Links - 20th November 2025 (2 - Hating Elon Musk)

Western Lensman on X - "Tonight, CNN launched a wide-ranging, haphazard attack on @elonmusk  for his support of Trump, and his visit to the “quasi-religious” site of Butler, PA.  Not a single mention of Musk mobilizing his companies and resources to aid victims of Hurricane Helene. Not one.  A summary of the attacks, which go on for a whopping four minutes:
- Musk likes Trump’s authoritarianism
- Musk constantly posts fake information
- Musk responds to Trump’s strongman tendencies
- Musk is visiting Butler because it is a quasi-religious site that made Trump “the target he always wanted to be"
- Musk “bought into the emotion” of the Butler assass*nation attempt
- Musk is using the Trump relationship to aid his companies that are under investigation
- Musk turned X into an echo chamber
- Musk posts propaganda on false claims
- Musk wants a job in Trump govt
- Musk seems to have too much time on his hands because he posts a lot of false information
- Musk posts too much to be able to run his companies and get anything else done
There’s throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks, and then there’s whatever this pile of hot garbage is.  Again — not a single mention of the work Musk is doing to aid hurricane victims, while the federal government flails.  Do you really hate legacy media enough?"
Left wingers continue to pretend that Elon Musk is part of the establishment, so he's a clueless hypocrite when he posts about standing up to it

Meme - "Elon explaining he believes in free speech while blocking links to a dossier leak on JD Vance and suspending the journalist who published it(link in comments)"
Tony Pepper Roni: "So if someone doxxes you, they shouldn't be suspended or banned?"
Ironic. The left used to claim that right wingers didn't understand freedom of speech, because that only covered the government, and that private companies could do anything they wanted

Meme - Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social: "we should put phrenology Twitter in a gulag. not even joking. no role for these people in society, we should just get rid of them and apologize later"
will stancil @whstancil: "not sure people in politics appreciate the scale of the problem that Elon Musk and MAGA have created. How many Nazis does it take to shoot up a place of worship or a government building? Just one. But stuff like this now easily attracts tens of thousands of supporters."
Of course, the people who want to lock up everyone they disagree with are the good guys

Meme - Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion: "This is so dumb. SpaceX is literally America's only chance to stay ahead of China in space, and these guys are reading X posts???"
Los Angeles Times: "California officials reject more SpaceX rocket launches, with some citing Musk's X posts. SpaceX's plans to launch more rockets from the California coast were rejected by a state commission this week, with some officials citing Elon Musk's political posts on X and raising concerns about the billionaire's labor record at his companies."

Richard Hanania on X - "The California Costal Commission exists to protect the environment. Over the objections of the US military, it just refused a request by SpaceX to increase its number of launches this year, with members of the Commission citing Elon Musk’s tweets about trans issues, his lack of deference to labor unions and political activities.  We’re lucky they were stupid enough to admit this, as it makes for an open and shut First Amendment case. I hope a lawsuit is coming soon."

KanekoaTheGreat on X - "🚨BREAKING: Leaked documents from the Center for Countering Digital Hate reveal their primary goal is to "Kill Musk's Twitter" by targeting advertising and leveraging EU regulations.  The British non-profit organization hosted a private meeting with liberal groups opposing Musk’s free speech platform, including representatives from the Biden White House, Rep. Adam Schiff’s office, the Biden-Harris State Department, and Media Matters for America."

Thread by @thackerpd on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "1) EXCLUSIVE DOCUMENTS: Working w/ @mtaibbi we report on @CCDHate documents showing the Labour Party's political front's objective is "Kill Musk's Twitter" thru "Advertising focus" meaning harass his advertisers.  See internal documents provided by a whistleblower.
2) Internal Center for Countering Digital Hate document shows their annual objective is "Kill Musk's Twitter"  This is their internal monthly planner. Their goal is to also trigger regulatory action, although they are a tax-exempt nonprofit.
3) CCDH held a private conference w/ a slew of liberal groups organizing against Musk including Biden White House, Congressman Adam Schiff's office, Biden/Harris State Department officials, Canadian MP Peter Julian & Media Matters for America
4) Center for Countering Digital Hate gets a lot of money from Hollywood. Staff say that one of the donors is singer Selena Gomez, a client of Aleen Keshishian"

Elon Musk declares ‘war’ over ‘Kill Twitter’ plan - "Elon Musk has declared “war” on a Labour-linked online campaign group founded by Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.  The billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, accused the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) of violating rules “against foreign interference in elections”. Mr Musk wrote on the social media network: “We are going after CCDH and their donors.” The Tesla owner was responding to a report from the Disinformation Chronicle newsletter, which claimed this week to have uncovered a strategy document from the CCDH which included a plan to “Kill Musk’s Twitter”. The reports allege that the CCDH had been seeking meetings with Democratic senators as it lobbied against Mr Musk’s running of X.  The CCDH was launched by Morgan McSweeney, who was appointed Downing Street’s chief of staff earlier this month after Sue Gray was ousted from the role."

simp 4 satoshi on X - "Nobody understands how the Starship flight approval was a gamble on both sides The govt predicted it would fail, and set Elon back mimetically before the election and thus approved it early The opposite happened."
Dr. Ben Braddock on X - "This government of petty Ayn Rand villains only approved the launch because they thought the booster would blow up on return which the establishment press was prepared to paint as an enormously embarrassing and humiliating failure for Trump’s top guy but instead we witnessed the coolest technological achievement of our lifetimes something that even luddites like myself were spiritually thrilled over and it’s lost on no one that the same guy who made that happen has warned us that everything is doomed if Trump doesn’t win so in closing this was the October surprise and congratulations democrats you got played."

Meme - Peter Yang @petergyang: "“Elon has nothing to do with SpaceX success!!!”   From Walter Isaacson biography:"
"Why don't we try to use the tower to catch it?" he [ELON] asked. He was referring to the tower that holds the rocket on the launchpad. Musk had already come up with the idea of using that tower to stack the rocket; it had a set of arms that could pick up the first-stage booster, place it on the launch mount, then pick up the second-stage spacecraft, and place it atop the booster. Now he was suggesting that these arms could also be used to catch the booster when it returned to Earth. It was a wild idea, and there was a lot of consternation in the room. "If the booster comes back down to the tower and crashes into it, you can't launch the next rocket for a long time," Bill Riley says. "But we agreed to study different ways to do it." A few weeks later, just after Christmas 2020, the team gathered to brainstorm. Most engineers argued against trying to use the tower to catch the booster. The stacking arms were already dangerously complex. After more than an hour of argument, a consensus was forming to stick with the old idea of putting landing legs on the booster. But Stephen Harlow, the vehicle engineering director, kept arguing for the more audacious approach. "We have this tower, so why not try to use it?" After another hour of debate, Musk stepped in. "Harlow, you're on board with this plan," he said. "So why don't you be in charge of it?""
Left wingers like to claim that Elon Musk didn't found Tesla or SpaceX, so he has nothing to do with their success. But they think CEOs don't do anything, so

Mike Benz on X - "The Biden Admin paid Reuters over $300 million in government contracts. 11 different Biden government agencies targeted Elon's businesses. All 11 agencies paid millions to Reuters. Reuters then won the Pulitzer Prize for "their work on Elon Musk and misconduct at his businesses""

Meme - Stephen Pimentel @StephenPiment: "The lawfare against @elonmusk , as gleefully described by the New York Times:"
"companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews, including over the safety of his Tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets."
"INVESTIGATION AND OVERSIGHT. Mr. Musk's companies are increasingly facing regulatory battles and overlapping federal investigations from all corners of the government.
"CABINET DEPARTMENTS. Transportation. Justice. Labor. Interior. Agriculture. National Labor Relations Board. Equal Employment Opportunity Comm. Environmental Protection Agency. Securities and Exchange Comm. Federal Communications Comm. Federal Trade Comm."

Fact Check: X Account Of Dropkick Murphys NOT Suspended After 2025 Boston Concert Comments -- Band Said They Quit Twitter in 2022 - "Was the X account of Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys suspended after they made comments about Elon Musk and MAGA hats during a concert in Boston on St. Patrick's Day, 2025? No, that's not true: The band's founder Ken Casey said they quit Twitter in 2022 after which their handle was taken over by someone pretending to be the band. After a legal complaint the account got suspended at least as far back as June 2024. All of this predated the concert on St. Patrick's Day, 2025.  The claim was implied in a post on Bluesky"

Meme -  Dr. Waitman W. Beorn (waitmanwbeorn.com on 🟦) @waitmanb: "Hi!  Holocaust historian here.  Let me see if I can help.  That wasn't a "weird salute."  It was a Hitler salute.  Because Elon is a fucking Nazi.  Hope that helps!"
Zachary Werrell, Esq. @zkwerrell: "As a holocaust historian, you would know the Sieg Heil is done with the arm facing forward not off to the side, does not start with a hand on the heart, and involves holding the hand out straight, not cockeyed…  But hey, details are irrelevant when you have someone to slander."

