Free speech is in a free fall as millions embrace censorship as a political cause, including some now running for federal office on a pledge to silence others. One of the most alarming aspects of this period has been the emergence of a type of triumvirate of censorship, an alliance of government, academic, and media corporations. Together they have established the most comprehensive censorship system in the history of this country.
That system is being forced out into the public by the investigation of House committees. This week the House Judiciary Committee released a 103-page staff report on the academic prong of the triumvirate. What is most chilling about this report is that it adds yet another layer of government-supported speech controls. It also reflects a conscious and coordinated effort to carry out censorship through allies in a labyrinth of academic and public interest groups.
Earlier this year, I testified at the first hearing by the special committee investigating the censorship system. I warned that there was ample evidence of a system based on “censorship by surrogate” where government agencies used academic and media allies to silence those with opposing views.
The latest report reveals details of the critical role played by government officials in “switchboarding” the censorship system by channeling demands for removal or bans from state and local officials. In addition to the direct targeting of individuals by federal agencies, switchboarding allowed the agencies to operate as a control tower in this sprawling system.
This switchboarding system was confirmed by Brian Scully of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the Department of Homeland Security. CISA has emerged as one of the critical control centers in this system.
CISA head Jen Easterly declared that her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure would be extended to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes not just “disinformation” and “misinformation,”
but combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
Despite the determined opposition by Democratic members and the Biden Administration, the investigation has revealed a wide array of grants to academic and third party organizations to create blacklists or to pressure advertisers to withdraw support for conservative sites. The subjects for censorship ranged from election fraud to social justice to climate change.
The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) was created in partnership with Stanford University “at the request of DHS/CISA.” It is described as a “consortium of ‘disinformation’ academics led by Stanford University’s Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO).
EIP supplied a “centralized reporting system” to process what were known as “Jira tickets” targeting unacceptable views. It would include not only politicians but commentators and pundits as well as the satirical site The Babylon Bee.
Some of us have previously criticized Stanford for its effort to systematize and expand censorship. Stanford’s Virality Project pushed to censor even true facts since “true stories … could fuel hesitancy” over taking the vaccine or other measures.
In newly released emails, the secret coordination with federal agencies was made public, including a July 31, 2020 email from the director at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, an EIP partner.
Graham Brookie, the lab’s senior director, confirmed that her group “just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA and are in weekly comms to debrief about disinfo.”
During this time many of us in the free speech community were raising the alarm over the evidence of a government-supported censorship system, including the use of surrogates in academia. As noted in emails in May 2020, government officials were privately saying that they need to avoid any move that would “openly endorse” censorship while funding these groups and switchboarding the system.
As officials served as the conduit, it continued to attach a standard disclaimer that CISA “neither has nor seeks the ability to remove what information is made available on social media platforms.”
Notably, EIP worked not only with CISA, but with the Global Engagement Center, a multi-agency entity housed within the State Department. It was the Global Engagement Center that contracted with the Atlantic Council, which sent suggested blacklists to Twitter. It got to be so reckless that Yoel Roth, then Twitter’s head of trust and safety, responded “omg” and “what a total crock.”
This system rests on grants coming from Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the State Department, and other agencies. That system included scoring groups through a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to the British-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The index targeted ten conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of disinformation, including sites like Reason which publishes conservative legal analysis. Conversely, some of the most liberal sites were ranked as the most trustworthy for advertisers.
The report on switchboarding is most chilling when placed within this larger context. The Biden Administration has funded a global effort to score, target, and ban opposing views through an ever-increasing array of allied groups in academia and corporations. A federal court recently enjoined aspects of that system after finding that it is an unprecedented censorship system that effectively created a type of “Orwellian Ministry of Truth.”
The solution is as obvious as the danger itself. Congress must bar any funding — directly or indirectly — for censorship systems. Calling opposing views “disinformation” does not alter the fact that there is a comprehensive censorship system using groups allied with the government. Federal agencies are always able to respond to claims that they deem are untrue about their own policies and programs. However, we need to get the government out of the business of speech controls, including shutting down the censorship switchboard.
Which is the greater threat to a self-governing free society?….censorship or deceitful infowarfare? In the mind of the corrupt, self-serving power-broker, these two impulses serve basically the same purpose — to dupe the public into quiet submission. So, it escapes me how a legal eagle like JT cannot see that an expansive notion of free-speech which goes so far as to protect knowing falsehoods is merely telling the wannabe autocrat which toolset of mind-control to build their empire upon.
It’s fairly obvious that the information space in a free, orderly society must be defended in equal measure from public frauds in either format — as acts of commission (lies) or omission (cover-ups, censorship). In terms of desired impact, they are no different from each other.
The problem we face is that our legal tradition harking back to the 1st Amendment, gives preference to expressive freedom in the political realm, but without strong safeguards over skilled operators using that freedom to deceive the public. The best recent example was the plot by Anthony Blinken and Mike Morell to blame Russian Intelligence for hacking Hunter Biden’s laptop. Morell is professionally trained in psy ops, meaning we taxpayers sponsored those classes at Langley which taught him how to craft lies with legs to stand on long enough to serve their purpose — in this case, to defeat Trump and elect Biden.
What would the Founders who wrote the 1st Amendment think of that particular case of expressive freedom? Is it possible “the consent of the governed” is so weakly defined that it allows consent to be obtained through trickery and deceit?
“So, it escapes me how a legal eagle like JT cannot see that an expansive notion of free-speech which goes so far as to protect knowing falsehoods is merely telling the wannabe autocrat which toolset of mind-control to build their empire upon.”
This is a garbage reply relying on the word “expansive” without mentioning what she thinks is expansive. To her, it means anything she disagrees with. In other words, pbinCA has that totalitarian and intolerant mindset we frequently discuss.
