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November 6th, 2024

Take-aways from Trump’s historic WIN

Some take-aways from President Donald Trump’s historic win last night:

ONE: “Too Big to Rig” turned out not to be only a campaign slogan, but a very real and measurable goal. In swing states, including my own Pennsylvania, registering new Republican voters (hero Scott Presler registered something like 110,000 Amish) and getting them to vote made the difference between winning and losing. Getting regular “super voters” and new voters alike to bank their votes before Election Day via absentee and mail-in ballots also helped hugely. That way, when the Democrat Party tried to cheat, as they did last night with secret ballot dumps in Philly and Detroit, the votes were already in and counted, and …

TWO: Staying on top of the battlefield, so to speak, with hundreds of lawyers and poll watchers everywhere documenting everything across Pennsylvania (and other swing states) prevented the “enemy” from doing sneak attacks. Too many eyes and cameras watching in 2024, something we lacked in 2020.

When Centre County tried to stop vote counting last night, with promises to come back in the morning and pick up again, Republican National Committee lawyers were present and threatened to sue if Centre County violated state law. And so Centre County staffers put on their big boy pants and continued counting votes like every other professional polling place is supposed to do. This prevented Centre County (where I grew up, and which is home to Penn State University’s bazillion communist faculty and spoiled brat students) from sneaking in a bunch more secret ballots hidden somewhere and padding the vote results in favor of their preferred candidates, which happened a lot with the stolen 2020 election.

THREE: Mainstream legacy corporate media e.g. Reuters, ABC CBS NBC NPR PBS NYT CNNLOL WaPo MSNBC etc are now on the losing side of the info wars. No matter what these outlets say now, a majority of Americans do not trust them. Rather, a majority of Americans openly mock them because of their patently false and easily disprovable assertions and narratives. A big indication of how weak MSM sources have become is that they ALL have deleted their comment sections. No way for their readership or viewership to visibly fact-check them real time!

For decades these establishment fake news disseminators of malinformation, disinformation, and misinfornation have been the supposed “go-to” sources for accurate information. But as everyone now sees so clearly, these are not fair-minded arbiters of accuracy and truth. Rather, all of these outlets are plugged into one particular and very politically partisan source, probably Media Matters, from which these giant networks take their daily talking points and narratives. Watch one compilation of all the MSM personalities saying the exact same things on the same day, and you have seen all of the compilations done for decades now.

FOUR: As a result of the MSM’s willful if suicidal media malpractice serving as the open propaganda arm for the Democrat Party (and serving as the Kamala Harris campaign), the rise of the citizen journalist and alternative media is really just beginning. New they may be, these people are really effective, and they gave Trump a pathway to get around the MSM blocks and attacks on him.

Go to Rumble and meet some of the many political refugees kicked out of YouTube or FaceBook for the simple acts of violating leftwing political orthodoxy. Rumble’s political ecosystem is super rich and diverse, and you will hear a hundred or a thousand different opinions about the day’s events from funny people, smart people, scary people, people in their underpants, people wearing their underpants on their head, but frankly, any and all of them far better and much more honest and interesting and accurate than anything you will hear on CNN or ABC or NPR.

And don’t forget all of the bazillion podcasts on Apple, Spotify, etc., and all the talk radio shows, and the new newspapers like Epoch Times. Or Breitbart or Gateway Pundit.

In sum, the rise of the citizen journalist directly correlates with the fall of corporate media. I will bet the R2 of these two axis are probably 99% correlated. By consuming alternative sources of information in a free market place, Americans are showing their belief in the old Thomas Paine adage about the best antidote to bad information is not to shut it down, but to get more information, so that a person can make up their own mind about what is true, and what is false.

People who read and listen to alternative media are naturally curious individuals. People who drink out of the toilet and consume MSM like CNN and NPR are not intellectually curious people. It is a badge of honor to listen to diverse voices.

And for all the MSM lovers out there, if the MSM had simply done their job of reporting just the facts and all the facts, regardless of where they fell, then there would have been no need or demand for talk radio, or citizen journalism, or podcasts. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the New York Times is one gigantic, ridiculous, embarrassingly buck naked vacuum.

Truth is like water, it will keep moving around to find the lowest place, no matter how much you try to dam it up.

FIVE: Working polling places is effective. For many years I have compared the polls that I worked at on Election Day to other polling places, especially those with no one working, to see if my friendly outreach to voters coming in to vote has any real effect. It does, and I encourage everyone of any political party or interest group to participate in Election Day as a poll watcher. Not only does it give more information to prospective voters, it also brings more eyes to the polling place, which is the number one way to prevent vote fraud on Election Day.

