GOV/MIL Leftists Call For New "Secret Police" Force To Spy On Trump Supporters (AN ABSOLUTELY MUST-READ THREAD)

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Part 2 of 2

29. Executive Order: Creating COVID-19 ‘Testing Board’ – President Biden launched an effort to boost coronavirus testing and tracing, including the creation of a COVID-19 Pandemic Testing Board to address bottlenecks in the system.
Jan. 22
30. Executive Order: Promoting Federal Government Help for the Economy –
President Biden directed federal agencies to try to help the economy recover from coronavirus, including making relief programs more user-friendly and accessible.
31. Executive Order: Revoking Trump Order to Streamline Federal Workforce – President Biden revoked several of President Trump’s executive orders on the federal workforce and backed a $15/hr minimum wage for federal employees.
Jan. 25
32. Executive Order: Revoking Transgender Military Ban –
“[T]here is substantial evidence that allowing transgender individuals to serve in the military does not have any meaningful negative impact on the Armed Forces,” the president said.
33. Executive Order: Buy American (without Trump protections for American workers) – President Biden ordered federal agencies to prioritize American companies in procurement but excluded Trump’s emphasis immigration enforcement.
34. Executive Action: Travel Ban on South Africa – President Biden, who opposed the China travel ban a year before as “hysterical xenophobia,” imposed a travel ban on South Africa, where a new variant of coronavirus was discovered.
Jan. 26
35. Executive Action: Memorandum Banning the Use of ‘China Virus’ –
The Biden administration opposed anti-Asian discrimination, “including references to the COVID-19 pandemic by the geographic location of its origin.”
36. Executive Action: Memorandum Promoting Consultation with Tribes – President Biden expressed “respect for Tribal sovereignty and self-governance” and “commitment to fulfilling Federal trust and treaty responsibilities to Tribal Nations.”
37. Executive Order: Elimination of Private Prisons – As part of efforts to eliminate “systemic racism,” President Biden vowed to eliminate private prisons, though he did not demonstrate that they were connected to racial discrimination.
38. Executive Action: Systemic Racism in Past Federal Housing – President Biden declared that past federal housing policy had been racist, and restored an Obama-era rule considering “disparate impact” to be racial discrimination.
Jan. 27
39. Executive Order: Making Climate Change the Focus of National Security –
“It is the policy of my Administration that climate considerations shall be an essential element of United States foreign policy and national security.”
40. Executive Order: Creating President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) –t is the policy of my Administration to make evidence-based decisions guided by the best available science and data,” the president said.
41. Executive Action: Memorandum Requiring ‘Evidence-based Decisions’ in Government Policy – President Biden declared: “Scientific findings should never be distorted or influenced by political considerations.”
Jan. 28
42. Executive Order: Expanding Obamacare During Coronavirus –
President Biden created a special enrollment period for Obamacare to help those who may have lost their health insurance due to losing jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.
43. Executive Action: Restoring U.S. Funding to Overseas Groups Providing Abortion – President Biden reversed a policy against funding groups that provide abortion counseling, calling his measure an effort to protect women’s health care.
Feb. 1
44. Executive Action: Proclamation Maintaining Tariffs on Aluminum from UAE –
President Biden reversed President Trump’s decision to remove tariffs on aluminum from the UAE, which had been a reward for peacemaking with Israel.
Feb. 2
45. Executive Action: Memorandum Directing FEMA to Help with COVID –
President Biden reaffirmed ongoing efforts and directed the Department of Homeland Security to use FEMA to assist state and local governments with coronavirus.
46. Executive Order: Reversing Public Charge Rule on Immigration – President Biden began reversing President Trump’s enforcement of a long-standing (but ignored) policy against immigrants that would become a burden on the state.
47. Executive Order: Addressing ‘Root Causes’ of Migration from Central America – President Biden vowed to work with “El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (the “Northern Triangle”) to address the root causes of migration.”
48. Executive Order: Task Force to Reunite Families – President Biden created the “Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families,” to help children apprehended at the border (the policy presumes they arrived with “families”).
Feb. 4
49. Executive Order: Expanding Refugee Program for Impact of Climate Change –
President Biden expanded U.S. refugee programs, including the future “resettlement of individuals displaced directly or indirectly from climate change.”
50. Executive Action: Memorandum on ‘Revitalizing’ Foreign Service – President Biden offered an effective paean to the “Deep State,” praising the “remarkable professionals and patriots … “whose expertise has too often been sidelined.”
51. Executive Action: Memorandum Restructuring National Security Council – President Biden issued guidelines for the structuring of the National Security Council, which President Trump had streamlined.
52. Executive Action: Memorandum Promoting ‘LGBTQI’ Rights Worldwide – President Biden ordered a global effort to decriminalize homosexuality, an existing policy under President Trump. (The new “I” is for “intersex.”)
 

marsh

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South Dakota Bill Aims to Nullify Joe Biden’s Executive Orders
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President Joe Biden looks down as he talks about the FBI agents killed in Sunrise, Fla., during an event on immigration in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
AMY FURR8 Feb 20211,462

A legislative proposal in South Dakota’s House of Representatives seeks to give the state’s attorney general the authority to review presidential executive orders and possibly nullify those deemed unconstitutional.

“State Rep. Aaron Aylward (R-Harrisburg) introduced HB 1194, which is described as an act ‘to authorize the review of certain executive orders issued by the President of the United States,'” the Daily Wire reported Monday.

The process starts with a review by the Executive Council of the Legislative Research Board, then a referral from the Council sent to the state attorney general and the governor, according to KELO.

“Once the referral has been made, the attorney general may examine the order to determine whether the state can seek an exemption or declare it unconstitutional,” the report continued:
The proposed bill would also allow the attorney general to block implementation of any order deemed unconstitutional if the order refers to:
  • A pandemic or other public health emergency
  • The regulation of natural resources
  • The regulation of the agricultural industry
  • The regulation of land use
  • The regulation of the financial sector through the imposition of environmental, social, or governance standards
  • The regulation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms
“This isn’t just a President [Joe] Biden issue but rather an overall executive overreach issue that we’ve been experiencing for a long time,” Aylward said.
“The U.S. Congress has abdicated their duty for a long time in different areas. This bill is simply setting up a process to nullify acts that would be unconstitutional. When looking at the U.S. Constitution, the President only has the powers that are laid out in Article II,” he added.

Meanwhile, the establishment media has attacked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) for her handling of the coronavirus “particularly for allowing citizens to enjoy more freedoms and earn a living during the pandemic,” Breitbart News reported Thursday.

“She refused to impose draconian orders as other governors, such as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), have over the past year, shuttering ‘nonessential’ businesses and heavily restricting basic activities,” the outlet said.

Despite the criticism, Noem vowed in January that South Dakota would remain open as the country deals with another wave of coronavirus cases.

“For those who have spent the last nine months shut down or locked up in other states, South Dakota is open,” she said, adding, “We have stayed open the entire time, and that’s how we will operate for as long as I am governor.”
 

marsh

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goYvguvEats
12:17 min
How the Left is using Critical Race Theory to DIVIDE students
•Feb 9, 2021


Glenn Beck


Lori Meyers, teacher and co-founder of Educators for Excellence in Ethnic Studies, is sounding the alarm on Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools. She explains how its incorporation into public school ethnic studies curriculum — something being pushed by the Left — is causing students to divide from their classmates: "It literally pits students against each other."
 

marsh

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Former FBI Assistant Director: Large-Scale Program Needed to ‘De-Radicalize Trump’s Political Cult Members’
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LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JANUARY 07: A man is fitted with a headband that detects brain activity by a BrainCo employee as he prepares to play their mind control toy car racing game at CES 2020 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 7, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. …
Mario Tama/Getty Images
JOSHUA KLEIN9 Feb 2021202

In a recent Salon interview, former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi calls for a large-scale “de-radicalization approach” to “Trump’s political cult members” who have been radicalized “for the last four years,” while stating the need to “deprogram” those who believe that Joe Biden did not win the recent presidential election.

The interview, published on Monday, begins with Salon politics staff writer Chauncey DeVega declaring that “today’s Republican Party is a political crime syndicate, and Trump is its leader” before asking how to “de-radicalize” Trump supporters.

“What, if anything, can be done to de-radicalize Trump’s political cult members and others being recruited into right-wing extremism and terrorism?” he asks.

In response, Figliuzzi, a former FBI special agent who rose to the rank of assistant director when he led the bureau’s counterintelligence division, compares the radicalization of American citizens to international terrorism.

“What we also saw with the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a function of radicalization, which is true of international terrorism as well,” he says.

Figliuzzi then proposes that not enough is done to combat homegrown radicalization because of the appearance of those radicalized.

“We have been watching a radicalization process for the last four years under the Trump administration,” he states. “But we are not doing enough about it because, in part, there is a lack of will or an incapacity to see people that ‘look like us’ as an equal or greater threat than people who do not look like us.”

Despite the comparisons, Figliuzzi chooses to be “silent” regarding designating homegrown “terror groups.”

“I’m being silent right now on things like designating groups and organizations as being domestic terror groups, like what is done in regard to al-Qaida and Boko Haram and ISIS,” he says.

Figliuzzi then addresses how law enforcement approaches the issue of foreign enemies as compared to domestic terrorism.

“There are eerie similarities to the radicalization process that we saw happen internationally,” he says.

Figliuzzi then describes the speed with which youth can be inspired to join violent terror groups today. He says:
The speed with which a young person can go from a sense of wanting to belong to something other than themselves, that sense of disenfranchisement, and then wanting to find spiritual and religious meaning and being recruited online, watching violent beheading videos and listening to violent inspiring sermons from a cleric and then moving to violent action. The speed with which that happens online now within the world of violent Islam is astounding.
Comparing recruitment to foreign terror groups with domestic radicalization, Figliuzzi claims the two are “very similar.”

“It is very similar on the domestic side here in the United States with social media,” he says. “Online activity has played an enormous role and has almost everybody behind the curve.”

Figliuzzi then states that “using social media to call for breaching the Capitol and overwhelming the police is not free speech,” but “violence.”

“We saw the same thing happen in international terrorism,” he adds. “A violent beheading video is not free speech.”

Noting the Proud Boys, Figliuzzi reiterates what he deems a breach of free speech.

“If the Proud Boys are putting messages out about overwhelming the police, killing the police, invading a state house, putting a bullet in a congresswoman’s head, that is not free speech,” he says.

He then claims that the country must clear the “hurdle” of passing a domestic terror law, as it did with international terrorism.

“We as a country have got to get over that hurdle,” he says. “We did it pretty quickly on the international terrorism side. We’ve got to do it, carefully, domestically too.”

Calling for a “de-radicalization approach,” Figliuzzi states the need to “deprogram” those who believe that Joe Biden did not win the recent presidential election.

“We also need a more holistic, societal response that involves all hands on deck in terms of companies, government and law enforcement, everybody pulling together for a de-radicalization approach,” he says. “That must happen.”

“You’ve got to deprogram some people who believe Joe Biden didn’t win the election,” he adds.

The notion of “deradicalizing” and “deprogramming” Trump supporters has been fiercely promoted by those on the left in recent days following the November presidential elections and the storming of the U.S. Capitol last month.

Earlier this month, the New York Times published an essay detailing a range of recommendations for the Biden administration to adopt to fix the “reality crisis” and “de-radicalize” citizens, including setting up a “reality czar” and “truth commission.”

In a recent video promoted by the left, citizens are called upon to become cyber detectives to monitor and report fellow citizen Trump-supporters to authorities.
The threat addressed is described as emanating from “radical” conservatives who live among us.

Last month, Vanity Fair published an interview with cult expert Steven Hassan detailing how to go about “deprogramming” Trump supporters, while arguing for a “massive education” effort involving the participation of schools, mental health professionals, law enforcement, media, politicians, and intelligence agencies.

Also last month, Hassan appeared on CNN stating that “all of America needs deprogramming” due to the negative influence of President Trump.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Horowitz: Missouri county authorizes arrest of feds who violate Second Amendment

OP-ED
This is our recourse
DANIEL HOROWITZ
February 08, 2021

marekuliasz

What is our recourse when our own government criminalizes our most basic rights while it allows Black Lives Matter and Antifa to rampage through our streets with impunity? Is there no Plan B when the federal or state governments treat all conservatives like terrorists, business owners like pariahs, and those who yearn to breathe unmasked air like murderers? Well, one Missouri county is demonstrating the importance of sheriffs and county officials returning to self-government and interposing between the governmental usurpers and the most sacred rights of the people.

On Feb. 3, the Newton County, Missouri, Commission passed a bill that will not only block federal enforcement of unconstitutional gun policies, but criminalize their implantation thereof within the jurisdiction of the county. The "Second Amendment Preservation Act of Newton County Missouri" declares that "all federal acts, laws, orders, rules, and regulations passed by the federal government and specifically any Presidential Administration whether past, present, or future, which infringe on the people's right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 23 of the Missouri Constitution shall be invalid in the county."

That section of the Missouri constitution reads as follows:
That the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms, ammunition, and accessories typical to the normal function of such arms, in defense of his home, person, family and property, or when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall not be questioned. The rights guaranteed by this section shall be unalienable. Any restriction on these rights shall be subject to strict scrutiny and the state of Missouri shall be obligated to uphold these rights and shall under no circumstances decline to protect against their infringement.
Specifically, the ordinance targets federal policies that order the tracking or registering of firearms of ammunition, an idea that Democrats have been floating recently. It also bars the enforcement of any effort to confiscate guns except from those who are "suspected criminals."

The Second Amendment sanctuary movement has been growing throughout the country, with hundreds of counties passing some form of a declaration protecting gun rights from encroachments perpetrated by higher levels of government. The sanctuary movement has only recently come to the state of Missouri, with several counties recently declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and the state legislature pushing similar bills. But Newton County might have adopted the strongest language in the entire country – going so far as to criminalize enforcement or cooperation with federal law enforcement who seek to enforce such policies.

This is a takeoff of what states like New York did when they criminalized the cooperation between state and county government officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement with regard to enforcement of federal immigration laws, even against illegal aliens with criminal records. The difference, of course, is that the Second Amendment sanctuary movement seeks to protect legitimate constitutional rights for Americans and, unlike the illegal alien sanctuary movement, does not harbor suspected criminals.

Podcast link on website 18:29 min
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Specifically, section 4a of the Newton County ordinance grants the sheriff's department "full authority to make an arrest of any and all federal agents that violate state laws and enforce regulations" that violate the Second Amendment. Finally, the ordinance bars anyone "who enforces or attempts to enforce any of the infringements identified in this ordinance" from "being hired as a law enforcement officer or to supervise law enforcement officers in the county."

It is to be hoped that this will spawn a debate in the country over what citizens should do when the higher levels of government violate the very essence of the social compact by wielding one executive power after another to confiscate the most foundational of natural rights, including self-defense, free speech, property rights, and the right to breathe free air unrestrained, which absolutely is a natural right that predated any government.

The Newton ordinance was signed by commissioners Bill Reiboldt, Alan Cook, and David Osborn on Feb. 3 and is effective immediately.

While most sanctuary ordinances have thus far targeted Second Amendment violations, some counties have begun to pass sanctuary resolutions protecting local business owners and citizens from COVID restrictions that violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

SanctuaryCounties.com is a website that tracks the growing list of these sanctuary counties. Also, a group of listeners of my podcast have organized a network (Constitution Action Network) for people of the same state and county to meet, collaborate, and raise awareness of the power of state and local government to interpose against the growing list of blatant constitutional violations and extra-lawful lawmaking at the stroke of Biden's executive pen.

The left-wing sanctuary city politicians, while wrong on the policy and legal merits of their arguments, will likely rue the day they created this monster that will now serve as the only remaining beacon for patriots to protect legitimate rights of American citizens.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
https://archive.fo/i30be
Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some Think So

Politicians and prominent intellectuals say social theories from the United States on race, gender and post-colonialism are a threat to French identity and the French republic


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A demonstration against racism and police brutality in Paris last year. Protests across France were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.Credit...Mohammed Badra/EPA, via Shutterstock
Norimitsu Onishi
By Norimitsu Onishi
  • Feb. 9, 2021Updated 10:27 a.m. ET
PARIS — The threat is said to be existential. It fuels secessionism. Gnaws at national unity. Abets Islamism. Attacks France’s intellectual and cultural heritage.

