End of the Week Lies (The Ephrom Josine Show Ep. 144)

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.   

Throwback: My God, Hillary's America Is An Awful Movie

With Donald Trump recently deciding to pardon Republican commentator Dinesh D'Souza, and I wanted to write an article about him. At first, I was going to do a throwback on some chapters from his book Letters To a Young Conservative, but I was unable to get a full copy in time. If I ever do, I promise I will do something related to that book. 
However, then I remembered a review I wrote of his film Hillary's America a while back. You see, I use to want to be a film reviewer and even did a few on Blogspot back in the day. This is one I never published and only had on a google docs page for quite a while. I figured in honor of both the recent news and Dinesh making a new movie, I should release it to the public.The only edits I've made is to do things like improving the grammar in order to make it readable, otherwise, it's in its original state, as well as to make it fit better for Blogspot. I should also warn you, it's a little long and not the best. So enjoy. 

Hillary’s America is a 2016 “documentary” made by conservative filmmaker and author Dinesh D’Souza. Upon its release, it has been somewhat of a milestone in the documentary genre. For instance, it was the first documentary to win a golden raspberry award for worst picture. I decided, out of pure curiosity, to subject myself to this film and what I found was a goldmine of complete nonsense.

I think the best way to get an idea of what a film is like is just talking about how it begins. After all the start of a film is by definition what your audience is supposed to see first so many filmmakers use it as a chance to put there best foot forward. This movie, for instance, starts with people in a choir singing about happy days [the exact lyrics are “happy days are here again”] while we see the camera go back to the democratic party logo [the donkey one] as a string puppet. Cut to an animated segment of many infamous people in the Democratic party in a surprisingly decent, if not kind of weird [oh who am I kidding, very weird] scene.
The visuals in this movie are actually a great example of how dishonest Dinesh can be. Seeing as this is a “documentary” that talks about things from as far back as the 1800’s it was understandable Dinesh was unable to get recordings of it. Due to this a lot of times when Dinesh is talking he puts on footage of some of his friends acting out the events in question. This I don’t have an issue with as I see why Dinesh would do it [he doesn’t want a large chunk of the movie to be just him talking over pictures of people] and he doesn’t try to pass it off as real.
It’s when he does that I do have a problem, such as when he finds a secret room in the DNC containing pictures of [and even slave chains from] famous racist democrats. Or at the start of the movie when he’s in jail and he does things like read a book with a flashlight when everyone is supposed to be asleep.
Oh yeah, Dinesh starts the movie in jail. This is how he puts what he was convicted off at the beginning [and I mean the first time we hear his voice] of the film:

It all began when the Obama administration tried to shut me up

 Whoa, those are some big claims, it would be a shame if that was a downright lie. What actually happened was Dinesh was found guilty of breaking campaign finance laws that had existed long before Obama. He also took a plea deal which is odd because if he was innocent why would he say he was guilty? For that matter, how do you even violate campaign finance laws post Citizens United Vs. FEC?
But no instead, Dinesh is convinced it’s because his previous film, 2016: Obama’s America, was just so right the Obama administration couldn’t handle it. I guess his predictions were so accurate and showed how bad Democrats are and how great Republicans are that the movie had to be censored by not trying to restrict it in any way. I’m sure you don’t need to be convinced but here’s what the crystal ball himself said he knew was going to happen.
1. Obama deliberately reducing America’s power in the world or weakening our military. Funny he can’t give one example of Obama releasing a budget that cuts military spending, but still. For the record, here’s a graph of military spending by country from the same year this movie came out:

 2-Obama will weaken our allies and strengthen our enemies. The examples Dinesh uses specifically are Iran and Cuba. What Dinesh seems to leave out is we are enemies with these countries because we installed and supported dictators [The Shah and Fulgencio Batista respectably]. But even then remember that graph I just showed you, try to find either Iran or Cuba on it.
3-He will put major industries under government control. Like that time he forced all airplanes to have scanners and, no wait that was George W. Bush. I know, he means Obamacare, just couldn’t resist.
As for Obamacare, it kept the private health insurance industry intact. It forced people to pay a fine if they didn’t have private healthcare, how is that bringing it under government control? Plus it was a Republican plan for decades. Nixon came up with it, Senate Majority Leader and Republican Presidential Nominee Bob Dole proposed it in 1996, Mitt Romney passed it as governor in 2004, The conservative Heritage Foundation wrote papers about how great it was, and both Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senator Chuck Grassley supported it. But a Democrat passed it so I guess it’s bad now.
He also mentions Dodd-Frank, which was weak when compared to Glass Steagall which it was trying to restore.
4-Obama will double the national debt. This one I was surprised by because if Dinesh wanted someone who would cut the deficit he should be praising Bill Clinton, the last president to balance the federal budget. I think Dinesh may have heard of him considering his wife is in the name of the movie.
5-He will slash defense spending. This was kind of hard to do while both doubling the debt and still having the largest military in the world but he found a way.
So Dinesh goes to jail and brings up politics with convicted felons who are obviously the type of people that regularly engage in politics. Of course, because they are bad people, they are Democrats. It’s so bad that when they see Hillary Clinton announce she’s running for president they all start clapping [as totally happened in reality by the way].
However while in jail Dinesh learns everything he needs to know about cons. Which leads to Dinesh finding out the true con artists, you see where this is going.

It is at this point of the film Dinesh starts his main case, around a half-hour in. That the democratic party was, and still is, the party of racism.

For instance, Dinesh goes after how both the first democratic president and founder of the democratic party owned slaves. With that in mind I’m sure Dinesh hates these following people just as much:

-Benjamin Franklin

-John Hancock

-Thomas Jefferson

-James Madison

-George Washington
Considering that everything these people did for this country while being huge racists, I assume Dinesh considers the US to be a racist nation.
To be clear, I’m not defending slavery. I’m saying that at one point it was considered morally acceptable and sometimes people who change the world fall into the trap of not questioning their society in every way. I don’t hold it over the head of Andrew Jackson for owning slaves for the same reason I don’t hold it over the head of many of the founders.
Plus the last president to own slaves wasn’t a Democrat. It was the 2nd Republican president, Ulysses S. Grant who did own a slave from 1857 to 1859. Do I hold that over the heads of the Republican party? Of course not, it was at a time when that was okay.  
To give you an idea of how ignorant what Dinesh is arguing is, the idea that as time goes on people change, I figured we should jump ahead 100 years. After all, if nothing ever changed within the Republican party I should be able to look at say, the 1956 platform, and see no difference between that and the quotes and stories of major Republicans or ones who had been in office recently.

We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.-1956 Republican platform

Republicans believe the best way to assure prosperity is to generate more jobs. The Democrats believe in more Welfare- Ronald Reagan

We shall continue vigorously to support the United Nations.-1956 Republican Platform

Trump budget seeks 37% reduction in UN’s peacekeeping funds-Bloomberg

Procedural changes in the antitrust laws to facilitate their enforcement-1956 Republican Platform

 The Republican promise is for … less regulations-Rand Paul 

 I think you get the idea, people change with time.
So you may be wondering why, throughout this review, I haven’t really talked much about Hillary Clinton. Well despite the movie being called Hillary’s America the movie doesn’t really talk about Hillary Clinton. It takes him over an hour to really get into her, and as for his points, what do you expect. No seriously, what do you expect? Rather it be because of all the points he’s made at this point or because you’ve heard all the points since the 90’s, what do you expect?
Okay, there’s one other thing I feel like needs to be mentioned, that’s his nonsense attack on Planned Parenthood.

First Dinesh goes after the fact that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a racist. Mind you [as far as I’m aware at least] Sanger never owned slaves meaning [by Dinesh’s own logic] Planned Parenthood is still better than the United States.
The other point he has is the infamous racist call in which someone asks Planned Parenthood could be used specifically to perform abortions on a minority. Now let’s ignore that this call led to a paranoid man shooting up a Planned Parenthood, we shouldn’t but we will. Let me show you the problem with complaining about this and instead of making it a Planned Parenthood we’ll make it a Pizza Hut.

Employee: Thank you for ordering Pizza Hut, may I take your order

Customer:Yes I would like a meat lovers pizza with extra cheese, some crazy bread, and sauce.

Employee:Anything else?

Customer: Yes, can I make sure my money only goes to white people?

Let’s say you say yes

Employee:Sure

Customer:Okay great

Now let’s say you say no

Employee: No

Customer: Well then never mind and I’m never ordering here again. I don't support white genocide.

As a result, of this person just lost a customer as well as lost the money of the person in question. This could also get someone fired since they just may have also caused a boycott. With that in mind, I think I see why Planned Parenthood put up with a racist caller.