The trickery and deceit she talks about later is from the left. All one has to do is read Turley’s column today [Flight Risk: NBC Warns Viewers that DeSantis Did Not Personally Fly Back Americans from Israel] to see how foolish pbinCA’s claims are.
I fully expect disagreement, especially when facing gnarly, complex problems. And I welcome disagreement, so long as it is well-reasoned, good-willed and grounded in facts (or where missing, their pursuit). Our 1st Amendment clearly protects that back-and-forth — essential to the process of building consensus and governing. I take very seriously “the consent of the governed” as the basis for policy legitimacy, as do most Americans I know. We are wary of the wannabe-autocrats (manipulative psychopaths and sociopaths) who think they have all the answers, and employ unethical, “all means necessary” tactics to get their way. I have used the term “militant zealots” to describe their lack of humility and excess of self-righteous hubris.
These types exist on both political fringes, and become obsessed with each other’s stridency, using it to justify their own wild excursion from civility and into “lawlessness for the cause”. They both eye the centrist majority in the middle with suspicion, driven by paranoia to misclassify neutrals as “the enemy”. That is, from where they stand there can be no middle ground, therefore if you’re not “one of us”, you’re “one of them”. Fanatical is another term for this complete rejection of moderation, negotiation and collaborative problem-solving cohesion. These sorry types live in an information bubble surrounded by like-minded zealots, and fantasize dominance-submission outcomes where their enemies are forced into total capitulation — nothing less will satisfy their fantasy-vision (however unrealistic). Incremental progress, partial wins and creative compromise are for weakling….for losers — because trust can only be accorded the fully-committed (to your tribe or cause).
There always have been, and always will be those who lie to get what they want. These are the same ones who work to protect their deceit from exposure — resorting to censorship as a defense against the truth-seekers who might undermine the clever falsehood. They desire an expansive definition of “free speech” which gives free reign to dupe the public. They know that eventually the truth will come out, but that’s not important. What’s important is to dupe the public just long enough to achieve an objective — winning an election — starting a war — getting a policy adopted — getting awarded a huge contract. These “power-players” understand “competitive informatics” (psy ops, infowarfare), and are amused that Turley and others are myopically engaged with fighting “censorship”. That’s because they know how the clever lie can circle the globe several times while the truth is tying its running shoes. They love the job JT is doing in paving the way to secure the freedom to deceive as “covered by the 1st Amendment”.
You can be both a supporter of free-speech rights, and an opponent of public frauds. That’s my position.
It’s the freedom to seek the truth, and to disseminate it widely that is protected by the Constitution. To naively expand “free speech” to include knowing and willful deception is a grave mistake that imperils a free society with over-concentration of power in the hands of the most skillful liars.
There is a sweet spot where power remains widely dispersed among The People, and public servants want to keep it that way. One approach is to create Public Fraud Civil Courts, modeled after defamation law, but with fast-due-diligence, where citizens can sue any actor (or alliance of actors) who are attempting to dupe the public. Juries become deciders-of-fact where battling narratives come to duke it out under strict rules of evidence. A neutral Judge manages the process and timetable. And the Jury decides how much to punish the part(ies) liable for the fabrication.
We can have free-speech and honest speech, which most Americans will take any day over free speech protecting brazen and artful falsehoods. We have a republic to keep.
Pbinca, I am happy you support the First Amendment, and by doing so, you disagree with censorship, especially indirect censorship by the government. I hope you also disagree with the censorship at universities and elsewhere.
“These types exist on both political fringes”
You are correct here as well. One problem, however, is that the former Democrat Party has turned into the fringe where the Rule of Law seems no longer a concern, and DEI is firmly entrenched in the Democrat Party, so knowingly or not, the Party has become racist.
“That is, from where they stand there can be no middle ground, therefore if you’re not “one of us”, you’re “one of them”
I suggest you listen to the Bari Weiss video I posted today. You likely realize that she is to the left of the center, but got lots of applause from the conservative Federalist Society.
“You can be both a supporter of free-speech rights, and an opponent of public frauds. That’s my position.”
The problem we face is who determines what constitutes “public frauds”? Do you desire to control the answer? If so, that is not free speech and the answer to why JT believes in more speech. Looking back over the past 6 years, one can point to the “public frauds” coming from the left (my opinion), and that is why, when one makes a claim, one should provide specifics.
“It’s the freedom to seek the truth, and to disseminate it widely that is protected by the Constitution.”
No! It is freedom of speech representing our thoughts that needs to be protected so that we can try to obtain the truth. One cannot determine the truth in advance.
“To naively expand “free speech” to include knowing and willful deception is a grave mistake that imperils a free society with over-concentration of power in the hands of the most skillful liars.”
The idea you present is not free speech. It is control of speech and censorship of ideas, disagreeing with your beliefs. That is wrong, dangerous, and leads to dictatorship. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of sympathy for your distaste for those skillful liars, but in my opinion, such a characterization represents the Biden administration. You may feel the opposite, and the same about someone else, so the only answer is more speech where you provide your facts and others theirs.
“create Public Fraud Civil Courts”
There already is liability for fraud and defamation. Some have suggested that liability for these things be increased. Public figures want more protection, and many want to hold the news media more responsible than they are today. I would support some changes in liability laws, but I am unsure what you are looking for. Maybe, you can provide examples. I would be very careful because there is such a thing as puffery. If you make that broadly illegal, you will make commerce nearly impossible.
