Mediaboss Marketing

Like a lot of other people, I dont use my X account much anymore. I prefer to post on Threads, because X (formerly Twitter) has become such a cesspool of hate speech and conspiracy-mongering. The problem became especially acute following Hamass Oct. 7 attack on Israel when the platform was flooded with antisemitic and anti-Muslim misinformation. Its like watching a once-nice neighborhood go to seed, with well-maintained houses turning into ramshackle drug dens.

What galls me is that, as a taxpayer, I wind up subsidizing Xs megalomaniacal and capricious owner, Elon Musk. His privately held company SpaceX is a major contractor to the tune of many billions of dollars for the Defense Department, NASA and the U.S. intelligence community. He is also chief executive of Tesla, which benefits from generous government subsidies and tax credits to the electric-vehicle industry.

Musk needs to decide whether he wants to be the next Donald Trump Jr. (i.e., a major MAGA influencer) or the next James D. Taiclet (the little-known CEO of Lockheed Martin, the countrys largest defense contractor). Currently, Musk is trying to do both, and thats not sustainable. He is presiding over a fire hose of falsehoods on X about familiar right-wing targets, from undocumented immigrants to the woke mind virus to President Biden while reaping billions from Bidens administration!

The Center for Countering Digital Hate reported a surge of extremist content on X since Musk took over in 2022 and fired most of the platforms content moderators. The center found tweets decrying race mixing, denying the Holocaust and praising Adolf Hitler. The thin-skinned tech mogul responded by filing suit; early indications are that the federal judge hearing the case is skeptical of Xs claims.

Musk is unlikely to have any more success with his lawsuit against Media Matters for America, a nonprofit that documented pro-Nazi posts on X alongside ads for major companies, leading to an exodus of advertisers. Indeed, Musk, who styles himself as a free speech absolutist, appears to be using legal action simply to intimidate critics into silence.

Musks claims that his platform isnt spewing hate speech and conspiracy theories are undermined by the fact that he is one of the chief spewers. On his X account, which has 176 million followers, Musk has boosted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which holds that prominent Democrats are child molesters. He has endorsed a tweet suggesting that graduates of historically black colleges have low IQs and therefore U.S. airlines are risking disaster by recruiting them as pilots. (It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE, Musk wrote in January, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, usually abbreviated as DEI.) He has echoed Donald Trumps unfounded assertions that the electoral system is riddled with fraud; for instance, Musk claimed that illegals are not prevented from voting in federal elections. In fact, only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections and there is no evidence of widespread fraud.

Musks modus operandi, like Trumps, is not to retract or apologize for false statements but, instead, to insult his critics; he memorably told advertisers who have left X to go f--- yourself. One of the few times Musk has expressed any remorse was after he endorsed an antisemitic screed in November. An X user accused Jewish communities of promoting hatred against whites and added gleefully that western Jewish populations were coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities flooding their country dont exactly like them too much. Musks response: You have said the actual truth. After advertisers fled and the White House condemned this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate, Musk said, I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and to those who are antisemitic and for that I am quite sorry.

Yet within weeks of this apology, Musk was back to promoting the great replacement theory that liberal elites are plotting to change the character of the country by flooding it with non-White immigrants from the Global South. On March 5, Musk, himself an immigrant, tweeted this administration is both importing voters and creating a national security threat from unvetted illegal immigrants. It is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11. In another unhinged post that day, he accused Biden of treason for supposedly importing voters.

Musk also freely expresses unsettling opinions about foreign policy. Echoing the standard MAGA line, he recently argued against sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine because there is no way in hell Russia can lose and prolonging the war does not help Ukraine. (Does allowing Russia to win help Ukraine?) In 2022, Musk released a pro-Putin peace plan for Ukraine that would have granted Crimea to Russia and held referendums on the future of Russian-occupied provinces.

The same year, Musk suggested making Taiwan a special administrative zone of China a move that would lead to the destruction of Taiwans democracy. While Musk is a vitriolic critic of woke censorship in the United States, he is silent about Chinas far more grievous censorship and other human rights violations. No doubt its just a coincidence that Tesla has a giant factory in Shanghai producing roughly half of its global vehicle deliveries.

