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Conservative Filmmakers Start To Fight Back

Conservative Filmmakers Start To Fight Back

Authored by Christian Toto via RealClearInvestigations,

A documentary film about an African American lawyer who rose from poverty and oppression in the Deep South to the highest court in the land..

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Conservative Filmmakers Start To Fight Back

Authored by Christian Toto via RealClearInvestigations,

A documentary film about an African American lawyer who rose from poverty and oppression in the Deep South to the highest court in the land would seem a natural for Black History Month. Yet, in February, at the very time its Prime Video service was featuring films highlighting black history makers, Amazon without explanation stopped offering digital streams of “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.” 

While the film was pulled despite having at one time reached No. 1 on Amazon’s documentary charts, the world’s largest online retailer continued to make available streams of less-popular documentaries, including a favorable one on Anita Hill, the former Thomas colleague who nearly derailed his Supreme Court confirmation.

Amazon initially refused to carry this film challenging the liberal narrative about the 2014 shooting in Ferguson, Mo., which helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. 

That was frustrating to Michael Pack, writer-director of “Created Equal” and a documentary filmmaker for decades. But it was no surprise to him and the small but growing cadre of other conservative documentarians, who say they face obstacles because of their politics and are starting to fight back against the long odds of "cancel culture." Black conservative scholar Shelby Steele saw Amazon initially refuse to carry his documentary “What Killed Michael Brown?” last year because it challenged the liberal narrative about the 2014 shooting in Ferguson, Mo., that helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. Amazon, which relented after a public outcry, did not respond to a request for comment.

Justin Folk, director of “No Safe Spaces,” which focuses on college-based attacks on free speech and features prominent liberals including Dr. Cornel West and Van Jones, along with conservatives such as Dennis Prager, Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro, said he had a hard time finding a traditional distributor for his documentary because Hollywood saw the film as conservative.

“Despite having big names in our film, a big audience, and a very relevant topic, we were mostly ignored,” said Folk, who said his film, which eventually grossed $1.3 million, was rejected by the prestigious Telluride Film Festival. “In one case, a major distributor actually admitted to us that they think our film is a winner but they can’t get behind it because Dennis Prager is in it.”

Conservative filmmakers faced little discrimination in the past because there were so few of them. That started to change in 2012, when conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza’s “2016: Obama’s America” became the second-highest-grossing political documentary of all time ($33 million).

The years since have been a golden age for documentaries. Streaming services such as Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu have created major distribution channels, matching content with massive, algorithmically targeted audiences. This, in turn, has led to explosive growth in filmmaking. Documentaries that in the past might never have seen the light of day -- since their economic viability would be tied to packing movie houses -- can flourish today, particularly lately with people more homebound due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Typically it was liberal activists, not conservative polemicists like D’Souza, who made documentaries. As Thom Powers, who runs America's largest documentary festival, DOC NYC, told CBS News, the best documentaries try to make a difference. “There have been films that have gotten people out of prison, like the 'Paradise Lost' series, or Errol Morris' 'Thin Blue Line.' 'Super Size Me' totally changed the conversation around fast food. 'Inconvenient Truth' totally changed the conversation around climate change. So all over the world, you can see documentaries having an effect.”

But the idea of “making a difference” has generally trended in one direction politically, illustrated lately by Barack and Michelle Obama's film production deal with Netflix, which has already yielded a best documentary Oscar. Virtually ignored is an underserved niche in the market. “More than 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump in the November election,” the Hollywood Reporter noted in a March 11 story. “And, at the moment, there's little Hollywood content that directly appeals to them. That leaves a big opening for those willing to risk ostracization from the rest of the industry.”

Industry support is crucial because it helps in raising money, in earning film festival slots to persuade a distributor to get a film in front of an audience, and enticing journalistic outlets to cover and review it.

“If you’re on the left, there’s a whole infrastructure that enables you to make things very easily,” said D’Souza, who illustrated his point by citing what he calls the “charmed life” of left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore. Each new Moore film is considered a pop-culture moment. They are featured at the top festivals, where they often win prizes – to go along with his Oscar for “Bowling for Columbine.”