SIX: Kamala Harris was not a compelling candidate when she ran in the primary last time, and she was not a compelling candidate yesterday, either. That she was hand-picked by party elites without one vote being cast for her by one citizen indicates a huge problem with American party politics. Do not kid yourself this is only the Democrat Party’s problem, this need for elites’ control is also big among the GOP. I.e. note how Trump was treated by the GOPe right up until a couple days ago, when it became clear he was going to win. They STILL hated him, for being his independent self.

SEVEN: Americans do not trust their government. For good reason. When your own government has abandoned you the lifelong taxpayer, in favor of flying in and letting in tens of millions of unvetted illegal aliens, and telling the truth about this invasion is treated harshly by the government created to protect you, the citizen, your government has become your enemy. Everyone sees it now.

And so, my own decision to abandon the US EPA in 1998, after seven years in Federal service there, becomes even more understandable to me now. Back then, I did not like what I was seeing, hearing, writing, saying, but I could not really put my finger wholly on the problem. Now, we all see the problems in both federal and state governments, and buddy, the meat cleaver must fall hard on the gangrenous parts. This was a big part of yesterday’s vote results.

EIGHT: Never underestimate the strength of well intentioned people determined to correct wrongdoing. When Elon Musk turned Twitter/X into a pretty free market of ideas and information, a huge pathway around the MSM and Silicon Valley tech media chokehold on information flow was disrupted. The rest of that is beautiful Robin Hood history. And when Scott Presler decided that he could not allow the stolen 2020 election to go unanswered, he devoted himself to tirelessly registering Republican voters in Pennsylvania and other swing states. The outcome of his incredible work bore obvious fruit last night.

Moral of this story: Fight, Fight, Fight for what you believe in. Never relent, never stop, never give up, no matter how sad or demoralized you might feel at any point.

America is worth building, and it was worth saving yesterday, whatever the cost.

By Josh • Posted in Fruit of Contemplation, Government Of the People... • No Comment
June 14th, 2024

a thousand points of light, a thousand glorious small cuts

Watching a boat sinking out on the water because it was deliberately holed by its occupants is a curious thing.

Watching the people in the sinking boat then continue to deliberately punch more holes into the ruptured hull, even as water is being taken on, which expedites the boat’s failure as a floating refuge on water, is more than curious. Now, we are pretty certain that the self-destructive people in the boat either are stupid, suicidal, or do not even realize what they are doing.

They might think that adding more holes in the boat actually lets the water out…?

Thus is the recent statement by political activist George Stephanopoulos that media personalities having live interviews on TV with President Donald Trump is “journalistic malpractice“ perfectly framed.

George Stephanopoulos is the longtime political director for ABC “News.” As a former extremely politically partisan political activist employed by President Bill Clinton, Stephanopulous somehow seamlessly glided into the awkward and disbelievable role of “news reporter” and “journalist” at ABC. You know, as the kind of news reporter and journalist that is supposed to be accurate, fair, balanced, fact-based, truth-seeking no matter where it takes him. Ideally, and probably much more so in America’s distant past, journalism is done by fair-minded arbiters of truth and accuracy, not political activists.

These two roles are mutually exclusive: Political activists are by definition not fair minded arbiters of truth and accuracy, and so they cannot possibly communicate anything but one-sided political propaganda, narrative, and self-serving lies to their viewers and audiences. Which is what George Stephanopoulos does…speaking of journalistic malpractice.

George Stephanopoulos is not a journalist, he is an aggressive political activist masquerading as a journalist. And the reason he wants to prevent President Trump from having live interviews on mainstream media outlets is that George Stephanopoulos wants to deprive American audiences of having an honest and unfiltered view of Trump. Because Americans seeing and hearing Trump in his own words, as his own self, is going to be completely at odds with the lies, propaganda, falsehoods, and partisan political narrative that political activists like George Stephanopoulos try to paint Trump with all the time.

George Stephanopoulos is actually a censor, the opposite of a journalist. He is someone who tries to stop, limit, or blunt the dissemination of inconvenient facts or truths that undermine the political goals of the censor. Censorship runs totally at odds with the spirit and intent of America’s First Amendment, as well as the open and sometimes raucous format for all of our political discourse since our founding.

Recall that American politicians used to give a “stump speech” literally standing on a fresh tree stump surrounded by interested citizens, such was the nature of America’s rapidly expanding frontier and European settlement. So, a so-called “journalist” trying to prevent a politician from giving his live “stump speech” is actually doing the opposite of journalism: He is conducting censorship, at war with America.

All censors will tell you they are blocking you from having access to the truth, the facts, a certain point of view, for your own good. But they are never really doing this for your own good, or for mine. Like George Stephanopoulos, all censors throughout history engage in censorship for their own good. Whether it is personal monetary rewards or a political outcome favorable to a censor’s political views, censorship is conducted purely for the benefit of the censor.

