Ridding the Military of the Unvaccinated

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Why is the Pentagon — under Biden regime control — dismissing all service members who won’t get vaccinated?

Is it really about health? Of course not. The great majority of people who got the vaccine are still getting COVID; and the current version of COVID is much less severe than the first (keeping in mind that the first version also had a 99 percent survival rate).

It’s not about health.

It’s about politics. More specifically: It’s about conformity to the political views of the regime in power.

By definition, the service members dismissed for not getting the vaccine are overwhelmingly Republican voters. They are probably Trump supporters. They surely still believe in the Bill of Rights, including individual sovereignty over one’s body — the things that previous generations of soldiers fought for, and they are also willing to fight and die for.

By ridding the military of all such “deplorable” soldiers, the military achieves its goal of a woke, leftist, “Democrat”, blindly conforming service pool.

This has real-life consequences. At some future time when the government seeks to use the military to enforce something that millions of citizens don’t wish to do — submit to medical treatment, give up their carbon-based fuel cars, surrender their guns, surrender their religious or philosophical beliefs — then you have a military willing to open fire on that noncompliant population.

Think of it this way: If YOU were a dictator, you would want a military to enforce your will, wouldn’t you? Would you prefer a military with uniform allegiance to your Party and political point-of-view, or a military with a diversity of viewpoints?

We will see how well this works out in practice. But you can be sure that’s the goal.

What else could the goal be? It’s certainly not the health and well-being of soldiers.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Joe Rogan did it To Himself

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But as much as CNN tried to resurrect its lead character – who was banned from social media and largely off the grid for the year – his absence ​clearly showed the network was a one-trick partisan pony. Ratings fell 90 percent overall when comparing Jan​uary 2021 to Jan​uary 2022. That’s hard to do.

Which brings us to the events of this week: Zucker released a statement saying he had to resign because of a consensual affair with a female executive named Allison Gollust. WarnerMedia apparently has a rule against this, so Zucker – instead of a slap on the wrist for a benign offense – simply had to go abruptly.

Nobody believed this excuse. Turns out they may have had plenty of reason to be skeptical.

Per several reports, Zucker and Gollust allegedly advised then Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) – the older brother of then-​CNN anchor Chris Cuomo – on what to say during his COVID-19 daily briefings in the spring of 2020. They also reportedly told Cuomo how to respond to and how to criticize then-President Trump, to make it more compelling TV. (Gollust is a former communications director for Andrew Cuomo.)

Let’s unpack all of this:

In the spring of 2020, the country was in a horrific place. Businesses shut completely; people were scared. There were no COVID therapeutics, no vaccines. Hospitals ​were overwhelmed, thousands were dying ​each day. If ​ever there was a time for news organizations to educate and inform the public, this was it.

Instead, Zucker apparently believed it was the perfect time to exploit the situation for political gain and to help the network’s ratings.

Andrew Cuomo benefitted from briefings that made him​ appear to be the adult in the room ​regarding COVID and Trump ​appear to be the villain. ​Cuomo got a $5.1 million book deal as a result.

Chris Cuomo and Zucker/Gollust/CNN benefitted from marathon interviews with ​Cuomo’s governor/brother, which didn’t touch the governor’s alleged nursing home scandal. Ratings soared.

So, was Zucker’s departure ​simply about a consensual relationship with a co-worker? One might be forgiven for questioning that.

Moving forward, what’s next for CNN when the company falls under the Discovery Channel umbrella later this year? Let’s hear from its soon-to-be largest shareholder, John Malone of Liberty Media.

“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” Malone said in an interview that recently aired on CNBC.

The collapse of CNN is now complete: Nine-out-of-ten viewers, gone. Its top-rated anchor, ​Chris Cuomo, gone. Its network president, gone. Its integrity in shambles.

Oh, and new management coming in that is signaling big-time changes … changes that may bring CNN back to the proud network it once was before Jeff Zucker destroyed it.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

CNN’s Collapse is now Complete

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It all began 42 years ago — Ted Turner’s creation of a 24/7 news network that would exist on something called cable TV. Few believed it could succeed.

