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

WTH? Jill Biden Appears on Sesame Street to Promote “Race Literacy” to Little Children

By Jim Hoft
Published July 13, 2021 at 4:07pm
sesame-street-jill-biden.jpg

Jill Biden made an appearance on Sesame Street to push “race literacy” to little children.

They are promoting this as something to help military families — because who could possibly speak out against a program for military families?

This is the wickedness of the left — disguising their divisive agenda behind children’s programs.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1414593358912163840
1:56 min

Sesame Street never had beautiful Melania Trump on their show.

IBTimes reported:
Dr. Jill Biden will appear on “Sesame Street” to help military families discuss kindness, fairness, and race with their kids.

Biden will appear alongside the turquoise muppet Rosita, who is a bilingual Mexican-American from a military family. With the exception of Melania Trump, every first lady since Barbara Bush has appeared on “Sesame Street.”

In a new clip of the conversation, Rosita tells Biden she is working on a project to celebrate how her military family makes her unique and gushes about becoming an “upstander.”…

…“In a military kid’s world, it’s common to see people of all races and backgrounds living, working, and playing together. Military parents and caregivers can help their children become good citizens of the world by using that unique opportunity to talk openly about racism and celebrate who they are inside and out.”

The new Coming Together initiative presents families with the opportunity to talk openly about race and celebrate everything about themselves.

The initiative also offers a variety of resources, including printable activities, articles for adults, professional development materials, and more.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Judicial Watch Asks Court To Order USPS To Disclose Social Media Snooping Documents

TUESDAY, JUL 13, 2021 - 06:45 PM
Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A non-profit government watchdog is suing in federal court to force the United States Postal Service (USPS) to produce copies of documents on its tracking of social media posts about planned political protests.

U.S. Postal Service headquarters at L'Enfant Plaza in Washington. (Coolcaesar/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)


The suit filed by Judicial Watch in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is based on the group’s April 28 U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and the failure of USPS to respond by the required deadline.

In its original request, Judicial Watch asked for all documents related to multiple aspects of the government’s activity that is reportedly known as the Internet Covert Operations Program (ICOP), including:
  • All records from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present identifying criteria for flagging social media posts as “inflammatory” or otherwise worthy of further scrutiny by other government agencies.
  • All records from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present relating to the ICOP database of social media posts.
  • All records and communications from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present between any USPS official and any official from the FBI and/or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security regarding ICOP.
  • All social media posts flagged under ICOP and forwarded to other government agencies.
  • Any analyses outlining USPS authority to monitor, track, and collect Americans’ social media posts.
  • All records concerning justifications for USPS to monitor, track, and collect Americans’ social media posts.
  • All records of communication sent to and by Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present concerning ICOP.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement announcing the suit that he wants to know, “Did the Biden administration weaponize the United States Postal Service to improperly spy on Americans?

A USPS spokesman did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on the Judicial Watch suit.

The USPS program first came to public attention earlier this year when its existence was reported by Yahoo News. As The Epoch Times then reported, the revelation prompted a request from a group of House Republicans to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
“If the reporting is accurate, ICOP raises serious questions about the federal government’s ongoing surveillance of, and encroachment upon, Americans’ private lives and discourse,” House Oversight Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), along with 30 other Republican lawmakers, wrote to DeJoy.
According to the bulletin, ICOP recorded the locations and times of protests.

Social media websites Parler and Telegram are mentioned by name, described as “right-wing leaning” platforms on which people were coordinating events.

Analysts with the USPS’ law enforcement arm were told to keep an eye out for “inflammatory” postings and share them with other government agencies.
“The type of amorphous, broad mandate under which ICOP is allegedly operating is particularly troubling because it is unclear why the USPS, of all government agencies and the only one devoted to the delivery of Americans’ mail, is taking on the role of intelligence collection,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Republicans asked DeJoy for a Members-Only briefing on the program, which was subsequently provided. Not long after the GOP members’ request, the oversight committee’s chairman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) joined with Comer in a request to USPS Inspector General Tammy Whitcomb for “a comprehensive analysis of the program and its uses.”

Among much else, Maloney and Comer encouraged Whitcomb to examine the USPS’ justification for expanding ICOP from its uses in drug interdiction to general surveillance of political expression and protest planning on social media.

The IG was also asked to get answers from USPS to these questions:
What vendor does USPIS use to search publicly available information? What information is the vendor storing about searches and results, and how is this information secured? What is the total awarded value of the contract, and what are USPIS’s obligated costs under the contract? When was the contract initiated, and when does it terminate?”
Comer told The Epoch Times July 12 that, “the United States Postal Inspection Service’s use of the Internet Covert Operations Program to spy on the First Amendment rights of the American people raises serious concerns and must be investigated.”

The Kentucky Republican said he is “pleased the Inspector General’s office agreed to investigate the use of this program and we look forward to reviewing its findings. We must ensure the American people have transparency about how this program has been used and how [USPS] will install safeguards to prevent abuses from happening again in the future.”
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQUbdMRwgmI
32:13 min
Navy Unprepared For War As Diversity Training Supersedes War Training Causing US SURRENDER To Iran

Jul 13, 2021



Tim Pool


Navy Unprepared For War As Diversity Training Supersedes War Training Causing US SURRENDER To Iran. While Democrats have continued to push the establishment woke line it seems our Navy will get woke go broke. Very few republicans do much if anything about this. The problem is only getting worse as the culture war is causing a rot in the US from the inside out. As China pushes on Taiwan and Japan warns of the escalating crises we are confronted by the fact that navy diversity programs are leaving us too scrambled and weak to engage in warfare.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSqfQuNyiLk
13:39 min

Mark Levin: Tell THIS to those unconvinced a MARXIST REVOLUTION is happening NOW

Jul 13, 2021



Glenn Beck


BlazeTV host Mark Levin says his new book, 'American Marxism,' provides the PROOF that we're not just facing a coming Marxist revolution...it's already here.

But so many unengaged Americans remain unconvinced, believing recent moves from the far-left and the Democrat Party are just passing phases. But this is not a 'fad,' Levin says, and we must stand united against America's current ENEMY: Marxism. In this clip he describes how he would explain to an everyday American that our individual freedoms are in serious jeopardy...
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

BREAKING: Biden Admin Calls for UN to Investigate ‘Racism’ on US Soil

The United Nations may soon visit the United States of America to investigate "racism"

Nathaniel Linderman
by NATHANIEL LINDERMAN

VIDEO: Biden Calls For MLB To Move All-Star Game From Atlanta Due To Georgia Election Reform Bill

Biden regime Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has officially called for the United Nations to occupy American Soil in the name of investigating ‘racism’ in the United States today.

“Responsible nations must not shrink from scrutiny of their human rights record. Rather, they should be transparent with the intent to grow and do better. That is why I’m announcing a formal invitation for @UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism to visit the U.S.” Blinken tweeted out Tuesday night.

“I urge all U.N. member states to join the United States in this effort, and confront the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia,” the Secretary continued. The seemingly sudden move is in the wake of the UN Resolution to condemn racism and racist police brutality earlier in the day. Secretary Blinken expressed support for the measure.

The unprecedented announcement comes as the Biden Regime advocates ‘anti racist’ ideals as a way of stifling political opposition. National File has covered the Biden Regime’s anti-white practices in the military, economic subsidies, support for critical race theory, and more.

What is perhaps even more troubling is that Biden is inviting the Globalist United Nations to come occupy US soil, with the potential to even propose laws and policies to Biden and the government. As the Biden Regime tightens it’s grip on power, the invitation of foreign agents to U.S. soil may represent a major escalation.

Conservatives were quick to criticize the motion. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) criticized the administration’s misplaced priorities. “Maybe the President should devote some energy to investigating the origins of #COVID19,” the Senator declared in a statement.

Congressional Candidate Joe Kent (R-WA) attacked the move directly: “Tony had so much fun getting lectured by the CCP a few months ago that he just signed us up for a UN struggle session. The UN & it’s globalist fan boys are an absolute joke, strong nations do not play these foolish games.”

1626305208107.png

Conservative activist twitter account The Columbia Bugle summarized the situation: “Blue helmets AND anti-white propaganda! What will Biden think of next?”

1626305165927.png
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

United Nations Formally Invited by Biden Admin to Investigate “the Scourge of Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Xenophobia” in the US

By Cristina Laila
Published July 14, 2021 at 6:24pm
biden-.jpeg

The United Nations has been formally invited by the Biden Administration to investigate “the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia” in the US, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Joe Biden, a lifelong racist, claims his administration is “deeply dedicated” to addressing “racial injustice” on the global stage.

“As the President has repeatedly made clear, great nations such as ours do not hide from our shortcomings; they acknowledge them openly and strive to improve with transparency,” Blinken said in a statement on Tuesday.

“It is in this context that the United States intends to issue a formal, standing invitation to all UN experts who report and advise on thematic human rights issues,” he continued. “As a first step, we have reached out to offer an official visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues.”

“I urge all UN member states to join the United States in this effort, and confront the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia. Because when all people – regardless of their race or ethnicity – are free to live up to their full potential, our collective security is strengthened,” he added.

Unless of course the racism is against white people.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

‘Microaggression’ Studies, Rooted in Macro Subjectivity

Part 2 of a Series on 'Social Justice' Research
by Richard Bernstein
July 14, 2021

Ever since the most blatant forms of racism and discrimination in America faded, what are called microaggressions have, in the view of leftist academics and social justice activists, taken their place. These are “a form of racism,” the slights and insults that, though subtle and small and typically unconscious, are insulting and harmful to their targets.

As noted by Edward Cantu and Lee Jussim, respectively a law professor at the University of Missouri and a professor of social psychology at Rutgers, microaggressions are a hot topic, as universities, diversity trainers, and others are “operationalizing” the microaggression idea “as if it were the product of rigorous science.”

But in an exhaustive analysis of the research supporting the “current microaggression construct,” or CMC, Cantu and Jussim find that a microaggression is basically what a microaggression researcher subjectively believes it to be, with almost nothing in the way of scientific evidence that racism is embedded in it or that its alleged victims even see it as racist or harmful.

Most studies attempting to measure microaggressions and their harm are based on such small samples as to be statistically meaningless, their analysis concludes. In some instances researchers draw clear conclusions from what are actually murky data. They cite one study, for example, in which the white lab partner of a black woman asks her “How did you get so good in science,” a statement that, according to the CMC, embeds the insulting racist assumption that blacks are not good at science.

“To be sure,” Cantu and Jussim write,” that question “might be an expression of racism.” But, they ask, why should that be the default interpretation when there are other equally plausible explanations, for example, that the white student simply believed that her lab partner was very good at science?

The study’s actual results on this point were mixed and unclear. It was based on a sample of just 20 black respondents, all of them college students from the same region of the country, showing 53% of them perceiving the statement to be at least “slightly racist” (with no breakdown between those who said “slighly racist” and those who said “very racist”) and 47% finding it not racist at all. The researchers dealt with this very mixed and inconclusive result by saying those 47% were possibly less intelligent than the 53%, or were just the kind of people “who simply may not be offended by anything.”

“No study … reliably demonstrates that people of color agree with researchers about what constitutes microaggressions,” Cantu and Jussim conclude.

Cantu and Jussim attribute some of the research findings basically to a wish on the part of the researcher to come to preordained conclusions, such that “confirmation bias cancels vigilance.” The same analysis would seem to apply to other research findings purporting to show that “the status quo is inherently racist,” as Richard Delgado, one of the founders of critical race theory has put it.

Racism exists, of course, as does the heritage of slavery and Jim Crow. The question is whether they are so deeply embedded into the workings of society as to have a profound, inescapable impact on their victims, no matter what these victims do. The fashionable post-liberal assumption is that they do, and an industry of “woke” research has emerged to give a gloss of simple, objective truth to that conclusion.

The murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, for example, gave rise to a widely propagated image of an America full of racist police engaged in a random slaughter of blacks. It was a powerful, emotionally gripping narrative, one made all the more powerful when the media ignored contrary facts, for example that three times as many whites are killed by police every year than blacks.

Similarly, after the shooting of eight people, including six Asian massage workers, by a sex-crazed white gunman in Atlanta in March, the media were full of commentary about how the rise in anti-Asian violence revealed the persistence of systemic racism and white supremacy. “A majority of the perpetrators were reported to be white and male,” declared a typical statement along these lines in Time magazine months after the incident.

It is, of course, understandable for people to feel strongly about the assaults on Asians, some of them very violent, that have taken place on the country’s streets. But that Time essay, which was entitled “I’m tired of educating white people about anti-Asian racism,” endorsed the “woke” first principle, that any disproportionate impact is by definition due to white racism. The evidence cited in the Time article, however, is strikingly weak and inconclusive. It came from the “Virulent Hate Project” at the University of Michigan, which acknowledged that “only a small fraction” of the news articles used to compile the figures on anti-Asian attacks identified the race or sex of the attacker.

Exactly how small a fraction—whether one-fourth or one-twentieth—neither the research nor the Time essay said. But any small sample provides a weak basis for the unqualified declaration that “a majority” of the attackers were white and male. Moreover such generalizations fail to account for the many videos showing a substantial number of the attackers to be psychologically disturbed homeless people, black, and female. Nor does it factor in police explanations of the violence, like the New York Asian Hate Crimes Task Force finding that mental illness was the “common denominator” of the perpetrators and that race was not a “major factor.”

Another persistent argument about the depth and persistence of “systemic racism” has to do with school discipline and the contention that black students are punished for misbehavior more frequently than white students. People contending that this reveals the underlying racism of American life cite studies showing that blacks do not commit school infractions more often than whites.

A 2019 report by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, for example, found that “students of color as a whole … do not commit more disciplinable offenses than their white peers,” but they “receive substantially more school discipline than their white peers and receive harsher and longer punishments.”

These claims are of the sort that earlier led to a “Dear Colleague” letter addressed to schools by the Obama Administration warning if discipline results in a “disparate impact” defined by race, their federal funding might be withdrawn. Similarly, following President Biden’s more recent executive order on “Advancing Racial Equity” the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, citing the USCCR findings, has asked educators to submit proposals on how to “identify, address, and remedy discriminatory student discipline policies and practices.”

“All of us have implicit bias,” Catherine Lhamon, currently the head of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, formerly the executive director of the very US Commission on Civil Rights that issued its report showing racial discrimination in school discipline. “No one is exempt.”

Most observers of school discipline do agree that black, Latino, and students with disabilities, are punished more than white or Asian students. But those who see this disparity in social justice terms do with it what they do with virtually all racial disparities: they assume it is due to racist discrimination, dismissing evidence that it could come about from other factors, among them that black and other minority students, many of whom come from poor, disadvantaged school districts, actually do misbehave and cause more school disturbance than whites and Asians.

One dissenting member of the USCCR investigation, Gail Heriot, a law professor at UC-San Diego, contended that there was “no evidence to support the sweeping assertion” that discrimination is mainly responsible for the racial disparity in discipline.

Support for Heriot’s dissent comes from a 2017 report issued by three government agencies, including the National Center for Education Statistics. Its findings were disturbing, for example that in a single recent year, there were more than 800,000 “nonfatal victimizations” of students 12 to 18 years old while they were in school. Students at schools that suffer serious disciplinary problems score lower on reading, math, and science tests than students at other schools.