Censorship is evil, and so-called journalists who are actually censors, like ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, are evil people. Censorship is un-American. Don’t be a censor, don’t support censors, don’t engage in censorship.

Here is an interesting very brief little video of President Trump at a small town hall, with an audience of Americans who had not heard him in person before. The audience members are stunned by the difference between President Trump in person, the actual President Trump, versus the false and heavily filtered/censored image of President Trump they had been fed by the mainstream media, like ABC “News” and George Stephanopoulos.

Here is why censorious political activists like George Stephanopoulos are becoming so bold about their political efforts under guise of “journalism,” which in the past would have itself been a headline: Totally partisan and politicized fake news legacy mainstream media outlets like ABC, CBS, NBC, MSDNC, NPR, PBS, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. are being engulfed in a maelstrom of alternative information outlets, and they are becoming desperate.

Hence shameless George Stephanopuslous in effect knocking holes in his own boat in full public view, destroying his own credibility as a “journalist” and as an American, when he openly admits that he has no other defense against President Trump than artificially filtering Trump, censoring him, stopping the public from viewing him as he really is, and outright lying about Trump.

A thousand points of light (to beneficially borrow a phrase from one of the worst, most corrupt establishment politicians in modern history) are shedding unceasing light on the lies of George Stephanopoulos et al. A thousand small, independent alternative information outlets have sprung up across the internet and anywhere else they are not artificially repressed, censored, or suppressed. They exist because of the truth vaccuum left by George Stephanopoulos and his ilk, and the marketplace of ideas abhors a vaccuum.

Sites like www.breitbart.com, www.thegatewaypundit.com, www.zerohedge.com, www.dailycaller.com, www.rebelnews.com, and a million small websites like this one at www.joshfirst.com, not to mention an incredibly diverse, rich, and interesting constellation of independent political commentary and analysis at www.rumble.com, are each making a tiny cut into the corpulant, stagnant, odiferous, and pus-filled rotting meat that is the body of mainstream media.

This thousand points of light alternative news sources is making it impossible for liars like George Stephanopoulos to get away with his lies any longer. And this thousand tiny cuts of alternative information sources is slowly bleeding out the lying mainstream media, exposing them, weakening them.

Of course every information and news outlet has its own flair, its own bend, its own flavor and goals. This goes without saying. But when I read someone actually bragging about getting their news and information from MSNBC, NPR, and CNN, I wonder how anyone could be so incurious about the wider universe or galaxy they live in. If you are addicted to fake news, like NPR, ABC and George Stephanopoulos, you owe it to yourself to at least add a little cream to your coffee, and see what other people are reporting about the same whatever subject that ABC-NBC-CBS-NPR-ProPublica-CNN happens to be talking about at the moment.

Only censors try to blot out the light that other people need to be able to see clearly. Only fearful, close-minded, incurious, purposefully ignorant people steadfastly choose to support censors and remain behind their own artificial curtain.

Let the sun shine in, America.

UPDATE: Goodness gracious, I was in such a rush to get this essay up that I neglected to include all of the amazing podcasts that Amerians are dialing into every day. There are a whole bunch of podcasts and interactive radio/internet shows, too, that are a blend of Libertarian/freedom/ constitutional/ just askin’ that are just smokin‘ the mainstream media. Shows like Joe Rogan (who I disagree with about 45% of the time, and who has occasionally said some racist stuff that leaves me shaking my head, but who nonetheless addresses important issues head-0n), Dan Bongino, whose uncensored balls-to-the-wall New Yawk accented bare knuckle bulldozer of a daily show is one of the highest rated in America for good reason, can be found on Apple and on Rumble. Dinesh D’Souza is my favorite faux felon, who is incredibly smart, quick, witty, and insightful. Ace interviewer Jan Jekeliek has the most incredible people from all walks of life on his American Thought Leaders podcast. Russell Brand has grown on me over the years, and while he is in no way a conservative, he is a witty, quick, and funny advocate for transparency, accountability, and honesty, which are all good and necessary things in any government, and especially in a government of, by, and for The People like ours. Russell Brand’s mocking of the corrupt FBI agents stealing people’s gold watches is hilarious and cutting.

I could go on and on, and in the interest of time, this short list is a “starter pack” for intelligent, curious, open minded, patriotic Americans. Give these folks a whirl or two and see if you aren’t hooked. Each has a different style and really different content, and yet each of these independent-minded people is providing a life-saving end-run around the rotten and corrupt establishment media complex like ABCNPRCNN…this is the thousand points of light exposing the lying mainstream media and the resulting thousand glorious small cuts bleeding out the fake news media.

By Josh • Posted in Fruit of Contemplation • No Comment