“He’s on the ‘Today’ show and ‘The View.’ … There’s a whole apparatus of publicity in place,” D’Souza added.

D’Souza has succeeded without enjoying such support. But he said the odds against conservatives have worsened in recent years because of suppression by both Big Tech and woke corporations. His 2020 film, “Trump Card,” scrapped its planned theatrical release for a video-on-demand slate due to COVID-19, but the hurdles didn’t stop there.

“The radioactive connection wasn’t me, but Trump,” D’Souza says. “Trump Card” hit video-on-demand services several weeks before the 2020 presidential election, by design. D’Souza says Amazon placed a large order of “Trump Card” DVDs, which his company met. But some Amazon customers were told the product was “out of stock” and wouldn’t be delivered until after Election Day.

“I’m not used to these kinds of obstacles,” he says. “I never thought of Amazon as a left-wing company.” He’s changed that view after seeing it take part in a concerted takedown of Twitter alternative Parler as well as it removing books such as “When Harry Became Sally,” which criticized elements of the trans movement.

“What Killed Michael Brown?,” produced by filmmaker Eli Steele in tandem with father Shelby, faced similar discrimination. Amazon initially rejected the handsomely mounted, jazz-filled work, saying it didn’t meet the streaming giant’s quality standards and that no appeal would be heard. That news brought attention from the Wall Street Journal editorial page and other media outlets, and Amazon quickly reversed course. Eli Steele says that opened his eyes to how much sway Amazon holds over the film marketplace.

“The numbers between Amazon and other platforms are not even comparable,” Steele says of its sizable audience reach. He says most film festivals “lack the backbone to show perspectives outside of their echo chambers,” but he doesn’t want ideological diversity to be forced into the current system.

“Anyone can start their own film festival and they program it however they wish,” he says. “So why not plan a prestigious film festival that crosses all sorts of lines and invites healthy dialogue and debate?”

The conservative film sub-genre is attracting some unlikely participants. Radio talk show host Larry Elder made a splash in 2020 with “Uncle Tom,” a documentary letting black conservatives like him share their views and discuss how they’re treated by select liberals. The title captures the latter sentiment.

Elder, a best-selling author and nationally syndicated talk show host, says right-leaning documentaries often turn to private sources, like affluent Republicans, to fund their work. His film got little attention outside of conservative outlets at a time when the media invested heavily in telling black stories by black creators. 

“It was ignored by the Hollywood ‘we want diversity’ community, including all the film reviewers of the major newspapers and trade publications like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter,” says Elder, who co-wrote, co-produced and appears in the film. “Uncle Tom” boasts only three official reviews at RottenTomatoes.com, and no critics'-average "Tomatometer" score, in contrast with a robust 96% “fresh” rating from users.

Neither The Hollywood Reporter nor Variety would comment on the matter.

Yet none of that stopped Elder’s documentary from turning a tidy profit. The film's virtual opening weekend last June grossed $400,000. Elder notes the film quickly recouped its costs and ended up earning multiples of its budget of some $450,000 including post-production. It helped that Elder has a hearty social media presence – 859,000 followers on Twitter alone -- along with a syndicated radio show to promote the project.

Its commercial success was also aided by the development of alternative distribution platforms, showing that markets can punish discrimination, and that discrimination may serve as the mother of innovation.

Initially, "Uncle Tom” was sold exclusively through a partnership with SalemNOW, part of the conservative media company that distributes Elder's radio show. Following that 70-day exclusive with SalemNOW, the film’s website (UncleTom.com) became the primary sales location, with additional platforms added over the ensuing few months, including iTunes, Amazon and, later, Amazon Prime.

Elder says his team unsuccessfully approached Netflix about carrying “Uncle Tom,” a platform that features a crush of original, left-leaning documentaries including “13th” and “Miss Americana,” a film that honored Taylor Swift’s progressive awakening.