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus on X - "Allow me to shed some light on the difference Note that in the actual nazi salute the arm simply rises whereas Musk puts his hand to his heart and throws it to the crowd"

Meme - *Cory Booker Nazi Salute* *Happy Democratic Soyjak*
*Elon Musk Nazi Salute* *Raging, Furious, Upset Democratic Soyjak*
Not to mention Tim Walz's Nazi Salute. The usual cope is that screenshots/stills are misleading, but the videos for both Booker and Walz are very clear. But anyway, Nazi tatoos are nothing if left wingers have them

Matt Van Swol on X - "Here’s a list of all the news networks who have not covered Cory Booker’s salute:
- NYTimes
- CNN
- Washington Post
- MSNBC
- NPR
- USA Today
- Reuters
- Axios
- ABC News
Every single one of them wrote stories on Elon Musk’s “salute”… …do you get it yet?"

Western Lensman on X - "Hello, @NewsHour — will you be making a post comparing Cory Booker’s apparent “fascist salute” to the “Sieg Heil?" Your post about Elon Musk making a very similar gesture amassed over 36M views. Since you assure US taxpayers that PBS is a non-partisan organization, and all."

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Tim Walz says he was totally joking when he celebrated Tesla stock going down, says Elon Musk makes him unhealthy. The comment came after Walz apparently didn’t realize his own pension plan owns Tesla stock. “I have to be careful about being a smartass. I was making a joke. These people have no sense of humor.”  This guy is the biggest moron ever nominated as VP. Truly impressive.   Video: @TheGasStovee"
Aesthetica on X - "The modern left is basically four groups of people.
- Boomers who watch cable news all day
- Minorities who get free stuff
- College-educated women who went crazy on SSRIs & birth control
- Mentally ill gender goblins who are on the verge of shooting up an elementary school"

Meme - "Elon Musk rescues Astronauts, helps victims of disaster, saves the environment, and created a neurotransmitter that allows paralyzed people to operate computers with their mind. You applaud punks who draw swastikas on Teslas"

Meme - ""Elon doesn't know how to talk to hot women." -Bill Burr"
*Amber Heard* *Bill Burr with comparatively frumpy wife*

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: German rocket explodes just 40 seconds after takeoff from a Norwegian spaceport.  German startup Isar Aerospace is seeking to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX so he can't dominate the skies.  "Europe urgently needs to ensure its sovereignty in space. Elon Musk's Starlink is not without alternatives - nor should it be," whined Germany's BDLI Managing Director Marie-Christine von Hahn.  The rocket lasted just 40 seconds in the air. It was the first attempt at an orbital flight to come from Europe."
The people who mock Elon Musk because his rockets supposedly keep exploding don't care

Insurrection Barbie on X - "Obama gave out 2.4 billion in loans to EV companies, including 465 million dollars to Tesla. While every one of them folded, filed bankruptcy and robbed the taxpayer of the money, Elon Musk paid back the 465 million dollar government loan early, including the 20 million dollar interest payment."

ELON CLIPS on X - "Marc Andreessen: Elon inspires incredible loyalty from his employees because they know he'll just sit all night with them to fix a problem.
“Elon actually delegates almost everything. He's involved in the thing that is the biggest problem right now until that thing is fixed. And then, he doesn't have to be involved in it anymore, he can go focus on the next thing that's the biggest problem for that company right now.   The job number one is to remove that bottleneck and get everything flowing again. I think Elon basically has universalized that concept and he basically looks at every company like it's some sort of conceptual assembly line.   When he identifies the bottleneck, he goes and he talks to the line engineers who understand the technical nature of the bottleneck.   If it's people on a manufacturing line, he's talking to people directly on the line. Or if that's people in a software development group, he's talking to the people actually writing the code.   He's not asking the VP of Engineering to ask the Director of Engineering to ask the manager to ask the individual contributor to write a report that's to be reviewed in three weeks. He doesn't do that. He would throw them all out of the window. There's just no way he would do that.   He goes and personally finds the engineer who actually has the knowledge about the thing, and then he sits in the room with that engineer and fixes the problem with them.   This is why he inspires such incredible loyalty, especially from the technical people who he works with. They're like, wow, if I'm up against a problem I don't know how to solve, freaking Elon Musk is going to show up in his Gulfstream jet, and he's going to sit with me overnight in front of the keyboard or in front of the manufacturing line, and he's going to help me figure this out.”
Interview of @pmarca  by @ChrisWillx  on Youtube, December 14, 2024"
Clearly, he's never invented anything so he's not responsible for his companies' success

ELON CLIPS on X - "Andrej Karpathy on Elon's management style: If you have a big person who is also really smart and has a big hammer, things move quickly.  “He hates meetings. He keeps telling people to skip meetings if they're not useful.  He has a very good intuition for streamlining processes, making everything efficient —the best part is no part— simplifying, focusing, and just removing barriers, moving very quickly, and making big moves.  I do think you need someone in a powerful position with a big hammer like Elon, who's the cheerleader for that idea and ruthlessly pursues it. If no one has a big enough hammer, everything turns into committees, democracy within the company, processes, talking to stakeholders, decision-making, everything just crumbles.  If you have a big person who is also really smart and has a big hammer, things move quickly.”  Lex Fridman Podcast, October 22, 2022"

Western Lensman on X - "They have no clue why they are there, and they have no clue what their signs even mean."
Elon Musk on X - "He had to read the paper he was given to understand the sign he was holding 🤦‍♂️"

Silicon Valley crosswalks hacked to mock Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg - ""You know, they say money can't buy happiness, and... I guess that's true," the crosswalk audio says in one video posted over the weekend on TikTok, Meta-owned Instagram and Musk's social platform X.  "God knows I've tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck and that's pretty sick, right? Right? ... I'm so alone.""
Elon Musk shared it with a laugh but of course everyone Knows he is a sensitive baby who cannot take criticism

stepfanie tyler on X - "i wasn't going to comment on this but i guess since we've let the WSJ behind the curtain i'm allowed to share my opinion.   imagine taking the most sacred thing a person can have—a child, a private relationship, direct access to the most influential man on earth—and liquidating it for clicks, sympathy and headlines.   all while dressing it up as 'speaking your truth'.  this isn't about heartbreak, this isn't about love—this is about leverage and being seen.  if one actually values privacy, they don't do a photoshoot with the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.   they don't air out private DMs and messages.   they don't bait someone's name for weeks on end and then cry victim when they don't respond how you'd hoped.   you had proximity to legacy and you traded it for attention.  this is not a tragedy—this is a case study in clout-driven collapse"

Airbus CEO says SpaceX could never do what it does in Europe - "Company head Guillaume Faury told attendees at a German aviation event that SpaceX would never have been able to achieve all it has if it were a European company... “It’s amazing and it’s breaking some rules of what we’re doing. It’s very concentrated, where with European projects we are very scattered and distributed.”... In Germany, Faury specifically said that the (legally required) urge to split space work among countries involved in the pan-European venture Ariane makes it harder to build that scale.  “In Europe, we tend to do the...opposite,” he said. “[Airbus makes] 20%, we buy 80%. And by buying 80%, you have a large supply base which is pleasing everybody. Well, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is not pleasing anybody except Elon Musk.”"
QZ editorialising (the Airbus CEO doesn't actually use the term): It is more important to not be "selfish" than to actually be successful. Political patronage is more important than actually going into space

Meme - CNN @CNN: "SpaceX's Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, briefly takes flight then explodes in midair on first launch attempt"
Nina Turner @ninaturner: "Reminder: Spacex received $3,000,000,000 in taxpayer dollars."
Readers added context they thought people might want to know: "SpaceX has a billion dollar contract for creating a moon lander that will ride on this rocket. It is not a handout, rather a purchase order by NASA. The test launch was not ordered or funded by NASA."
Libertarians: Diligently Plotting @LibertariansDP: "Reminder: Alt-leftists complain about this but when these 1,000+ page bills are presented they screech at the top of their lungs for them to pass for the 1-2 stupid handouts they want. Remember this when the next crony bill comes around."
Apparently the new left wing logic is that when the government buys something from someone, since that is taxpayer money, this is a government subsidy (so they get to make more false comparisons)

Thomas Massie on X - "Some politicians get into politics to enrich themselves. Maybe that’s why they can’t imagine someone would judge a bill based on what’s good for the country instead of what’s good for their wallet. This article from December shows Elon wasn’t “in it” for EV tax credits."
Musk Calls For Ending EV Tax Credit: ‘We Should Get Rid Of All Credits’

Meme - (news) DOGE @DOGE__news: "AOC: "Elon Musk is NOT a scientist, he is NOT an engineer.""
jossmc @jossmc989833787: "Bill Gates is not a doctor  Bill Gates is not an epidemiologist  Bill Gates is not a nutritionist  Bill Gates is not a climatologist  Bill Gates is not, etc.  And yet, he does what he wants and no one stops him."

