibilities. Many people don’t understand how the government works. The history of Jefferson and Ben Franklin’s disagreements should be known to all.
Getting back to misinformation- Animal farm has a scene where the pigs rewrite the rules to favor the pigs over the others . “Some Animals are more equal than others . “
I shouldn’t vote if I can’t pass the civics test . There would be classes and a test and makeup tests. It is our greatest right and should be treated as such .
I watched how a bill becomes a law 😂 and that’s a good place to start. I have a well educated friend who thought she had to fill out the whole ballot . She didn’t understand the amendments but thought she had to vote on everything. There r more people who don’t even understand the basics. Sheriff is non partisan but if a party is listed people vote along the party line. We almost had a felon become sheriff because he listed democrat.
“The Wikimedia Foundation has pulled in millions of dollars, even as the cost of web hosting (about $2.5 million/year) has remained constant. As it turns out, less than half of the Wikimedia budget has anything to do with running Wikipedia. With the rest of the money, the Foundation have vastly expanded their staff; the organisation now employs 400 people and by the end of 2021 they had accumulated over $230 million in assets. Because they now have vastly more money and more people than they need to run a crowd-sourced encyclopedia, they have become a grant-making institution.”
"Name and shame." Thank you for doing that here, Matt, with the co-CEOs of this POS company. We need thousands of these lawsuits out there. There is a legal phrase I misremember, penned by SCOTUS in one of their pro first amendment rulings, regarding disallowing censorship by the government by proxy and threat. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hear it, to consume it. This, and this alone, is the meaningful battle of our time. All the rest is window dressing. We are with you.
Well said. Agreed. It's concerning when I hear/read people complain that Matt is beating a dead horse, so to speak. There is no issue more paramount than our ability to share and receive information. Particularly that which concerns the government and its actions.
It's hard to fathom with all that is going on the past 20, 10, 7, and even 3 years (consecutively more and more obvious and pointed) to not conjure the slightest amount of foresight necessary to see where this all goes.
Please follow up with examples of MainStream media stories that are flat out wrong but not flagged and ’conspiracy stories’ flagged as wrong that turned out to be totally correct.
The money is one issue, but corruption in their judgement will exoose their charade.
When Jeff Bezos contracts with the CIA and other government "intelligence" agencies and bureaucracies to do their cloud computing for 10s of billions of dollars on one hand, then continues to canonize them with the other (WaPo), why is no one asking about THAT government influence and censorship? And we know he's not alone. CEO Crovitz is philosophically correct in that the government has its tentacles in so many private pies, that it can - and far too often does - influence and "control" private enterprise from anyone who receives government funding (or over priced business contracts), from Covid relief to education to culture makers (advertising, entertainment and other media) to spying.
The practice is pernicious to say the least, and a free press, while critical to our society, is only one of many private enterprises doing the government's bidding.
This Cloud Computing is as bad as AI—recent computers don’t even have USB ports anymore, implying that EVERYTHING that goes in and out of your computer, including storage, will be on the Cloud. Talk about making it easy for the government to control everything; obviously the Tech companies are colluding with the government.
I couldn't agree more. The new flow of and storage of information is so insidious. We've all seen revisionism right before our eyes. When AOC called Trump's detention centers on the border "concentration camps" the online dictionary definitions of concentration camps wasn't changed overnight to agree with her, it was changed online within minutes. A terrifying trend and reality. Keep paper everything, then, if possible use and old computer USB ports to save the rest.
I've got a "way back" folder on my laptop, my personal in-home cloud device, and another more remote cloud device that have about 1T of on-line history on them.
I purchased World History and US History - hard copy . It’s in a shelf in my art room . It’s safe . I also bought the Roald Dahl collection before they were cleansed . We have to go back to paper . Wish AOC would leave the US .
I have a whole wall of books, no one has modified them (yet). One of the defects of e-books, especially the Kindle and Nook varieties: they can be changed at will when your reader is connected to the internet.
People like you and me may end up being the only place one can get certain books in the near future. Kind of rings true of the samizdat system they had (maybe reverted to) in Russia.
Yes, and she was installed by the government to boot!
:-)
...sorry, I fell for my own impulsivity. Really, I think my plants behave more rationally and honestly than Sandy Cortez (aka "AOC": I am disinclined to dignify her with an acronym).
If de-Googled phones are hitting the market (about 4 that I know of), then only buying a laptop if it has ports on it could resist the tide.
BTW - Major swaths (if not all) of the U.S. government is now requiring Microsoft products for means of communication (Teams, Outlook, their product suit). I wonder who made that deal.
It may be "small", but this monster must be confronted anywhere it can be. Hopefully, CN will win the case (it is hard to see this in any way than arbitrary censorship) and based on that precedent bigger push back can be attempted.
"CEO Crovitz is philosophically correct in that the government has its tentacles in so many private pies, that it can - and far too often does - influence and "control" private enterprise"
Look into In-Q-Tel. It isn't just that the .gov has their tentacles in a lot of private pies, it's that they started a lot of them. It is highly likely the CIA started Walmart, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and many others.
