251 Comments

Thank you Matt for your part in investigating and reporting on the rot as well as giving exposure to others trying to do the same. We, especially those of us who heretofore thought we were losing our minds, salute you.

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Long overdue. They need to generate a feeding frenzy among the plaintiffs' bar so that it's profitable to sue these companies. Activist billionaires who care about liberty should be starting public interest litigation funds exclusively dedicated to taking stuff like this on.

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What activist billionaires might you be referring to? Elon Musk is the only activist billionaire I've heard about who actually gives a damn about liberty. Most billionaires (those I read about in the news, anyway) actively support leftist politicians and their pet causes. The uber rich donate vast amounts of money to leftists, who, by definition, favor authoritarian centralized government and the suppression of all opposing views. In return for billionaire financial support, leftists legislate (or promulgate rules) in favor of the billionaires.

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There are plenty of others you don’t hear about. And there are also those who aren’t quite billionaires but who could pool with others in the “hundred millionaire” club to create litigation funds.

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I don't know if David Sacks is a billionaire, but I know he's a well-to-do individual and he's a strong supporter of liberty. (Edited to correct spelling of David's last name.)

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Dennis Prager, Bill Ackerman, Peter Thiel, Jordan Peterson, Tony Robbins...to name only a few and we will start seeing many come out of the woodwork as the situation gets worse and it will get a lot worse. I am not a fan of fear mongering, but I am a realist. Have faith and stay Soverign. ✌️💜🙏🇺🇸

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Noelle - I agree with what you've said. I would add that so-called "conservative" billionaires have been content to put their capital into productive endeavors while Progressives marched right through the institutions. Now it's time for those same folks to perhaps (re)consider the (re)deployment of their capital in preservation of what Liberty remains, while it remains. A number of well-considered "activist" lawsuits could help shove things in the "Freedom" direction - or at the very least, put a stick in the spokes of the Uniparty's pillaging for a good bit of time, anyway.

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I would really love to see your definition of a “leftist.”

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Whether you "love" it or not will depend on if you properly place Fascism as sharing the LEFT endpoint (100% State control, 0% individual autonomy) of the political spectrum with Marxism.

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In other words, we see a definition of "Left" which is exactly opposite the classical definition. I am not sure who is served by this reversal. My first take on it is that it makes a critique of authoritarianism impossible, since the (classical) Left has been defined out of the language. I'll leave it up to you all Rightists to explain.

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All the big "ism"s -- communism, socialism, fascism -- bubbled up out of opposition to and the ultimate disintegration of empires and oligarchies. They are, by definition, leftist ideologies / systems ... unless we want to classify empires and oligarchs (historically considered rightist) as leftist.

Their differences have to do with 1) where they could establish roots, e.g., a country, and 2) who they could target for support. The communists got a foothold in Russia and targeted workers of the world. The socialists, aka Nazis, aka National Socialists, got a foothold in Germany and targeted a race. The fascists got a foothold in Italy and targeted military veterans.

Basically, they're cousins ... variations on a theme.

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Except for Capital-ism (classical, not crony, which is Socialism/Mercantalism/Fascism in disguise).

Capitalism *is* classical liberalism, freeing the individual from the depredations of the mindless-but-always-expanding-if-not-Constitutionally-corralled State.

The Left is always fooling the peeps with the mis-definitions of appropriated words/concepts.

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If I understand you correctly, I disagree completely.

Fascism has *always* (i.e. classically) been the left endpoint. Anarchy (0% State, 100% individual autonomy) is the Right endpoint. Capitalism (i.e *classical* liberalism) is about 10% to the left of the right endpoint, with its *limited* State (public sector about 10% of GNP).

The Left has always tried to move Society to *more* State, and usually by fooling millions into thinking they are *for* more individual freedom.

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I'd never quite conceived of it that way, but that's not a bad way of considering it. Libertarians like to use the "authoritarian" axis to better articulate the variations on some of the themes. But the socialists have for decades been re-branding to not associate themselves with the national socialists. In the same way democrats continue to perpetrate the lie about the political parties "switching" in the U.S. in order to try to get themselves away from being the party of slavery, which they most assuredly are - and remain.