The discipline disparity is often summed up in the racial difference in school suspensions, with black students, only 15 percent of the school population, receiving about 37% of suspensions. But the government study found that black students were two and a half times more likely than whites or Asians to report a gang presence in their schools; 32% of black students reported being in physical fights in school, compared to 23% of Hispanics and 20% of whites.

A study by Joshua Lewis Kinsler, an associate professor of economics at the University of Georgia, concluded that the gap in discipline is not due to discrimination but to “cross school variation in punishment.” There was little difference based on race within the same schools, Kinsler found; nor was there a difference due to the race of the teacher or the principal of a particular school.

The difference came about because schools are different and some of them, having more gangs, more guns, more fights, and generally higher levels of misbehavior, resort to punishments like suspensions more than other schools.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
[COMMENT: Well that should put to bed Facebook's Section 230 protection.]


Psaki Admits Biden Admin Censoring Americans: “We’re Flagging Problematic Posts For Facebook That Spread Disinformation” (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published July 15, 2021 at 1:12pm
IMG_3072.jpg

Stolen elections have consequences.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday casually admitted the federal government is censoring American citizens.

“We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office,” Psaki said. “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

This is a clear violation of the First Amendment, but we are living in a lawless banana republic.

VIDEO:

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1415726506333122561
.34 min


The Biden regime is not only censoring social media posts, they are calling on SMS carriers to “fact-check” text messages in an effort to stop ‘misinformation’ about the Covid-19 vaccine.

The Biden regime and its Democrat allies are going to monitor private communications to “dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages.”
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
[COMMENT: Well that should put to bed Facebook's Section 230 protection.]


Psaki Admits Biden Admin Censoring Americans: “We’re Flagging Problematic Posts For Facebook That Spread Disinformation” (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published July 15, 2021 at 1:12pm
IMG_3072.jpg

Stolen elections have consequences.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday casually admitted the federal government is censoring American citizens.

“We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office,” Psaki said. “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

This is a clear violation of the First Amendment, but we are living in a lawless banana republic.

VIDEO:

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1415726506333122561
.34 min


The Biden regime is not only censoring social media posts, they are calling on SMS carriers to “fact-check” text messages in an effort to stop ‘misinformation’ about the Covid-19 vaccine.

The Biden regime and its Democrat allies are going to monitor private communications to “dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages.”

Tick, tick, tick....Did anyone in that puzzle palace consider the full meaning of such a statement or do they even care?....
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Surgeon General Demands Social Networks Crack Down On COVID Misinformation

THURSDAY, JUL 15, 2021 - 04:20 PM
As the Biden administration grapples with slowing vaccination rates and negative reactions to their so-called 'door knocking' campaign, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Thursday called on social media companies to censor 'misinformation' related to COVID-19 and vaccines.



Surgeon General Vivek Murthy speaking during a press briefing on Thursday at the White House. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images


Without providing specific examples,' Murthy blamed 'vaccine hesitancy' on misinformation - though we question whether reports such as Israel reporting an explosion in COVID-19 cases in vaccinated patients, or that 40% of current COVID patients were previously vaccinated, vs. just 1% who had natural immunity after having recovered from the disease and caught it again.

In short, the Delta variant appears particularly adept at evading currently available vaccines.

More 'not misinformation' possibly contributing to slowing vaccination rates are blood clot warnings and links to a rare neurological disorder, along with widespread reports of side-effects in the VAERS database and public forums.
For example, a random sampling of the top posts in Reddit's CovidVaccinated forum:



None of this is minsinformation, and reasonable minds should be able to agree that it's contributing to so-called 'vaccine hesitancy.'

Not so, according to the Surgeon General.

"Health misinformation is false, inaccurate or misleading information about health according to the best evidence at the time," said Murthy, adding "Misinformation takes away our freedom to make informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones."

The White House echoed Murthy's comments:

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1415725230035714054
3:27 min

More via Axios:
  • "During the COVID-19 pandemic, health misinformation has led people to resist wearing masks in high-risk settings. It's led them to turndown proven treatments and to choose not to get vaccinated. This has led to avoidable illness and death," he added.
  • "Now, health misinformation didn't start with COVID-19. What's different now though is the speed and scale at which misinformation is spreading."
  • "Modern technology companies have enabled misinformation to poison our information environment with little accountability to their users."
The big picture: The surgeon general said mechanisms that platforms use to keep people scrolling — including likes, share buttons and algorithms that tailor content for specific users — have also allowed misinformation to proliferate.
  • Murthy called for an "all of society" approach to tackling misinformation, recommending community leaders to promote factual information and educators to improve health literacy.
  • He said the Biden administration expects social media platforms to operate with more transparency and accountability and to step up efforts to monitor for false information.
* * *
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

"Sick Of Westie Whites" Blatant Anti-White, Anti-Asian Racism In Schools

THURSDAY, JUL 15, 2021 - 04:40 PM
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Fake social justice warriors just got caught lying to a judge...



Parents vs. the New Racism
I have discussed reverse racism several time previously but this new case tops everything that preceded it.

Federal judge William Young approved a temporary new admissions plan for three elite Boston public schools.

The new plan substitutes grades and zip codes for a competitive entrance exam. Such a plan is of course racist in and of itself. Thus the judge erred.

But Boston administrators hid some key items from the judge and today he reversed his decision.

Please consider Parents vs. the New Racism (emphasis mine).
On Friday federal judge William Young withdrew an earlier opinion approving a temporary new admissions plan for three elite Boston public schools.

Judge Young said he took this extraordinary step—the first in his 36-year judicial career—because the school system’s attorneys had misled him by excluding from the court racially charged text messages sent by two Boston School Committee members involved in the admissions decision.

The texts were sent during the virtual meeting when the admissions changes were approved, and they suggest there was racial animus behind the decision. Committee member Lorna Rivera, for example, sent a message to fellow member Alexandra Oliver-Dávila saying she was “sick of westie whites.”

Me too,” Ms. Oliver-Dávila replied. “I really feel like saying that.” Committee chairman Michael Loconto mocked the Asian names of some of those who commented.

Judge Young makes clear he may not change his ultimate conclusion, he has also suggested that withholding these texts from the court record is “potentially fraud on the Court.
Fraud and Racism
This is not "potential fraud" it is blatant fraud and blatant racism by the Boston school board.

And this is happening in all the Progressive hot beds, especially California.

Critical Race Theory and the Big Lie Behind It
These attitudes and solutions are part of Critical Race Theory and the Big Lie Behind It.

What is Critical Race Theory?
The Encyclopaedia Britannica Explains CRT
  • Critical race theory (CRT), intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour.
  • Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.
One would have to be nuts to believe CRT theory should be taught in grade school.

Unfortunately, that's where we are, and embraced by the Biden administration and the Left media.

Culture Wars
Leftist mainstream media is in bed with CRT proponents. They both attempt to pawn this all off as some sort of noble history lesson.

But if you read the definition itself, CRT it is not remotely about history.
It is about a theory that says "race is culturally invented" and "legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist."

That is what CRT proponents want taught because that is the actual theory.
White kids are made to feel inferior simply because they are white.

CRT proponents want those preposterous theories taught to K12 schools (Kindergarten to 12th grade).

Many if not most of those who support CRT do so only because they do not understand that the basis for CRT is a brazen lie.

Political Backlash
Those who see through the lies are infuriated.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1411882228423041024
2:11 min

I discussed this previously in Critical Race Theory Should Be Banned, and a Black Parent Explains Why
"Educators use CRT as their own agenda, to indoctrinate the kids to hate each other."

"And who are you to educate my children, or any of our children on life issues? That's our job."
I transcribe the entire video in the above link.

To Promote Equality, California Proposes a Ban on Advanced Math Classes
Please note To Promote Equality, California Proposes a Ban on Advanced Math Classes

Adversity scores are the Latest in Dumbing Down of US Education.

Bill Maher on Critical Race Theory
Even the Left has serious issues.

In a must see video, comedian Bill Maher blast wokes who have no sense of massive progress on many liberal and Libertarian fronts.

To play the video and for a partial transcript as well, please see The Woke Liberals Have a Bad Case of Progressophobia

CRT is not (or at least should not) be a Left vs Right issue. Instead, it is a right vs wrong issue.

School boards, typically liberal progressives, are on the very wrong side of this debate.

What's Next?
The case in Boston is not isolated. It's happening all over. The difference this time is that a Federal judge caught the Boston school board in a pack of lies.

Adversity scores and bans on advanced math are anti-White, anti-Asian racism, without a doubt.

Hopefully, and in light of what happened in Boston, we can get a case before the US Supreme Court.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

White House is ‘flagging’ Vaccine warning posts for Facebook to censor…
Posted by Kane on July 15, 2021 6:16 pm

View: https://youtu.be/UoI8evb3EeI
.55 min

“We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s Office. We are flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

“Misinformation takes away our freedom to make informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health misinformation has led people to resist wearing masks in high-risk settings. It’s led them to turn down proven treatments and to choose not to get vaccinated.

This has led to avoidable illnesses and deaths.”

‘Twelve people are spreading 65% of Vaccine misinformation’

View: https://youtu.be/6oGg2iJCm6E
1:05 min

Surgeon General gets involved in censorship

View: https://youtu.be/IdkQFkZfD4M
.58 min
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://youtu.be/ee4X_fMjzyY
15:33 min

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) for information relating to the tracking and collecting of Americans’ social media posts through its Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Postal Service (No. 1:21-cv-01735)). Additionally, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the United States Department of Justice for records of communication between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several financial institutions about the reported transfer of financial transactions made by people in DC, Maryland and Virginia on January 5 and January 6, 2021 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:21-cv-01216)).
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Is the FBI Trying to Create a New Generation of ‘Hitler Youth’ or What?

by Daisy Luther
July 15, 2021


The Federal Bureau of Investigation appears ready to create a new generation of Hitler Youth, turning family members against one another and asking citizens to be on the lookout for any relative, coworker, or friend who might be “mobilizing toward violence.”

Yep, I went there. Straight to Nazi-land in the very first sentence.

Check out this Tweet.

1626416505155.png
Welcome to the new Reich, I guess? Let’s take a look at the parallels.

Who are these “Hitler Youth” of whom I write?
If you snoozed through this history class in high school, during World War II, Adolf Hitler wanted to begin indoctrinating children into Nazi ideology at an early age. So, two groups were created: Hitler Youth for boys and for girls, The League of German Girls.

The US Holocaust Museum website raises these key points about the groups.
  1. Over the course of the 1930s, the Nazi state abolished all other youth groups in Germany.
  2. In 1939, more than 82% of eligible youth (age 10-18) belonged to the Hitler Youth or its female equivalent, the League of German Girls.
  3. While girls prepared for their futures as wives and mothers, boys participated in military training. In the last desperate months of the war, boys in their early teens were drawn into serving in the German civil defense and in the defensive militia called the Volkssturm (Home Guard).
A combination of peer pressure and coercion caused the groups to grow rapidly. Hitler Youth was modeled after its counterpart for grown-ups, the so-called Brown Shirts. By 1939, a new law required every German between the ages of 10 and 18 to join the group so they could Nazi-fy even more kids.

Beginning in 1933, the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls had an important role to play in the new Nazi regime. Through these organizations, the Nazi regime planned to indoctrinate young people with Nazi ideology. This was part of the process of Nazifying German society. The aim of this process was to dismantle existing social structures and traditions. The Nazi youth groups were about imposing conformity. Youth throughout Germany wore the same uniforms, sang the same Nazi songs, and participated in similar activities.

One way the groups did this was to use the Hitler Youth movement to dominate the lives of Germany’s youth. Belonging to the organization was a significant time commitment. Hitler Youth members had to attend regular meetings and events. These interfered with other priorities, such as church and school.

This time commitment and regular exposure to Nazi ideology weakened the influence of parents, teachers, religious figures, and other voices of authority. (source)


You’ll probably be unsurprised to hear that the young people were encouraged to snitch on family members, churches, and teachers that were not supportive of Nazi ideology.

Huh.

Meanwhile, ratting out your family members is praised on social media.
After the events at the Capitol on January 6th, people proudly announced they had snitched on family members and coworkers who they recognized from videos and photos of the event.

Teen Vogue praised Helena Duke, 18, for outing her own mother on Twitter during the investigations. Helena told the interviewer how awesome the response to her viral tweet was.

Overall, it has been really heartwarming, the support I’ve gotten from people all over the nation opening up their homes and telling me they’re welcoming me into their families. Obviously, there has been backlash from Trump supporters, but it’s been very minimal. The number of people who have been able to relate to this situation is insane. It’s just crazy to think so many of them are like, ‘You’ve inspired me’…because I’m just an 18-year-old girl. (source)

It’s certainly heartwarming to open your own mother up to potential criminal charges on Twitter. Way to go, Helena!

It’s also financially rewarding.
She’s not alone. Jackson Reffitt is another example of a teen who snitched on a family member. He contacted the FBI about his father before the event on January 6th but it’s unclear what the FBI did with that information.

Jackson Reffitt told investigators that his father returned home on January 8 and said he stormed the Capitol, then threatened his son and daughter not to turn him in.

Jackson Reffitt said his father told them, “If you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and you know what happens to traitors … traitors get shot.”

Guy Reffitt’s wife told investigators that he was a member of the Three Percenters, a far-right extremist group.

Jackson Reffitt told The Times he wasn’t staying at his family’s home but didn’t say where he was staying out of fear for his safety. He said his family learned from his CNN interview over the weekend that he had reported his father weeks before his arrest.

He also started a GoFundMe to help with his college fees. It had raised over $76,000 as of Sunday night. (source)


If Guy Reffitt threatened to shoot his kids, that’s obviously not cool and does not qualify him for father of the year. But Jackson has been rewarded with more than $150K at the time I wrote this article, which should pay for not only college, but therapy, too. Outing your own family apparently pays really freaking well. So it seems that now, snitches don’t get stitches, they get hundreds of thousands of dollars.



And who did Hitler Youth grow up to be?
So let’s go back in history again. What was the future of the Hitler Youth? Historically, the boys grew up to be “Brown Shirts” and the girls married them and raised Nazi babies, indoctrinated from the cradle.

Who were the Brown Shirts?

The SA — Sturmabteilung, meaning ‘assault division’ — also known as the Brownshirts or Storm Troopers, was a violent paramilitary group attached to the Nazi Party in pre-World War Two Germany.

The SA was instrumental in the Nazi’s rise to power yet played a diminished role during the Second World War. The Brownshirts are infamous for their operation outside of the law and their violent intimidation of Germany’s leftists and Jewish population…

…Hitler formed the SA in Munich in 1921, drawing membership from violent anti-leftist and anti-democratic former soldiers (including the Freikorps) in order to lend muscle to the young Nazi Party, using them like a private army to intimidate opponents. According to the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, the SA was ‘a group composed in large part of ruffians and bullies’…

…Speaking politics in public was potentially a dangerous matter at the time. Recognisable by their brown uniforms, similar to those of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, the SA functioned as a ‘security’ force at Nazi rallies and meetings, using threats and outright violence to secure votes and overcome Hitler’s political enemies. They also marched in Nazi rallies and intimidated political opponents by breaking up their meetings. (source)


Gee…that sounds sorta familiar. Kind of like Antifa. Who incidentally, calls the rest of us Nazis, has violent and destructive rallies, and strives to intimidate those with other opinions.