The team behind the film didn’t submit it to most major film festivals, save for the boutique USA Film Festival in Dallas. The documentary’s conservative bent helped shape that decision, as did restrictions in place from the ongoing pandemic. 

RealClearInvestigations reached out to multiple documentary groups for comment on this story, including DOC NYC, the Southern Documentary Fund, the Center for Independent Documentary, Docs in Progress and the International Documentary Association. None responded to those queries. Neither did several major film festivals, including Sundance, Telluride, Slamdance and the Toronto International Film Festival.

Other conservative filmmakers are going outside traditional channels. SalemNOW began streaming Pack’s “Created Equal” on March 30 in response to Amazon’s decision to pull the film. (It's listed on Amazon as a DVD but often out of stock.) Christopher Rufo has used YouTube to distribute his short films, including “Chaos by the Bay: The Truth About Homelessness in San Francisco” and “Mob Rule in Seattle.”

“I can immediately inject it into the bloodstream of the national conversation,” Rufo said. But, he added, coming out as a right-leaning storyteller in the documentary field is “complete poison to your career.”

“People tell me, ‘You’re now conservative. I can’t even work with you,’” says Rufo, who adds documentary organizations that once collaborated with him suddenly stopped returning his calls. “It’s kind of shocking. … They can’t even process how anyone would have another opinion.”

Documentary producer Nadia Gill of Encompass Films noted the industry’s allegiance to identity politics in a recent column for Persuasion.com:

First-hand experience of a subject has always been considered helpful in documentary filmmaking. But this has traditionally been a genre in which creators are free to engage with material that lies far beyond the boundaries of their own lives. Now, during the entire process — from access to financing and distribution — the filmmaker’s identity is at least as closely scrutinized as that person’s filmmaking aptitude.

Gill, who describes her political philosophy as “center left,” says modern documentaries can be broken down into two categories – classic and commercial, the latter fueled in part by Netflix’s robust documentary lineup. The former, Gill says, isn’t just liberal in nature but “fringe left,” while the commercial market offers some room for right-of-center storytelling. Either way, conservative documentaries rarely grace the film festival circuit.

“The vast majority of submissions [to film festivals] are, in fact, going to be from the left perspective,” she says. “It would be good for our industry to hear those voices [from the right] … and have an honest conversation.”

That won’t happen unless more independent funders show up to support this brand of art. Left-of-center storytellers can lean on a variety sources, including the Ford Foundation (2017’s “Whose Streets?”) and the MacArthur Foundation (2010’s “How Democracy Works Now”) to finance their work, Gill says.

“Progressive institutions have set themselves up for years to make these films,” she says. So far, few non-left groups have copied that approach.

Amanda Milius agrees. “The donor class of the right has to start acting like the donor class of the left,” says Milius, director of the 2020 documentary "The Plot Against the President," based on the book of the same title by Lee Smith, a freelance contributor to RealClearInvestigations. “Put that money into issue-based culture … and creators that hold the same values you do. Make something that lives forever.”

“You’re probably gonna make your money back and more,” she adds, “plus, you’re investing in actual change of the culture.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 04/10/2021 - 21:00

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat"…

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat" to the health of the US population - a sharp decline from a high of 67% in July 2020.

(SARMDY/Shutterstock)

What's more, the Pew Research Center survey conducted from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that just 10% of Americans are concerned that they will  catch the disease and require hospitalization.

"This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health," reads the report, which was published March 7.

According to the survey, half of the participants understand the significance of researchers and healthcare providers in understanding and treating long COVID - however 27% of participants consider this issue less important, while 22% of Americans are unaware of long COVID.

What's more, while Democrats were far more worried than Republicans in the past, that gap has narrowed significantly.

"In the pandemic’s first year, Democrats were routinely about 40 points more likely than Republicans to view the coronavirus as a major threat to the health of the U.S. population. This gap has waned as overall levels of concern have fallen," reads the report.

More via the Epoch Times;

The survey found that three in ten Democrats under 50 have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older.

Moreover, 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine, while only 24 percent of Republicans ages 65 and older have done so.

