Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

Although I tend to focus on stuff going on in America, there are times when I do have to train my gaze elsewhere just to see if their Leftists are as fucked up as ours are. Given what I just read, I can say they are.

The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper that has its origins in two newspapers established in the 19th Century, published an opinion piece with the scorching hot take…excessive free speech is bad. I would chalk this up to frostbite affecting Canadian Leftists’ brains, but it’s harder to do so when American Leftists seem to have taken on a similar viewpoint.

Hoo boy. This is gonna get messy.

free speech

What the Left thinks it means – a right that has become too dangerous not to be curtailed by government

What it really means – a weapon the Left doesn’t want you to have so you can’t call out its bullshit

It wasn’t that long ago that liberals and even Leftists held free speech in high esteem, mainly because they were the ones exercising it the most at the expense of the Establishment. Recent First Amendment pioneers like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Norman Lear, Richard Pryor, and so many others made their livings off thumbing their noses at those who would seek to control their speech. To them, free speech wasn’t just a proverbial hill to die on; it was their jobs.

Then, something happened. (Sorry, I was cribbing notes off Rep. Ilhan Omar for a second.) It’s hard to pinpoint when Leftists decided free speech was a bridge too far, but I would say it had something to do with Ronald Reagan spearheading the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. In theory, the Fairness Doctrine required controversial topics get an equal hearing, and it was good at the time mainly because the most controversial topics during the bulk of the time the Fairness Doctrine was in place was whether mayonnaise or Miracle Whip made better egg salad.

But as the Left went nucking futs and media companies started to concern themselves with financial viability more than principles, the Fairness Doctrine started to be more one-sided towards more “mainstream” opinions (which would exclude most of Leftist ideals then and now). So Leftists did what they normally do: overwhelm the system to the point they took it over. Then, they didn’t give one-tenth of one shit about fairness because they could run whatever opinions they wanted while simultaneously bashing Reagan for repealing the Fairness Doctrine.

So, a win-win for them.

And with the kind of power the Left has within the media comes the temptation to use it to quiet the opposition. That’s why they demanded conservative talk radio show hosts like Rush Limbaugh be forced to comply with the Fairness Doctrine (even when they didn’t believe it). After all, what good are rules unless you can fuck over someone else in the process, amirite?

That’s one of the fundamental differences between a liberal and a Leftist. A liberal will work within the system to address inequity through compromise. A Leftist will warp the system to created inequity in the name of equity through force. The latter is often the quicker option, which benefits Leftists on many levels (mainly because they don’t want to wait for people to come around to their point of view). And let’s not forget the satisfaction of near-instant gratification. But as it too often occurs with microwave popcorn, it starts to stink if you’re not paying attention to it.

This brings us to the current state of Leftist hatred of free speech. To them, the only people who should have free speech are those who parrot Leftist squawking points. But that’s not free speech; it’s controlled speech. Free speech requires the ability to have pushback, which is something Leftists hate. They need to have control of the not just the narrative, but the means by which any narrative gets disseminated.

But in a world where there are people who have more ways to communicate than Baskin Robbins has flavors, it’s getting harder for the Left to dominate like they once did. That’s why they’re trying to rebrand anything they don’t agree with as “misinformation.” Even when it’s not. This goes into Leftist delusions about being fucking brilliant when they’re dumber than a bag of hammers, but that’s a blog post for a different time.

In the interest of transparency (and to fill out this Leftist Lexicon entry a bit more), I am a free speech fan. I mean, how couldn’t I be when being able to express myself is my gig here? To me, the solution to bad speech is more speech, not less. You want to shout racist sentiments at a black family? Yell more tolerant sentiments back, or at the very least tell the other party their hood’s on crooked. Yes, there are some limitations to that (the whole “with great power comes great responsibility” thing), but I would prefer to live where I can be shouted down instead of where I can be shot or beaten.

