Conservatives: beware of Conservatism, Inc.

 

Ned Ryun at American Greatness cites Michael Anton’s Caveat Emptor for conservatives:

[Michael] Anton says, 

Now I’ll name names. If you’re at National Review, AEI or Heritage Foundation, your job is to pretend to oppose but really support; your whole business model as staff and management collapses if you don’t do that. It’s an open question why the donors donate to these places. I actually believe they’re deceiving their donors for the most part; that is I’d like to believe most donors to Conservatism, Inc. (NRO, AEI, Heritage) are writing checks because they believe these guys are fighting bad leftists, socialists, Communists, America-haters, critical race theory. They’re standing athwart yelling ‘Stop!’ They really think this. They don’t think, ‘I’m writing this check so that Rich Lowry, Ramesh Ponnoru, Jonah Goldberg and other fat useless grifters can have six-figure jobs to do nothing but sell out my country and pretend that they’re saving it.’ I don’t think they’re doing that, but to be completely clear, that’s what they’re doing.

There’s a lot to unpack just in that one 60-second statement, but Anton is absolutely correct: The overwhelming majority of “conservative” donors, knowingly or unknowingly, are getting played by Conservatism, Inc., which is really about 90 percent of the so-called “conservative” think tanks in D.C. but, quite frankly, it happens even in the smaller ones across the country.

. . .

If, as Anton says, donors think they’re funding these entities to actually fight the leftists, the question should be very simple: proof please of your work. Strongly worded statements and white papers don’t count, for the record. Show us the action items. . . .

If you contribute to conservative organizations or individuals, make sure the recipient(s) really is/are conservative.  Full article is here. 

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Are we asking the right questions?

 

Ned Ryun at American Greatness asks some serious questions. 

You can quibble with me about it all, and no doubt there are some good and well-meaning people mixed up in all of this, but a look at the world around us, from exploding debt to the expansive powers of our massive administrative state to our broken immigration systems to a failed electoral process to Big Tech monopolies crowding out our First Amendment freedoms, should answer all objections. No serious movement would have allowed that to happen or appear to be so full of people who, even now, think all of this is fine. We will just keep pushing on doing the same things that haven’t worked in more than a generation. 

Perhaps if we became more sophisticated in our use of 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 funds, we could address some of our problems in a meaningful way. But instead, we insist on funding retreads like the Heritage Foundation at $80-$100 million a year, AEI at $50-$60 million a year, and the mostly worthless state policy think tanks sucking down hundreds of millions of donor dollars every year. To what end? Serious question. 

None of that money will be or has been used to address the greatest threats to our democracy, from election integrity to Big Tech. Honestly, you could pile 90 percent of that money in the street, light it on fire, and it would be just as effective. 

But instead of thinking about adjusting our priorities, we’re sitting here like programmed robots ready to repeat the same mistakes. Again. And again.

A provocative read;  Mr. Ryun’s full column is here.

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Election Chaos

 

Ned Ryun has some good points about the election chaos we are witnessing.  Still, I hope some of his predictions don’t actually happen.  From his article at American Greatness:

The frightening part of what is happening is that regardless of who eventually wins, half the country will think the other side stole the election. It undermines the legitimacy of whomever takes the oath of office in January. There’s no avoiding that now. And that is a devastating place to be in for us as a country. It undermines the integrity of the process and causes us to lose trust in institutions that we already barely believed in. If you thought we were fraying at the edges already, try half the country looking upon the other half as usurpers.

What has happened in our country is that partisan public officials have, for short term gain, illegally changed the rules in the middle of the game, outside of the legislative process, and in so doing annihilated the democratic process and the integrity of the electoral vote. What does this mean for us as a people? Nothing good. 

Republics are in serious trouble when politicians break laws behind closed doors with impunity. But republics are over, however, when those laws are actually broken out in the open for everyone to see and there are no consequences. 

History tells us that at some point if a country cannot settle its differences like civilized people at the ballot box in a system they trust, they stop talking with ballots and start communicating with bullets.

Mr. Ryun’s full article is here.

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President Trump signed bad spending bills

image credit: business insider.com

Just before Christmas, The Swamp Creatures passed more gazillion dollar spending bills and then left town. And unfortunately, President Trump signed them. Roll Call has the details here.

Here are related tweets via Tucker Carlson and his guest Ned Ryun:

Tucker Carlson & @NedRyun Slamming America Last Spending Bill Passed by the Swamp Before Christmas

Ned Ryun: "We elected @realdonaldtrump to veto these things, not to sign them. It's immoral to continue using the American taxpayer as an ATM for the ruling class."

Agree.  It is the first major black mark, IMHO, on President Trump’s report card.  In addition, some amnesty provisions were included in some of these spending bills. See here and here. 

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Ned Ryun on “Conservatism Inc.”

Ned Ryun is a columnist and guest on TV news – and I’ve become a fan. I am posting an extract of his recent column at American Greatness, as it’s another skeptical look at “conservative” organizations that probably come looking for contributions from you by mail or email:

It’s about time we had a conversation about the racket in D.C., though it’s probably not the one that springs first to mind. I’m talking about Conservatism Inc.—that ecosystem of mostly worthless and ineffective think tanks and conservative organizations that are part and parcel of the swamp. They came riding into town, some decades ago, all gung-ho about breaking up the administrative state and restoring constitutional government and now, lo and behold, discovered that the swamp could start to feel like a warm, soothing hot tub.

