136 Comments

"Media trust hits new low. And here's why that's a good thing, according to philanthropy expert Bill Gates."

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wow mr obsequious, that's a major scoop! do you work at the new york times or something?

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In United States, New York Times works at you.

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It does my heart so good to see people still appreciate a good Russian Reversal joke.

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Chief lobotomizer

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What not "world public health expert" Gates? Why do you hate experts?

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I seldom agree with Gates but if he said low trust in media is a good thing, I have to agree. There is no basis for trust and SHOULD BE NO EXPECTATION that the media is trustworthy. Wake up kids. If you want information go to primary sources. Yeah, you have to work a little bit. If you want entertainment, pick the "news" source that makes you feel good. The more people realize that, the better!

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According to the "Worlds most powerful doctor" I think you'll find.........

Says Goolag.

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I think you'll find that's 'vaccine expert'.

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Do a goolag search for "worlds most powerful doctor".

It's goolag. Why would they lie?

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That *is* a good thing! The more skeptical people become about the mechanisms used to menticide them, the better.

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Reminds me of that WEFite woman giving the speech lamenting that, despite all the trust global elites (a phrase the midwit used without a trace of irony) had developed in one another, in every single country in the world in which the WEF had its tentacles trust by the people in their elites had plummeted.

Which if they weren't idiots would be obvious to them. You don't get to simultaneously be a member of the elite of one tribe, and a member of a 'global elite' with no allegiance to any tribe but the global elite. Sorry, doesn't work that way. Make that choice, pay the price: you're no longer the elite of the local tribe, you're a foreign occupier and will be treated as such by the locals.

Similarly, the media doesn't get to simultaneously be a trusted organ of information dissemination and a propaganda mouthpiece used for social engineering and psychological manipulation. Want to do the latter? The price is that no one will trust you.

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As I've aged I have found it more and more difficult to differentiate arrogance from idiocy. I was going to say the global elites who seem confused are not idiots so much as they are profoundly and blindingly arrogant. They are so certain of their superiority that they fail to see reality. But I've learned such arrogance is debilitating and blocks learning. Which means their ignorance cannot be cured. Which, by my Grandma's definition of the difference between ignorant and stupid (ignorant can be cured with knowledge), they're idiots.

QED

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It's quite possible that some of what we at first label "idiocy" is, in fact, coerced behavior. To be fair, a lot of it probably really IS stupidity, but perhaps not always.

See my lengthy post above. Rehash: Some conspiracy connoisseurs basically think that many in powerful positions (e.g. high court Justices, President, key Senators and Congressmen, others in high positions, not just government but corporate, etc.) are basically blackmailed or otherwise coerced to act in certain ways. The implication is that hidden power(s) have incriminating information or other powers (e.g. extortion) over the people (supposedly) in power. This is certainly plausible, but of course rather difficult to prove. Of course it is likely that much bad behavior of officials is explained by greed or pride. But there always seem to be some cases where people that usually act in predictable ways, or used to, no longer seem to. Or perhaps they just occasionally make a decision that seems to go against all rationality, or against their grain.

Hidden powers, the proverbial Puppeteer pulling strings, would explain a lot of the aberrant behaviors. Not sure what if anything we can do about it, other than weave further conspiracy theories.

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The coercion need not be complex nor particularly hidden. This is the power of political parties. The "power" can be as simple as "you want to get elected you need our money". Same for appointments: follow the coaches direction or get pulled form the game. In my experience in academic and industrial science, money is the controlling factor also: it all depends on funding. I learned this as an undergrad doing grunt data analysis for a bio professor who instructed me to "do it again" when my results were not matching the desired outcome. All data that did not support the needed outcome were "outliers" and discarded. Continued funding required it.

I've heard "rogue scientists" speak out against the principle of "everybody knows" and in every case it is someone speaking from a position no longer dependent upon the institutions (government, Google, et al) for funding. Or speaking on a forum such as this where true thoughts can be exposed semi-anonymously.

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I think it is best summed up in the term ‘Fatal Conceit of Technocracy’ coined by Nobel Laureate F A Hayek inspired by Adam Smiths book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and his scathing critique of what we now call ‘scientific socialism’.

