When Pretty Isn't Enough To Make The Woke Go Down

variety  |  However you might classify Cross’ tone, her particular brand of outspokennnes had helped her win a bake-off for the weekend host slot against two other hopefuls in 2020. She took the job that year — a seat that had been vacated by anchor Reid, who moved to weeknights. In announcing her eponymous show, Cross promised to “touch on politics, culture, humanity, and the inhumanity of some yet-to-be-addressed disparities.” She also pledged to place Black women at “the center” of her program. What followed was a series of blunt and headline-grabbing segments and appearances by Cross in a news cycle rife with discourse over (and outward displays of) white supremacy. Notable sound bites from Cross included an interview with radio personality Charlamagne Tha God calling the state of Florida the “dick of America,” one that should be castrated. Comments like these led to extreme reactions from media personalities on the right, including Megyn Kelly, who has called Cross a “dumbass” and the “most racist person on TV.”

By far the most incendiary reaction to Cross was from Fox News’ Carlson. On Oct. 19, four days after Cross aired her Clarence Thomas segment, Carlson accused Cross of inciting a “race war” with her commentary. He even likened her broadcast to the Rwandan radio station that played a significant role in the country’s 1994 genocide. In the days following Cross’ firing, reports speculated that Jones had handed Carlson and Fox News “a win” by terminating her.

“No other cable news show regularly examined the many ways that white supremacy is embedded structurally and historically throughout American society,” wrote Salon in an analysis of her firing. 

At the top of the year, “The Cross Connection” attracted around 4.6 million monthly viewers, according to an internal research document issued by NBCUniversal and obtained by Variety. Cross’ audience skewed 55% female and 35% Black, an audience intersection that MSNBC has been chasing, Variety reported earlier this month. All told, Cross’ program was MSNBC’s most-watched by Black viewers, second only to “Politics Nation With Al Sharpton.” The week before her termination, according to Nielsen media research, she averaged 605,000 viewers in her time slot and rated third behind competitors CNN and Fox News.

Jones’ defenders called her a fierce advocate for diversity, having hired or elevated journalists of color including Katie Fang, Alex Wagner and Symone Sanders to anchor roles. For many industry observers, the situation has been heightened by the fact that two prominent Black women journalists are at public odds.

“I don’t want to see someone like Tiffany move backwards, and I don’t want there to be a double standard for Rashida,” Rev. Al Sharpton, the host of MSNBC’s “Politics Nation,” told Variety.

Cross’ future is unclear. The question she has inspired — about the question of different standards surrounding Black voices on cable news — continues to inspire anxiety in the many sources Variety spoke with. Last Friday, the Washington Post ran an op-ed calling the “cancellation” of Cross a “chilling signal” to the wider industry.

“We feel the chill,” said one network anchor of color who, of course, spoke to Variety on the condition of anonymity.

Let's Talk About Pretty Privileges...,

glamour  |  GLAMOUR spoke to author and body-positive activist Emily Lauren Dick on the impact of pretty privilege, its' dangers, and why we need to be talking about it.

How does pretty privilege impact us?

“[Pretty people] are perceived to be happier, healthier, more confident, and successful. It’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy because those perceptions are why attractive people actually become those things. An attractive person is more likely to be confident because of their socially accepted looks, so they present well in interviews and stand out.”

Is pretty privilege dangerous?

“I think that any form of privilege can be dangerous if gone unchecked. The fact that a whole group of people can be treated poorly simply because they don’t look a certain way is extremely harmful to a person’s self-esteem and self-worth. Everyone is worthy of love, respect, and kindness.”

“It’s disappointing that anyone would be treated differently than someone more attractive, but it’s downright irresponsible when companies and marketers are upholding this concept by purposefully using it as a strategy to sell more of their products or services.”

Never afraid to use her voice, Leigh-Anne knows how to call out the BS!

"When companies provide free products to ONLY attractive people (not just high follower accounts) to amplify their brand, they actively exclude people who support them. Marketers must stop indirectly and directly telling their customers that they should be like “pretty people” to get them to buy their products.”

“Beauty and diet businesses have created a multi-billion-dollar industry that is built upon the lie that people need to change how they look to be accepted. It’s irresponsible to continue utilising marketing strategies that purposely leave people out and make them feel bad about themselves.”

What can we do?

“It’s up to all of us to challenge internalised biases about privileged people, especially if we are one of the privileged. We must actively challenge our inner thoughts about how unattractive people are less worthy than attractive people. We must ensure that everyone is on a level playing field, especially when they are not. This is inclusion!"

We must ensure that everyone is on a level playing field, especially when they are not. This is inclusion!"

"How is this possible? Question your beliefs, speak up when someone speaks badly about someone who is considered unattractive, recognise your own privilege, hold public officials accountable, and determine other ways to challenge systems of privilege.”

It's about time we all take some notes.

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.., ARE YOU SEXUALLY DESIRABLE - OR NOT!!!

coveteur |  Every so often, I’ll receive the occasional you’re so lucky comment from a fellow trans woman. The sentiment is usually in reference to my body or my looks and their proximity and similarities to that of a cisgender woman. In other words, it’s usually in reference to my ability to “pass” in a cisgender world. At first, that comment, you’re so lucky, made me viscerally uncomfortable. It was easy for me to comprehend how passing privilege is a gateway to survival for many trans people, and while it isn’t a privilege afforded to all of us, words like “lucky” or “easy” left me thinking. Thoughts would race in my mind, a feeling of guilt would weigh on my heart, and I would wonder if my attractiveness or “passability” negates how difficult it is to exist as a trans woman in a cis-normative society. To counter my discomfort, I would often reply to such comments with a self-deprecating joke, as if to minimize the existence of my attractiveness as a privilege. A privilege I did not earn nor work for.

