Starship Launch, Bloodbath Hoax, Tik Tok Ban, Candace/Barclay, Covid Narratives
The People's News for the People's Coin 3/13-3/19
Hey everyone,
This news digest covers the following stories from the past week:
1. Starship’s third launch
2. The Bloodbath hoax
3. Congress’s proposed Tik Tok ban
4. Facts, Feelings, and Anti-Semitism
5. Covid narrative revisions
Don’t miss videos, memes, and news bites at the end!
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Starship’s Third Launch
Last Thursday, SpaceX’s Starship completed its third launch.
The flight was a success, with Starship flying faster and farther than ever before. For the first time, Starship reached orbit.
The historic launch produced some incredible images, collected here:
Grok summarized the launch, calling it “a mixed success” because SpaceX lost contact with Starship during its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
As was the case for the first two launches, media stayed salty, downplaying the fact that Starship is the largest object to reach orbit in human history.
In truth, Starship has come amazingly far in a short period of time thanks to SpaceX's iterative design process.
If Elon hadn't decided to start SpaceX, global space exploration would be in a very different place than it is today. The world should be grateful for his leadership.
After the launch, he was already looking toward the future, writing, “Starship will be on Mars within 5 years.”
What do you think: Will Elon really pull off a Mars Colony?
The Bloodbath Hoax
Over the weekend, political discussion on 𝕏 was dominated by the Trump-Bloodbath hoax.
In remarks at a rally in Ohio, Trump said he would increase tariffs on foreign-produced cars, but predicted a “bloodbath” for the American auto industry if Biden is re-elected
Mainstream media deceptively portrayed the remarks to be a call for political violence, as in this NBC opening.
Similarly, mainstream print outlets ran with the narrative that Trump was urging political violence.
On 𝕏, the media was panned for advancing a false narrative.
MSNBC received a Community Note for running a misleading headline.
Elon wrote “Shame on NBC” for perpetrating the hoax.
Other pointed out that the network has itself used the word “bloodbath” to describe people being fired from the Republican National Committee.
The investigation fanned out to mainstream media’s repeated use of the word in obviously non-violent contexts.
At one point on Sunday, a screenshot of the word’s definition went viral.
Despite massive pushback, MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough attempted to advance the hoax.
Monday morning, Scarborough doubled down by arguing that Trump was in fact calling for violence, telling viewers, "It's bullsh*t! He knew what he was doing. We aren't stupid. Sometimes bloodbath means a bloodbath!"
In addition to being widely widely panned on 𝕏, the media hoax was heavily meme’d.
The hoax is the latest example of media-generated hysteria about the prospect of Trump’s re-election in November.
As the odds of a Trump victory have grown, various left-leaning media outlets have predicted increasingly zany doomsday scenarios.
Perhaps the best comparison to the bloodbath hoax was the Charlottesville “Fine People Hoax”, in which outlets deceptively edited Trump’s remarks to make it appear as if he sided with neo-Nazis and white supremacists during protests over a confederate statue.
Monday afternoon, Joe Biden released a deceptive campaign ad linking Trump’s comments to 2017 Charlottesville incident.
The Biden-Harris campaign also put out a statement that attacked Trump’s “affection for violence.”
Biden’s campaign comms director and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on TV to push the same narrative.
Monday morning, Trump put out his own statement through Truth Social.
Overall, the Bloodbath hoax ties together several long-running themes about the trajectory of American mainstream media:
Record-low trust in the media is the media’s own doing: if they simply reported the facts rather than spun them in the service of a partisan narrative, more Americans would believe them
Trump, merely by existing, causes the media to destroy its credibility; of all public figures, only Elon seems to provoke a comparable groupthink and bias. It’s an open question why media seems to have these two men so much.
More than any other political figure, Trump is a master of “going direct” through social media to advance his own narrative; every other populist/anti-establishment politician is copying his playbook
Media has been perpetrating these kinds of hoaxes for decades, but only in the last 15 years has social media become a viable platform for citizen journalists to push a truth-based counter-narrative.
Public awakening to political corruption starts with awareness about how fake the news has become
What do you think: Why did the media misrepresent Trump’s “bloodbath” remarks?
If “Bloodbath” strikes you as an obvious hoax, it’s worth taking a look at this Hoax Quiz highlighted by Elon.
Tik Tok Ban
Last week, the sudden emergence of a new Tik Tok ban in the House of Representatives set off a complex debate on 𝕏.
The bill seemed to come out of nowhere and pass both Committee and full House of Representatives in just four days.