And, for its first decade, CNN largely chugged along but wasn’t seen as a game-changer or ​a true competitor to big broadcast news entities based in New York in the form of CBS, NBC and ABC. That all changed when war broke out between the United States and Iraq in 1991.

On the night war exploded over Baghdad, CNN was the only news organization that was able to broadcast from the city under siege as the U.S. onslaught began, all courtesy of the CNN team’s ability to convince the Iraqi government to grant them a line out of the city to broadcast​, one that the competition could not secure.

“How CNN Won the War” was the glowing headline from the Washington Post on a story that perfectly chronicled the events that led to CNN officially becoming a major player. And off it went.

Until 2002, CNN was ​No. 1 in the cable news race. But competition that hadn’t existed before ended its dominance forever, primarily in the form of Fox News and, to a lesser extent, MSNBC. Despite the ratings results, CNN continued to carry itself as a credible, facts-first network of integrity that leaned heavily on solid reporting with a sprinkling of opinion and infotainment mixed in via programs such as “Larry King Live” and “Crossfire.”

In 2013, the network hired former NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker to take the reins as ratings continued to be below average at best. This gave Zucker a mandate to radically change the network from its journalistic roots of more than three decades — the months-long wall-to-wall coverage of a missing Malaysian airliner being an early example.

But two years later, the move to insert heavy doses of partisan opinion into its news reports only accelerated when Donald Trump – a Zucker hire at NBC for “The Apprentice” – jumped in to the 2016 presidential race. At first, CNN bear-hugged Trump’s every move. (Hillary Clinton’s giving a speech somewhere? Screw it. Let’s show an empty Trump podium with chyrons stating “Trump to speak soon” instead.) The real estate mogul’s 17 Republican challengers never had a shot; Trump blotted out the sun in terms of media coverage ​on his way to winning the nomination.

At that point, Zucker and CNN began to worry. Because while it was a ratings boon for the network to make Trump the centerpiece, there was growing concern that the guy could actually beat Hillary and become the nation’s 45th president. So Zucker unleashed the hounds, but it was too late. Trump would go on to shock the world in November 2016.

Undeterred, CNN decided there would be no honeymoon period for the new president. Talk ​about Russian collusion handing Trump the White House began even before the inauguration. And after the nonstop Trump-bashing, Harvard University concluded that CNN led the way, along with Zucker’s former home of NBC, in giving Trump 93 percent negative coverage in his first 100 days.

For the next four years, CNN served as the leading media resistance to Trump, throwing objectivity out the window. And after Joe Biden got elected, the network cheered the new president as it had throughout the entire campaign while still making Trump a prime centerpiece for over-the-top negative coverage despite his being out of office.

But as much as CNN tried to resurrect its lead character – who was banned from social media and largely off the grid for the year – his absence ​clearly showed the network was a one-trick partisan pony. Ratings fell 90 percent overall when comparing Jan​uary 2021 to Jan​uary 2022. That’s hard to do.

Which brings us to the events of this week: Zucker released a statement saying he had to resign because of a consensual affair with a female executive named Allison Gollust. WarnerMedia apparently has a rule against this, so Zucker – instead of a slap on the wrist for a benign offense – simply had to go abruptly.

Nobody believed this excuse. Turns out they may have had plenty of reason to be skeptical.

Per several reports, Zucker and Gollust allegedly advised then Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) – the older brother of then-​CNN anchor Chris Cuomo – on what to say during his COVID-19 daily briefings in the spring of 2020. They also reportedly told Cuomo how to respond to and how to criticize then-President Trump, to make it more compelling TV. (Gollust is a former communications director for Andrew Cuomo.)

Let’s unpack all of this:

In the spring of 2020, the country was in a horrific place. Businesses shut completely; people were scared. There were no COVID therapeutics, no vaccines. Hospitals ​were overwhelmed, thousands were dying ​each day. If ​ever there was a time for news organizations to educate and inform the public, this was it.