I suppose you can say the word “lucky” had become a sore spot for a while. Uncomfortable with looking at the ways in which I benefit from my looks, I was adamant to prove how I wasn’t lucky. After all, at the end of the day, I will always be transgender and that comes with its own prejudice and discrimination, right? To acknowledge the unearned advantages of physical attractiveness felt as if it would undermine everything I had to overcome to get to where I am. I mean, how lucky could I actually be?

In my search to validate how I was feeling, I stumbled across the opposite: Pretty privilege.

Pretty privilege is the concept that pretty people benefit in life from being perceived as beautiful. Studies have shown that pretty people will more than likely receive higher earnings or better grades. But what is beautiful? Like the saying beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, what we find attractive is often thought to be subjective. However, society inherently bases value on certain attributes over others. Those attributes are often based on whiteness, able bodiedness, leanness, straightness, and cisness, to mention just a few. Pretty privilege is much like how being white or being male provides people with unearned advantages in society.

Pretty privilege benefits and hurts all types of people, both cis and trans, across all races and sexualities. The intersectionality of our existence must be addressed when speaking to the topic. Kelsey Yonce refers to intersectionality perfectly in their 2014 thesis, “Attractiveness Privilege: the unearned advantages of physical attractiveness.” Yonce states “intersectionality refers to the idea that different areas of privilege and oppression do not exist in isolation from one another; instead, they overlap and interact with each other in ways that create unique experiences of privilege and oppression for each individual.” For example, the privilege and oppression experienced by a trans woman of color will look very different from the privilege and oppression experienced by a white trans woman, despite both experiencing the stigmatization and oppression of being transgender because of the inherent societal hierarchy towards race.

When speaking to pretty privilege in the context of cisness, it could be argued that the barrier for entry to such a privilege is more difficult for a transgender person because that hurdle is our very sex assigned at birth, my “maleness.” It’s the belief that in order to achieve such a standing in society it would require a distancing from, squandering of, and rejection of our transness as a whole. This reinforces the false reality that in society, a transition is deemed “successful” only when one is conventionally beautiful by cisgender standards. When in actuality we all know the real value a transition can bring to one’s life is more than mere aesthetics or looks, but rather living more fully and freely. Suddenly, it began to feel like not addressing my own pretty privilege head-on would be disadvantageous to what my mission is, and that's to uplift and advocate for all transwomen.

Having defined it, it has become shockingly easy to see how I benefit from such a privilege. In hindsight, pretty privilege in the context of cisness wasn’t something I was always presented with and might be why it has felt so obvious. I haven’t always existed in the world looking like this. While I can acknowledge how I’ve always benefitted from certain privileges like whiteness, able bodiedness, and leanness, benefitting from my “cisness” was a very foreign thing for me. I started my transition 21 months ago, and only two years ago started hormone replacement therapy, followed by a recent facial feminization surgery. As my body and features began to change and become more cis-passing, I had started to witness peoples’ treatment of me change—it was almost as if one day people saw me differently, they started smiling at me as they walked by, doors were held open, and drinks were being bought for me from those who simply wanted my attention. These are only a few small examples, but at first it all seemed unnatural and uncomfortable because my experience in the world had been different for nearly 30 years. The exact moment where it changed is hard to pinpoint, but looking at my transition in its totality, it’s jarring and impossible for me to not see the difference. It is now my responsibility to swallow my guilt and acknowledge that such experiences are not afforded to everyone and I have benefitted from the unearned privilege of assimilating into a cisgender society because of my pretty privilege. This has, in fact, made my transition easier than most but not without its own challenges.

 

TIL That Compiling The Fuckery That Wokestan Puts On Public Display Is Extremist Hate Speech

Slate |  On Thursday night, the latest installment of what CEO Elon Musk has dubbed the “Twitter Files” was published on the social media platform, this time with a bombshell-promising thread from former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss, who now runs an online magazine called the Free Press. Weiss, like fellow Twitter Files author Matt Taibbi, was given access to internal documents of the company by its new owner in order to interrogate the content-moderation actions of Twitter’s leadership before Musk bought the company. Many extremely online right-wingers have long accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. Weiss’ thread, like Taibbi’s from a week earlier, tells them just what they want to hear.

Weiss’ focus is on Twitter’s ability to deamplify accounts so that, for example, they are boosted less by the platform’s news-feed algorithm or are barred from trending topics or search (a policy Twitter has been open about, publicly describing it in a blog post in 2018). Among several examples, Weiss cites the platform’s treatment of Libs of TikTok, a Twitter account that remains active despite its connection to multiple acts of terror and intimidation from far-right extremists, including multiple bomb threats against a children’s hospital. This portrayal of Libs of TikTok as representative of accounts posting conservative views is alarming. The implication seems to be that platforms that seek to protect users from harassment and violence—which is what Libs of TikTok has repeatedly inspired—are engaging in anti-conservative bias when they do so. Weiss contrasted the treatment of Libs of TikTok by Twitter with a post harassing Libs of TikTok using personally identifying information that was not taken down by Twitter staff, which seems to have been an error on Twitter’s part. (All content moderation involves human error, and thus far Weiss has not demonstrated any sort of consistent pattern on any side.)