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Timothy, we're basically saying the same thing: Communism / socialism / fascism ... left. Monarchy / oligarchy ... right. Capitalism ... right-ish.

I was just trying to explain it to Starry ... ;0}

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Nah, the "classic" definition was to hide the pesky fact that communism/socialism are just fascist with better PR.

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"I 'Love' the way people throw these binary descriptions around! They are a distraction. They are divisive and irrelevant.

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Joy. Sort of like what Matt wrote “ creepy euphemisms”. The instant that something offends us, we are off the track. Resentment surges through us and nothing is going to please us. The ever present divide & conquer tactic with humans.

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I’m “blocked from liking this comment” according to a pop-up.

So, Like.

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Click! I did it for you... Jala needs the heart count to go up!

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You are over-simplifying ("binary descriptions") complicated, higher concepts.

If terms are not well-defined and commonly understood, then how can productive communication, and therefore *real* progress (as opposed to the regressive "progress" of the inappropriately named Progressives) be made in human societies?

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This is why I recommend abandoning the use of certain terms which no longer designate anything reasonably well-defined. Someone once said to me, "Don't call yourself some name. Just tell people what you want to do, and let them call you names."

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I disagree.

I think you *appropriate* terms in order to fool peeps into abandoning the politcal system of maximum individual freedom and agency, Capitalism, with its political system of (classical) liberalism, which *liberates* the individual from the group, especially the largest group of all, Society, and its terrible agent, the State.

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It wouldn’t be recognisable to those who have been leftists our whole lives. More likely liberals were meant. The narrow debate in the US means never having seen a true leftist their whole life.

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My point is that I suspect you have mis-defined "Left" in human politics.

I do not mean to offend.

"True leftists" are *for* more public-sector power (more State, more gov't., more forcing the individual, ulimately *every* individual, to comply with Statist narrative/diktat), and *less* private-sector freedom.

Perhaps you are actually of the Right (less State, more individual freedom/agency/autonomy) all these years.

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You're correct. The political spectrum or gradient has always been an indicator of the degree of centralized state control, with the left end being the greatest, the right end the least. Hence, Communism is farthest Left and Anarchy the farthest Right (if no government at all even counts; if not, Libertarianism would be farthest Right). Fascism is obviously Left in this scheme, and conservatives (the Right) have been battling liberals (the Left) rhetorically over this for many years now.

It's all buttwind, what with comparisons being odious and all.

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I also disagree that "it's all buttwind."

This is the most important subject of all, because if enough of the People don't realize it, then the People are heading for bloody revolution against today's Fascism, a *stealth* Fascism led by the *modern liberals* (Statists, the *opposite* of classical liberals) of the Democrat Party (led by the twin powermongers, the neo-libs/neo-cons).

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Thank you, M. Hubbard.

However, You got tripped up by saying, "...liberals (the Left)..."

This *is* my main point!:

Classical Liberalism (i.e. LIBERALS) are on the RIGHT, not LEFT.

Since the turn of the 20th century, the powers that be on the LEFT (Statists, wanting LESS individual freedom, and MORE State/public-sector/gov't./crony-ism), under the guise of Wilsonian "progressivism", have fooled the free People with the slow theft of the original political meaning of "liberal/liberate".

To be a "liberal" politically, means one believes in *liberating* the individual from the *State*.

That is the RIGHT side of the true political spectrum "scheme".

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(Response meant to Caroline)

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If enough of us hold our noses and vote for him, we only need 1 (one).

(DJT)

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Funny...we had hoped to vote for a different Republican candidate BUT seeing how the left has been working diligently to railroad DJT makes us want to vote for him out of anger at the left.

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I did that the last time. I voted for him mostly because I saw how he was treated by the left. I guess many people did the same, but it didn’t work. We thought our votes would count, but the election was not handled in a fair and transparent way. Also, because the left has all the power. Don’t underestimate the power of the government/security apparatus -mass media conglomerate.