” Juries become deciders-of-fact ”
Be careful what you wish for. I was once on a jury in a criminal case for a young minority woman. Half said she was guilty, and the other half the opposite leading to a prolonged fight over the decision. The education of the jury members split exactly in the middle, where the least educated voted guilty, and the most educated not guilty. I voted for the latter and was so incensed that she was brought to trial that I spoke to the judge afterward. He told me the trial intended to train the prosecutor, and that he would have vacated a guilty decision. I was astounded that they used an innocent young woman in that fashion. It was wrong, but this demonstrated to me that juries might be the best we have and a way to ensure our freedom from government, but I wouldn’t put too much faith in juries and even judges.
” A neutral Judge manages the process and timetable.”
Presently, we are beginning to question whether this is happening in all cases. I think not. But it is not only judges but prosecutors as well. I refer you to a video by Howard Root, where he takes the audience through an unjust prosecution that was won by the defendant. It was a horror, and if it were up to me, I would have disbarred the prosecutor.
“We can have free-speech and honest speech, which most Americans will take any day over free speech protecting brazen and artful falsehoods. We have a republic to keep.”
Again we face the problem of determining what is honest and what is artful falsehood.
Thank you for your honesty in providing your side and permitting me to provide mine. We are both looking toward the same end, but our means appear different. Maybe you can tell me where you think my logic is faulty. Maybe you can provide some examples.
Big Brother and or Big Sis are now operational. Newspeak, is demanding gender neutral pro-nouns. We are now in the process of renaming traditional accepted historical names for birds? The new Orwellian, Ministry of Truth will unilaterally arbitrate the definition of truth, misinformation, disinformation, and now malformation? Of course the Ministry of Truth must rely on an alliance of sympathetic politicized corporations, social media outlets and academia to do their dirty work, since officially government regulation of free speech and censorship is in the direct violation of the US Constitution, or as Al Gore would say an: “Inconvenient Truth” The Constitution is Law. When the protections of the Constitution are abandoned by the Government that is more than lawlessness it is TREASON against the citizens of the United States. This subversion must end immediately and the perpetrators of it put on trial and punished to the full extent of the law.
Here are sketches of the two flavors of demonstrators and some policepeople in Manhattan recently:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/israel-hamas-war-new-york-city.html
This document on the National Crime Victims Law Institute (which receives funding from the Biden Foundation I believe) demonstrates how public officials, non-profits using public funds and lobbyists/attorneys work with AP reporters, third parties, police, prosecutors to create and control the media in criminal trials.
https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/25195-ncvli-newsletter—pretrial-publicityfriend-and
The authors of the piece worked hand in glove together in New Hampshire v Owen Labrie (2015) – a case that had the White House “Not Alone” task force and affiliated SurvJustice behind it working with them to deny Owen Labrie due process and to use his trial to set an example and get inside schools, insert “compliance” officers and insert “behavior reporting” software such as maxient.com . The NHPR reporter was censored in NH v Owen Labrie but was not aware that her tweets were used as an exhibit to get the judge to restrict reporting. Reporters who worked with the NHCADSV and the talking points they wanted were favored (Vice Media) over NPR. The authors of the piece went on to collaborate together in Rapuano & Does v Dartmouth which led to the suicide of Professor David Bucci who was denied the right to defend himself (he’d been accused of knowing of sexual abuse in his department but claimed he did not know of it but Dartmouth wouldn’t let him defend himself). The suit was in mediation (and yielded $14 million for which both the authors were beneficiaries) when two non-profits (NHCADSV, Ihavetherightto.org), several others tied to the White House “Not Alone” task force, Congresswoman Ann Kuster, Civic Nation (Its On Us), SurvJustice and Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber campaigned on social media and by phone calls to ABC to block GMA’s interview with Owen Labrie from airing. They were successful. Had it aired, the malfeasance behind his case and the extortion racket tied to it with the same lawyers and NHCADSV would have been exposed to the public. Had that been the case, the Dartmouth settlement might have collapsed and Professor Bucci might not have been driven to suicide. Instead he was labeled “A casualty of scorched-earth #MeToo legal strategy”. He was a casualty of a carefully orchestrated plan that involved department of defense contractor NHCADSV, Political PR company SKDK and its clients Its On Us/Civic Nation, Times Up/NWLC (who put up the PR money for the suit). Congresswoman Ann Kuster supported the suit. She was silent on the suicide of Bucci. Her local newspaper, the Concord Monitor, which had publicized the suit and the settlement didn’t publish anything about Bucci’s death even though the New York Times did. Congresswoman Ann Kuster is physically active in censorship with her office making calls to ABC/GMA to block a program from airing that would have exposed corruption of Concord Police and in the criminal trial and proceedings against Owen Labrie. Censorship is a very serious problem in New Hampshire.
Conservative Pressure Campaign Intimidates Election Officials
In Marion County, Fla., elections supervisor Wesley Wilcox has stopped using the word “misinformation.” Not because lies or misleading rumors about elections are any less prevalent in his county than the rest of the country.
Wilcox says he regularly interacts with groups that aim to find what they see as rampant fraud in elections. But Wilcox, who is a Republican, has had to shift his vocabulary to talk about those falsehoods because others in his party see the term as code for censorship of conservatives.”
In Republican circles, ‘misinformation’ is a dog whistle,” Wilcox said. “All of a sudden, man, you got skewered if you even mention the word.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/10/1211929764/election-false-claims-social-media-cisa-trump……………………………………
This article, from today’s NPR, describes an organized campaign by conservatives to harass and intimidate anyone trying to stop disinformation. These malicious efforts are by the ‘free speech community’ Turley proudly identifies with.
You see ‘Free Speech’ is one of those positive-sounding terms that is actually code for something else. One could possibly translate it to mean: ‘Supportive of Disinformation For Political Goals’.
“. . . from today’s NPR . . .”