Weiss may be best known for a column introducing “the intellectual dark web,” a group of anti-progressive types fixated on the concept of cancel culture and the idea that liberals routinely censor conservative ideas. With the Twitter Files, she describes herself leading a team that has been given “broad and expanding access” to Twitter’s internal documents and communications. This group includes opinion writer Abigail Shrier, who is best known for writing Irreversible Damage, a book opposing transition for female-assigned people on the grounds that an unproven social contagion is the root cause of transmasculine identities.

It is unsurprising that this team highlighted the treatment of an account notorious for its anti-trans activity. But Libs of TikTok goes far beyond expressing political opinions about transgender issues. That would certainly be allowed under Twitter’s policies, which exist to curb harassment, violence, and hate speech, not opinions. In fact, Libs of TikTok has repeatedly highlighted specific individuals, events, and institutions with inflammatory language, often falsely suggesting they are guilty of heinous acts against young children. The account’s spotlight has repeatedly resulted in harassment and violent threats toward the individuals involved, in a process typically referred to as stochastic terrorism. Those targeted include doctors and hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for youth, teachers and schools with inclusive policies, and all-ages or youth-focused drag events.

Contrary to the extremist rhetoric, gender-affirming care is supported by all mainstream medical organizations as potentially lifesaving for young people with gender dysphoria. It is also perfectly possible to speak with children about the existence of transgender people and about families headed by same-sex parents in an age-appropriate, nonsexual way. All-ages drag events are places where kids can see members of the drag community in elaborate full-body costumes providing innocent entertainment in the name of inclusivity and fun, and even adult drag shows are raunchy rather than sexual in nature. However, the issues with Libs of TikTok and the Twitter Files are fundamentally not about anyone’s opinion on gender-affirming care, diversity in schools, or drag. They’re about the conflation of stochastic terrorism with conservative opinions, and the refusal of many conservatives to recognize or respect any line drawn between the two.

Armed white supremacist gangs seem to closely monitor Libs of TikTok’s posts to find new targets, based on the multiple incidents associated with those named on its Twitter feed. Account owner Chaya Raichik, meanwhile, has done nothing to attempt to calm, dissuade, change how she communicates, or otherwise bring an end to the pattern of violence and near-violence driven by her posts. These often include misinformation as well as a conflation of healthy, age-appropriate discussions of diversity with child abuse. Instead of seeking to end the violence directed at the targets she chooses, Raichik and Libs of TikTok are constantly toeing the line, attempting to stop short of what is officially considered either harassment or hate speech, and occasionally catching a ban when Twitter decides that line was crossed.

What Good Is Twitter As An Intelligence Gathering Tool If Everyone Isn't Free To Participate?

CTH  |  Twitter is simply a discovery vector to reveal the larger dynamic of DHS being in control of social media.  That was the DHS/ODNI problem James Baker was trying to mitigate by his filtration of the released documents.  The “Twitter files” are one tentacled element in a much larger story.

#1 Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and #2 The Fourth Branch of Government

To put it in brutally honest terms, The United States Dept of Homeland Security is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.

You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is.  Decide for yourself.

For me, I feel confident that all of the conflicting and odd datapoints only reconcile in one direction.  DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.

Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of that govt controlled enterprise.

If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.  And with that intelligence framework solidly in mind, I warn readers not to take a position on the motive of the new ownership.

Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding selected information about their prior Twitter operations.

If TikTok is a national security threat, then TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.

The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.

Why In The World Would Elon Do Twitter Drop #2 Via Irredeemable Toadie Bari Weiss?

dailycaller |  Twitter kept secret “blacklists” that included a doctor at Stanford and several prominent conservative voices that suppressed their ability to be found or heard on the social media platform, according to journalist Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press and former Wall Street Journal and New York Times columnist, who launched the second chapter in Elon Musk’s so-called “Twitter Files” Thursday evening.

Weiss tweeted what appeared to be a photo of Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy, with his account being prominently marked as being under a “Trends Blacklist.” Bhattacharya was secretly blacklisted because he “argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children,” and was thus unable to trend on the platform, according to Weiss.

In addition to Bhattacharya, Twitter placed Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk under a “Do Not Amplify” notice, while right wing talk radio personality Dan Bongino, who has appeared on Alex Jones’ InfoWars, was placed under a “Search Blacklist,” according to Weiss. The practice of limiting the access or reach of users’ content, commonly referred to as “shadow banning,” is something that Twitter has denied doing in the past, and is referred to internally as “Visibility Filtering” or “VF,” Weiss reported.

“Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels,” a senior Twitter employee reportedly told Weiss. “It’s a very powerful tool.”

 

He Attacked Elon? UNACCEPTABLE!

Person Of The Year 2022:

-took billions from us
-banned opposition parties
-nationalized all TV stations
-rejects calls for peace deals
-banned the Orthodox Church
-attacked Elon Musk on Twitter
-took photoshoots for magazines
-framed Russia for strikes in Poland

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 7, 2022

 

Hitler: Time's 1938 Man Of The Year

Time |  Greatest single news event of 1938 took place on September 29, when four statesmen met at the Führerhaus, in Munich, to redraw the map of Europe. The three visiting statesmen at that historic conference were Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain, Premier Edouard Daladier of France, and Dictator Benito Mussolini of Italy. But by all odds the dominating figure at Munich was the German host, Adolf Hitler.