Instead, Zucker apparently believed it was the perfect time to exploit the situation for political gain and to help the network’s ratings.

Andrew Cuomo benefitted from briefings that made him​ appear to be the adult in the room ​regarding COVID and Trump ​appear to be the villain. ​Cuomo got a $5.1 million book deal as a result.

Chris Cuomo and Zucker/Gollust/CNN benefitted from marathon interviews with ​Cuomo’s governor/brother, which didn’t touch the governor’s alleged nursing home scandal. Ratings soared.

So, was Zucker’s departure ​simply about a consensual relationship with a co-worker? One might be forgiven for questioning that.

Moving forward, what’s next for CNN when the company falls under the Discovery Channel umbrella later this year? Let’s hear from its soon-to-be largest shareholder, John Malone of Liberty Media.

“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” Malone said in an interview that recently aired on CNBC.

The collapse of CNN is now complete: Nine-out-of-ten viewers, gone. Its top-rated anchor, ​Chris Cuomo, gone. Its network president, gone. Its integrity in shambles.

Oh, and new management coming in that is signaling big-time changes … changes that may bring CNN back to the proud network it once was before Jeff Zucker destroyed it.

Joe Concha

It’s Time for Patriotic Freedom Lovers to Become MEAN

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The problem with liberty lovers and patriots is that we are not MEAN enough.

Our opponents are vicious; and mean. After all, they’re totalitarians. Totalitarianism is based on BRUTE FORCE. The initiation of brute force is wrong; it’s mean.

I’m not suggesting we respond by becoming totalitarians. I am suggesting we respond in a way fitting to the threat.

For starters, this means: Being willing to morally shame them. Why? Because they are shameful. Forcing people to endure experimental medical treatments is vicious. It’s insane. Forcing people to force their children to endure experimental medical treatments is, if anything, worse. Ditto for lockdowns, masks and all the other things that our state, local and federal governments now do without hesitation.

Too many of us are willing to criticize these people in private, or in our own minds, but not to their faces. And, more importantly, too many of us are too frightened to tell people in our communities and families that we believe what they’re supporting is SHAMEFUL.

Seeking conflict for its own sake is not healthy. But conflict is unavoidable. Conflict has found US — like it or not. We have lost our liberties. Even if the experimental vaccine doesn’t end up killing millions of people, it’s not the point. The point is that we have now established the principle that we must put into our bodies whatever the government tells us to put into our bodies — simply because the government says so, and mislabels it “science.”

That is not America. That is not a free country. It’s shameful beyond words. It’s shameful beyond anything that went on at the time America was first founded. Today’s tyrants in California, New York, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, Delaware, Michigan and Minnesota make the British royal tyrants of 1776 seem like nothing. And today’s tyrants are just getting started. We know that because of 100 percent of their actions, daily. We know that because they tell us so, and they laugh and sneer as they do it.

It’s beyond masks and vaccinations. Those are not trivial things. But the principle has been established that government may do whatever it wishes, whenever it wishes to whomever it wishes. A third of our population is irredeemably lost. These are the true blue leftists who watch nothing but MSNBC and who dominate not only the deep blue states, but the whole culture. Another third of the country are genuine patriots, and they will (I still believe) reach a point of no return, and will turn on the present, rotten-to-the-core establishment in government and culture. The middle third worry me. These are the people who know the ends and means of the totalitarians are wrong, but are afraid of being shamed. These are the people who must learn how to become MEAN. And we have to support them in that quest.

This is no time for kindness to your fellow man — not if your fellow man hires government thugs to place a gun at your neck or a boot on your throat. Get it through your heads: THIS is what they’re doing. Virtually every government in human history has been authoritarian, to one degree or another; since the 20th century, we have seen the unspeakable brutality of totalitarian governments. All of the evidence tells me that today’s leftists are WORSE than anything we have yet seen in all of history.