Meme - "Remember while he tells you what we should do... Bill Gates is not a doctor. is not a biologist. is not a scientist. is not a climatologist. is not a veterinarian. is not a nutritionist. is not a microbiologist. But he is a University dropout"

Mistaking Leviathan for God (Politics as Religion)

Mistaking Leviathan for God

"We are told from many quarters that something called “our democracy” is in mortal danger. The feeling of dread is pervasive: Google “our democracy in danger” and you get 70 million hits. The headlines have been frightening. Here’s the New York Times: “Will 2024 be the year democracy dies?” NBC: “Election officials say democracy is still at risk in 2024.” The Financial Times: “Can democracy survive 2024?” The putative cause of death is usually Donald Trump—but it also could be the Deep State, social media or Vladimir Putin. One way or another, our beloved democracy seems to be on the verge of annihilation...

What we are experiencing isn’t the death of democracy but a crisis of representation. According to Pew Research Center, only 22% of Americans trust the federal government. Trust has virtually vanished among Republicans (11%); more startling, to me, is the collapse of trust in government among Democrats (35%). Trust in Congress has dipped into the same territory: 24% in Ballotpedia’s rolling average. Three out of four Americans feel unrepresented by their elected representatives.

To some extent, the cause of the crisis is thunderingly obvious. Representative government requires a strong bond of identity between the public and the political class. That bond has shattered like a mirror under the blows of the digital age. Elected officials are clueless about, and terrified by, the public. More importantly, the lives of politicians have become incomprehensible to ordinary people. Elizabeth Warren had trouble holding a beer bottle. Trump is forever riding that golden escalator into and out of his very own tower. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, once a bartender, now resembles a movie star treading the red carpet. Like a certain type of little dog, these hyperambitious organisms seem overbred to some singular purpose.

And here I have to deliver the bad news. The malady runs much deeper than this. At the heart of the crisis of representation we will discover an impossible longing for meaning and transcendence.

Mediated government is procedural business: As liberalism in action, it explicitly rejects any claims to cosmic significance. Officially, there can be no long march to utopia, no leader-worship, no regimented, “Triumph of the Will”-like torchlight parades. The system wraps the problem of meaning around its novel approach to the problem of freedom. Both are privatized. The citizen is liberated from the burdens of government service and granted a protected sphere of unimpeded activity. That is the realm where the big questions reside. We are free to pine after God—to attend church, synagogue, mosque or Masonic temple—so long as we keep it legal, and, as with all prurient affairs, comport ourselves with the proper discretion.

The arrangement made for an occasional collision and explosion worked surprisingly well for over a century. Catholics put up with Protestants, Christians with atheists, farmers with factory hands, hippies with suits, in that dynamic cluster of American aspiration we call the pursuit of happiness. Religion was only part of it. (I knew a taxi driver who derived his sense of worth from performing as a clown with the Shriners.) In this huge and restless country, the point was to belong somewhere, to be someone, to attain a web of human relations that nourished the spirit and helped make sense of the world.

Then came the fall. For reasons too complex to delve into here, the sources of meaning and spirituality began to wither and die. Attendance at religious services, for example, has tumbled precipitously. So has membership in Masonic organizations and participation in sports leagues for both children and adults. Connection to neighborhood and community has largely disappeared—the loss of trust in government in part reflects our lack of trust in one another. Families are broken or nonexistent. A nation of joiners and volunteers first dissolved into a passive TV audience—and finally blew apart, with a rude noise, among the volatile conflicts of the web.

Human nature hasn’t changed, however. We still crave justification. The loss of shared meaning condemns the individual to a terrible solitude at the edge of the abyss—and we shouldn’t be surprised by the pathological nature of the responses. In “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt speaks of a “surge of suffering,” particularly among the young. Americans are afflicted with increased anxiety, depression, drug addiction and “deaths of despair,” to match a corresponding decline in marriage, childbearing, even sexual activity. The private sphere, formerly the realm of meaning, is now a wasteland haunted by accusing phantoms. The pursuit of happiness has come to feel like a panicked flight to nowhere.

The pathology has spilled over into politics. Hungry for a loftier state of being, many somehow imagine they have found it in bashing the dull machinery of representational government. These seekers have mistaken Leviathan for God, the will to power for the state of grace—and, by exalting political action almost literally to heaven, they have succumbed to what might be called the transcendental temptation. Only politics, they believe, can save the earth. Only politics can establish social justice. Only politics can preserve the “normies” from the pedophiles who run the country.

As it happens, they are demanding personal validation from an institution explicitly designed not to provide it.

Let me suggest a medical name for this cognitive disorder: “Greta Thunberg Syndrome.” Young Thunberg was one of Haidt’s sufferers, healed by the miracle of environmental activism.

“Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat at home, with an eating disorder,” she tweeted. “All that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.”

Thunberg is a fairly typical specimen of those who confuse politics with redemption. With an almost gnostic fervor, she hates the society in which she lives quite comfortably, and keeps breathlessly anticipating its doom. She’s wholly focused on personal theater—not surprisingly, her father is an actor, her mother an opera singer—with few, if any, perceptible consequences. She’s sustained by the absolute certainty that she embodies Truth in the eternal war against Falsehood. Above all, she needs the fuel of rage to lift her spirit above this meaningless world—the angrier she gets, the happier she is...

As Thunberg admits, the temple of activism is often erected on a foundation of psychopathology. There appears to be more than a hint of self-loathing, even self-destructiveness, among those who vandalize ancient works of art or prevent commuters from reaching their jobs, so they can earn their brief instant in front of the cameras. These are not sturdy yeomen. If industrial society were to vanish in a flash, the activist class would go extinct soon after. The self-nullifying contradictions bubble up so close to the surface that one wonders how the people involved can remain unaware of them. The rank and file of Queers for Palestine, for instance, would be exterminated if transported to Gaza.

William James once wrote of the “divided self,” a personality prone to sudden shifts and conversions. Ours are fractured times. The religious impulse in politics should be understood as a fevered grab at wholeness—that is, at purity, simplicity, honesty, everything an evil age has denied the parched hearts of the rebels. The spirit of inquisition is strong. The enemy must be identified and silenced. Because the stakes are apocalyptic, villains can’t be allowed to shelter behind empty proceduralism. According to one poll, a majority of Americans believes the First Amendment, which protects free speech, goes “too far.” A similar majority favors government control of “false information.” Lies have no place in a purified celestial order. False opinion endures, not by right, but on sufferance.

“Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists,” stated a leader in the anti-Israel student protests at Columbia University. This was personal theater with genocidal intent.

Curiously, the progressive political class, long isolated and afraid, has found in this desperate hunger a link back to the public. It has no clue about meaning—but it has a talent for faking it. It’s able to strike heroic and uncompromising poses. For so small a price, progressive politicians have gained a potent weapon of control.

I find it very easy to imagine a government dominated by true believers in perpetual protest mode, mediated by more disciplined nongovernmental zealots, and administered, in the usual bungling manner, by the ruling elites. The media and academia will applaud, movies will be full of righteous vehemence, corporations will make commercials advertising their virtuous support. Representation, in that case, will be a transparent fiction, and Madison’s mechanisms against tyranny will fall into serious disrepair.

Where do we go from here? To begin with, we must think clearly about the crisis of representation. Part of it is structural. Mediation is intentional and no doubt necessary, but bloated paralysis was never the desired endpoint. Too many layers of mediation have accumulated between the ordinary citizen and elected officials. This not only alienates the citizen, who feels shunted to a vast antechamber crowded with frustrated petitioners—it also promotes the kind of hidden incompetence and lack of accountability we recently witnessed in the Secret Service...

Part of the crisis is social, and that’s a tough one to fix. Good people are rightly repelled by the idea of running for office. It’s like jumping into a meat-grinder—not much of the original person emerges on the other side. As a result, we are stuck with animatronic zombies like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris or loudmouth mutants like Trump...

But what are we to do with the fanatics who wish to turn government into a church and the private sphere into a puritanical zone of control? That, I think, is much more straightforward. We should recall that the activists are our fellow citizens, not Nazi stormtroopers or aliens from space. They are responding to an ancient existential need. As human beings, they should be treated with compassion. As political actors, however, they must be confronted and defeated. There’s no middle ground: Either we are equal and equally free or we’re nothing. The cosmic can have no truck with the transactional. As a cursory glance at 20th-century history should teach us, the transcendental temptation is indistinguishable from the totalitarian one."  