Führer of the German people, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, Navy & Air Force, Chancellor of the Third Reich, Herr Hitler reaped on that day at Munich the harvest of an audacious, defiant, ruthless foreign policy he had pursued for five and a half years. He had torn the Treaty of Versailles to shreds. He had rearmed Germany to the teeth— or as close to the teeth as he was able. He had stolen Austria before the eyes of a horrified and apparently impotent world.

(See pictures of Hitler Exhibit in Germany.)

All these events were shocking to nations which had defeated Germany on the battlefield only 20 years before, but nothing so terrified the world as the ruthless, methodical, Nazi-directed events which during late summer and early autumn threatened a world war over Czechoslovakia. When without loss of blood he reduced Czechoslovakia to a German puppet state, forced a drastic revision of Europe's defensive alliances, and won a free hand for himself in Eastern Europe by getting a "hands-off" promise from powerful Britain (and later France), Adolf Hitler without doubt became 1938's Man of the Year.

Most other world figures of 1938 faded in importance as the year drew to a close. Prime Minister Chamberlain's "peace with honor'' seemed more than ever to have achieved neither. An increasing number of Britons ridiculed his appease-the-dictators policy, believed that nothing save abject surrender could satisfy the dictators' ambitions.

Among many Frenchmen there rose a feeling that Premier Daladier, by a few strokes of the pen at Munich, had turned France into a second-rate power. Aping Mussolini in his gestures and copying triumphant Hitler's shouting complex, the once liberal Daladier at year's end was reduced to using parliamentary tricks to keep his job.

(See pictures inside Hitler's bunker.)

During 1938 Dictator Mussolini was only a decidedly junior partner in the firm of Hitler & Mussolini, Inc. His noisy agitation to get Corsica and Tunis from France was rated as a weak bluff whose immediate objectives were no more than cheaper tolls for Italian ships in the Suez Canal and control of the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad.

Gone from the international scene was Eduard Benes, for 20 years Europe's "Smartest Little Statesman." Last President of free Czechoslovakia, he was now a sick exile from the country he helped found. Pious Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, Man of 1937, was forced to retreat to a "New" West China, where he faced the possibility of becoming only a respectable figurehead in an enveloping Communist movement. If Francisco Franco had won the Spanish Civil War after his great spring drive, he might well have been Man-of-the-Year timber. But victory still eluded the Generalissimo and war weariness and disaffection on the Rightist side made his future precarious.

Zelensky: Time's 2022 Man Of The Year

Time |  The call from the President’s office came on a Saturday evening: Be ready to go the next day, an aide said, and pack a toothbrush. There were no details about the destination or how we would get there, but it wasn’t difficult to guess. Only two days earlier, on the 260th day of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russians had retreated from the city of Kherson. It was the only regional capital they had managed to seize since the start of the all-out war in February, and the Kremlin had promised it would forever be a part of Russia. Now Kherson was free, and Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to get there as soon as possible.

His bodyguards were urging him to wait. The Russians had destroyed the city’s infrastructure, leaving it with no water, power, or heat. Its outskirts were littered with mines. Government buildings were rigged with trip wires. On the highway to Kherson, an explosion had destroyed a bridge, rendering it impassable. As they fled, the Russians were also suspected of leaving behind agents and saboteurs who could try to ambush the presidential convoy, to assassinate Zelensky or take him hostage. There would be no way to ensure his safety on the central square, where crowds had gathered to celebrate the city’s liberation, within range of Russian artillery.

 

Karinne Jeane Pierre Once Again Haplessly Sacrificed On The Alter Of Expendable Token Ass-Clownery

NYPost |  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday it was “not healthy” for Twitter owner Elon Musk to publish internal company files revealing Twitter’s censorship of The Post’s 2020 reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“What is happening — it’s frankly, it’s not healthy. It won’t do anything to help a single American improve their lives. And so look, we see this as an interesting, you know, coincidence, and you know, it’s a distraction,” Jean-Pierre concluded during her Monday briefing, offering a lengthy denunciation of Musk’s Friday reveal of how Twitter execs decided to suppress The Post’s damning expose.

“We see this as an interesting, or a coincidence, if I may, that he would so haphazardly — Twitter would so haphazardly push this distraction that is full of old news, if you think about it,” Jean-Pierre said, brushing off the politically motivated denial of free speech protections raised by Musk’s document dump.

“And at the same time, Twitter is facing very real and very serious questions about the rising volume of anger, hate and anti-Semitism on their platform and how they’re letting it happen.”

The voice of the Biden administration did not note that the Musk-led Twitter booted rapper Kanye West last week for tweeting a swastika after making a series of anti-Semitic remarks — or that as of Monday, the nation’s most famous Jew-basher’s 18.4 million-follower account on Facebook-owned Instagram remains active.

Jean-Pierre’s denunciation of Musk’s moves toward transparency came in response to questions from Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.

“On Twitter, because you guys said you’re keeping a close eye on Elon Musk’s ownership and this is the first time we’ve talked to you since he released the files a few days ago — is it the White House view that decisions at Twitter were made appropriately in terms of decisions to censor this reporting ahead of the election?” Heinrich asked.

 

 

He Was Exited Because His Explanation Was Unconvincing....,

jonathanturley |  In the aftermath of the release of the “Twitter Files,” the media and political establishment appear to be taking a lesson from Karl Marx who said, “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

The censoring of the Hunter Biden scandal before the 2020 election by Twitter and others was a tragedy for our democratic system. That tragedy was not in its potential impact on a close election, but the massive (and largely successful) effort to bury a story to protect the Biden campaign. It has now ended in farce as the same censorship apologists struggle to excuse the implications of this major story.