Musk, to be sure, is entitled to freedom of speech, and many other people also promote racist conspiracy theories or favor appeasing dictators. But Musk isnt most people. He is in a unique position to influence geopolitics because SpaceX controls the worlds largest constellation of satellites and a space-based broadband network, Starlink, which has become vital for both military and commercial operations.

Musk pursues his own foreign policy: He turned off Starlink around Crimea because he wanted to make it more difficult for Ukrainian forces to take the fight to Russian occupiers. He wrote on X that he didnt want to be complicit in a major act of war. Recently, members of Congress have accused SpaceX of turning off its Starshield service an encrypted version of Starlink used by the U.S. military in and around Taiwan. SpaceX denies the charge.

Musks role as a defense contractor also makes his personal behavior an issue. The Wall Street Journal has reported that he has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine. In response, Musk insisted that he has passed drug tests while adding, defiantly, Whatever Im doing, I should obviously keep doing it!

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., a former director of national intelligence, told me that given his dealings with the Chinese, and reported drug use, I would find granting Musk a security clearance risky and inconsistent with the standards applied to normal people. Yet, despite everything, Musk not only retains his security clearance but also his stranglehold over two vital national security capabilities: space launch and space-based broadband. In the third quarter of 2023, SpaceX launched 519 spacecraft, compared with only 86 for the rest of the world.

There is no good alternative to SpaceX at the moment, so, for now, U.S. officials might have no choice but to overlook Musks obnoxious and erratic behavior. But there are plenty of competitors on the horizon. Amazon and OneWeb are launching satellite broadband networks and SpaceXs rivals in the space-launch business include United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, RocketLab, Firefly Aerospace, Relativity Space, Astra, ABL Space Systems and Blue Origin. (Both Blue Origin and Amazon were founded by Post owner Jeff Bezos.) Its imperative that the government encourage competitors to SpaceX, even if it costs more in the short run, so that U.S. national security does not remain hostage to Musks whims.

Theres a good reason defense contractors seldom wade into political controversies: They know their business depends on keeping the support of both Democrats and Republicans. Musk thinks the rules dont apply to him. So far, they havent. But he will eventually learn that either he can espouse views that many Americans find abhorrent, or he can benefit from public largesse. He cant do both at least not indefinitely.

Follow this link:

Opinion | Elon Musks Starlink and SpaceX play too big a federal role - The Washington Post

Photo: Jon Shapley (Getty Images )

The Ford F-150 Lightning has earned the SpaceX seal of approval before the Tesla Cybertruck, and it has been photographed bearing the livery of Elon Musks commercial spaceflight company. It seems even SpaceX would rather rely on Fords EV pickup than the Cybertruck when it comes to the serious business of launching rockets and people into space at least for now, while Tesla is ironing out the kinks in the Cybertrucks shiny and ill-conceived design.

Tesla's Cybertruck Has Finally Arrived

The Cybertruck has run into a few problems as production of the EV struggles on. Its been plagued by build quality issues that run the gamut from the threat of rust (or surface contaminants) to being immobilized by critical steering issues. Point is, the Cybertruck is hardly the EV of choice for an organization when a working vehicle is mission-critical. And that may bewhy SpaceX has Ford Lightnings running around as work trucks, as NASA first responder Matt Haskell shared on Twitter (or X, if you prefer):

Of course, SpaceX has a fleet of non-Tesla vehicles at its facilities throughout the United States. Twitter users responding to the post observed that SpaceX regularly uses Chevy trucks in its operations. And a cursory glance at photos of Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, reveal that Ford and Chevy pickups are usually rumbling around the work site.

It makes sense why SpaceX facilities would be no strangers to trucks from rival U.S. automakers, especially since there are contractors constantly on-site. And a fleet of Ford F-150 Lightning models also makes sense given the EVs trucks will now work with Tesla superchargers, which Elon Musk can supply to SpaceX.

But the SpaceX F-150 Lightning made me cackle because Elon Musk loves to make a show of his EVs shuttling rocket crews around at launches and other high-profile events. It cant be very long until Musk plasters a Cybertruck with SpaceX stickers and uses it to shuttle astronauts to the launch pad.

But the F-150 Lightning spied in the photo seems to just be going about its SpaceX business on the highway, and that makes it all the more satisfying.