By any metric with which you could measure effectiveness (simply existing doesn’t count) can anyone really tell you why Conservatism, Inc. even exists? A back of the napkin estimate shows that every year, hundreds and hundreds of millions fund these entities, but to what end?

Certainly not to be effective. Over the last 30-40 years, in the supposed heyday of the conservative movement, the size of government has exploded; our national debt has risen from roughly $1 trillion to nearly $23 trillion.

These conservative organizations likewise have grown from relatively grassroots-type groups with budgets of a few million dollars to massive entities, like the Heritage Foundation, with annual budgets approaching $100 million a year. They build swanky office buildings with marble lined bathrooms, employ French chefs, give themselves expense budgets, including even personal drivers, and generally live very comfortable lives, and then sell BS lines to their donors about how they’re changing the world, saving America, and blah blah blah.

. . .

Why do we allow people like the Kochs and the Singers of the world to be identified with conservatism or the GOP? Their bastardized version of capitalism and the free market could very well be the undoing of the party and the movement.

How have we come to this point? Greed is one explanation, with people willing to pimp themselves out and give a veneer of “conservative respectability” to causes and ideas that have almost nothing to do with conservatism.

There are many reasons for how we got here, but the great irony of it all is this: the best hope we’ve had in a generation to give ourselves a chance, Donald J. Trump, didn’t come out of the ecosystem of Conservatism, Inc. So beyond the worthless, corrupt behavior of it, will someone please explain to me why it still exists? Because if it merely exists to pimp out the ideas of Big Tech and pharma and vulture capitalists, the entire thing should be burned to the ground.

The column is here. (Our household contributes to Judicial Watch.)

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Dr. Robert Epstein’s testimony re Google

Earlier this month this blog reported on Dr. Robert Epstein's testimony concerning Google's invisible influence on election results.  Ned Ryun at American Greatness has an update:

Google’s Algorithms Threaten Free and Fair Elections

. . . the power of the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Epstein explained:

SEME is one of the most powerful forms of influence ever discovered in the behavioral sciences, and it is especially dangerous because it is invisible to people—“subliminal,” in effect. It leaves people thinking they have made up their own minds, which is very much an illusion. It also leaves no paper trail for authorities to trace. 

. . .

Epstein discussed the potential impact that Google, combined with Facebook and Twitter, could have on the election outcomes in 2020. “Big Tech in 2020, because if these companies all support the same candidate—and that’s likely, needless to say—they will be able to shift upwards of 15 million votes to that candidate with no one knowing and without leaving a paper trail,” Epstein said.

After six years of studying Google, Epstein’s solution for breaking up Google’s SEME is to make its index public, to make it into a sort of public commons to engender greater competition. I have argued that these tech companies must have their Section 230 exemptions removed and be redefined as publishers and telecommunications companies. And we have antitrust laws for a reason. The federal government has a role in breaking up what are, in fact, monopolies.

Whatever the solution may be—and I suspect it is a combination of all of the above—it’s time to get aggressive. . . .

Read the rest of Mr. Ryun’s report here.

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Google: it keeps getting worse

art credit: tyranny.news

Yesterday, this blog linked to a report on Breitbart concerning the left-wing bias Google is employing by manipulating the search engines. Today we read more details reported by Lucas Nolan, again at Breitbart:

Google documents leaked to Project Veritas show the company referring to popular conservative personalities such as Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager as “Nazis.”

A recent report from investigative journalism group Project Veritas claims that leaked internal Google documents shows a Google employee and a member of a Google “transparency-and-ethics” group calling conservative and libertarian commentators such as Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson, “Nazis.” The email was sent as part of internal communications between the Google “transparency-and-ethics” group and suggests that content published by PragerU, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro should be removed from the “suggestion feature.”

A Google employee named Liam Hopkins can be seen stating: “…if we understand that PragerU, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro et al are nazis using the dog whistles…” The employee further suggests following through with the suggestion of another employee named Meredith: “I don’t think correctly identifying far-right content is beyond our capabilities. But if it is, why not go with Meredith’s suggestion of disabling the suggestion feature?”

Following the publication of an undercover video of Google executive Jen Gennai stating that the company was working to prevent another “Trump situation” after the 2016 election; the executive stated in a Medium blog post: “Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings.” Yet here we see Google employees discussing doing exactly that.

The rest of the report is here.

Related: Ned Ryun at American Greatness:

unless the tech companies are forcefully confronted, now, in the immediate, our self-governing republic will be over in less than a generation and we will be ruled by a tech oligarchy.

Or are we already there?

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Censorship and the tech companies

This blog has been linking regularly to reports about political correctness, censorship, and the attacks on our First Amendment rights. Ned Ryun at American Greatness reports:

Just over six years ago, I attended Google’s Political Innovation Summit in New York City. Over the course of the day, it dawned on me that, in the not-too-distant future, Google and other social media companies like Facebook and Twitter would have the power to control and manipulate information flow in unforeseen and dramatic ways. That power would give the tech giants the ability to manipulate elections and policy debates and even to re-define what free speech actually means.

That future has arrived.

. . .

Every single decision of these tech companies seems to cut the same way—against a conservative worldview, against religious communities, against anything that doesn’t fit comfortably within their little Silicon Valley bubble.

. . .

To err in any direction but toward the free flow of information is to sow the seeds of our eventual demise. 

Full report is here.

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