The House vote showed overhwhelming support for the bill with 352 for and 65 against. Only 15 Republicans and 50 Democrats opposed the bill, while President Biden said he would sign the bill into law if it passed the Senate.
The bill aims to ban Tik Tok from operating in the US unless its parent company ByteDance divests from the app. The nominal concern is that ByteDance is passing American data on to the Chinese Communist Party.
Reaction to the bill on 𝕏 was skeptical, and this doubt took several forms.
Why China?
One line of inquiry focused on the motivation for the bill: with major concerns about Ukraine, Israel, and the US border, why is the bill being pushed now, and how did it inspire such overwhelming bipartisanship?
The putative motivation of the bill is to protect American citizens’ data from the CCP.
However, some people pointed out that that Chinese government, or any other government, is capable of purchasing Americans’ data from online data brokers.
Because Americans don’t have any rights over their own Internet data, pretty much anyone can collect, aggregate, and sell it. Online privacy is a fairy tale, and nothing in this bill addresses any of the substantive issues that would actually protect American data.
Several people pointed out that the US government is itself the most egregious violator of citizen privacy with its unconstitutional domestic spying programs.
In recent weeks, congressional leaders have been quietly working to reauthorize warrantless surveillance against Americans.
The idea that these same political leaders deeply care about Americans’ privacy seems doubtful…so what’s their real motivation?
Trojan Horse Argument
One line of thinking is that the bill is a Trojan horse that gives government broader surveillance and censorship authority over the Internet.
In particular, loose wording in the bill gives the President rer to ban websites and apps deemed by the Executive Branch to be under foreign control
In a widely viewed post, RFK Jr highlighted a section of the bill that, he argued, could in the future be used to expand executive fulr over the Internet.
Given how haphazardly the government agencies have thrown around terms like "Russian disinformation", "agent of the Kremlin", “Putin puppet”, etc in recent years, it's not hard to see how the bill could be weaponized against a site like 𝕏 for disseminating information disliked by the current regime.
The Israel Lobby
A third line of inquiry in the bill focused on the benefit of the bill to Israel.
The ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has recently spoken about Israel’s Gen Z and Tik Tok problems—the idea that Israel has low support for its war in Gaza because young people have been sharing pro-Palestinian information on Tik Tok.
Earlier this month, Time Magazine ran editorial called “Why TikTok Needs to be Sold or Banned Before the 2024 Election” by investor Anthony Goldbloom, who blamed Tik Tok for spreading “antisemitic/anti-Israel views” among young voters.
Reporting from The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post confirmed that the Tik Tok bill had support from “one of the most prominent Jewish groups in the country”, Jewish Federations of North America.
American independent journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ian Carroll both argued that the influence of the Israeli lobby is the best explanation for the sudden push behind the Tik Tok ban.
This thesis gained more traction when it was reported that former Trump administration Treasury Secretary and pro-Zionist Steve Mnuchin was behind an effort to buy Tik Tok from ByteDance.
The core issue is the that Americans should be free to get their news wherever they want—it’s not the government’s role to decide what counts as an acceptable website or app based on political or foreign policy concerns.
If ByteDance or any other website is violating Americans’ privacy, they should be prosecuting in court. Similarly, if China’s Communist Party has in fact been using Tik Tok to spy on Americans—a highly plausible scenario—it’s incumbent on the government to provide proof to its citizens before moving ahead with a draconian new law.
Tucker, Rand Paul, RFK Jr, David Sacks, Elon, Vivek, Thomas Massie, Trump, and AOC have all voiced skepticism about the bill, which appears to have a good chance of being passed into law.
What do you think: Do you support the Tik Tok ban? Do Americans need an Internet Bill of Rights to ensure their Constitutional protections extend into cyberspace?
Facts, Feelings, and Antisemitism
The debate around the meaning of anti-Semitism continues to swirl on 𝕏.
On Monday, Candace Owens hosted Rabbi Michael Barclay for a contentious interview about the topic.
Rabbi Barclay authored multiple hit pieces on Candace, including a recent article titled “Let's Be Honest: Candace Owens Is A Jew Hating Bigot.”
The article depicted Candace as an anti-Semite and “an uneducated airhead who has successfully capitalized on her brand of a young black female conservative.”
During the interview, Candace went line-by-line through the article, asking Barclay to explain his claims, and then presenting clips of what she’s said to let viewers decide if Barclay was fairly representing her past comments.
Throughout the exchange, Barclay argued that anti-Semitism is “uniquely evil” and that if a Jewish person felt a remark was anti-Semitic, that was enough to qualify it as such.
They also sparred on whether it was anti-Semitic to investigate the possible existence of a cartel of Jewish people exerting influence over the entertainment industry.