Its a good analogy for the two EV pickup trucks: one is all show, while the other is all go. That is, the F-150 Lightning is happy working in the background, the operative word here being working. And it looks like SpaceX is perfectly happy to keep work humming along by relying on an EV truck based on a tried and true platform, rather than an apocalypse-proof truck made for the internet. Hey, it is the cyber- truck, after all.

View original post here:

SpaceX Would Rather Use A Ford F-150 Lightning Than Cybertruck - Jalopnik

The man who went full Freddy Krueger and decided to chase a bunch of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters with a glove of blades has been sentenced.

Small Town Horror Story: The "Suicide" of Sandra Bland

In June 2020, Frank Cavalluzzi, 58, was filmed jumping out of his car equipped with a makeshift glove filled with what appears to be long kitchen knives to chase a small group of protesters on the side of the road in Queens, New York City. He shouted racial slurs and told protesters you are in the wrong neighborhood, according to court documents obtained by NBC 4.

In another video, Cavalluzzi is seen driving on to the sidewalk where protesters were standing while yelling I will kill you. People are sprinting away to avoid being crushed by Cavalluzzis car.

Cavalluzzi was sentenced to 14 years in prison after being convicted of nine counts of attempted murder and other charges last summer.

While there is something somewhat comical about a grown man putting on a costume because hes scared of a few people with posters, things could have taken a much darker turn.

In 2017, Black Lives Matter protester Heather Heyer, 32, was murdered by James Alex Fields when he rammed his car into a crowd, injuring dozens gathered to protest a white nationalist rally. Fields was later found guilty of first-degree murder.

In 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse shot three Black Lives Matter protesters, killing two of them. Unlike Fields and Cavalluzzi, Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges.

Cavalluzzis case ended without any deaths but with a sizable prison sentence.

A dangerous man is being held accountable for unleashing terror on peaceful demonstrators who were simply exercising their First Amendment right, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz told NBC4 in a statement. Thankfully, the victims were not physically harmed and we secured justice on their behalf.

Read more from the original source:
What Happened to the 'Glove of Blades' Man Who Threatened Black Lives Matter Protesters? - The Root

From B.B. v. Capistrano Unified School Dist. (C.D. Cal.), decided last month but just posted on Westlaw:

When B.B. was in first grade, she made a drawing (the "Drawing") that included the phrase "Black Lives Mater [sic]" printed in black marker. Beneath that sentence, B.B. added "any life," in a lighter color marker. B.B. gave the Drawing to a classmate, M.C., who took it home. When M.C.'s mother saw the Drawing, she emailed the school, stating that she would not "tolerate any more messages given to [M.C.] at school because of her skin color" and that she "trust[ed]" the school would address the issue.

Later that day, the school's principal, Becerra, approached B.B. at recess. Becerra told B.B. that the Drawing was "inappropriate" and "racist," and that she was not allowed to draw anymore. {At the hearing, the parties disputed whether B.B. testified that Becerra told her the Drawing was racist. Although B.B.'s deposition is unclear, the Court must construe her testimony in the light most favorable to B.B.} He also instructed B.B. to apologize to M.C., which B.B. did twice.

When B.B. returned to class from recess, two of her teachers told her that she was not allowed to play at recess for the next two weeks. The teachers did not tell B.B. the reason she could not play at recess, and there is no direct evidence that Becerra directed B.B.'s teachers to punish B.B. in this way.

Plaintiff [B.B.'s mother] argues that Becerra's response to the Drawingcompelling her to apologize to M.C., prohibiting her from drawing other pictures for her friends, and preventing B.B. from playing at recess for two weeksviolates her First Amendment right to free speech. However, this schoolyard dispute, like most, is not of constitutional proportions.

Although students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," their rights are "not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings." For school children, the First Amendment must be "applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment." Because educators best understand those special characteristics, courts give "educators substantial deference as to what speech is appropriate." "[T]he determination of what manner of speech is inappropriate" at school "properly rests with the school board, rather than with the federal courts."

"Under Tinker [v. Des Moines Indep. School Dist. (1969)], schools may restrict speech that 'might reasonably lead school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities' or that collides 'with the rights of other students to be secure and let alone.'"

