Tag: Twitter

SubscribeStar Saturday: Feelin’ Musky

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It’s official:  Elon Musk owns Twitter!

After months of wrangling and negotiating, including Musk incorporating some dread game and walking away from the deal, it’s finally done.  Musk walked into Twitter headquarters last week carrying a kitchen sink, in a fun visual pun. It’s the kind of lighthearted whimsy for which the innovative billionaire is known.

The Left is melting down, thinking that a man who not long ago supported the Democratic Party is suddenly going to turn the platform into a recruiting site for Neo-Nazis (all four of them that actually exist).  No Leftists panicked when Jeff Bezos—a far less lovable, far more tyrannical—figure purchased The Washington Post, turning it into a propaganda organ for Amazon.

Ah, but Elon Musk supports free speech—or, at the very last, far freer speech than any progressive wants.  Free speech is anathema to the Left, because their ideology doesn’t hold up to the scrutiny of daylight.  Free inquiry undermines the carefully constructed narratives of the Left—human-caused climate change; diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE); systemic racism—and, therefore, represents a major threat to their political power and control.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Twitter Flies Free

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O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!  Elon Musk, the whimsical Willy Wonka of our time, has purchased Twitter.

While I have a Twitter account, I don’t really use it that frequently, with the exception of checking out some spicy Tweets on occasion (but even those are gone, thanks to the platform’s arbitrary censorship).  I find the format clunky and unwieldy, especially when trying to read long threads or responses to Tweets.

It’s also a cesspool of Leftist hand-wringing and overwrought, fake stories, in which progressives claim their small children are asking them if Trump is going to kill the trannies or what not.  At its worst, it’s an outrage factory; at its best, it’s an echo chamber for the mainstream media.

There’s a long history of censorship of conservative and populist voices on Twitter.  The rumors (which will be confirmed or otherwise by the time this post goes live) suggest that Twitter’s quarterly report won’t look good, so Musk was able to scoop up the company at the price of $44 billion, or $54.20 per share.  That represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s stock price as of 1 April 2022.

Basically, Twitter went woke—like, MEGA woke—and it’s starting to go broke.

The news of Musk’s purchase of Twitter is heartening, as he describes himself as a free speech absolutist.  Trump has pledged to stay on TRUTH Social, but I still hope Musk restores his account, even if it’s a symbolic gesture.

While Musk’s takeover is promising—let a thousand crazy Tweets bloom!—it does suggest that conservatives are on hard times if we’re hoping the whims of a boyish entrepreneur/government subsidy devourer will restore free speech on a failing, but still important, Big Tech platform.

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TBT: Cass on Our Diminished Income

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The other day my students and I were talking about the Model T Ford, which in the 1920s ran around $6000 in today’s money for a new car.  It is impossible to find a brand-new vehicle of any make for $6000 today.  Granted, a Ford Focus, for example, is packed with way more technology and safety features than a Model T from 100 years ago, and that technological advancement gets factored into the price.

But consider that in the 1990s, when Kia hit the American market, they advertised a new sedan for around $6999 (in 1990s’ dollars).  What would that be twenty-five years late—maybe $9000 or $10,000?  That price point, too, is virtually impossible.

I managed to purchase my current vehicle—a 2017 Nissan Versa Note SV—for right around $9100.  It has around 45,000 miles on it when I bought it, and had been a rental vehicle before I purchased it.  I got a steal on that car—the closest comparable I’ve found since then was a list price of around $8900 (the list for my car was $8000 even).  That’s for a four-year old subcompact hatchback.

I got lucky when I found that car.  I figured it would be easy enough to find a decent car for under $10,000 when I began vehicle shopping in late 2019.  Boy, was I wrong.  Vehicles last longer than ever before, and maintain their value a very long time.  They’re also, as mentioned, packed full of technology and safety features that weren’t present even twenty years ago.  Trucks in particular hold their value extremely well; to find a truck in my price range, I’d have had to purchase a Ford F-150 from 1994 with half-a-million miles on it.

It’s great that cars last longer and are safer.  But those features—many of which drivers will never need or use—drive up the costs substantially.  Such was the point of an illuminating Twitter thread by Oren Cass, which demonstrates that, despite earning more money, Americans’ expenses for basic goods are substantially higher, requiring a whopping fifty-three weeks of pay to cover now versus a mere thirty weeks in 1985.  Naturally, given that there are only fifty-two weeks in a year, that presents a problem.

I don’t know the solution, but as I wrote a year ago, “Something’s gotta give.”

Indeed.  Here is 28 April 2020’s “Cass on Our Diminished Income“:

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Et tu, WordPress?