But what do I know? I’m just a humble libertarian blogger.

We are watching history repeat itself.
We all know that saying, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Well, it seems that some (cough – current administration – cough) know history and they’re taking notes so they can repeat it. Am I saying this is comparable to the Holocaust? Of course not. Not yet. But we’re on a very slippery slope right now and picking up speed to a place rife with suspicion, fear, and hatred. It’s like Selco said about the Balkans – as a lead-up to the war, people were manipulated, turned against one another, and bombarded with hate and fear.

It’s a dangerous time to be opinionated. You risk losing your income, your family (if they’ve been indoctrinated), and potentially your freedom. Holding an opposite political opinion is now considered domestic extremism. We’re encouraged to snitch on each other about darn near everything. We are threatened, blacklisted, and canceled.

Our country was born out of a revolution and a system of checks and balances.

We’re witnessing what happens when those checks and balances are no longer working.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

AMERICAN NEWS Jul 15, 2021 9:38 PM EST
WATCH: Tucker Carlson discusses the Biden admin teaming up with Facebook to censor 'misinformation'

"It turns out the White House is now directing Facebook to sensor specific posts that Joe Biden's White House doesn’t like."

WATCH: Tucker Carlson discusses the Biden admin teaming up with Facebook to censor 'misinformation'


The Post MillennialThe Post Millennial

July 15, 2021 9:38 PM2 Mins Reading

On Thursday night, Tucker Carlson called out the Biden administration flagrantly violating the First Amendment by working with tech companies to suppress free speech.

"In this country, in any free country, politicians are not supposed to be allowed to decide what you can see, hear or talk about. They can't control what you read, period. That's why the first amendment, but they are, and they're doing it in much more aggressive ways than they've ever done Before. we learned this year, it was a lifelong Democratic party fixer called Andy Stone, who announced Facebook's decision last October to censor The New York Post’s very accurate reporting on Hunter Biden."

"In August, it was Kamala Harris's press secretary who announced Twitter's decision to sensor a video clip of Donald Trump discussing the fact that actually COVID isn't really spread among kids very much."

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1415838847682887680
2:24 min

"Then just weeks ago, Tony Fauci’s emails to the Biden administration directly (revealed) The White House had coordinated with Facebook to reduce the spread of misinformation, including by text message. This is ominous. They will learn much more. But the crackdown on the most basic civil liberties came straight from Joe Biden's top flack."

"It turns out the White House is now directing Facebook to sensor specific posts that Joe Biden's White House doesn’t like."

Carlson then cut to a clip from a Thursday press briefing by Jen Psaki. "We are in regular touch with these social media platforms, and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID 19 team, given as Dr. Murphy conveyed, this is a big issue of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic. We've increased a disinformation research and tracking within the surgeon General's office. We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spreads this information."

Carlson continued, "Perfect. So, they're actually controlling the white house. Politicians are controlling, which are allowed to read about COVID-19 and who knows what else? If you can stop misinformation on vaccines, what can't you do?

This is the line that they're not supposed to cross. They're not allowed to do this. It's clearly a violation of the First Amendment."

"The White House isn't a private company. They're politicians. They're the government, and they're controlling what you can read about, something that actually matters by the way."

"How's this allowed to happen? Why did you do anything about it? We have no power to stop it. We only have the power to tell you about it. Hope it does stop soon."
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Virginia NAACP Official Says ‘Let Them Die,’ in Rant About Anti-Critical Race Theory Parents (VIDEO)

By Cassandra Fairbanks
Published July 16, 2021 at 8:15am
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A Fairfax NAACP leader and PTA official exclaimed, “Let them die!” while concluding an unhinged rant about parents who oppose Critical Race Theory being taught to their children in schools.


The speaker, Michelle Leete, is a federal employee who serves as Vice President of Training at the Virginia state PTA, Vice President of Communications for the Fairfax County PTA and First Vice President of the Fairfax County NAACP.

“So let’s meet and remain steadfast in speaking truth, tearing down double standards, and refuting double talk. Let’s not allow any double downing on lies.

Let’s prepare our children for a world they deserve. Let’s deny this off-key band of people that are anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-equity, anti-history, anti-racial reckoning, anti-opportunities, anti-help people, anti-diversity, anti-platform, anti-science, anti-change agent, anti-social justice, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-children, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-admissions policy change, anti-inclusion, anti-live-and-let live people,” Leete ranted during her speech on Thursday.

“Let them die!” she concluded, drawing big applause from the all-white leftists in the crowd. “Don’t let these uncomfortable people deter us from our bold march forward.”

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1415798146916048898
1:02 min

Leete was part of a group that was counter-protesting parents who are concerned about racist CRT materials being taught in schools.

“I listened, stunned, as Michelle Leete, an executive of the NAACP and the PTA, put a target on the backs of parents just because they have a different point of view,” Asra Nomani, who filmed the outburst, told The Daily Wire.

Nomani helps to run the watchdog group Parents Defending Education.

“What we heard tonight was hate speech, pure and simple. It was shocking that anyone would cheer and applaud a call to violence… Ironically, her hateful, intolerant words are a perfect illustration of the divisive ideology of critical race theory in action. In the name of tolerance, it preaches intolerance and is a betrayal of all values of humanity and decency,” she said.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Questions Arise: Are Joe Biden’s Vaccine Teams Going Door-to-Door in Swing States Doing more than Promoting Vaccines? Americans Need to Know

By Joe Hoft
Published July 16, 2021 at 8:30am
rove-trump.jpg

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. Karl Rove, no friend of President Trump and his supporters, may have actually found something very important.

Karl Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff in the GW Bush Administration. Since then he has been a talking head for FOX News. He doesn’t have a very good record since President Trump came to DC and, because of his remarks against the President, Rove has been the target of a few posts from President Trump. The latest came in May of this year.

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A bigger spanking came from President Trump in March.

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But Karl Rove may have really nailed something here.

This past week Karl Rove raised the question about the individuals the government is paying to go door to door to encourage Americans to take the COVID vaccine.


We reported previously that this door-to-door exercise already started in North Carolina.
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One question that Republicans should request an answer to is who is hiring these individuals going door to door and pushing the vaccine?

Is this operation led by Stacy Abrams like the hiring of far left election workers in the 2020 Election? Abrams was behind the hiring of election ballot counters (i.e. producers) in numerous locations, including Fulton County. This is one reason the results in Georgia were so terribly different from reality. It really looked like Abrams and her group hired anyone they could find who supported BLM to ‘count’ the election ballots.

But another question was raised by Karl Rove, believe it or not.

Rove asked on FOX News if these vaccine workers were also taking the opportunity to sign people up for the Democrat Party.

Rove shared:
If you’re in the White House and you’re attempting to solve this problem, do you really want to pollute it with a big draw-up of highly partisan and ideological groups rather than focusing on the mission at hand? Are these people around in, let’s say, Nebraska? Are these people around in let’s say Rhode Island?.. In fact, the list I’ve seen is virtually only states that are swing states, close states from the 2020 election. Somebody in the White House and somebody at the Department of Health and Human Services has to be held to account. Who’s making these decisions? Who’s allowing politics to enter into something that ought to be as far away from politics as possible?
Video on website 1:11 min

The focus behind getting Americans vaccinated has never been practiced before. COVID-19 was not a virus that impacted people below age 45 for the most part. School-age individuals were basically immune from COVID-19. So why the push? And who are these people knocking on doors, especially in a prevalent way in purple states? Don’t we deserve to know this? Why are the Republican lawmakers silent?
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

How the ‘Jab’ Leads to Despotism – Time for America to Awaken

By Joe Hoft
Published July 16, 2021 at 11:45am
vaxxed-or-masked-biden.jpg

Guest post by John L. Kachelman, Jr.

A historical review of despotism

Hitler
had his ghettos. Hitler’s forces systematically identified those who were a “threat” to society; those who presented a health risk; those who science defined as subhuman. The Germans established at least 1,143 ghettos in the eastern occupied countries. All the “undesirables,” those “uncooperative and, those “inferior” were herded into these ghettos and terrorized.

Stalin had his Gulags/Death Camps. Stalin’ infamous purges in 1936 identified millions of political prisoners. These were arrested and transported to the gulags without trial. That political terror appeared in waves. The first wave of prisoners were military and government officials; next, the intellectuals who questioned the State’s policy (doctors, writers, artists, and scientists) and, last the ordinary citizens. All were arrested ex nihilo—no substantiated crimes as all were imagined. In Stalin’s camps, those who were identified as threats to society were amassed. Many were executed or died from overwork and malnutrition.

Historians estimate that as part of the gulag, authorities imprisoned or executed about 25 million people.

Mao advanced his totalitarian reign through his “re-education camps.” Amnesty International describes these as: The authorities label the camps as centres for “transformation-through-education” but most people refer to them simply as “re-education camps.” Those sent to such camps are not put on trial, have no access to lawyers or right to challenge the decision. Individuals could be left to languish in detention for months, as it is the authorities who decide when an individual has been “transformed.”

Pol Pot utilized a “door-to-door” campaign to forcibly relocate the urban population to the countryside to work on collective farms to create his despotic utopian agrarian socialists society. It was in the name of complete egalitarianism, money was abolished and all citizens were made to wear the same black clothing.

These are just four of the many instances that history has redundantly recorded. Time after time despotic administrations of State governing have demonstrated a tyranny that is inhumane. Under each of these despotic administrations the nation they terrorized developed into a one-party governing; a legacy of genocide; and a failed history.

BUT no one considers history!

And now for modern America…
As a nation we stand precipitously on the cusp of total tyranny…You will not have freedom to move around; you will not be allowed to associate with family, friends, children and grandchildren; you will not have freedom to work or shop for food. You will be confined and restricted to specific locations.

If you have forgotten the tyrants of civilization cited above, please re-read the facts and grasp the situation that led to and allowed these “camps” to round-up and “quarantine” those the State deemed as a “threat” to the population.

For those of you who say, “It cannot happen in the USA,” let me remind you of Edmund Burke’s quip, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

IF the State determines that YOU and YOUR behavior is a “threat to the population,” THEN the State can propagandize your incarceration. And, the State’s charges do not have to be valid. They only have to be believed. THIS IS A HISTORICAL FACT! Review the Warsaw Ghetto and remember how the population was controlled to accept abominable conclusions about fellow humans!

Pay attention to the myriads being marched out with the “get vaccinated” messaging. The population is being prepared for stronger measures that will force vaccinations. The messaging is using FALSE science and fear mongering as controls for the people’s minds.

Pay attention to the fact that there are door-to-door canvassers making a list of those uncooperative and non-compliant regarding the “experimental vaccine”!

Pay attention to the increased messaging that those who refuse to be “jabbed” are becoming a threat to the general population.

Tuesday night (13 July 2021), CNN’s “OutFront” host Erin Burnett spoke with Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius said Americans who refuse the experimental coronavirus vaccine ought to have limited mobility and participation in society. Sebelius encouraged private businesses to force their employees to receive the experimental shots.

Do you see shadows of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al?
Pay attention to the obvious hypocrisy…Covid-19 “vaccines” are so effective that Sebelius is afraid that she, a vaccinated woman, might somehow “catch” the virus from an unvaccinated person. So she wants extreme limitations on the movements and freedoms of those unvaccinated!

Sebelius “explains” that vaccine injections do not protect those who receive them unless everyone around them is also injected (but there is omitted that we are told that in groups where ALL were vaccinated there is still infection possible!).

Consequently, Sebelius believes that those who refuse the jab should have their rights taken away by the government.
“I think it’s time to say to those folks, ‘It’s fine if you don’t choose to get vaccinated. You may not come to work. You may not have access to a situation where you are going to put my grandchildren in jeopardy, where you might kill them, where you might put them in a situation where they are going to carry the vaccine, the virus to someone in a high-risk position.’”
Sebelius uses doublespeak regarding “freedom.” She says that “freedom” means Americans’ constitutional rights are voided the moment people start to feel fearful that they might contract germs from someone who refused to have their DNA permanently altered with mRNA spike proteins dispensed out of a syringe.

And so, “freedom” becomes ONLY what the elite defines for themselves! This exposes the total selfishness of this tyranny.

To help her feel safer, Sebelius wants people, who reject the jab, to be controlled by the government. Their moving about freely must be restricted. She would prefer that the unvaccinated stay in a separate location so that the vaccinated can go out in public and never have to encounter someone who has not received an injection.

“I want to be able to live my life with vaccination, and right now I’m being impinged on by people who say, ‘I don’t want to get vaccinated.’ It’s fine, but I want them to maybe have a limitation on where they can go and who they can possibly infect.”

Listen carefully to her words: “So I think we’re reaching that point in the United States where those of us who are vaccinated, I want to take off my mask. I want to be able to live my life with vaccination, and right now, I’m being impinged on by people who say I don’t want to get vaccinated. It’s fine. I want them to maybe have a limitation on where they can go and who they can possibly infect.”

Here is where we are…
There is a clear tyranny unfolding before our eyes. This has undeniable historical precedent in its origin, development, its inevitable terror and its eventual ruin. All are induced to yield to fear instead of facts. “Science” is once again in the hands of the Puppet Masters and is used to “convince” the general population what is “best.” (Research how Hitler’s evil used “science” in its relentless terror.)

I refuse fear. I accept facts. One has sent me this appropriate acronym for FEAR:

F—False
E—Evidence
A—Appearing
R—Real

“Fear” is false evidence appearing real! This appropriately frames the current campaign for tyranny to usurp our Republic!
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Psaki Says Americans Who Post “Misinformation” Should be Banned From All Platforms (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published July 16, 2021 at 1:43pm
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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Friday doubled down on the government’s censorship of Americans.

Psaki on Thursday casually admitted the federal government is censoring American citizens and flagging “problematic” social media posts.

“We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office,” Psaki said Thursday. “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

On Friday Psaki took it to another level and said Americans who post “misinformation” should be completely unpersoned and should have no access to online platforms.

“You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others if you providing ‘misinformation’ out there,” Psaki said.

The Biden Administration is publicly admitting that Americans who do not fall in line with their agenda do not have the right to participate in the exchange of commerce and ideas online.

VIDEO:
View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1416094734922047488
.25 min
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Big Tech "Acting Like Arms Of The Government" - Senator Hawley Warns "It's Scary Stuff"

FRIDAY, JUL 16, 2021 - 11:01 AM
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley warned Thursday that big tech is “acting like arms of the government” after the White House admitted that it is asking Facebook to comply with censoring anyone who posts content it deems to be “misinformation”.



Here’s the backstory:

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1415726506333122561
.34 min

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1415838847682887680
2:24 min

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Appearing on Fox News, Hawley warned “I think it’s really scary to have the federal government of the United States, the White House compiling lists of people, organizations, whatever and going to a private company that by the way is a monopoly – Facebook – and saying you need to censor.”

“I just think that this kind of coordination between big government and the big monopoly corporation, boy that is scary stuff,” Hawley said, adding “It really is censorship.”