Stop being nice. Stop worrying about what others think of you. Stop caring what people who wish to annihilate your liberty for their own neurotic (or psychotic) reasons think. What they think does not matter. What matters is that we stop them. Now.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Is there such a thing as Racism ?

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Racist. No word has such power. It can end careers, embitter families, and provoke amazing displays of cowardice. But the word means nothing anymore. It’s doubtful if it ever did.

Until recently, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had a definition of racism most Americans would probably agree with: “Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics.”

Even this definition has problems. Few say that one race is inherently “superior or inferior” to another, even though races do differ in average intelligence and in broad psychological traits. A person’s success or failure often depends on intelligence, which can be measured by IQ and standardized test scores.

Who we are is not a product of voluntary choice. Our inborn characteristics shape us, and race is one of them. If “racists” are people who recognize this, then they are the ones who see reality clearly.

Race realists and white advocates aren’t “racist” when we talk about scientifically demonstrable racial differences, but defending the term is like slugging the tar baby. Sam Francis wrote:

“Racism,” therefore, is a term originating on the left, and has been so defined and loaded with meanings the left wants it to have that it cannot now be used by the supporters of white racial consciousness for any constructive purpose. Anyone who uses the term to describe himself or his own views has already allowed himself to be maneuvered onto his opponents’ ground and has already lost the debate. He may try to define the word differently, but he will need to spend most of his time explaining that he does not mean by it what everyone else means. As a term useful for communicating ideas that the serious supporters of white racial consciousness wish to communicate, the term is useless, and it was intended by those who developed it that it be useless for that purpose.

Fortunately, the ADL has changed the definition of racism, so we never have to worry about it again.

The new definition is “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”

This is bewildering. It means the Chinese could exterminate blacks in their country and not be racist, if they are privileging Asians but not whites. Blacks who set out to murder the first white they find can’t be racist. Only whites (or, presumably, non-whites who fight for white supremacy) can be racist.

If racial differences in achievement are caused by “institutional racism,” whites can be racist without even trying. This is “racism without racists,” at least under the old definition of “racist.” The new definition fits better with the conventional wisdom that all whites are racist. Racism practically defines “whiteness.”

But what’s a “socially constructed racial hierarchy”? We still need a way to tell “people of color” from “white people.” There must be a physical difference — something not socially constructed — or we can’t victim from oppressor.

Some people find this confusing. Whoopi Goldberg does. She recently said on The View that the Holocaust was not about race, but “man’s inhumanity to man.” “This is white people doing it to white people,” she said, “so y’all going to fight amongst yourselves.” In later comments on Stephen Colbert’s talk show, Miss Goldberg said that “as a black person,” she thought of “race as something I can see.”

Jews, to her, are white, but apparently she got it wrong. Actor Michael Rapaport complained, “It was only about race. It was about kill the Jews, exterminate the Jews. ‘They’re not white, they’re Jewish.’ ” ABC suspended Miss Goldberg from her show for two weeks, despite her groveling. Would she have got the same treatment if she had just said she thinks Jews are white – without mentioning the Holocaust?

Many blacks lump Jews in with whites, especially because Jews historically ran shops in black neighborhoods. Blacks also commit crimes against Jews in places such as New York City. Do they attack Jews because they think they are white or because they are Jews? Because they’re both?

It’s all so confusing.

Living Under the Irrationality of Dictatorship in America

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The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.”

— Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

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REPORT: CNN in talks to pay Chris Cuomo some $9 million in Hush Money to protect Zucker, Network

We have all known scum. Scum always turn on each other, in the end. Leftists are dishonest brutes; they are simply high profile scum.

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If Whoopi Goldberg quits The View, I will collapse in despair.

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So Biden accidentally kills an ISIS terrorist. Now we’re supposed to forgive election fraud, censorship, medical tyranny, runaway inflation, ugly divisiveness, and losing Afghanistan?

