Darkness (The Ephrom Josine Show Ep. 150)

A Gift To r/PragerUrine (The Ephrom Josine Show Ep. 146)

The Greatest Pro-Choice Ad Ever Made

Every time I go to write a column I always make sure to go to some of my "favorite" twitter accounts. People like Matt Walsh, Lila Rose, Live Action, and many more just to see what makes them angry (or you could say triggered) just to see how silly it is. Today I stumbled across a pro-choice ad that may just be the greatest case for abortion ever made. 

Matt Walsh called it the most disgusting pro-choice ad he'd ever seen, and other people said other things but I found that to be the funniest. I mean Live Action only called it "tone deaf." I mean come on Live Action! You guys compared abortion to slavery and the holocaust, and the best you got is "tone deaf." The ad has over 4,000 dislikes and less than 100 thumbs-ups. 

Watch it here.

The ad is simple: It shows clips of a baby moving around while lullaby music plays in the background. While this is going on words flash up on the screen. Those words are "she deserves to be loved," "she deserves to be wanted," and "she deserves to be a choice."

I love this ad for one reason: It cuts to the chase. None of this "we care about women and not kids" straw-man pro-lifers love using. Instead we get to see someone finally say "we care about kids more than you do, we just also understand reality better than you."

Unwanted children aren't always loved. This seems like common sense to anyone who isn't in the pro-life movement. Therefore, if you want children to always grow up in a household where they're loved, you must be pro-choice by definition. 

This also answers the one pro-life loaded question they love to phrase in a million different ways. I remember I once heard Dennis Prager ask if someone who is pro-choice would be okay with a homophobic woman aborting a child she knows will be gay. I answer yes. Why? Because homophobic parents of gay kids usually end of causing kids to have mental issues and -- a sad amount of the time -- they end up in the same place they would have if they were aborted with a large amount of suffering in the middle. 

So why are pro-lifers so angry at this ad? Because it hits them where it hurts. The only argument they've ever had is that they have the moral position and the people are seeing through it. 

Double Standards In Politics

Politics is filled with double standards, everyone knows that. It's well established that American politics, especially within the political commentary sphere, is filled wall to wall with hypocrites, hacks, and partisans. Oh my!
However, what no one seems to point out is how many of these double standards seem to benefit the right and put more restrictions on the left. While some of these examples have been talked about before, this column will put it in a new perspective. That being focusing on how Republicans have used these double standards to put the left in a lose-lose situation in order to make it so, no matter what, they are right in more ways than one. Even when it is obvious the right is wrong. 
Here's one of my favorite examples, look at how the new-right has responded to the masterpiece cakeshop incident. Here's how Dave Rubin, in a video with nearly 18 million views, responded when talking about in on Prager"U": 

A government that can force Christians to violate their conscience can force me to violate mine. If a baker won't bake a cake, find another baker, don't demand the state tell him what to do with his private business.

Okay, that's all fine and good but PragerU, the channel that made the video that was just quoted, tried to sue YouTube for restricting some of their videos. Yet no one said "find another website" and "don't demand the state tell YouTube what they do with their private business". 
This puts anyone with a consistent position in a giant lose-lose position that makes it so anyone who disagrees can scream the leftist hates the first amendment. Let's say you agree with Rubin and not with Prager, that means you hate freedom of speech because you don't think YouTube should have to put these videos up. Now let's say that you agree with Dennis and not Rubin, that means you hate freedom of association because you don't think companies should not be able to choose who they serve. 
This isn't even the worst example involving this case. This has been brought up before, but Paul Joseph Watson did the same thing just with more loaded language:

Twitter has suspended know Alt-Right extremist Seven Crowder . . . Censorship of conservatives MUST be addressed by lawmakers.

Vs.

. . . No one should be forced to provide a service. Just as a gay-owned print shop shouldn't be forced to make signs for the Westboro Baptist Church.