 

 

 

Links - 20th November 2025 (1 - Department of Government Efficiency)

Mario Nawfal on X - "🚨EXCLUSIVE - BOUGHT AND PAID FOR: HOW $472 MILLION BUILT A GLOBAL LEFT-WING MEDIA MACHINE
In February 2025, WikiLeaks pulled back the curtain on a government-funded media empire that’s been quietly shaping what billions of people read, watch, and believe.   At the center of it all? A group you’ve probably never heard of: Internews Network. Funded mostly by USAID, Internews presents itself as a friendly nonprofit supporting “independent journalism.”   But behind that noble-sounding mission lies a global operation that critics say is more about managing narratives than reporting facts.  The numbers are jaw-dropping.   Nearly $473 million—yes, that’s nearly half a billion—has flowed to Internews from USAID and the U.S. State Department over the past 2 decades.  Add in millions more from billionaire-backed organizations like George Soros’s Open Society, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and you’ve got a media Frankenstein stitched together with government cash and private influence.  In 2023 alone, Internews claims to have worked with 4,291 media outlets, produced 4,799 hours of programming, and trained over 9,000 journalists.   It also says it reached an audience of 778 million people worldwide. That’s more than double the population of the United States.  But here’s where things get murky. Internews isn’t just giving media groups equipment and microphones. It’s tying grants to ideological conditions.   In Hungary, for example, officials accused Internews of funding anti-government media under the guise of “media development.” If you didn’t toe the line, you didn’t get the money.  In Ukraine, it funded 9 out of 10 major media outlets—almost all promoting pro-NATO, pro-conflict content during wartime.  And it’s not just about news. In Kosovo, just months before major protests broke out in Serbia, Internews offered grants to reporters to write in Serbian.   The pitch? Promote “positive” stories about Albanian-Serb relations. Sounds harmless—until you realize this was a foreign-funded push to shape how people talk about sensitive ethnic conflicts.  Then there’s Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, which recently launched a $100,000 media grant focused on climate reporting in Asia.   Sounds great—except that the fine print gives Internews and its donors the rights to edit and publish all the content.   So yes, they’re funding journalism—but they’re also controlling the output. Even advertising isn’t off limits. Through its “Ads for News” program, Internews partners with GroupM, the world’s biggest media buyer, to funnel ad dollars to “trusted” outlets. If you’re not on the list, you get nothing. It’s a digital loyalty program—except instead of points, you get credibility and cash.  Internews is led by Jeanne Bourgault, a former U.S. government official who made $451,000 last year. She previously worked on post-Soviet “transition programs” and oversaw a $250 million budget at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.  In 2023, she launched a $10 million media fund at the Clinton Global Initiative—a project backed by Hillary Clinton. The Internews board includes big Democratic donors and political insiders, and WikiLeaks says at least one of its six subsidiaries is based in the Cayman Islands, a notorious offshore haven. Meanwhile, its headquarters in California? Reportedly an abandoned building still listed in official filings.  Let that sink in: a half-billion-dollar media empire, pushing narratives in dozens of countries, funded by your tax dollars—and run from a ghost office.  Internews says it’s here to “support press freedom.” But as one media analyst put it, “It’s not about giving journalists a voice—it’s about choosing which voices get heard.”  So the next time you read a “fact-check” or see a story calling something “disinformation,” remember: it might just be brought to you by the same people who paid $473 million to decide what the world thinks is true.
Sources:  Anadolu Agency, Hungary Gov, Ukrayinska Pravda, KoSSev, Earth Journalism Network, TRT World, Concordia, Shore News Network"

Insurrection Barbie on X - "Cutting USAID funding isn’t going to kill 300,000 kids. Only 8% of USAID money even makes it to the right destination. These people will say literally anything to continue to fund their CIA black ops and lefty NGOS."

Ann Coulter on X - "Amazing sentence snuck into a NYT article on USAID, then ignored: <<Much of the more than $35 billion [USAID] managed last year went to Washington-based contractors, not directly to communities in need overseas.>> So much for all those Africans who are allegedly going to die without USAID $$."

Ted Cruz on X - "The full story of USAID funding Hamas is vast, and much of it was done in secret. Before and after October 7, USAID flowed uncountable hundreds of millions of dollars toward Hamas that enabled it to launch the attack and keep battling Israel afterwards.   They lied about the nature of that aid in public databases, refused to disclose what groups were getting the money, and gave tens of millions in American cash to be distributed without American supervision.   They internally admitted the aid would benefit Hamas, and even exempted themselves from anti-terrorism laws, but in public issued denials.   For all four years of the Biden administration, I prevented them from confirming a Middle East administrator because they wouldn’t acknowledge what they were doing, because continuing their secret pro-Hamas programs was more important to them."

At USAID, Funding for Terror-Tied Groups and Internal Hostility Toward Israel Goes Back Years - "As the Trump administration works to shutter the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), current and former U.S. officials who worked closely with the embattled aid group say they watched for years as it funneled millions of dollars to anti-Israel advocacy groups and entities linked to terrorism.  That funding caused internal friction across multiple administrations... USAID fought to conceal how taxpayer funds were spent. And when it came to Israel, officials recalled battling USAID over funding for groups that worked to undermine the Jewish state or maintained ties to terror organizations."For those who believe in a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, elements of USAID have been problematic for years," said one former State Department official who worked with USAID during the Biden administration. "There was even a lack of embarrassment among some USAID staffers about being associated with terrorist organizations."Some of the terror-tied funding initiatives are publicly known. In November 2022, for instance, USAID awarded $100,000 to a Palestinian activist group whose leaders hailed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group. Just six days before Hamas's Oct. 7 assault on Israel, USAID handed $900,000 "to a terror charity in Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh."USAID's hostilities toward the Jewish state, however, ran deeper than the agency's grantmaking.Under Samantha Power, former president Joe Biden's pick to run USAID, agency officials fought pro-Israel policymaking at the State Department, often urging their colleagues at Foggy Bottom to pare down statements that praised the Jewish state, former officials said. In 2021, during a period of conflict with Hamas, Power herself refused to meet with Israel's ambassador unless Israel reached a ceasefire with the Iran-backed terror group. The decision put Power at odds with the White House National Security Council, which had signed off on the meeting, emails obtained by the Free Beacon show.   Years later, in September, Power's USAID accused Israel of deliberately blocking Gazan aid deliveries, which Hamas is known to steal for its own use and for black market sales that fund its terror activities. USAID staffers went as far as to urge the Biden State Department to end military aid to Israel. Former secretary of state Antony Blinken rejected the request.  "They weren't even in line with some of the Biden administration's policies," the State Department official who worked under Biden and Blinken told the Free Beacon. "It's more than just problematic grants to anti-Israel organizations. It's also their role in the internal approval processes and statements within the administration. There's an entire bureaucratic process they're a part of. They carry out their obstructionist ideology on that front as well."   The rogue nature of USAID under Power has motivated the Trump administration's push to dismantle the agency. During his recent trip to El Salvador, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described a longstanding "frustration" with the agency, which he called "completely unresponsive." The "level of insubordination," Rubio said, "makes it impossible to conduct a sort of mature and serious review that I think foreign aid writ large should have."  Federal investigations lend credence to that assessment. A January memo from inspector general Paul Martin, for example, noted that the agency "does not maintain a comprehensive internal database of subawardees." In other words, the foreign entities that work with a primary grantee on a USAID project often go unreported, impeding the ability of agency investigators to vet "fraud allegations," according to the memo.   Such allegations often include the diversion of taxpayer-funded aid to terrorist organizations. In a November report, for example, Martin "identified deliberate interference and efforts to divert humanitarian assistance" by foreign terrorist organizations, including "systemic coercion of aid workers by FTOs" and "FTO influence over beneficiary selection."  Those diversion efforts are particularly pronounced in Hamas-controlled Gaza.  A February report from the Middle East Forum think tank found that USAID had awarded "millions of federal dollars" to "organizations directly in Gaza controlled by Hamas." In one Biden-era case, USAID funded an "educational and community center in Gaza" controlled by a local group called the Unlimited Friends Association. The association openly collaborated with Hamas, inviting the terror group's officials to its office and boasting of U.S.-funded projects in Hamas-controlled newspapers. In 2021, its director called for Jerusalem to be cleansed "from the impurity of the Jews."   A separate report, released in January by Israeli research organization NGO Monitor, outlined millions in USAID funding for two nonprofits—Mercy Corps and American Near East Refugee Aid—that "have closely coordinated with a Gaza-based ministry, run by a senior Hamas official identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as previously responsible for part of Hamas’ smuggling operation."  When it resumed funding for the Palestinians in 2021, the Biden State Department issued an internal warning that there was a "high risk" Hamas would steal U.S. aid. But information about terror-tied grant recipients in Gaza and elsewhere came mostly from watchdog groups. When members of Congress pressed USAID on those grants, they were often obstructed.  In a letter sent to Rubio last week, Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) detailed USAID's "willful sabotage of congressional oversight." The agency, she wrote, falsely claimed that certain grants were classified in a "desperate attempt to limit congressional oversight of public information."  Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) described similar interactions with USAID staffers. In some cases, he told the Free Beacon, USAID "refused to disclose what groups were getting money and gave tens of millions in American cash to be distributed without American supervision... USAID does fund essential work providing medicine and other lifesaving aid. Rubio has made similar statements, expressing his desire to continue funding programs "providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent."  Over time, however, "more and more money flowed to groups and organizations whose work is contrary to the interests of the United States," one official who has worked closely with USAID across multiple administrations told the Free Beacon. "How bad it got is finally coming to light and there is finally transparency.""
When left wingers claim the most vulnerable people in the world are hurt by a USAID audit...

scott budman on X - "With the all the focus on USAID right now, here’s something: Christian Holmes, father of Elizabeth Holmes (seen here during her trial), worked at USAID from 2010 - 2017, after Enron."