And, yes, that’s where the Left really wants to take this. There are Leftists out there who would think nothing of bashing someone’s head in with a brick for the crime of…not agreeing with them. If you thought the “fiery but mostly peaceful” Summer of Love was bad, just wait until Leftists decide to turn your words into their actions.

For my Canadian readers, you may be fucked. After all, you have Justin Trudeau at the helm and he’s about as sensible as Hunter Biden on a meth binge. Fortunately, The Globe and Mail is getting soundly roasted for its insanely stupid “excessive free speech” take, so all may not be lost yet. Keep on them, and remind them that without free speech, they wouldn’t have a newspaper. Tell ’em I sent ya.

As far as America is concerned, we still have some time before things go tits up. For one, Leftists aren’t handling the free speech tide going against them, especially on social media. By the way, how’s Mastodon doing? Are you finally up to double digit users yet?

The other thing that hinders Leftists when it comes to fighting for free speech is…well, they’re pussies. The only way they can be brave is by ganging up on weaker targets and being better armed than said targets. Any group that can match them, they avoid. That’s why you see very few Leftists at Girl Scout cookie sales.

More to the point, Leftists are classic bullies, and the best way to beat a bully is to show no fear. And if you really want to pour salt in the wound, mock the bully.

Let’s just say I’m investing heavily in Morton Salts right now.

On a grander level, free speech is vital to our nation’s health. Debate is healthy, even if we aren’t. When Leftists think free speech is dangerous, that’s when we know we’re hitting them where it hurts the most.

And that’s when we keep speaking.

2023 State of the Onion Address

My fellow Americans. Oh, and you, too, Leftists.

2022 was an interesting year for the media. Sure, they still haven’t figured out how to get their favorability ratings above Hitler, Stalin, and Nickelback, but they really tried.

Just kidding. They still suck.

What made 2022 so interesting for the media was how many stories they got wrong, either on purpose or by accident, and how quickly (relatively speaking) they corrected these errors. One thing they weren’t shy about, though, was labeling news stories “conspiracy theories.” It’s gotten to the point parody news sites were doing better journalism than the serious ones.

The merging of opinion and news continued unabated, as did the elevation of certain stories/narratives along with the suppression of others. And, surprise surprise, much of the latter was done under the auspices of battling misinformation. Well, the problem was these fuckknuckles were too busy creating misinformation to bother with doing even basic reporting.

Let’s start with COVID-19. From the jump, media squawking heads put down anyone who wasn’t 100% behind getting the jab, wearing more masks than a Halloween costume model working straight commission, and worshiping at the altar of Saint Anthony of Fauci. Even negative stories about the good doctor, like the fact he supported gain of function research after saying repeatedly he didn’t, were turned into cudgels with which to beat the infidels.

And by infidels, I mean the people who were right to be skeptical about how cultish the pro-vax side had gotten. I have seen Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parades with less marching in lockstep than I saw during the height of COVID. And, yes, that sentiment remains today, even as more and more shit comes out about how full of shit the pro-vax side was. Even they could see the writing on the wall and started trying to play off their stridency as a “whoopsie doodle”!

And the media not only played a role in creating the “vax or you’re scum” environment, but unironically tried to get us to forgive and forget as though nothing major happened.

And the media wonder why people don’t trust them.

If I could offer some perspective (and I can because this is my post), a lot of it comes down to how far the media are willing to lie to us about what we’re seeing right in front of our eyes. We saw the start of a regime change within Twitter, which ruffled Leftist and media (but I repeat myself) feathers to no end. Elon Musk went from eco-friendly visionary to reactionary maniac hellbent on pushing right wing narratives. All because he saw what so many of us saw: Twitter wasn’t enforcing its own rules with any degree of fairness or obvious logic. Even now, most media types are ignoring or dismissing the Twitter Files instead of following up to either prove or disprove the information within them.

Oh, but the screamingly obvious that even Ray Charles can see (which is pretty damn impressive for a dead guy) has to be a figment of our imaginations.