Republicans are currently abusing it with the idea of "civility". To be clear: you should be nice to someone you are debating, and of course being rational and not being overly rude is important. However, context is always important. If someone is being, well uncivil, then no reasonable person should have an issue with you being equally as "uncivil" back. 
Remember when Samantha Bee insulted Ivanka Trump? What every conservative news outlet, and even many liberal ones, ignored was that she said that in response to ICE taking kids away from families, which Bee felt was worse. Even then, many said Bee should have been fired.
Compare that to when Donald Trump was also obscene when talking about certain countries. Some supporters, such as Paul Joseph Watson, defended the comments (while censoring it). Others, like A.F. Branco, complained that networks covered it. The largest argument, made by people like Paul, was that the president was telling a "harsh truth" and that people who were against it were just "snowflakes".
Again, this is a clear lose-lose situation. If you are against what Bee said, that means you're against "civility". If you are against what Trump said, that means you just hate "harsh truths". Once again, Republicans publish you for having consistent positions. 
However, if you still have any doubt that political discussion has a right-wing bias, just look at the tactics commonly used by the pro-life movement. Let me show you the perfect example of this. 
Recently, the pro-life group Live Action, one of the most popular anti-Planned Parenthood groups which is widely believed to have leaked many videos on PP (including the recent claims they aid people who commit sexual abuse), posted this image on their official Twitter account:

This isn't even a one-off thing from some small internet group by the way. Jesse Helms, a Republican Senator who even spoke at the 1983 March for Life rally, did the same comparison in his memoir Here's Where I Stand. In this book, he wrote that "[abortion] is indeed another kind of holocaust". 
This is actually very similar to something else, that being the "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign PETA launched in the 2000's. In this campaign PETA put images of meat production next to pictures of death camps and used captions to make it clear they consider them to be the same thing. This campaign was, obviously, hated and is currently one of the most infamous ad campaigns in US history. The other one is considered a perfectly acceptable moral philosophy that people who disagree must consider. Guess which one is more associated with the right and which one is more associated with the left. 
Here's another example, Live Action recently wrote an article on Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, calling her a racist. Here's the preview the organization put on Twitter:

Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger:

Was a eugenicist

So was the person who created fingerprint science. In fact, that person created eugenics. How many articles does have Live Action about how evil fingerprint science is? The answer is 0. 

Spoke to the KKK

 Was that the same KKK that endorsed a certain president of the United States? Despite this Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action, is "very pleased" with Donald Trump. 
They then repeat this point another 4 times without giving any variation. But her point is still valid, Margaret Sanger was a racist. However, it should be noted that Live Action is located in the United States. So if a place is bad because the person or people who found it were racists, what does that make her country? Thomas Jefferson for instance, the author of the Declaration of Independence and 3rd president of the US, owned and raped his slaves. 
While on the topic of Lila specifically, she is one of the prime examples of this. As already established, Lila is a pro-life activist. For instance, recently she posted this:

Children are not the property of adults, nor are they less valuable.

Whether they are teens, pre-adolescents, toddlers, infants, fetuses, or embryos.

Every human at every stage of life has EQUAL dignity.

Abortion is lethal ageism against the most defenseless humans.

This point more or less comes down to "age is only a number", and I can only think of two groups who make that point. One is pro-life activists like Lila, and the other is pedophiles. Yet, for years right-wingers like Rick Santorum and Ben Carson (both of which were Republican presidential candidates during the 2016 election) claimed, with very little push back for a very long time, that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to acceptance and legalization of pedophilia. It should also be noted that both Santorum and Carson are pro-life. Meanwhile, no leftist has ever dared to make the claim that reversing Roe v. Wade will lead to the removal of the age of consent. 
While on the topic let's Roe our boat over to the Supreme Court (Note: We here at Ephrom Report apologize for that pun) and see what Live Action has to say about that. Well, they currently have three articles up hoping whoever Trump picks to fill Kennedy's seat will reverse the most important case on abortion. While even trying to make people who are against that look like the bad guys. 
Don't believe me? Well when, as they reported, "Senator Dianne Feinstein expressed fear that [Amy Coney] Barrett's Catholic faith would lead her to overturn Roe v. Wade" if Trump were to appoint her, Live Action responded with mockery. Saying "Applying a religious test to someone is, of course, unconstitutional" which is true, but so is overturning a court case because of your religious views.
Here's something I would like the readers at home to do. Imagine if, for instance, a Democrat were to appoint a Muslim justice who, due to his religion, was anti-first amendment. Do you think the response Live Action gave above would be even close to the reaction Republicans would give in my situation? Of course not.
But what do I know? I only have eyes, and the ability to understand when someone is being a hypocrite. However, if you think I'm just being bias I request you to go through the article you just read and see how many times I state my opinion on these issues.   