Hawley continued, “at this point, you really have to wonder how private of companies they are.”

“I mean, if you are taking direction from the federal government, openly coordinating with the federal government, you have got the government saying we think this speech ought to be censored and Big Tech if they carry out those instructions, I mean, that looks like they are starting to operate as a public utility and there are many people out there who say we ought to just treat them as public utilities,” the Senator urged.

Watch:
Rumble video on website 1:50 min

The latest development with Facebook comes on the heels of reports that the White House is trying the same thing with Twitter, and planning on working directly with cellphone network providers to ‘fact check’ private SMS messages if they contain “misinformation about vaccines.”
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

REVEALED: Critical Race Theory Advocates Sent Staff & Students On Chinese Communist Propaganda Trips.
The National Urban League – an outspoken defender of Critical Race Theory – has partnered with a Chinese Communist Party-linked influence group for over a decade, including inking deals to collaborate on education initiatives in American schools, The National Pulse can reveal.

The National Urban League (NUL) – which purports to be a longstanding “civil rights organization dedicated to economic empowerment, equality, and social justice” for African Americans – focuses on influencing America’s education system. NUL is a proponent of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and sued the Trump administration in 2020 for banning the controversial, Marxist teaching plan.

NUL’s advocacy, however, comes amidst its partnership with the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF).

Founded by the chairman of the “highest-ranking entity overseeing” Chinese government’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), CUSEF functions as a key component of the effort “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and influence Westerners to “take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission.

“Journey of Empowerment.”
In March 2010, current NUL President and CEO Marc Morial led a 45-person delegation – dubbed a “journey of empowerment” – to China on a trip sponsored by CUSEF.

“The National Urban League’s commitment to paving a path to empowerment for African Americans recently led us half-way around the world to the People’s Republic of China,” Morial writes before listing the alleged “positive results” of the trip.

Among the accomplishments hailed by the NUL president was collaboration on education initiatives, including the establishment of the first-ever Confucius Institute – flagged as propaganda operations and national security threats by the U.S. government – at an American Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and a high-school level “student/teacher exchange program”:

The mission quickly produced positive results. During our discussions with the Ministry of Education, Chinese officials agreed to establish the first Confucius Institute at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in the United States. […] We had high hopes for reaching concrete agreements during our trip to China, and we were extremely delighted that our counterparts were just as eager to produce results. Both of the education commitments offer a wonderful opportunity for African American and Chinese students and teachers to experience each other’s language and culture. They will also be helpful in the continuing effort to strengthen ties between China and the United States.

In addition to NUL broadening Chinese Communist Party influence over American schools, NUL participants also discussed securing Chinese investment in the African American community according to Morial’s summary:

These agreements also set the stage for continuing dialogue between the National Urban League and Chinese officials. As we explore other areas of common interest, we see the potential of bringing Chinese investment to the African American community in areas such as banking and finance, industry and manufacturing, import-export, real estate, culture and tourism, and the public sector. In particular, we hope to partner with the Chinese to drive urban development and renewal, update inner-city infrastructure and secure investment and financing for business and entrepreneurship, while creating jobs and affordable housing.

A summary of trip participants reveals that several NUL Board members, CEOs from seven Urban League affiliates were in attendance along with former CNN contributor Roland Martin and Clinton-era Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater.

CUSEF-Breakfast-May20113.jpg

NUL CEO & TUNG CHEE-HWA.

CUSEF’S 2011 brochure reveals how the group “continued bilateral discussions” with the NUL, and literature from the following year describes how CUSEF maintained close ties to the league:

Continuing its support of the National Urban League in organizing groups of influential African-Americans to visit China, a group of community leaders visited Beijing and Xi’an in 2012. The visit enabled the participants to gain a better understanding of China’s political, business and academic environments, as well as to explore cooperative opportunities between the Chinese and African-American communities. The Foundation continues to reach out to African American leaders and organizations to build mutually beneficial relationships, and explore opportunities for African American communities with China.

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2012 BROCHURE.CUSEF, Leave Them Kids Alone.

Following NUL executives’ travels with CUSEF, student delegations from NUL affiliates began visiting China on trips sponsored by CUSEF.

Similar trips have been carried out through collaboration between the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus and CUSEF, with testimonials revealing students praising China as an “amazing communist country” whose “culture and history of China far exceeds those of the United States” upon return.

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2013 BROCHURE.

A trip participant’s blog post summarizing the ninth day of a 2018 CUSEF delegation posted to the Chicago Urban League’s website reveals similar praise for China, describing the two countries as “allies”:

Today we attended 2 seminars that were about cleaning & development of China’s environment. In this seminar we learned about the many things China has been doing to change their ecosystem. The second seminar was about the US-China Relations. We discussed how the US are allies with China throughout the different ways. The ultimate questions was will China & the US remain friends & enemies or one of the choices.

The CUSEF-sponsored high school trips appear to be ongoing, as a July 12th, 2021 press release from the NUL highlights the “transforming” nature of a recent trip:

The journey began in Beijing with visits to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Student ambassadors also studied at the prestigious Nankai University in Tianjin where they learned about the Chinese culture, language and foreign policy. Bonds were formed and barriers were broken between our ambassadors and their counterparts which was life transforming for many of the students. Per one student Ambassador “I learned that many stereotypes about China and their culture are not true and I also learned that their tradition and culture is a way to keep the hope alive and stay close with family.”

The news comes as America’s national corporate media attempts to cover up the direct links between hard-line authoritarian communism and the critical race and gender theories advocated by left-wing groups, activists, and their friends in the Democratic Party.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT
Video on website 20:40 min

Published 3 days ago
Tucker: Biden administration deems censorship 'applicable to private speech'

Tucker: Biden administration deems censorship 'applicable to private speech'

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host sounds off on Democrats' censorship push on private speech, vaccine 'misinformation'

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," July 12, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Good evening and welcome to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT. Happy Monday.

Before we begin, this show has come into possession of a pretty shocking photograph of California Congressman Eric Swalwell. You may have seen it on the internet, no, it's not a picture of him having sex with Chinese spies, we wouldn't show that to you. It's too much, you'll have to imagine what that looks like.

The picture we have shows Eric Swalwell shirtless, posing triumphantly in front of his servants of color. Talk about white supremacy -- and the story gets weirder from there. In a few moments, Mark Steyn joins us to assess what this picture means.

But first, last March, as the first big clusters of coronavirus cases started to appear in this country, media executives in Silicon Valley coordinated with officials in Washington to determine how much the public would be allowed to know about the growing epidemic that was killing them.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook e-mailed Tony Fauci at the N.I.H. to assure him that Facebook users would only see Tony Fauci's approved guidance on COVID- 19. Twitter and Google did effectively the same. Twitter and Google eliminated any post that deviated from Washington's official line.

In many cases, they censored information from frontline physicians that was both medically sound, it was the science, and potentially life-saving. Posts about treatments, for example, were downplayed.

They never apologized for this, they probably never will. Historians will assess it. They will likely record the early days of COVID-19 as a turning point in our society, an unprecedented assault on our most basic civil liberties that somehow very few people seem to notice when it first started happening.

The usual stooges and think tank libertarians assured us at the time that none of this was a big deal. Soulless multinational media monopolies censoring essential medical information? No problem. That's how the free market works. Build your own Google if you don't like it. Start your own N.I.H.

And in any case, in private, you can still say what you want you're still free it's not like this is North Korea, so calm down, conspiracy nut, you're starting to sound like Alex Jones.

Most of us obeyed. We dutifully calmed down and went back to Netflix. We shouldn't have.

Today, we learned the Biden administration considers censorship applicable to private speech as well. What you say in private, when you're alone with your phone, you won't be able to say or read what you want because the D.N.C. plans to control and apparently they have the ability to control the flow of information that you receive on your phone. Nothing that questions official regime policy will reach you.

According to a report in POLITICO -- and believe it or not we are quoting it here directly -- "Biden allied groups including the Democratic National Committee are planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers (text carriers) to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text message."

Now, we're going to say that again because it is a sentence we never thought we would see written in English, the D.N.C. is planning to censor any quote, "misinformation" about vaccines that you receive privately over text message.

So, what does misinformation mean? Here's the thing you should know. Misinformation is not the same as false information, as factually inaccurate information. Misinformation can be factually true. In fact, it very often is factually true and that's why they're angry about it.

Misinformation is instead anything the Biden administration does not want you to know including, for example, how effective the COVID vaccines actually are and what the potential side effects might be from taking them.

So, let's say you're interested to find out that information and you looked it up from the Biden administration's own websites. Let's say you start with the VAERS database, which records vaccine harm. You no longer are allowed to text what you find on their databases to other people in this country, the country you're born in. Your private conversations will be controlled by the D.N.C.

Is that the picture of a free country? It looks like we should have worried about civil liberties last year when all of this started. Oh, but it's a global health emergency, we have no choice. Things will go back to normal when it ends.

But will they go back to normal?

If the government can ban discussion of the drug they are making you take, what can't they do? And by the way, it is worth wondering why are they doing this now? Why are they expanding censorship of conversation about the pandemic as the pandemic recedes?

The COVID vaccines have been around for more than seven months, pretty much everyone who wants one has had one. You can get the shot very easily, they are free.

According to administration, this vaccine works perfectly and that means that vaccinated people are protected from COVID. They're bulletproof. They can't get sick, that's why they took the vaccine in the first place.

So why is official Washington so angry at the people who won't get vaccinated? How precisely do they pose a threat? It makes you think once you think about it that maybe none of this is really about COVID. Maybe it's about social control.

Tony Fauci all but admitted that just the other day on television. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: I know you've been very clear that the government isn't mandating vaccines, but do you think it's generally a good idea for businesses or schools to require vaccinations?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Right, I have been of this opinion and I remain of that opinion that I do believe at the local level, Jake, there should be more mandates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "I have been of the opinion there should be more mandates," but actually they didn't tell us that. Do you remember hearing that when they first rolled out the vaccine? We are for mandates. No. They said we're not for mandates, actually, but now they are. These drugs will be mandatory. In many places, they already are.

If you want to get an education for example, you've got to take one.

Many questions arise from this, deep questions about civil liberties and what it means to be a free country, but even on a medical level, questions arise, for example: do we know enough to make these drugs mandatory?

Just today, "The Washington Post" reports that the F.D.A. is preparing to announce a new warning and I believe has just announced tonight for the J&J coronavirus vaccine, Johnson & Johnson vaccine. They say it's been linked to a nerve disorder called GBS which can cause paralysis and has. Millions of people in this country alone have taken the Johnson & Johnson shot, but other vaccines could be implicated as well.

According to the various database, again maintained by the Biden administration, which tracks vaccine side effects, GBS has been reported as a potential symptom for every other COVID vaccine, too. That's not a small thing and if it sounds familiar, then you must be over 40 and have a decent memory. Maybe you don't smoke a lot of weed.

You may recall that in 1976, the Federal government ended its mass vaccination program for influenza after several hundred people came down with GBS. People started asking questions and very quickly, the Ford administration determined the vaccine was not worth the risk, but that's not happening now.

People are not asking those questions because they can't, they're not allowed to in public. This is one of the only platforms in all American media that can operate outside the control of the tech monopolies and ask obvious questions, not because we're against vaccines, we're certainly not, but because you have a right to know a lot before you take a medicine.

But Tony Fauci isn't stopping the vaccines in the U.S., instead, he is accusing anyone who has questions about the vaccine of having some kind of sinister political motivation. They must be QAnon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: You know, Jake, it's an inexplicable pushing back on the part of some people about getting vaccinated.

I mean, we've got to put aside this ideological difference, differences of thinking that somebody is forcing you to do something, I really don't have a good explanation, Jake, about why this is happening.

I mean, it's ideological rigidity, I think. There's no reason not to get vaccinated. Why are we having red states and places in the south that are very highly ideological in one way not wanting to get vaccination?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So, Fauci on the one hand says this should be mandatory, "I want more mandates," and then moments later says, for some reason, people think we're forcing this on them and that is, quote, "inexplicable." They must be right-wingers.

You'd think if you're interviewing him, you would say, wait a second, didn't you just say it should be mandated? Maybe that's why they think it's mandated, because you just said it was.

But Fauci's claim that the resistance to the vaccine is somehow political is a bad faith attack posing as science. It's untrue. In fact, it has been the Democratic Party, very much Anthony Fauci's party that is engaged in partisan discussions about the vaccine from the very first day.

It wasn't even a year ago, in September 2020 that Kamala Harris herself announced that the coronavirus vaccine might be dangerous. Why? Because Donald Trump oversaw its development, and this, Kamala Harris said and we're quoting, " ... is going to be an issue for all of us."

Really? No longer an issue because Kamala Harris is now in charge.

So now that she is in charge, anyone who asks any questions at all, totally nonpartisan questions, must be a white supremacist.

Here is Dick Durbin of Illinois doing his best today to divide the country further along partisan lines because that helps him and tar anyone who wants more information about a specific drug, as a lunatic, who is against all vaccines. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): There are two hosts of programs on FOX primetime that can only be characterized as anti-vaxx quacks. I'm referring, of course to Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.

They have been spreading what I consider to be irresponsible confirmation about vaccines across America and about the effort of this nation to deal with them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "Spreading irresponsible information," and notice what he didn't say, Durbin did not accuse us of spreading false information, he did not accuse us of being factually wrong, we haven't been nor are we against vaccines, of course, very few Americans are against vaccines. Virtually every American has had a ton of vaccines and was expecting to take this one.

But when you refuse to answer basic questions about the vaccine and when you dodge them with partisan talking points like that, you make people nervous.

Americans have a right to have basic questions answered before they submit to taking a medicine. That is their right. But Durbin and hacks like Fauci persist in pretending that anyone who has questions is somehow a right-wing ideologue, and that's a lie. It's a provable lie.

Take a look at the numbers. These are from the government's own accounting. It turns out that it is African-Americans, those are the Democratic Party's most faithful voters who are still the most hesitant to getting vaccinated. That's not an attack, it's just an observation.

According to the C.D.C., the period of December 14th, 2020 to July 12th of this year brings us a total of 26 percent of African-Americans who've gotten one dose of vaccine, only 23.7 percent are quote, "fully vaccinated." Those are the lowest number recorded for any racial or ethnic group tracked by the C.D.C. by a significant margin.

Now, we don't judge anybody for taking or refusing to take the vaccine. Medical choices are by definition personal choices. They are not choices that politicians get to make for you and you should never be forced to take a medicine you don't want. Period.

That used to be a common observation in fact many of the people like Dick Durbin who are attacking anyone who has questions as partisan or racist are the very same people who told us for decades they were very upset about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, and they have a right to be upset about those experiments.

Now, they are telling us, anyone who resists mandatory vaccination is a white supremacist. This is the talking point of the moment. You know that because it was just on MSNBC from their in-house doctor. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: I don't have any tolerance for the anti-vaxxer movement and I don't have any tolerance for politicians who befriend, who cozy up to, or become allies of that movement. I actually see that as another example of the proliferation of white supremacy because in particular, they are targeting communities of color and they are targeting the historical injustices, the atrocities that communities of color have experienced as a way to play on their vulnerabilities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Go to link for rest of article (transcript)
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Now They Are Saying That the Republican Party Is the #1 ‘National Security Threat to the United States of America’

by MICHAEL SNYDER
July 16, 2021

When one major political party starts labeling the other major political party as a “national security threat”, that should set off major alarm bells because that means that total tyranny is very near. Needless to say, Democrats and Republicans have always had bitter words for one another, but when you start calling the other side a “national security threat” that is taking things to an entirely different level.