If you had led with that, I could have saved a few minutes of my life.
What would you do with those minutes? Smoke some more crack?
There is no such thing as misinformation..something is either true or false. We have to start using the English language clearly if anyone is ever going to understand what we are saying.
True Fact:
Every American official takes an “indirect” supreme loyalty oath.
From local police chiefs to mayors to FBI to CIA to Congress – not a single official swears direct loyalty to the nation, not to the country, not to any religion and not to any president.
American officials swear supreme loyalty to a “constitutional rule of law” that prohibits censorship of legal First Amendment exercises, requires judicial warrants based on probable cause evidence of past crimes and outlaws preemption policies that violates the U.S. Constitution [a wartime governing charter].
Arguably the greatest misinformation in 20 years is misleading voters to this FACT on American loyalty! General Mark Miley’s 2023 retirement speech was the most accurate speech on American loyalty in over 50 years! Miley’s speech should be taught to every governing official.
We are here to revoke your high school diploma. it has been brought to our attention that you have demonstrating a lack of basic reasoning skills, repeat pablum on the internet and otherwise should not be allowed anywhere near a WiFi connection. You must have been a quota filler for the rainbow brigade
Staunton Academy
You are correct – and as Orwell and every single other dystopian writer – as well as the reality of totalitarian regimes demonstrates,
he manipulation of language is the manipulation of people, of communication, even of thought.
However, while an assertion is ultimately true or false – we do not always KNOW the truth of an assertion when it is made.
In 2016 only a tiny portion of people KNEW that the claims that Russia Colluded with Trump to defeat Hillary were not merely false, but a HOAX.
For more than 4 years after we were divided into those who believed there was collusion and those who did not.
From the start there was information available to evaluate and draw conclusions from.
But people did not reach the same conclusions.
The high standard of living we maintain -individually and as a nation depends not merely on our ability to gather information and draw accurate conclusions – even when the information available to us does not establish a conclusion with certainty,
but in trusting those who consistently draw correct conclusions and distrusting those who do not.
If you go to Starbucks and the coffee is consistently bad and they do not get your order right,
fairly rapidly you will stop buying coffee at starbucks.
The core to a prosperous free society – to all society is trust.
“We have to start using the English language clearly…”
– John Gradowski
____________________
You’ve hit on the nub!
The singular American failure has been, and continues to be, the failed and erroneous “interpretation” of the words of the Constitution by the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
__________________
“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what they forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
________________________
The entire communist American welfare state is unconstitutional, as was “Crazy Abe’s” denial of fully constitutional secession, which ended American freedom after a mere 71 years and began the incremental implementation of the principles of communism.
“They consider…that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln…to lead his country through…the RECONSTRUCTION of a social world.”
– Karl Marx, Letter to Lincoln, 1865
As is typical those on the left are clueless.
The extent of election fraud is not determined by magic.
Whether election fraud is widespread or extremely rare depends on many factors.
The ease with which it can be committed.
The probability of getting away with it.
The consequences of getting caught
The benefits of succeeding.
This is true in the US and throughout the world. History demonstrates this clearly.
“It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.”
Stalin.
Do you trust elections in Russia or Iran ?
Are you honestly going to try to claim that election fraud in the US in the 19th century was not rampant ?
Election fraud is rare IF AND ONLY IF
we hold elections in a manner in which fraud is difficult. That is the purpose of our election laws.
We must have laws that make fraud difficult, and we must conduct our elections according to those laws.
When executives and courts ignore election laws or when the laws themselves are weak or can be gamed
The frequency of election fraud will increase.
By far the most important aspect of election law is that the entire process from end to end is conducted under public scrutiny.
You can have absolutely perfect voting with zero possibility of fraud, and still easily rig an election by making up the counts.
The probability of getting caught is high, and the consequences for getting caught are significant.
The electorate is narrowly divided. The frequency of fraud decreases proportionate to the scale of fraud necescary to flip the election.
The benefits of election fraud are low.
The more power that we give to government the greater the likelhood of election fraud and the more important all the measures to prevent it are.
The left’s political philosophy of a powerful central government does not merely increase the probability of election fraud, it increases the probability of violence. In the US Billions are spent on presidential elections BECAUSE control of TRILLIONS of dollars hangs in the balance.
So to answer your question “Is election fraud very rare, or is it commonplace ?”
Where the conditions that encourage fraud are present widespread fraud is commonplace.
When they are not it is rare.
Huge scale election fraud is relatively rare. That does not change the fact that so many elections are so close that small fraud – which is NOT rare can and almost certainly does change election outcomes.
The current disastrous way that we conduct elections – as a result of democrat election lawfare guarantees that if we have not had large scale fraud – we will eventually.
In 2020 approx $3B was spent just on the presidential election. That means that candidates paid approx. $20 for each and every vote.
When you consider that elections – like economics are all about the margins and both parties can count on about 80% of their votes each and every election. The real close for votes outside the base is closer to $300 each.
Only a complete nitwit beleives that if votes are worth $300 each – and that is JUST for the presidential election. that Fraud is worthwhile.
People counterfeit dollar bills.
The number of votes fraudulently cast and COUNTED in the 2020 election is likely in the low hundreds. I say this because a thorough state-by-state audit of 2020 votes cast illegally by the AP showed that ~500 ballots were cast illegally nationwide, or an average of 10 / state. At least half were discovered on time to be discounted in the official tally.
A much bigger problem so far unaddressed is corruption of the campaign infospace through public deceits.
If the consent of the governed is obtained trough trickery and deceit, what legitimacy does government have?
Our balloting systems are very secure. Our infospace is rife with abuse that can go undetected long enough to steer society into the ground. We are very close to the time when wannabe autocrats will wield the informatic tools (think AI in the hands of professional infowarfare networks) to gain power and hold onto it indefinitely.