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But the People will always have the ultimate power, should enough of them choose to exercise it.

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Spot on.

But when did being one's BFF be the ultimate requirement for POTUS.

Vote on *policy*, not personality.

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It may be the best way to wake them up.

They couldn’t possibly allow this system on which Matt et al are reporting to be in the hands of the Orange menace.

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We have had to do that with a lot of them!

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12/07/23: Reid Hoffman. And if you stretch the definition, none other than The Prima Facie Facebook Fascist, Zuckerberg.

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See the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. It's got some billionaires in it.

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You nailed it

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Ha! The problem is the activist billionaire crowd (full disclosure, does not include me) are all in on the "control it all" way of life. And the petty functionary bureaucrats who have national security clearances want to be AT LEAST millionaires, or mega-millionaires. No help there.

As a geezer, I watch TV channels that are saturated with ads seeking plaintiffs to sue for damages they incurred by serving/living at Camp Lejeune. Damages may very well be deserved; I have no idea. What I do know is that the federal government must have set up a compensation carcass that all sorts of attorneys are scavenging.

There will be no help for these lawsuits. And the Democratic Party, led by my Sen. Dick Durbin is working to destroy respect for the judicial system (#targetscotus) and thus, the concept of judicial review. And thus, three equal independent branches of government.

So. Use every weapon available, i.e., lawfare. But be prepared for every dirty tactic to be used against you, in and out of the court system.

Finally, now that PBS has introduced all of us raised in sod houses and dugouts to opera and ballet, do we really need PBS anymore? Asking for a friend.

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Again - same reply as to Noelle - I'm not saying that's not true, but that's the only thing you hear about. There are people with money with whom I have broken bread (these are real live people, not mythical "Canadian" billionaires) who see the same things you're seeing. And they care - they see what's happening, and they are "liberty-minded" folks. It may be hard to believe for coastal denizens, but there are lots of wealthy people in the middle of the country who are generally content to mind their business, but who now can see what's going on. Whether those forces are sufficient to make an "ultimate" difference is of no matter to me: doing it is the right thing to do and matters in the here and now.

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Thank you for this reply, and I don't doubt what you say. I hope it is enough. 2024 is going to be a pivotal year. This site and comment section keeps reminding me that freedom is still a valued commodity. By many.

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Keep in mind, also, that some of us have different ideas about what the "collapse" could look like - and the view can differ in polarity depending upon your zip code. If the fedgov fell apart tomorrow, it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit - and I'd still be eating steak next week. IOW, we'll be fine *out here* where we are.

I wonder if people who lived distant from Sodom and Gomorrha were terribly put out by what happened to the Sodomites?

(The cities can - and may - burn.)

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I don't feel good about anything collapsing. But, look around. If you think our government is taking care of the basics, which is all they should be involved in ---- uh, no.

And by the way, where is the compassion? Where is the grace? There are no homeless people living on the streets in my tiny town. Why anyone would think it is compassionate to let people with mental health issues wander around and live on the street is a new way of looking at things.

We are in this together. Or at least, we used to be. Until our government, media, education system started labeling us and driving us apart.

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You are correct - Publius (and the anti-federalists) were also correct. I can't even pretend to care about the notional "Americans" 1200 miles away from me whom I don't know and have never met. We were never intended to be a "national" polity where Oklahomans are ruled by the decisions of New Yorkers. FedGov has grown into Leviathan - and simultaneously convinced everyone - that everything is a "federal case."

Remember when people used to use the expression, "Hey, let's not make a federal case out of it?" to indicate that someone was taking an issue too seriously nand blowing it all out of proportion?

...Pepp'ridge Fahms Remembuhs!

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“full disclosure, does not include me”

Laugh of the day!

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That would certainly mark a turning point in the history of tort litigation

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It would simply be a case of those who value Liberty taking a page out of the Progressive playbook.

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Might be a productive enterprise for you to devote the next half-dozen or so installments of TheAbjectLesson's Newsletter to lobby George Soros to take up the billionaire's gambit and answer the siren's call. I hear George is an avid reader of The Daily Caller.