Well, the cia was created in 1947 and Walmart in 1950, so it's improbable that they started them. The point of your suggestion however, is well taken, and possible, though imo, not plausible. That isn't to say ALL of them haven't been well financed and advantaged by the cia and other govt agencies and courts.
meh.. Sam Walton bought his first store in Bentonville Arkansas in 1950. That was effectively the beginning of Walmart. The rest is history - and hardly germane to my point or yours - which while somewhat disparate are by no means contradictory.
Dancing angels on the head of a pin is an exercise in both futility and focus, but a terrific way let the villain flee free from accountability
"Anti-U.S." I'm sure what they really mean are articles critical of the U.S. government, of officialdom. Such articles are much needed and should perhaps be labeled pro-U.S. since we the people need journalists and a free press that actually challenges authority.
And to think we the people pay for this BS "rating" system!
It's similar to the "America--love it or leave it!" nonsense that used to be tossed around, mostly by country club Republicans yelling at protesting youth. Because you know, it's impossible to love something and want it to do better. but wait, we do that with our kids and our partners...
Hell I remember when newsguard rolled out. A few centrist outlets were really excited about it (TimCast was one). I immediately had the impression they were slimy grifters, and that impression has not changed since.
Reading between the lines here, they're an extortion operation. "Take down this thing you said that our paymasters don't like or we'll brand you a disinformation operation."
I have no doubt that Consortium News is being adversely impacted by their rating, but I have to wonder if there is a cohort of the population that will use a negative rating by Newsguard as a litmus test to identify a source worth reading, similar to how young people flocked to music with a "Parental Advisory" warning on CDs.
In March 2022 they went after the little Donbass Insider. Its co-founder, Christelle Neant published the letter she wrote to them. Some of the names then associated with Newsguard:
"Indeed, when we look at the profile of the NewsGuard team, and especially of its advisory board,
we immediately understand that there is a problem, a big problem even, in terms of impartiality
and neutrality. Indeed, the NewsGuard advisory board includes :
– Don Baer, former White House communications director during the Clinton administration;
– Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education under the Obama administration;
– Retired General Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, and former director of the
National Security Agency (NSA);
– Elise Jordan, former pen of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice;
– Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Secretary General of NATO;
– Tom Ridge, former first Secretary of State for Homeland Security in the George W. Bush
administration;
– Gianni Riotta, editorial writer for La Stampa (you know the Italian newspaper that used a
photo of the massacre of civilians in Donetsk by the Ukrainian army to illustrate an article on the
situation in Kiev);
– Richard Stengel, former Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Obama
administration;
– Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, whose presence on this strongly biased committee
(to put it mildly) indicates that the famous encyclopaedia is not neutral.
Add to this the fact that the “analyst” writing to me, Edward O’Reilly, is a former member of the
US Marine Corps, and that Newsguard regularly cites Bellingcat (whose links to the British
Foreign Office’s secret programmes have been proven) as a reliable source, and it soon becomes
clear that this site is just another showcase for the US intelligence services, led by the CIA, the
White House and NATO, to impose the US narrative."
It looks like a deep state operation, with an advisory board of like-minded individuals. It's worth reading her entire letter, in which she details the questions they demanded DI answer. And she knows well what's going on.
"Why does this site decide to attack Donbass Insider only now (we have been in existence since 2018 I remind you)? Well, simply because with the brutal heating up of the conflict in Donbass, then the launch of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, and following the violent censorship of international Russian media such as Sputnik or RT, our little website has seen its audience multiplied extremely significantly. Enough to attract the attention of NewsGuard. Clearly, Donbass Insider has reached a large enough audience to begin to panic Washington, and the site must be quickly discredited or even censored, to prevent its information from totally destroying the narrative about the situation in Ukraine."
I doubt Washington was panicking at that point - it's just in the nature of these people to prevent the public from having access to a counter-narrative.
Wow. "Newsguard" is one term that escaped George Orwell, but it would have fit perfectly in his 1984 world. I imagine this isn't the only kind of press-pentagon-executive branch collusion taking place in the U.S. Especially since there are at least nineteen "intelligence" agencies hard at work looking for conspiracies, misinformation, disinformation, and, I guess, anything that may contradict the needs and demands of Big Brother. This is so discouraging... and dangerous. Thank you Matt for the story and the lawsuit.
It is really hard to get attention about Wikipedia. But Alexa DOES use Wikipedia. It takes a bit of effort to learn to edit (not a lot, but a little). Not as easy as making a comment on a discussion board. There is 100% no use in complaining. The only way to make it better is for people to edit it. You can see who the editors are and their history in Wikipedia. I got involved to add things about the history of libraries (not controversial) and have had good experience. I did get discouraged about the "Twitter Files" Wikipedia article, but managed to work with a few others to ensure it wasn't deleted. The page abt the Twitter Files has some negative things but also some positive. I'm still disappointed that they deleted my beautiful table with links to all the files. The only link they allowed TO the actual files is at the very bottom under "external Links." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files
As we've discussed at some point in the past, I did my bit trying to edit a particular Wikipedia page about 10 years ago. That's where I learned how arrogant and dismissive the regular editors are. Pretty much soured me on any more efforts.
Very interesting discussion on Wikipedia regarding the Westminster Declaration. Thank you. I think the point they are making is that by not getting any follow up in mainstream media, or insufficient, that means there's nothing to say about it. That is a vacuous take on what is or is not important in the world. If the NYT doesn't print it, then it's a "nothing burger."