Al-Qaeda was a “national security threat”, and so we invaded Afghanistan. ISIS was a “national security threat”, and so we bombed them into oblivion. The full weight of U.S. power is often used to “neutralize” national security threats, and so when a former Department of Homeland Security official went on MSNBC and said that the Republican Party is now a more serious national security threat than either Al-Qaeda or ISIS, that sent chills down the spines of a whole lot of people…

Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official, made the comment during a Thursday interview on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out.”

“I’ve spent my whole career not as a political operative. I’ve never worked on a campaign in my life other than campaigning against Trump. I’m a national security guy. I’ve worked in national security against ISIS, al Qaeda and Russia,” Taylor said.

“And the No. 1 national security threat I’ve ever seen in my life to this country’s democracy is the party that I’m in — the Republican Party. It is the No. 1 security national security threat to the United States of America,” he said.


I couldn’t believe that he actually said that.

In the past, members of the Biden administration have labeled certain political subgroups as national security threats, but now Miles Taylor is saying that the entire Republican Party is the number one national security threat that our nation is facing.

Just think about what that means.

When we would capture a member of Al-Qaeda or ISIS, we would ship them off to Guantanamo Bay and torture them for months or even years.

I always spoke out against such torture, because it was morally wrong.

And I knew that eventually the same tactics would be used against Americans.

With each passing day, the U.S. is getting closer and closer to becoming an authoritarian regime. On Friday, we learned that the Biden administration has been regularly working with social media companies to censor the speech of people that are concerned about the safety of the COVID vaccines…

President Biden on Friday accused Facebook of “killing people,” just after White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration is “in regular touch” with the platform to ensure correct “narratives” are promoted — elaborating on her Thursday admission that the White House is “flagging problematic posts” for the social media giant to censor.

Social media companies are private entities, and so they can theoretically argue that they have the right to determine what is allowed to be posted on their platforms.

But when the federal government colludes with social media companies to censor speech, that is a crystal clear violation of our First Amendment rights.
As Glenn Greenwald has noted, if you support the Biden administration’s attempts to censor speech on social media platforms, that also makes you an authoritarian…

In an eight-tweet thread posted Thursday afternoon, Greenwald said this idea that a president’s administration can remove content it deems ‘problematic’ is dangerous.

‘If you don’t find it deeply disturbing that the White House is “flagging” internet content that they deem “problematic” to their Facebook allies for removal, then you are definitionally an authoritarian. No other information is needed about you to know that,’ Greenwald tweeted.


Not only is the Biden administration actively involved in censoring speech, they are also specifically demonizing 12 particular individuals that the Biden administration claims are responsible for “65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms”

The White House turned up the pressure on Silicon Valley to get a handle on vaccine misinformation Thursday, specifically singling out 12 people one group dubbed the “disinformation dozen,” saying they were responsible for a great deal of misinformation about Covid-19.

“There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.

At this point, freedom of speech is virtually a dead right in the United States of America, and that means that all of our other rights are in danger of being completely stripped away as well.

Because once freedom of speech is gone, the government will be free to take away the rest of our rights at their leisure.

Never before in U.S. history have we seen such a massive attempt by one side of the political spectrum to silence the speech of the other side of the political spectrum.

And ultimately, they won’t just be satisfied with shutting people up. In fact, there are some activists that are already wishing death upon their political opponents…

“Let them die,” Fairfax County NAACP First Vice President Michelle Leete said about people against her leftist ideology during a speech to protesters at Luther Jackson Middle School Thursday evening.

Parents and concerned citizens had gathered in Fairfax, Virginia, prior to a school board meeting to protest Fairfax County Public Schools teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT), while others had come to support CRT and the LGBT agenda in schools. It was the final meeting before the school board’s summer break.


There is so much hatred on both sides of the political spectrum right now, and that makes me extremely sad.

As I discuss in my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse”, we are moving into a very troubled chapter in American history, and we are doing so at a time when most people are absolutely filled with rage.

Everywhere you look, people are extremely angry. Our nation has become a tinderbox that can literally erupt in flames at any moment, and we have seen quite a few examples of this over the past year.

We used to be such a civilized country.

What in the world has happened to us?

Freedom is such a precious thing. Previous generations of Americans sacrificed so much to win it for us, and now we are on the verge of losing it for good.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Senator Josh Hawley Reacts to Jen Psaki Dictating to Big Tech How They Need to Handle Vaccine ‘Misinformation’

By J.D. Rucker • Jul. 16, 2021

Since coming to Washington DC, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has been one of the most outspoken opponents of Big Tech censorship and the monopolies they represent. Facebook et al have been absolute tyrants when it comes to their handling of “controversial” topics. Invariably, it is conservatives who are quashed while violent progressives get a free pass.

But the tyranny of Big Tech isn’t going far enough for the Biden regime. They not only want all Covid-19 “vaccine misinformation” to be silenced. They want ALL Big Tech platforms to universally silence those who spread it. It doesn’t get more draconian than that when it comes to propaganda and censorship, and White House Press Secretary Jen “Circle Back” Psaki is proud to be the modern day version of the ancient Greek lawmaker, Draco.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1416089821056012289
.25 min

Hawley had a response to this unambiguous overreach of government into what are supposed to be private companies.

1626501108965.png

There is mounting evidence that Big Tech companies have been working with the Democratic Party and the Deep State to subvert participation of users, again invariably of a conservative worldview. They have even been accused of helping both the DNC and Deep State spy on American citizens. But, as Hawley points out, they are considered to be “private” companies that have the very public protection of Section 230.

As the White House wields Big Tech as a censorship tool against vaccine skeptics, how long can the maintain the charade that they’re “private” companies with no allegiance to their Democrat puppetmasters?
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Free Speech is Not a Natural “Right” – So Says The Tyrannical “Left”

BY STEVE MACDONALD / 16 JULY 2021

A former Danish Prime Minister (working as a censor and blacklister for Facebook) is doing us all a huge favor. Helle Thorning Schmidt, a Facebook Oversight Board member, has declared that free speech is not an absolute human right. How you may ask, is this a gift?

A committed leftist, working for a leftist social media monstrosity, says that they (Leftists) must limit (political) speech they oppose to protect other human rights.

And oh, by the way, the left has already made all speech political.

“What we’re trying to find, of course, I think many of us engaging in this conversation, is that middle road. How do you moderate content and how do you find that balance between human rights and free speech, which is a human right, but also other human rights because free speech is not an absolute human right,” “It has to be balanced with all the human rights and that is what the oversight is there to do,” she added.

This is more third-way BS from the masters of the BS Universe, but as I noted in the reopening, it is not without potential. The Censorship board is attempting to add legitimacy to the old practice of silencing opposing opinions.

Helle Thorning Schmidt claims that this “is a completely new invention to do this work,” but every tyrannical regime in human history has “done this work” to the detriment of humans and their rights. In fact, there is a direct correlation between what Thorning Schmidt advocates and a precipitous decline in quality of life, life expectancy, financial mobility, and even the most basic human rights.

A true middle road (for example) would permit scientists or their research or opinions to be presented to encourage debate on public health or climate topics. But share unapproved content that cuts across the grain of the preferred narrative on either, and you can expect to get flagged, tagged, and bagged by the “oversight board.”

You can rinse, wash, repeat with every other topic issue, and then use this fact to your advantage. If this middle-of-the-road garbage is legitimate, let’s get Democrats on the record.

Around 80% of Americans, including many Democrats, approve of limiting or banning third-trimester abortions – making it a very middle-of-the-road position. Should far-left speech that insists on abortion up to birth be suppressed?

A majority of Americans disagree that climate change is a serious issue – shouldn’t people fearmongering climate conditions have their ideas suppressed?
Most Americans agree that the current open borders strategy favored by Democrats is dangerous and destructive to both Americans and the so-called refugees crowding the border. Should Democrat narratives supporting the current policy be flagged or restricted?

The obvious answer to any of these questions is no, but why? Because more speech is always better even when you may not like or agree. It also demonstrates that there is no third way. When the Left talks about the middle ground, they mean their ground or no other.

This is nothing more than an exercise by ruling class scolds determined to control what people see and hear. It is the narrative of Mao, Castro, Chavez, Stalin, and even Hitler. And what follows is no different.

And until you make it financially irresponsible for them to take this course, they will continue to pursue it.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

'Stay in your lane': Former DA warns against prosecutors choosing which laws to enforce

"f you want ... a criminal law to change, run for the legislature," said former District Attorney Tom Hogan. "Don't run for district attorney."

By Natalia Mittelstadt
Updated: July 15, 2021 - 11:44pm

"Progressive" prosecutors who choose which laws to enforce are responsible for the crime that results from a lack of prosecution, said Tom Hogan, the former district attorney for Chester County, Pa.

"[E]ven 10 years ago, if you got 100 prosecutors together in a room, no matter what their party affiliation was, they would generally agree on how to stop violent crime," Hogan told the John Solomon Reports podcast. "And they would generally agree if you presented them with a hypothetical about a case about the appropriate way to handle it."

"You don't see that anymore," Hogan said. "You're seeing prosecutors breaking in all sorts of different directions, doing all sorts of crazy things. And that really started with the progressive prosecutor movement, which has been funded from a certain angle, and you are getting to see the results of it right now in the big cities."

Progressive billionaire George Soros has been involved in the financial backing of progressive district attorneys like St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, who prosecuted former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and was found to have engaged in misconduct by the state's chief legal disciplinary officer during the criminal prosecution.

In New York, Alvin Bragg is the Democratic candidate for Manhattan district attorney, and he has promised not to prosecute trespassing or resisting arrest, Hogan said. He added that Bragg also said, "Everyone is going to get bail unless they commit a murder, an assault with a deadly weapon where somebody actually was seriously injured, or a sex crime." This means cases of shootings where no one is injured, domestic assault without a weapon, illegal possession of a firearm, and drug dealers will get bail, Hogan explained.

A warning sign of these political district attorneys is when "they say that they're going to deprosecute whole swaths of crime," Hogan said. "In other words, they're going to take a particular area of crime, and even if the legislature passed the law, and even if the governor signed it, the prosecutor's saying, 'I'm not going to enforce it.' That is a huge red flag, because that's not a prosecutor's job.

The prosecutor's job is to enforce the law that's on the books.

"They are usurping the authority of the legislature. If you want a law to change, a criminal law to change, run for the legislature. Don't run for district attorney.

That's not your role, stay in your lane. And we're seeing that across the political spectrum: People are coming out of their lanes and deciding that they're going to do what they want."

Hogan added that voters need "to pay attention" when they vote for elected prosecutors.

"They have to demand that their prosecutors actually enforce the law," he said.

"They need to support their police, if they want to be safe, because what we're seeing right now is the violent crime is leaking out from the cities and it's starting to hit the suburbs. I saw an interview with the suburban police chiefs around Minneapolis, and they said that the gangs are coming out there now because they realize they're just not going to get prosecuted."

While "the discretion of a prosecutor is great, and generally has been unfettered" in the courts, Hogan said, the attorney general over the prosecutor has the power to rein them in.

"Now what you can have is every district attorney is also covered by an attorney general, and a U.S. attorney's office," Hogan explained. "So you could have them stepping in and becoming much more law-enforcement-friendly ... for instance, in Florida, when the Jacksonville state's attorney stopped enforcing the death penalty and stopped really going after murder cases, the governor did take away her authority over murder cases and handed it off to the attorney general."
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

California pays $1.35 million settlement over COVID-19 restrictions on churches

The money paid to Liberty Counsel will be used to continue litigation on behalf of other churches against COVID restrictions.

By Bethany Blankley
Updated: July 15, 2021 - 11:34pm

One year after Liberty Counsel sued Gov. Gavin Newsom on behalf of Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry, the state of California has paid a $1.35 million settlement.

As a result of Liberty Counsel’s lawsuit, a federal district court in May approved the first state-wide permanent injunction in the U.S. against COVID restrictions on churches and places of worship. Under the statewide permanent injunction, all California churches were allowed to hold worship services without discriminatory restrictions. The injunction also required the state of California to pay $1.35 million to Liberty Counsel to cover attorney’s fees and other costs.

The money will be used to continue litigation on behalf of other churches against COVID restrictions, including a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, the nonprofit religious freedom organization said in a statement. A portion of the payment also will be used to pay off the mortgage on its Washington, D.C., ministry center, which hosts Bible studies and religious gatherings.

“Ironically, the payment from California which had the worst COVID restrictions on churches and places of worship, will be used to advance Bible studies and worship in the nation’s capital,” Liberty Counsel said.

Newsom, who is facing a recall election on Sept. 14, was the first to impose the most severe restrictions on churches, home Bible studies and worship in the nation, Liberty Counsel argued. The U.S. Supreme Court also reprimanded the governor in an unusual move, as well as the Ninth Circuit, for repeatedly not following its instructions.

The Harvest Rock case involved three emergency injunctions pending appeal at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, two oral arguments before a panel of three judges, and two orders from the U.S. Supreme Court, including an injunction pending appeal issued by the court on Feb. 5, 2021.

From March 19 to May 25, 2020, Newsom ordered that no group worship be allowed in California due to the coronavirus.

From May 26 to July 12, 2020, he changed his shutdown order to allow 25% capacity but no more than 100 people in a building to worship.

From July 13, 2020 to April 8, 2021, no public worship was permitted by executive order for over 90% of Californians.

From April 9 to April 12, 2021, restrictions on home Bible study were lifted but restrictions were not lifted on singing and chanting only for worship purposes; commercial singing and chanting in Hollywood and elsewhere was allowed.

From April 13 to May 9, 2021, mandatory attendance limits were lifted, and by May 17, 2021, restrictions on houses of worship were permanently removed.

Liberty Counsel argued that Newsom discriminated against houses of worship by imposing restrictions on them while not imposing them on grocery stores, warehouses, big box stores, transportation, infrastructure, telecommunications, and others designated as “critical infrastructure” or “essential services.” The U.S. Supreme Court agreed.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Welcome to the Brave New America
A realistic look at what the Left is trying to accomplish—and likely will—unless we all band together to stop them and save our country.
By Jim Hanson
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July 16, 2021
The Left is achieving their fundamental transformation of America into a socialist hellhole, consolidating control over our major institutions and enacting truly radical policies and programs. It’s easy to get distracted by these policies—critical race theory is bad, cancel culture is bad. But we can’t lose focus on their ultimate goal. The desired end state for the Left is The State.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is the DIY manual for building their Brave New World. The Left will only be happy when they have attained totalitarian power. They see the Constitution with all those pesky restrictions and our entire federal republic as an impediment to their plan to social engineer better humans and build a society to keep those engineered humans in line. The dystopian utopia they envision can’t work, but they can break the republic in the process of trying.

Three interesting developments this week put things in clear focus. The communist paradise of Cuba is experiencing a revolt of people chanting “Freedom,” with some waving American flags. The FBI saw fit to release a tweet recruiting Americans to become informants against their own families, eerily reminiscent of the secret police in all communist countries.