Then, on the other ends of the impressiveness spectrum, we have media whore…I mean darling Taylor Lorenz. Words cannot express just how low my opinion of her journalistic skills is. The best way I can say it is if my opinion was any lower, it would bore through the Earth and come out the other side without stopping. Yet, because she starts shit, gets hit, and cries about it all, the media put her on a pedestal and gave her Most Favored Victim status. Whenever the topic of toxic online culture was brought up, you can be Ms. Lorenz was there to pick up a paycheck and pimp herself even more than a self-employed prostitute.

This isn’t to say the media on the Right was any better. Remember the “red wave” that was supposed to happen during the midterm elections? The one that was a lock and would cause Leftist heads to explode from sea to shining sea? Yeah…about that. So much bravado lead to so few seats being picked up by the GOP. And it didn’t help matters that media heat magnet Donald Trump used the same high quality judgement in picking candidates that he used to pick Cabinet posts. Trump went through staffers like most people go through chewing gum.

Although most Trump-backed candidates won (mostly because they were in safe Districts or were running unopposed), the media had a field day focusing on the more spectacular dumpster fires like Dr. Oz, who was as much of a Pennsylvanian as Gavin Newsom. This is because the media love a shitshow, and Trump’s presence in 2022 was a 25/8 shitshow because 24/7 just wasn’t long enough.

But there is a downside to all the media attention spent on Trump: Trump Derangement Syndrome. I’ll admit I was late to the party on this, thinking it was just a meme the Right used to mock the Left. After the media coverage from 2022, I’m a believer. It’s real, and it’s seriously affecting the brains of the media. Granted there’s not much to affect in the brains of most reporters, but even a mild case of TDS was enough to turn them from frothing-at-the-mouth Trump haters to…well, even bigger frothing-at-the-mouth Trump haters.

Yet, for all the intense scrutiny the media gave to every Trump foible, the media couldn’t wait to look the other way when it came to President Puddin’ Head Joe. On nearly a daily basis, the PHJ Administration embarrassed themselves, being over their heads in a political mud puddle in the Sahara. Whether it was Puddin’ Head Joe’s invention of nonsense words (which was and is attributed to stuttering) or Vice President Kamala Harris laughing at the most inappropriate times like she was huffing nitrous oxide on the daily to Administration officials being more tone deaf than William Hung, it was a 947 ring circus solely staffed by clowns on the daily.

But no mean tweets, amirite, kids?

Want proof? I have three words for you: Hunter Biden’s laptop. The media coverage of this story was more scarce than a Japanese fishing village when Godzilla came to town for a weekend bender. Instead, they were playing defense for Puddin’ Head Joe and Hunter “I’m Not a Crackhead, But..Wait, What Was I Saying” Biden at every turn, usually by…you guessed it, bringing up Trump. Let me give you media types some free advice: when your main defense of a politician you like revolves around smearing a politician you hate, your dude fucking sucks!

With the 2024 Presidential election right around the corner, the media are focusing on who they believe the next Republican candidate will be, and that person is…Donald Trump. Or Ron DeSantis. You know, whomever they want to shit on that day. Be prepared to see a lot more of what’s happened since 2016 to continue, only at a louder and more shrill volume. If current trends continue, media complaints about Trump and/or DeSantis are going to only be heard by dogs before the first ballot gets cast.

So, buckle up, kids. This year is going to be off the charts, and not in a good way!


State of the Onion Address 2022

There are many words that could be used to describe the state of media today, but I will only use two.

Hoo boy.

Since I need to fill out this blog post a bit more, I think I’d better use a few more words. To put it mildly, the lessons the media should have learned by now have gone the way of Whoopi Goldberg winning an award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center anytime soon. As a former journalism student myself, I am astounded people who get paid to tell us what to think…I mean the news can continually make mistakes that would get you kicked out of Journalism 101 at a junior college that also doubles as a tire repair shop.