Meme - Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren: "A federal court just blocked Elon Musk from interfering with the federal government's payments system. There is power in fighting back. We won't let up until this block is permanent."
Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren: "Strong oversight is only a threat to those who have something to hide. The American people deserve to know their government is working for them during this pandemic, not for the President or his corporate pals' financial interests. We will hold this administration accountable."

Marco Rubio on X - "After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling  83%  of the programs at USAID.  The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.  In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department.    Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform."

The Grayzone on X - "EXPOSED: USAID funded Ukraine's Molfar, which smeared VP JD Vance as a "foreign propagandist," and called for his prosecution for unstated "crimes" Molfar has also doxxed The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and targeted members of Congress By @wyattreed13"
Mike Benz on X - "The Ukranian disinfo org doxxing US journalists & calling for firings, sanctions & criminal prosecutions of US Trumpworld officials received 42% of its start-up capital from: The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)."

Tablesalt 🇨🇦 on X - "BREAKING The government of Canada announces $272 million to Bangladesh to fill in USAID gap, for:
-Intersectional Democratic Spaces in Bangladesh
-Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Education
-Community Resilience through Locally-led Inclusive Adaptation"
David Jacobs on X - "WE DON'T HAVE $272,000,000!!! WE'RE BROKE!!!"
Brian Blyther on X - "As your elderly mom sits in an ER hallway for hours, waiting for the care her taxes promised her, remember the Liberals think gender responsive education in Bangladesh is a far more pressing priority."

John LeFevre on X - "2016 wasn't supposed to happen. (fluke)  2020 was rigged by the intel agencies, big tech, and media, with ballot harvesting from Arabella and ActBlue supported orgs with laundered money.  2024 wasn't supposed to happen. (Butler)  Now that the entire Democrat cheatbook is crumbling - USAID and ActBlue being dismantled, X making corporate media irrelevant - there's a good chance we will see more short-term chaos."

Wall Street Mav on X - "We are taxed. Taxes go to USAID. Leftists create a NGO. NGO is funded by USAID. Leftists in NGO do 0 real work. NGO pays Leftists huge salaries. Leftists donate salaries from NGO to Dems. It's why Dems are freaking over Trump & Elon killing USAID.
Simple!"

Update NEWS on X - "🚨🇮🇪🇺🇸BREAKING NEWS: The far-left NGO 'Concern Worldwide' states that due to USAID cuts, they will be prevented from helping migrants from Third World countries settle in Ireland."

I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 on X - "There will be protests in Washington for 3 days in a row starting today, and protesters are being paid $40 per hour. Ask yourself, who is willing to spend over $32,000 in a few days and who is benefiting from these left-wing protests?"

Alice Smith on X - "International groups that hate the US are now suddenly annoyed at the US for ceasing to fund their political hobbies."

Cynical Publius on X - "All those years of paying taxes I thought I was only funding national defense, federal law enforcement, some gorgeous national parks and providing assistance to those who cannot help themselves.  I did not understand until 2025 that I was also actually paying for Washington DC elites to fund the exorbitant salaries of their NGO cronies in pursuit of off-the-books neo-Marxist nihilistic policies that Americans would never have voted for if given the chance.  😡😡😡  It's a good thing I'm not a Democrat as if I were I would probably be burning down some NGO headquarters."

Wikipedia co-founder calls on Elon Musk to investigate government influence over online encyclopedia - "Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is calling on Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to look into whether government actors have infiltrated the online encyclopedia that he helped start over two decades ago... Sanger, who left the organization in 2002, has been a heavy critic of Wikipedia since about 2005, when he says the website began to drift into left-wing bias... Sanger says the website has long abandoned its neutrality policy, which he helped develop at its beginning."

Insurrection Barbie on X - "The judge who ruled that disbanding USAID was unconstitutional wrote in the order that USAID was created by Congress. It was not. It was created by executive order by JFK."

Sad: With USAID Shut Down, This Ecuadorian Child May Never Know What Gender He Is | Babylon Bee

Wall Street Apes on X - "Barack Obama was using USAID to pretend to send money to a country for “aid” and instead laundering it to the Cayman Islands He would then use that money to fund and train “Rent-a-Riots” for protests to overthrow governments Sound familiar? Mike Benz on Joe Rogan: “A scandal during the Obama USAID era. We were running a number of rogue USAID operations in Cuba at the time. — I'm simply showing the American people where your tax dollars are going and how these things are structured in order to systematically fool you and to fool Congress and to fool the White House:
— USAID pumped $1.2 billion in, and we sponsored these activist groups and these civil society organizations to learn how to use Facebook, learn how to use Twitter, lose, learn how to use hashtags, learn how to coordinate street protests so that everyone knows where to go, what street to show up on, what kind of slogans to know, to use in order to create the pro-democracy predicate for it.”
He talks about how Obama funded a Twitter clone that would be used to push propaganda in Cuba to inspire these protests and overthrow the government (Mike Benz explains how Barack Obama overthrew many governments)  “So what they did is they took the exact same thing as Twitter, same user interface, same like, and retweet button zunzunio is, is the Cuban slang word for hummingbird. So just, it means it's it's bird, it was the Twitter bird, the whole thing. But the whole trick about it was you have to make it look like it's coming from the Cubans if you're going to do this operation
— We can get into the deeper layers of this, but contractors were funded by USAID  The data would then be used for micro targeting efforts towards anti and pro government users. In Cuba, the developers aim to, at first used non-controversial content such as sports and music and hurricane updates — What was the plan the whole time? Once they built up enough subscribers, they would begin to introduce political messages through social bots and encourage dissent in this, in this astroturfing — the whole point is, once they hit a critical mass, they would create ‘Rent-a-Riots”  “You're using Cayman Islands bank accounts. You're saying it's, you're earmarking it for Pakistani aid.” But the money was never sent to Pakistan, it was sent to the Cayman Islands to fund this whole operation
All this and much more is broken down extremely well in this video. This is INSANE"

Elon Musk told millions of people that 8 and 11 year old children were receiving business loans from Social Security. He had his DOGE employees cut off the money. Those weren't loans. They were Social Security payments to children who didn't have mothers or fathers because their parents died. Those are survivor benefits. He stole money from f*cking orphans!!! - "Elon Musk told millions of people that 8 and 11 year old children were receiving business loans from Social Security.He had his DOGE employees cut off the money.Those weren't loans. They were Social Security payments to children who didn't have mothers or fathers because their parents died. Those are survivor benefits.He stole money from f*cking orphans!!!

What we know about claims DOGE found $312M in business loans to children | Snopes.com - "On March 12, an SBA spokesperson said via email, "According to our preliminary analysis, SBA can confirm that over 5,500 loans, totaling about $312M, were distributed to businesses whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger at the time of the disbursement." The agency also said it planned to continue collaborating with DOGE to examine the matter."
When even Snopes says you're talking nonsense. But left wingers get "informed" through memes which make stuff up, so they don't care

Sky News Australia on X - "Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been urged to call an "emergency meeting" after the Trump administration cut grants to seven Australian universities."
Peter St Onge, Ph.D. on X - ""Emergency meeting" as DOGE cuts defund *Australian* universities. Is anything on the left not on the US taxpayer dime?"

Judge denies Democrat-led effort to block DOGE access, citing lack of proven harm - "The Justice Department, for its part, argued on Monday that the DOGE personnel in question are "detailed" U.S. government employees who are entitled to access the government data under provisions of the Economy Act... Trump "does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally dismantle the government," the attorneys general said."
When you live off grift, of course cutting it off is harmful
The attorneys general offer clear proof that Trump and Musk are fascists, because that's what fascists aim to do - dismantle government

DataRepublican (small r) on X - "🔥 UPDATE: 🔥  So, two days ago, the doxxing website DOGEQUEST, primed by an article by the @sltrib , slapped my husband’s distillery front and center in an attempt to intimidate and silence me.   To be honest, it did get me down.   And … congratulations, they might have achieved their goal. We might just have to shutter the whole operation…   … because my husband just now notified me our entire inventory got nearly cleared out in 48 hours flat. His multi-year productions, all of which he personally oversaw and toiled over. All bought out in the blink of an eye.  Terrorists lose this round.   And I have a great feeling that this is going to similarly backfire against @Tesla  ."