The threat? “Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,’’ said President Emmanuel Macron.

French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,’’ warned Mr. Macron’s education minister.

Emboldened by these comments, prominent intellectuals have banded together against what they regard as contamination by the out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture.

Pitted against them is a younger, more diverse guard that considers these theories as tools to understanding the willful blind spots of an increasingly diverse nation that still recoils at the mention of race, has yet to come to terms with its colonial past and often waves away the concerns of minorities as identity politics.

Disputes that would have otherwise attracted little attention are now blown up in the news and social media. The new director of the Paris Opera, who said on Monday he wants to diversify its staff and ban blackface, has been attacked by the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, but also in Le Monde because, though German, he had worked in Toronto and had “soaked up American culture for 10 years.”

The publication this month of a book critical of racial studies by two veteran social scientists, Stéphane Beaud and Gérard Noiriel, fueled criticism from younger scholars — and has received extensive news coverage. Mr. Noiriel has said that race had become a “bulldozer’’ crushing other subjects, adding, in an email, that its academic research in France was questionable because race is not recognized by the government and merely “subjective data.’’

The fierce French debate over a handful of academic disciplines on U.S. campuses may surprise those who have witnessed the gradual decline of American influence in many corners of the world. In some ways, it is a proxy fight over some of the most combustible issues in French society, including national identity and the sharing of power. In a nation where intellectuals still hold sway, the stakes are high.

With its echoes of the American culture wars, the battle began inside French universities but is being played out increasingly in the media. Politicians have been weighing in more and more, especially following a turbulent year during which a series of events called into question tenets of French society.

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Women’s rights activists protesting last year against Mr. Macron’s appointment of an interior minister who has been accused of rape and a justice minister who has criticized the #MeToo movement.Credit...Francois Mori/Associated Press
Mass protests in France against police violence, inspired by the killing of George Floyd, challenged the official dismissal of race and systemic racism. A #MeToo generation of feminists confronted both male power and older feminists. A widespread crackdown following a series of Islamist attacks raised questions about France’s model of secularism and the integration of immigrants from its former colonies.

Some saw the reach of American identity politics and social science theories.

Some center-right lawmakers pressed for a parliamentary investigation into “ideological excesses’’ at universities and singled out “guilty’’ scholars on Twitter.

Mr. Macron — who had shown little interest in these matters in the past but has been courting the right ahead of elections next year — jumped in last June, when he blamed universities for encouraging the “ethnicization of the social question’’ — amounting to “breaking the republic in two.’’

“I was pleasantly astonished,’’ said Nathalie Heinich, a sociologist who last month helped create an organization against “decolonialism and identity politics.’’ Made up of established figures, many retired, the group has issued warnings about American-inspired social theories in major publications like Le Point and Le Figaro.

For Ms. Heinich, last year’s developments came on top of activism that brought foreign disputes over cultural appropriation and blackface to French universities. At the Sorbonne, activists prevented the staging of a play by Aeschylus to protest the wearing of masks and dark makeup by white actors; elsewhere, some well-known speakers were disinvited following student pressure.

“It was a series of incidents that was extremely traumatic to our community and that all fell under what is called cancel culture,’’ Ms. Heinich said.

To others, the lashing out at perceived American influence revealed something else: a French establishment incapable of confronting a world in flux, especially at a time when the government’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic has deepened the sense of ineluctable decline of a once-great power.

“It’s the sign of a small, frightened republic, declining, provincializing, but which in the past and to this day believes in its universal mission and which thus seeks those responsible for its decline,’’ said François Cusset, an expert on American civilization at Paris Nanterre University.

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A student returning home in the Sorbonne district last month.Credit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times

France has long laid claim to a national identity, based on a common culture, fundamental rights and core values like equality and liberty, rejecting diversity and multiculturalism. The French often see the United States as a fractious society at war with itself.

But far from being American, many of the leading thinkers behind theories on gender, race, post-colonialism and queer theory came from France — as well as the rest of Europe, South America, Africa and India, said Anne Garréta, a French writer who teaches literature at universities in France and at Duke.

“It’s an entire global world of ideas that circulates,’’ she said. “It just happens that campuses that are the most cosmopolitan and most globalized at this point in history are the American ones. ’’

The French state does not compile racial statistics, which is illegal, describing it as part of its commitment to universalism and treating all citizens equally under the law. To many scholars on race, however, the reluctance is part of a long history of denying racism in France and the country’s slave-trading and colonial past.

“What’s more French than the racial question in a country that was built around those questions?’’ said Mame-Fatou Niang, who divides her time between France and the United States, where she teaches French studies at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ms. Niang has led a campaign to remove a fresco at France’s National Assembly, which shows two Black figures with fat red lips and bulging eyes. Her public views on race have made her a frequent target on social media, including of one of the lawmakers who pressed for an investigation into “ideological excesses’’ at universities.

Pap Ndiaye, a historian who led efforts to establish Black studies in France, said it was no coincidence that the current wave of anti-American rhetoric began growing just as the first protests against racism and police violence took place last June.

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Protesters against police brutality clashed with law enforcement in Paris last year.Credit...Mohammed Badra/EPA, via Shutterstock

“There was the idea that we’re talking too much about racial questions in France,’’ he said. “That’s enough.’’

Three Islamist attacks last fall served as a reminder that terrorism remains a threat in France. They also focused attention on another hot-button field of research: Islamophobia, which examines how hostility toward Islam in France, rooted in its colonial experience in the Muslim world, continues to shape the lives of French Muslims.

Abdellali Hajjat, an expert on Islamophobia, said that it became increasingly difficult to focus on his subject after 2015, when devastating terror attacks hit Paris. Government funding for research dried up. Researchers on the subject were accused of being apologists for Islamists and even terrorists.

Finding the atmosphere oppressive, Mr. Hajjat left two years ago to teach at the Free University of Brussels, in Belgium, where he said he found greater academic freedom.

“On the question of Islamophobia, it’s only in France where there is such violent talk in rejecting the term,’’ he said.

Mr. Macron’s education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, accused universities, under American influence, of being complicit with terrorists by providing the intellectual justification behind their acts.

A group of 100 prominent scholars wrote an open letter supporting the minister and decrying theories “transferred from North American campuses” in Le Monde.

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A march last year in honor of Samuel Paty, a teacher who was beheaded by a man angered by Mr. Paty showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

A signatory, Gilles Kepel, an expert on Islam, said that American influence had led to “a sort of prohibition in universities to think about the phenomenon of political Islam in the name of a leftist ideology that considers it the religion of the underprivileged.’’

Along with Islamophobia, it was through the “totally artificial importation’’ in France of the “American-style Black question” that some were trying to draw a false picture of a France guilty of “systemic racism’’ and “white privilege,’’ said Pierre-André Taguieff, a historian and a leading critic of the American influence.
Mr. Taguieff said in an email that researchers of race, Islamophobia and post-colonialism were motivated by a “hatred of the West, as a white civilization.’’

“The common agenda of these enemies of European civilization can be summed up in three words: decolonize, demasculate, de-Europeanize,’’ Mr. Taguieff said.

“Straight white male — that’s the culprit to condemn and the enemy to eliminate.”

Behind the attacks on American universities — led by aging white male intellectuals — lie the tensions in a society where power appears to be up for grabs, said Éric Fassin, a sociologist who was one of the first scholars to focus on race and racism in France, about 15 years ago.

Back then, scholars on race tended to be white men like himself, he said. He said he has often been called a traitor and faced threats, most recently from a right-wing extremist who was given a four-month suspended prison sentence for threatening to decapitate him.

But the emergence of young intellectuals — some Black or Muslim — has fueled the assault on what Mr. Fassin calls the “American boogeyman.’’

“That’s what has turned things upside down,’’ he said. “They’re not just the objects we speak of, but they’re also the subjects who are talking.’’
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Lee Smith with Tucker Carlson on the Biden Oligarchy…
Posted by Kane on February 9, 2021 10:56 pm
View: https://youtu.be/HcDb2E1A5iY
4:39 min

Lee Smith with Tucker Carlson last night
‘The Biden oligarchy’ running America is loyal to China’

View: https://youtu.be/5L48nTBJmMg
4:39 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1358964960626360321
1:34 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1358967730444132352
1:54 min

_________________________________


Article - The Thirty Tyrants By Lee Smith

[COMMENT on article fromanother site: A very long read but dead on accurate about the influences behind the 2020 election. Gives you tremendously insight into why Time admitted there was a cabal working behind the scene to defeat President Trump. ]

The Thirty Tyrants
The deal that the American elite chose to make with China has a precedent in the history of Athens and Sparta
BY
LEE SMITH
FEBRUARY 03, 2021

Original photo: Wikipedia

ORIGINAL PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA
In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”

The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.

[Continued on website The Thirty Tyrants ]
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

All of China Joe’s Actions to Date With China – Help China and Hurt America

By Joe Hoft
Published February 10, 2021 at 3:26pm
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Day after day Joe Biden is doing more and more to support China. In fact, he has done more to help China than help the United States.

We know why the corrupt Biden clan is so close to China, it’s because they made a lot of money with China:


As we all knew the Biden’s would continue and even ramp up their efforts with China to make a lot of money. So it’s no surprise that Biden signed an Executive Order banning the term ‘China virus’:


It’s also no surprise Biden’s Secretary of State was connected with the Bidens in the Ukraine and China:


Of course this wasn’t the only interaction between the Biden’s and China:


So it really comes as no surprise that Biden’s pick for CIA Director has strong ties with China:
William J. Burns, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for director of the CIA, is president of a think tank that has received up to $2 million from a Chinese businessman as well as from a think tank with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

As president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Burns also invited nearly a dozen congressional staffers to attend a junket to China, where they met with a communist party operative and a president of a Chinese front group.
It’s also no surprise that Biden is getting rid of President Trump’s actions that require universities to disclose any programs with the Confucius Institutes:
The Biden administration quietly tossed a proposed rule that would have required U.S. universities and K-12 schools with foreign exchange programs to disclose any financial ties or other connections to Chinese state-run Confucius Institutes.
The decision was met with swift backlash from Republicans, who, along with the FBI, State Department, and Education Department during the Trump administration, expressed concern about the potential for Chinese influence operations inside the United States with Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms. Democrats, so far, have yet to react to the change.
Former President Donald Trump’s administration made the proposal, “Establishing Requirement for Student and Exchange Visitor Program Certified Schools to Disclose Agreements with Confucius Institutes and Classrooms,” on New Year’s Eve. But before the rule made its way to the Federal Register or went into effect, the Biden administration withdrew it on Jan. 26, less than a week after Inauguration Day. “ICE can confirm that the rule was withdrawn on Jan 26. ICE does not speculate about future pre-decisional proposed rules or policies,” a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website also shows its status as withdrawn.
With the election being stolen and reports China was involved, and with the evil and dishonest media and truth censoring Big Tech, it looks like China is already here. The Biden legacy.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Oklahoma Governor Nullifies Biden’s Executive Order — With His Own
by Steve Byas February 9, 2021
Facebook Twitter Linkedin Parler Free Speech Social Network Parler Email Print
Oklahoma Governor Nullifies Biden’s Executive Order — With His Own

Charging that Executive Order 13990 issued by President Biden “is in contravention of Article II Section 2 and the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt issued his own executive order this week to, in effect, nullify it.

Governor Stitt is a Republican, elected in 2018. His order is challenging Biden’s order as “adverse to energy producers throughout the United States and Oklahoma. His decision terminates the Keystone XL pipeline and claims to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord while failing to seek ratification by the U.S. Senate.” According to the U.S. Constitution, a presidential agreement with the government of another nation is not law until at least two-thirds of the Senate ratifies it. President Barack Obama placed the United States in the Paris deal without a treaty vote. This was reversed by President Trump, and now President Biden has put the United States back into it.

“These policies [of the Paris Accord] allow the world’s powers to continue CO2 emissions,” Stitt wrote, “causing the U.S. to harm its own economy, threatening millions of jobs in states like Oklahoma, while making no meaningful difference in world’s emissions. Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, admitted as much only days ago.”

As Stitt said in his executive order sent to “every state agency,” Oklahoma “has always embraced its role as a national and international leader in the production of oil and gas and other forms of energy.” The Oklahoma oil industry began even before statehood, producing such oil companies as Phillips and Conoco, and oil-service giant Halliburton. By the 1920s, Oklahoma was perhaps the leading oil state in the country. And, as Stitt noted, “That tradition continues today.”

Stitt emphasized the importance of the oil and gas industry. “Much of the global growth, and indeed America’s growth can be traced to the energy innovations originating from Oklahoma.” He added, “Since 2005, Oklahoma has reduced carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector by more than 34 percent, while the national average is 12 percent, all the while producing the most affordable power in the country across all sectors for eight of the last 10 quarters.”

Additionally, “The [energy] industry pays billions of dollars of taxes to state and local governments assisting in providing schools, services and infrastructure to citizens throughout the state.”

All of these positive outcomes for both Oklahoma and the United States are threatened by what Stitt contends is an unconstitutional seizure of power by Biden, and is “preventing Oklahoma from exercising its ability to properly determine how best to steward and develop its natural resources.”

“Now, therefore, I J. Kevin Stitt, governor of Oklahoma, by virtue of the power and authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the State of Oklahoma, hereby direct every state agency to utilize all civil methods and lawful powers to protect its 10th Amendment powers and challenge any actions by the federal government that would seek to diminish or destroy Oklahoma’s ability to encourage job growth and the responsible development of our natural resources within the energy industry.”

Nullification is the recognition that the states and their citizens created the Union and that the Union should answer to them. The concept was first developed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as a tool for the states to act when the federal government refuses to abide by the U.S. Constitution. It has been used effectively to thwart many actions of the federal government, such as when Michigan and Wisconsin refused to cooperate with the Fugitive Slave Act in the 1850s. Today, states have passed laws to nullify federal laws against guns within their state borders, and in Michigan, conservatives got a law enacted that kept state officials from helping federal officers use indefinite detention under provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Writing for the Mises Institute, Thomas Woods explained nullification: “Nullification is the Jeffersonian idea that the states of the American Union must judge the constitutionality of the acts of their agent, the federal government, since no impartial arbiter between them exists. When the federal government exercises a particularly dangerous power not delegated to it, the states must refuse to allow its enforcement within their borders.”

Governors, like presidents, cannot legally create law with an executive order, but they can issue orders to persons in the executive branch to refuse to cooperate with federal officials in every way they can to frustrate the implementation of unconstitutional usurpations of state authority, as has been done by President Biden with his executive orders.

Hopefully, Governor Stitt’s bold action in challenging President Biden will encourage other governors in other states to stand up to the unlawful actions Biden has taken since assuming office last month.

[COMMENT: I have never believed (considering the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine) that the States could nullify a federal or EO. EOs are policy for federal agencies. In law, there are three jurisdictions: person, subject matter and place. The federal government has jurisdiction over persons within its borders, over subject matter delineated in the Constitution and on federal lands. It does not have hierarchical jurisdiction over states. However, it can "buy" jurisdiction by offering a cost sharing program with conditions. Medicaid, Mental Health, Public Health are such programs.

I do not think, for instance, that a State can reopen public lands to drilling if Biden closes them, but they could sue for breach of some part of the natural resource law or contract. They could also refuse to cooperate. Of course, I am not an attorney.]
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

‘I Can’t Afford To Live’: Man Panics When Insulin Skyrockets to $2,000 Under Biden Regime

"I have to pay for something that I did not at all, at all do anything to get. So I guess I'll just f**king die."
Tom Pappert
by TOM PAPPERT
February 10, 2021

‘I Can’t Afford To Live’: Man Panics When Insulin Skyrockets to $2,000 Under Biden Regime

A 24-year-old man who says he graduated from college just before COVID-19 provoked massive lockdowns and a stagnant economy, now says that the cost of his insulin and other diabetic supplies have skyrocketed to $2,000.

This comes after Joe Biden rescinded an executive order, signed by President Donald Trump, that lowered the cost of life sustaining insulin for low income Americans.