So I Guess Democrats Are Racist, Or Something

So, let's talk about this week. It seems like the Republican party has been spending this entire week making false comparisons with there political enemies. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a new tactic (see Dennis Prager comparing a pedophile preacher to the morally questionable founder of Playboy). It just seems like this is the week all the stars aligned and they decided to find as many reasons to do this as possible. 
Combined with this and the MANY other tactics they use in order to lie, and you get something truly special. Quite possibly the most recent, and yet longest ongoing example, is the idea that the Democratic Party is racist. 
Yeah, this is one that's been going on for a while. It seems that over the past few weeks, Turning Point USA director Candace Owens has been going crazy explaining how Democrats are racist.  

 The next time @RepMaxineWaters @CoryBooker Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton open their mouths to tell us why blacks should align with the Democrats, close your eyes with me and visual: [Shows a picture of Stephen from Django Unchained]

It seems like Candace forgot that liberals are supposed to be the ones always complaining about racism with no proof, as she just accessed 4 people of being racist with no proof. For that matter, I thought liberals who always insulted minorities who didn't agree with them, odd that's exactly what Candace is doing.  
This isn't the only she's done this by the way. Recently, she even went on Prager "U" in order to explain why "playing the black card" angers her so much. This is odd though considering she used to literally go under the name Red Pill Black and aimed to create a channel that would "promote conservativism to a black audience".
Mind you, she doesn't really make any case as to why the Democratic Party is racist in this video, but that may be because Prager has so many other videos on that topic. 
For instance, Carol Swain has made two videos on this topic. One for both the Democratic and Republican party. Of course, very little of it makes any sense:

The Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, opposed Reconstruction, founded the Ku Klux Klan, imposed segregation, perpetrated lynchings, and fought against the civil rights acts of the 1950s and 1960s.

Interesting, now let's look at what Dennis (since he does hire all these people) has to say about how the left views slavery:

The Left’s view is that America was founded by rich white males who were intent on protecting their race, their wealth, and in many cases, their slaves.

So Dennis's view is that the Democratic Party was founded by rich white males who were intent on protecting their race, their wealth, and in many cases, their slaves. But hypocrisy is a virtue so I guess it doesn't matter. 
Here's some of her commentary on the civil rights act:

Eighty percent of Republicans in Congress supported the [Civil Rights Act of 1964]. Less than 70 percent of Democrats did. Democratic senators filibustered the bill for 75 days, until Republicans mustered the few extra votes needed to break the logjam.

Funny how she ignores one of the most important critics of the bill from within the Republican party. Barry Goldwater, who was the Republican nominee in the '64 presidential election, was against the act.
Here's a statement Carol makes that is just weird:

[E]very black representative in the House until 1935 was a Republican. And every black senator until 1979 was, too.

Funny she mentioned the Senate because out of the 3 African American Senators, 1 is black. As for the House, there are 2 incumbent representatives that are both African American and Republican, compared to 41 that are Democrats. If pure numbers mean anything, then it's odd you even brought this up in the first place. 
But okay, let's see the proof Carol has that the Democrats are racist now after all the founders were racist and it would be a virtue to say they're not bad but the Democrats are:

Massive government welfare has decimated the black family. Opposition to school choice has kept them trapped in failing schools.  Politically correct policing has left black neighborhoods defenseless against violent crime.