Nick Sortor on X - "🚨 HOLY CRAP! Elon Musk and DOGE just revealed a whopping **40%** of calls to Social Security are fraudsters. “Fraudsters call in and claim to be a retiree. And then they convince the operator to change where the money is flowing.” “As a result of the work of DOGE, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive MORE money — not less.”  HOW HAS THIS GONE ON FOR SO MANY YEARS?"

Elon Musk's DOGE uncovers 'mind blowing' truth about illegal immigrants on Social Security - "Elon Musk's DOGE has uncovered Social Security Administration files indicating that millions of migrants were recently added to the benefits program.   The DOGE leader showed a graph to a crowd in Green Bay, Wisconsin, highlighting that over two million non-citizens received new social security numbers in FY2024.   The same display showed that, according to data from an internal Social Security Administration (SSA) database, over 4.8 million non-citizens have received new SSA numbers since FY2021... of the millions of non-citizens who were recently given Social Security numbers, many of them were set to receive 'max' benefits, which the DOGE worker said was the 'default' output under the previous administration.  'The defaults in the system, from Social Security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people, and minimum collection,' Gracias said of the recent migrant enrollees.  'We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid, as an example,' he continued. 'We found people here registered to vote in this population.' 'We found some by sampling that actually did vote, and we have referred them to prosecution at the homeland security investigation service,' Gracias said.   Federal laws outlaw non-citizens from receiving social security or Medicare. They also forbid non-citizens from voting in elections... Musk also skewered former President Joe Biden for enabling the jump in social security numbers.   'People sometimes think that under the Biden administration that he was simply asleep with the switch,' Musk said. 'They weren't asleep at the switch.'  'It was a massive, large scale program to import as many illegals as possible, ultimately, to change the entire voting map of the United States and disenfranchise the American people and make it a permanent, deep, blue, one party state from which there would be no escape,' the 53-year-old entrepreneur shared."

Links - 19th November 2025 (2 - Book "Bans")

Poetry will soon be lost for good - "Wilfred Owen’s ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ has been struck from the prescribed GCSE anthology, Conflict. No Owen, no Sassoon, no Brooke. Elsewhere, Philip Larkin’s ‘An Arundel Tomb’ has also been exhumed and walled up. One cannot help but feel it is the kids that have been robbed.  Education minister Nadhim Zahawi has denounced the decision by the OCR exam board as ‘cultural vandalism’. But the board remains unapologetic. It heralds the 14 ‘poets of colour’ it has brought in to replace the previous, presumably transparent (or simply washed-out?) incumbents. ‘Our anthology… will feature many poets that have never been on a GCSE syllabus before… Six are black women, one is of South Asian heritage. Our new poets also include disabled and LGBTQ+ voices.’"
Book bans are good when the left push them Toronto school board's N-word ban targets white authors like Steinbeck, Twain : canada - "They don't want kids seeing what real racism looked like in the past because once they might see how hypocritical society has become."
It's only a "book ban" if the left doesn't support it
I guess they need to use the one drop of blood theory to determine who is black. Also good luck adjudicating what's "amiable". The end result will be black students get a free pass, of course
Some clueless left wingers still hate them because there's the word "Catholic" in it

Meme - The Meme Policeman: "There is ~ a 0% chance that any of these books are banned from your local library, and today, if anyone was banning most of these, it would come from the left. But the whole “banned book” hoopla is a sham to begin with, here’s the truth behind it. These aren’t “the most banned books.” Some of them appear on the American Library Association’s (ALA) list of classics that have been banned or challenged. But most examples they give are from decades ago, often in other countries. For example, the most recent “banning” of To Kill a Mockingbird they cite is from 2007 in a NJ school, where a resident “feared the book would upset black children reading it.” But it was retained, no ban. In fact, they cite no instance of it being banned in any US library. The examples the ALA give of Animal Farm being banned were in Moscow and The United Arab Emirates. It turns out when you dig into the ALA’s “banned book lists” they almost exclusively mean books that are *challenged*, not banned in the US. Which is why their list is called “most challenged books,” not most banned. They take any instances of people challenging a book to their local school board or city council (usually calls to move them to age appropriate areas or sections) as challenging. The ALA doesn’t have any real examples of books being banned, otherwise they would have an actual banned book list! Instead, they dishonestly call it “banned book week” and when you click on their “book ban data” it brings up “banned and challenged books” and if you read carefully you notice it’s all challenges and no actual bans. Hidden in their own methodology the ALA thankfully admits: “ALA does not consider weeding of an item based on criteria defined in a library or school district's policy to be a ban, nor do we characterize a temporary reduction in access resulting from the need to review materials to be a ban.” Thus, since the vast majority of “bans” in the news are simply schools removing or moving books due to school policies on explicit content and age appropriateness, there are no real bans they can cite. But they call it “banned book week” anyway, and get millions to go along with it."
The Other 98%: "Happy Banned Books Week. These are the most banned books from public libraries and schools in the U.S"

Meme Soyjak: "CHECK OUT THESE BANNED BOOKS!"
Typical High School Reading List READ BANNED BOOKS HERE
Normal person: *1984* "THIS BOOK SAYS THAT WE SHOULDN'T ALTER OLD BOOKS TO FIT THE CURRENT THING."
Soyjak: "HOW DID THIS FAR RIGHT PROPAGANDA GET INTO MY BANNED BOOKS?! I MUST TWEET ALL MAJOR RETAILERS UNTIL THEY REMOVE THIS BOOK!!"

Surrey schools pull To Kill a Mockingbird over racist concerns - "Surrey public school educators have pulled four classic books from the recommended reading curriculum over concerns about racist content. The Surrey school district quietly decided to remove Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck from the list of books recommended for students Grade 10 and older... “We did a comprehensive review of these resources that determined that the merits of these novels do not outweigh the potential trauma and harm they may cause to some students,” she said. Under the school’s policy, any teacher who wants to continue using the books will have to seek approval. The decision was not publicly announced. Matthew said the decision was made in November by a panel of 12 teachers. If a teacher wants to use one of these books, they can but they need to ensure their practice is consistent with policy and ensure the safety and wellbeing of students, Matthew said... In 2022, a school district in Seattle voted unanimously to remove To Kill A Mockingbird as required reading for Grade 9 students while still allowing teachers to choose whether to teach the classic novel, first published in 1960, according to the Seattle Times. Two years before that a school district in Burbank, Calif., also directed teachers to stop using To Kill A Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men and three other books as teaching material in classrooms, according to the Los Angeles Times. A school district in Nova Scotia moved to ban To Kill A Mockingbird along with in the Heat of the Night over objections to the depictions of Black people, however the school board rejected the request... Postmedia contacted the B.C. Community Alliance for comment, but did not hear back by deadline. Jamila Douhaibi, executive-director of B.C. Black History Awareness Society, said they were busy with requests because February is Black History Month and wouldn’t have anyone available to speak about the decision. The B.C. Teachers’ Federation also said there was no one available to comment."
Liberals love "book bans" when it helps their agenda

GOP state lawmakers eye criminally charging librarians over "obscene" books
Left wingers keep admitting the truth. But if you notice, you're a bigot

Meme - Teacher: "HERE'S WHERE WE KEEP ALL THE BANNED BOOKS. iF THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO READ IT, IT'S IMPORTANT"
Kid: "WHAT'S BEHIND THAT DOOR?" *Authorized Personnel*
Teacher: "IT IS FORBIDDEN"
*The Trannifesto*

Amazon Bowed to White House Pressure to Conceal COVID Books - "Amazon yielded to pressure from President Joe Biden’s White House to suppress books that opposed COVID-19 vaccines...   The House Judiciary Committee obtained the emails, which demonstrate the White House’s pressure on Amazon to suppress “anti-vax books” and the company’s decision to take action against the books... Andrew Slavitt, then a senior adviser on Biden’s COVID-19 response team, had previously asked, “Who can we talk to about the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation [on] Amazon?” Slavitt became notorious when Elon Musk released the internal files of Twitter in 2022 and 2023 after he purchased the company in October 2022. Slavitt appears to have repeatedly pressured social media companies into suppressing opposition to COVID-19 vaccines.   The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Slavitt on Nov. 30.  The committee told Slavitt that it “obtained documents that demonstrate the central role you played in communicating the Biden White House’s censorship efforts to social media companies, including the White House’s demands to censor true information, memes, satire, and other constitutionally protected forms of expression.”  The White House instructed Slavitt not to appear...   Slavitt had also been involved in discussions with Facebook. That social media company admitted to suppressing “often-true content” because it contradicted the White House’s narrative on COVID-19 vaccines."
The people who claim to be against "book banning" support this, because "book bans" are good when they support the liberal / left wing agenda
Of course, this is a nothingburger to the same people who dismissed the Twitter files

Moms for Liberty Banned Book List—The Novels They Want Taken Out of Schools - ""We're not looking to ban any books," Moms of Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice told Newsweek.  Referencing recent calls for an upcoming book by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to be canceled, Justice said: "There were people that don't want the book to be published. That's banning books. Our moms are saying write the book, publish the book, print the book, sell the book wherever you'd like to sell it, but don't put it in a public school library if it has explicit sexual content in it.""