I'm thinking that maybe this declaration should join some of the others which have not gotten the traction they deserve as entries under the heading of "Nothing Burger," which does have a Wikipedia entry. If enough of the stories that have been called this were gathered together, it might be a wake up call to few who will start to understand that censorship operates in myriad ways, and presents in multiple facets.
Since The Pentagram...oops...The Pentagon regularly misplaces trillions of tax dollars every year with exactly zero consequences I imagine that they have a shit ton of money to fuck with our heads.
I doubt that fact it will change anytime soon.
And since I read an article yesterday that said that "Americans overwhelmingly support aid to Israel & Ukraine" I'd say that the Pentaon's perception management is an "overwhelming" success.
Americans always seem to support sending their cash to war zones.
It's things like free healthcare & welfare that they find repugnant.
Gee, I wonder which price tag is higher, 23 years of never-ending war with no end in sight or Medicare 4 All?
Is it easier to drum up electorate support for A or B?
Oh well, with a little luck, this will all go global & humans will finally get their death wish fulfilled & all of this will be moot.
And I'm pretty damn sure that the trillions of $$$ that the Pentadildo misplaces every year would go a long way towards paying our healthcare bills.
But hey, given the fact that America can only export 3 things these days, debt, fat people & war, I don't see The Empire losing its war itch any time soon..
Americans always seem to support sending their cash to war zones.
It's things like free healthcare & welfare that they find repugnant.
Yo, an “American” here... please add quotation marks or something because it reads exactly like what you’re saying (correctly) that the Pentagram “fucks with our heads” notably because the “our” is you and me, got it? Wherever we are from does not matter because we are all powerless to these fucks. Thanks.
Then again, maybe they polled Pentagon generals & left that out.
I don't know anyone, outside of make believe InterwebVille, who doesn't support sending money to some war zone currently in operation.
They either hate Russians or they hate Hamas or they hate Israel.
Sometimes they hate 2 out of 3.
I've never actually met anyone who hates the trifecta though.
But, if quotation marks will make you feel better, here they are: "".
"Americans" consistently elect dickheads who then spend an inordinate amount of time shooting the country in the foot. This prompts "Americans" to spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about the dickheads they elected. Then those "Americans" turn around and elect more dickheads who then spend an inordinate amount of time shooting the country in the foot.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
The last time I was dumb enough to bring up Ukraine I was called a Putinist.
Yep, that's what I am. I'm such a Putinist I'm trying to have a few feet knocked off of my height so I can see eye to eye with the great one.
A ‘vote harder’ take, got it but not at all with you on that. Maybe elections are still working wherever you live, but like jeez lets blame individuals for their naive stupidity but not the administered system, oh hell no, this homie has learned to stop punching down. Have a nice day.
Vote harder? Are you on crack? The only "vote harder" moment I want to see in my life is for the entire electorate to either stay home or vote "none of the above."
"jeez lets blame individuals for their naive stupidity"
Well yeah. I mean we are talking about adults here, right? Not fresh off of their mommy's titty, toddlers, right?
The 1st step towards taking apart the system would be to refuse to participate in the system. Which is something registered Dems & Repubs seem incapable of doing. They are seemingly compelled to pick a clown from the clown car of their choice no matter what.
Nice little virtue signal at the end. Ooooh, you punch up not down...well what a swell fellow you must be. I'm sure that each online comment/up punch that you've delivered has had a great effect on the system.
To make things easier on you I admit I'm an asshole.
To the fucking core.
Feel better?
I suspect the whole fucking point to this entire exchange was so you could virtue signal.
I suppose the irony is that America, a country founded by citizens with little tolerance for government, has mutated into a government that has little tolerance for its citizens.
The mutation was baked into the cake when the Articles of Confederation were abandoned.
Rabbit Hole Alert!
I consider the Constitution to be the result of a bloodless coup.
Interesting how the new government assumed the states' debts, and monetized it. And the new bondholders were a rich few in places like New York and Massachusetts. Guess it was Hamilton's idea...
Could be a rabbit hole, though, to explore that here!
An important rabbit hole… The Broadway show “Hamilton” is only the latest and slickest whitewash…. (wow! a black man protraying a white man who monetized the whole country!… dumb woke ignorance)
More post-modern crap…
yes, and thats happened only because of the governments ability to counterfeit funds for everything it wants to do. iy cant even tax us enough for all the meddling it wants to achieve. we need to get the feds back in their lane.
The 1st Amendment … so ironic that the first concern of americans at the outset is still the major concern… despite the amendment….
U got it !
My friend directly lost his job yesterday because of this. He writes for an independent heterodox online publication and was laid off yesterday. His boss said they were downgraded BY NEWSGUARD after they published COVID lab leak theory articles and they lost revenue and grants DIRECTLY due to this downgrade. EDIT: well he DID write for for the outlet...
Would your friend talk to me?
This is why I subscribe. Matt's articles on Loudoun County, Virginia ~2 years ago were classic investigative journalism. He listen's and reports.
And he's just getting better.
Matt sealed the deal with his Loudoun County reporting with me also. Great piece of Journalism!