Was he asked to explain himself first?

— Sam Gab (@samgabnz) December 6, 2022

The Twitter Files confirmed that Twitter never had any evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign or hacking as the basis for its decision to censor the New York Post story. Indeed, some at Twitter expressed concern over preventing the sharing of the story. Former Twitter Vice President for Global Communications Brandon Borrman asked if the company could “truthfully claim that this is part of the policy” for barring posts and suspending users.

Those voices were few and quickly shouted down as the company barred the sharing of the story, including evidence of a multimillion-dollar influence peddling scheme by the Biden family. The back channel communications between Biden campaign and Democratic operatives show a willing use of the company to suppress political discussion of the scandal before the election. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment for the media and Twitter was eager to lend a hand.

Over a year ago, I discussed how the brilliance of the Biden campaign was to get the media to become invested in the suppression of the story. After two years, major media finally but reluctantly admitted that the laptop was authentic as well as the emails detailing massive transfers of money from foreign interests (including some with foreign intelligence links).

Many have responded by shrugging that influence peddling is not necessarily a crime, ignoring that it is still a massive corruption scandal with serious national security concerns. After all, as Heather Digby Parton argued in Salon on December 5, “There is nothing there other than a man making money by trading on his family name.”

After the release of the “Twitter Files,” many of these same figures have shifted to excuse the censorship done at the request of Biden campaign or Democratic operatives.

For some of us who come from long-standing liberal Democratic families, it has been chilling to see the Democratic Party embrace censorship and denounce free speech, including organizing foreign and corporate interests to prevent Musk from restoring free speech protections.

Beyond personally attacking Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi, many have resorted to two claims that are being widely repeated in the media to avoid discussing the coordinated censorship efforts between this company and Democratic operatives.

Firing James Baker Is A Good Start, But How Do We Get From Firings To Prosecutions?

jonathanturley |  As thousands of Twitter documents are released on the company’s infamous censorship program, much has been confirmed about the use of back channels by Biden and Democratic officials to silence critics on the social media platform. However, one familiar name immediately popped out in the first batch of documents released through journalist Matt Taibbi: James Baker. For many, James Baker is fast becoming the Kevin Bacon of the Russian collusion scandals.

We can now tell you part of the reason why. On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of “Twitter Files” – without knowledge of new management.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 6, 2022

Baker has been featured repeatedly in the Russian investigations launched by the Justice Department, including the hoax involving the Russian Alfa Bank. When Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann wanted to plant the bizarre false claim of a secret communications channel between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, Baker was his go-to, speed-dial contact. (Baker would later testify at Sussmann’s trial). Baker’s name also appeared prominently in controversies related to the other Russian-related FBI allegations against Trump. He was effectively forced out due to his role and reportedly found himself under criminal investigation. He became a defender of the Russian investigations despite findings of biased and even criminal conduct. He was also a frequent target of Donald Trump on social media, including Twitter. Baker responded with public criticism of Trump for his “false narratives.”

After leaving the FBI, Twitter seemed eager to hire Baker as deputy general counsel. Ironically, Baker soon became involved in another alleged back channel with a presidential campaign. This time it was Twitter that maintained the non-public channels with the Biden campaign (and later the White House). Baker soon weighed in with the same signature bias that characterized the Russian investigations.

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post ran an explosive story about a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden that contained emails and records detailing a multimillion dollar influence peddling operation by the Biden family. Not only was Joe Biden’s son Hunter and brother James involved in deals with an array of dubious foreign figures, but Joe Biden was referenced as the possible recipient of funds from these deals.

The Bidens had long been accused of influence peddling, nepotism, and other forms of corruption. Moreover, the campaign was not denying that the laptop was Hunter Biden’s and key emails could be confirmed from the other parties involved. However, at the request of the “Biden team” and Democratic operatives, Twitter moved to block the story. It even suspended those who tried to share the allegations with others, including the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who was suspended for linking to the scandal.

Even inside Twitter, the move raised serious concerns over the company serving as a censor for the Biden campaign. Global Comms Brandon Borrman who asked if  the company could “truthfully claim that this is part of the policy” for barring posts and suspending users.

Baker quickly jumped in to support the censorship and said that “it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.”

Keep in mind that there was never any evidence that this material was hacked. Moreover, there was no evidence of Russian involvement in the laptop. Indeed, U.S. intelligence quickly rejected the Russian disinformation claim.

However, Baker insisted that there was a “reasonable” assumption that Russians were behind another major scandal. Faced with a major scandal implicating a Joe Biden in the corrupt selling of access to foreign figures (including some with foreign intelligence associations), Baker’s natural default was to kill the story and stop others from sharing the allegations.

Narrative Coercion And Negroe Narrative Compliance Are As American As Apple Pie

nakedcapitalism  |  From MSNBC itself:

Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Carol Guzy, and Dmytro Kozatsky, a Ukrainian soldier and photographer who was held in the Mariupol steel plant, join Andrea Mitchell to discuss “Relentless Courage: Ukraine and the World at War,” a new book featuring a collection of images capturing Ukrainians’ enduring fight. Ambassador Markarova, who writes in the book about a journalist lost to the war, tells Mitchell: “He was a very beautiful human being, full of light,” and Russia’s targeting of civilians “shows how inhumane this aggressive regime is, and how this war is about the values, democracy.” She adds, “We will not stop until there is accountability.”