'Another one bites the dust': How a 'monstrous' far-right group’s local chapter met its demise - "When Moms for Liberty held its annual convention in Philadelphia in June 2023, they encountered angry protests from activists who slammed them as a racist, anti-gay, anti-transgender hate group."
Left wing interest groups are brave and stunning. Right wing interest groups are monstrous

Meme - Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist @DeAngelisCorey: "BREAKING: This meme was just posted in the California teachers union's private Facebook group.  Wake up, parents."
CTA - California Teachers Association: *Books we want banned*
*This year's reading list*
"It appears they know we have insiders in their group. "It is not a safe space for us any longer." Someone replied: "A safe space to mock parents?"
If the California teachers union doesn't mandate my new book they're literally BOOK BANNERS!  I didn't make the rules.  "The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools"  20% OFF here today 🚨"
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Whistleblowing is only good when it helps the left wing agenda
Left wingers boast that they defy school policy and that teachers are trying to indoctrinate students. But of course, if you defy a left wing policy you should be fired

Meme - "Idaho high school grad refuses to shake superintendent's hand, drops banned book at his feet during ceremony"
"How did she get it if it's banned?"

Meme - Eric Alper: "Stephen King: Hey, kids! It's your old buddy Steve King telling you that if they ban a book in your school, haul your ass to the nearest bookstore or library ASAP and find out what they don't want you to read."
Discussing Politics Civilly: "This always seemed a pretty ironic quote to use as an example, given that Steven King wrote a child orgy into one of his books that most definitely would get it banned in schools for a very good reason. So telling children to go out and read it tracks pretty well with the accusations from people who are saying the goal is really just to groom children"

Meme - "Stephen King: Hey, kids! It's your old buddy Steve King telling you that if they ban a book in your school, haul your ass to the nearest bookstore or library ASAP and find out what they don't want you to read." *And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street. Dr. Seuss*

The Meme Policeman on X - "Once again, they mixup “banned books” with showing pornography in schools. They’re referring to the foreword of Project 2025, which calls for listing educators who purvey pornography as sex offenders. This is not what most people would consider “teaching banned books.”"

Lauren Boyd on X - "I don’t know who needs to hear this, but keeping school libraries age-appropriate is not the same thing as book banning."
DonkeyHoatie on X - "Truth. But they can't fundraise or demagogue over age-appropriate-ing."

Waterstones apologises after ‘terrifying’ antisemitic book found in shop - "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which inspired Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, was discovered in Waterstones subsidiary Hodges Figgis in Dublin, before a customer complained and the book was removed... The Nazi party published at least 23 editions of the text between 1919 and 1939. Following the Nazis’ seizure of power in 1933, some schools used the book to indoctrinate students. Oliver Sears, of Holocaust Awareness Ireland, said: “This book has made a terrifying contribution to the persecution and murder of Jews. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has no place in a post-Holocaust world. It is beyond belief a copy was found in the section of Jewish interest in Hodges Figgis... A Waterstones spokesperson told The Independent: “We do not stock and make every possible effort not to make available online The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and other antisemitic books of this sort."
Read banned books!

'Gender Queer' author: 'I don't recommend this book for kids!' - "The author of "Gender Queer" is asserting that the controversial book is not intended for children.  "Gender Queer" has topped the American Library Association's list of most challenged books in recent years. The memoir, which accounts author Maia Kobabe's own exploration of gender identity, has sparked concerns in parents nationwide due to its sexually explicit content. It has been removed from schools in several states, including Texas, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The New York State Education Department retracted its support of the book after becoming "aware" of its "graphic nature."  Last week, "Gender Queer" was used on the Senate floor as an example to support school book bans. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., read a passage discussing a character trying on a "strap-on harness" to prove that the book's contents are inappropriate for young students... "I originally wrote it for my parents and then for older teens who were already asking these questions about themselves. I don't recommend this book for kids!"... The National Education Association (NEA), the country's largest teachers union, faced backlash this summer for including "Gender Queer" on its recommendreading list for educators. NEA did not explain why it considers the book important for teachers to read."
Damn book bans! Why is she a far right extremist?!

Thread by @michaeljknowles on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Kamala tells liberals to fight back against conservative "book bans." That might be why a public school in Kent, OH, has apparently created a list of "banned" books & instructed 14-year-olds to read them. The books are…disturbing. 🧵
One of the books, This Book Is Gay, was written by James “Juno” Dawson, a man who says he’s a woman. James’s book primarily targets sexually confused adolescents and contains graphic sexual instructions. James writes about what he calls “girl-on-girl-sex,” telling teenage girls they may like to have “stuff poked up” their derrières and that the bodies of “trans women”—i.e., men—may only be “slightly different” from female bodies. (Redacted for decency.) He instructs girls as young as 14 that fingers “can do the job of five” phalluses as well as how to perform other unnatural acts. James doesn’t stop with girls. He instructs teen boys on “blowies,” which he describes as “popping another dude’s” appendage “in your mouth.” His “one hard and fast rule” is to “watch the teeth.”
Other books the school library recommends the teens read include the infamous Gender Queer book, which contains cartoon porn, and All Boys Aren’t Blue which contains themes of rape and incest.
We reached out to the school for comment, but they transferred two of my team members to unmanned voicemail boxes and then ignored all future calls. Eventually, the principal responded via email, referring us to the district superintendent. Our team tried calling the district superintendent multiple times to no avail. Email tracking suggests that he opened our email yesterday but has yet to respond.
We aren’t talking about San Francisco or New York. This is happening in Kent, Ohio, in a Trump-voting county and a Republican state-congressional district. We’re going to figure out how this happened and how to prevent it from ever happening again."
Why do left wingers want to sexualise kids so much?

Sexually Explicit Book Found in Fort Worth School District’s Library - "As communities throughout Texas condemn public schools for keeping inappropriate books in their libraries, Fort Worth ISD came under fire this week for giving students access to the sexually explicit book “Flamer.”  In a series of Twitter posts sharing images from the obscene book, Fort Worth grassroots activist Carlos Turcios reported that “Flamer” was available at Amon Carter-Riverside High School, Morningside Middle School, and the Young Men’s Learning Academy. Turcios condemned the district for allowing students to check out inappropriate materials... Written by Mike Curato, “Flamer” is categorized as a young adult graphic novel and chronicles the experiences of main character Aiden Navarro as he attends summer camp before starting ninth grade. According to the book’s description, as Navarro “navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.”  The graphic novel features scenes depicting discussions of sexually explicit topics, partial nudity, and allusions to masturbation.  However, according to the district’s online catalog, “Flamer” is not the only library book promoting radical gender ideology and inappropriate content to minors attending Fort Worth ISD schools. At Amon Carter-Riverside High School, students can check out “Two Boys Kissing,” “Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights,” and “Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out.” Students also have access to more than 135 other books tagged as “LGBTQIA+.”  The high school’s library also provides students with more than 200 books categorized as “mature content,” which includes works containing violence and sexually explicit themes.  This is not Fort Worth ISD’s first time facing controversy.  Local parents have previously sounded the alarm over radical ideologies in the district, including training for English as a Second Language teachers that featured children’s books with scenes of cross-dressing, “coming out,” and illegal immigration.  The district’s new superintendent, Dr. Angélica Ramsey, called for the system to be “reinvented” because “the truth is that black, brown, and poor kids in this country do not get the education they deserve because we’re in a system that wasn’t built for us.”  Ramsey also dismissed parents concerned with these radical ideologies as “haters.”  As Fort Worth ISD’s students deliver declining test scores—only 38 percent of students can read at grade level—the district and its school board will have to decide if focusing on radical ideologies instead of reading and mathematics is the right strategy for students."

D. Scott @eclipsethis2003 on X - "What is the educational benefit of talking about a 4th grader that gave a blow job to another boy?"
Pamela 🇺🇸 🌟🌟🌟 on X - "Let's take the LGBTQ out of the equation. How many parents would be okay with teaching 4th graders how "mommy does daddy" or vice versa? It's not homophobic. It's about sexualizing children. And it needs to STOP. This tweet is not directed at you D, just my rant."