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You could always gift him a subscription!

If you pulled that off and could prove it, I'd buy you a steak dinner... if I actually thought you had human sense organs and weren't just a mil AI-bot sent here to disrupt. :-)

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I vouch for the "humanity" of M. feldspar.

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I'll put him/it down as "conditionally human" on your word and continue to monitor. ;-)

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Well, I could be wrong about him/it. It's just that I get accused of being a bot, probably because of the way I write.

I am an ideologue, at best, and *not* a writer.

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He reads it for oppo research.

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Hear hear!!! There's some deep pockets to go after, so I have no doubt that at least a few of the edgier lawyers will take it on. GEC's in-house counsel have to be freaking out about now, or saying to management "I toldja so!".

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"there are interstate gas stations whose lavatory wall writings are more reliable than HuffPost..." yesss sick burn!

Now that we know Trump caused an elite existential psychosis and created a massive herd effect I've seen referred to as "mass formation" (Desmet), and now that we know that we're living in such an interesting time that there is ZERO ideological difference between the Dem Party, FBI, CIA, State Dept, UN, MSM, Big Tech, Big Pharma and most of the Fortune 500, Hollywood, NYC elite media and publishing, upscale academia, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, King Charles and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I'm curious as to how these things happen.

I know some people are more conspiratorial and think a secret memo's been passed around, but I think of it more like a miasma of conformity, a virus that melts brains and nervous systems until the patient thinks and says the exact same thing as everyone else they know.

Shorter question: How did all these people become the same person!?!?

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"...now that we know that we're living in such an interesting time that there is ZERO ideological difference between the Dem Party, FBI, CIA, State Dept, UN, MSM, Big Tech, Big Pharma and most of the Fortune 500, Hollywood, NYC elite media and publishing, upscale academia, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, King Charles and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,"

And yet they style themselves "the Resistance" as if they were a plucky band of freedom fighters battling a vast empire.

With the help of such liberty-loving organizations such as the CIA (which tortures people), the NSA (which spies on people and whose head perjures himself concerning the same) and the entrapment artists of the FBI, and a few Fortune 500 corporations, the MSM, and billionaires, of course.

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Social Justice means god aka "the right side of History" is always on their side.

They only spy, lie and censor because they love the marginalized so much!

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I call it the Borg or the Left. Same thing

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Spot on assessment

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But now you have no word for the actual anti-authoritarians.

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The left is only anti-authoritarian when it is out of power.

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Yes he does: the Classical Liberals (*real* Capitalists) on the Right.

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Resistance is futile

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@Pizzedoff

You ass will be laminated

- Dyslexia of Borg

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And one of their greatest heroes is John Brennan, who had the CIA spy on Congress and then lied about it under oath with no consequences. Resistance against authoritarianism indeed.

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That is who they hire and who universities accept.

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Dec 6, 2023
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oh it sure has!

"aligned incentives, plain and simple" is definitely the engine here, esp for people inside these institutions (or looking to attain Insider status), but it's fascinating to watch how all these minds somehow end up in the exact same place with the exact same words, conclusions and rationalizations.

to be a member now of our supposed thinking classes means you must never ever think!

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The left views every conflict through the lens of victim and oppressor. Once each party has been identified, the victim can do no wrong and is rewarded with endless empathy. The oppressor can do no right, and is rewarded with endless antipathy.

There is nothing deeper to it than that.

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So, how are the incentives actually managed and aligned? What is the mechanism? The various factions have very different styles and areas of interest. I believe they do think, and think very hard, but I have to admit some of the schemes are fairly wacky.

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The best template I can think for our ideological takeover is the Iraq War, where it became clear that everyone who wanted to remain a member in good standing of Team Serious Insider supported the war, regardless of how blatant and obvious were the lies that launched it and the disaster that quickly followed, while everyone who opposed it, even if everything they claimed turned out to be true, was labeled an icky Kucinich-type weirdo who was there to be mocked.