Here’s the great man Smith in his own words:

“The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it.

He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.

If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.”

Hayek was saying that all knowledge is local, nobody can know it all. But the Fatal Conceit is in those who believe they have all the knowledge of a very complex society and economy to enable them to determine and plan best outcome and control society/economy to the end they have predetermined.

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It's a rabbit hole better suited for spy novels or espionage movies, but consider these possibilities. Just for argument's sake, consider that the Hunter Biden laptop is "real." Similarly, consider that multiple other potentially compromising and incriminating types of evidence exist. The type that could put a man in prison for the rest of his life. Or just ruin a career in business, politics, any field. Imagine you are a career intelligence or other officer in our government and one such piece of evidence falls into your lap, whether through your normal surveillance, or via other methods. What do you do with it? Even if you try to play by the rules, imagine the horrifying political pressure you are now under. There will likely be multiple factions vying for power. Whose "team" are you on? Are these super secret agencies with vast powers, legal and otherwise, really impartial? How could such radioactive intelligence ever be treated? Just imagine the colossal pressure from one quarter to "disappear" the intelligence -- what seems to have happened to the Hunter Laptop, at least according to recent testimony in Congress, perhaps to deny it ever existed, or else to hold it in reserve so that Faction A will have a bargaining chip against Faction B. Crucial point: "Impartial" doesn't exist in this rarefied and "above Top Secret" atmosphere!

All the above is speculation, of course. Or is it? Remember the curious death of Jeffrey Epstein three years ago? Who was he working for? Some faction in "our" government? Israel? Both? Neither? Conjecture: multiple high officials in our government: elected, appointed, judicial, executive branch, are under various types of blackmail/extortion/threats. They are expected to vote, to appoint, to rule upon matters, in certain ways that are explicitly, or perhaps usually just implicitly, laid down by shadowy powers behind the scenes. Powers that hold that incriminating evidence over their heads.

Given all the very odd decisions and behaviors of various government, corporate and other individuals over the years, isn't it likely that at least some of the above is ongoing? Just how deep does the rot go? Will we ever really know?

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You really have illustrated the reason the laptop repairman made at least one copy. He saw the stuff on the computer and turned it over to the FBI. After hearing nothing and waiting quite some time (a year+), he gave a copy of the hard drive to Giuliani. We don't know if any other copies were released.

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Oh John, they're no idiots, they are just so much up in their estimates of their own superiority, above all the rest that, they lost the sense of real world. They exist in some kind parallel reality and see things through their very own, "very elite" perception. You watch them talk and it is as if they are some sort of superior alien race from space, on a divine mission to rule us. They believe in it. In truth they're dangerous psychopaths that should be removed but can not be, because money, still, means power here, on our beautiful planet.

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Well put, and there's no doubt they are dangerous and delusional psychopaths, and that many of them are highly capable. Many of them, however, are fumbling morons. For proof, I point to the current occupants of the White House. A less impressive group has never graced its grounds. Now, the White House is not really running things to be sure; but if they weren't running low on competent minions, would they really have chosen that group of buffoons?

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Love your alias name!

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A man of taste and discrimination, I see. Come on over to my palace on Barsoom, I'll show you a good time.

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Extraterrestrial a alert.

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Nah man, I'm as human as the next guy. That's my gf you're thinking of.

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Isn’t she from Venus?

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‘Global elite’ = Neo-aristocracy.

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what happens when they are the only source and there is no alternative?

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Well... you read Gatito Malo...

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How long before it's banned as harmful hate speech?

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Exactly what happened to him over at Twitter.

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Well right now my “friends” have no excuse. I found substack and a bunch of other links with VERY little help. While they ARE being belittled by “factcheckers”

And put at the lower regions sometimes by certain search engines, you CAN still find the information. PEOPle are being willfully blind. But I get it too, they aren’t seeing it out in the open. One does have to search for it.

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That is detailed well in history. Or read Orwell.

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I trust the media. I take the exact opposite of what is said and know I have the truth.