We could counter this trend by passing civil torts law (similar to defamation law, but much more rapid-response) whereby the Citizens could sue any actor who is waging a public fraud for political advantage.
This approach is consistent with the 1st Amendment, since government plays no role in deciding fact from fiction, nor prosecuting those it disagrees with. Govt’s only role is to provide courtrooms, judges and juries,
or — and this is important — to be sued for waging public frauds.
Fox News Host Gets Unusually Honest
The Fox News morning crew on Wednesday was lamenting a rough go for conservatives in the off-year election when Steve Doocy chimed in with a sharply frank take.
“Ultimately it comes down to the Democrats having a really potent issue and that is abortion,” he said. “Because ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned, pretty much every time the Democrats have run on abortion, they have won. Was last night a harbinger for 2024? … Absolutely. You know why?” he asked.
The host answered his own question, explaining that the effort to put abortion rights on the ballot in Florida, Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania next year spells trouble for conservative candidates. “If you’re a Republican running in those states, you’re gonna have a tough 2024,” Doocy said.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steve-doocy-fox-friends-abortion-election-harbinger_n_654bab15e4b0e3ecaf8bd7f6
……………………………………………………………………
The Huffington Post cuts the Fox clip immediately after Doocy says, “tough 2024”, depriving us of the reactions his co-hosts had to what Doocy just said. Nevertheless this frank assessment, on the part of Doocy, is unusually honest by Fox News standards.
Democrat activists in control of three letter agencies and the bureaucracy will not care about the complaints about government abuse of power, or censorship. The unholy alliance between Big Brother and Private Industry has cast a net around many publicly available sources of information. Eventually, the consortium will simply censor the critics.
In a similar fashion, the CCP claims that its social credit system does not exist…and if a Chinese citizen disagrees, he won’t be able to buy a plain ticket, get a job, or use any social media accounts.
Off topic: Tucker Carlson, Episode 38 — Interview with the guy that’s going to prison for posting the Hillary Clinton meme in 2016 about texting your vote for Hillary:
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1722752303843700828?s=20
I didn’t see the trial and know nothing about it other than what was talked about in this interview — mostly that he was convicted via a jury trial instead of a bench trial. That was his first mistake.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re innocent, go for a bench trial, and if you’re guilty, go for a jury trial so that you can take a shot at fooling them.
.
(1) If you’re innocent, it’s far simpler to present your case to a judge instead of a jury, because you can stick to the fundamentals and leave all the dramatics back at the actor’s studio.
(2) If you’re guilty, you need all the acting and a creative script to fool the jury while the judge naps at the bench because he’s seen all of that Hollywood nonsense hundreds of times.
(3) And if you happen to be innocent but get wrongfully convicted by a judge, it’s far easier to appeal a judge’s ruling than a jury verdict.
For more than 3o years I’ve always believed that only guilty people should demand a jury trial, and I’ve yet to see any instance that would change my mind. In this specific instance regarding the Hillary meme, I’ve no doubt that a judge would’ve found the guy Not Guilty even if he WANTED to find him guilty — or, on the slim chance that he was found Guilty by a judge that’s an ideological zealot (like Judge Chutkan in one of the DOJ v Trump cases), the judgment would be more-easily reversed on appeal if it came from a judge instead of a jury.
This guy’s first mistake was listening to his lawyers, who were clearly the ones that made the decision to go for a jury trial — possibly because they are so accustomed to representing guilty people and don’t really know what to do when they find themselves with a client who’s innocent.
But, of course, I’m basing all of the above as it applies to THIS case on an assumption that what the guy said in the Tucker Carlson interview is true and he wasn’t “forgetting” to mention any relevant information.
Five years ago referring to someone as a Nazi implied you strongly disapproved of that person.
Now, being a Nazi is fashionable again, at least on the Left. In terms of censorship, total governmental control, partnering with big business to suppress speech, and wiping Jews off the planet, Nazi ideology is suddenly all the rage on the American Left.
Perhaps OldmanfromKS, Honestlawyermostly, Daniel, Lin, Mespo, and other attorneys on here can comment.
I am unsure whether anyone can prevail against DOJ FBI.
Mark Houck and wife sue FBI, DOJ for malicious prosecution
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255948/mark-houck-and-wife-sue-fbi-and-doj-for-malicious-prosecution-era-of-targeting-pro-lifers-is-over
Months after being unanimously acquitted of all charges against him, Catholic father and pro-life activist Mark Houck and his wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, filed lawsuits on Monday against the FBI and DOJ for malicious and retaliatory prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest, and assault. The Houcks, a family of nine living in rural eastern Pennsylvania, are being represented by Graves Garrett, a Kansas City-based law firm. The family is also teaming with 40 Days for Life, the national pro-life organization with which Houck has been a longtime volunteer.
Estovir – I’ve never tried or even looked into it. There’s something called the Federal Tort Claims Act that allows people to sue the federal government, I believe for negligence. However, suing for false arrest, abuse of process, retaliatory prosecution, and assault, are another matter. I’m thinking not, but then again the plaintiff did get a law firm to represent him, so maybe they know of some way (generally lawyers won’t take a case if there’s no way the defendant can be successfully sued – it is a waste of the lawyer’s time and money).
https://www.makaremlaw.com/blog/2014/04/the-federal-tort-claims-act-you-can-sometimes-sue-the-government-for-negligence/
You can only file a lawsuit if the claim is the result of negligence and not intentional misconduct, though in a few cases you can also file for intentional misconduct if the party to blame was a certain type of federal law enforcement officer. For example, you cannot sue the United States for assault, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, slander, battery and so on, unless any of these actions are the result of a law enforcement officer’s negligence.