And when you consider they’re acting as fact checkers as well as reporters, it’s a double whammy. If it were just an error every once in a while, it might be easy to forgive. Unfortunately for them, Kyle Rittenhouse entered the chat. After months of painting him (incorrectly) as a racist gun-nut who wanted to shoot black people for riot…I mean protesting, not only was he acquitted, but now he’s starting to go after some of the media types who smeared him before, during, and even after his day in court.

And you thought Nick Sandmann was pwning the media!

Then, there’s the current war in Ukraine, where we’re told only one side is telling the truth and anyone who says differently is a traitor. There is an old saying that applies here, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” As much as we want to root for those plucky Ukrainians, knowing how fucked up media coverage has been on domestic matters should cast some serious doubt on whether we can trust it on foreign affairs, which American media care next-to-nothing about to begin with. Good thing there’s a war going on or else we wouldn’t know where Ukraine is on a world map or know what flags to put on our social media profiles to show that, dammit, we care!

And really that’s the point with media coverage anymore. It’s not to keep us informed as to what is happening or to flesh out details that would help us make informed decisions. It’s to make us feel something. President Joe Biden fucking up the economy worse than he fucked up the Afghanistan withdrawal? That’s not important, but what is important is that we feel he’s doing a good job.

That is one of the most abused powers of the media right now: the power to elicit emotions. A snide comment slipped into an allegedly straight news story, a carefully edited audio or video clip, or even a catchy phrase to summarize a piece of legislation can be enough to create an idea that may or may not be tethered to reality.

Just ask Florida Governor Ron Desantis and his press secretary Christina Pushaw. They’ve been dealing with media types and Leftists (but I repeat myself) maligning the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that Desantis is expected to sign into law once it hits his desk. You know how many times the word “gay” appears in the bill, including its title?

Zero. None. Zilch. Nada. The Big Goose Egg. The number of times Jen Psaki tells the truth.

But do you know what is in the bill? Prohibition of mentioning any discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation to children in lower grades. That’s it. And, oddly enough, that’s the part that Leftists hate the most! Let’s be clear, though, it doesn’t prohibit discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity with older children. Just kids who are not too old to eat their own boogers. Yet, to hear the Left and the media (again, I repeat myself) talk, the bill makes things horrible for all transgender or gay students. Why, we’re practically in a more fabulous version of “The Handmaid’s Tale” if we stand by and let this bill pass!

And Twitter idiots ate it all up and asked for seconds.

That’s the power of the media in one isolated incident. And I’ve lost count of the other times the media got it completely wrong over the past year. But that’s not the only problem the media have to deal with. They’re also getting into the history revision game. Whether it’s admitting those “conspiracy nutjobs” offering medical advice on how to combat COVID-19 were right all along or “just finding out” about the Hunter Biden laptop story that’s been covered for, oh, almost 2 years now, the media love to avoid taking responsibility for getting their facts wrong by pretending to be or actually being uninformed until it’s too late.

Let that roll around in your minds a bit. We have a group of influential individuals who shape public opinion with what they say and do telling us how to feel about issues while knowingly or unknowingly withholding information that may eventually be true. And that’s just Twitter! The media are far worse!

And until they learn their lesson, either through self-reflection, a massive movement within the media to clean up their acts, or enough defamation lawsuits to bankrupt them, the media will continue to suck ass. But there is a bright side.

I will still have plenty of material to write pieces like this!

Okay, so it’s a bright side for me, but I think you’ll enjoy it, too.

The State of the Onion Address, 2020 Edition

As the glow from the flaming dumpster fire that was 2020 appears in our rearview mirror, we can finally take a look back with hope, namely the hope that 2020 doesn’t come back for an encore. Unfortunately for us, the media’s malpractice will be coming back like the food and drink after a really intense bender.