Barclay accused Candace of tapping into an anti-Semitic trope of Jews running Hollywood. She responded, “I understand that people have feelings, but I would like to follow and pursue the facts, and the facts are that many people in Hollywood are saying that there is some sort of a gang.”
The episode generated massive attention on 𝕏.
In a follow up-post viewed more than three million times, Candace wrote to Barclay, “I think you truly believe your race, religion, and feelings are superior to others, and that you truly feel victimized when others do not hold that same viewpoint.
As the interview trended, journalist Isaac Schorr published a column arguing that the Daily Wire should fire Candace for anti-Semitism.
Yesterday morning, Candace took Barclay up on his invitation to watch IDF footage of October 7th, and asked him to organize a trip to both Israel and Gaza with six other journalists, including Dave Smith, Tucker Carlson, and Glenn Greenwald.
Smith said he would attend. Barclay has yet to respond to the proposal.
Yesterday afternoon, Candace posted that PJ Media had retracted Rabbi Barclay’s hit piece.
The retraction read, “Upon further review, we have determined that the following article does not meet PJ Media’s editorial standards. We apologize to our readers for the oversight.”
Shortly afterward, she released another episode, “Why Does Everyone Think I Am Going To Be Killed?” about a years-long campaign to derail her career.
Outside of the Candace-Barclay exchange, the carrousel of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel accusations continued to spin…
MSNBC anchor David Faber said Elon’s posts on 𝕏 were “problematic” and compared them to the ideas of Henry Ford
Elon wrote to Bill Ackman, “Something else worth noting is that the left, represented by the Democratic Party, is rapidly becoming antisemitic. Even AOC is being hounded by her erstwhile supporters!” He followed up by posting a video of AOC being confronted in a movie theater for refusing to condemn Israel
Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer called for the election of a new Prime Minister in Israel. Mitch McConnell responded, “It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of the democratically elected leader of Israel.” Rabbi Shmuley also attacked Schumer, calling him “Biden’s court Jew”and writing, “What a disgusting stab in the back to Israel, amid fighting a war survival against the savagery and barbarism of Hamas. Disgusting speech. And Schumer hides behind his Jewishness to condemn Israel and its elected leadership.”
Trump told MSNBC, "Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed"
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach accused liberal commentator Cenk Uygur of “antisemitic blood libel” for claiming Israel has killed over 12,000 Palestinian children and compared Uygur’s show “The Young Turks” to “The Hilter Youth”
Shmuley criticized “Candace Owens[‘s] troglodyte , knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal anti-Semitic, thug followers”
Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Piers Morgan, "Israel has the most extremist religious nationalist government in its history... there's no end game here politically other than complete domination, ethnic cleansing, or slaughter"
Glenn Greenwald poked fun at the ADL for demanding an increase in Jewish representation in the entertainment industry after 1000 Jewish Hollywood professionals objected to an Oscar-acceptance speech criticizing Israel
What do you think: What is the meaning of “anti-Semitic”? Is anti-Semitism a unique form of bigotry? Is it possible to criticize Israel or the Zionist movement without being anti-Semitic?
Covid Narrative Revision
Last week, two previously censored narratives about Covid re-emerged: the debate around long Covid, and comparisons between Covid and the flu.
Long Covid
The Guardian published an article about a major study arguing that the term “long Covid” should be dropped:
Long Covid may be no different from other post-viral syndromes such as those experienced after flu, according to new research from Queensland Health.
The lead author of the study, the state’s chief health officer Dr John Gerrard, said it was “time to stop using terms like ‘long Covid’” because they imply there is something unique about the longer-term symptoms associated with the virus, and in some cases create hypervigilance.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, Dr. Pierre Kory said that the majority of the long Covid cases in his 1200-person practice had all of their symptoms start after being vaccinated.
Kory proposed the term “long vax” to describe the cluster symptoms he is seeing in his patients:
RFK Jr doubled down on his criticism Trump for ignoring vaccine injury caused by the novel mRNA injections.
Covid = flu
World’s strongest man Brian Shaw proposed to podcast host Bradly Martyn that people have been waking up to government and corporate deception about Covid.
In one clip, both Martyn and Shaw compared Covid to the flu.
According to WHO data, the flu disappeared in 2020 and 2021.
Since 2020, skeptics of Covid narrative have argued that Covid case count was artificially inflated due to inaccurate PCR and antibody testing which conflated the two diseases.
Mike Benz highlighted a similar graph and pointed out that Covid was used to justify permanent mass mail-in voting. Elon compared the events to the video game Deus Ex.