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Thanks to photog for informing me about this one:  legendary conservative blog Conservative Treehouse is being deplatformed.  WordPress has given them to 2 December 2020 to find a new host.

It’s another sad casualty in the never-ending pogroms of Big Tech.  I am not a regular Conservative Treehouse reader, but it’s fairly standard, non-controversial conservative commentary.  CT was big on debunking the Russian conspiracy and Ukrainian hoaxes, and really delved deeply into the weeds of those baseless witch hunts.  It’s also been going hard to illuminate the theft of the presidential election.

But that’s enough.  In a world in which Twitter posts Orwellian “fact-check” tags to tweets about the election, any questioning of the orthodoxy is a thoughtcrime.  CT itself points to the real reason for their deplatforming:

The WordPress company is not explaining the reason for deplatforming because there is no justifiable reason for it.  At the same time, they are bold in their position. Perhaps this is the most alarming part; and everyone should pay attention. They don’t care.

Truthful assembly is now the risk.  CTH is now too big; with a site reach of 500,000 to a million unique readers each day; and with well over 200,000 subscribers; our assembly is too large, too influential, and presents a risk… we guard the flickering flame.

That’s the key—Conservative Treehouse is effective; ergo, it must be eliminated.  I’ve written far spicier posts on this blog, but I’m so small, WordPress doesn’t care (or, more likely, doesn’t notice).

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Cass on Our Diminished Income

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Way back in The Before Times, in the Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus, Oren Cass presented a series of sixteen tweets, asking this question:  “How is that our economic statistics suggest workers have been making slow but steady progress in recent decades, while popular perception is that their family finances are coming under increasingly untenable pressure?”

Cass also wrote about the issue in greater detail in American Affairs and in a lengthy paper for the Manhattan Institute.  That question—why does it feel like it’s harder to make ends meet now, even though inflation is low and we’re wealthier?—is one of the gnawing concerns of modern-day America.

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The Dirty Pierre

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I’m on the mend, and am back at work today.  It’s pretty hectic being away for a couple of days:  I was immediately swarmed by young’uns this morning, asking about melodic intervals and the War of 1812.

If only I had a shadow Twitter account, from which I could give myself an emotional boost whenever I’m having a rough-and-tumble, post-recovery morning.

That’s my clumsy segue into today’s topic—Senator Mitt Romney’s latest pathetic act of perfidy, the Twitter account with the hysterical, outrageous nom de plume “Pierre Delecto.”

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Support Milo

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I hold a soft spot in my heart for conservative gadfly and Internet provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.  I recall fondly his heyday in 2015-2016, when he championed free speech in the Babylon of Progressivism, Berkeley, California.  I still wish President Trump would appoint him White House Press Secretary—it would be must-see TV every day.

Behind the flamboyant, cartoonish homosexuality and the over-the-top trollery, though, is a talented journalist and writer; indeed, Milo’s work is some of the best long-form journalism I’ve ever read.  His writing, like his public speaking, is engaging and well-researched:  he really checks his facts and his sources, while still delivering that withering Coulterian death strike upon his unfortunate target.

Unfortunately, even fewer Americans will have the opportunity to read his work, as he’s apparently sold his website, Dangerous.com.

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Don’t Let Anymore In

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The world has been on fire this week because—in the absence of any real news—President Trump said something on Twitter that’s funny.

The hand-wringing over President Trump’s tweet about “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” returning to their home countries to fix them up has had the Left and the Right scurrying to condemn the president.  Ben Shapiro, whose podcast I quite enjoy, dedicated an entire hour to excoriating the president over the Tweet, and another hour to analyze it further.

Shapiro is wrong on this one, and more than a tad disingenuous, which is unusual for him.  He claims that President Trump tweeted that these women should be “sent back” to their countries of origin—which, as far as I can tell, he never said or wrote!  When a crowd at a rally in North Carolina began chanting “Send Her Back!” after the president ran down a litany of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist, pro-Islamist statements, that seemed to exacerbate things, the president quickly stated that he did not like or agree with the chant.

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Deportemal II: Trump Vows Mass Deportations

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On Monday, President Trump announced the deportation of millions of illegal aliens beginning “next week,” vowing that ICE agents would remove such aliens “as fast as they come in.”

Here are the two pertinent tweets from the president:

Critics and supporters alike are asking for details on how Immigration and Customs Enforcement will process the millions here illegally.  As I write this post, I’ve just listened to part of Ben Shapiro’s podcast on the announcement; he argues that a surgical, case-by-case approach is preferable, as some illegal aliens possess skills we would want in the United States.