How Bloomsbury dropped books on gender ideology and British colonialism - "One of Britain’s biggest publishers dropped a book about malpractice at the Tavistock gender identity clinic, cancelled another contracted manuscript on the complex legacy of British Empire, and later sacked the editor who had supported both projects, reports the Times in an article that is now the subject of a legal complaint from Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. Senior figures at Bloomsbury, which publishes JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, were initially enthusiastic about Time to Think – an exhaustive investigation into the NHS clinic – but the publisher is now facing claims that it decided not to proceed amid political advocacy from younger members of staff. Details of what happened to the book have emerged following Bloomsbury’s decision to dismiss Robin Baird-Smith, the experienced editor who championed the title. Baird-Smith also invited Nigel Biggar, the FSU’s Chair and Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, to write Colonialism – A Moral Reckoning, which argues the British Empire was not all bad, but that Bloomsbury then cancelled, choosing to pay off the author instead of going ahead. Despite Colonialism – A Moral Reckoning and Time to Think both becoming bestsellers elsewhere, Bloomsbury sacked Baird-Smith in March, with a source saying the company offered the eminent editor no explanation for why he was no longer wanted, something the company denies. A source told the Times that during Baird-Smith’s time at Bloomsbury, the group’s Chief Executive, Nigel Newton, became tired of receiving “so many complaints” from junior employees about the books the editor wanted to publish that challenged left-wing political orthodoxy. “I think it was very annoying for him to have emails from junior members of staff all the time saying, ‘you’ve got to stop this man [Baird-Smith] publishing these books’”, the source said... After being dropped by Bloomsbury, Time to Think was picked up by the small, independent publisher, Swift Press, and became a bestseller. It was also shortlisted for the highly regarded Baillie Gifford and Orwell prizes... Commenting on his book’s cancellation, Biggar said: “If every publisher behaved like Bloomsbury did with me, then important books that challenge received ideas that may be deeply mistaken won’t get published. And fallacious ideas will dominate our public discourse, as indeed they have been for some time on our history.”"

Baratunde on X - "When we ban books in schools before we ban guns, we admit we are more afraid of our children learning than we are of them dying." Left wing logic: If one book is "banned" it means books are banned. But guns are only banned if all guns are banned
And as usual left wingers are lying about what's in those books

Meme - "Having a banned books list in schools is harmful. Kids should be able to read anything they desire because reading is inherently a good thing.
Why are you asking if I'd let my daughter read 50 Shades of Grey? Of course I wouldn't, that's inappropriate."

Libs of TikTok on X - "MUST WATCH: A mom calls out Penfield Central School District in NY board after her daughter was allowed to take out a booked from the school library called “The Rainbow Parade” which includes graphic sexual messaging including an image of a naked man. We have a serious grooming problem in our schools."

Meme - "r/banned books
Nomagiciansallowed
Anti-Semitic requests are not welcome here.
Announcement
We have noticed an uptick in requests to find online PDFs of anti-Semitic texts. These "books" do not meet our qualifications for banned books. While we do not have rules against distributing banned books in PDF, we will not allow this subreddit to become a cesspool of misinformation and bigoted PDFs. If you see these requests, please report them."
It turns out, when left wingers shout that everyone should read banned books, they don't really mean it

How conservatives helped the left undermine the West

Anthony Koch: How conservatives helped the left undermine the West
The great tragedy is that the right once understood the moral dimension of civilization

For years, conservatives have comforted themselves with the illusion that the destruction of the West was entirely the doing of the left. They have blamed progressive ideologues, globalists, and utopians for the failed experiment of multiculturalism, the open borders that reshaped their nations, and the cultural relativism that hollowed out the moral foundations of their societies. But this is self-deception. The truth is that the so-called right, the respectable suit-and-tie centre-right parties that governed most of the West for the better part of the last half-century, are just as responsible for the decay of our civilization as their left-wing counterparts. They were not innocent observers. They were in power, and they made the choices that brought us here.

In France, the Gaullists and their successors ruled for decades under various names: the RPR, the UMP, and now Les Républicains. For much of the Fifth Republic’s history, the right, or what passed for it, held the presidency, the legislature, or both. And yet what did they conserve? Immigration surged but assimilation collapsed. Multiculturalism became orthodoxy not because the French right was defeated in battle, but because it surrendered without a fight. The men who claimed to guard the Republic’s identity replaced conviction with caution, sovereignty with symbolism, and principle with polling. They preached integration but allowed the parallel societies of the banlieues to fester, all the while insisting that national unity could survive as a slogan even as it disappeared as a lived reality. They spoke of secularism and French values yet abandoned the expectation that newcomers — like generations of successful immigrants before them — must adopt and uphold the shared civic and cultural values that made France what it is.

Germany tells the same story. The Christian Democrats, the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, have been the dominant force of postwar German politics. Their rule has been nearly continuous, their influence immense. Yet it was under Angela Merkel, the embodiment of moderation, that Germany’s identity was most radically transformed. Her 2015 decision to open Germany’s doors to over a million migrants was not an act of the left. It was an act of the conservative establishment. It was done not in the name of ideology but of morality, and therein lies the irony: the moralism of the centre-right has been no less destructive than the utopianism of the left. Merkel’s gesture, however well-intentioned, fractured the European consensus, destabilized domestic politics, and sent an unmistakable signal to the world that Europe’s borders were optional. She governed as if sentiment could substitute for sovereignty, and Germany is still paying the price.

Across Europe, similar patterns repeat. The so-called conservative parties in Britain, Spain, Italy, and Scandinavia have all held office for long stretches of time. They could have reversed course, tightened unfettered immigration, restored national pride, and reasserted the cultural norms that bind a people together. Instead, they chose cowardice cloaked in civility. They courted respectability and the approval of editorial boards, terrified of being called cruel or reactionary. Their guiding principle became “not to be hated,” as if a society could be saved without confrontation. They governed as managers, not as leaders, as administrators of decline and custodians of decay. They inherited institutions built by stronger leaders and allowed them to crumble out of fear that renewal might offend.

Canada and the United States have not been immune to the same disease. In Canada, the Progressive Conservatives and later the federal Conservative Party presided over the codification and expansion of official multiculturalism, a policy that, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments alike, transformed national identity from something shared into something merely managed. Brian Mulroney enshrined multiculturalism as a cornerstone of Canadian political consensus. Stephen Harper, though more cautious, did little to challenge its assumptions. The Conservatives spoke of integration but funded the same bureaucracies of fragmentation. Even in opposition, they supported the immigration policies advanced by Liberal governments, even when evidence showed integration was faltering and housing, health care, and wages were suffering. And let it be said plainly: this is not a rejection of immigration itself — immigration has built and enriched Canada — but a rejection of immigration without expectation, without integration, and without the insistence that newcomers join a common civic nation rather than reside in parallel ones.

South of the border, the Republican Party tells a similar story. For decades, it has thundered about illegal immigration while quietly enabling legal migration on a massive scale. Ronald Reagan, the icon of modern American conservatism, granted amnesty to millions in 1986 under the Immigration Reform and Control Act, declaring it a one-time correction that would fix the problem forever. It did not. The border remained porous, and the precedent was set. Later Republican administrations promised toughness but delivered managerialism: walls half-built, enforcement half-hearted, rhetoric disconnected from results. Even when they controlled Congress and the White House, Republicans flinched from using power to reform a system that rewards chaos. They were terrified of the media, of corporate donors, of their own moral uncertainty. They governed as if the question of who enters and who belongs were a matter of economics, not of identity. The result has been a steady erosion of social cohesion and the rise of populism as the only force willing to name what the establishment right refused to confront.

The great tragedy is that the right once understood the moral dimension of civilization. It understood that a nation is not just a collection of individuals but a covenant between generations, bound by memory and duty, by a shared story and shared obligations. But over time, the conservative parties of the West became liberal parties with slower reflexes. They adopted the language of compassion, the theology of globalism, the logic of markets, and the aesthetics of restraint. They preached prudence while practicing abdication. Their idea of stability was to manage the revolution rather than resist it. Every time they were given power, they promised to correct the excesses of the left, and every time, they merely administered them more efficiently.

It is no accident that populism has risen from the ruins of this betrayal. People were not seduced by extremism; they were abandoned by moderation. When citizens looked to the mainstream right for protection from mass migration, from cultural dissolution, from the erosion of meaning, they found bureaucrats instead of believers. They found a politics of hesitation, a cowardly centrism that worshiped process and feared conviction. And so the right’s greatest sin was not malice but weakness. It mistook compromise for virtue, consensus for peace, and delay for wisdom. In the end, it was the polite right that gave the left its victories, one concession at a time.

Conservatives must face this truth without evasion. The West is not being undermined by its enemies alone. Blame its caretakers, those who thought they could preserve civilization by yielding its substance while keeping its name. The crisis of the West is therefore not only moral or cultural but political. It is the collapse of a conservative tradition that lost the courage to conserve. Until the right admits its complicity and rediscovers the virtue of defiance — rooted not in exclusion, but in the defence of the shared civic and cultural inheritance that newcomers are welcome to join and strengthen — it will remain unfit to lead. For repentance must precede redemption, and only when the right stops excusing its own failures can it begin the work of renewal. 

 

Left wingers like to claim that there is no left wing party in the US. Maybe the fact that "conservative" parties have helped the left undermine the West suggests that they're not really conservative, even if that doesn't stop left wingers continuing to hate them as the incarnation of evil. For example in the UK, the Conservative party talked right but governed left. Which is why the "far right" or "hard right" of today isn't extreme at all