Re Matt's; "...Newsguard’s customers include universities and libraries..."
Interesting T-rad's friend's company lost grants. It might be worth investigating if similar grants to libraries and universities are tied to using Newsguard or similar services. We only hear about tech platforms being censored but not much about universities.
I just shot him a text. I'll let you know what he says.
Too much litigation etc involved at the moment. Wish he was willing, but I can understand his reticence. Newsguard is the reason that was expressed to him, but as it isn't provable it could be awkward for him if that turns out not to be the case. Add to that the possible (?) threat of the feds and well...
He, or his attorney, should reach out to FIRE.
YES
What that means, "I'd like to remain employable."
I understand that. I cover up my Trump sticker on my car to go to work for the liberal NGO.
Btw- Crovitz is a former Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones guy). I am not surprised by this since the WSJ ran the government narrative all during COVID.
That’s awful. I’m sorry.
So, what’s the problem here? Newsguard is expressing its opinions about another media source’s accuracy and trustworthiness. Emphasis on the word “opinions.”
The suit Matt describes in this column is, at bottom, a defamation claim — News Consortium is claiming that Newsguard defamed News Consortium. More specifically, News Consortium is suing Newsguard for expressing an opinion.
You can read my full comment on this issue below. (roughly #269 in this comment section). But it concerns me to see a veteran journalist like Matt Taibbi reporting on this lawsuit without pausing to notice that “A” is suing “B” for “B’s” expression of opinion — the lawsuit itself might well be an attempt to censor “B.” Defamation claims have long been used as a tool of censorship — and of course Matt knows that.
B is censoring on behalf of the fascist deep state. did you miss that part sparknuts?
Having taxpayer dollars spent on suppressing the free speech of taxpayers is just beyond galling.
We paid for the gain of function research.
We paid for the coverup of the gain of function research.
We paid for the masks and the lockdowns and the school closings.
To top it all off, we pay for the censorship, too!
And we're still paying for the censorship, intellectually, politically, and financially.
We also pay for the subsequent economic melt-down.
And when you can no longer pay for your house, the bank will swoop in with newly printed cash to buy it for pennies on the dollar.
The process is referred to as "reinvestment".
And oh, look. The Biden maladministration is beginning another round of "help the underrepresented minority homeowners". Because that worked so well the last time.
And we paid for the vaccine research, the vaccines, the testing,…
there is very little evil in the world that isnt touched and influenced to some degree by US taxpayers the USG'S ability to counterfeit trillions.
TAXES DON'T FUND SPENDING AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. Congress creates new money every time they pass an appropriations bill. I know that the phrase "taxpayers' dollars" catches everyone's attention, but the government can pay for what it wants without you.
Well, true. But every trillion dollars created by the government reduces the value of my money. So it is taking from me even if it wasn't my taxes that paid all of for their spending.
My father lived through the REAL inflation in Germany in 1923. The U.S. dollar went from 2 marks in 1920 to 5 billion marks in November 1923. People would get paid in cash and right away spend all of it as it would be worth nothing in a day (except to burn to heat the house).
right, the government takes what it cant through taxes, by inflation.
The tail is wagging the dog. Thanks for doing what you can to keep these wolves in check Matt.
"But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of government, to educate themselves, and to involve themselves in the political process. Without that, he said, the wolves will take over." —Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
So, how many of the people working at “Newsguard” are former CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA, etc. employees?
You bet!!
My suspicion has long been that the D.C. grant/award system is another tax dollar guzzling industry inhabited by sycophants and hustlers who turn on a dime to line their pockets and parrot the "party line". The joined at the hip corporate/surveillance bureaucratic monstrosity, (citizen tax dollars in the front door earmarked and dispersed to special interest insiders out the back) appears to be a major weapon of what is obviously a war on American values and the middle class. Like all grifters, the perps have to threaten and silence legitimate truth and inquiry. In this case "we the people". Hence Billy Gates, Klaus Schwab, the Davos crowd and the international war on free speech. It's a purely criminal enterprise.
The journalist Chris Hedges has been the only Substack leader I've seen to platform the UBS whistle blower Stephanie Gibaud. Central bankers and criminal financiers are/were/have always been the enemy of freedom. A few years back the Taibbi report that HSBC, BOA and other financial grifters were busted knowingly laundering cartel drug money and walked was no surprise. The 2008 looting and gutting of American industry and economic base? Ukraine was/is a poster child for money laundering and the numbered Swiss account. Sleepy Joe B., obviously not the only D.C. grifter, was neck deep. Would a perp willing to sell the White House be willing to sell out "we the people"? A look through any windshield affirms the Hedges observation that "capital" has abandoned America.
Stay pumped!!
The grift has been going on for over half-a-century. Whitney Webb has two neurotically dense books "One Nation Under Blackmail" volumes 1 and 2.
She gives names, dates, places, motives, connections, and suspicions at a frenetic pace, so much that it's actually difficult to consume without corkboard, pins, and red string, but if you're a fairly old codger (or codgeress), these names pop out of your memory like pin worms.
I tell you, it is utterly amazing. I don't know her. I don't have anything to do with her. Her books are amazing.