While I appreciate Shapiro’s measured response, I can’t agree.  As I wrote in “Deportemal,” the time for half-measures has passed.  A lengthy review process of the millions of illegal aliens—which could be anywhere from 11 to 33 million (PDF; that document shows an illegal population of 12 million as of 2015), and maybe higher (that no one can know for sure is a major part of the problem)—would bog down for years, if not decades.  Another visa process ladled on top of inherent law-breaking will merely exacerbate the problem.

Consider:  our current catch-and-release system—migrants show up to one court date, get a temporary visa and orders to report back to court, then disappear into the countryside, never darkening an immigration court again—already gives migrants an easy in.  Essentially, touching American soil is like tagging home base:  once you’re here, you’re in.

Now, imagine adding an individual review process to that.  First, you’d have to assume good-faith on the part of illegals in the country.  They have virtually no incentive to come to another hearing.  Yes, they have the opportunity to be absolved of their illegal status (I’m assuming that’s what Shapiro is proposing), but if they think they don’t, they’ll avoid the process.

Second, a whole cottage-industry of gaming the individual amnesty system will emerge.  Lawyers skilled in the ins-and-outs of this fresh bureaucratic hell will profit at the expense of their countrymen and poor illegals.  Appeals—and you know with the federal government there would be a lengthy appeals process—would linger on for months, even years, further adding to the administrative load of ICE and our courts.

If we were dealing with a few thousand people, we could demonstrate some mercy and approach this issue with a lighter touch.  Unfortunately, we’ve failed to enforce our border laws for so long that we’ve allowed this crisis to metastasize, to the detriment of American citizens and potential immigrants alike.

Republicans squandered a golden opportunity to make some real strides on immigration reform during the 2017-2019 congressional session.  President Trump has moved mountains since then via constitutional executive orders and international diplomacy, particularly his threat of slapping hefty, incremental tariffs on Mexico.  Increased enforcement of Mexico‘s southern border has, according to Shapiro, already eased the number of arrests on the American border.

In the wake of President Trump’s massive 2020 reelection campaign launch last night in Orlando, Florida, it is imperative for immigration patriots to run (and win!) in 2020, and for Americans to support Trump’s reelection.  It’s our best hope to resolve this crisis, to the benefit of Americans and the world.

For more of my writing on immigration, check out “Lazy Sunday XIII: Immigration.”

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Irish Troll

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For Saint Patrick’s Day, the GOP sent out a cheeky tweet of Beto O’Rourke’s mugshot from a DUI incident (the senatorial hopeful tried to flee the scene, but bypassers stopped him from doing so) that occurred when he was 26.  The tweet (embedded below) features O’Rourke sporting a cartoon leprechaun hat and sign board reading “PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY”:

That is some grade-A trolling right there.  John Nolte of Breitbart breaks down the brilliance of the tweet, and why it works on so many levels, viscerally.  He also catalogs the outrage from the Left and the noodle-wristed Establishment/Never Trump “Right.”

In my mind, the tweet succeeds most immediately in two ways:  it highlights O’Rourke’s sordid past, and it draws attention to his lame attempt to Hispanicize himself by going by “Beto” instead of “Robert” (how’s this for an Irish Catholic name:  his real name is Robert Francis O’Rourke).

As Nolte points out, Leftists gleefully roasted George W. Bush for his youthful DUI.  But Bush took the hit, paid his dues to society, and redeemed himself.  Perhaps O’Rourke has made his peace with God about this issue—we can’t know his heart—but he walked away from the DUI scot-free.  The two-tiered justice system that punishes conservatives and lets well-connected libs walk free was at work once again.

One of the more ludicrous criticisms from the Right is that the tweet is “racist.”  Please.  The tweet isn’t suggesting that Irishmen are drunks; it’s suggesting that this particular Irishman actually was.  The only reason they call O’Rourke an “Irishman” in the tweet is, again, because he’s desperately pretending to be another ethnicity to get votes.

It’s the same story with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.  When President Trump calls her “Pocahontas” (he should call her “Fauxcahontas,” but the point remains), he’s not making fun of Native Americans; he’s drawing attention to Warren’s use of (falsified) Native American heritage to get an edge in her professional and academic career.  If anything, Warren and O’Rourke are the ones using race as a political tool, not the Republicans and Trump.

None of that should need saying, but that’s why small-time bloggers like me have stuff to write about every day:  if it were as obvious as it seems to us, it wouldn’t need saying.

Oh, well.  Kudos to the GOP for some excellent, cheeky, fun-filled trolling.  It’s the most harmless kind of effective trolling possible.  Remember:  that tweet didn’t hurt anyone, except for maybe O’Rourke’s already-tarnished reputation.  But Robert Francis O’Rourke did risk harm to real people with his actions.  His policies—like radically open borders and deconstruction of existing border barriers—would risk countless more lives.

Let’s hope this dweeb flames out, and soon.