The state of journalism last year was the gasoline thrown on top of the aforementioned dumpster fire. Big stories, like a little bug known as COVID-19, got covered intensely by people whose only experience with medicine is drinking a Dr. Pepper, while other stories, like Jeffrey Epstein’s “suicide” or Hunter Biden’s business details, were treated with a dismissive hand wave in spite of there being more red flags than a Chinese military parade. That is, of course, when they weren’t busy being the sycophantic propaganda arm of the Left.

But don’t you dare call the media out for acting like the lapdogs they were! They are real reporters working on real news, like…oh, I don’t know…continuing to follow the Russiagate narrative after being embarrassed by the lack of actual facts involved in it. That was certainly more important than reporting the actual news or following up on stories that might make the Left look bad. You know, like dragging a kid through the mud for shooting Leftist thugs who were attacking him first. The interwebs often did the work the “real news” people were reluctant to do, but the “real news” folks could be counted on to provide only half the story to advance their ideological ends.

Speaking of which, how’d that work out for you media types with Nick Sandmann?

The only other constant in modern media outside of the fact they’re all terrible is that they don’t learn from their mistakes. Oddly enough, that perpetuates the terribleness, which makes it all the more humorous to me. A lot of that comes down to ego. High profile journalists (which should never be a thing, in my opinion) are often notorious for having skin thinner than the plot of a Michael Bay movie. When they get caught screwing up, being general asshats, or looking down their noses at the rest of us, there’s a tiny bit of satisfaction that comes from watching them fail time and time again. It’s schadenfreudelicious!

Over the past year, the media decided to be fact checkers for anything and everything President Donald Trump said. And they failed. A lot. As of this writing, they still haven’t admitted the President was right when he said there would be a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020. In fact, the media and their handpicked experts said it would be impossible. It makes you wonder why anyone pays attention to these self-professed defenders of truth when they can’t even find it.

This also applies to the self-professed fact checkers the media love to use to “debunk” the President and his supporters. In a move that can only be called peak 2020, the media did a handful of fact checks on…the Babylon Bee, a satirical website. And this is after popular fact checking website Snopes fact checked the Bee just the year before and were deservedly mocked for it.

Remember what I said earlier about the media not learning from their mistakes?

The funny thing (at least to me) in all of this is the people who profess to check and know the facts so we don’t have to are the ones who struggle the most with the facts and correcting the record when they get their facts wrong. This is why I take the media’s portrayal of themselves with a great lake of salt. At this point, you’re better getting your news from your local Super Shopper that has been left in a festering pile of garbage.

And speaking of festering piles of garbage, let’s talk about Twitter. Granted Twitter is to news what Jerry Springer is to quality TV programming, but more and more people (including journalists) are using it to report on events as they happen in as close to real time as we can get. The only problems with this type of on-the-spot reporting are 1) the information may not always be accurate, 2) information can be mixed with opinion easily, and 3) it’s fucking Twitter. And if you think journalists are slow to admit they were wrong, Twitter users rarely, if ever, correct their mistakes. They just prefer to ignore them or double down while insulting anyone who disagrees with them. Which, as we know, is the only way to win debates.

In closing, it will be fun to watch the media who spent so much time fact checking fall asleep on the job as Joe Biden starts his administration. If 2020 is any indication, 2021 in the media is going to be lit.

Just like a dumpster fire!

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

As the situation in Portland continues to cement the idea of how gonzo the Left has gotten, the media are doing their parts to minimize the PR damage being done. Who knew trying to set a federal courthouse on fire and leaving trash everywhere would be bad for the image of a movement? Right now there are two narratives being expressed. One is based on on-the-ground videos of rioterrrrr…I mean protesters doing what is being attributed to them. The other is based on trying to downplay the situation to give the impression what we’re seeing isn’t what’s really going on.

Guess which one the media are running with.

As the Left tries to contain the blowback, they’ve come up with a turn of a phrase: mostly peaceful. Seems nice, doesn’t it? Well, I’m about to be the black fly in your Chardonnay if you believe that.