What do you think: Is long Covid a useful term? What happened to the flu in 2020?
Top Videos
1. Theo Von: faith is like a free parent
2. The DNC’s Immigration Playbook
3. Ron Paul on why it’s not in the US’s interests to support Israeli occupation of Palestine.
4. Ye says we are already in World War 3, which is a “mind war of perception”
5. Author Annie Jacobsen on DARPA: "It is the most powerful, most secretive, most productive military agency in the world...That is was DARPA does, they are always twenty years ahead of anything that you or I know...They were doing Neuralink in the 90's."
6. Archival footage of Trump talking to Oprah about America First in 1988, on bringing back the gold standard, on becoming the President four decades ago, on the media with David Letterman in 1992, on the migrant invasion in 2018
7. Elon highlights former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov on how communism is used to destroy a country from within
8. Joe Rogan on resilience
9. Archival footage of Michael Jackson talking about his relationship with Sony
10.Fromer Israeli PM Ehud Barak says Benjamin Netanyahu intentionally propped up Hamas as a strategy to undermine a two-state solution with Palestine
Dogey Treats: News Bites
Elon’s Businesses
𝕏 dropped former CNN commentator Don Lemon as a paid content creator. During an interview with Elon, Lemon questioned Elon about stoking violence and anti-semitism by engaging with users about the ”great replacement theory.” Elon said, “His approach was basically just “CNN, but on social media”, which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying. And, instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was really just Jeff Zucker talking through Don, so lacked authenticity. All this said, Lemon/Zucker are of course welcome to build their viewership on this platform along with everyone else.” Later, an absurd list of Lemon’s contract demands was released.
Elon suggested crypto bots were driving significant traffic on 𝕏.
US Politics
The Supreme Court ruled that Texas is allowed to enforce its SB 4 law arrest and deport illegal immigrants. Elon wrote, “Crazy that Texas has to do the job of the Biden administration, which filed aggressive legal action to stop the state!”
Financial Times polling data shows minorities moving away from Democrats toward Trump. A poll found two-thirds of Democrats would dispute the election if Trump wins. One poll suggests that the crypto vote has shifted from Biden to Trump over the last four years.
Judge Andrew Napolitano’s account of Trump’s failed promise to declassify JFK assassination went viral.
Niger demanded that US military leave immediately.
Global Financial System
Joe Biden said, “We have among the lowest inflation rates of any country in America!" Biden also touted the Inflation Reduction Act as "most significant investment in fighting climate change and events in the environment ever in history anywhere in the world." Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she regrets saying inflation would be transitory and that “President Biden’s top priority is addressing the issue of high costs that concern so many Americans." In a widely circulated clip, Bill Maher argued that Americans were being unnecessarily negative about the economy.
Data from Vanguard showed a “record number of early 401(k) withdrawals due to economic hardship" in 2023.
Vladimir Putin said, "There is a very strong desire in Western elites to freeze the current unjust state of affairs in international affairs. They've spent centuries filling their bellies with human flesh and their pockets with money. But they must realise that the vampire ball is ending."
FX Hedgers argues that the financial establishment is preparing the public to accept 3% inflation as the new normal: “There’s no benefit to the economy from your currency constantly losing 2% of its value over time. But there is a benefit to the politicians who are quietly confiscating the value of your income and savings via the hidden tax of inflation. Monetary scientists figured out several decades ago that 2% inflation was high enough to keep their political masters happy but low enough so as not to arouse anger from the people.”
Misc
Sam Altman told Lex Fridman that OpenAI is “not ready” to talk about Q* but also denied that Chief scientist Ilya Sutskever saw AGI.
Rabbi Shmuley said of Candace Owens, "She is clearly a very troubled woman and increasingly insane" after an Owens episode went viral claiming French First Lady Brigitte Macron is transgender. Candace responded to Shmuley’s threat to bankrupt her by issuing a challenge to him.
Shmuley also criticized Biden administration for not supporting Israel by conditioning US aid on ceasefire.
A study found that statins were contributing to an epidemic of heart failure
ProPublica ran a feature-length piece on how Chinese mobsters have taken over the United States’ illegal marijuana industry and staffed it with Chinese migrants who’ve immigrated into the US illegally through the southern border.
China’s President Xi said, "China is ready to intervene militarily anywhere if the US or NATO decide to attack Russia"
Elon wrote, “The most entertaining outcome – as if we’re in a soap opera – is the most likely”
Amid speculation about the retreat from public life by Kate Middleton, Barack Obama visited 10 Downing Street.
Memes of the Week
Elon’s Memes
Thank You!
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