Luke Ford

00:00 A Middle Class Rebellion Against Progressives Is Gaining Steam, https://www.newsweek.com/middle-class-rebellion-against-progressives-gaining-steam-opinion-1597397
04:30 MSM not doing much a mea culpa
13:00 Chris Matthews back at MSNBC, https://www.thedailybeast.com/chris-matthews-returns-to-msnbc-says-he-took-complete-ownership-over-his-departure
15:00 Journalists cheer censorship
16:00 Glenn Greenwald’s media criticism
21:00 Mickey Kaus wants a chamomile party, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biBPDBg8FNI
26:00 Anonymous Message To Elon Musk
34:00 The Dangerous Journey Beyond the Binary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJv6kgE90UI
44:10 Vaush Utterly Fails On Critical Race Theory, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGUGVxoOwL8
50:00 Yale hosts talk on ‘The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind’, https://www.unz.com/isteve/aruna-khilanani-black-rage-and-pakistani-peevishness/
1:08:00 Racial hysteria is consuming the arts, https://www.city-journal.org/racial-hysteria-is-consuming-juilliard
1:17:45 Racism and the Secular Religion at the University of Vermont, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_PyTwXPre8
1:24:00 Vilified Professor Explains ‘FRIGHTENING’ Critical Race Theory Effects on Kids’ Mental Health, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1878212569012209
1:38:20 The Horror of Teaching Critical Race Theory to Kids, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkx_x9FLJ8
1:41:00 The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k100OguYMQ
1:49:00 I freed my hips with my activator
1:53:00 Elections have big consequences that last for decades, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139940
1:59:40 Securing the 2020 Election During a Pandemic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkels_iaiog
2:01:00 No, voting by mail does not give either party an advantage. Here’s how we know., https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/17/no-voting-by-mail-does-not-give-either-party-an-advantage-heres-how-we-know/
2:05:00 Why, then, do Democratic and Republican incumbents diverge so much, ideologically?, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2015/04/09/extremists-who-win-primaries-are-37-percent-less-likely-to-win-the-general-election-compared-to-more-moderate-candidates/
2:08:00 Will Non-Politicians Be More Effective Than Experienced Politicians?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139933
2:10:00 Tucker Carlson is the most important Republican influencer
2:12:00 Paul Gottfried says Ben Shapiro can be interesting, https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/11/paul-gottfried/ben-can-be-interesting/
2:17:40 Fauci Email Bolsters the Lab-Leak Theory, https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-email-bolsters-the-lab-leak-theory-11622830092?mod=hp_opin_pos_3
2:21:00 Alt-right streamer “Baked Alaska” is allowed to continue posting videos after prosecutors sought to ban him from vlogging, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baked-alaska-anthime-gionet-capitol-riot-live-stream/
2:24:00 Leaving China: The Beginning and THE END of Hollywood’s catering to The Middle Kingdom, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muO5fy7lOOM
2:25:00 Disney Execs Reportedly Monitoring John Cena and China Situation, https://www.piratesandprincesses.net/disney-execs-reportedly-monitoring-john-cena-and-china-situation/
2:26:00 From Deal Frenzy to Decoupling: Is the China-Hollywood Romance Officially Over?, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/hollywood-and-china-what-now-1234955332/

00:00 Violent crime surges
08:00 A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale’s Child Study Center spoke about ‘unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.’ https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-psychopathic-problem-of-the-white
10:00 Aruna Khilanani, https://arunakhilanani.com/
14:00 Yellowstone TV show, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series)
23:00 The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins
27:00 Trump administration cuts funding for coronavirus researcher, jeopardizing possible COVID-19 cure, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-coronavirus-vaccine-researcher-covid-19-cure-60-minutes/
1:43:45 From Soviet Communism to Russian Gangster Capitalism, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5nbT4xQqwI
1:53:00 Ed Dutton talks about Eric Kaufman canceling his appearance, https://www.bitchute.com/video/363eodvmgDix/
1:56:40 Ben Domenech on who really rules us
1:57:30 Exposing the Cathedral
2:04:00 Eric Kaufman, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXh1i3s0RC8
2:06:40 Mongrelization is the answer
2:11:00 How to Rearrange Your Post-Pandemic ‘Friendscape’, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/well/family/curate-friends.html
2:26:00 White flight
2:27:15 Big Tech vs conservatives
2:28:00 Douglas Murray vs Big Tech
2:30:00 BLM threatens to kill police
2:37:00 Milo, Lauren Witzke guest host Rick Wiles shot
2:38:00 Yale hosts talk on ‘The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind’
2:45:00 Lebron James gave up on the Lakers, https://fadeawayworld.net/nba-media/lebron-james-gave-up-on-lakers-again-didnt-want-to-back-on-defense-didnt-want-to-play-offense-with-teammates
2:49:30 Tucker Carlson on public health officials hiding corona virus origins
3:07:00 Martin Gurri: The Establishment Strikes Back—For Now, https://www.city-journal.org/the-establishment-strikes-back-for-now
3:10:00 Michael Anton Says He Does Not Know Who Truly Won The 2020 Election, But He’s ‘Moved On’, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=137453

Brendan Nyhan writes in the Washington Post:

Research shows members of Congress with experience in state legislatures are more effective at getting federal legislation passed than those who lack this background.