“This 42-point partisan gap is much wider now than at other points since the start of the outbreak. For instance, in August 2021, 93 percent of older Democrats and 78 percent of older Republicans said they had received all the shots needed to be fully vaccinated (a 15-point gap),” it noted.

COVID-19 No Longer an Emergency

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued its updated recommendations for the virus, which no longer require people to stay home for five days after testing positive for COVID-19.

The updated guidance recommends that people who contracted a respiratory virus stay home, and they can resume normal activities when their symptoms improve overall and their fever subsides for 24 hours without medication.

“We still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses, this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick,” CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.

The CDC said that while the virus remains a threat, it is now less likely to cause severe illness because of widespread immunity and improved tools to prevent and treat the disease.

Importantly, states and countries that have already adjusted recommended isolation times have not seen increased hospitalizations or deaths related to COVID-19,” it stated.

The federal government suspended its free at-home COVID-19 test program on March 8, according to a website set up by the government, following a decrease in COVID-19-related hospitalizations.

According to the CDC, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 and influenza diseases remain “elevated” but are decreasing in some parts of the United States.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 22:45

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Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says “I Would Support”

Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says "I Would Support"

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump…

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Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run - Musk Says "I Would Support"

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump into the race to become the next Senate GOP leader, and Elon Musk was quick to support the idea. Republicans must find a successor for periodically malfunctioning Mitch McConnell, who recently announced he'll step down in November, though intending to keep his Senate seat until his term ends in January 2027, when he'd be within weeks of turning 86. 

So far, the announced field consists of two quintessential establishment types: John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota. While John Barrasso's name had been thrown around as one of "The Three Johns" considered top contenders, the Wyoming senator on Tuesday said he'll instead seek the number two slot as party whip. 

Paul used X to tease his potential bid for the position which -- if the GOP takes back the upper chamber in November -- could graduate from Minority Leader to Majority Leader. He started by telling his 5.1 million followers he'd had lots of people asking him about his interest in running...

...then followed up with a poll in which he predictably annihilated Cornyn and Thune, taking a 96% share as of Friday night, with the other two below 2% each. 

Elon Musk was quick to back the idea of Paul as GOP leader, while daring Cornyn and Thune to follow Paul's lead by throwing their names out for consideration by the Twitter-verse X-verse. 

Paul has been a stalwart opponent of security-state mass surveillance, foreign interventionism -- to include shoveling billions of dollars into the proxy war in Ukraine -- and out-of-control spending in general. He demonstrated the latter passion on the Senate floor this week as he ridiculed the latest kick-the-can spending package:   

In February, Paul used Senate rules to force his colleagues into a grueling Super Bowl weekend of votes, as he worked to derail a $95 billion foreign aid bill. "I think we should stay here as long as it takes,” said Paul. “If it takes a week or a month, I’ll force them to stay here to discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”

Don't expect a Majority Leader Paul to ditch the filibuster -- he's been a hardy user of the legislative delay tactic. In 2013, he spoke for 13 hours to fight the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director. In 2015, he orated for 10-and-a-half-hours to oppose extension of the Patriot Act

Rand Paul amid his 10 1/2 hour filibuster in 2015

Among the general public, Paul is probably best known as Capitol Hill's chief tormentor of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease during the Covid-19 pandemic. Paul says the evidence indicates the virus emerged from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. He's accused Fauci and other members of the US government public health apparatus of evading questions about their funding of the Chinese lab's "gain of function" research, which takes natural viruses and morphs them into something more dangerous. Paul has pointedly said that Fauci committed perjury in congressional hearings and that he belongs in jail "without question."   

Musk is neither the only nor the first noteworthy figure to back Paul for party leader. Just hours after McConnell announced his upcoming step-down from leadership, independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr voiced his support: 

In a testament to the extent to which the establishment recoils at the libertarian-minded Paul, mainstream media outlets -- which have been quick to report on other developments in the majority leader race -- pretended not to notice that Paul had signaled his interest in the job. More than 24 hours after Paul's test-the-waters tweet-fest began, not a single major outlet had brought it to the attention of their audience. 