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I use it more as a prompt to go find out what's really going on.

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The Babylon Bee saves you a step in finding the truth. :-)

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And they can be as much as six months ahead of the lamestream...

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Bingo!

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The ultimate truths are what is being censored.

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Now that’s the way to do it !!

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"Why don't you trust me when I tell you the food is safe to eat? I specifically mentioned it contains no cyanide."

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Oh Wesley, cyanide is so... yesterday. OK to squirrel away in your shoe unbeknownst to your captors, but far more sophisticated agents are available these days. Just ask the Russian secret services...

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You mean ask the Clintons?

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(Be careful what you say...) 😎

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"Trust in traditional media has declined to an all-time low, and many news professionals are determined to do something about it. Why it matters: Faith in society's central institutions, especially in government and the media, is the glue that holds society together."

BARF! Their love affair with themselves knows no bounds!

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The glue that holds *their* cloistered, isolated society together.

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They of absolutely zero self-awareness.

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Interesting that the use the word 'faith' - the hope of things unseen.

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Actually I thought that quote pretty much summed up the problem.

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Obviously the work of racist white supremacist homophobic Islamophobes working night and day in sweaty basements covered in swastika flags, toiling ceaselessly to undo all the good deeds done by mainstream media to earn the public faith.

Damn them. Who knew it would be so easy for them to subvert such a virtuous bedrock of our democracy?

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I don't pay much attention to mass media if I'm honest. Most times when I read a media story on a topic with which I am familiar, they get it mostly wrong. Thus I've assumed over the years they are as accurate on topics with which I have no knowledge.

Over the last couple years I've been fact checking the "fact checkers". Almost without exception, I have found nothing factual in fact checking sites. Facebook recently admitted publicly that their "fact checkers" are not factual but enforcing their editorial policy. In many cases he "fact check" finding is based on a platform of false premise, and often even misquoting the source being "checked".

Why should we expect otherwise? Media exists to promote a political view. Read our history, the context in which the first amendment was written. "The press" was not there to inform, it was there to influence. The notion of a press free from government oversight and dictate was meant to preserve the tools to oppose the government without suppression. Take the entire package: Freedom to assemble, free press, right to bear arms. The nation had completed a revolution against the crown. Most of the first 10 articles of amendment address specific tactics used by the Crown to suppress colonial opposition and prevent independence. Those folks wanted to restrict the new government from using the same tactics.

Media "fact checkers" are by and large a fraud. Protected by the right to lie.

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'If it bleeds, it leads....' tells you all you need to know about most of the MSM.

Rare occasions when I've been proximate to a reported 'event' have shown me that a good headline is more important that a factual account.

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And trust in government even lower. Are we keeping things family friendly around here? haha

https://twitter.com/KayLaframboise/status/1514641105207369731

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My kindergartener learns about PornHub as part of his state-designed curriculum, why are you such a reactionary

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Hahahaha

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Not their fault! mistake 'out of their control' hardly an apology.

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Just as a Federal Judge (finally) threw out Biden's airline mask mandate. Perhaps the Clown Show is officially on its way out of town.

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Really? When? I just booked a flight for week after next and the airline site still says masks are required. It sure would be nice to skip that silliness!

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Not sure when the mask will be dropped. I am sure there is lots of confusion going on in airports and airplanes as we speak.....Jen Psaki and WH is "concerned" over the ruling I don't think that woman has an ounce of decency!

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I thought she quit... bad pennies just keep turning up.

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Both have red heads! So does something else, but I'll keep it polite for now 🤪

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'An ounce' of decency would be a superabundance anywhere near the seat of government.

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It'll take the airlines a while to catch up to reality.

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They're 'flying by the seat of their masks'.

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I just did a quick Google search on the Federal Judge throwing out the mask mandate on airplanes and so far only Forbes reported it

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THANK YOU for posting the ruling!

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Ah, Thanks!

I tend to ignore "news" sources that do not provide links to the decisions, or legislation on which they are reporting.

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This from the local paper popped up in my feeds. It's an AP article, so it ought to show up elsewhere as well:

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/federal-judge-strikes-down-cdcs-mask-mandate-for-travel-2562931/

Good news, especially for a town as dependent on tourism as is Las Vegas.