Sold at fine bookstores near you... hopefully, but if not... then, well, you know:
https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-Blackmail-Intelligence/dp/1634243013/ref=pd_bxgy_sccl_1/131-6279743-3264851?content-id=amzn1.sym.43d28dfc-aa4f-4ef6-b591-5ab7095e137f&pd_rd_i=1634243013&psc=1
You're correct--It all ain't lost at all but it is all in all hard to see what it all is but I'm pretty sure it ain't human. It's a delusional corporate fascist vision of some chemically castrated heavily medicated dormitory born and bred cyber wired Big Foot creature that subsists on crickets and lives inside a hologram with no sense of time and no connection to history who willingly spends ten hours a day performing repetitive tasks in a suicide netted factory for arcade tokens and the right to patriotically die in state owned euthanasia center. (Sorry!! The "..pops out of your memory like pin worms.." phrase triggered my neurosis.)
Thank you for the heads up. I'll check out Ms. Webb's "..Under Blackmail...."
Let me return the favor. At the end of his life C.G. Jung wrote a book called AION. It is as you say "dense". But the psychologist Edward F. Edinger wrote a short accompanying commentary that can be either be read alone or used as a guide when reading Jung's work. My "...A-Bomb 20th Century retro/pathology not politics/brand new age/salvation in the Constitution.." rant is based in a large part on the insights in those books. Likewise, for fun, if you still possess a healthy sense of paranoia and wonder Cormac McCarthy's double volume THE PASSENGER/STELLA MARIS might be the subtle brutality you're looking for.
Stay strong. Stay clear and keep on rockin'!!
Lot's to reply to... I'll be brief. As for "it" not being human, I think C.G. Jung would align them more with a very particular subset of human... anti-human maybe... but point taken... when squinting at what they're saying they want... humanity doesn't immediately come to mind.
Thank you for the AION pick, I'll rush to get it. I bought 2 Jung books last week, so I'm prepped.
Also... The Passenger... I read it over a month ago. Somehow his best book (not thought possible) and ranking in my top 1 or so all-time best books (Blood Meridian does not like being crowded up there, but both climbed in my mind, due to its limited space, no choice I'm afraid). My one contest to Passenger's relevance in this discussion is that, when he broaches our particular arena of conversation, he bows out by saying something like "You know what that sounds like."... i.e. sounds like a conspiracy theory... i.e. crazy... without elaborating his position. But we're looking more living Alicia's life every day.
Looking forward to AION. Thanks again.
Edinger (now at light speed) left some YouTube vids you might like. Always good to bump into a McCarthy fan. Thanks.
Many, I would imagine. It would make sense that it's a similar deal to the high-dollar jobs that SEC and Treasury people get when they are done making government work for Wall Street. While Newsguard salaries likely can't touch Goldman Sachs, they're certainly better than government salaries.
Grifters, all.
Many commenters here at Racket News are Newsguard employees.
“Former”
If they have a DoD contract, you can bet they will hire more military, NSA, CIA people in order to expand their reach into the federal fisc and expand their censorship offerings.
Another revolving door.
Excellent. Thanks for that. Ironically, Carl was government funded. I wonder if Thucydides and Aristotle were as well.
I would like all voters to have mandatory civics exams before voting . Just like a drivers license a voters license has responsibilities. Many people don’t understand how the government works. The history of Jefferson and Ben Franklin’s disagreements should be known to all.
Getting back to misinformation- Animal farm has a scene where the pigs rewrite the rules to favor the pigs over the others . “Some Animals are more equal than others . “
Careful that you don't suggest yourself out of the electoral process.
I shouldn’t vote if I can’t pass the civics test . There would be classes and a test and makeup tests. It is our greatest right and should be treated as such .
I watched how a bill becomes a law 😂 and that’s a good place to start. I have a well educated friend who thought she had to fill out the whole ballot . She didn’t understand the amendments but thought she had to vote on everything. There r more people who don’t even understand the basics. Sheriff is non partisan but if a party is listed people vote along the party line. We almost had a felon become sheriff because he listed democrat.
A well-informed citizen. Bravo!
Great quote.
Next it is time to see how Wikipedia's rating system of "reliable sources" also suppresses speech.
Wikipedia rates Consortium News as UNRELIABLE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources
CONSORTIUM NEWS cannot be a citation for Wikipedia.
“The Wikimedia Foundation has pulled in millions of dollars, even as the cost of web hosting (about $2.5 million/year) has remained constant. As it turns out, less than half of the Wikimedia budget has anything to do with running Wikipedia. With the rest of the money, the Foundation have vastly expanded their staff; the organisation now employs 400 people and by the end of 2021 they had accumulated over $230 million in assets. Because they now have vastly more money and more people than they need to run a crowd-sourced encyclopedia, they have become a grant-making institution.”
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/the-managerial-menace?
That's a really good eugyppius article.
Who reads/uses Wikipedia?
And this is exactly why I would never listen to any news or opinion type show on PBS… someone should also call them out…
"Name and shame." Thank you for doing that here, Matt, with the co-CEOs of this POS company. We need thousands of these lawsuits out there. There is a legal phrase I misremember, penned by SCOTUS in one of their pro first amendment rulings, regarding disallowing censorship by the government by proxy and threat. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hear it, to consume it. This, and this alone, is the meaningful battle of our time. All the rest is window dressing. We are with you.