“Hi everybody, so I’m just having a little freakout in my car, because I just found out my f**king diabetic supplies, like my insulin and my pump supplies that I need to live are costing $2,000 a month,” said the man, who appears to have Type 1 diabetes.

“I am 24, I only just got out of college before COVID hit and I’m not making any good money. How am I supposed to pay $2,000 for something that I didn’t do anything to get?”

Those with Type 1 diabetes were born with the irreversible disease, as opposed to those with Type 2 diabetes, who largely experience the disease as a result of a genetic predisposition or unfortunate lifestyle choices.

“America is f**king bullshit, like I can’t afford to live,” the man shouted, gripped with emotion. “I have to pay for something that I did not at all, at all do anything to get. So I guess I’ll just f**king die.”

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1359411376687624202
.44 min

It is unlikely the man’s insulin and pump would cost such an astronomical sum under President Trump, who specifically signed four executive orders aimed at lowering these costs last year. National File reported:
Last July, President Trump issued four executive orders that instructed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “end a shadowy system of kickbacks by middlemen that lurks behind the high out-of-pocket costs many Americans face at the pharmacy counter.”
Mr. Trump said the high price of insulin and epinephrine pens (EpiPens) used in emergency situations to combat severe allergic reactions that can often cause death, have cut off low-income people in “desperate” need of the medications.
The slate of executive orders included a directive that required federal community health centers to pass the significant discounts they received from pharmaceutical companies on insulin and EpiPens directly to patients.
Biden never explained why he reversed an executive order that was aimed at helping impoverished Americans, but many conservatives believe it is to increase dissatisfaction with the current healthcare system and pave the way for socialized medicine as an alternative.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAtzixZHjrc
14:47 min

SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM: Financial institutions' IMMENSE new powers over YOU
•Feb 10, 2021


Glenn Beck


Glenn says the social credit system he’s been warning about for years may finally be here. It’s a FINANCIAL social credit system, with terrifying new powers given to financial institutions and banks potentially to make decisions based on politics. Glenn reads straight from a recent IMF report which argues for the establishment of IMMENSE new powers over YOU.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Article referenced in Beck video:


How to deprogram America's extremists
Kyle Daly
Kyle Daly


Illustration of a brain in an ice bucket

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

It will take an all-out national effort to dismantle the radicalization pipeline that has planted conspiracy theories in the heads of millions of Americans and inspired last month's attack on the Capitol, experts tell Axios.

Two key measures that could make a difference:
  • Keeping extremists out of the institutions where they could do the greatest damage — like the military, police departments and legislatures.
  • Providing help for those who have embraced dangerous ideologies.
Online platforms, meanwhile, must be unwavering in their commitment to root out conspiracy theories and lies that undermine faith in democracy, according to experts interviewed by Axios.
  • Radicalization and counterterrorism experts broadly applaud tech companies' efforts, now underway, to remove this material and the accounts that spread it off their platforms, despite heavy blowback from conservatives.
  • Twitter's decision to ban Donald Trump is seen on its own as a major asset in the fight to slow or reverse radicalization.
The U.S. needs a "Marshall Plan against domestic extremism," Daniel Koehler, director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies, told Axios.
  • "The spread of extremist conspiracy theories in the United States is the second most dangerous pandemic the country faces right now," he said. "The damage that's been to the U.S. in terms of community and social cohesion will be immense and will be lasting."
  • The radicalization is happening in a multitude of online spaces and right-wing media channels, pulling people into an alternate reality that posits, among a growing swarm of other false ideas, that the 2020 election was stolen.
  • When it comes to coordinated deradicalization efforts, the U.S. is behind most European countries by 25–30 years, Koehler said.
The latest: Twitter's ongoing purge of far-right conspiracy theorists who have spread the lie that Trump won the 2020 election continued apace over the weekend, as the company suspended the account of Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft.
A key part of breaking extremists' rising mainstream influence will be making it unacceptable for white nationalists, anti-government extremists and conspiracy theorists to serve in the military, in police forces or as lawmakers.
  • Experts worry that the GOP's tacit and sometimes explicit approval of extremists will hamper efforts to keep police forces and legislatures free of conspiracy theorists.
  • "At DOD, it will go well and they will quash it," said former FBI counterterrorism analyst Clint Watts. "It's a lot of sheriffs' departments that make me nervous, because they're elected. Politics means you go with party."
Yes, but: A purely punitive, security-minded approach alone is likely to prove ineffective and invasive at best, experts say. At worst, it will only fuel extremists' sense of persecution and push them closer to violence.

Instead, experts agree serious resources need to be mustered toward providing an offramp for people who have been drawn into extremist ideologies.
  • New federal programs would likely be doomed to fail, experts say, because distrust and hatred of the government is already a core tenet of far-right extremism.
  • Instead, private and public-private programs are more likely to be effective, particularly if they're able to get endorsement and funding from federal and state governments.
  • Those could include anti-extremism counseling programs and support groups; education programs that work with schools to identify risks and signs of incipient radicalization; and rehabilitation organizations that work with the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated.
One idea, courtesy of Christian Picciolini, a former neo-Nazi leader who founded the Free Radicals Project, which works to help people leave violent extremist groups: a "single entry point" akin to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline "that people recognize, that people trust, that people understand."
  • Something like a national hotline or online portal could steer people to local resources to help them or loved ones escape the radicalization pipeline, he said.
The bottom line: "Any sort of solution is going to have to be holistic and is going to have to have empathy at its core," said Jared Holt, a visiting research fellow with the Atlantic Council.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Instagram to Permanently Ban Users Who Send ‘Hate Speech’ in Private Messages

By Cassandra Fairbanks
Published February 11, 2021 at 1:17pm
0-124.jpg

Instagram has announced that they will now be permanently banning users who send “hate speech” in private messages.


The platform announced their new speech policing policy on Wednesday.
In a statement about their censorship, Instagram boasted that 95% of the “6.5 million pieces of hate speech” from July through September were censored by the platform without anyone even reporting it. In other words, nobody was upset or offended, but the platform decided what you can or cannot see and share.
“Today, we’re announcing that we’ll take tougher action when we become aware of people breaking our rules in DMs. Currently, when someone sends DMs that break our rules, we prohibit that person from sending any more messages for a set period of time. Now, if someone continues to send violating messages, we’ll disable their account. We’ll also disable new accounts created to get around our messaging restrictions, and will continue to disable accounts we find that are created purely to send abusive messages,” the statement explained.
Instagram added that they are “committed to cooperation with UK law enforcement authorities on hate speech and will respond to valid legal requests for information in these cases.”

As we have repeatedly seen, these types of broad anti “hate speech” rules end up being exploited to target conservatives. First they censored what we can post publicly — now they will censor conversations that you have privately. The GOP is no where to be found to defend their voters.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Mike Huckabee: Like Grandpa's Car Keys, It's Time for Dems to Take Away Biden's Executive Order Pen

By Mike Huckabee
Published February 10, 2021 at 3:03pm

“The Party of Science!” Part 1: While President Biden expects Americans to remain huddled in their homes indefinitely to avoid spreading the coronavirus, he’s ending construction of the border wall and also doing away with President Trump’s border security measures that keep asylum seekers outside the U.S. while their cases are being considered.

He’s going back to the disastrous Obama-era “catch and release” (inside the U.S.) program, except with one big difference: These days, all those Central American migrants who will be streaming across the border and getting released into the U.S. if they are caught just might be carrying COVID-19.

Understandably, this has border towns rather worried about their people’s health (not to mention Biden’s mental health.)

They still don’t have enough vaccines for their own people, and they may soon be inundated with migrants who may be carrying the virus, or at the very least, aren’t vaccinated and could catch it and need medical care, or spread it.

Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll be carrying that special strain of COVID that BLM protesters have, the one that doesn’t spread as long as they’re doing something Democrats approve of.

“The Party of Science!” Part 2: In his zeal to undo everything the evil Trump did, no matter how much it helped Americans, President Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline project. This angered Canada, will kill up to 11,000 union jobs and could lead to higher fuel prices for everyone.

But since he did it to appease the Democrats’ environmental lobby, then all that pain must be worth it to halt the damage the pipeline would have caused to the environment, right? After all, his campaign website claims that he will get the U.S. to a 100 percent clean-energy economy with net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and this must be part of it.

Well, about that.

The oil still has to get from Canada to the refineries on the Gulf Coast somehow, and if it doesn’t flow through a pipe, it will have to be transported by train.

According to an analysis by the group Energy Equipment & Infrastructure Alliance, moving the same amount of oil that the pipeline would have moved will take 645 loaded tank cars a day moved by diesel trains, which will then have to return to Canada to be reloaded.

That will require burning 136 million gallons of diesel fuel a year, which will churn out over 1.5 million tons of CO2, the equivalent of adding about 490,000 new cars to the roads. That’s all a net CO2 addition, because the pipeline would have generated no CO2 emissions.

This doesn’t even take into account the added risk to the environment from leaks and train derailments. Moving it by truck or ship would be even riskier. Maybe John Kerry could take the oil with him on his many private jet trips.

So killing the pipeline not only angers Canada, throws Americans out of work and makes fuel more expensive; it will also be considerably worse for the environment and contribute heavily to the alleged “climate crisis” that Biden claims is his number-one priority.

That leaves only one reason for doing this, unless it’s payback to Warren Buffett, who profits off of trains: It’s the opposite of what Trump did, so it must be good, right?

In fact, his radical environmentalist supporters think it’s only a start; they want to shut down all oil pipelines to “save the environment.”

Science!

If there are any responsible adults still remaining in the high levels of the Democratic Party, they need to intervene and take Biden’s executive order pen away from him, the same way families sometimes have to admit that it’s time to take grandpa’s car keys away before he hurts any more people.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

February 11, 2021
American Police State: No Questions Allowed
By J.B. Shurk

When does a free state become a police state? Is it when government declares itself "essential" but religious worship "selfish"? Or when making a living becomes a crime? Or when free speech rights are afforded only to those who say "correct" things? Or maybe when tens of millions of Americans find themselves unexpectedly labeled as "domestic terrorists" by the military-media complex overnight?

Perhaps the telltale sign is this: simply asking why becomes subversive. Questions become bigger threats than foreign missiles. Words are regarded as weapons legally possessed only by those in power. For all else, they are rendered contraband.

If Congress were transparent, rather than vindictive, and if its members worried more about finding truth than burying it, then lawmakers in D.C. would have spent the last few months quelling doubts about the 2020 election instead of intensifying those doubts with a second, inflammatory impeachment. Alas, we're ruled by unserious people who take their power very seriously.

Consider the following contraband questions Congress will never answer:

Why should the 2020 election be viewed as legitimate if the outcome depended entirely upon the unprecedented use of mass mail-in balloting implemented, in some cases, against state law?

Why is Congress not interested in knowing how many mail-in ballots were counted in battleground states that were either received after legal deadlines or in violation of signature-matching requirements or other safeguards for authenticating voter identity?

Why is Congress so incurious about the reality that Donald Trump won nearly every bellwether county from coast to coast by double-digits on his way to losing the election?

Why is Congress so incurious about how an incumbent president could expand his support by over ten million new voters and increase his share of the minority vote, yet still come up short against an opponent with historically low levels of enthusiasm among his own base?

Why is Congress so incurious about the conspiracy between corporate news and social media to censor negative stories about Joe Biden during the campaign while aggressively deplatforming conservative commentary and online social networks of Trump-supporters for years before the 2020 election?

Why is Congress so incurious about a "secret cabal of wealthy and politically connected elites" who conspired "to manipulate the rules and laws of an election in order to win"?

Why does Congress deem such reasonable questions so threatening?

Why do lawmakers insist on threatening American citizens for thinking critically just because Congress itself abandoned critical thinking long ago?

All of these questions are now too dangerous or too inconvenient for the U.S. government to abide. They are too dangerous or too inconvenient for Google, Facebook, and Twitter to tolerate on their "free speech" platforms. They are too dangerous or inconvenient for our domestic intelligence services to permit a private citizen to say out loud. So spurious criminal charges are leveled at ordinary citizens just as they have been leveled at the president of the United States.

When it becomes natural for politicians to flex the muscles of government with the intent of intimidating citizens, and when governing institutions become more concerned with their own survival than with the security and protection of those for whom they were created, then free speech is always the first liberty summarily executed by those in power.

Benjamin Franklin, though only sixteen years old at the time, said it best: "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation, must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

Look how fast questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election became a state offense. In November, doing so was mocked as mere "conspiracy-mongering."

In December, it had become a "threat to democracy." By January, it was "insurrectionist." And by February, Congress is holding a Soviet show trial to punish the president; the FBI is busy arresting his supporters; the military is purging MAGA troops from its ranks; and prominent media personalities openly suggest drone strikes against American citizens.

This is not normal in a free country, and it is important to say so. Free people neither fear nor punish debate; open and continuous disagreement is, in fact, a hallmark of all free societies. Anybody who claims that political speech should be punished as criminal incitement is no friend to freedom. Anybody who pretends that words are violence is only looking to police thought.

And make no mistake: everything from the second public inquisition of President Trump to the Department of Justice's decision to stigmatize freedom-minded Americans as terrorists for questioning the 2020 election is entirely about policing thought — not preventing or punishing statutory crimes.

When Representative Cheney impugns President Trump as being the subject of a "massive criminal investigation," she throws "innocent until proven guilty" out the window. When Representative Raskin says President Trump's refusal to testify at these Star Chamber proceedings should be cited as evidence of his own guilt, Raskin torches Americans' Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in the process. Surely, anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats who find it expedient to discard constitutional rights in order to settle scores and silence critics should never be trusted in positions of power, and surely, any congressperson who seeks to justify the criminalization of speech by appealing to national unity has no intention of governing other than as a tyrant.

What Congress is doing by labeling President Trump's political speech as treasonous is a far greater threat to the country's survival than anything China has in mind for our future. However else this spectacle of a witch trial against the president unfolds, the "greatest deliberative body in the world" proves that it is neither great nor deliberative.

If the former "leader of the free world" can be labeled a "premeditated murderer" and "domestic enemy" for asking questions out loud, ordinary people learn pretty quickly that question marks are too dangerous except when whispered far from prying ears.

So we have two worlds now — the real world that everyone knows is true but must pretend is false and the political world that everyone knows is false but must pretend is true. We have become a country of dissidents trapped within a prison of lies.

When "a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything else his own." Franklin said that, too. And when that is the case, a police state has taken over.

There is a wonderful corollary, however: when the greatest threat to a state's survival becomes questioning its monopoly on truth, then ordinary people become extraordinarily powerful simply by asking questions.

The most dangerous thing to any police state is a person capable of thinking clearly.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Demands Intensify for Security Fence Around Capitol to Come Down

February 10, 2021 16:54, Last Updated: February 10, 2021 19:16
By Mark Tapscott

Forty-one House Republicans want Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to take down the razor-wire-topped steel barrier surrounding the U.S. Capitol complex and send the troops manning it home as soon as possible.

“We write with concerns about the security measures and enhanced fencing around the U.S. Capitol even though high-profile events like the inauguration are over,” the group said in a Feb. 5 letter to Pelosi.

“In particular, we are concerned with recent reports that the fencing surrounding the Capitol may become permanent. We are willing to have an honest debate about providing Capitol Hill Police (CHP) with the resources they need to be better prepared without turning the Capitol into a permanent fortress.

“To that end, we urge you to remove the barbed wire fencing surrounding the Capitol and send the National Guard troops home to their families. It’s time. It’s time for healing and it’s time for the removal of the fencing so the nation may move forward.”

Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) was the leading signer of the letter, which was also signed by congressmen representing districts in 20 states spanning the country.

A spokesman for Budd told The Epoch Times that Pelosi’s office acknowledged receiving the letter but hasn’t otherwise responded to it. A spokesman for Pelosi didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment by press time.

The signers acknowledged that “the events that happened on January 6 were horrific” and stronger security was needed in the wake of the violence.

“But it is time for Congress and its representatives to stop hiding. The American people see through the double standard. Members of Congress cannot demand more security and protection for themselves after they decried federal law enforcement activity across American cities last summer,” the signers said.