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Empowering and supporting your government to act like criminals is, morally, no better than being a criminal yourself.

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IF the Democrats are crushed in the 2022 and 2024 elections, will they stand down, relinquish power and reform?

My answer: NO. However, I don’t believe they consider failure in those elections an option. They will utilize subjective voting, mail-ballots, illegal alien voting and much else only a criminal or sociopath could think up in order to ensure victory of some kind. But if their tactics fail — no, they will not stand down.

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Omicron numbers down. Tyrants in a panic. “How can we scare and control people?” Evil is SO predictable.

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Wherever you pass gun control, crime stays the same, or escalates. Why? “Because not every state has gun control. We must make it national! Until every part of the country has gun control, it can’t work!”

A majority get the COVID vaccine, yet we have even MORE flu and cold viruses than before. Why? “Because not everyone got the vaccine. Until we get 100 percent compliance, the vaccine won’t work!”

See a pattern here? EVERYONE must sign on for things that don’t work. That way, you don’t have to talk about it anymore.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The Drip…Drip…Drip of Tyranny

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The thing about tyranny? It’s the drip-drip-drip mentality.

They get you bit by bit. That’s how an annoying, overreaching government suddenly becomes a totalitarian dictatorship. Seemingly overnight.

For example: In my current home state of Delaware, the mask mandate was reinstated last month. No real reason was given. People assumed it was Omicron. But the numbers for Omicron are way, way down. Still no mention of getting rid of it. Most likely, the mask mandate will remain for the summer season, when people crowd into a beach resort and officials can’t be accused of letting a virus spread. What if there is no virus? “Well, there COULD be!” And it’s an election year (not that Delaware’s elections aren’t already rigged.)

When the original mask mandate was lifted back in spring of 2021, even people who supported it said, “Well, that’s that. It won’t be back. And I’d be really angry, if the mask mandate ever came back.” For the first few days when the mask mandate inexplicably returned in January 2022, a lot of people were angry. And then the anger soon converted into, “Well, hopefully by the spring or summer they’ll lift it again.” Please master. Show me some mercy. Whatever you say, master. Does anybody know when or if the mandate will be lifted again? Do the tyrants in the state capital even know? Not likely. They’re just going from whim to whim; because that’s what politics and tyranny are. They are not smart people, and they are not good people. They are simply power-driven people.

Similarly, a bill has been quietly introduced in the Delaware state legislature to make the presentation of a fake vax passport a felony. But Delaware does not have a vax passport. Nobody in the state has one. So why introduce a bill making a vax passport a felony? The legislator introducing it is a crony of Biden and the state’s unrelentingly partisan governor. There has to be a reason for introducing a bill managing a vax passport not in effect. “Well,” people say. “I don’t think they’ll go THAT far.” If they DO go that far, a lot of people will be really angry. And then they’ll get used to it, saying that maybe it won’t be permanent. Drip, drip, drip.

If a totalitarian, “show your papers, wear a mask forever” government had been presented all at once, you would have experienced outrage from probably two-thirds of the population, even in a deep blue state like Delaware. But when you present it drip by drip by drip, you hypnotize people, in a sense, to tolerating what just a year or two before would have been unthinkable and intolerable.

It’s nothing new. Dictators have done this for centuries. Dictators began in earnest in the 20th Century. Mao was brilliant at in China, instituting a Cultural Revolution to override any political opposition — precisely what’s happening in America right now. America heroically fought off those dictatorships in World War II and the Cold War only to succumb themselves, starting in earnest in 2020 and continuing undisturbed at the present time. Sure, some states are worse than others. But the governors and legislators running the deep blue states are fully in charge of the federal government, at present. Sooner or later, the federal government WILL launch attacks on the red states for not conforming to the only real Party in charge, and it will be up to those states either to fight — or submit. And, as our experience with President Trump taught us, the Deep State bureaucracy is firmly entrenched with the same people who run the deep blue states. And those entrenched fascists/Communists will be there in the unlikely event that a Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis wins the presidency in 2024 AND the Deep State allows it to happen. My guess is they will NEVER allow 2016 to happen again, especially after their huge success in 2020.