Well said. Agreed. It's concerning when I hear/read people complain that Matt is beating a dead horse, so to speak. There is no issue more paramount than our ability to share and receive information. Particularly that which concerns the government and its actions.
It's hard to fathom with all that is going on the past 20, 10, 7, and even 3 years (consecutively more and more obvious and pointed) to not conjure the slightest amount of foresight necessary to see where this all goes.
When there is no accountability for misdeeds those who perform them are emboldened.
Please follow up with examples of MainStream media stories that are flat out wrong but not flagged and ’conspiracy stories’ flagged as wrong that turned out to be totally correct.
The money is one issue, but corruption in their judgement will exoose their charade.
They must be stopped.
It must atrophy. Actively stopping it would be a snake eating its own tail.
Expose the corruption If their own charade. Bring it all to light
The Hamilton 68 stories were flagged as true, but were a hoax.
How? "Must be stopped"
they must be made to fear for life and limb. the gentle among us need to acknowlege this.
This feels like small potatoes to me. Very small.
When Jeff Bezos contracts with the CIA and other government "intelligence" agencies and bureaucracies to do their cloud computing for 10s of billions of dollars on one hand, then continues to canonize them with the other (WaPo), why is no one asking about THAT government influence and censorship? And we know he's not alone. CEO Crovitz is philosophically correct in that the government has its tentacles in so many private pies, that it can - and far too often does - influence and "control" private enterprise from anyone who receives government funding (or over priced business contracts), from Covid relief to education to culture makers (advertising, entertainment and other media) to spying.
The practice is pernicious to say the least, and a free press, while critical to our society, is only one of many private enterprises doing the government's bidding.
This Cloud Computing is as bad as AI—recent computers don’t even have USB ports anymore, implying that EVERYTHING that goes in and out of your computer, including storage, will be on the Cloud. Talk about making it easy for the government to control everything; obviously the Tech companies are colluding with the government.
I couldn't agree more. The new flow of and storage of information is so insidious. We've all seen revisionism right before our eyes. When AOC called Trump's detention centers on the border "concentration camps" the online dictionary definitions of concentration camps wasn't changed overnight to agree with her, it was changed online within minutes. A terrifying trend and reality. Keep paper everything, then, if possible use and old computer USB ports to save the rest.
It's positively surreal
I still run into people who think this is “progress.”
Things like movies are rapidly becoming available through streaming only. I imagine shows like “Life of Brian” will disappear completely…
That's why I still insist on actual books.
D’accord!
Why am I blocked from liking your comment? Is it something I said?
I've got a "way back" folder on my laptop, my personal in-home cloud device, and another more remote cloud device that have about 1T of on-line history on them.
I purchased World History and US History - hard copy . It’s in a shelf in my art room . It’s safe . I also bought the Roald Dahl collection before they were cleansed . We have to go back to paper . Wish AOC would leave the US .
I have a whole wall of books, no one has modified them (yet). One of the defects of e-books, especially the Kindle and Nook varieties: they can be changed at will when your reader is connected to the internet.
We have several hundred books, including many Library of America volumes of writing in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. We do not read much online.
People like you and me may end up being the only place one can get certain books in the near future. Kind of rings true of the samizdat system they had (maybe reverted to) in Russia.
AOC, a plant, obviously.
Yes, and she was installed by the government to boot!
:-)
...sorry, I fell for my own impulsivity. Really, I think my plants behave more rationally and honestly than Sandy Cortez (aka "AOC": I am disinclined to dignify her with an acronym).
Installed by the government? I thought every new Representative has their own Netflix special!?!
an insult to horticulture!
Touché! Hahaha!
If de-Googled phones are hitting the market (about 4 that I know of), then only buying a laptop if it has ports on it could resist the tide.
BTW - Major swaths (if not all) of the U.S. government is now requiring Microsoft products for means of communication (Teams, Outlook, their product suit). I wonder who made that deal.
FOIA opportunity...
🪒🛎️
It may be "small", but this monster must be confronted anywhere it can be. Hopefully, CN will win the case (it is hard to see this in any way than arbitrary censorship) and based on that precedent bigger push back can be attempted.
Depends entirely on what judge is presiding. To have any chance of winning it will need to end up at the Supreme Court.
With a defunct Congress only concerned with spending more, and a compromised executive branch, the courts are going to bear the burden.
Hopefully CN wont settle when the DOD offers to dump a dump truck full of cash onto their driveway.
Or invade a small country for them, for free.
No one gets to be a billionaire in this country without being vetted.
Well, what about Musk? I do think he's a thorn in their side.
"CEO Crovitz is philosophically correct in that the government has its tentacles in so many private pies, that it can - and far too often does - influence and "control" private enterprise"
Look into In-Q-Tel. It isn't just that the .gov has their tentacles in a lot of private pies, it's that they started a lot of them. It is highly likely the CIA started Walmart, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and many others.
Well, the cia was created in 1947 and Walmart in 1950, so it's improbable that they started them. The point of your suggestion however, is well taken, and possible, though imo, not plausible. That isn't to say ALL of them haven't been well financed and advantaged by the cia and other govt agencies and courts.