That may be his strongest endorsement yet. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 20:25

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The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While “Waiting” For Deporation, Asylum

The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum

Over the past several…

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The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum

Over the past several months we've pointed out that there has  been zero job creation for native-born workers since the summer of 2018...

... and that since Joe Biden was sworn into office, most of the post-pandemic job gains the administration continuously brags about have gone foreign-born (read immigrants, mostly illegal ones) workers.

And while the left might find this data almost as verboten as FBI crime statistics - as it directly supports the so-called "great replacement theory" we're not supposed to discuss - it also coincides with record numbers of illegal crossings into the United States under Biden.

In short, the Biden administration opened the floodgates, 10 million illegal immigrants poured into the country, and most of the post-pandemic "jobs recovery" went to foreign-born workers, of which illegal immigrants represent the largest chunk.

Asylum seekers from Venezuela await work permits on June 28, 2023 (via the Chicago Tribune)

'But Tyler, illegal immigrants can't possibly work in the United States whilst awaiting their asylum hearings,' one might hear from the peanut gallery. On the contrary: ever since Biden reversed a key aspect of Trump's labor policies, all illegal immigrants - even those awaiting deportation proceedings - have been given carte blanche to work while awaiting said proceedings for up to five years...

... something which even Elon Musk was shocked to learn.

Which leads us to another question: recall that the primary concern for the Biden admin for much of 2022 and 2023 was soaring prices, i.e., relentless inflation in general, and rising wages in particular, which in turn prompted even Goldman to admit two years ago that the diabolical wage-price spiral had been unleashed in the US (diabolical, because nothing absent a major economic shock, read recession or depression, can short-circuit it once it is in place).

Well, there is one other thing that can break the wage-price spiral loop: a flood of ultra-cheap illegal immigrant workers. But don't take our word for it: here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself during his February 60 Minutes interview:

PELLEY: Why was immigration important?

POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans do. But that's largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.

PELLEY: Why is immigration so important to the economy?

POWELL: Well, first of all, immigration policy is not the Fed's job. The immigration policy of the United States is really important and really much under discussion right now, and that's none of our business. We don't set immigration policy. We don't comment on it.

I will say, over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And, frankly, just in the last, year a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era.

PELLEY: The country needed the workers.

POWELL: It did. And so, that's what's been happening.

Translation: Immigrants work hard, and Americans are lazy. But much more importantly, since illegal immigrants will work for any pay, and since Biden's Department of Homeland Security, via its Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency, has made it so illegal immigrants can work in the US perfectly legally for up to 5 years (if not more), one can argue that the flood of illegals through the southern border has been the primary reason why inflation - or rather mostly wage inflation, that all too critical component of the wage-price spiral  - has moderated in in the past year, when the US labor market suddenly found itself flooded with millions of perfectly eligible workers, who just also happen to be illegal immigrants and thus have zero wage bargaining options.

None of this is to suggest that the relentless flood of immigrants into the US is not also driven by voting and census concerns - something Elon Musk has been pounding the table on in recent weeks, and has gone so far to call it "the biggest corruption of American democracy in the 21st century", but in retrospect, one can also argue that the only modest success the Biden admin has had in the past year - namely bringing inflation down from a torrid 9% annual rate to "only" 3% - has also been due to the millions of illegals he's imported into the country.

We would be remiss if we didn't also note that this so often carries catastrophic short-term consequences for the social fabric of the country (the Laken Riley fiasco being only the latest example), not to mention the far more dire long-term consequences for the future of the US - chief among them the trillions of dollars in debt the US will need to incur to pay for all those new illegal immigrants Democrat voters and low-paid workers. This is on top of the labor revolution that will kick in once AI leads to mass layoffs among high-paying, white-collar jobs, after which all those newly laid off native-born workers hoping to trade down to lower paying (if available) jobs will discover that hardened criminals from Honduras or Guatemala have already taken them, all thanks to Joe Biden.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 19:15

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