And Jack Posobiec reports the Biden Administration is going to release an enemies list based on influencers followed by those arrested at the Capitol riot.

They are going full totalitarian and have moved into what Wesley Yang calls Successor Ideology, which views modern liberalism as far too soft. Modern liberalism was not willing to break things, like the republic or pro forma respect for our Constitution and our civil society, to achieve the change the Left’s secular religion demands. The new woke Left, however, is willing to burn it all to the ground and attempt to build a communist paradise from the ashes.

It is up to us to stop them. This imminent danger moved me to leave foreign policy and national security where I have spent most of my adult career in order to focus on the culture war here in America. The most pressing threat we face, by far, is domestic. We either stop the Left in their quest, or they will destroy us long before any foreign enemy can.

It led me to write Winning the Second Civil War: Without Firing a Shot. In the short time since it was released, there has been a groundswell of proud Americans standing up and fighting back. But we need more, many more. This piece lays out a realistic look at what the Left is trying to accomplish, and likely will, unless we all band together to stop them and save our country.

Welcome to WokeTopia 2031
Scenario: School Daze

Bob dreaded the trip to his daughter’s school. He knew why he’d been summoned, and he knew the likely outcome. Irina had almost certainly been engaging in hate speech again. It was only a question of which kind. The rules were so fluid you could start an innocuous sentence and, by the time you finished, have run afoul of a new diktat.

He sat in a row of chairs outside the Diversity & Inclusion Commissar’s office and immediately noticed the dejected looks on the other parents’ faces. They all feared the nuclear option for their kids and none of them even wanted to make eye contact for fear of consorting with an enemy of the state.

When his name was called, Bob shuffled into the sterile office. It was remarkably void of any pictures, art, or representations of anything other than one-line directives: “The right to be free from offense for all students is our primary goal”; “Think who may be hurt before you speak”; and, “The underserved deserve their time at the top.”

Ms. Smith glared at him over the top of her glasses and motioned to a student-sized chair for him to sit on. She was a middle-aged, middle-looking, middle-sized bureaucrat with a middle-melanin level, which Bob assumed made her BIPOC but he couldn’t be certain. He knew better than to use gender or race-specific terms.

“Your daughter, Mr. Whiting. Once again, we are here to discuss your daughter,” Ms. Smith intoned.

Bob nodded his head and tried to look apologetic. His 14-year-old daughter had been in trouble numerous times recently for failure to accept her whiteness and her reduced status as a member of the oppressor class.

“Irina is causing significant distress for the other students,” Ms. Smith informed him. “She has been hectoring them with talk about her right to free speech and even worse that she can say what she wants even if it hurts their feelings.

Fortunately at least one member of your family understands the damage this speech violence causes. Your son Sean gave us a full report on her un-Woke activities.”

Bob tried to look shocked as if he couldn’t understand where Irina could have gotten these wild ideas, but sadly it didn’t surprise him that Sean was the informant. He had become an insufferable member of the Woke Youth. “Perhaps Irina’s just trying to generate positive conversation, so the other students can correct her,” Bob tried as a deflection.

Smith shot back, “Mr. Whiting, what part of hate speech is violence do you not understand? When the Supreme Court ruled 13-6 in Obama v. America, this became the law of the land.” She thought to herself, Thank Gaia we made DC and Puerto Rico states to break the Senate log jam and added extra seats to the Supreme Court.

She continued informing Mr. Whiting, “Irina regularly uses gender-specific pronouns and patriarchal terms. Just the other day, she said ‘All men are created equal.’ Can you imagine the distress that causes the rest of the children?”

“But Ms. Smith, that is an actual quote from the Declaration of Independence,” Bob pointed out. “Isn’t that an exception?”

“A document written by slave owners declaring ‘All men are created equal’ is quite possibly the most heinous example of hate speech I am aware of” Smith exclaimed. “If this is the type of thing you’re teaching your children at home, I can see why we’ve reached this impasse with your daughter.”

There it was. Bob realized she was dropping the hammer on Irina.

“I’m afraid your daughter is no longer safe for the rest of our students to be around, Mr. Whiting,” Smith announced. “As of next week, she will be assigned to the WokeRehab school until she can demonstrate an ability to fully understand her role as last among equals.”
* * *

Far-fetched? Sadly, no. Much of this is already happening to one degree or another. Look at all these schools that conduct something called a “Privilege Walk.” This involves all students lining up and then taking steps forward or backward based on supposed privileges they have or are denied. These always include whiteness as a privilege. This divisive, racist event tells white kids that they did not earn their achievements and black kids that they were unfairly denied theirs.

This is all based on supposed systemic racism, which is the invention of the critical race theory (CRT) so much under discussion recently. Things like the Privilege Walk and antiracism training use the concept of systemic racism to call for changes to our systems that they now demand produce equity, i.e. equality of outcome. But that ignores the fatal flaw of CRT: it takes any disparate outcome for blacks and attributes it to systemic racism and eliminates any other possibilities for the difference.

Ibram X. Kendi is the author of How to Be an Antiracist and in a piece for Politico he called for an Antiracist Amendment to the Constitution based on these two “facts”:
Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals.
Total agreement on the second half; different racial groups are equals. Complete disagreement that inequity is evidence of anything but inequity. It is not just shoddy logic, but offensively bad analysis.

That is not how statistical analysis works. All possible factors must be examined to determine which are most highly correlated with the disparate outcome identified. The claim that systemic racism causes almost all of the bad outcomes for blacks doesn’t stand up to scrutiny as I outlined in my book The Myth of White Fragility. Many other cultural factors are much more highly correlated.
A common theme in media discussion of this topic is to say, as this piece does:
‘If you don’t believe systemic racism is real, explain these statistics’
And then they present these mostly undisputed examples of disparate outcomes followed by an ‘a ha’ claim that a supposed inability to dispute them is proof of their validity as causation of systemic racism.

Again, not how any of this works. Regardless of the seemingly nice fit between Black achievement issues and racism as the cause, the burden of proof rests with the one making the assertion. Requiring others to disprove the claim without first having proved the point is ludicrous.

Correlation is not causation and there is no exemption for social justice causes.
The book examined many inequities that were attributed to systemic racism and found much better correlations with other pathologies. We looked at a violent crime rate for blacks that is three times their percentage of the population.

Committing violence against another human of the same race is an act of personal choice, unless you make the racist claim that black people lack agency. That makes it nearly impossible to attribute these crimes to an unseeable, systemic racism.

The number one predictive factor for a child of any race to become a criminal is a fatherless home. Sadly, black children are much more likely to be in single parent homes.

Overall, there are significant differences in the racial and ethnic profiles of solo and cohabiting parents. Among solo parents, 42% are white and 28% are black, compared with 55% of cohabiting parents who are white and 13% who are black.
The acceptance of these school programs based on the unproven CRT assertion that America and all our institutions are racist leads to false programming of all kids. Black kids believe white oppression keeps them from their full potential and white kids that their gains come unfairly at the expense of others. Neither has been proven to be true, but the indoctrination goes on full force.

Scenario: Your Friendly Neighborhood Thought Police
Becky was enjoying a quiet night at home binge-watching 90s sitcoms when the knock on the door came. She wasn’t expecting anyone, so she was surprised to get visitors so late. She opened the door to see two non-descript functionaries of the type who populate almost any government office.

The taller and apparently male one spoke first as the petite female-appearing one was typing on a tablet. “Good evening. We are with the Department of Homeland Security. May I request your pronouns?”

“Shit,” she thought. “I bet this is about those drunk tweets last week. I should have deleted them quicker.” “Uh, I am a woman if that is what you’re asking,” She replied.

“Excellent,” the HLS rep replied. “We will use feminine pronouns and references. I’m Agent Smith and this is also Agent Smith. We both identify as male. We are here as part of a domestic extremism investigation. May we come in?”

“Double shit! WTH did I tweet that would bring the actual Thought Police to my door? I don’t recall being that drunk,” Becky wondered. “May I see some identification?” she asked.

Both agents pulled out badge holders with a detective-style gold badge and the title:

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY—DOMESTIC EXTREMISM TASK FORCE (DETF).

Becky noticed that under the title it said: Contract Agents from Task Force Partner Twitter. “Are you federal agents?” she asked.

“No Ma’am,” the shorter male Agent Smith answered. “We are part of the Silicon Valley office of DETF and although we are civilian employees of Twitter, we have been given full police authority in all matters related to the Task Force’s mission. Shall we sit down and talk?”

“Can my husband join us?” Becky inquired.

“Negative Ma’am.” Smith replied. “We will need to speak to you privately. Agent Smith will sit with your husband to gather some additional information.” Just then yet another larger and beefier Smith appeared and walked into the den where she heard a heated discussion start and end with her husband.

The two original Smiths walked her into her living room and took seats on the couch. Smith One continued to do most of the talking while Smith Two entered data. “Ma’am is @BeckyJacksEm your Twitter handle and Becky Jackson your Facebook username?”

“Yes, that is correct,” Becky managed to say despite her guts starting to quiver. “Why do you ask?”

Smith One responded, “We’ll get to that, but first we have to establish some facts. Did you tweet on Jan. 6, 2031 ‘Ten years since the Capitol rally. Too many people still in jail.’ And also post the same message on Facebook with a picture of prisoners in orange jumpsuits labeled Twitmo?”

Becky knew she was on shaky ground, but they obviously had access to her accounts so no point lying. “Yes, I did. But just because I feel bad for the people still in jail.”

Both Agents Smith looked at each other and gave an almost imperceptible nod of concurrence. Smith Two stopped typing and asked, “Ma’am are you aware the Domestic Extremism Extermination Program (DEEP) allows us to keep extremists deemed a threat under indefinite detention which is why the Capitol Insurrectionists remain detained?”

“I g-guess so,” Becky stammered, not at all comfortable with the direction of the conversation.

Smith Two continued, “Are you also aware that it allows us to detain those offering material support to domestic terrorists?”

“What?” Becky exclaimed. “It was a tweet for God’s sake. How is that material support?”

Smith One answered, “Ma’am the Capitol insurrection was largely planned using social media and the traitor Trump used it to incite a large segment of the population to violence. Propagating terrorist propaganda is a named offense. We are empowered to do what is necessary to ensure that never happens again. You need to come with us.”
* * *

Far-fetched? Again, it’s mostly based on events that have already occurred or are planned by the current administration.

There are a number of people who participated in the three-hour riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, who have spent more than six months in solitary confinement. Some didn’t even commit a single violent act but have been deemed threats to the public. Others are being made to renounce their bad acts in a twisted analogue to Chinese Communist struggle sessions where offenders publicly humiliate themselves while renouncing their evil deeds.

The partnership between the government and the tech tyrants is already well-established and has been used to limit speech the leftist social media firms dislike. They seized on an even more powerful way to achieve their goal of limiting the public’s access to information they want suppressed. They labeled the January 6 event an insurrection or domestic terrorism despite zero evidence of any conspiracy to attack the Capitol.

This allowed them to place their suppression operations under the umbrella of counterterrorism. It offers so many more tools and makes it harder for anyone to oppose it. Who likes terrorism? But the ability to determine who is a terrorist and then what information supports terrorism is a powerful weapon. We have already seen it abused in the overcharging and massive dragnet for Capitol rioters to include many hundreds who simply walked in and took selfies once the police opened the doors.

As I have argued elsewhere, now this thought police ideology is enshrined in the new National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.
The Biden domestic terror strategy looks to institutionalize this unequal treatment and shut down the ability of citizens on the political right to exercise many constitutionally guaranteed natural rights. They start with free speech and propose to partner with the tech tyrants to further marginalize or eliminate ideas they dislike or disagree with:

‘These efforts speak to a broader priority: enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.’
Translation: Your ideas are dangerous to our ability to aggregate state power, and we are going to shut you down.

The trick the administration is trying to implement is outsourcing censorship of speech to Silicon Valley to avoid the most basic protection we have, the First Amendment. The government can’t abridge our speech but Google, Twitter, and Facebook can. And they are. Now they just got a hunting license from the government that says any right-leaning content is fair game along with those who propagate it.

(Long article - read the rest at link) Welcome to the Brave New America › American Greatness
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Tucker Rips Return of Mask Mandates: 'A Sign of Obedience and Submission'
Scott Morefield
Scott Morefield

@SKMorefield
Posted: Jul 17, 2021 11:20 AM


Tucker Rips Return of Mask Mandates: 'A Sign of Obedience and Submission'

Source: Photo via Gage Skidmore

Fox News host Tucker Carlson called face mask mandates "a sign of obedience and submission" during a Friday night "Tucker Carlson Tonight" monologue reacting to the reintroduction of the indoor mandate in LA County.

The rise of the more transmissible Delta variant as a percentage of overall cases has sparked panic and a call from some to go back to mandates and other restrictions even for those already vaccinated against Covid-19, despite the fact that deaths and hospitalizations remain low and Delta hasn't been proven to be any more deadly than its predecessors.

Residents of California's most populous county will be required to mask up in indoor spaces as of midnight tonight, a step back from the trend since May of relaxing restrictions as coronavirus vaccines have become widely available.

After playing a clip of Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis declaring that indoor masking indoors "must again become a normal practice by all regardless of vaccination status" during a Thursday press conference, Carlson switched to CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky saying in May that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks.

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1416204786035302409
1:47 min
Ooh, so the experts have contradictory guidance. Maybe the experts and the science have nothing to do with any of this. Maybe it’s as simple as once you hand power over your life, the intimate details, what you can wear while you're eating for example, whether you can go to church, they don’t want to give it back, and they're not. There are signs tonight that other cities are going to reinstate mask mandates. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo just tweeted that masks should be mandatory because - and we are not making this up - they are a sign of respect and it can prevent the common cold, so why ever take it off?
Are they a sign of respect that people were forced to wear them? No.
They are a sign of obedience and submission. That’s why they mandate them. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is warning the third wave of the virus is about to knock out all the progress that vaccines have made. Chaos on the Covid front tonight.
The move by LA County is part of a growing trend to go back on the relaxing of restrictions in the wake of the Delta variant's spread.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

USA Today “Fact-Checks” GP and Politico Report on Biden Monitoring Private Communications — Then Confirms DNC Has Been Flagging “Misinformation” for Facebook Since 2020

By Jim Hoft
Published July 17, 2021 at 12:57pm

On Monday Politico broke the news that the Biden regime was monitoring private communications and calls on SMS Carriers to “dispel misinformation about vaccines.

Gateway Pundit reported on this stunning development.

biden-regime-facebook-factcheck.jpg


This news came on the same week that the Biden administration admitted to working with Facebook to flag, censor and silence critics of the administration’s vaccine program. It also is the same week that White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said anyone who is banned from Facebook for White House deemed “misinformation” should be banned from all social media platforms.

We now have shameless totalitarians in the White House who have no regard for the US Constitution and the right to free speech in America.

The Gateway Pundit reported previously on how Twitter has built a special portal offered to certain governmental entities so that government officials can flag and delete content they dislike for any reason, as part of what they call “Twitter Partner Status.”

We also know that Facebook has a similar network of far left politicians and Facebook officials who collude and censor information that they dislike.

