Displaying posts published in

January 2021

Why Was Parler Censored by Its Competitors? By Charlie Martin 

https://pjmedia.com/uncategorized/charlie-martin/2021/01/17/why-was-parler-censored-by-its-competitors-n1390205

I’ve been a big fan of Medium, although I’ve learned quickly that there are certain “publications” — essentially sub-blogs — that it’s best to avoid. Today I saw a piece published two days ago, The Moderation War Is Coming to Spotify, Substack, and Clubhouse, that addressed how Parler was censored and destroyed by Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon, and then warned that Parler won’t be the last.

The given reason, of course, was that people were saying violent things on Parler and all the bien-pensants are, of course, shocked, shocked that this was “permitted.”

It might be different if the double standard weren’t so glaring. As Amazon was canceling Parler’s hosting — in apparent violation of their contract — they were selling “Kill All Republicans” tee-shirts, and it turns out that while Twitter and Facebook were canceling Parler, the actual mob was coordinating on Twitter and Facebook.Amazon sells “Kill All Republicans” shirts while censoring Parler.

Last year, before the election, Twitter and Facebook suppressed a mainstream newspaper for publishing the Hunter Biden story, as well as suspending hundreds of individuals’ accounts. Twitter eventually said it was a mistake weeks later and restored the New York Post account, and after the election, we found that the “Russian disinformation” story was a lie. But the damage was done and the story that might’ve turned the election went basically unpublicized, which Joe Concha at The Hill called “a dereliction of duty.”

Left-Wing Organizer Charged in U.S. Capitol Riot Is John Earle Sullivan just one of many radical mob-inciters? Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/left-wing-organizer-charged-us-capitol-riot-matthew-vadum/

“Will we ever learn the complete story about what went down on January 6? Don’t count on the Trump-hating mainstream media to dig deep.”

The charging of a young man associated with Antifa and Black Lives Matter with cheerleading the mob violence at the United States Capitol that disrupted and delayed the recent congressional certification of the presidential election, raises disturbing questions about radical leftist involvement in the unrest.

Does this mean that the civil disturbance on Capitol Hill January 6, executed by people carrying pro-Trump paraphernalia, was some kind of a so-called false flag operation?

More investigation is needed but it wouldn’t be the first time Democrats have stirred up crowds in an effort to provoke violence for political purposes.

Thanks to the fine work of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, we know from undercover videos that Hillary Clinton operatives Robert Creamer and Scott Foval sent agents provocateur into campaign rallies for Donald Trump in 2016. Their agents baited and harassed Trump rally attendees until they fought back with their fists while the cameras were rolling. The idea was to help cement the leftist media fantasy that Trump supporters were all lowlife knuckle-dragging fascist thugs.

“It doesn’t matter what the friggin’ legal and ethics people say, we need to win this motherfucker.” Foval adds in one video, “we’re starting anarchy here.”

Democrats Outsource Political Repression to Corporate Monopolies Those rights that the government can’t take from you, Google, Amazon, and Facebook will. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/democrats-outsource-political-repression-corporate-daniel-greenfield/

The repression will be televised. It will go better with Coke, it will promise to clear up your bad breath and make your toilet shine. It will be in the cloud, it will be digitized and monetized.

It will have a trademark, a brand, and it will be outsourced to the private sector.

Democrats love public-private partnerships and they outsourced political repression to the private sector. The Constitution has inconvenient things to say about freedom of speech and so the Democrat government of elected and unelected officials outsourced the problem of censoring and suppressing speech to the handful of Big Tech monopolies of the internet.

That same old document written by old white dead men, not to mention centuries of jurisprudence and tradition, prevents the government from kicking down your door in the middle of the night for wrongthink. But nothing keeps corporations from firing you for wrongthink, for being related to someone who committed wrongthink, or for insufficient political correctness.

The public-private partnership between big government and big monopolies is based on Democrats and corporations doing the dirty work of repressing each other’s opponents.