Much of the caselaw applying Tinker focuses on its "substantial disruption" prong. As a result, "[t]he precise scope of Tinker's 'interference with the rights of others' language is unclear." However, the cases reveal three principles that help identify when speech unduly infringes on the rights of other students such that it is not protected under the First Amendment.

First, where speech is directed at a "particularly vulnerable" student based on a "core identifying characteristic," such as race, sex, religion, or sexual orientation, educators have greater leeway to regulate it. Although speech that is "merely offensive to others" cannot be regulated, courts have recognized that denigrations based on protected characteristics do more than offendthey can inflict lasting psychological harm and interfere with the target student's opportunity to learn. These types of denigrations, moreover, have little countervailing benefit to the learning environment. Derogatory speech is therefore "not the conduct and speech that our educational system is required to tolerate, as schools attempt to educate students about 'habits and manners of civility' or the 'fundamental values necessary to the maintenance of a democratic political system.'" Thus, "[w]hatever the outer boundary of Tinker's interference inquiry," the case law "establish[es] that students have the right to be free" from speech that "denigrate[s] their race" while at school.

Second, the mere fact that speech touches upon a politically controversial topic is not sufficient to bring it under the First Amendment's protective umbrella. In Harper, for instance, the district court denied a preliminary injunction brought by a student who was told that he could not wear a homophobic shirt to school. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court despite the "political disagreement regarding homosexuality" that existed at the time. At the same time, however, school administrators must have a justification above the "mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint" before they may regulate student speech.

Third, and most pertinent for the present case, age is an important factor when deciding whether speech is protected. In Tinker, the Court held that a high school could not ban students from wearing black arm bands that signaled opposition to the Vietnam War. The Court emphasized that denying students this type of expressionwhich neither interfered with the school environment nor intruded on other students' rightsmay coerce political orthodoxy and "strangle the free mind" of high school students. An elementary school, by contrast, is not a "marketplace of ideas." Thus, the downsides of regulating speech there is not as significant as it is in high schools, where students are approaching voting age and controversial speech could spark conducive conversation. As the Seventh Circuit has recognized, elementary schools "are more about learning to sit still and be polite, rather than robust debate." To fulfill that mission, elementary schools require significant latitude to discipline student speech. Indeed, "muchperhaps mostof the speech that is protected in high grades" may be regulated in elementary schools.

"The targeted student's age is also relevant to the analysis." Younger students may be more sensitive than older students, so their educational experience may be more affected when they receive messages based on a protected characteristic. Relatedly, first graders are impressionable. If other students join in on the insults, the disruption could metastasize, affecting the learning opportunities of even more students.

Giving great weight to the fact that the students involved were in first grade, the Court concludes that the Drawing is not protected by the First Amendment. B.B. gave the Drawing to M.C., a student of color. The Drawing included a phrase similar to "All Lives Matter," a sentence with an inclusive denotation but one that is widely perceived as racially insensitive and belittling when directed at people of color. Indeed, M.C.'s mother testified that those kinds of messages "hurt." Soon after discovering the Drawing in M.C.'s backpack, M.C.'s mother emailed the school, and stated that she believed her daughter received the Drawing because of her race. Based on this email and the content of the Drawing, Becerra concluded that the Drawing interfered with the right of M.C., a first grader, "to be let alone."

{The phrase "All Lives Matter" gained popularity in response to the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement ("BLM"), a social movement protesting violence against Black individuals and communities, with a focus on police brutality. "All Lives Matter" can be seen as an offensive response to BLM because that phrase obscures "the fact that [B]lack people have not yet been included in the idea of 'all lives.'"}

Undoubtedly, B.B.'s intentions were innocent. B.B. testified that she gifted the Drawing to M.C. to make her feel comfortable after her class learned about Martin Luther King Jr. But Tinker does not focus on the speaker's intentions. Rather, it examines the effects of speech on the learning environment and other students, giving deference to school officials' assessments about what speech is acceptable in an educational setting. Such deference to schoolteachers is especially appropriate today, where, increasingly, what is harmful or innocent speech is in the eye of the beholder. Teachers are far better equipped than federal courts at identifying when speech crosses the line from harmless schoolyard banter to impermissible harassment. Here, Becerra concluded that the Drawing, although well-intentioned, fell on the latter side of that line.

