Society's Child

Study finds conservative YouTube content leads to 'de-radicalization,' not radicalization

James Barrett
The Daily Wire
Thu, 24 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC

A new study out of Penn State's Political Science Department found that rather than conservative content online leading to radicalization, as the popular "gateway" narrative insists, the reverse appears to be true.

The study, titled "A Supply and Demand Framework for YouTube Politics," published online in October, takes a closer look at the popular narrative that YouTube serves as a "radicalizing agent," particularly for the right. Conservative content, the narrative goes, supposedly acts as a "gateway" for viewers, potentially leading them to the fringes of the far-right.

But, as Birkbeck University of London's Eric Kaufman puts it in his succinct summary of the study's key finding, "Contrary to the 'gateway drug' narrative," the new study "shows the Intellectual Dark Web (i.e. [Jordan Peterson], [PragerU], [Joe Rogan], [Ben Shapiro], [Rubin Report]) is de-radicalizing potential Alt-Right viewers."

Twitter turns on anti-Trump MSNBC host who implied 'lock him up' is 'un-American'

RT
Mon, 28 Oct 2019 18:50 UTC

The #Resistance has turned on MSNBC host Joe Scarborough after the staunchly anti-Trump pundit slammed the audience at a baseball game as "un-American" for chanting "lock him up!" when the president was shown on TV.

"It's un-American," Scarborough complained on Monday's Morning Joe show, referring to the audience's decision to chant "lock him up!" after the president was shown on the large TV screen at the fifth World Series game in Washington, DC. "We are Americans, and we do not do that."

"We do not want the world hearing us chant 'lock him up,' to this president or to any president. Let's hope as we move forward that maybe that's one less fascist tactic he and his supporters use during chants. You are going to actually imprison your political opponents!"

Scarborough pleaded. Co-host Mika Brzezinski chimed in to call the chants "sickening."

Texas town refuses to collect property taxes. Oddly enough, its population is growing

Hank Berrien
Daily Wire
Mon, 28 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC

One small town in Texas is growing because it refuses to do one thing: collect property taxes.

In 2014, Von Ormy, Texas mayor, Art Martinez de Vara, issued his proposed 2015 city budget, which proposed eliminating property taxes. He told the Von Ormy Star:

"In 2009 we established a goal of shifting the tax burden for operating the city from property taxes towards sales taxes. We did this because over 95% of sales taxes are paid by non-residents and we understood that we could increase sales tax revenue much faster than property tax revenue. Since that time we have increased sales tax revenue by over 400%. In order to have achieved the same revenue, we would have had to increase them by 300% from where we were in 2009.

"I believe that government should not spend every penny it collects, rather we should spend what is necessary to deliver high quality core services to our residents. Excess taxation is unjust taxation."

Mexican authorities reports 250% spike in Africans trying to enter US through border

Judicial Watch
Tue, 29 Oct 2019 15:49 UTC

© Agence France-Presse/Guillermo Arias
African migrants seeking asylum in the United States, line up outside a Mexican Migration office, on October 3, 2016, in Tijuana, northwestern Mexico.

Mexico has seen an astounding 250% increase in Africans trying to enter the United States through the southern border, according to the latest figures released by the Mexican government's immigration agency, known as Unidad de Política Migratoria. The stats include the first eight months of 2019 and reveal that, during the same period last year, 1,507 Africans were apprehended in the country compared to 5,286 this year. During the same period 4,783 migrants from India and Bangladesh were also detained in Mexico, according to the data made public this month.

The information is alarming considering Africa and Bangladesh are hotbeds of terrorism and the fact that all the migrants are heading north into the United States. "These migrants, although less in numbers compared to migrants from Central America, increased significantly in the country," a Mexican newspaper article states, confirming that "their principle objective is not to stay in Mexican territory but rather cross the border towards the United States." The story also reveals that a growing number of Cubans, Haitians and south Americans, mainly from Brazil and Colombia, have also been apprehended by Mexican authorities trying to make their way to the U.S. border.

Comment: African migrants clash violently with Mexican police after being denied 'free entry' to US

Famed pathologist Michael Baden says Jeffrey Epstein's death was homicide

Lee Brown
New York Post
Wed, 30 Oct 2019 07:53 UTC

New York City's former chief medical examiner insisted Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein's death was a homicide.

Dr. Michael Baden was hired by the pedophile's family to observe his autopsy after he was found hanged in his federal lockup in Manhattan in August.

"I think that the evidence points toward homicide rather than suicide," Baden insisted on Fox News Wednesday.

Comment: Does anyone still believe Epstein committed suicide?

See also:

Student charged with manslaughter for texting boyfriend to 'go die'

Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Reason
Tue, 29 Oct 2019 16:45 UTC

Massachusetts prosecutors persist in attempting to hold young women responsible for the conduct of troubled young men. This week, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office announced criminal charges against 21-year-old Inyoung You, for allegedly being so mean to her boyfriend that he committed suicide.

You has been indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Her case echoes the 2017 prosecution of Bristol County, Massachusetts, teenager Michelle Carter, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after she sent pro-suicide messages to her depressed boyfriend, who later killed himself. She was 17 and he was 18 at the time.