I’m afraid I don’t have an earth-quake of a conclusion here; what stuns me is the ease with which Kozatsky is penetrating our cultural institutions. Booking agents, facilities managers, press agents, board members who organize such things, fashion editors, network anchors: All combining their efforts to service a Nazi professionally, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, which at this point perhaps it is. It would also be nice to know if how many other Ukrainian efforts like this are going on, and if they are… facilitated by anyone “in government.”

 

 

The Twitter Drop Elicited Orchestrated Subjective Responses

mediaite |  27 tweets that are essentially identical

Construct Tweet: [Say formerly respected or once great, etc.] Matt Taibbi [call it PR or comms or like that] for the [world’s richest man, the richest person in the world, so on]. Quote tweet thread.
eg
Wajahat Ali
@WajahatAli
·
Follow
Matt Taibbi…what sad, disgraceful downfall. I swear, kids, he did good work back in the day. Should be a cautionary tale for everyone. Selling your soul for the richest white nationalist on Earth. Well, he’ll eat well for the rest of his life I guess. But is it worth it?

Watching some of the most famous, most powerful and richest men red-pill themselves into disaster. Pretty wild!

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 2, 2022

Imagine volunteering to do online PR work for the world's richest man on a Friday night, in service of nakedly and cynically right-wing narratives, and then pretending you're speaking truth to power.

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 3, 2022

From calling Goldman Sachs a “vampire squid” to giving free PR to the world’s richest billionaire. Man, what a career journey

— Simon Owens (@simonowens) December 3, 2022

The Twitter Drop Was An Orchestrated Subjective Disclosure

NYTimes |  It was, on the surface, a typical example of reporting the news: a journalist obtains internal documents from a major corporation, shedding light on a political dispute that flared in the waning days of the 2020 presidential race.

But when it comes to Elon Musk and Twitter, nothing is typical.

The so-called Twitter Files, released Friday evening by the independent journalist Matt Taibbi, set off a firestorm among pundits, media ethicists and lawmakers in both parties. It also offered a window into the fractured modern landscape of news, where a story’s reception is often shaped by readers’ assumptions about the motivations of both reporters and subjects.

The tempest began when Mr. Musk teased the release of internal documents that he said would reveal the story behind Twitter’s 2020 decision to restrict posts linking to a report in the New York Post about Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son, Hunter.

Mr. Musk, who has accused tech companies of censorship, then pointed readers to the account of Mr. Taibbi, an iconoclast journalist who shares some of Mr. Musk’s disdain for the mainstream news media. Published in the form of a lengthy Twitter thread, Mr. Taibbi’s report included images of email exchanges among Twitter officials deliberating how to handle dissemination of the Post story on their platform.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Taibbi framed the exchanges as evidence of rank censorship and pernicious influence by liberals. Many others — even some ardent Twitter critics — were less impressed, saying the exchanges merely showed a group of executives earnestly debating how to deal with an unconfirmed news report that was based on information from a stolen laptop.

And as with many modern news stories, the Twitter Files were quickly weaponized in service of a dizzying number of pre-existing arguments.

The Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who often accuses liberals of stifling speech, made the claim that the “documents show a systemic violation of the First Amendment, the largest example of that in modern history.” House Republicans, who have called for an investigation into the business dealings of Hunter Biden, asserted with no evidence that the report showed systemic collusion between Twitter and aides to Joe Biden, who was then the Democratic nominee. (Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive at the time, later reversed the decision to block the Post story and told Congress it had been a mistake.)

Former Twitter executives, who have lamented Mr. Musk’s chaotic stewardship of the company, cited the documents’ release as yet another sign of recklessness. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, said that publicizing unredacted documents — some of which included the names and email addresses of Twitter officials — was “a fundamentally unacceptable thing to do” and placed people “in harm’s way.”

 

Start Dot Connecting With These Busters Right'Chere!!! (The Character Of The Country Was On The Ballot)

nypost |  Exactly two years ago, on October 19, 2020, one of the dirtiest tricks in electoral history was played on the American people by 51 former intelligence officials, who used the false alarm of “Russian interference” to stop Donald Trump winning a second term as president.

Using the institutional weight of their former esteemed roles, they signed a dishonest letter to mislead voters 15 days before the election, claiming that material from Hunter Biden’s laptop published by the New York Post “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

In their expert opinion, “the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.”

Russia was “trying to influence how Americans vote in this election … Moscow [will] pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win.

“A ‘laptop op’ fits the bill, as the publication of the emails are [sic] clearly designed to discredit Biden … It is high time that Russia stops interfering in our democracy.”

It was all a lie. Their letter was the culprit “interfering with democracy” in broad daylight.

Not one of the 51 had seen any material from the laptop or bothered asking for it, but their letter, instigated by, signed and delivered to Politico by Democratic operative and former John Brennan aide Nick Shapiro, killed the story stone dead. It got candidate Joe Biden off the hook for the corrupt influence-peddling scheme his family had been running through the eight years of his vice presidency.

The shameful letter was used by Joe Biden three days later, on October 22, to deflect Trump’s attack in their last debate.

“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan … Four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage … You know his character. You know my character. You know my reputation is for honor and telling the truth … The character of the country is on the ballot.”