“The U.S. Capitol is a symbol of freedom both at home and abroad. It is a place where Americans from all walks of life can visit, learn about, and witness U.S. history. Sadly, because of the fortress-like security in place, this is no longer the case.

“American citizens who wish to visit are not allowed to because only authorized personnel and the military are permitted. The people who call Capitol Hill home live day in and out with fences, military trucks, and military personnel in their backyards, on their way to work, to school, or the grocery store. Enough is enough.”

Riot

The imposing barrier was hastily erected after the Jan. 6 riot, in which hundreds of protestors broke into the Capitol building, penetrating the Senate and House chambers, doing extensive property damage, and occasioning the deaths of five people.

President Donald Trump is being tried this week in the U.S. Senate after being impeached by the House for a second time on Jan. 14. Trump was acquitted last year by the Senate on unrelated charges. He appears likely to be acquitted again on the House Democrats’ charge that he incited an insurrection by encouraging the Jan. 6 riot.

The CHP conceded after the violence that it was unprepared for the events of Jan. 6 despite being forewarned. Trump had offered before that day to send 10,000 National Guard troops to help protect the Capitol.

Reluctance to Comment

A survey by The Epoch Times of members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the House Homeland Security Committee found a marked reluctance to comment.

Spokesmen for each of the 49 senators and representatives were emailed Feb. 9 with a message noting that a Jan. 27 Department of Homeland Security terrorism bulletin said the government “does not have any information to indicate a specific, credible plot” against the Capitol.

The message also linked to the letter from the 41 House Republicans and asked if the senator or representative supports the letter’s call for the fence to be taken down and the troops sent home.

Each of the offices was called on Feb. 10 with a repeated request for comment on the issue. Only a few of the committee members responded.

Chris Gallegos, spokesman for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), told The Epoch Times that the senator “is committed to ensuring the safety of the Capitol Complex and will carefully consider proposals submitted by the appropriate agencies making safety recommendations.”

“Senator Hyde-Smith would prefer to see fencing removed and troops return to their families as soon as possible,” he said.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) told The Epoch Times: “[The] fencing and barbed wire around the U.S. Capitol should’ve come down weeks ago. Such drastic and extended security measures were excessive and unnecessary.

“This is still the People’s House. Congress should be accessible to the Citizens we serve, as the Founders intended. Further, making members pass through metal detectors when entering onto the House floor is absurd. It is certainly an act of political theater and part of Speaker Pelosi’s insidious effort to demonize Republicans.”

Higgins was referring to the installation of metal detectors that House members must pass through before entering the House chamber.

Patrick Wright, spokesman for Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.) told The Epoch Times that “[Payne] believes that it is really a question for Capitol Police” and that he’s sure the fencing will be removed “when they believe there is no longer a credible threat to the nation’s elected officials.”

Strategists Respond

Heritage Foundation constitutional law expert Hans von Spakovsky said the issue hinges on the threat to the Capitol.

“Unless law enforcement authorities can produce detailed, confirmed information about a specific threat, there is no need to put barbed wire around the Capitol, and to fence it off from the American people,” said von Spakovsky, whose offices are across the street from the Senate office buildings.

Campaign strategists asked by The Epoch Times about the issue were divided in their responses, but not necessarily along partisan lines.

Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said he “would let the Capitol Police make the determination” of when to remove the security measures, but he added that GOPers, should “focus instead on making [Pelosi] explain what the basis is and what the cost is for continuing the security.”

Democratic strategist Robin Biro, a U.S. Special Forces veteran, said he gets “that Speaker Pelosi is concerned about the optics of having that fencing still up.”

“I know that she has come under significant criticism from the GOP specifically for the fencing, but personally, I would be operating from an abundance of caution with this and would leave that fencing up until we were further away from the events of Jan. 6,” Biro said.

“The Capitol clearly had a physical security problem, and if layered fencing is a deterrent, I do not see the problem with leaving it up until calmer heads prevail and the political rhetoric dies down a bit and, at some point, politics goes back to being delightfully boring.”

But Brian Darling, former senior counsel to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Jim Manley, former communications director for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), told The Epoch Times the fence should come down now and the troops sent home, though for different reasons.

Manley, who also worked for Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), said, “As a long-time resident of Capitol Hill and someone who was lucky enough to spend most of my 21 years as a Senate staffer working out of the Capitol, I am totally opposed to a massive security presence that includes fencing off the complex.”

Manley added that “mistakes were made—with the former president deserving much of the blame for what happened—but the American people deserve ready access to the Capitol and other buildings.”

Darling said Pelosi “has created an unprecedented military encampment surrounding the Capitol” and should have instead “put up the fencing and called in the troops before the riots.”

He believes Republicans should be “stronger in calling for Pelosi to send the National Guard home and to lessen the fencing around the Capitol, because the troops and fencing are little more than political theater.”
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

When Corporations Become More Powerful Than The Government, Our Definition Of "Big Brother" Needs To Change

FRIDAY, FEB 12, 2021 - 16:21
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

Throughout human history, our God-given liberties and freedoms have often been brutally crushed by oppressive governments, and that is still happening all over the world today. But in our time, an additional threat to our liberties and freedoms has emerged.

Global corporations just continue to get larger and more powerful, and in recent years they have been increasingly using that power to shape society. This is a very dangerous trend, because in the western world many of the constraints that our national governments are forced to operate under simply do not apply to corporations.

This gives them an enormous amount of leverage, and they are using it.



Here in the United States, the federal government still has a monopoly on power in areas such as border security, national defense and foreign policy.

But when it comes to the things that matter the most in the day to day lives of most Americans, it could be argued that the giant corporations have now become more powerful than the federal government.

For example, our politicians like to brag about how many jobs that they have “created”, but the truth is that they don’t actually create any jobs unless you want to count useless government desk jobs.

Our politicians can help to foster an environment that will be favorable for economic growth, but it is the corporations that really determine whether the economy will grow or not.

In fact, it could be argued that the corporations are the economy at this point.

Over time, it has become increasingly difficult for any American to become truly independent of the corporate system. Even if you own a small business or you work for yourself, there is a good chance that you depend on the big corporations in many ways.

If you doubt this, just try to “go it on your own” without ever using any corporate products, without ever dealing with a big tech company, and without ever bringing in any income from any corporate source whatsoever.

These days, most of our lives are defined by our corporate overlords. They decide what job you will have, what your pay will be, what hours you will work and what your health plan will look like.

Beyond that, now many large corporations have decided that there are certain beliefs, opinions and values that their employees are not permitted to have.

By now, you have probably heard that a certain actress was fired by Disney for having opinions that were not acceptable. That was a very high profile case, but the truth is that this sort of thing is constantly happening all over the country at this point.

As we move into the future, being guilty of “thought crime” is going to eliminate large blocks of people from ever having certain types of jobs. If you do not pledge fealty to the current version of political correctness, you simply will not be permitted to hold a prominent position in society.

If your beliefs are considered to be “offensive”, you may get to mop the floors for the elite if you are lucky.

Even when you are at home, the elite want to endlessly monitor and control what you do, say and think. The primary way that they do this is through the Internet, and in recent months they have tightened their control considerably. The following comes from an opinion piece that was just authored by former U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch
Consider the events of the last month. Social media sites banned the sitting president of the United States from their platforms. A purge of conservative voices on Twitter ensued. Amazon Web Services expunged Parler, a conservative social media site, from the internet. Just days later, YouTube blocked public access to a Senate hearing on COVID-19.

These events confirmed what many of us have long known: true political power no longer resides in Washington, but in Silicon Valley. Big Tech now effectively decides who has the right to speak, who has the right to assemble online and who has the ability to build a business in the digital age. For many Americans, Twitter’s terms of service agreement now has more power over what they can and cannot say in the public square than the First Amendment does.
In the old days, Americans could go to the public square and say anything that they want.
But now the big tech companies are the public square.

Freedom of speech is a thing of the past on the Internet, and more voices are being “deplatformed” with each passing day.

On Wednesday, it was LifeSiteNews
YouTube just completely removed the LifeSiteNews YouTube channel. This isn’t a temporary ban; every single one of our videos is completely gone.
This greatly grieved me, because so many other pro-life voices have already been silenced. We desperately need those voices, because if we stay on the path that we are currently on, there is no future for America.

On Thursday, Twitter suspended Project Veritas.

Project Veritas would like to continue to share their information in the public square, and I would like to continue to share it with my readers. In fact, I share Project Veritas videos on The Most Important News all the time.

But Twitter has decided that Project Veritas has become too offensive.

“Cancel culture” has gotten wildly out of control, and it is starting to infect every area of our society. Here is more from Orrin Hatch
The pattern of “canceling” individuals for social media posts is well established. This can result in deplatforming, termination of employment or—if you’re baseball legend Curt Schilling—even losing your health insurance. We’re used to seeing cancel culture on a micro-scale: a newspaper editor being fired here, a university professor being suspended there. But now, thanks to an assist from Big Tech, we’re seeing cancel culture on a much broader level. Take the mass cancelation of Parler’s more than 10 million users, or growing calls to ban Fox News, Newsmax and other right-leaning channels altogether. If successful, these efforts will shrink the window of acceptable viewpoints in American society until conservatives find themselves on the outside.
As we continue to go down this road, just think about what this would mean for the next generation of Americans.

Children that are guilty of “thought crime” won’t get into good schools, they will never be allowed to have good jobs, they will be shunned by banks and financial institutions, and they will be banned or marginalized by all of the major entities on the Internet.

Basically, they will have to find a way to survive on the fringes of society somehow.

All of this is designed to force people to believe what they are supposed to believe.

In fact, it is dangerous for you to be reading this article right now.

They are always watching everything that you do on the Internet, and expressions of noncompliance are not acceptable in this brave new world that we live in.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Millennials Are "Mad As Hell"

FRIDAY, FEB 12, 2021 - 7:37
Authored by David Robertson via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The Occupy Wall Street movement that emerged in the financial crisis of 2008 was interesting because a general sense of discontent seemed to merge. Also interesting was the lack of consensus as to the causes of dissatisfaction. More recently, the trading mania surrounding Robinhood and Gamestop reflected many of the same dynamics. A broad sense of anger was channeled variously against Wall Street, “suits,” boomers, short-sellers, and a sundry list of other participants deemed to be bad actors.


One thing is clear: Just like in the 1976 movie, “Network,” a lot of people are “mad as hell.” That anger is a symptom of a bigger problem, however. Digging into its root causes reveals insights about society and how it can reshape and defuse anger and become more productive.

Roots Of Anger
It is not hard to understand some of the sources of anger. Perhaps one of the most revealing single indicators is the variance in wealth distribution over time. In the 1990s, when Baby Boomers were in their late 30s, just slightly older than Millennials’ age in 2020, they owned seven times the share of household wealth (21% vs. 3%). The opportunities for income and wealth accumulation were massively more significant for Baby Boomers than for Millennials.



Missing The Target
As a result, it isn’t too surprising to observe a fair amount of discontent directed at the Baby Boom generation, and it is clear from a number of the Reddit/wallstreetbets threads that this is happening. Further, any reader of The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe can come away with plenty of material for younger generations to incriminate the Baby Boom generation.

For example, Baby Boomers in the US grew up in an environment of enormous economic growth in one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Yet, those prodigious benefits seemed not to be enough; massive debts got used to boost consumption even further. From a historical perspective (and to younger generations), Baby Boomers’ generation appears rapacious in its consumption, like locusts stripping the country bare.

A Generalization
Of course, such a view is a generalization that belies the existence of countless individual Baby Boomers who act and behave in ways that are utterly antithetical to that characterization. It is not hard to find smart and talented individuals and are generous with their time, financial support, knowledge, and experience. As a result, it is hard to consider the entire generation of Baby Boomers an appropriate target of opprobrium.

There are other targets. For instance, short-sellers have received a great deal of anger following the Gamestop and Robinhood episode. Such too appears unjustified. For one, there are at least two sides to every story, and it is essential to hear both to get closer to the truth. Besides, given the upward bias of stocks, short-sellers must work even harder to make a living. Some of the most accomplished (and humble and generous) investors are short-sellers.

As a result, the targeting of outrage against groups such as Baby Boomers or short sellers is at best misguided. At worst, such efforts are both malicious and counterproductive. It only makes things worse by directing outrage in a general direction, including people sympathetic to the cause.

A Bad Game
Where should anger be directed then? Ben Hunt guides us to a better understanding by completely flipping the perspective. It is not a whodunit where the perpetrator needs catching. Instead, the problem is the economic, political, and financial system has become a destructive “game” for most participants. In other words, the odds stacked against us are such that there is little chance of success over time, regardless of performance.

To see this, we need to reconsider our assumptions and mental models. In his piece, “Hunger Games,” Hunt explains how things have changed in the markets:
“You have been told that you can be a PARTICIPANT in the game of markets, that you can storm the playing field of companies, that you can take matters into your own hands and rescue a promising company under unfair attack.”
In a world of entirely free markets, strong property protection, effective regulation, effective enforcement, and a level playing field, this might be true, as the Robinhood episode revealed. However, many of these assumptions are no longer valid:
“We all saw that the thing that determines whether or not our stock market bets pay off is … other bets. We all saw that there is no ‘game of companies’ taking place independently of our bets. We all saw that our bets, in and of themselves, can win the ‘game’, with absolutely zero input from the ‘team’ that is supposedly out on the ‘field’.”
Such is a very different concept of markets than what most of us have operated on. It boils down to two straightforward tenets:
“Everyone knows that everyone knows that 1) The bets ARE the market. 2) Market makers OWN the market.”
Implications
The implications of this are huge. Success in investing in this context is not about researching and applying analytical skills and hanging in when it gets tough. Nope.

Being an investor today is more like being a gladiator. You might win some fights, even in glorious fashion, but the odds currently stacked against your long-term survival. You are mainly just an actor in a game designed to serve the ends of a select few.
“Both of these stories are narratives for our very own Hunger Game, a spectacle that chews up the participants in the arena while delivering enormous profits to the networks (media, financial and political) that put them on.”
The notion of participants getting chewed up in a contest that deliver enormous profits to others does seem to capture much of the environment – and therefore explains much of the anger if it feels like it’s not a fair game that’s because it isn’t.

Another Theory
Interestingly, Noam Chomsky’s presentation, Requiem for the American Dream, dovetails nicely with Hunt’s characterization of the higher-level structure of the social, political, and financial environment. According to Chomsky, the concentration of wealth and power is more than just an unpleasant outcome; instead, it is a distinct objective of the super-rich.

As he explains, the 1960s was an era of much greater wealth equality and was the backdrop for a substantial expansion of civil liberties. Increasingly too, young people were protesting against the government, against corporate leadership, against AUTHORITY, and it scared people in charge.

Principles
As Chomsky tells it, “The 10 Principles Of Concentration Of Wealth & Power” (the subtitle of the presentation) were something of playbook devised by the super-rich to stem the tide of egalitarianism and to reverse it. While this hypothesis certainly rings with conspiratorial tones, the “principles” sure explain many things.

One set of principles prescribes reshaping the economy through financialization and offshoring. Together, these two efforts serve to increase the role of asset owners in the economy at the expense of reducing laborers’ role. Both have succeeded spectacularly.

Another principle is, “Marginalize the population.” Such gets accomplished by maintaining the veneer of democracy while at the same time eroding its power to be representative. Chomsky describes how most people do not have a voice that counts:
“In one study, together with another fine political scientist, Benjamin Page, [Martin] Gilens took about 1,700 policy decisions, and compared them with public attitudes and business interests. What they show, I think convincingly, is that policy is uncorrelated with public attitudes, and closely correlated with corporate interests. Elsewhere he showed that about 70 percent of the population has no influence on policy—they might as well be in some other country. And as you go up the income and wealth level, the impact on public policy is greater—the rich essentially get what they want.”
Hypothesis
Based on these principles, the hypothesis seems to fit pretty well, but principle #5, “Attack solidarity,” really stands out as having explanatory power. The idea that the potential of an extensive group of people to collaborate toward a common goal is a terrifying prospect for a small minority of super-rich people with different interests. The energy of the masses, however, also represents a force that can turn on itself:
SOLIDARITY IS quite dangerous. From the point of view of the masters, you’re only supposed to care about yourself, not about other people. This is quite different from the people they claim are their heroes, like Adam Smith, who based his whole approach to the economy on the principle that sympathy is a fundamental human trait—but that has to be driven out of people’s heads. You’ve got to be for yourself and follow the vile maxim—“don’t care about others”—which is okay for the rich and powerful, but devastating for everyone else.”
Wow, that puts a lot of things in a different context! Namely, when people fall prey to the maxim “don’t care about others,” they inadvertently advance the super-rich’s goals by disrupting the solidarity of everyone else. More specifically, when someone puts huge bets on Gamestop to stick it to the short sellers and rages about the boomers, they aren’t soldiers bravely fighting for a better system. They are pawns getting played.