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If it's a AP story it is probably wrong. You can tell by the "a Trump appointee" that it is AP. But, if we take it on face value (which I wont, I'll go find the court record of the decision), I find the "did not follow the rulemaking process properly" point a "DOH!". The CDC did not follow the rule making process AT ALL. There was no public notice, public comment, reply comments, etc. There was no rule making process. Just edicts.

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DOH! indeed. The amazing thing is that it took this long for due process to finally bring them to their senses... amazing. Just goes to show the arrogance that is the inevitable consequence of blind, unabashed power.

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Thank you for the article…..there has been considerable more news in the last hour

Good news for all of us!!!

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That judge is not likely to receive much preferment under Sniffer Joe's regime.

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True, sadly. Already being painted as a Trump era insurrectionist.

When in fact it is the administration who screwed up by not following the process every agency that makes regulation is bound by law to follow.

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I hope it takes our Canadian baby elephants with it

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And trust in Gas Station Sushi continues to outperform CNN News too 😂😂😂😂

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Good one! 🤣

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Give the bloke some credit. It's not every politician who'd stoop to refuelling a car owned by a completely unconnected pleb.

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I still believe Donald Trump is a Russian agent. Don’t you?

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Oh, and Hunter’s laptop is just Russian disinformation, of course.

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Also, no one ever tries to cheat in American elections.

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'Hanging chads' are just so last decade's physical leftovers. Electoral fraud has been revolutionised in the interim.

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The law of averages implies that given enough FBI investigations, ONE of them will succeed, so by this logic, everyone can be proven to be a Russian agent.

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Just recently, Mrs Dee has been giving me some funny looks, so you may be right.

Serves me right for doing two years of Russian Language at grammar school, although back then I had not realised just how compromising it would prove.

Since I also studied Latin, am I likely to visit violence on the bodies of putative dictators every mid-March? Thus far, I have manage to resist.

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I come not to cry, "let's go Brandon," but to bury him.

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luckily we got Sharyl Attkisson, Epoch News, the Expose and a lot of Substackers who keep us updated !

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Written by Axios, one of the outlets to distrust. They are desensitized to the smell of their own bullshit and can’t understand why we don’t like the smell.

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If you live in a midden, you tend not to be too particular about the pong. If you're just strolling by, the opposite applies.

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Do you KNOW how many times I've been in Zuckjail for 30 days at a time over the last year alone??? None of it offensive (well, maybe one. I let them have that one) but their algorithms don't know any different. Ridiculous.

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It is an honor to be in Zuckjail. I have only been jailed once and only for 24 hours. I am shamed by my poor performance but bow to your mastery and hope one day to reach your level.

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@Sophia- I'm dying.... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

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There's a randomness factor, you just need to keep at it. My buddy doesn't post anything controversial, mostly cool bird photos (a hobby). He got the fb-jail for weeks without even knowing why.

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I think people who are hubs of influence are more likely to have problems (although I might be wrong.) I don't have too many Facebook contacts, so they aren't too worried about me.

"...you just need to keep at it." Yup, I keep on keeping on! :)

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p.s.: He is a believer too - a formerly healthy guy who got a shiny new stent in his heart a couple of months ago, post vax.

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Husband was finally cleared last week by the cardiologist from his stint with myocarditis, post vax

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Never done Zuck, never been in Zuckjail.

I'm still puzzled by the hairstyles adopted by those who could easily afford decent barbers. What do they spend their money on?

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LOL!!!!

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Dominating the masses? Maybe they can't find barbers on their moral high ground ;-)

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I haven't managed it yet. I keep trying.

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@Tiok- to get busted and be a guest of Zuckerberg? Use a trigger word. They'll get you for 24 hours to start then after that they'll watch everything you type.

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Shocking! How could that happen? We all know that the media have only our best interests at heart and only provide us with objective and truthful reporting! Right?

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Remember the original CNN tag line? "All the news you need to know"

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One could also easily write "Fact Checker trust hits new low."

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