Walmart was started in 1962 and incorporated in 1969
meh.. Sam Walton bought his first store in Bentonville Arkansas in 1950. That was effectively the beginning of Walmart. The rest is history - and hardly germane to my point or yours - which while somewhat disparate are by no means contradictory.
Dancing angels on the head of a pin is an exercise in both futility and focus, but a terrific way let the villain flee free from accountability
Well said
There is also the matter of the MICIMATT buying advertising on the Sunday political talk shows. Advertising is how they buy the network.
For my edification, what is MICIMATT? military (or medical) industrial complex i m a t t ...
Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Media Academia Think Tank Complex. h/t Ray McGovern.
"Anti-U.S." I'm sure what they really mean are articles critical of the U.S. government, of officialdom. Such articles are much needed and should perhaps be labeled pro-U.S. since we the people need journalists and a free press that actually challenges authority.
And to think we the people pay for this BS "rating" system!
Let my people read!
It's similar to the "America--love it or leave it!" nonsense that used to be tossed around, mostly by country club Republicans yelling at protesting youth. Because you know, it's impossible to love something and want it to do better. but wait, we do that with our kids and our partners...
And think.
Hell I remember when newsguard rolled out. A few centrist outlets were really excited about it (TimCast was one). I immediately had the impression they were slimy grifters, and that impression has not changed since.
Reading between the lines here, they're an extortion operation. "Take down this thing you said that our paymasters don't like or we'll brand you a disinformation operation."
WhO cOUld haVe sEEn tHaT cOmINg!
Thank you for your work exposing corruption. I hope you win!
This is very important work!
I have no doubt that Consortium News is being adversely impacted by their rating, but I have to wonder if there is a cohort of the population that will use a negative rating by Newsguard as a litmus test to identify a source worth reading, similar to how young people flocked to music with a "Parental Advisory" warning on CDs.
Could be, but how many of us malcontents could convince others of the problem?
In March 2022 they went after the little Donbass Insider. Its co-founder, Christelle Neant published the letter she wrote to them. Some of the names then associated with Newsguard:
"Indeed, when we look at the profile of the NewsGuard team, and especially of its advisory board,
we immediately understand that there is a problem, a big problem even, in terms of impartiality
and neutrality. Indeed, the NewsGuard advisory board includes :
– Don Baer, former White House communications director during the Clinton administration;
– Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education under the Obama administration;
– Retired General Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, and former director of the
National Security Agency (NSA);
– Elise Jordan, former pen of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice;
– Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Secretary General of NATO;
– Tom Ridge, former first Secretary of State for Homeland Security in the George W. Bush
administration;
– Gianni Riotta, editorial writer for La Stampa (you know the Italian newspaper that used a
photo of the massacre of civilians in Donetsk by the Ukrainian army to illustrate an article on the
situation in Kiev);
– Richard Stengel, former Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Obama
administration;
– Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, whose presence on this strongly biased committee
(to put it mildly) indicates that the famous encyclopaedia is not neutral.
Add to this the fact that the “analyst” writing to me, Edward O’Reilly, is a former member of the
US Marine Corps, and that Newsguard regularly cites Bellingcat (whose links to the British
Foreign Office’s secret programmes have been proven) as a reliable source, and it soon becomes
clear that this site is just another showcase for the US intelligence services, led by the CIA, the
White House and NATO, to impose the US narrative."
https://www.donbass-insider.com/2022/03/28/censorship-donbass-insider-in-the-crosshairs-of-newsguard-an-agency-linked-to-the-cia-nato-and-the-white-house/
Not sure what role these affiliates have, but if substantial, that’s far more damning than the relatively small amount of federal money involved.
It looks like a deep state operation, with an advisory board of like-minded individuals. It's worth reading her entire letter, in which she details the questions they demanded DI answer. And she knows well what's going on.
"Why does this site decide to attack Donbass Insider only now (we have been in existence since 2018 I remind you)? Well, simply because with the brutal heating up of the conflict in Donbass, then the launch of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, and following the violent censorship of international Russian media such as Sputnik or RT, our little website has seen its audience multiplied extremely significantly. Enough to attract the attention of NewsGuard. Clearly, Donbass Insider has reached a large enough audience to begin to panic Washington, and the site must be quickly discredited or even censored, to prevent its information from totally destroying the narrative about the situation in Ukraine."
I doubt Washington was panicking at that point - it's just in the nature of these people to prevent the public from having access to a counter-narrative.
Wow. "Newsguard" is one term that escaped George Orwell, but it would have fit perfectly in his 1984 world. I imagine this isn't the only kind of press-pentagon-executive branch collusion taking place in the U.S. Especially since there are at least nineteen "intelligence" agencies hard at work looking for conspiracies, misinformation, disinformation, and, I guess, anything that may contradict the needs and demands of Big Brother. This is so discouraging... and dangerous. Thank you Matt for the story and the lawsuit.
Weigh in on Keeping the Westminster Declaration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Westminster_Declaration
I liked your comment. Also the one immediately after yours about irony.
I try to be non-confrontational (because when I was it never worked). Thanks for looking.
I appreciate your tireless efforts with regards to Wikipedia.
I agree that non-confrontation has a better chance of being productive. Otherwise, you're just venting. Feels good, but doesn't budge the meter.