Requiem
Such may get mistaken for a passing phase or a transient cultural phenomenon, but it seems like there is something far more substantive here. Chomsky hints at it with his introduction:
“DURING THE Great Depression, which I’m old enough to remember, it was bad—much worse objectively than today. But there was a sense that we’ll get out of this somehow, an expectation that things were going to get better, ‘maybe we don’t have jobs today, but they’ll be coming back tomorrow, and we can work together to create a brighter future’.”
Such highlights the problem. In the Great Depression, things were terrible, but there was a belief that things would get better. There was hope. Today, most people are far better off in terms of health and wealth, but the idea is that things are getting worse. The hope has faded.

For the first time in the country’s history, a generation has lost hope of things getting better. They have lost the American Dream. In a culture that highly values growth and competition, the fate of having less is an especially tough pill to swallow. It’s enough to make people angry.

Actions
What can we do? Diagnosed as a conflict between the super-rich and everyone else, improving the situation will not be a battle to be won by a handful of brave “soldiers.” That effort will require broader participation and more collaboration. As a result, an excellent place to start is to stop attacking each other.

Beyond that, Hunt provides several high-level prescriptions. He recommends pressing for lower leverage in financial institutions at the policy level. He recommends focusing on real-world companies and cash flows at the investment level. At a personal level, he recommends “calling a thing by its proper name.” Collectively, he promotes efforts designed to “diminish Wall Street’s influence over our democracy.” Such is a useful framework from which to make plans.

Conclusion
The bad news is many people are “mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore.” It is also unfortunate that much of the anger gets channeled in a way that, at best, isn’t helpful, and at worst, is counterproductive. We don’t need to descend into a Hunger Game competition, but it is possible.

The good news is that anger is a form of energy. Further, anger represents a level of energy sufficient to effect change. Perhaps the knowledge that most other people are not part of the problem can harness that energy. Maybe that energy could get used to collaborating to tear down a system that doesn’t work very well for most people and build a new one that does. Perhaps.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

French Leaders Warn That Social Justice Ideas Imported From US Are Undermining Their Society

FRIDAY, FEB 12, 2021 - 3:30
Authored by Stacey Lennox via PJMedia.com,

When the French think you’ve gone too far with your wokeism, you might want to back up a bit. According to the New York Times, French politicians, high profile intellectuals, and journalists warn that ideas from the U.S. about race, gender, and post-colonialism are an existential threat to their country.


French President Emmanuel Macron felt the sting of social justice criticism last year following terrorist attacks that targeted France’s religious past and secular present. A Chechen refugee beheaded a schoolteacher for sharing the cartoons drawn by artists at Charlie Hebdo that were caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. He opened a class on free speech to celebrate France’s tradition of free expression and Enlightenment values. The same cartoons that triggered a massacre at Charlie Hebdo cost Samuel Paty his life.

This was one of three terrorist attacks during the trial in Paris for the Charlie Hebdo perpetrators. Two people were injured by a Pakistani refugee outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Three people were killed when a Tunisian man carrying a copy of the Quran entered a church in Nice with a knife. Macron responded with measures to eliminate Islamism. According to the New York Times:
In a long-awaited speech on the subject, Mr. Macron said that the influence of Islamism must be eradicated from public institutions even as he acknowledged government failures in allowing it to spread.
The measures include placing stringent limits on home-schooling and increasing scrutiny of religious schools, making associations that solicit public funds sign a “charter” on secularism. While these measures would apply to any group, they are intended to counter extremists in the Muslim community.
Under the measures, the widespread practice of bringing over foreign imams to work in France, where they are often accused of preaching an outdated or extreme version of Islam, would be ended.
Macron made distinctions between Muslims and Islamism as many other commentators, including Bill Maher and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, do in other parts of the world. He was roasted by the New York Times for a right-ward tilt and Islamophobia. Macron’s response to the criticism was to pick up the phone and call the reporters at the paper.
“When France was attacked five years ago, every nation in the world supported us,” Macron said, referring to the series of terrorist attacks across Paris in November 2015 in which 130 people were killed.
So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values – journalists who write in a country that is the heir to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution – when I see them legitimising this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost.”
Macron actually encountered the radical Left’s inability to hold two ideas in their heads at once. Maher and Hirsi Ali have faced similar accusations. The ability to be tolerant of the Muslim religion and Muslims and yet also critical of or concerned about Islamist fundamentalism is beyond the Times‘ staff.

French culture has always taken the core values and of equality and liberty very seriously. The French government does not keep race-based statistics and rejects the concepts of diversity and multiculturalism. There is an expectation that immigrants will assimilate to these values and adopt a secular view that separates religion and the state. Then the George Floyd riots were exported to Europe, including France, and ideas common on the college campuses in the United States started to bubble up.

Specifically, France rejects the concept of Islamophobia. Macron’s education minister accused universities under American influence of using the concept as an intellectual justification for terrorist acts. A group of 100 prominent scholars supported this assessment in an open letter:
A signatory, Gilles Kepel, an expert on Islam, said that American influence had led to “a sort of prohibition in universities to think about the phenomenon of political Islam in the name of a leftist ideology that considers it the religion of the underprivileged.’’

Along with Islamophobia, it was through the “totally artificial importation’’ in France of the “American-style Black question” that some were trying to draw a false picture of a France guilty of “systemic racism’’ and “white privilege,’’ said Pierre-André Taguieff, a historian and a leading critic of the American influence.

Mr. Taguieff said in an email that researchers of race, Islamophobia and post-colonialism were motivated by a “hatred of the West, as a white civilization.’’
“The common agenda of these enemies of European civilization can be summed up in three words: decolonize, demasculate, de-Europeanize,’’ Mr. Taguieff said. “Straight white male — that’s the culprit to condemn and the enemy to eliminate.”
Who would believe that the French leaders would be greater defenders of Western civilization than leaders in America? They are committed to equality under the law while we keep hearing about equity. They value liberty and common culture born of rich Judeo-Christian history while our leaders allow spoiled children to tear ours down and rewrite our history.

President Biden was fond of saying how much world leaders dismissed President Trump. One has to wonder how Macron will view Biden after his capitulation to the social justice warriors in his own party. One might call it an emasculation of the straight white male who purports to be the leader of the free world.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Troop Deployments In Washington Are A Disaster Waiting To Happen

THURSDAY, FEB 11, 2021 - 23:10
Authored by James Bovard via The Mises Institute,

“Tyranny in form is the first step towards tyranny in substance,” warned Senator John Taylor two hundred years ago in his forgotten classic, Tyranny Unmasked. As the massive National Guard troop deployment in Washington enters its second month, much of the media and many members of Congress are thrilled that it will extend until at least mid-March. But Americans would be wise to recognize the growing perils of the militarization of American political disputes.


The military occupation of Washington was prompted by the January 6 clashes at the Capitol between Trump supporters and law enforcement, in which three people (including one Capitol policeman) died as a result of the violence. Roughly eight hundred protestors and others unlawfully entered the Capitol, though many of them entered nonviolently through open doors and most left without incident hours later.

The federal government responded by deploying twenty-five thousand National Guard troops to prevent problems during President Joe Biden’s swearing-in—the first inauguration since 1865 featuring the capital city packed with armed soldiers. Protests were almost completely banned in Washington for the inauguration.

Instead of ending after the muted inauguration celebration, the troop deployment was extended for the Senate impeachment trial.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) declared:
“So long as Donald Trump is empowered by Senate Republicans, there is still the chance that he is going to incite another attempt at the Capitol.”
But the Senate vote on Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) motion labeling the trial as unconstitutional signaled that the trial will be anticlimactic because Trump is unlikely to be convicted. The actual trial may be little more than a series of pratfalls, alternating between histrionic Democratic House members and wild-swinging, table-pounding Trump lawyers. A pointless deluge of political vitriol will make a mockery of Biden’s calls for national unity.

Then the troop deployment was extended into at least mid-March because of unidentified threats made to members of Congress.
Acting Army Secretary John Whitley announced last week:
“There are several upcoming events—we don't know what they are—over the next several weeks, and they're concerned that there could be situations where there are lawful protests, First Amendment–protected protests, that could either be used by malicious actors, or other problems that could emerge.”
“We don’t know what they are” but somebody heard something somewhere, so the military deployment will continue. Threats have occurred in waves toward members of Congress at least since the farm crisis of the 1980s, but prior menacing did not result in the occupation of the capital city.

Perpetuating the troop deployment is also being justified by melodramatic revisionism. In congressional testimony last week, Capitol Police acting chief Yogananda Pittman described the January 6 clash at the Capitol as “a terrorist attack by tens of thousands of insurrectionists.”

Apparently, anyone who tromped from the scene of Trump’s ludicrous “I won by a landslide” spiel to the Capitol was a terrorist, or at least an “insurrectionist” (which is simply “terrorist” spelled with more letters). Is “walking on the Mall with bad thoughts” sufficient to get classified as a terrorist in the Biden era?

Placing thousands of troops on the streets of the nation’s capital could be a ticking time bomb. The longer the National Guard is deployed in Washington, the greater the peril of a Kent State–caliber catastrophe. The Ohio National Guard’s volley of fire in 1970 that killed four students and wounded nine others was a defining moment for the Vietnam era.

Forty years later, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published an investigation of the Kent State shooting based on new analyses of audio recordings from the scene. The Plain Dealer concluded that an FBI informant who was photographing student protestors fired four shots from his .38-caliber revolver after students began threatening him. That gunfire started barely a minute before the Ohio National Guard opened fire. Gunshots from the FBI informant apparently spooked guard commanders into believing they were taking sniper fire, spurring the order to shoot students. The informant denied having fired, but witnesses testified differently.

(The FBI hustled the informant from the scene and he later became an undercover narcotics cop in Washington, DC.) Though there is no evidence that the FBI sought to provoke carnage at Kent State, FBI agents involved in COINTELPRO (the Counterintelligence Program) in the 1960s and 1970s boasted of “false flag” operations which provoked killings.

If some malicious group wanted to plunge this nation into chaos and fear, National Guard troops at a checkpoint would be an easy target—at least for the first moments after they were fired upon (most of the troops do not have ammo magazines in their rifles). The sweeping reaction to January 6 might be far surpassed if troops are gunned down regardless of whether the culprits were right-wing extremists, Antifa, or foreign infiltrators. An attack on the troops would likely perpetuate the military occupation and potentially spur Biden to declare martial law.

Last spring, when riots erupted after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, President Trump warned that “the Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military and many arrests.”

Many activists were justifiably appalled at the specter of Trump seizing dictatorial power over areas wracked by violent protests.

But the danger remains regardless of who is president.

Martial law is the ultimate revocation of constitutional rights: anyone who disobeys soldiers’ orders can be shot. There are plenty of malevolent actors here and abroad who would relish seeing martial law declared in Washington, the paramount disgrace for the world’s proudest democracy.

Unfortunately, Biden would have plenty of support initially if he proclaimed that violence in Washington required him to declare martial law. As the Washington Post noted in 2018, a public opinion poll showed that 25 percent of Americans believed “a military takeover was justified if there were widespread corruption or crime.” The Journal of Democracy reported that polls showed that only 19 percent of Millennials in the US believed that it would be illegitimate “in a democracy for the military to take over when the government is incompetent or failing to do its job.” But trusting to military rule for Millennial wish fulfillment would be the biggest folly of them all. Support for martial law is the ultimate proof of declining political literacy in this nation.

Regardless of the risks, some politicians are clinging to the presence of the troops in Washington like Linus clutching his “security blanket” in a Peanuts cartoon. Will we now see regular alarms from a long series of politicians and political appointees working to “keep up the fear”?

History is littered with stories of nations scourged by “temporary” martial law that perpetuated itself. Anyone who believes America is immune should recall Senator Taylor’s 1821 warning against presuming “our good theoretical system of government is a sufficient security against actual tyranny."
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Big Brother Is Spying On You In Thousands Of Ways, And All Of That Info Now Goes Into Centralized "Fusion Systems"

THURSDAY, FEB 11, 2021 - 22:30
Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Big Brother is watching you. Sadly, most people don’t realize how extensive the surveillance grid has now become. As you drive to work or to school, license plate readers are systematically tracking where you travel. In major cities, thousands of highly advanced security cameras (many equipped with facial recognition technology) are monitoring your every move.

If authorities detect that you are doing something suspicious, they can quickly pull up your criminal, financial and medical records. Of course if they want to dig deeper, your phone and your computer are constantly producing a treasure trove of surveillance data.

Nothing that you do on either one of them is ever private.



In the past, compiling all of that information would take a great deal of time. But now tech giants such as Microsoft, Motorola, Cisco and Palantir are selling “fusion systems” to governments all over the planet. These “fusion systems” can instantly integrate surveillance data from thousands of different sources, and this has totally transformed how law enforcement is conducted in many of our largest cities.

Arthur Holland Michel is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and he was given a tour of a “fusion system” that is used by the city of Chicago called

Citigraf

He clicked “INVESTIGATE,” and Citigraf got to work on the reported assault. The software runs on what Genetec calls a “correlation engine,” a suite of algorithms that trawl through a city’s historical police records and live sensor feeds, looking for patterns and connections. Seconds later, a long list of possible leads appeared onscreen, including a lineup of individuals previously arrested in the neighborhood for violent crimes, the home addresses of parolees living nearby, a catalog of similar recent 911 calls, photographs and license plate numbers of vehicles that had been detected speeding away from the scene, and video feeds from any cameras that might have picked up evidence of the crime itself, including those mounted on passing buses and trains. More than enough information, in other words, for an officer to respond to that original 911 call with a nearly telepathic sense of what has just unfolded.
But these systems are not just used to track down criminals.

In fact, they can be used to investigate literally anyone.

On another occasion, Arthur Holland Michel got the opportunity to test out the “fusion system” that Microsoft had built for New York City
The NYPD official showed me how he could pull up any city resident’s rap sheet, lists of their known associates, cases in which they were named as a victim of a crime or as a witness, and, if they had a car, a heatmap of where they tended to drive and a full history of their parking violations. Then he handed me the phone. Go ahead, he said; search a name.

A flurry of people came to mind: Friends. Lovers. Enemies. In the end, I chose the victim of a shooting I’d witnessed in Brooklyn a couple of years earlier. He popped right up, along with what felt like more personal information than I, or even perhaps a curious officer, had any right to know without a court order. Feeling a little dizzy, I gave the phone back.
If this is what is going on in major cities such as Chicago and New York, can you imagine the technology that the alphabet agencies of the federal government must now possess?

Of course this isn’t just happening in the United States.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a joint European surveillance project known as ROXANNE is causing a great deal of concern
An acronym for Real time netwOrk, teXt, and speaker ANalytics for combating orgaNized crimE, it was announced in November the Republic’s involvement in the project currently being developed in Switzerland.

A biometrics based platform ostensibly to monitor and crack down on organised crime, an additional application of ROXANNE which its creators advertise freely is the ability to monitor those guilty of alleged hate speech and political extremism.
Strict new laws against “hate speech” and “political extremism” are being instituted all over Europe, and this new tool will help to track down “thought criminals”.

In particular, this new tool will be heavily monitoring “social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube as well as normal telecommunications platforms”…
A product of the EU funded Horizon 2020 to foster new surveillance technology, ROXANNE works across social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube as well as normal telecommunications platforms to identify, categorise, and track faces and voices enabling authorities to paint a more in depth picture of the network being investigated, whether it be in relation to criminal activity or those deemed politically extreme.
Enabling authorities to draw on raw data from a variety of sources and platforms in order to recognise common speech patterns, facial features, and geolocation, the end result is both to identify suspects and paint an intricate picture of the networks being put under the microscope.
So if you live in Europe and you think that you might be guilty of “thought crime” at some point, you might want to get rid of your phone and your computer.