Biden dismissed as a Kremlin smear all the evidence that was on his son’s laptop of dirty money from China and Russia, of all his meetings with Hunter’s overseas business partners, and all the lies he had told about his involvement in Hunter’s business deals.
The letter, like the Steele dossier and Russia collusion hoax peddled by many of the signatories, has helped fuel a moral panic about Russia in recent years that now has heightened the risk of nuclear war.

As well as sharing their Trump derangement, the Dirty 51 sit on the same boards and think tanks, speak at the same events or liberal TV shows, write for the same publications, pal around with the same journalists, retweet each other’s “Slava Ukraini” or Mar-a-Lago memes, share hawkish views about regime change in Russia and are remarkably sanguine about the prospect of nuclear war.

You would think since so many have been outed for their involvement in the (non-existent) weapons-of-mass-destruction intelligence disaster that justified the Iraq war, not to mention secret prisons, torture, warrantless eavesdropping and the bulk collection of Americans’ data, they might have learned some humility.

 

What EXACTLY Were The FBI And Twitter Talking About At Their Weekly Meetings?

jonathanturley |  The internal company documents released by Musk reinforce what we have seen previously in other instances of Twitter censorship. A recent federal filing revealed a 2021 email between Twitter executives and Carol Crawford, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s digital media chief. Crawford’s back-channel communication sought to censor other “unapproved opinions” on social media; Twitter replied that “with our CEO testifying before Congress this week [it] is tricky.”

At the time, Twitter’s Dorsey and other tech CEOs were about to appear at a House hearing to discuss “misinformation” on social media and their “content modification” policies. I had just testified on private censorship in circumventing the First Amendment as a type of censorship by surrogate. Dorsey and the other CEOs were asked about my warning of a “‘little brother’ problem, a problem which private entities do for the government that which it cannot legally do for itself.” In response, Dorsey insisted that “we don’t have a censoring department.”

The implications of these documents becomes more serious once the Biden campaign became the Biden administration. These documents show a back channel existed with President Biden’s campaign officials, but those same back channels appear to have continued to be used by Biden administration officials. If so, that would be when Twitter may have gone from a campaign ally to a surrogate for state censorship. As I have previously written, the administration cannot censor critics and cannot use agents for that purpose under the First Amendment.

That is precisely what Musk is now alleging. As the documents were being released, he tweeted, “Twitter acting by itself to suppress free speech is not a 1st amendment violation, but acting under orders from the government to suppress free speech, with no judicial review, is.”

The incoming Republican House majority has pledged to investigate — and Musk has made that process far easier by making good on his pledge of full transparency.

Washington has fully mobilized in its all-out war against Musk. Yet, with a record number of users signing up with Twitter, it seems clear the public is not buying censorship. They want more, not less, free speech.

That may be why political figures such as Hillary Clinton have enlisted foreign governments to compel the censoring of fellow citizens: If Twitter can’t be counted on to censor, perhaps the European Union will be the ideal surrogate to rid social media of these meddlesome posters.

The release of these documents has produced a level of exposure rarely seen in Washington, where such matters usually are simply “handled.” The political and media establishments generally are unstoppable forces — but they may have met their first immovable object in Musk.

 

Why Do The Twitter Files Matter?

gizmodo  |  There is genuine news value to a story along the lines of “These Are the Emails That Led to Twitter Suppressing the Hunter Biden Laptop Story.” It is rare for a company as large and valuable as Twitter to account so thoroughly for wrongdoing, perceived or actual. The emails resemble the documents received in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. They detail internal drama at a company whose power is on the order of a government agency, maybe greater. BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos tweeted, “Any news outlet would’ve loved to have this scoop! It’s just not a ‘scandal’ as teased.”

Twitter’s new owner considers it “the de facto public town square,” suggesting he believes in a level of public accountability. Again, not unlike a government agency. Though it is thrilling to receive once-hidden documents in response to a FOIA, it is also possible that those documents are boring, that they tell you what you already know. Such is the case with the Twitter files. We learned how Twitter came to its decision to block the Post’s story, but we did not learn a shocking new reason why. We knew Twitter suppressed the story before the release of these documents, and, for the most part, we knew who was involved.

Those people have since suffered professional punishment and left Twitter. Vijaya Gadde, the former chief legal officer who played a “key role” in the decision, according to Taibbi, was fired by Musk. Roth quit over Musk’s “dictatorial edict.” Borrman left before Musk arrived. Jack Dorsey, CEO at the time, is gone. When deciding to digitally quarantine the Post’s story, did those people act out of fealty to Joe Biden and the Democratic Party? Out of opposition to the Republican Party and hatred for Donald Trump? Out of distaste for the New York Post? Judging by the documents we have, we can’t say they did. Was it drastic interference in the political process and the press? It was. We already knew that.

Taibbi interviewed several anonymous ex-Twitter employees on the decision, all of whom expressed shock and outrage at the company’s actions: “Everyone knew this was f–ked,” he quotes one source. But since Taibbi doesn’t quote that expletive from the leaked emails, we can reason they included few or no quotes as sensational for his purpose. Ergo, we can deduce that those executives said little to support claims of nefarious purposes.

Outlets far more vested in the Hunter Biden story than Gizmodo also seem vexed by the release, and delivered the news below muted headlines. If the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop belongs to any one outlet, it belongs to the New York Post, which has never shied away from a blaring headline in its 221-year life. Yet the Post’s two Friday-night notifications about Musk’s actions were restrained. The first was a simple curtain-raiser about Musk’s promise: “Elon Musk to drop Twitter files on NY Post-Hunter Biden laptop censorship today.” The other was a “Read these documents”-style headline: “Hunter Biden laptop bombshell: Elon Musk’s Twitter drops Post censorship details.” Fox News’ push alert, delivered via Apple News, read “Elon Musk drops bombshell docs on Twitter censorship.”