My cell phone suggested: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/the-supreme-court-malicious-prosecutions-dishonest-cops.html
Maybe one of these cases will mine this vein.
If I’m reading this correctly, this applies to law enforcement but not necessarily to rogue procecutors? What’s the remedy when the judiciary runs amuck?
4 months ago
at 7:30 she says they bring in the private sector in a new program to share expertise then the private sector goes back and implements
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KST-IlLuAts
Oh it’s so wonderful, the job opportunities she provides.
Article 1, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power…;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;…
“ANY CIRCULATING MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE”
_________________________________________________
Collins Dictionary
CURRENCY
variable noun
The money used in a particular country is referred to as its currency.
_________________________________________________________________________
Collins Dictionary
MONEY
uncountable noun
1. Money is the coins or bank notes that you use to buy things, or the sum that you have in a bank account.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Collins Dictionary
MONEY
noun
1. any circulating medium of exchange, including coins, paper money, and demand deposits
If Palestinians may take back Israel, the Indians may take back America.
There were no surveys, there were no properties, there were no bills of sale, there were no receipts, there were no deeds, there were no county recorders, there were no halls of records, there was no Palestine, and there was no Philistine.
There were no surveys, there were no properties, there were no bills of sale, there were no receipts, there were no deeds, there were no county recorders, there were no halls of records, there was no Native America, and there was no Indiana.
Palestinians may not take back Israel, and Indians may not take back America.
PHYSICAL AXIOM
____________________
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
– Mao Tse-tung
We need Ernestine at that switchboard……
More “Orwellian” governance in the EU. How long before digital ID and central bank digital currency become the “next thing”?
https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/Rob_Roos-1722304545676497141.mp4
There are many “next things” in the works planned by the UNIPARTY. And it’s all about CONTROL and the enslavement of the US population. Here’s just one of many such examples:
Jonathan: I see a pattern here. When you don’t want to discuss the really important news you trot out the old saw that the Biden administration has turned into an “Orwellian Ministry of Truth”. It has been one of your frequent themes lately.
But in a real sense “truth” is at the center of what the administration is trying to do. Countering the misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19–the conspiracy theories and disinformation the DJT administration and its supporters were spreading. You were part of the right-wing disinformation campaign in many of your columns–falsely claiming face masks didn’t work and supporting university professors who refused to get vaccinated. You falsely claimed pandemic restrictions were a violation of “free speech rights”.
During the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic the American people deserved up to date and accurate information. Instead, what we heard from DJT were quack remedies. DJT fought with Dr. Fauci, the expert on infectious diseases, and silenced him. That led to attacks on Fauci by Fox, your employer, and other right-wing media.
What the Biden administration is trying to do is to make sure that in the next pandemic Americans will get timely and scientifically based information and recommendations. Not the disinformation and distortions of the facts by those on the right. That means making sure media platforms don’t amplify the disinformation that is bound to come. You can call it “censorship”. I call it TRUTH telling!
Countering the misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19–the conspiracy theories and disinformation the DJT administration and its supporters were spreading
You’re such a retard you don’t even know those conspiracies and disinformation all turned out to be true.
Masks don’t work. . . masks have never worked against a virus. The CDC knowing lied. The biggest LIE is there exists a vaccine. 97% of Americans are refusing to take the covid jab. Because it does not prevent being infected, nor does it prevent you from passing it on.
Idiots Abound. Idiots Afield.
Masks, good ones, fitted properly, worn continuously in public–not including restaurants when you remove them while eating–work. Millions more would be dead without the vaccines. Vaccines don’t prevent you from contracting the virus or from passing it on, you idiot. They reduce fatalities.
Complete nonsense, you lying fraud.
How many lives would have been saved if the BLM and ANTIFA rioters weren’t wearing masks?
Daddy’s little girl would have her face all over the news and Daddy would have to defund his little darling.
ferris, There has never been any scientific study show efficacy of masks against a virus.
This is one of those debates that ended almost 200 years ago.
Even the left demanded free speech back in the 60’s.
No this is not about “truth”
The answer to that stupid calim – for centuries has been “who decides ?”
We have seen what happens when those like YOU get to decide – the ACTUAL truth gets supressed.
You seem to think that we should trust the government to supress things that are allegedly not TRUE.
Yet the Government WHOLELY empbraced what it KNEW was a hoax – the Clinnton Sources collusion delusion.
Our Government, Democrats, the media., social media, left wing nuts all sold that too us as TRUE.
But for the incredible efforts of a very small number of people – nearly all of which YOU have repeated called “far right”
racist., extremist, nazis – the ludcrously stupid claim that the 2016 election was decided by Russia would STILL be viewed as True.
Nor is that close to the only or the most egregious example.
Please tell me WHAT it is that government got right about Covid ? Anything ?
And again – Government the media, social media, democrats, the left ALL conspired to silence anyone that disagreed.
Nor are we talking about just one Error compined with censorship.
Just about every single thing that our government “experts” told us regarding Covid has either proven completely wrong, or at the very least demonstrated as unlikely to be true.
Recent scientific studies are demonstrating that the claim that asymptomatic people could transmit covid was FALSE.
While unlike masks, and the origins of Covid, and the effectiveness of vaccines – this does not APPER to be something government public health officials KNOWINGLY lied about. Atleast so far they do not appear to have lied.
But they appear to have been wrong, and that is actually a huge deal. Masks do not work. There is litterally no credible study in the 21st century and possibly none at all that found any consequential impact on the long term spread of any viral disease from masks. This was KNOWN by government public health experts who then LIED to us.