Following our report, USA Today fact-checked our post and Politico on Instagram.


Here is how USA Today defended their decision to fact-check this information:
In a July 12 article about the Biden administration’s response to vaccine disinformation, Politico reported that groups allied with President Joe Biden are working with text messaging carriers to fight the spread of vaccine misinformation.

“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages,” Politico wrote…

…The falsehood has also circulated in conservative media circles.

Fox News reported that “the Biden administration has plans to work with tech companies and SMS carriers to monitor and combat misinformation.” Fox host Tucker Carlson reiterated the false claim during his July 13 show.

But this initiative doesn’t involve monitoring or controlling private text messages, and the Biden administration is not involved.

USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user for comment.

DNC isn’t monitoring private messaging, and Biden isn’t involved
In an email to USA TODAY, a spokesperson for the DNC said the claim was false on several counts. Senior spokesperson Lucas Acosta said the committee is not monitoring private texts, and the Biden administration is not part of the initiative.

“Of course the DNC has no ability to access or read people’s private text messages, and we are not working with any government agency, including the White House, to try to see personal text messages,” he wrote.

Rather, Acosta said, “when the DNC’s counter disinformation program receives complaints or reports of fraudulent broadcast SMSs that we believe violate the text aggregators’ terms of service, we notify the broadcast text platform to help combat this troubling trend.”

Broadcast SMSs are mass messages organizers send to lists of subscribers. Organizers use third-party applications (known as SMS APIs), like Twilio or Bandwidth, to contact mass audiences via text message on their cellphones.

Political campaigns often use broadcast SMSs to reach voters and donors.

Many of these SMS APIs prohibit organizers from using their services to send fraudulent messages.

Acosta stressed that “the only texts (the DNC) reviewed are those distributed en masse to American citizens through broadcast text platforms and reported to the DNC.”

He told USA TODAY the DNC has reported these instances of suspected fraud and disinformation – related to vaccines and other issues – to SMS APIs since 2020.

Natasha Korecki, one of the Politico reporters who wrote the July 12 article, dispelled exaggerations and misinterpretations several times on Twitter.

She said private groups are working to flag misinformation campaigns to SMS companies – not monitor private texts.

“As the story points out, it’s allied, private groups that are working with SMS carriers – not the White House. Even then, there is no ability for groups to read individual texts aside from the ones they receive themselves,” she tweeted on July 12.

USA TODAY could not find any evidence that Biden ever said he wanted to monitor citizens’ private text messages.

Our rating: False
Based on our research, the claim that Biden wants phone companies to monitor people’s texts for vaccine misinformation is FALSE. This is a misinterpretation of the DNC’s effort to report disinformation. A spokesperson from the DNC said it has no ability to monitor private text messages. Instead, the DNC shares instances of possible terms-of-use violations, reported by the public, to the SMS API companies. The Biden administration is not involved.
Did you catch that?

The DNC has been working with Facebook to target, censor and silence “misinformation” on the platform and has been doing this since 2020.

This may be criminal in nature.

If we had a Republican Party with any balls they would demand investigations on this.

But we all know that won’t happen.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

PROJECT VERITAS: Insider Leaks Critical Race Theory ‘Indoctrination’ with Children’s Toy Manufacturer Hasbro (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila
Published July 18, 2021 at 1:01pm
IMG_3193-1.jpg

Project Veritas on Sunday released video of a whistleblower exposing ‘indoctrination’ within children’s toy manufacturer Hasbro.

Hasbro is partnering with “Conscious Kids” to force Critical Race Theory (CRT) upon its employees during mandatory trainings, Veritas said.

David Johnson, who is a Harvey Nash packaging engineer contracting with Hasbro, sat down with Project Veritas founder and CEO James O’Keefe, to discuss the CRT training in which he was forced to participate. Johnson leaked a video to Veritas showing “Conscious Kids” co-founders Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens lecturing Hasbro employees about infants’ inherent racism.

“I decided to come to Project Veritas because I oppose the indoctrination of children that they wanted to push, and I felt that more people needed to know about it,” Johnson said.

“They want to introduce children into racial bias at an early age before they’re really able to understand what race and racism is,” he said.
Katie Ishizuka, one of the “Conscious Kids” co-founders that trained Hasbro employees says white babies and children exhibit racist behavior.

“By three to six months, babies are beginning to notice and already express preference by race,” Ishizuka said.

“[Babies] as young as two are already using race to reason about people’s behaviors. We may see this play out in daycare or on the playground — and how kids are starting to choose or exclude playmates and friends,” she said.

VIDEO:

View: https://youtu.be/YwN8NFRLpo8
27:19 min

Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Project Veritas does not advocate specific resolutions to the issues raised through its investigations. Donate now to support their mission.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Facebook faces lawsuit for suspending user who cited lack of evidence for masking children

Justin Hart, cited in recent medical paper as influential COVID contrarian, made similar argument as mainstream epidemiologist.

Updated: July 17, 2021 - 10:48pm

An influential COVID policy skeptic is threatening to sue Facebook for suspending his account based on a graphic he posted Tuesday, titled "Masking Children is Impractical and Not Backed by Research or Real World Data."

Justin Hart was identified in a recent MIT paper as one of a handful of "anchors" for the anti-mask network on Twitter. He's also chief data analyst for the COVID contrarian website Rational Ground.

A warning letter to Facebook from Hart's lawyers at the Liberty Justice Center said the graphic was "science-based and contains footnotes to scientific evidence supporting its claims." Facebook issued him a three-day suspension the next day, citing the post as misinformation. The page remains live but the post is no longer there.

Hart's mask argument is similar to one made recently by University of California San Francisco epidemiologist Vinay Prasad. "No one has any clue" if the benefits of masking children outweigh the risks, he wrote in MedPage Today. "During the last year and half, the scientific community has failed to answer these questions. Failed entirely."

The Liberty Justice Center letter invoked Facebook's previous actions against accounts that shared the Wuhan lab-leak theory for COVID's origins — a posture it changed this spring after the Biden administration said the theory was plausible. Now as then, Facebook should "admit its error" and let posts like Hart's remain on the platform as an "equally valid scientific hypothesis."

The letter doesn't provide an explicit legal basis for suing. Hart cited loss of income and personal damages in a Twitter direct message to Just the News. He said he posted the same graphic that another user tweeted months earlier.

1626647628221.png
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The letter said Hart has paid Facebook to promote many of his posts intended to build his social media consultancy. While suspended he can't contact his followers on Facebook, and they can't contact him.

He's also unable to serve as administrator of a client's Facebook page, and he has suffered "reputational and emotional harm by having the validity of his posts questioned."

Liberty Justice Center gave Facebook until close of business Thursday to reinstate Hart. His suspension should end Saturday. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the difference between Hart's post and Prasad's argument that mask evidence is too thin to make policy decisions.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

In Virginia, backlash against critical race theory spreading in both rural and suburban regions
Efforts to combat divisive academic teaching span the state.

Updated: July 17, 2021 - 11:06pm

Demographically and regionally disparate efforts in Virginia to counteract the spread of "critical race theory" in public schools are underscoring the broad-based nature of the grassroots backlash against the ideology.

Critical race theory claims that essentially every major institution in the United States is tainted by, and works to promote, racism against nonwhite people.

Long an esoteric academic specialty, CRT has exploded to the forefront of the U.S. culture debate in recent months.

Interest in and criticism of the theory has reached a fever pitch since the start of the year, thanks in part to public awareness efforts by activists such as Christopher Rufo, who has utilized social media to expose the significant amount of critical race theory present in U.S. elementary, middle and high schools.

Parents and activists have initiated a wave of efforts in recent months to target CRT in educational environments. In Virginia, Ned Ryun — the founder of the conservative training institute American Majority — is reportedly mounting a campaign in Loudoun County to recall members of the school board there amid an ongoing CRT controversy.

In Loudoun, one of the state's most populous counties and part of the sprawling suburban D.C. metropolitan area known as Northern Virginia, the county school board recently oversaw a raucous meeting in which participants accused the school board of disseminating critical race theory to both teachers and students.

Ryun on a recent appearance with Tucker Carlson claimed that Loudoun school officials were "forcing CRT down the throats" of students and parents there in an attempt "to indoctrinate our children in deeply un-American ideas." He has indicated, meanwhile, that he is in the midst of a campaign to target at least some members of the county school board.

"I am now officially collecting signatures for the recall of school board members in Loudoun County," he tweeted last week. "And it feels glorious."

Ryun did not respond to requests for comment seeking more information about his efforts.

The growing backlash to CRT in Loudoun — a county squarely in the middle of the bluest electoral region in Virginia — is underscored by similar efforts in Powhatan County, a more sparsely populated, solidly rural and Republican district nearly three hours south of Loudoun by car to the southwest of the state capital of Richmond.

Powhatan resident Sarah Koch told Just the News that the "vast majority" of county residents "firmly stand against critical race theory, by its name or any other name of a same or similar ideology."

Koch said she began learning about critical race theory earlier in the year, after which she began mounting a grassroots campaign to demand that county officials ensure that critical race theory is not taught in the local school system.

Her efforts included collecting hundreds of signatures on two different petitions.

"From the School Board, more or less, I have been met with silence," Koch said.

"I've followed up with [county] boards, I've been met with silence."

Powhatan teachers reportedly recently attended a conference hosted by the Virginia Inquiry Collaborative, an initiative created "with the expressed purpose of creating a more anti racist, anti biased, and culturally responsive curricula [sic]."

In late June, Koch filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the county seeking roughly two and a half years' worth of correspondence among school board members related to critical race theory, including the county's involvement with the Virginia Inquiry Collaborative.

The county said the search would cost a little over $1,000, an unusually high fee for a FOIA request, which the county told Koch was justified given the broad range of her request.

"Money well spent in my mind," said Koch, who is still waiting on the documents amid other ongoing organization efforts by herself and others.

Whether or not activists are ultimately victorious in purging critical race theory from classrooms may depend in part on how long the current backlash to it lasts.

The theory itself has been around for much longer than 2021, and has been a fixture in curricula in many colleges and universities.

The University of Birmingham, for instance, notes that the discipline has become "one of the most important perspectives on racism in education internationally."

That arrangement may ultimately give CRT a backdoor into school systems regardless of whether or not any official curricula shaped by it are banned.

Koch agreed. "Even if it's not 'in the classroom,' it can still be in the school," she said. "If teachers are impacted by this ideology, what are they bringing into the classroom?"
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

1626648902135.png

Appeals Court Agrees to Review Decision on Big Tech’s Section 230 Immunity

BY MARK TAPSCOTT
July 17, 2021 Updated: July 18, 2021

A little-watched civil rights case that threatens Silicon Valley’s Section 230 immunity took a huge step forward on July 16, as an appeals court that rarely does so agreed to review a lower court’s decision.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the Second Circuit in New York agreed to review a lower court’s ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) protects Big Tech companies such as Vimeo from civil rights liability in censorship cases.

Big Tech censorship became a hot button issue during the 2020 presidential campaign when then-President Donald Trump was selectively censored by Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

The controversy became especially heated late in the campaign when a New York Post series of news articles regarding the allegedly corrupt business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was banned by the Big Tech giants.

Trump has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the firms that censored him. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has also been the most vocal of multiple congressional conservative Republican critics of Section 230 immunity.

The case of Domen v. Vimeo came about after Vimeo, an Internet video-hosting company, terminated Church United’s video streaming activities after it featured videos of five men and women who left the gay lifestyle to pursue their Christian faith. Vimeo claimed that its terms of service bar streaming videos that promote sexual orientation change therapy. Church United is led by Pastor Jim Domen.

A federal district court had previously held that Section 230 exempted firms such as Vimeo from civil liability and a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling.

However, as a result of the July 16 decision, the panel’s ruling will be reheard before the entire Second Circuit. The Second Circuit covers six federal district courts in three states, including New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.

There currently are 10 active judges on the Second Circuit, as well as 13 semi-retired senior judges.

“This ruling puts Section 230 immunity in the crosshairs of judicial review. We suspect that the en banc court recognizes that Big Tech is not exempt from state and federal civil rights laws,” said attorney Robert Tyler, general counsel for the California-based Advocates for Faith & Freedom. His law firm, Tyler & Bursch, represents Pastor Jim Domen and the California-based Church United nonprofit.

“Section 230 was not intended to give Big Tech the right to exclude persons from their platform just because the customer is black, Muslim, white, Christian, homosexual, or formerly homosexual. That is plain invidious discrimination.”

Church United is a nonprofit that claims to have more than 750 pastors affiliated with its efforts to “positively impact the political and moral cultures of their communities.”

Tyler’s firm claimed in a statement made public on July 16 that the court’s decision “is even more remarkable given the Second Circuit’s notable reputation for shunning rehearings.”

The statement cited an August 2016 article in the New York Law Journal that said the court had granted fewer rehearing petitions than any other federal appeals court since 1979.

“I never thought I’d see the day that it would be legal in America to discriminate against my faith and the fact that I was previously engaged in the gay lifestyle,” Domen said in the statement. “As a pastor and former homosexual, I’m encouraged by the rehearing of our sexual orientation and religious discrimination lawsuit.”

In its appeal from the lower court’s decision for the rehearing by the Second Circuit, Church United argued that the lower courts’ rulings allow for discrimination, in contrast to the intent of the CDA.

“The outcome of this case will determine whether websites have blanket immunity to discriminate against customers, including outright banning customers from their website based on race, sexual orientation, religion and other protected classes,” the appeal reads.

“Under the District Court’s ruling, discrimination that is unconscionable in any other business or consumer context is allowed if it is committed by an interactive computer service.

“The free ticket for internet platforms to discriminate is erroneously based on the Communications Decency Act. … The legislature created this immunity to ensure that providers of an interactive computer service would not be treated as publishers of third-party content and therefore liable for the content of others.

“However … applying the CDA to shield websites from liability for banning protected classes of customers based on discriminatory intent goes far beyond both the plain language of the CDA and the legislative purpose.”

A Vimeo spokesperson said the company declined a request for comment.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Judge orders woman to remove 'F*** Biden' flags or face daily $250 fines: 'We're going into censorship'

CHRIS ENLOE
July 18, 2021

A New Jersey woman who opposes President Joe Biden is facing what appears to be legal censorship after a judge ruled she must remove anti-Biden flags from outside her home or face daily monetary fines.

What are the details?
The Roselle Park woman became the ire of her neighbors — and "caught the attention of local code enforcement," according to NJ.com — after she began displaying anti-Biden, pro-Donald Trump flags.

The display includes six flags, which say:
  • "Don't Blame Me I Voted For Trump"
  • "Joe Biden Sucks"
  • "F*** Biden"
  • "F*** Biden Not My President"
  • "Socialism Sucks Biden Blows"
  • The sixth flag shows Trump holding up two middle figures and includes the caption, "F*** Biden"
Mayor Joseph Signorello (D) claimed the display violated town ordinances prohibiting "obscene materials," but claimed the political nature of the display was not problematic.

"It's been brought to our attention less because of the political aspect of it, but the vulgarity of it," Signorello told NJ.com. "The real problem is, from a neighbor perspective, is it's a block away from an elementary school. It's in a high visibility area for children. Most of the ire was drawn from a lot of local parents."