It is really hard to get attention about Wikipedia. But Alexa DOES use Wikipedia. It takes a bit of effort to learn to edit (not a lot, but a little). Not as easy as making a comment on a discussion board. There is 100% no use in complaining. The only way to make it better is for people to edit it. You can see who the editors are and their history in Wikipedia. I got involved to add things about the history of libraries (not controversial) and have had good experience. I did get discouraged about the "Twitter Files" Wikipedia article, but managed to work with a few others to ensure it wasn't deleted. The page abt the Twitter Files has some negative things but also some positive. I'm still disappointed that they deleted my beautiful table with links to all the files. The only link they allowed TO the actual files is at the very bottom under "external Links." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files
As we've discussed at some point in the past, I did my bit trying to edit a particular Wikipedia page about 10 years ago. That's where I learned how arrogant and dismissive the regular editors are. Pretty much soured me on any more efforts.
Very interesting discussion on Wikipedia regarding the Westminster Declaration. Thank you. I think the point they are making is that by not getting any follow up in mainstream media, or insufficient, that means there's nothing to say about it. That is a vacuous take on what is or is not important in the world. If the NYT doesn't print it, then it's a "nothing burger."
I'm thinking that maybe this declaration should join some of the others which have not gotten the traction they deserve as entries under the heading of "Nothing Burger," which does have a Wikipedia entry. If enough of the stories that have been called this were gathered together, it might be a wake up call to few who will start to understand that censorship operates in myriad ways, and presents in multiple facets.
I put it on my Facebook page. I'm surprised they haven't bannered me yet.
Since The Pentagram...oops...The Pentagon regularly misplaces trillions of tax dollars every year with exactly zero consequences I imagine that they have a shit ton of money to fuck with our heads.
I doubt that fact it will change anytime soon.
And since I read an article yesterday that said that "Americans overwhelmingly support aid to Israel & Ukraine" I'd say that the Pentaon's perception management is an "overwhelming" success.
Americans always seem to support sending their cash to war zones.
It's things like free healthcare & welfare that they find repugnant.
To be fair, I'm all in favor of free healthcare....except it ain't never free.
Most folks (folx?) are in favor of free stuff until they see the price tag.
Gee, I wonder which price tag is higher, 23 years of never-ending war with no end in sight or Medicare 4 All?
Is it easier to drum up electorate support for A or B?
Oh well, with a little luck, this will all go global & humans will finally get their death wish fulfilled & all of this will be moot.
And I'm pretty damn sure that the trillions of $$$ that the Pentadildo misplaces every year would go a long way towards paying our healthcare bills.
But hey, given the fact that America can only export 3 things these days, debt, fat people & war, I don't see The Empire losing its war itch any time soon..
Americans always seem to support sending their cash to war zones.
It's things like free healthcare & welfare that they find repugnant.
Yo, an “American” here... please add quotation marks or something because it reads exactly like what you’re saying (correctly) that the Pentagram “fucks with our heads” notably because the “our” is you and me, got it? Wherever we are from does not matter because we are all powerless to these fucks. Thanks.
Free healthcare? Being a Doctor is skilled work that deserves ample compensation.
Always like references to "free" stuff or services. Someone pays for it....
It was a poll, pal.
Then again, maybe they polled Pentagon generals & left that out.
I don't know anyone, outside of make believe InterwebVille, who doesn't support sending money to some war zone currently in operation.
They either hate Russians or they hate Hamas or they hate Israel.
Sometimes they hate 2 out of 3.
I've never actually met anyone who hates the trifecta though.
But, if quotation marks will make you feel better, here they are: "".
"Americans" consistently elect dickheads who then spend an inordinate amount of time shooting the country in the foot. This prompts "Americans" to spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about the dickheads they elected. Then those "Americans" turn around and elect more dickheads who then spend an inordinate amount of time shooting the country in the foot.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
The last time I was dumb enough to bring up Ukraine I was called a Putinist.
Yep, that's what I am. I'm such a Putinist I'm trying to have a few feet knocked off of my height so I can see eye to eye with the great one.
So, seriously, fuck this asylum.
A ‘vote harder’ take, got it but not at all with you on that. Maybe elections are still working wherever you live, but like jeez lets blame individuals for their naive stupidity but not the administered system, oh hell no, this homie has learned to stop punching down. Have a nice day.
Vote harder? Are you on crack? The only "vote harder" moment I want to see in my life is for the entire electorate to either stay home or vote "none of the above."
"jeez lets blame individuals for their naive stupidity"
Well yeah. I mean we are talking about adults here, right? Not fresh off of their mommy's titty, toddlers, right?
The 1st step towards taking apart the system would be to refuse to participate in the system. Which is something registered Dems & Repubs seem incapable of doing. They are seemingly compelled to pick a clown from the clown car of their choice no matter what.
Nice little virtue signal at the end. Ooooh, you punch up not down...well what a swell fellow you must be. I'm sure that each online comment/up punch that you've delivered has had a great effect on the system.
To make things easier on you I admit I'm an asshole.
To the fucking core.
Feel better?
I suspect the whole fucking point to this entire exchange was so you could virtue signal.
Have the day that you deserve.