Historical evidence suggests inexperienced presidents face similar obstacles. Consider the case of Donald Trump, who has less experience in governing than any prior occupant of the White House. Every president struggles to overcome the limited powers of the office, but Trump stands out among modern presidents as especially weak and ineffective. For example, though congressional Republicans fear his tweets, they continue to largely control the legislative agenda. The federal bureaucracy and even Trump’s own staff often seek to manipulate him and ignore or undermine his directives. In short, being an “outsider” has significant downsides and few direct benefits.

00:00 Mare of Easttown
01:30 Road rage is genetic
05:00 Figureheads, ghost-writers and pseudonymous quant bloggers: The recent evolution of authorship in science publishing, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139864
23:00 The Scientific Revolution, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139893
27:50 Unregistered 167: Eric Kaufmann, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXh1i3s0RC8
43:00 Nudgelords: Given their past track record, why should I trust them this time?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139876
44:00 Disgraced scientist Brian Wansink, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wansink
45:00 Cass Sunstein – what’s his track record? Terrible! https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/02/07/nudgelords/
52:00 Anthony Fauci and the tragedy of the legible, https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible
57:00 The Monoculture Of Migration Studies, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139899
58:40 Ruston joins to discuss nationalists who hate Israel
1:18:00 ‘Christianity Will Have Power’, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/us/evangelicals-trump-christianity.html
1:29:30 As Israel’s Dependence on U.S. Shrinks, So Does U.S. Leverage, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/world/middleeast/Israel-American-support.html
1:59:00 ‘Most Americans want to go back to normal, but some wish to make permanent the ‘temporary’ COVID controls’, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139902
2:18:00 How spy agencies use journalists to spread lies
2:20:00 Tucker Carlson on Anthony Fauci
2:28:00 The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/

Martin Gurri writes:

* A handful of corporations now command the strategic heights over the economy and the information landscape, a concentration of power that is probably unprecedented in our history. Their natural impulse will be to consolidate and expand that power, if only to keep out the competition. If a bargain can be struck with the political class on a new, post-pandemic information order, these companies may well get their wish.

* Since the rise of Donald Trump in 2016, the elites have perceived the digital realm, correctly enough, as a vector of subversion. The web, it was asserted, delivered lies at scale—only such industrial quantities of deceit could account for the disaster of Trump’s election. In a four-year frenzy of righteousness, politicians like Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren, intellectuals like Francis Fukuyama, and a vast chorus of academics and journalists have called for the regulation of content on behalf of truth and for the “breakup” of the companies that commodify falsehood. The lords of Silicon Valley have been repeatedly summoned to Washington, there to be chastised by their betters. But nothing changed until the pandemic changed everything.

Governments everywhere treated the appearance of COVID-19 as the equivalent of a state of war. With science as holy writ, an ad hoc system of control that contradicted basic individual rights but seemed necessary to survive the crisis was imposed from above on an anxious public. In essence, we were told to stay home and wash our hands like good children. The freedom to gather in places of worship and public parks became a crime against science and was revoked for the duration. And if the authorities often sounded clueless, the public felt even more frightened and confused. Not surprisingly, most of us went along with the restrictions.

No system of social control could function without the cooperation of the giant digital companies. They, too, were happy to go along. In what may have been the most consequential impact of the pandemic on American politics, Facebook, Google, Twitter and other platforms agreed to manipulate information searches so that only content approved by established health organizations would appear. Heretical opinions were blocked or removed. For Facebook that included “content coordinating in-person events or gatherings” as well as anti-vaccine arguments of any sort. By January 2021, YouTube had taken down 500,000 videos that strayed from the “expert consensus” on COVID-19.

The intent was to stop the diffusion of unscientific “misinformation” on the web and thus prevent harm. The practical effect, however, was to outsource editorial policy on billions of searches and reports to government officials and bureaucrats. The political elites now decided which “in-person events or gatherings” could be talked about on social media and which were to be met with silence. The temptation to push the mandate was obvious and irresistible. We should not be surprised that the system of control soon intruded into politics—or that its first target was that object of elite loathing, Donald Trump.

The digital silencing of Trump after the events of Jan. 6 could be justified in many ways. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, believed the president would “incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government” if allowed to post on Facebook. Twitter also cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” as the reason for its ban. While these were debatable judgments, there could be little doubt that Trump had behaved with nihilistic abandon in his last weeks in office.

The difficulty came in discerning where to draw the line. More than 74 million Americans voted for Trump. As we have seen, a considerable portion agreed with the former president on the question of election fraud. Should they all be voted off the island?

The answer was an unhelpful “Maybe yes, but mostly no.” Twitter purged 70,000 Trump supporters on the grounds that they were associated with QAnon, the conspiracy theorists who purportedly spearheaded the attack on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. YouTube terminated 8,000 channels guilty of “alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.” Facebook banned ads that made the same claim, then extended the prohibition to all political ads—including ads for magazines of political commentary, like this one. Amazon, Google and Apple booted out Parler, a pro-Trump microblogging site, from their app stores and servers.

The motive had little to do with science or truth. The tech companies had been persuaded to yield control of content to the health bureaucracy. On politics, reflexively, they were now genuflecting before conventional elite opinion, as embodied in the grayheads of the Biden administration.

The lack of clarity surrounding the bans meant that the line could move again. Control of so much digital space by such few companies meant that, to a significant extent, our political disputes will be conducted under their purview. For those who have sought to tame the web, these two propositions added up to a golden opportunity.