But quarantining the sick DOES WORK. It is possibly the most effective means we actually have of thwarting contageous diseases.
In fact it is HIGHLY effective – over 95% as compared to an N95 mask which is 77% effective for a SINGLE exposure.
While Quarantine is 95% effective OVERALL. There is a legitimate question as to whether Quarantie would have worked against covid.
The necescary effectiveness to have a consequential effect on a contageous disease increase exponentially with the transmission rate of the disease. It is possible that a 95% effective quarantine would not have been enough to stop Covid.
Of course if that is the case – NOTHING would be effective enough.
Regardless the more important point is that those you wish to give the decision as to what is true, and what is false and can be supressed are DEMONSTRABLY bad at precisely that task.
I would not trust the people who have proven to be near 100% right about covid or other issues to decide what should and should not be censored. I cetainly would not trust YOU or your ilk who are far worse than random chance at determning what is true and what is not.
If we have decided what was true by flipping a coin over Covid issues we would have been right about 10 times more frequently than Government. the media, social media, YOU. Democrats, the left.
Forgot to login
That was me.
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
that was me
What the Biden administration is doing is trying to give all the more power to people with a track record of being wrong about nearly everything.
If the Pandemic is supposed to be our yardstick then the very people you are empowering to decide what is true, have a track record that is bad beyond comprehension. Beyond random chance.
What was Fauxi right about ? Can you name ONE thing ?
If being wrong was a crime – Fauxi would be serving life.
If people were allowed to file tort claims against Government officials for the harm they caused – Fauxi would be trillions of dollars in debt.
Never before in human history have highly educated arrogant people with power proved so abysmally wrong about everything.
Covid has become endemic. It will likely be with us forever. The spanish flu came, and went never to return. Swine Flu came and went never to return. Myriads of past epidemics have come and gone never to return. That is the norm.
Public health measures that do not succeed in stopping the spread of an epidemic, risk making the disease endemic – with us always.
This is NOT an opinion – it is a FACT, one that can be demonstrated mathematically.
The shorter lived immunity to a disease is the more likely slowing the spread of that disease without stopping it will lead to that disease becoming endemic.
It is POSSIBLE that covid would have become endemic regardless. It has a high rate of mutation, and a short duration of vaccine and possible natural immunity. But if we were to have a chance to avoid covid becoming endemic, we needed to almost the opposite of what the “experts” told us.
I have put “experts” in quotes – because there were LOTS of actual experts telling us that the policies we were following were wrong and would not work.
These are precisely the people YOU seek to silence.
“Covid has become endemic. It will likely be with us forever. The spanish flu came, and went never to return.”
I thought the so-called Spanish flu was an H1N1 virus, which is with us still. It came in waves for a few years, very like Covid-19, and is still circulating like Covid-19.
Do you see over 100M people dying from the Flu ? The specific virus that was the Spanish flu did not return.
You would know if it did. It was nearly as contageous as Covid, and much more deadly.
Worse still unlike Covid whid has an extremely pronounced agen/mortality curve, the spanish flu was most lethal for young healthy adults.
There were possibly as many as 100M deaths at a time when the global population was a fraction what it is today.
Flu viruses pretty universally originate in nature, usually coming from china. Usually where birds, livestock, and humans live in close proximity.
While Each years flu is related to past flu’s they are not the same. To my knowledge every flu virus that there has ever been enters the human population from animals. Lasts for 9m to 3yrs, and they fades away because:
about 2/3 of the population has some form of immunity – either from past infection of a strong immune system.
Once that flu fades it disappears permanently. At this time we will not see the spanish flu again unless nature magically recreates the exact same firus, or it is released from a lab. I beleive the spanish flu has been fully genetically sequenced and can be produced in a lab.
To be clear this is not true of ALL viruses.
There are many factors that determine whether a virus becomes endemic. One of which is can it remain in circulation lang enough for infection of vaccine based immunity to weaken.
Like Fauci, you’re rejecting the possibility of the Covid-19 pandemic originating from a leak from a lab doing gain-of-function research (on bat viruses).
Single-strand RNA viruses mutate like crazy because they lack the redundancy of dual-strand DNA. Just as Covid-19 mutated into countless variants, so it was with the Spanish flu. No one today is catching the original Covid-19 that people died of in the Wuhan hospital in 2019. All those who died a hundred years ago weren’t infected with the same identical virus. The Spanish flu virus is still circulating as H1N1 just as dinosaurs are still living in the form of birds.
Single-strand RNA viruses mutate like crazy because they lack the redundancy of dual-strand DNA
RNA viruses (ss and ds) have high rates of error because they lack repair mechanisms unlike DNA.
There is no redundancy in the genome, ds DNA or RNA. Coding DNA/RNA is about 1% of the genome. The rest regulates the 1%
It would be helpful if folks refrained from commenting on topics for which they lack formal education, training or at a minimum have both read evidenced based data and keep up to date on paradigm shifts in genetics. News sources are not reliable.
Start with the ENCODE Project which opened our eyes to how wrong we were regarding “junk DNA”.
ENCODE Project Consortium. An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome. Nature. 2012 Sep 6;489(7414):57-74. doi: 10.1038/nature11247.
It is dated but a good foundational start
For a basic yet thorough text on viruses, the two volume Virology text by Flint is quite good.
Principles of Virology, Multi-Volume, 5th Edition
Jane Flint, Vincent R. Racaniello, Glenn F. Rall, Theodora Hatziioannou, Anna Marie Skalka
ISBN: 978-1-683-67032-2 November 2020 ASM Press 1136 Pages
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Principles+of+Virology%2C+Multi+Volume%2C+5th+Edition-p-9781683670322
Reading recently published (less than 3 years old) scientific papers is the best way to keep up to date. if you cant do that, its best to keep silent or show restraint.