Corporations can’t write regulations that suppress competition from upstart rivals, and so the government steps in and keeps the marketplace under the control of a few cartels. And the government can’t censor, deplatform, fire, bankrupt, and bar its political opponents from speaking, flying, and doing business. But the monopolies it’s been partnering with can and do.

Senate Prepares for Star Chamber Trial of Donald Trump Why it’s Unconstitutional.Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/senate-prepares-star-chamber-trial-donald-trump-joseph-klein/

The U.S. Senate is preparing to put Donald Trump on trial after he has already left office at the end of his term and has become a private citizen once again. If the Senate proceeds with this star chamber proceeding, it will be acting in a blatantly unconstitutional manner.

Trump was impeached while still serving as president, on the grounds of alleged “incitement of insurrection.” The charge flowed from the mob attack on the Capitol building on January 6th, which followed Trump’s speech at a peaceful “Save America” rally at the Ellipse near the White House. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not immediately send the article of impeachment to the Senate, which is necessary to trigger the Senate to proceed with the trial. In any event, the Senate has been on recess and is not returning until January 19th. The Senate is not planning to take up Trump’s trial until he is already out of office and the Democrats assume control of the Senate.

To begin with, there is no merit to the insurrection incitement charge against Trump. In his January 6th speech, the centerpiece of the House’s impeachment article, Trump said to the rally attendees: “We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” (Emphasis added)

HEADLINES JANUARY 18, 2021

The Trump Impeachment Is Deeply Flawed, but He Deserves Conviction

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Congressional Democrats politicized the legitimate case for removing the president. Censure is now the best option.

In Defense of Liz Cheney

By The Editors

The Wyoming Republican undertook a stunning act of political courage last week.

Why Is Israel Doing Better Than Everyone Else in COVID Vaccinations? By Joel M. Zinberg

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/why-is-israel-doing-better-than-everyone-else-in-covid-vaccinations/

Eleven years ago, Dan Senor and Saul Singer dubbed Israel the “Start Up Nation” for its disproportionately large number of technology start-ups and NASDAQ stock listings. Make way for the Vaccination Nation.

Israel leads the world in COVID-19 vaccinations. It has already vaccinated nearly a quarter of its population, including 75 percent of the population most at risk, people over age 60. It has administered 24.5 doses per 100 persons, nearly double the next-best country (the United Arab Emirates) and about 8 times as many people per capita as in the U.S. and the U.K. Israel’s per capita vaccination rate is 24 times that of the normally efficient Germans and 50 times better than the world average. Only three other countries in the world — the U.S., China, and the U.K. — have administered more vaccines.

Why is Israel doing so much better than anyone else? Israel’s small size simplifies logistics. But there are other factors.

First, unlike American states, which have administered only about a third of the doses they have received, Israeli made sure it was ready to use its supply. Officials set up large vaccination centers and mobile units in advance. They reached out to minority groups, such as the ultra-Orthodox and Arab citizens, ahead of the roll-out to encourage vaccine uptake. Israel started vaccinations in mid-December and by the end of the month was vaccinating more than 150,000 people a day.

Second, Israel secured a large supply from Pfizer by promising to provide comprehensive safety and effectiveness data. Israel has a nationwide, computerized health database that can provide anonymized outcomes for all citizens, letting Pfizer use the country of nearly nine million as a real-time laboratory. In return, Pfizer has pledged to provide enough doses to vaccinate every Israeli over 16 by the end of March. In addition, Israel was the first country outside of North America to approve the Moderna vaccine and has purchased six million doses. Israel also paid premium prices — a wise investment in ending the economic devastation occasioned by pandemic lockdowns.

What Should We Submit To? Harold F. Callahan

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/16/what-should-we-submit-to/

Ministers, “watchmen on … the wall of liberty,” according to Franklin Cole, editor of “They Preached Liberty,” were among America’s greatest revolutionary influences. The most influential was Boston Congregationalist minister, Jonathan Mayhew.

Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine called Mayhew America’s “Father of Civil and Religious Liberty.” Especially important was his Jan. 30, 1750, address, which was widely printed and read. Given for the centennial of Charles I’s execution, Mayhew argued that obedience was not due oppressive governments, because such tyranny violated the divinely-instituted purpose of government to benefit the people. And if rebellion against Charles I for eviscerating British liberty was justifiable, the same arguments applied to the American loss of liberty under George III.

As we commemorate Mayhew’s birth, reconsider his argument for our liberty, which is safe only when we recognize its fundamental importance, an argument so important John Adams called it “the spark that ignited the American Revolution.”

Such as really performed the duty of magistrates would be enemies only to the evil actions of men … But how is this an argument that we must honor and submit to … such as are not a common blessing, but a common curse, to society … If magistrates are unrighteous … the main end of civil government will be frustrated. And what reason is there for submitting to that government, which does by no means answer the design of government? 

Biden’s COVID-19 ‘Rescue’ Plan Is Based On 5 Big Lies

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/18/bidens-covid-rescue-plan-is-based-on-5-big-lies/

Joe Biden went on prime time this week to promote his COVID-19 plans. For a guy who promises to be honest with the public, he’s off to a terrible start. Since mainstream media fact-checkers are now on their four-year vacation, we’ll set the record straight on several key claims he made.

1) “You will see it very clearly if you examine what the twin crises of pandemic and this sinking economy have laid bare.”

Sinking economy? Where has Biden been for the past six months? As the Bureau of Economic Analysis has already reported, the economy grew at a stunning 33.4% in the third quarter of this year – well above anyone’s expectations. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow pegs growth in the fourth quarter at a very strong 7.4%. (The last time GDP grew that much in a quarter was during the Reagan boom.) Unemployment, which was supposed to be close to 10% now, according to mainstream economists, is down to 6.7%. What’s more, as of November, 17 states had unemployment levels at 5% or lower. That’s not to say we are out of the woods, but the idea that the economy is “sinking” is a figment of Biden’s imagination. Either that, or he’s purposely misleading the country to justify another $1.9 trillion in stimulus spending.

Over the weekend, a Biden aid claimed the economy was “spiraling downward.”

2) “Moody’s, an independent Wall Street firm, said my approach will create more than 18 million good-paying jobs.”

It is true that Moody’s economist Mark Zandi claimed in a report that Biden’s economic plan would create millions of jobs. But as we noted in this space earlier, Zandi is a partisan with a poor track record.

 It was the same Mark Zandi who predicted that if Trump won the election in 2016, he’d cause “a lot of lost jobs, higher unemployment, higher interest rates, lower stock prices.”

Parler’s Website Back Online With a Message From Its CEO By Jack Phillips

https://www.theepochtimes.com/parlers-website-back-online-with-a-message-from-its-ceo_3660235.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-01-17-4

Parler’s website suddenly appeared online on Jan. 17 with a message from its CEO, John Matze, who said, “Hello world, is this thing on?”

The message suggests Parler was able to find another hosting service, coming about a week after Amazon Web Services booted the social media website from its services, taking the site down. It came as Parler—billed as a “free speech” platform—was seeing an unprecedented surge in users as prominent conservatives, among others, were being banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms.

Matze also issued a temporary status update.

“Now seems like the right time to remind you all—both lovers and haters—why we started this platform,” Matze wrote. “We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media. Our aim has always been to provide a nonpartisan public square where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both. We will resolve any challenge before us and plan to welcome all of you back soon. We will not let civil discourse perish!”

Amazon Web Services’ rationale behind jettisoning Parler was due to a lack of moderation, and came in the backdrop of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots. Parler, in a court filing, citing text messages between Matze and an Amazon representative, claimed Amazon was primarily concerned with whether President Donald Trump would migrate to Parler after his Twitter account was banned last week.