Increasingly, I see no way out of this other than secession or breaking up of some kind. The Bill of Rights is no longer in operation in the federal Imperial City. Frankly, it wasn’t in operation even when Donald Trump seemed to be in charge. We can try the Convention of States, and a principled stand would probably be practical and important. But let’s face it. We’re dealing with the worst dictators (at the very least) since the time of Hitler and Stalin and Mao. These people are ruthless, dishonest, and literally care nothing about anyone or anything other than their own power. They are also ideologically rigid, on top of it. They are the worst of all possible worlds — Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Castro’s Cuba, Mussolini’s Italy and the fall of the Roman Empire all rolled up into one unspeakably nasty, stinking hybrid of horror. Most don’t yet grasp just how evil they are.

They are immovable, in the worst sense of that term. We are already in a civil war. It’s just not obvious to most, at the moment; but before long, unless 100 percent of us roll over 100 percent, it’s going to be pretty obvious.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Destroy the Public-School Systems

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A local Fox affiliate reports that last year in Baltimore’s largest high school, 77 percent of students graduated reading at an elementary-school level, and many of them at a kindergarten level. Only twelve students at the school were at grade level — that’s under 2 percent. And it was a whistleblower who came forward with this information:

A Baltimore City teacher comes forward with devastating information, showing 77 percent of students tested at one high school, are reading at an elementary school level

The teacher works at Patterson High School, one of the largest high schools in Baltimore with a 61 percent graduation rate and a nearly $12 million budget. We agreed not to identify this source who fears retribution for giving Project Baltimore the results of iReady assessments.

“Our children deserve better. They really do,” the Patterson High School teacher told Project Baltimore. “As a whole, the system has failed them.”

The teacher is a hero. It is a shame that the teacher, and not the administrators, is the one terrified about retribution. Public schools such as Patterson have a state-compelled monopoly on education that traps kids in their perpetually failing institutions. And the more funding they get, the worse they perform. Last year, the Baltimore public-school system — which functioned remotely most of the time — had a $1.4 billion budget for only 78,000 students.

From a devastating piece by Adam Andrzejewski at Forbes:

CEO Sonja Santelises ($339,028) and her chief of staff, Alison Perkins-Cohen ($198,168), collectively earned nearly $700,000 in pay, perks, pension funding, and health insurance benefits.

Santelises’ cash compensation was more than $126,000 higher than that of the U.S. Secretary of Education, a cabinet-level position.

Chief of Schools John Davis made $218,303 in base salary alone. Tina Hike Hubbard, the “Chief Communications & Community Engagement Officer” earned $194,283.

Other highly compensated employees included Jeremy Grant-Skinner, the “Chief Human Capital Officer” ($194,283); Lynette Washington, the Chief Operating Officer ($194,283); Theresa Jones, the “Chief Achievement & Accountability Officer” ($192,827); and Maryanne Cox, the Deputy Chief Financial Officer ($192,827).

In a marketplace, all these people would have lost their jobs a long time ago. It’s not the salaries that are the problem. It’s the failure of the system they oversee.

Few things have undermined minorities over the past 40 years more than inner-city public-school systems. Rich and middle-class Americans already have school choice. They can move. Neighborhoods with high-performing systems have far higher homes values, shutting poorer people out. Teachers’ unions use tax dollars, often through compelled dues, to help elect politicians who preserve the status quo — which, functionally, is the racial segregation of schools.

One of the most popular arguments against school choice is that granting parents the freedom to pick better schools would only weaken traditional ones. Well, imagine making this argument about any other area of life: “Hey, you can’t leave this supermarket because we’re going to suck even more.” No one would accept that logic. Yet they do for their kids’ education. Maybe when 77 percent of high-school graduates can’t make it through Goodnight Moon, someone will do something. We’re not that far off.

David Arsanyi