“RNA viruses (ss and ds) have high rates of error because they lack repair mechanisms unlike DNA.”
All right, thanks for that.
“It would be helpful if folks refrained from commenting on topics for which they lack formal education, training or at a minimum have both read evidenced based data and keep up to date…”
Care to weigh in on whether Spanish flu is extinct and if so, why (in contrast) the Covid-19 flu is now endemic?
It is precisely the things that you advocate for that were to a large extent done during Covid that have done REAL HARM.
The covid story is WORSE than just government experts were wrong – and censored those who were right.
The very things you are advocating are why trust in govenrment, trust in science, trust in experts are abysmal.
The vaccine is a perfect example. I supported the development of the vaccine. I still do. More than supported – I wanted to see biolabs and biohackers unleashed and allow the free market to deal with covid and vaccines unfettered.
In April 2020, Bio Hackers claimed to have a functional vaccine against covid – that people could buy for about $25000 for enough to vaccinate about 100 people.
They were unable to go forward with this – because government would not allow people to voluntarily make risky choices about their own lives.
Ultimately the Covid vaccine has been a failure. That does not surprise me. As I have said repeatedly before – success is uncommon failure is common. The big deal about free markets is that most failures ultimately lead to success after many tries.
While the Covid vaccine has proven to be a failure, it is entirely possible that A covid vaccine that works was and may still be possible.
several people have identified a serious design flaw int he Covid vaccine – that we continue through today.
The vaccine works by en mass replicating the spike protein. There are SOME reasons that is a good idea, there are SOME that it is a very bad idea.
The spike protein is in and of itself harmful. The Vaccines work by “infecting” your body with a real virus that produces massive amounts of spike protein. The hope and expectation is that you will generate anti-bodies that will block the spike protein.
There are TWO problems – again – the spike protein all by itself is harmful – and not just a little harmful.
If it likely that the exponentially larger than normal rates of adverse results are due to the mass replication of the spike protein.
The other problem is that the spike protein is a portion of the virus that has mutated rapidly. And tht renders the antibodies the vaccine produced ineffective.
My point is that our best chance at sucess was not 3-4 global drug companies all trying very minor variations of the same approach,
But hundreds of different efforts trying many different approaches.
It is possible – maybe even likely that we could have (and maybe still can) develop an effective covid vaccine. But doing so especially doing so quickly requires hundreds possibly thousands of attempts to find the one that works best.
The lesson fo socialism, communism, the USSR, the 20th century is that central planning ALWAYS falls short of free markets – by a long short.
The lesson of Covid is that those like you have not learned the lesson that central planning falls short.
And the results of YOUR bad central planned approach, YOU censorship was to destroy the credibility of science and experts as a whole.
You want to silence the voices telling you that you are wrong.
You do not seem to grasp that silencing them does not change the fact that you were and in the future are likely to be wrong.
While some of your error is ideologically rooted – leftism is at odds with the real world.
Some of it is rooted in the fact that getting things right is HARD. It usually takes multiple tries. It REQUIRES lots of people telling you how you are wrong to actually eventually get it right.
Dennis – lets be clear – MASKS DID NOT WORK. The “experts” that told you they did were WRONG and KNEW they were wrong at the time.
The SCIENCE on ths was settled before the pandemic.
Cloth masks are worse than useless.
N95 masks can slow the spread of Covid by fall WAY WAY WAY short of being able to stop it.
This is actually basic Math. The laboratory effectiveness of N95 masks against Covid as orriginally calculated – was 77%. I suspect that is high. Further it is laboratory effectiveness real world effectiveness is lower.
The agregegate effectiveness needed to stop a disease with an R0 of 2.5 is very close to 99%. N95 masks in conjunction with other highly effective measures MIGHT have worked. The problem is there ARE NO other highly effective measures. (except possibly quarantine).
The only “conspiracy theory” – was that pushed by government, the media, democrats, and social media that those disagreing with them were WRONG.
While I hoped I was wrong – I KNEW the vaccine was not going to work when the drug companies reported it was 95% effective and had a half life of 8 months in october of 2020. That is NOT even close to good enough.
It is unclear today whether the benefits of the Vaccine outweight the risks for ANYONE. We have not yet analyszed enough data on that.
It is absolutely certain today that the risks associated with the vaccine outweigh the benefits for everyone in good health under 50.
There is no debating that. The data is showing a greater death rate in the vaccinated than the death rate from covid.
It is still possible that the benefits were worth the risks for high risk people. But even that may not be true.
Nor is that the end of it. The data is increasingly strong that no one ever should have done more than get the vaccine and the first booster.
We are seeing significant increases in deaths and other health problems proportionate to the number of times people have been vaccinated.
The benefits of the vaccine go down with each booster. the rate of adverse reactions increases – which should have been expected, the effect on the immune system is more negative with each booster. And the effectiveness against covid declines.
Medical communism always preceeds actual communism.
You “can’t” do that. You “must” do this. You must do it “our way.” This is “the treatment.” Period.
You will not question “authority.”
That’s medical communism. It’s total quackery.
Real science will stand up to questioning.
It doesn’t have to be “mandated.”
It doesn’t have to be “enforced.”
We must allow people who have a valid counter argument to step up and make their case.
Not be smeared and defamed by the corrupt despicable Tony Fauci’s of the world.
When you suppress people’s right to speak, you create a lot of suspicion.
As it should.
Real science will stand up to questioning.
The Covid “vaccines” have failed the test. So has Fauci.
There is NO demonstrable benefit to this very dangerous covid “vaccine.” It is ALL risk. Do not take another shot. The authorities are uninformed and lying.