Shoot the Messenger

This video from Tim Pool is troubling.  It does appear that the Biden Administration is going after its enemies with the full force of government, not unlike what Vladimir Putin has done.  Lawfare is being used against opponents, most notably Donald Trump.  The FBI can arrest an actual journalist who reported on January 6th, but has been yet unable to locate the guy who planted pipe bombs.  Interesting.  The government is governing against the people, which is best shown by the open borders - which it repeatedly states are secure - and the rising crime which too many DAs have declined to prosecute.  The Venezuelan illegal immigrant who is on camera beating a NYPD police officer was not only released without bail, but charges have been dropped!  But the FBI have time to arrest a reporter who is critical of the administration.  Something is not right here.

The Biden Administration objects to the news and has opted to shoot the messenger.

Swatted

Over the last several years, a new phenomenon has arisen.  Someone calls 911 to report an emergency requiring an armed response.  The SWAT team busts into the house prepared for action only to find baffled people who have been targeted by the caller.  Obviously, this is quite dangerous.  Tim Pool has been swatted multiple times.  Recently, Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican representative of Georgia) was swatted.  Yesterday, both of her adult daughters were swatted.  Though viewed as a prank by some, it resulted in the accidental shooting of Andrew Finch in 2017.  Clearly, not a prank.

If identified, the perpetrators should be arrested by a SWAT team.

Civil War Brewing?

Tim Pool has talked about civil war for a while now.  The level of discord between the left and the right is so extreme that he posits that our current era is equivalent to the 1850s prior to the Civil War (1861-65).  Sadly, he makes a good case.  In a longform video, he noted how police in some localities are not enforcing the law or that some things have been decriminalized.  For example, shoplifting less than $900 worth of merchandize in California is no longer prosecuted.  Surprise, surprise, the amount of shoplifting has skyrocketed.  In fact, it is done openly and you can find videos of brazen thefts posted on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and so forth.  Though such theft is no longer a crime, the police will often arrest and prosecute those who attempt to stop the thefts.  Therefore, protecting your property from thieves is a crime.  How can that be the case?  Tim points out that this cannot go on much longer.  We already see San Francisco businesses closing shop.  If the authorities refuse to protect the citizens, there will be vigilantes.  There will come a day when the vigilantes injure or kill 'criminals' in the act.  The state police or maybe even US Marshals/FBI will show up to arrest the vigilantes.  Now what?  The vigilantes have no reason to respect the authority of either.  Had the government been doing the job of enforcing law, the vigilantes would have been unnecessary.  By its own acts, the government is setting the stage for a conflict with its citizens.

The collapse of the rule of law is leading to increased civil strife.  Obvious cases of two-tiered justice where criminals are released without bail and victims are prosecuted for resisting criminals has to stop.  If not, Tim Pool's prediction of the next civil war may come to pass.

Welcome Wagon

Related to the previous post, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has long talked about a Welcome Wagon project to introduce blue state refugees to red state values.  Too often, blue staters leave the blue state that has become unlivable and relocate to a red state.  However, once established in the red state, they continue to vote for blue state policies.  If sufficient blue staters migrate to the state, it starts to resemble the state they left.  The goal is to explain the cause and effect of their voting patterns.

Tim Pool, who describes himself as a milquetoast fence sitter who leans left, recently moved to a more conservative state.  He had previously lived in such places as the Philadelphia metro area, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.  Though he rarely votes, he announced that he would not try to impose his values in his newly adopted state.  It was working well enough before he arrived.  This is exactly the mindset sought by the Welcome Wagon.

An October Surprise

The New York Post has emails revealing Hunter Biden's dealings with Burisma and implicating his father in the scandal.  Here's Tim Pool on the topic:

Of note, Facebook and Twitter have blocked this story.  There are stories that the public should not read.

Hoaxed (2019)

Hoaxed is a movie about the fake news, mainly told by fringe figures of the media landscape.  Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich, Scott Adams, Jordan Peterson, James O'Keefe, Tim Pool, and other online personalities provide their perspectives.  Having read two of Scott Adams' books, Jordan Peterson's book, and being a regular viewer of Tim Pool's YouTube channel, I was familiar with most of the complaints leveled.  Of course, the leftist slant of the media is covered, which was old news to me.  However, there were some surprises.

 

Cassie Jaye, an actress turned documentary director, had some success with feminist films.  She decided to tackle the men's rights movement in her next film.  Though she expected to uncover bigotry and misogyny, her interviews and research led her to different conclusions.  To her surprise, she was attacked by former allies for creating a pro-male film and abandoning feminism.  Though I have not seen the film, I did watch her Ted Talk.  She diverged from the party line and was attacked.

 

Multiple personalities noted that the media highlights conflict because it leads to more viewers on TV or more clicks on the internet.  If it bleeds, it leads.  That's hardly a surprise.  However, a Black Lives Matter activist was interviewed.  While in Washington DC with his group, he had seen some All Lives Matter folks and things looked tense.  But he was invited to speak and the two groups found common ground.  He was cheered by the crowd.  Here was the feel-good story of the day and somehow it didn't make it into the news.  The BLM activist was asked if he had heard of Dylan Roof storming into a black church in South Carolina.  Of course.  How about Emanuel Samson (a black man) storming into a church and shooting white people in Tennessee?  No, had not heard that story.  Nor had I.  One fits the America is racist narrative and the other doesn't.

 

The big surprise was that the media hypes conflict.  Conflict generates viewers and viewers generate money.  A war provides a 24/7 news cycle and high ratings.  Does the media provide fake news to lead to war?  The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened.  The media floated the government line and Vietnam escalated dramatically.  Was the media more circumspect the next time government pushed for war?  Well, it has since been proven that the babies being yanked from incubators story that turned opinion for the first Gulf War (1991) was false.  Never happened.  Again, the media was fooled.  Or were they?  CNN had awesome ratings throughout the Gulf War.  Was Saddam really trying to build nukes as George W Bush said?  Judith Miller was eventually dumped by the New York Times because her stories about weapons of mass destruction proved inaccurate.  Oh, but the ratings were fabulous.  This is a really dark view of the media.

 

This only scratches the surface of topics from the two-hour movie.  It is an exploration of what the media has become.  The media has become an echo chamber - best exemplified by Twitter - and it thrives on conflict.  Rather than providing news, it sows division.  At least, that is what is argued here.  Check it out.

Tim Pool

I've been watching a lot of Tim Pool lately.  Though Tim is on the left in political views, he is open about it and makes considerable efforts to play the news straight.  He has an analysis channel where he just reports news - mostly - and a second channel where he often vents.  What is interesting about Tim is that, though disposed to be a Democrat, he is annoyed by the tactics the Democrats have been using of late.  He has repeatedly reported that the amount of left on right violence far exceeds any right on left violence.  His videos tend to be 10 to 15 minutes long providing a lot of depth to the topic with multiple sources; he often reads a news story verbatim.

 

Tim is open about his political views so the viewer can factor in any bias.  This makes him dramatically more trustworthy than many journalists who present themselves as objective and unbiased despite always spinning stories in an anti-Republican or pro-Democrat narrative.  Tim doesn't do that.  Tim is what a journalist should be.

 

Highly recommended.  Check it out:

 

Timcast on YouTube