Seriously.

Things really have gotten that bad over there, and it is just a matter of time before the madness gets to the same level in the United States, because we are going down the exact same road.

Here in the U.S., more political voices are being “deplatformed” with each passing day.

Progressive reporter Jordan Chariton originally cheered when conservatives were being deplatformed, but at this point he regrets his calls for censorship now that YouTube has taken down one of his videos
However, after YouTube pulled video from his own channel featuring footage of the January 6 riot for violating the platform’s policies against “spam and deceptive practices,” the Chariton reversed his position.
“With time to reflect, & seeing Silicon Valley’s censorship onslaught, I regret this tweet made in [the] heat of moment,” the progressive journalist wrote. “Whether certain cable/YouTube outlets mislead audiences w/ dishonest claims lacking real evidence, they shouldn’t be targeted.”
It is all fun and games when it is happening to “the other side”, but when it happens to you suddenly it becomes real.

They really do want to control what all of us do, say and think, and the Big Brother surveillance grid is becoming more suffocating with each passing year.

If we do not put limits on this technology while we still can, it is just a matter of time before our society becomes a dystopian nightmare far more horrible than anything than George Orwell ever dared to imagine.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

No, We Don't Need A 'Reality-Czar': Let Truth And Falsehood Grapple

THURSDAY, FEB 11, 2021 - 19:10
Authored by Gary Galles via The Foundation for Economic Education,

New York Times writer Kevin Roose recently surveyed “our truth-challenged information ecosystem” and found a proliferation of “hoaxes, lies and collective delusions.” As he put it, that limits the Biden administration’s ability to “unite a country,” because “millions of people have chosen to create their own version of reality.”

In response, he called for the creation of a “reality czar”-led government task force to root out disinformation.


Roose admits such a call for a “truth commission” sounds “dystopian,” before proceeding to ignore many ways it would be exactly that. For instance, the Times, the Biden campaign, the Democrat leadership, and others on board with the idea have come nowhere close to pursuing “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Yet despite a history of disseminating misinformation, clear biases, and suppression of those with different views, they would select the arbiters of Orwellian truth.

So who could be trusted as the reality czar? No one.

Just ask Democrats why they never suggested having one when Trump was in office. In politics, truth is subservient to power. But since any attempt to provably establish the truth would be littered with obstacles and controversies, and often beyond possibility, while creating a substantial threat to Americans’ freedoms, only someone who was indisputably committed to both truth and freedom could possibly be trusted to lead such an enterprise. And there are precious few who would qualify. If he wasn’t long dead, I would nominate John Milton.

Why Milton?

Before America’s founding, he argued for freedoms of speech and the press, and against censorship, in England. His defense of freedom of conscience later powerfully resonated with America’s founders, reflected in our First Amendment. So it is worth considering the principles he would follow to establish truth and preserve freedom, in his own words.
  1. If it come to prohibiting, there is aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.
  2. Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolized.
  3. When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty obtained that wise men look for.
  4. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
  5. Truth...Let her and falsehood grapple.
  6. Who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
  7. Truth…needs no policies or stratagems…to make her victorious. These are the shifts and the defenses that error uses against her power.
  8. There is no learned man but will confess be hath much profited by reading controversies--his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds firmly established…should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write…it follows then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true; which must needs conduce much to the general confirmation of an implicit truth.
  9. Discern…in what things persuasion only is to work.
  10. No institution which does not continually test its ideals, techniques and measure of accomplishment can claim real vitality.
  11. Liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.
  12. None can love freedom but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope than under tyrants.
  13. How oft [have] nations gone corrupt…by their own devices brought down to servitude.
  14. What do terms…which are at once corrupt and misapplied, denote but a people…ripe for servitude?
  15. Is it just or reasonable, that…voices against the main end of government should enslave [those] that would be free?
  16. They who seek nothing but their own just liberty, have always right to win it and to keep it…be the voices ever so numerous that oppose it.
In addition, Milton would have some other important qualifications in evaluating reality. He would not be misled by government promises that threaten the rights that comprise our liberty, just because the government doesn’t mention that fact.

Similarly, when benefit promises far out-weigh promised exactions from citizens, he would recognize that they are omitting some of the truth. As one of history’s most important poets, he would have expertise in what should be considered poetic license. As the second most important author in the English language, after Shakespeare, he would certainly also be alert to the abuse of language not in pursuit of truth, but of power over others. Just some of the words that have had their meanings warped are unity, we, rights, freedom, fair, justice, social, capitalism, need, and greed. And there has been plenty of added word twisting recently, with insurrection being near the top of the list.

It is obvious that discussing John Milton as a reality or truth czar is not a serious proposal. But that discussion reveals the position’s necessary requirements of the love of truth and the love of freedom our country was founded on.

Further, it shows that anyone fully meeting those requirements, if given the task, would find a great deal about the positions, promises and policies of those who appointed them both untrue and unworthy of freedom.

Consequently, no such czar would ever be appointed. And it is hard to see how Americans’ well-being would be advanced by anyone less trustworthy for the job.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Oregon Pushes Idea That Math Is Racist, Encourages Teachers to Dismantle White Supremacy

A little girl does a math problem
Rido / ShutterstockA course for teachers being promoted in Oregon asks them to identify and 'challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.' (Rido / Shutterstock)

By Kipp Jones

The Oregon Department of Education is promoting a course for teachers that links math lessons to racism and a culture of “white supremacy.”

The department last week sent out an online pamphlet for a course called “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” which includes a section on “Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” The pamphlet includes materials that are essentially a course for spreading wokeness inside of classrooms.

The ODE-promoted course brands itself as “an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx, and Multilingual students in grades 6-8, addresses barriers to math equity, and aligns instruction to grade-level priority standards.” The course challenges the reality that some answers are simply wrong while broadly challenging America’s founding principles.

According to the course syllabus, there are five “strides” that can help educators banish “racism” from math in their classrooms. In the dismantling racism section, the course asks teachers to examine their “actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics” with the apparent goal of shaming them into making lessons about identity politics.

“White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on [minority] students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics,” the section states.

The course section also identifies “ways in which white supremacy shows up in math classrooms.”

According to the teaching materials, too much focus on asking students to get the “right” answer when solving math problems is connected to white supremacy, as is working independently. The course favors group math work for students.

“Often the emphasis is placed on learning math in the ‘real world,’ as if our classrooms are not a part of the real world. This reinforces notions of either/or thinking because math is only seen as useful when it is in a particular context,” the dismantling racism section states. “However, this can result in using mathematics to uphold capitalist and imperialist ways of being and understandings of the world.”

The course goes on to target both “capitalism” and “imperialism,” while suggesting math lessons be used to help develop the neighborhoods of underprivileged kids.

The materials also invite teachers to ask themselves how “mathematics can help solve problems affecting students’ communities,” and to recognize “the ways that communities of color engage in mathematics and problem solving in their everyday lives.”

Furthermore, the course will ask teachers to identify and “challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”

“The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so,” the course states. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”

The course appears to be voluntary for teachers who wish to learn better ways to promote Marxist ideals. But it’s critical race theory on steroids² – 1,776 + 1,619.

For example, the Marxist materials state, ”We cannot dismantle racism in a system that exploits people for private profit … If we want to dismantle racism, then we must build a movement for economic justice.”

This is the state, or at least the future, of the country’s education system. Teachers in cities across the country are currently holding districts hostage by using the coronavirus pandemic to keep schools closed.

Once many of those teachers finally get around to doing their jobs, some kids will likely be further underserved by lessons that are not relevant to promoting critical thinking — at least in the Beaver State.

The course, more or less, seems to be an attack on the fundamentals of the country while using objective number-crunching as a pretext. It also infers that minorities do not have the ability to solve problems — which itself seems kind of racist.

In Oregon, the idea that there are wrong answers to math problems is being challenged, as is the notion that minority kids are capable of competing in STEM activities without assistance.

Apparently every lesson will be one where slackers all sit around the smart kid waiting for that person to come up with the correct answer. Weren’t those rare group opportunities fun?

It isn’t clear, beyond the Marxist-rhetoric-serving adults, how students are supposed to actually benefit from the absurd social experiment that the course is.

If you’re wondering where something so brazenly anti-American originated from, the lesson thanks the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its “generous financial support.”

____________________________________


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marsh

On TB every waking moment

POSTED ON FEBRUARY 12, 2021 BY PAUL MIRENGOFF

IS AMERICA FAILING THE “TWITTER TEST”?

This essay by the great Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky (with Gil Troy) is as insightful and effective a takedown of the Soviet Union as can be written in a short-to-midlength essay.

Sharansky’s father was a creative writer and journalist; Sharansky was a scientist. By describing how the totalitarian Soviet government oppressed artists, journalists, and scientists, Sharanksy paints a truly chilling picture.

The Soviets forced intelligent members of these professions and a great many other citizens to become what Sharansky calls “doublethinkers.”
As the Party Line you follow publicly becomes increasingly disconnected from what you believe or see or experience privately, your cynicism grows along with your mental agility—your skill in living and writing in two contradictory scripts at once. That’s how you become a doublethinker.
At the end of the essay, Sharansky applies the lessons he learned under Soviet communism to the United States. He writes:
The feeling of release from the fear and giddy relief when crossing the line from doublethink to democratic dissent is also universal across cultures. This understanding prompted the Town Square Test I use to distinguish between free societies and fear societies: Can you express your individual views loudly, in public, without fear of being punished legally, formally, in any way? If yes, you live in a free society; if not, you’re in a fear society.
In the West today, the pressure to conform doesn’t come from the totalitarian top — our political leaders are not Stalinist dictators. Instead, it comes from the fanatics around us, in our neighborhoods, at school, at work, often using the prospect of Twitter-shaming to bully people into silence—or a fake, politically-correct compliance.

Recent polls suggest that nearly two-thirds of Americans report self-censoring about politics at least occasionally, essentially becoming a nation of doublethinkers despite the magnificent constitutional protections for free thought and expression enshrined in the Bill of Rights

To preserve our integrity and our souls, the quality of our political debate and the creativity so essential to our cultural life, we need a Twitter Test challenging bottom-up cultural totalitarianism that is spreading throughout free societies.
That test asks: In the democratic society in which you live, can you express your individual views loudly, in public and in private, on social media and at rallies, without fear of being shamed, excommunicated, or cancelled?

Ultimately, whether you will live as a democratic doublethinker doesn’t depend on the authorities or on the corporations that run social media platforms: it depends on you. Each of us individually decides whether we want to submit to the crippling indignity of doublethink, or break the chains that keep us from expressing our own thoughts, and becoming whole.
(Emphasis added)

Increasingly and to alarming degree, America is failing the Twitter test.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

‘Still in the fight? Be prepared to get roughed up.’ John Hayward’s thread on fighting BACK against the Left will make you fist-pump

Posted at 3:57 pm on February 12, 2021 by Sam J.

John Hayward writes a pretty damn good thread when he feels like it, and this one about the Left, the Right, cancel culture, and fighting back is perhaps one of his best. Yes, it is a bit long but so worth your time to read and heck, even share.

Take a gander:

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Yes, how do we fight back?

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1613191280027.png

We cannot stop that process by politely objecting to it.

1613191361602.png

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There is no place for groups like The Lincoln Project.
Just sayin’.
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Thank God.

Page 1 of 2 based on picture limit
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Page 2 of 2


1613191676308.png

People are truly desperate for brave leaders who do NOT want to control them or their lives.

1613191780414.png

How do you fight someone who doesn’t care about life or liberty or freedom?

1613191822013.png

If you really still believe it can be won (and this editor does) then we must be prepared to get dirty, get roughed up …
Hell yeah.

1613191865505.png

The question is not do we fight, but HOW.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
From Steve Bannon's War Room


LAA Releases Voter Integrity Reform Policy Objectives, Announces Free Online Activist Training

View: https://youtu.be/E9ik2hkwOFw
7:59 min

Today, LAA Executive Director Matt Braynard announced that the organization has released its policy objectives for state-level voter integrity reforms.

“After many months consulting with our own team of election experts and after considering hundreds of suggestions made to our organization by the public, we are excited to announce these policy objectives that will help to restore trust in our nation’s election system,” said Braynard.

“And we aren’t just talking about these policies. On February 18th we will have our second online-training session to teach activists across the country how to fight for these reforms at the county and state level. Our previous training session had over 1000 viewers, and we expect even more next time.”

“While we received many suggestions for reforms, these are focused on what is achievable and in line with current state and federal laws,” said Braynard. “This isn’t the be-all, end-all, and additional, state-specific reforms are necessary. However, we believe these have the potential to eliminate all of the problems – real and reasonably alleged – from the 2020 general election.”

The six policy objectives are summarized as: (1) thumbprint authentication of absentee ballots, (2) mandated voter list hygiene, (3) ban of “black box” voting equipment, (4) the appointment of a citizens committee with real authority and access to the election process, (5) the creation of a dedicated and fully-funded voter fraud investigation unit within each state’s attorney general’s office, and (6) the equitable distribution of private contributions to election operations.

The detailed, complete explanation of these policy objective may be found online at lookaheadamerica.org/integrity. Registration for the online activist training can be found at lookaheadamerica.org/training.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Dan Schulz - How to become a Republican PC (Precinct Committeeman) and help steer the party from the bottom up (400,000 positions. Only about 200,000 filled)


TOOLS TO KEEP YOU ON THE RIGHT TRACK
We believe in providing our grassroots PC’s free resources of information that will assist in recruiting Constitutional Conservatives that believe in Principle over Party.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Local newspaper takes on Big Tech: Lawsuit says Google and Facebook 'conspire to monopolize and dominate the digital media space'
David versus Goliath
CHRIS FIELD
February 12, 2021

Critics of Big Tech have repeatedly accused online giants of abusing and dominating smaller news outlets, conservative voices, and any site or app that might be seen as competition.

Now one local West Virginia newspaper is facing down a couple of tech Goliaths and taking them to court.

The Pulitzer-Prize winning Charleston Gazette-Mail filed a lawsuit claiming Big Tech companies Facebook and Google are working together to manipulate the digital advertising market, Fox News reported Thursday.

The owner of the Gazette-Mail, Doug Reynolds, told Fox News that his paper's lawsuit alleges that the two companies "conspire to monopolize and dominate the digital media space."

Asked what's hurting papers like his, Reynolds answered, "The newspaper industry over the last 10 years has been making this transfer to digital media, and what we found is, as we've gone into this world, that Google and Facebook make the rules of the game, they control the whole environment. They compete against us for advertising dollars, and then they get to keep score in the end."

He noted that the U.S. has seen more than 200 newspapers close, which threatens local journalism. In order for small news outlets to survive, they have to be able to finance themselves in the digital sphere, but "in the current arrangement, that's not going to be possible."

Reynolds wants an open and even playing field so outlets can find ways to be paid for without interference from Big Tech companies.

Asked about nonprofits financed by businesses like Google and Facebook designed to prop up local newspapers, Reynolds was skeptical.

"We can't have a system where businesses and our journalism is [sic] dependent on us writing good things about Google and Facebook," he said.

"It has to be independent," Reynolds continued. "It can't be just on their good will whether we survive or not."

Fox News said it reached out to Google and Facebook for comment. Facebook did not respond, while Google said it is not commenting on this case.

Video on website 3:01 min
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Google Quietly Escalates Manual Search Censorship
1,516
Google CEO Sundar Pichai
Pool/AFP/Getty
ALLUM BOKHARI9 Feb 2021812

Google has quietly escalated censorship of its market-dominating search engine, adding a range of new topics where human moderators are allowed to manually penalize websites, suppressing them in search results.

If a website is affected by one of these manual acts of censorship, “some or all of that site will not be shown in Google search results,” according to the tech giant.