Bombshell, bombshell, bombshell… what, exactly, is the bombshell? We’ve yet to hear it explode. Maybe we’ve heard too much about this story, and we’re missing the forest for the trees. Or maybe these documents detail a decision where the outcome was already well-documented.

On its website, the Post argues why you should care. Twitter is censoring things willy-nilly and concocting reasons to do as it goes along, its headline implies: “Hunter Biden laptop bombshell: Twitter invented reason to censor Post’s reporting.”

And yet, it is not shocking that Twitter used an ad hoc decision to moderate a piece of content from one of America’s most infamous tabloids. The social network had done that exact thing for years as it struggled with toxic users—violent white nationalists, virulent transphobes, harassers and bullies of all political stripes, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum et ad nauseam. The company never had a handle on content moderation, and it certainly doesn’t now, no matter how much Musk crows. Back in 2016, a lengthy investigative story published by Buzzfeed showed how Twitter had been struggling with abusive posters since its 2006 founding. Jack Dorsey and all his executives made things up as they went along, just like Musk.

Lastly, did the United States government run interference on a social media company for the former vice president? That would be shocking indeed, a bonafide bombshell. Musk himself said as much Friday: “Twitter acting by itself to suppress free speech is not a 1st amendment violation, but acting under orders from the government to suppress free speech, with no judicial review, is.” That is true! And Taibbi once believed that is what happened. In August 2022, he tweeted: “The laptop is by the far the secondary issue. The real problem is the FBI stepping in to cut distribution of true story [sic],” as pointed out by Columbia professor and New York Times columnist Zeynep Tufecki. But on Friday night, Taibbi rescinded the assertion: “There’s no evidence—that I’ve seen—of any government involvement in the laptop story.”

The Trumpification Of Elon Musk

realclearpolitics  |  The relentless attacks on Elon Musk since he purchased Twitter should be familiar to most Americans. It’s exactly what Democrats and their media and corporate allies did to demonize Donald Trump.

The McCarthyite formula is simple: Claim you are defending high-minded principles (Democracy! The rule of law! Civil discourse!) to justify efforts to delegitimize someone you’ve identified as a political opponent.

Democrats denied Trump’s presidency from day one; Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden themselves declared for years that he had stolen the 2016 election. In the name of election integrity, Democrats turned a bogus conspiracy theory cooked up by Clinton’s campaign about Russian collusion into years of official investigations that undermined and tainted Trump. When Special Counsel Robert Mueller proved that a lie, Democrats immediately seized on a few innocuous sentences in a Trump phone call with a foreign leader to launch just the third presidential impeachment in U.S. history.

Those events are well-known, but ponder them for a moment. This was a soft coup, a nonviolent version of Jan. 6 that was far more dangerous than the Capitol riot. The effort to remove a lawfully elected president was planned and orchestrated by officials at the highest level of government and the media. While Jan. 6 was a one-off eruption of crazed anger, the false attacks on Trump edged our political discourse toward Orwellian Newspeak by presenting lies and smears as ringing defenses of sacred constitutional values.

The ongoing attacks against Musk are following the same playbook. The man once hailed by liberals as a genius for developing electric vehicles is now Public Enemy No. 1 because he says Twitter should allow more free speech. Ponder that as well: Musk’s enemies are casting him as a threat to the country because of his commitment to one of America’s most cherished freedoms.

FBI Gave Social Media Censorship And Content Targeting Instructions

foxnews  |  An FBI agent testified to Republican attorneys general this week that the FBI held weekly meetings with Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley ahead of the 2020 presidential election to discuss "disinformation" on social media and ask about efforts to censor that information.

On Tuesday, lawyers from the offices of Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana deposed FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan as part of their lawsuit against the Biden administration. That suit accuses high-ranking government officials of working with giant social media companies "under the guise of combating misinformation" to achieve greater censorship.

Chan, who serves in the FBI’s San Francisco bureau, was questioned under oath by court order about his alleged "critical role" in "coordinating with social-media platforms relating to censorship and suppression of speech on their platforms."

During the deposition, Chan said that he, along with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency officials, had weekly meetings with major social media companies to warn against Russian disinformation attempts ahead of the 2020 election, according to a source in the Missouri attorney general's office.

Those meetings were initially quarterly, then monthly, then weekly heading into the presidential election between former President Donald Trump and now President Biden. According to a source, Chan testified that in those multiple, separate meetings, the FBI warned the social media companies that there could be potentially Russian "hack and dump" or "hack and leak" operations.

In their complaint, the GOP AGs noted an Aug. 26 podcast episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," in which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that "the FBI basically came to us" and told Facebook to be "on high alert" relating to "a lot of Russian propaganda." Zuckerberg added that the FBI said "there’s about to be some kind of dump… that’s similar to that, so just be vigilant."

As noted in the complaint, Zuckerberg stated, "If the FBI… if they come to us and tell us we need to be on guard about something, then I want to take that seriously." Zuckerberg said he could not recall if the FBI specifically flagged the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation, but said that the story "basically fit the pattern" that the FBI had identified.

"On information and belief, the FBI’s reference to a 'dump' of information was a specific reference to the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, which was already in the FBI's possession," the complaint said.