And no, I’m not being ironic, and yeah I really do think.

mostly peaceful

What the Left thinks it means – the best way to describe what’s going on in Portland well before Donald Trump sent his government stormtroopers to cause problems

What it really means –  a phrase designed to make you think what you’re seeing play out on live video isn’t what is happening on live video

To better understand the Left’s narrative, we need to figure out why it seems plausible. Since the rioterrrr…I mean protesters aren’t keen on letting people know who they are and what their motivations are (Spoiler Alert: it’s most likely socialism), it’s hard to pin down whether their motives are peaceful or violent. While this would be a problem for normal people, it’s actually a boon for the Left because it’s impossible to discern who is the second coming of Gandhi and who is the second coming of Guy Fawkes. With this uncertainty of motives, it’s plausible to say it’s only a handful of people committing the crimes, leaving the others’ hands clean.

On a larger scale, too, the Left’s narrative makes sense. The vast majority of Portland isn’t Beirut with better coffee shops. In fact, most of the chaos is contained within an approximately six block area that just so happens to be located in the same neighborhood as a federal courthouse. So, in all actuality to the Left, Portland is mostly peaceful.

If you’re expecting a “but” out of me, you know it’s about to drop.

Let’s take the “handful of criminals” aspect first. Appropriately enough, the Left’s own rhetoric against the police department destroys this idea. One of the Left’s favorite slogans during this flaming fiasco and others of a similar vein is “Silence Is Violence.” In essence, if you remain silent when there is a crime against another person being committed, you are condoning it. (Granted, these are some of the same nozzleheads who also say words are violence, but that’s a blog post for another time.) Now, let’s apply that same thought process to Portland. If you see bad actors using your platform to cause harm to someone or something else, shouldn’t you be considered someone who condones the actions being taken? Wouldn’t your silence be violence, in this case literally?

As far as the larger Portland area is concerned, it’s true there’s only a limited area negatively impacted at the moment. However, when you have the Mayor and Governor giving silent consent for the anarchy going on, the fact it’s been contained to that six block area is a miracle in and of itself. What happens when that good fortune runs out and that six block area gets wider? Based on riots…I mean protests in other cities, it’s only a matter of time before the downtown folks decide to head to the suburbs (provided, of course, they don’t already live there in Mommy and Daddy’s basement). Then, the permissiveness granted previously might not survive much beyond the first incident between the protesters and the private security guard at the gate.

Even if I buy the notion Portland is mostly peaceful because the criminal activity is limited, it’s hard to argue with the video coverage. And, yes, you can claim these videos are out of context, but until you provide a viable alternate context, I have to go with what I see, and what I see is a less-than-peaceful protest. No matter how many shields you make and show off, no matter how many moms (or alleged moms) show up to form a wall, no matter how many veterans (or alleged veterans) supply support, no matter how many fathers (or alleged fathers) show up with leaf blowers, we have to believe what we’re seeing.

The Left can’t have that, though, so they’re trying to get us to disbelieve what we’re seeing. It’s a mild form of gaslighting, which is a grossly overused term these days to describe when someone tries to get another people or group of people to doubt themselves through psychological means. The Left’s tactics here are subtle, but evident and need to be called out for what it is: an attempt to downplay criminal behavior by ideological allies because the Left think it helps them against President Donald Trump in the upcoming Presidential election. In order for this to be successful, however, they have to lie repeatedly. Some are small, some are large, but all of them are lies.

That’s why their gaslighting attempts won’t work. We can see what the rioterrrr…I mean protesters are doing in the videos and livestreams. Spin it all you want, Leftists, but it’s clear these activities aren’t remotely peaceful, let alone mostly peaceful. The more you try to make it look and sound otherwise, the more foolish you look.

Then again, your partners in crime are LARPing as revolutionaries, so maybe you’re used to it by now.