The list, published in full on Google’s support website, includes the following:
  • Discover policy violation: Adult-themed content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Dangerous content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Harassing content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Hateful content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Manipulated media
  • News and Discover policy violation: Medical content
  • Discover policy violation: Misleading content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Sexually explicit content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Terrorist content
  • News policy violation: Transparency
  • News and Discover policy violation: Violence and gore content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Vulgar language and profanity
Publishers who have been hit with a manual action by Google will be able to appeal the decision by “fixing” whatever issue violated the policy and then submitting their website to Google for a review. Google states that it could take “several days or a week” for the tech giant to reach a final decision, leaving

Once upon a time, Google attempted to conceal its censorship of search. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai insisted, under oath before congress, that the company does not “manually intervene on any particular search result,” a statement that one of Google’s own former employees said was a lie.

Leaks like the “Good Censor” briefing and YouTube’s search blacklists, both published by Breitbart News, attracted viral attention because they revealed manual censorship of search results, in particular political search results, and contrary to Pichai’s statements, occurred regularly at Google.

But as Republicans failed to impose any consequences on Google or other tech companies for their growing political interference and erosion of Americans’ ability to exercise their First Amendment rights online, Google and other tech companies became less concerned about hiding their acts of censorship.

Analysis by Breitbart News also revealed that Google suppressed links to conservative news websites, including Breitbart, on searches for “Biden” and “Joe Biden” ahead of the 2020 election — but this was discovered in part by anaylzing data from Google’s own publisher console, a sign of how relaxed the tech giant has become about its political interference being discovered.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Southern Lawmakers in Multiple States Tell Leftists They're Not Putting Up with Anti-Americanism

Black bloc protesters burn an American flag on Nov. 4, 2020, in Portland, Oregon.
Nathan Howard / Getty ImagesBlack bloc protesters burn an American flag on Nov. 4, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

By Elizabeth Stauffer
Published February 12, 2021 at 5:23pm

According to a Tuesday Op-Ed in The New York Times, many French “politicians and prominent intellectuals” believe that America’s new woke culture has gone too far and now poses an existential threat to the French republic and identity.

Specifically, they are concerned about the dangerous social theories on “race, gender and post-colonialism”, which they view as forms of separatism.

In an October speech, French President Emmanuel Macron said the threat to French culture lies in “[c]ertain social science theories entirely imported from the United States.”

Macron is absolutely correct.

In recent years, the emboldened left has tried to force Americans into adopting their radical, divisive ideas. They’ve tried to convince every white person that they’re racist and must atone for it.

Progressives are trying to insert unnatural gender ideas, critical race theory (which suggests the system is inherently racist and that whites maintain power by oppressing people of color) and revisionist history (in the form of The Times’ 1619 Project) into the curricula of public schools.

And they’ve been able to do so with relative ease.

The Washington Times reported that lawmakers in two southern states have decided to stand up against the anti-American ideologies. Halleluiah!

Arkansas state Rep. Mark Lowery told the Times he had introduced two bills to address critical race theory and ban the 1619 Project.

“I’m trying to focus on the activities going on here, which I think are demeaning to some students, and this business of labeling people as ‘oppressors,'” Lowery said. “They believe teaching assimilation is racist.”

Unfortunately, an update in the story by The Associated Press indicated that a state House panel met on Tuesday to consider Lowery’s legislation — and even in a state as red as Arkansas, both initiatives were thrown out.

The AP report said the idea of banning the 1619 Project “drew opposition from teachers, civil rights leaders and the state’s top education official.”

That is truly remarkable considering there is disagreement among “[p]rominent liberal scholars” about the project’s historical accuracy, according to the Times. For example, proponents of this version of American history claim that “the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery in the Colonies.”

The Washington Times additionally reported that Democratic state Rep. Reginald Murdock, a member of the Arkansas House panel, told his colleagues, “What you’re doing is censoring and you’re taking away the ability of those who have been trained to stand before our students and teach and provide trained guidance in curriculum development.”

Suddenly, Macron’s warning begins to play in our heads.

Georgia state Rep. Emory Dunahoo is reportedly also “demanding answers from higher education officials about whether critical race theory is creeping into or saturating college classrooms in the state’s public universities,” according to the Times.

Psst: It is.

However, because his effort is ongoing, Dunahoo chose not to discuss the details of his initiative.

After watching the left-wing indoctrination slowly seep into her children’s public school curriculum, and after being confronted by “woke” parents upon questioning the ideology being presented in the classroom, Elana Fishbein founded an activist parent group called “No Left Turn in Education.”

Fishbein, who described such ideology as “pure poison to children’s souls,” told the Times that both the 1619 Project and critical race theory need to be pushed back against at the multiple local and federal levels of government. Her group, she said, now has chapters in 20 states. The group is beginning to work with lawmakers at these different levels to combat the race-focused propaganda.

Fishbein encouraged people to view the material provided to students to teach them about critical race theory.

“Open your eyes, educate yourself,” she said. “Kids are afraid to voice their opinion, but over and over again with parents, with concerned citizens, when they are exposed to this material about CRT, 1619, sexuality indoctrination, once they are exposed to it they are really terrified.”

It’s disturbing that these anti-American ideologies have infiltrated our schools, our institutions and our government. They’ve begun to take hold. They need to be weeded out like an invasive species.

Will push-back by Republican state legislatures or grassroots activist groups like “No Left Turn in Education” be able to slow down the radicalization that is spreading throughout the country?

The French president sees what’s happening in America and knows the uncertainty we face. He wants to make sure that it stays out of France.

And he has to be wondering why U.S. voters elected such a “woke”, power-hungry and anti-American administration.

On some level, he may take pleasure in our current troubles. On the other hand, he knows the world has suddenly become a far more dangerous place.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

'Be Scared, Be Concerned': Flynn Issues Dire Warning as Surveillance State Buckles Down in Wake of Jan. 6

By Andrew J. Sciascia
Published February 11, 2021 at 4:50pm

Gen. Michael Flynn delivered a stark plea to the American people Tuesday, urging that they “get involved” to prevent big government growth on the back of public security fears stemming from the Capitol Hill riot.

Following nationwide voter fraud allegations from the Trump camp and its supporters, the deadly Jan. 6 incursion into the Capitol disrupted congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election results and prompted a bipartisan contingent of establishment figures to accuse former President Donald Trump of deliberately attempting to undermine the peaceful transition of power.

That narrative then morphed into allegations of an outright “coup” in the United States.

The result was several weeks of armed forces occupation in Washington, D.C., with 25,000 National Guard troops operating armed checkpoints and a de facto “green zone” around Capitol Hill. The military presence was maintained until after Inauguration Day festivities came to a close — but the U.S. intelligence response persisted well into February, when reports revealed efforts to use private cellular data in an effort to track members of the Capitol mob.

In an hour-long feature interview with The Western Journal, Flynn blew the whistle on these developments, warning the rapid growth and cooperative nature of Big Tech and big government could doom the American people to decades in the crossfire.

“The scarier issue that you are raising, and this is something that needs to be solved … is the partnership between private technology companies and the United States government,” Flynn said. “Especially our law enforcement and intelligence services, our intelligence community and other elements of our government, the Department of Justice. I mean, there’s some need to be able to listen to somebody’s phones, if it’s a proper warrant and all that for criminal behavior.”

“I understand all that, but what we’re really talking about is a much different relationship: This relationship between Big Tech and big government that now is in every aspect of our lives,” Flynn said.

“We should be scared as Americans. We should be concerned as Americans about this relationship and what they’re able to do.”

Flynn is no stranger to the expansion and abuse of the surveillance state.

Caught up in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the general was fingered for potential Logan Act violations as a result of conversations with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak prior to Trump’s inauguration.

Signed into law in 1799, the Logan Act was aimed at preventing non-government actors and unauthorized American citizens from carrying out policy negotiations with foreign governments.

The vague and archaic statute has never been successfully prosecuted. Its use as a pretext for wiretaps and further investigation into Flynn did, however, result in interrogation scenarios that would later force the general to plead guilty on charges of knowingly providing false statements to the FBI.

When the Department of Justice moved to unseal FBI notes from the Mueller investigation in April, it was revealed that investigators considered a series of approaches to their questioning, but eventually settled on instigating a lie in order to pit Flynn against Trump with the promise of a lenient plea deal. “What is our goal?” one of the FBI notes read. “Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

Overnight, the documents sparked a firestorm in political circles, validating public concerns about the integrity of the Russia probe and forcing the judiciary to once again reconsider Flynn’s attempt to withdraw the guilty plea.

Those discussions were eventually rendered immaterial when Trump granted Flynn a full pardon — but not before the developments prolonged an already drawn-out proceeding, ramping up the legal debt and dragging the general through the mud.

“I am a big advocate of innovation and technology, and I used it on the battlefield with the talent of many young men and women in a very innovative way and in an enlightened way,” Flynn said. “But now when we start to look at it to get into what is essentially our ability to freely speak our mind, our ability to freely operate legally and lawfully as we see fit in the roles that we are in.”

“I mean, what they did to me with no predicate. None. No predicate. And what they did to Carter Page with no predicate, none — and faking it, as we’ve seen in some of the evidence,” he added.

“They were doing unlawful things to me. And as I said earlier, I have faced corruption up close and personal.”

The general was quick to emphasize the risk further surveillance state expansions would pose to the wider society.

“If they can treat me like that,” Flynn said. “They can treat any American like that.”

In light of 9/11, widespread fear and political apathy had led to rapid expansions of government power under the vague pretext of bettering national security and providing the U.S. teeth in its global war on terror. The technical apparatus, state-corporate cooperation and government secrecy ushered in as a result was a broader institution left standing in the wake of that fight.

According to Flynn, the government’s success in turning that institution on private citizens between the 2016 and 2020 presidential election would set a bold new precedent — one that would not be overturned without the grassroots return to general civic engagement.

“We can’t keep saying those bums who are the politicians in whatever capital or or or in Washington, D.C.? Well, guess what? We the people are the ones that voted them in. So we have to take more responsibility for that as we the people, to get out and get involved in our local communities,” Flynn said.

“If we don’t, then I begin to question whether or not we can keep this republic as we know it today.”
 

155 arty

Veteran Member

Southern Lawmakers in Multiple States Tell Leftists They're Not Putting Up with Anti-Americanism

Black bloc protesters burn an American flag on Nov. 4, 2020, in Portland, Oregon.
Nathan Howard / Getty ImagesBlack bloc protesters burn an American flag on Nov. 4, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

By Elizabeth Stauffer
Published February 12, 2021 at 5:23pm

According to a Tuesday Op-Ed in The New York Times, many French “politicians and prominent intellectuals” believe that America’s new woke culture has gone too far and now poses an existential threat to the French republic and identity.

Specifically, they are concerned about the dangerous social theories on “race, gender and post-colonialism”, which they view as forms of separatism.

In an October speech, French President Emmanuel Macron said the threat to French culture lies in “[c]ertain social science theories entirely imported from the United States.”

Macron is absolutely correct.

In recent years, the emboldened left has tried to force Americans into adopting their radical, divisive ideas. They’ve tried to convince every white person that they’re racist and must atone for it.

Progressives are trying to insert unnatural gender ideas, critical race theory (which suggests the system is inherently racist and that whites maintain power by oppressing people of color) and revisionist history (in the form of The Times’ 1619 Project) into the curricula of public schools.

And they’ve been able to do so with relative ease.

The Washington Times reported that lawmakers in two southern states have decided to stand up against the anti-American ideologies. Halleluiah!

Arkansas state Rep. Mark Lowery told the Times he had introduced two bills to address critical race theory and ban the 1619 Project.

“I’m trying to focus on the activities going on here, which I think are demeaning to some students, and this business of labeling people as ‘oppressors,'” Lowery said. “They believe teaching assimilation is racist.”

Unfortunately, an update in the story by The Associated Press indicated that a state House panel met on Tuesday to consider Lowery’s legislation — and even in a state as red as Arkansas, both initiatives were thrown out.

The AP report said the idea of banning the 1619 Project “drew opposition from teachers, civil rights leaders and the state’s top education official.”

That is truly remarkable considering there is disagreement among “[p]rominent liberal scholars” about the project’s historical accuracy, according to the Times. For example, proponents of this version of American history claim that “the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery in the Colonies.”

The Washington Times additionally reported that Democratic state Rep. Reginald Murdock, a member of the Arkansas House panel, told his colleagues, “What you’re doing is censoring and you’re taking away the ability of those who have been trained to stand before our students and teach and provide trained guidance in curriculum development.”

Suddenly, Macron’s warning begins to play in our heads.

Georgia state Rep. Emory Dunahoo is reportedly also “demanding answers from higher education officials about whether critical race theory is creeping into or saturating college classrooms in the state’s public universities,” according to the Times.

Psst: It is.

However, because his effort is ongoing, Dunahoo chose not to discuss the details of his initiative.

After watching the left-wing indoctrination slowly seep into her children’s public school curriculum, and after being confronted by “woke” parents upon questioning the ideology being presented in the classroom, Elana Fishbein founded an activist parent group called “No Left Turn in Education.”

Fishbein, who described such ideology as “pure poison to children’s souls,” told the Times that both the 1619 Project and critical race theory need to be pushed back against at the multiple local and federal levels of government. Her group, she said, now has chapters in 20 states. The group is beginning to work with lawmakers at these different levels to combat the race-focused propaganda.

Fishbein encouraged people to view the material provided to students to teach them about critical race theory.

“Open your eyes, educate yourself,” she said. “Kids are afraid to voice their opinion, but over and over again with parents, with concerned citizens, when they are exposed to this material about CRT, 1619, sexuality indoctrination, once they are exposed to it they are really terrified.”

It’s disturbing that these anti-American ideologies have infiltrated our schools, our institutions and our government. They’ve begun to take hold. They need to be weeded out like an invasive species.

Will push-back by Republican state legislatures or grassroots activist groups like “No Left Turn in Education” be able to slow down the radicalization that is spreading throughout the country?

The French president sees what’s happening in America and knows the uncertainty we face. He wants to make sure that it stays out of France.

And he has to be wondering why U.S. voters elected such a “woke”, power-hungry and anti-American administration.

On some level, he may take pleasure in our current troubles. On the other hand, he knows the world has suddenly become a far more dangerous place.
It's coming faster and faster,then there is not turning back !
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Biden White House Plan to Keep Occupying Troops in DC Through End of Year

By Kristinn Taylor
Published February 13, 2021 at 10:32am

The Biden National Security Council is planning on having National Guard troops continue to occupy the nation’s capital through the end of the year, according to a report by WTTG-TV Fox 5 in Washington, D.C. Additionally, active duty and reserve troops are being considered for deployment.

National Guard troops patrolling in Washington, D.C., screen image via WCNC/YouTube, January 18.

WTTG excerpt:
The National Security Council is asking the Department of Defense to engage Capitol Police on planning for post-March 12th support, according to the e-mail.

…Robert Salesses who began Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security on January 20, 202, wrote in the e-mail:
“If it’s not possible to sustain at the current level with NG personnel, we need to establish the number of NG personnel (DCNG and out-of-state) we can sustain for an extended period – at least through Fall 2021 – and understand additional options for providing DoD support, to include use of reserve personnel, as well as active component.”

The current authorized deployment of 7,000 National Guard troops in D.C. runs through March 12, coming in at a cost of nearly half-a-billion dollars since the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Guard deployment topped out at around 25,000 during the Biden inauguration.

Stars and Stripes reported this week that an indefinite deployment of 5,000 Guard troops is planned for after March 12.

“Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved a plan to retain 7,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen in Washington through March 12 and then 5,000 indefinitely beyond that date, Army and National Guard officials have said. There are now about 6,200 National Guard soldiers and airmen supporting the security mission in Washington, a Guard spokesman said Monday. But the number includes some troops who are scheduled to leave soon.”
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Biden State Dept. Scheduled 'Racism as National Security Threat' Event

Biden State Dept. Scheduled 'Racism as National Security Threat' Event

(Feng Yu/Dreamstime.com)

By Brian Trusdell | Friday, 12 February 2021 04:15 PM

The Biden State Department scheduled an online video conference for this past Wednesday to discuss ''Racism Being a Threat to National Security and Democracy" with several leftist groups planned to speak, the Fox News Channel reported.