The owner of the display, Andrea Dick, was defiant when told by city officials to remove the display.

"I'm not taking them down," Dick said. "I refuse to take them down... Today I got a phone call from code enforcement... I said nothing against you, but I'm not taking them down. I said I have a right, freedom of speech, and I'm leaving them up there."

What did the judge rule?
Roselle Park Municipal Court Judge Gary Bundy ordered Dick — and her mother, the property owner, Patricia Dilascio — to remove the flags with profanity or face daily $250 fines.

Bundy claimed the profanity is not protected by the First Amendment.

"This is not a case about politics. It is a case, pure and simple, about language," Bundy said, NJ.com reported. "This ordinance does not restrict political speech.

Neither this town or its laws may abridge or eliminate Ms. Dilascio's freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech is not simply an absolute right. It is clear from state law and statutes that we cannot simply put up the umbrella of the First Amendment and say everything and anything is protected speech."

An attorney for the borough had argued the First Amendment is not absolute, and is subject to "reasonable limitations," which should include profanity in Dick's case.

What did Dick's attorney argue?
Michael Campagna, the attorney representing the homeowner, likened restricting Dick's ability to display the profanity to "censorship."

"I am a firm believer in the First Amendment," Campagna said. "I may not believe in what you're saying, but I absolutely believe that you have the right to say it.

That's what our democracy is about. If you tell people that they cannot say something, that they cannot print something, that they cannot put a sign up, we're going into censorship."

Campagna also made comparisons to Nazi Germany, according to NJ.com.
"In Nazi Germany, when Hitler didn't like something, they burned the books and then they burned the people," Campagna said. "I don't think we want that to happen in Roselle Park."
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

FLASHBACK: Facebook Caught Working with Far Left Media Matters to Eliminate Conservative and Pro-Trump Content on Platform

By Jim Hoft
Published July 18, 2021 at 4:15pm

Back in May 2017 The Gateway Pundit first reported on the 2017 David Brock Media Matters Playbook that was accidentally discovered and leaked online.

The Soros-funded Media Matters revealed in this playbook that they have access to the raw data of numerous social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Google, plus the connections and power to influence their understanding on what is and isn’t “fake news.”


media-matters-600x406.jpg


Inside the 2017 playbook Media Matters admits they have already secured access to raw data from the tech giants.
“Media Matters has already secured access to raw data from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. We have also put in place the technology necessary to automatically mine white nationalist message boards and alt-right communities for our archive.

We will now develop technologies and processes to systematically monitor and analyze this unfiltered data.”
Screen-Shot-2017-05-20-at-11.21.44-AM.png


Media Matters goes on to describe how they found a way to manipulate these social media platforms into thinking that they need their help. In fact, the following excerpt from the #BrockGate document speaks to this concern with precision:
“Out lets that push fake news are completely dependent on Facebook to spread their lies, and ad networks like Google to fund them.
Media Matters has unique insight to help fix the problems in this part of the media landscape.

After Facebook responded to our campaign by acknowledging the problem of fake news and agreeing to do something about it, we began a dialogue. It became clear form these conversations that Facebook needed our help in fully understanding the problem and identifying concrete solutions.

Further, it also became clear that we had information and insight that they didn’t have that was helpful in educating them on the full scope of the problem. For example, Media Matters had a detailed map of the constellation of right-wing Facebook pages that had been the biggest purveyors of fake news – as well as insight into the food chain of fake news and how it was moving through the Facebook ecosystem.
Similarly, after Google revised their terms of service in order to prohibit so-called fake news sites from using their advertising network, it was Media Matters that had the information necessary to identify 40 of the worst fake news sites to which this policy applied.”
Facebook then went to work against the top Pro-Trump websites on the internet with tremendous success.

GOP leaders are oblivious to this fact — That the tech giants, with guidance from far left groups, have already eliminated much of the conservative content online today.

In February of 2018 Facebook launched a new algorithm to ensure that conservative news would not spread on their social media platform.

The algorithm change caused President Donald Trump’s engagement on Facebook posts to plummet a whopping 45%.

trump-facebook-traffic--600x455.jpg

In contrast, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) did not appear to have suffered a comparable decline in Facebook engagement.

Top conservative Facebook pages with daily traffic in the millions have seen 75% to 95% drop in traffic since the 2016 election.

Young Cons, Western Journalism, SarahPalin.com, Chicks on the Right, Independent Journal Review, Right Wing News, The Gateway Pundit, Infowars (banned completely), Breitbart, Pamela Geller, Laura Loomer (banned), 100% Fed Up, The Drudge Report and several others have seen dramatic loss in traffic and influence.

Facebook uses Soros-funded Poynter to fact-check on their platform — The same group that listed EVERY prominent conservative publisher as fake news.

Facebook has been shutting down traffic to conservative websites since the 2016 election.

In March 2017 Columbia Journalism Review published a study of the 2016 election that found conservatives had abandoned the liberal mainstream media in 2016 and went online and to social media to get their news.

Harvard University published a similar study months later.

This slide shows the online influence map on Facebook before the 2016 election.
(Columbia Journalism Review)

facebook-influence-map-2016.jpg


After this study was published Facebook went to work and started censoring conservative content through a series of algorithm changes.

By Summer 2018 this is what the Facebook influence map looked like.


facebook-attack-conservatives.jpg


Facebook was on a mission to delete traffic to conservative websites.

Most prominent conservative publishers from the November 2016 election have been hit hard or eliminated.

This is something President Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale never took seriously.

Facebook with the guidance of far left groups wiped out President Trump’s top supporters on their platform.

This is a crisis and Republicans need to act on this.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Cardona retreats from making critical race theory part of new school grants

In this March 17, 2021, file photo, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)  **FILE**
In this March 17, 2021, file photo, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) **FILE** more >

By Kery Murakami - The Washington Times - Friday, July 16, 2021

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Friday backed off from his proposal to create a new grant that was seen as encouraging the teaching of critical race theory and the “1619 Project.”

Mr. Cardona’s decision came after the department received more than 35,000 comments on the proposed grants, with most of the comments objecting to grants to promote teaching U.S. history through the prism of race and highlighting the impact of slavery.

In a blog post, Mr. Cardona announced that the department would go forward with the creation of the new federal grants but the grants would not require classwork based on critical race theory or the “1619 Project.”

In the grant proposal, as an example of what should be taught to receive the grant, the department cited The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which reframed U.S. history with slavery and racism as the centerpiece of the American experience.

Mr. Cardona insisted said the grants never dictated what should be taught. He said the grant would still seek to improve the quality of U.S. history and civics lessons.

“This program, however, has not, does not, and will not dictate or recommend specific curriculum be introduced or taught in classrooms,” Mr. Cardona emphasized. “Those decisions are — and will continue to be — made at the local level.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the top Republican on the Education Committee, said the thousands of protests had persuaded Mr. Cardona to change course.

“Let me be clear: the Department of Education changed its approach to grant funding because parents, students, and Republican leaders stood up in defense of our nation’s history and legacy,” she said in a statement.

“While I am doubtful that Secretary Cardona plans to abandon the administration’s crusade to push Critical Race Theory in our public schools, I applaud the move not to give overt preferential treatment to federal grant applicants seeking to advance anti-American agendas,” she said.

In the blog post, Mr. Cardona said the aim of the grants would be “to improve the quality of American history, civics, and government education to provide more students the opportunity to learn about the rich history of our nation and build the skills needed to fully participate in civic life.”

The grant still “encourages projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning,” he wrote.

Mr. Cardona set off fierce criticism in April with the proposal of the grant that he said would promote, in part, teaching about slavery.

“There is growing acknowledgment of the importance of including, in the teaching and learning of our country’s history, both the consequences of slavery and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society,” the proposal said. “This acknowledgment is reflected, for example, in the New York Times’ landmark ‘1619 Project’ and in the resources of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History.”

Amid the criticism, Mr. Cardona tried to back off from the idea he was trying to dictate what schools teach. The department said it mentioned the “1619 Project” only to offer an example of what it envisioned.

The project won a Pulitzer Prize last year but became a flashpoint in the debate over racial justice, cancel culture, and what American children are taught about their country.

Critics objected to the emphasis it put on the role of slavery in the nation’s history and for historic inaccuracies. One prominent inaccuracy, which was later retracted, was the claim that the Founding Fathers’ prime motivation for fighting the American Revolution was the fear that Great Britain would end slavery.

The teaching in schools of critical race theory, which emphasizes the idea that America’s laws and institutions discriminate against Black people and people of color, has ignited emotional protests around the country.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Watch Live: Epoch Times Panel Discusses Defending The Constitution - Why It Matters More Now Than Ever

MONDAY, JUL 19, 2021 - 05:53 PM

The Constitution details our rights as Americans and safeguards us against tyranny. But current events are exposing that our constitutional rights are under threat. Why does the Constitution matter now more than ever before, and what we can do to defend it?

Moderated by Joshua Philipp, the first in-person panel discussion this year will gather leading constitutional experts and rights defenders who have taken courageous steps to preserve the Constitution.

Watch Live:
Schedule:
6:00pm – 6: 50pm
Speakers
Alan M. Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus
Harvard Law School
Robert G. Natelson
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence
Independence Institute in Denver
6:50pm – 7:20pm
Panel discussion
Joshua Philipp, Moderator
Senior Investigative Reporter
Host of ‘Crossroads’
Pastor Ché Ahn
Founder and President
Harvest International Ministry
Rex Steninger
Commissioner
Elko County, Nevada
Kevin Roberts, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Texas Public Policy Foundation
Timothy Barton
President
WallBuilders
7:20pm – 8:00pm
Q&A with Speakers and Panelists

For more information about the panel discussion, please visit EpochEvents.us.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNjtQsiEMSE
LIVE

Special Live Panel Discussion on Defending the Constitution: Why It Matters Now More Than Ever

Started streaming 28 minutes ago


The Epoch Times
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

The Shadow State: Embracing Corporations As Surrogates For Government Action

MONDAY, JUL 19, 2021 - 05:20 PM
Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column on the expanding role of corporations as surrogates for the federal government. The White House is openly calling for greater corporate action to address censorship, health care, and other issues. That call is being supported by a growing list of Democratic members, journalists, and academics who have discovered the advantages of shared corporate governance.


Here is the column:

Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech in 1902, “The Control of Corporations,” which warned of the danger of corporate power over citizens’ lives. Calling corporations “creatures of the state,” he said they must be controlled by “the representatives of the public.” Roosevelt was a Republican, but his distrust of corporations (and his later faith in big government) would become a touchstone of Democratic politics for generations, from the Great Depression to the Great Society.

Like the reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, American politics now seems suddenly to have flipped: Democratic leaders increasingly advocate for corporate governance while Republicans voice populist themes. From supporting the largest censorship programs in history to privately mandated vaccine “passports,” liberals are looking to companies like Apple or American Airlines to carry out social programs free from constitutional and political limits imposed on the government.

This new model of governance was evident when White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about a mandated vaccine passport system. She responded that it is “not currently the role of the federal government” but noted that the administration hopes to see such a mandate from “private-sector entities, universities, institutions that are starting to mandate, and that’s an innovative step that they will take and they should take.”

This use of corporations is born out of political and legal convenience.

Despite the rising call for mandatory vaccinations, the Biden administration clearly is not willing to face the political costs of a government mandate. As of July 11, 159,266,536 Americans were fully vaccinated — 48 percent of the country’s population. When you consider the extremely high rate of vaccination for those over 65 (an estimated 85 percent), the percentage of adults under 65 is even smaller. That is a lot of voters who would not take well to a government mandate before the 2022 election. Moreover, the Supreme Court upheld a mandatory state vaccine in 1905, but any federal mandate could face constitutional challenges.

Private companies, however, have great leeway in dictating such conditions. So some, like CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen, have called for coercive measures making it “hard for people to remain unvaccinated.” That coercion would come from private companies which would deny people access to travel, restaurants, movies, schools and other aspects of modern life. Thus, as with Psaki’s statement, the Biden White House is signaling private companies to implement such a national passport system.

And companies are listening.
Recently, Morgan Stanley declared that all employees must get a vaccine to return to work. While some many have religious objections, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman made clear in July that employees would face what Wen called “hard” times if they tried to work from home: “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York. None of this, ‘I’m in Colorado … and getting paid like I’m sitting in New York City.’ Sorry, that doesn’t work.” The message could not be clearer that working remotely will come at a penalty.

If successful, corporations will manage a system of barriers and penalties to isolate the vaccine-hesitant into smaller and smaller spaces of existence.
Citizens would find it increasingly difficult to be able to travel or dine out unless they meet the demands of corporate policies.

The political convenience of relying on corporate controls is most evident in the support for a massive system of corporate-based speech controls now implanted in the United States. The government cannot implement a censorship system under the Constitution — but it can outsource censorship functions to private companies like Facebook and Twitter. Just this week, the White House admitted it has been flagging “misinformation” for Facebook to censor. At the same time, Democrats like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have demanded that Big Tech companies commit to even more “robust content modification” — an Orwellian term for censorship. Liberal writers and media figures have called for corporate censorship despite the danger of an effective state media run through private corporations. Even Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll has denounced the First Amendment right to freedom of speech being “weaponized” to protect disinformation.

The public is now required to discuss public controversies within the lines and limits set by corporate censors — with the guidance of the government.

Twitter barred reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop until after the 2020 election. Facebook only recently announced that people on its platform may discuss the origins of COVID-19, after previously censoring such discussion — but it still bars opposing views on vaccinations and the pandemic. Other companies actively block wayward thoughts and views; last week, YouTube was fined by a German court for censoring videos of protests over COVID restrictions. Meanwhile, Twitter censored criticism of the Indian government meant to expose mismanagement of the pandemic that is costing lives.

The common refrain from the left is that corporate censorship is not a limit on free speech because the First Amendment only addresses government limits on speech. That not only maximizes the power of corporations but minimizes the definition of free speech. Free speech is not exclusively contained in the First Amendment. It includes the full range of speech in society in both private and public forums. Yet, liberals — who once opposed the recognition of corporate free speech rights in cases like Citizen’s United — are now great advocates for corporate speech rights, in order to justify the censorship of opposing views.

Social media companies are not just any businesses, however. They were created as neutral platforms for communication between people when they were given special immunity from lawsuits. Yet these corporations now control an enormous amount of public discourse and have become a rising threat to the democratic process, expanding their authority to frame the debate on issues ranging from climate change to gender identity, from election fraud to public health. You must espouse the “truth” as established by these companies on certain questions or risk being banned as “misinformation spreaders.” Indeed, Psaki this week insisted that once people are banned by one company, they should be banned from all social media companies.

If these trends continue, citizens could find themselves effectively exiled by order of corporate governors — unable to travel or go to school while also barred from espousing dissenting views on social media. They would, effectively, be “disappeared” within a shadow state that lacks any electoral or appellate process — a dystopian brave new world that could become all too real if we allow elected officials to use corporate surrogates to control the essential aspects of our lives.

Decades after Teddy Roosevelt’s warning about corporate control, his cousin Franklin — a Democrat — warned that the “first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.” That warning is worth repeating — indeed, worth tweeting … if Twitter will allow it.
 
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