A parent might second-guess Becerra's conclusion, but his decision to discipline B.B. belongs to him, not the federal courts. Elementary schoolteachers make thousands of disciplinary decisions on American playgrounds every day. Federal court review of all these decisions would unduly interfere with school administration and overwhelm the judiciary. Regardless of whether Becerra was right or wrong, the decision is his, and this schoolyard disputelike mostdoes not warrant federal court intervention.

This seems to me unconstitutional, even in first grade. One can debate whether the First Amendment should apply to disciplinary decisions by K-12 schools (Justice Black, back in his day, argued it shouldn't, and so has Justice Thomas more recently); one can likewise debate whether it applies in the lowest grades. But the courts have not so held, and the premise of this particular court opinion seems to be that some first-grader speech, if approved of by a federal court, would indeed be protected. (The standards courts have set, which is that speech can be punished if it "materially disrupts classwork," sets a much higher bar that seems to be shown here.)

Rather, the court's view here seems to be that this viewpointsimply because it "can be seen" as dissenting from what some see as the only proper response to racial problemsis stripped of First Amendment protection. The "Black Lives Matter" slogan is accepted as the one orthodoxy, and any perceived dissent from the view that black lives should be specially stressed in this context can be forbidden. Seems quite inconsistent with the Court's conclusion that "In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism."

See the original post here:
"Black Lives Mat[t]er" + "Any Life" Drawing "Not Protected by the First Amendment" in First Grade - Reason

The Advanced Placement (AP) Program, run by the non-profit organizationThe College Board, has issued itsfinal 20242025school year guidelines. The AP African American Studies course has been hotly debated since Florida Governor. and fading candidate for the Republican nominee for President injected himself and decided the previous version would not be taught in Florida because it didnt align with his desires.

In the final version, the AP course makes the teaching of the Black Lives Matter movement optional. At the same time, mandatory learning includes NFL players taking a knee on the sidelines during the National Anthem.Which of these two has had the most impact on American history?The issue of reparations has also been made optional.Both Black Lives Matter and reparations were initially considered Essential Knowledge by the College Board but became optional after pressure from DeSantis and other politicians.

The State of Florida had previously issued its Social Studies Guidelines, including Black History. To its credit, theFlorida guidelinesare surprisingly comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics and individuals yet promoting a theme that makes white people look better and highlighting the activities of white abolitionists, who are the storys heroes.My biggest objection was the repeated reference to natural reproduction, which explains away the fantastic increase in the number of domestic-bred enslaved people instead of properly attributing it to forced breeding and rape.

The public debate between DeSantis and The College Board seemed to presume that the AP Program was proposing a complete and accurate version of Black History while DeSantis wished to gut the program. The new AP version is as disingenuous as was Florida when discussing whatsome historiansrefer to as natural increase and what Florida calls natural reproduction. Heres the only mention of this in the AP guidelines.

Even after the 1808 ban against importing enslaved Africans, the number of enslaved Africans in the United States increased steadily throughout the nineteenth century as children of enslaved people were born into enslavement themselves, such that 4 million Africans remained enslaved in the United States about 50 percent of all enslaved people in the Americas by the time of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The AP program mentions the word rape twice, whereas Florida doesnt mention rape at all. The AP says that some slave women were raped during the Mid-Atlantic Passage and that there were no laws against rape of enslaved women in the country.

Aboard slave ships, Africans were humiliated, beaten, tortured, and raped, and they suffered from widespread disease and malnourishment. About 15 percent of captive Africans perished during the Middle Passage.

Laws against rape did not apply to enslaved African American women.

What both Florida and The College Board are unwilling to say out loud is that not only was a significant foundation of America built on the backs of enslaved people.Americas labor force was increased by forced breeding and rape.Thomas Jefferson ended the International Slave Trade in 1807 as a protectionist measure to increase the value of domestic-bred slaves. Jefferson wrote George Washington explaining that a Black woman having a child every two years was of greater value than any field hand and would increase profits by 4%.

Ill be reviewing the entire 294-page AP Guidelines to see what else they say (and omit) about Black history. Assuming they got it right might have given them too much credit.

This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

***

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community. A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities. A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.

Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.

Photo credit: iStock.com

Continue reading here:
AP Black History Program Makes Discussing Black Lives Matter Optional and Won't Mention Rape - The Good Men Project