It was not known if the conference was actually held this week, but an announcement of the event for ''State Department (e)mployees'' was obtained by Fox News' ''Tucker Carlson Tonight.'' A State Department spokesman, when contacted by Newsmax Friday to confirm the report or if the conference was conducted, declined comment on the matter.

Among the scheduled speakers were former Democrat one-term Rep. Tom Perriello of Virginia, who currently is the executive director for George Soros' Open Society Foundations; Eric Ward, executive director of Western States Center; and attorney Diala Shamas of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Among other actions, Ward advocated for the ''Defund the Police'' movement on the Western States Center's website last May, Shama's organization demanded a $1 billion cut from the New York City Police Department budget, while Soros' OSF donated millions to Black Lives Matter.

Democrats have insisted that white supremacy is a significant threat for years, particularly in the military. Similarly, the House of Representatives has pressed the Defense Department since Democrats took control of the chamber in 2019.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

The US Ministry Of Woke Propaganda Wants To Cancel You, Me, Fox, & Anyone Else Who Disagrees

SATURDAY, FEB 13, 2021 - 20:30
Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

There’s a saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

But I think that there are people who learned from history and want to repeat it.


Don’t get me wrong. If you walked up and asked someone like the little short guy from Facebook who sat on some books at his congressional hearing so he could see over the table or that dude with the dirty looking beard from Twitter or all those so-called journalists frothing at the mouth on CNN whether they wanted to turn our nation into a carbon copy of Hitler’s Germany, they’d be positively aghast at the very notion.

Yet every day on social media, people like me try to share innocuous things, like an article about taco seasoning, I kid you not, and we’re told we aren’t following “community standards.”


For the record, I had waited 15 minutes between posting that article on my personal timeline and was then trying to share it on my frugal living Facebook page. If I’m in trouble for taco seasoning, it probably won’t be long until they kick me off entirely, so if you found this post on social media and want to make sure you see all of our articles, please go here and subscribe – you’ll get a free, full-length copy of The Prepper’s Workbook when you do. You can also find me on Gab, MeWe, and Twitter (for the moment).

If you think this is only happening to conservatives, you’re wrong. I’m an anti-politician, anti-war, lower-case L libertarian who believes that gay married couples should be able protect their legally grown weed with guns.

The American Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

The concept that they and their platforms might be the modern version of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda has probably never even crossed their mind. In fact, these people think they’re actively fighting Nazis.

In this essay, I’m not even talking about the horrors of the Holocaust itself. I’m explaining about the very idea that media should all be government-mandated, dissent should be silenced, and those who have different opinions should be crushed was at the very heart of the Reich.

Censorship in WWII Germany was the key to controlling the populace and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels eagerly took control of the news, literature, filmmaking, theatre, music, and all forms of broadcasting in order to present the illusion of a united front that eagerly and vehemently supported Adolph Hitler and all the evils that occurred under his reign.

Does this sound familiar?

The current culture of outrage and cancellation is busily trying to shut down dissenting opinions. They’re picking through social media posts from a dozen years ago and “canceling” someone for a meme they posted or an offhand remark they made way back when. It’s obvious that the goal is to silence anyone who might have some small amount of influence over others in order to show the rest of the country, “Look, everyone agrees! We must be right because all the popular people say we are!”

It’s a worrisome fact that most of the people holding the microphones right now have the influence, power, and money to set the tone for our country. They have the platforms, the money, the power, and the ability to silence the rest of us peons who simply want to be left alone with our guns, our gardens, our favorite websites, and our own religious beliefs.

The fact that the United States is even considering a position called the “reality czar” should alert you to the fact that reality will not be judged by what’s happening – you know, actual reality – but by what this “czar” is told the people should believe to be the truth. And yes, there are people who really, truly believe there should be a reality czar like this yahoo at the New York Times.
Several experts I spoke with recommended that the Biden administration put together a cross-agency task force to tackle disinformation and domestic extremism, which would be led by something like a “reality czar.”
It sounds a little dystopian, I’ll grant. But let’s hear them out.
Right now, these experts said, the federal government’s response to disinformation and domestic extremism is haphazard and spread across multiple agencies, and there’s a lot of unnecessary overlap.
Renée DiResta, a disinformation researcher at Stanford’s Internet Observatory, gave the example of two seemingly unrelated problems: misinformation about Covid-19 and misinformation about election fraud. (source)
He even admits it “sounds a little dystopian.” You THINK? Perhaps that is because it is positively and unarguably dystopian. That might be why it sounds that way. And he’s not alone.
Another dude at Wired thinks we need a literal federal Ministry of Truth to monitor deepfakes and disinformation. (Much like the Patriot Act is not patriotic, I’m pretty sure we should not expect a Ministry of Truth to be truthful.)
So, what about a new federal agency? A central body tasked with combating disinformation, parsing fact from fiction and thereby ensuring Americans’ collective sanity when the flood of fakes truly arrives: a Bureau of Information, a Department of Facts, a Ministry of … Truth!
Full circle, and we’re back at dystopia. The idea might sound absurd, unimaginable even: Washington bureaucrats regulating reality itself, dictating to Americans what’s true and what isn’t.
Is it really so crazy? The EPA protects our environment, the FDA protects our bodies, the DHS protects our borders. In the era of indistinguishability, difficult choices will need to be made in order to protect our minds. When the fakes come for you and yours—when, for example, your adolescent child is deepfaked by an internet bully—you might want a Ministry of Truth that actually lives up to the name, that doesn’t falsify but certifies the truth, that assertively stamps its authority atop fake videos: “This content is not real.” American history includes no shortage of necessary (if at first uneasy) interventions, in which citizens trade some degree of individual autonomy for collective peace of mind: “FDA-approved” food and drugs; “MoT-approved” audio and video. (source)
All these people are admitting these ideas are dystopian but they’re absolutely and totally cool with that and they want you to be cool with it too. THEY LITERALLY WANT A F*CKING DYSTOPIA.

A bunch of people think we need a “reality czar” in the United States of America.

Any person who suggests that shutting every opinion that is different from theirs is “disinformation and domestic extremism” is actually the person committing the act of domestic extremism. That’s because our founding document states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

A government-appointed reality czar would most certainly abridge the freedom of speech and the press and while it would not be a law passed by Congress, it would be an arm of the government, making such a position undeniably unconstitutional.

First of all, we aren’t a kingdom and we don’t need any czars. The term “czar” comes from Tsarist Russia (and here everyone said Trump was in bed with Russia. The irony pretty much writes itself.) A quick refresher on tsars:
Russia was ruled by Tsars who had ultimate authority on all matters of governance. The oppressive system left no room for change and brewed revolutionary ideas and aspirations…Tsars believed that they had a divine right to rule Russia, their position and power had been given to them by God. (source)
Let’s just get rid of that whole icky term, “czar,” shall we?

In fact, we already have a Ministry of Propaganda and they manipulated the election.

Many of our problems in the United States today stem from the mainstream media, which has been sh*t-disturbing and causing near-civil war for years now, and social media, which is manipulated to make us feel a certain way emotionally or to make us believe a certain way socially because “everyone else does.”

And that’s a lot more troubling than you might think. These manipulations can change something as massive as the presidential and congressional elections. There was, in fact, a joint effort to do just that and they aren’t even being coy about it.

Time magazine flat out admitted that the election was “swayed” by “steering media coverage” and “controlling the flow of information.”



And if you don’t like it? You’d better be quiet about it or you’ll get “canceled” too. Just look at what happened to Parler and what’s happening right now to Gab. Parler got kicked off their server and Gab has lost access to nearly every way they can take payments.

If you dissent, the Woke Folks will make an example of you. You lose your job. You lose your business. You get starved out. You get publicly humiliated. You get doxxed.

Now even the press is trying to silence the press.

Also, I have a news flash: “the press” is not just CNN and other left-leaning media outlets. Legally, “the press” is defined as follows:
All men have a right to print and publish whatever they may deem proper, unless by doing so they infringe the rights of another,
as in the case of copyrights, (q.v.) when they may be enjoined. For any injury they may commit against

the public or individuals they may be punished, either by indictment, or by a civil action at the suit of the party

injured, when the injury has been committed against a private individual. Vide Const. of the U. S. Amend. art. 1, and Liberty of the Press. (source)
With the advent of the internet, “the press” became much, much bigger. Alternative news outlets are the press. Citizen journalists are the press. YouTubers, bloggers, and authors. We are all the press, every single one of us, and we are free human beings who have a constitutional right to dissent.

And it isn’t just the little people they want to silence. The Woke Folks want to “take down” Fox News. I’m not saying Fox is perfect – I rarely ever watch mainstream news – but they are the only mainstream holdout that isn’t far left and ready to cancel everybody.

Loads of pundits are unironically accusing Fox of doing precisely what they do – brainwashing the masses. It’s utter madness, even if they weren’t also sharing their own opinions like they are the Gospel, to believe that opinions should be punished, outlawed, and disappeared like a terrorist getting black-bagged to Guantanomo.

A guy at The Daily Beast is rubbing his hands together in glee at the very idea of people refusing to pay for Fox on basic cable, taking away a couple of bucks per person because he believes that a report from The Lancet about the spread of Covid “put the cherry on top of the “this was basically Trump’s fault” sundae.”

Some fellow on the Washington Post doesn’t think boycotting Fox’s advertisers is extreme enough. He isn’t happy about the financial impact of defamation suits. He’s bitterly disappointed that “cable giants like AT&T, Comcast and Charter Spectrum” have failed to removed Fox and Newsmax from the airways, stating sadly, “But the cable systems have shown little willingness to police their offerings.” He fervently wishes Fox could be “impeached.”
And he’s not alone.
On the program “Morning Joe,” Anand Giridharadas of MSNBC questioned whether Fox News “is a thing that should exist in America.”

Nicholas Kristof from the Times wrote, “We must clear an ecosystem of mass delusion spread by Fox News and many Republicans” in a recent opinion piece.
And Oliver Darcy from CNN again pointed fingers at AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Charter, and Dish—which host channels like Fox News—and said, “it is time TV carriers face questions for lending their platforms to dishonest companies that profit off of disinformation and conspiracy theories.” (source)
Journalists who should be the people fighting the hardest for a free press are going to the mat to shut down those who they believe are engaged in Wrongthink. It’s like we woke up and instead of 2021, we’ve been transported straight into Orwell’s version of 1984.

And here’s how a real Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment works.

Once the opposition has been crushed and silenced, all that will be left is state-run media.

Like the Xinhua News Agency in communist China, everything that is published will be government approved. Let’s take a look at that news agency (emphasis mine):
Xinhua News Agency or New China News Agency is the official state-run press agency of the People’s Republic of China. Xinhua is the biggest and most influential media organization in China, as well as the largest news agency in the world in terms of correspondents worldwide. Xinhua is a ministry-level institution subordinate to the State Council and is the highest ranking state media organ in the country alongside the People’s Daily. Its president is a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party…
…The news agency has faced criticism of spreading propaganda and criticising people or movements critical of the CCP.
Xinhua is a publisher as well as a news agency—it owns more than 20 newspapers and a dozen magazines and it publishes in several languages, besides Chinese, including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Japanese and Korean. Scholars have noted that Xinhua tailors its pro-CCP message to the nuances of each audience. (source)
The United States of America is behaving like Communist China and Americans are not just watching, they’re cheering it on. The major mainstream networks are all vying to don the cloak of being the state-approved media outlet and they’ll probably all get a kick at it to make us believe we have a choice about the “news” we consume.

Today it might be libertarians and conservatives in the domestic terrorist crosshairs. But I assure you, if these people have their way, the target will be ever-moving until nothing is left but a shell of our great country, picked clean by the elite who planned the ultimate coup.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

TheHill.com

ACLU unveils campaign to end systemic racism
BY JUSTINE COLEMAN - 02/09/21 11:34 AM EST 444

View: https://youtu.be/DnylBctE_qg
.56 min

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday unveiled a campaign focused on ending systemic racism in the U.S. through advocating for economic and overall equality for Black and Indigenous people of color.

With its campaign titled “Systemic Equality,” the ACLU is turning its attention from defending free speech to addressing racial inequity and discrimination, and seeking to “dismantle a system deeply rooted in racist policies, practices, and attitudes that harm Black and Indigenous people of color.”

The Systemic Equality campaign will focus on pushing President Biden’s administration and Congress for several initiatives, including protections for voting rights, student loan debt forgiveness and laws on reparations. The organization will also promote fair housing, expanded high-speed internet access and banking services at the post office.

The ACLU plans to commit $10 million over the next two years to its southern affiliates to increase its advocacy in the South, where most Black Americans live, for voting rights, reproductive justice and reparations. The organization’s southern affiliates currently employ 165 full-time staff with a more than $26.9 million budget.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement that the organization is “not alone in recognizing that America is long overdue for a reckoning, a third and final Reconstruction.”

“We are committed to using our nationwide network of litigators, advocates, and supporters, the strongest ACLU we have ever known, to dismantle white supremacy,” he said. “Whether it is voter suppression, inequitable broadband access, or the racial wealth gap, we are clear that ‘we the people’ must truly include all of us.”

In a letter to Biden calling for action, Romero cited the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“We are laser-focused on what Charlottesville and the Capitol attack had in common: white supremacy,” he said. “We believe that, more than any other single force, racial hierarchy and racial caste are woven into the very fabric of our society. By failing to reckon with the horrific legacy of slavery, America created systems predicated on white supremacy, systems that routinely and intentionally harm and kill citizens of color, especially those of African and Native descent.”

The ACLU plans to announce the campaign’s full agenda during a virtual livestream on Thursday, which will include advocates across the country.

The campaign comes after protesters took to the streets last summer to demonstrate against racial inequality and police brutality, specifically after the police-involved deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

It’s Clear – Since the 2020 Election – Joe Biden and His Gang Are Scared to Death of Facing the American People

By Joe Hoft
Published February 14, 2021 at 5:30pm

After stealing the 2020 election for President, Joe Biden and this gang are scared to death of the American people.

It’s evident for anyone who still trusts their own eyes that Joe Biden didn’t win the 2020 election for President, he stole it. The number of records President Trump attained, most votes ever for any candidate prior to the election by 6 million votes or a 10% increase over Obama’s 69 million in 2008, etc., etc., etc…
Trump-Boat-Parade-600x389.jpg

(Above, one of many of Trump Boat Rallies across the nation before the election).

No, Joe Biden IS NOT the most popular President ever.

Nope, it didn’t happen. We have literally truckloads of evidence showing the election was stolen. There is no way Biden won a legitimate election minus any fraud.
Trump-vs-Biden.jpg

Probably the most obvious evidence Joe Biden stole the 2020 election is because he and his gang are absolutely frightened of facing the American people.


Biden and gang have built walls all around Washington D.C. He held his inauguration inside the iron fences and nobody showed up.

Trump-vs-Biden-Inaugurations.jpg


The Biden gang claims Joe Biden won more votes than any President in history by millions of votes. They claim Biden won more than 80 million votes, but where are the voters?

Biden claims he won Pennsylvania but he will never-ever hold an event in Butler, Pennsylvania, free to the public like President Trump did in front of a crowd of tens of thousands:
Trump-Rally-Butler-PA-Oct-31-600x314.jpg


Biden won’t do this because he can’t physically or cognitively. Biden literally can’t talk without a teleprompter. He can hardly do that and Americans knew it before the election. Americans didn’t and don’t believe Joe Biden is the most popular President ever, because he’s not.

But more importantly, Biden won’t be holding any events free to the public because he is absolutely afraid Americans will show up and tell him what they think of him. If Biden were to hold an open event in New York, California, or Butler, Pennsylvania, the results would be the same.

But most importantly, Biden’s team doesn’t want Americans to know what Americans think of Joe Biden.

Everyone knows Joe Biden stole the 2020 election, especially Joe Biden and his gang know it. That’s why they hide Biden behind the national guard and fences.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

California Congresswoman calls for ‘truth commissions’ on Trump supporters…
Posted by Kane on February 14, 2021 9:12 pm
Sara Jacobs calls for ‘truth commissions’ on Trump supporters

Rumble video on website 1:31 min
or
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1360985499943452675
1:32 min

1613382100321.png
 
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