In the present case, 22-year-old Alexander Urtula committed suicide this past May, on the same day he was supposed to graduate from Boston College. Urtula and You had been dating for 18 months, according to Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins. In the months leading up to his death, You allegedly sent Urtula 47,000 text messages, including some that said things like "go kill yourself" and "go die."

Comment: Should people be held responsible for their words? What if the words weren't meant to be taken seriously? Where's the line between words said in anger and actual bullying? These are all important questions and not things to be dismissed because the perpetrator was a young woman.

See also:

What Bitcoin can teach us

George Gilder
Activist Post
Tue, 29 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC

The great Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek said it best: "The root and source of all monetary evil is government control of money."

Ironically, most fully developed by free market economist Milton Freedman, monetarism has become the source and root of the current evils of the world economy-runaway debt, widespread stagnation and the revival of socialism.

These evils of top-down money face serious challenges from digital alternatives on the Internet and from the perennial case for gold.

Both these forms of money offer escape from government-ruled monetarism. They also offer monetary systems that affirm Friedman's cogent theories of freedom rather than his erroneous ideas of control.

Gold has been ascendant in Asia, which has become the new spearhead of world economic growth and capitalism, with tax rates generally between one-half and one-third of those in the West.

Meanwhile, around the globe, transactions are shifting toward the Internet. Although online purchases remain between 6-7% of all commerce, Internet trade is expanding rapidly.

Comment: See: Crypto contradiction: Boom Bust explores how governments try to control cryptocurrencies that were not meant to be regulated

Whitewash: Israel closes investigations into three Palestinians murdered in 2018

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Tue, 29 Oct 2019 01:47 UTC

© Cpl. Eden Briand, IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Israeli soldiers take part in "Lion of the Valley" training exercise, August 2017.

The Israeli military has closed the case files of three Palestinians who were killed by its forces in 2018, prompting backlash from rights groups like B'Tselem who initially investigated the killings.

The Military Advocate General's Corps (MAG Corps) closed the cases of three Palestinians who were killed in the occupied West Bank, which B'Tselem described as "unjustified."

"Nevertheless, and even though the incidents should not have had fatal consequences - not even by the standards of military regulations - the very fact that investigations were undertaken has once again created an illusion of a functioning accountability apparatus," B'Tselem said in a press release on Monday.

"At the end of the day, these belated so-called investigations, too, ended in whitewashing," the group continued.

The cases in question were those of 17-year-old Ali Qinu from Iraq Burin (Nablus), 16-year-old Layth Abu Naim from al-Mughayyir (Ramallah) and 35-year-old Yassin al-Saradih from Jericho.

Inside a Kurdish controlled terrorist prison in Syria

Rouba EL Husseini
Yahoo
Tue, 29 Oct 2019 20:33 UTC

Behind the steel door, the cell is as packed as their eyes are empty -- haggard, scrawny prisoners in orange jumpsuits lying head-to-toe cover every inch of floor space.

An AFP team was given rare access to one of the crowded detention facilities in northeastern Syria where Kurdish forces are holding Islamic State group (IS) suspects.

As a Turkish offensive launched against Kurdish forces earlier this month wreaks chaos in the area, just how solid such doors will be is a question keeping the world on edge.

The men crammed into poorly fortified jails such as this one in Hasakeh hail from dozens of countries that don't want them free -- but don't want them back either.

Comment: See also:

While California burns uncontrollably, lunatic state politicians waste billions on useless energy schemes

Larry Hamlin
Watts Up With That
Tue, 29 Oct 2019 22:00 UTC

The Wall Street Journal published a superb article that exposes the government lunacy in California where its climate alarmist propaganda driven Democratic politicians have wasted tens of billions of dollars on energy schemes that are totally useless in having any meaningful impacts on global emissions levels while ignoring the statewide wildfire disaster that is destroying massive amounts of property, thousands of homes and taking hundreds of lives.

The article notes the following Democratic Party California government driven climate alarmist absurd climate actions being taken while ignoring the critical need for aggressive statewide highest priorities and resources commitments to addressing long standing failures by the state in addressing its forest management responsibilities.

Comment: California: Lights are out, the plan all along

Politicians blame PG&E for the recent fires that have ravaged the state, but some of the blame redounds to the politicians. Wildfires in recent years have grown more deadly because timber harvesting and brush clearing were greatly curtailed due to myriad environmental restrictions. In the meantime, crucial infrastructure investment targeted at improving the reliability and safety of powerlines has taken the backseat to the state's demands for a huge increase in renewable energy — some of which, ironically, has necessitated the need for more powerlines to connect remote wind farms with the urban centers.

Telling the truth? What a fucking joke. Liz Cheney is the spawn of Satan.

tekdude

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codis

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nedlud

Society's Child

Study finds conservative YouTube content leads to 'de-radicalization,' not radicalization

Twitter turns on anti-Trump MSNBC host who implied 'lock him up' is 'un-American'

Texas town refuses to collect property taxes. Oddly enough, its population is growing

Mexican authorities reports 250% spike in Africans trying to enter US through border

Famed pathologist Michael Baden says Jeffrey Epstein's death was homicide

Student charged with manslaughter for texting boyfriend to 'go die'

What Bitcoin can teach us

Whitewash: Israel closes investigations into three Palestinians murdered in 2018

Inside a Kurdish controlled terrorist prison in Syria

While California burns uncontrollably, lunatic state politicians waste billions on useless energy schemes

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