May I ask how it's not the "bigotry of soft expectations" to say that black people are just going to go on welfare? Also, I thought the left just called everyone they don't like racist, now if you're against school vouchers you're racist. And may I ask how political correctness of all things has caused any impact on violent crimes. 
So to review, Democrats are bad because they were racist a long time ago and America is good even though it was racist a long time ago. I think these people think this makes sense, and like always, they are wrong. 

  

Throwback: Dennis Prager Praises Hypocrisy

Some of you may be familiar with the right-wing radio host/ founder of Prager "University", as well as open supporter of "maybe a man-eating lion" Donald Trump, Dennis Prager. Mainly, how much of a hypocrite he is. 
For instance, how can a man love the free market but at the same time sue YouTube for his failure? How can he say the parties never switched but also say that JFK was a Republican? How can he say he hates crony capitalism but also be for school choice? Well, it turns out his New York Times bestseller (but remember they're biased against him) Think A Second Time explains why. 
You see imminently after the chapter on why people who don't like astrology are wrong because Marxism is worse, oh yeah did I not mention that:

The notion that a planet's location determines events is hardly more absurd than the belief that history is determined by "scientific laws" of dialectical materialism. Every major prediction of Karl Marx has failed to materialize. In fact, the very opposite of what he predicted came about. Yet, despite its lack of rational basis, its unparalleled series of failures, and capitalism's ability to thrive and improve the lots of its working class, many intellectuals continue to believe in Marxism.   

Yeah, this book is kind of weird. But anyway chapter 18 is titled The Virtue of Hypocrisy, it's just as amazing as you would think. 

The end of hypocrisy won't mean that everyone is always living up to moral standards. It will mean that there are no longer moral standards against which people's behavior can be judged hypocritical.

Dennis, you were on thin ice when you called your book Think A Second Time, but this proves it. How does it go? War is peace, freedom is slavery, double standards are the only standards. But maybe I'm being unfair, let's actually look at his reasons:

the televangelist Jim Bakker was labeled as such [a hypocrite] for his sexual encounter with a young devotee. . . Hugh Hefner . . . slept with thousands of young women devotees over the course of a life [and] was never labeled a hypocrite 

The girls Jim Bakker slept with were underage, not just young. Meanwhile, I am unable to find a single story (that isn't from an insane right-wing website) that says that Hugh Hefner slept with anyone before they were the age of consent. What Hefner did (sleep with many young women) may be morally wrong, but what Jim Bakker did was definitely pedophilia. Your example doesn't even make sense, but I'm nice so I'll hear you out. 

Those who don't claim to be religious are rarely judgeable by external standards. Irreligious people therefore can almost never be deemed hypocrites. How can we ever judge them hypocritical when there is no higher standard by which to judge them? 

The standards they themselves have. Now what you need to do is convince people that your standards are the correct ones. Something you seem to try to do considering you have an entire book on how great the 10 commandments are. Shouldn't you not need to do that if you were correct?
But even then, many of your hypocrisies have nothing to do with your religious viewpoint (although you do have many of those). Don't believe, look at the start of this post and notice that none of the hypocrites that I pointed out had anything to do with your views on religion. They had to do with your views on economics, politics, and education, not religion.  

Many people want to do whatever they want and not be judged. Religion doesn't allow for that.

Isn't the whole idea of your political philosophy that people should be able to do whatever they want? You are Mr. "the bigger the government the smaller the citizen" after all. 
But at the same time, I think both Dennis and I can agree that not every principle religion spouts is good (remember, he just said "religion" and not anyone in particular). You have people on PragerU all the time that talk about how bad radical Muslims are (which you are correct on) and yet you talk about how great the vague concept of religion is. This isn't me calling you a hypocrite by the way, that would mean I believe you have standards in the first place. 
I would like to end with this, if you would like to make the case that hypocrisy doesn't make you wrong then that's perfectly fine. However, you instead have to twist that into religious-based nonsense due to you being unable to mask your true intentions. To make a long story short, you're the exact same today as you were 20 years ago because you haven't yourself even really thought a first time, let alone a second.