20 years later, our politics are much more polarized, the internet and social media have rescrambled every institution and brain, our managerial and cultural classes are even more deeply segregated from average Americans (and have much more blatant disdain), and Trump's victory struck them as a serious existential threat as if he were the general of an army who'd just breached the Imperial City.

So in this case the usual Insider Narrative/dogma du jour/shibboleths became much more intense, much more easily policed via social media, and esp Twitter pre-Elon acted like a digital panopticon, meaning every incentive was to get into a "Who Hates Trump More" pissing contest (best exemplified by the buffoonish outbursts of people like Madonna "Blow up the White House" and Kathy Griffin's bloody decapitated Trump head).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that our brains are social, and on social media these brains become addled and deranged, and everyone in our culture needed to publicly perform their Trump hatred, which made it very obvious what you needed to say, think or do to stay employed and employable.

Sorry for rambling!

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OK. But there was a time when Bill Clinton was running and saying abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." Remember when Obama's view of gay marriage "evolved," but not until AFTER he was safely re-elected.

And then, crude, boorish, birther Donald Trump, beat Obama's cabinet member for President! Hey, maybe ANYBODY can do it! And someone who made fun of Pharaoh Obama? That cannot stand!

That such an enormous part of our nation was called into action on such short notice. What the hell explains that? I haven't followed our education system since I left it years ago, but--- watching the marching, marching, marching by young people. Watching the screaming of rights for Palestine. By western culture young women! What idiots!

I am blaming an education system that preaches and does not educate or challenge. It appears there can only be anger and grievances. It is so -- nothing. Is that the word?

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Propaganda works, especially on the young. Who knew?!?

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No.

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But we awakening millions! Keep the truth flamethrower at 100% and we soldier on

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And then some!

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NPR is just the worst. Why is our government allowed to use my tax dollars to push whatever propaganda they want without anyone who disagrees with it to have a say. They have no right leaning sources on their shows. That is wrong.

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Our favorite public radio station is WBJC in Baltimore, MD. They do not broadcast anything from NPR, but are a 24-hours a day classical music station with engaged and educated announcers.

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Yes. When I lived in California, we had KCSM: no NPR, just jazz 24/7. What a concept - public radio without propaganda.

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Whatever happened to Pacifica radio? There are still some community radio stations. At least KBOO still sends me requests for money regularly.

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And I went to their fundraisers with one of my grandchildren (aged 11 the first time). They were much less formal than the ones for PBS. We talked with the station announcers and staff while music was playing, and our grandson could sit in the announcer's chair.

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Personally I think the toneless 'calm' voice they use for their broadcasts should be examined for hypnosis and nlp technique.

I have a personal hate-on for them: the local public station used to play blues and jazz all day. After a change, they play NPR all day. They must be getting money from somewhere because I don't know anyone who donates to them anymore.

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The NPR announcers sound monotonous and dismissive. Easily recognizable when scrolling through the radio stations. It's like a signature requirement for employment.

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“ NPR's mission is to work in partnership with member stations to create a more informed public — one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas, and cultures.” Or in other words, major mind shaping and propagandizing arm of the US Government…

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NPR Style, appealing to a snootier, classier-than-thou audience but it's social engineering all the same. I will not submit my mind for their efforts of mind shaping and propaganda enterprises.

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"hate on" first time I have heard that one! Brilliant!

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Up in the People's Republic of Boston we have two NPR affiliated radio stations ... and both of them are among the Top 10 most listened to stations in the city. The propaganda machine is stronger than ever up here.

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Where I’m at, I can actually grab four NPR stations. The two from Boston and stations from NH and Maine. I just imagine all of the people sitting on the turnpike or 93 listening to NPR to get their news in the morning and all of Boston politics starts to make sense.

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Every major national and international news outlet lied and printed misleading headlines and stories concerning Trump and the Russia Collusion Hoax. What price did they pay? Did they admit nefarious activities? Have they apologized?

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Did not many of them gets journalist awards?

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DW sued the feds over the vaccine mandate, iirc the one for companies with over 100 employees, and won. Their legal team appears to know what they're doing in that arena. I wish them well in this.

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Great stuff again Matt. Appreciate all you do.

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