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Ruth King

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When Will Big Tech Face a Reckoning for January 6? If Americans truly want a full accounting of what happened on January 6, who was responsible, and who must be punished, Big Tech must be part of the accounting. By Julie Kelly

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/01/when-will-big-tech-face-a-reckoning-for-january-6/

Nearly 300 Americans face a slew of charges related to the melee on Capitol Hill last January. As I’ve reported over the past few months, offenses range from assaulting a police officer to destroying government property to trespassing.

More than 70 protestors stand accused of “aiding and abetting” various crimes; even people who didn’t vandalize the Capitol or even enter the building have been charged with helping others do damage and interrupt Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results.

Nonviolent offenders languish behind bars for months, denied bail, and transported to Washington, D.C. to await delayed trials. Federal prosecutors suggest President Trump could be indicted for fueling the chaos that day. Democratic congressmen want their Republican colleagues held accountable for their alleged role, too.

One entity, however, appears to be off the hook so far: Big Tech. Social media platforms were instrumental in communicating and organizing the so-called “insurrection” to destroy our democracy, as it’s hyperbolically described by the Left and plenty of Republicans. If random Americans can be held legally responsible for others who commit crimes, then why are Silicon Valley tycoons with immense power and loads of money not similarly liable?

Facebook As Conduit

I’ve reviewed thousands of pages of charging documents and can confirm much of the evidence collected by investigators was found on the defendants’ own social media accounts. Facebook accounts posted the most incriminating content by far. 

For example, in the Justice Department’s conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers, the defendants are accused of “[u]sing websites, social media, text messaging, and messaging applications to recruit other individuals to travel to Washington, D.C., to support the January 6 operation.”

In addition to a conspiracy charge, all 10 Oath Keepers face one count of “aiding and abetting” the obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

But the Oath Keepers’ alleged conspiracy very likely would not have been possible without Facebook. As early as mid-December, according to the indictment, Oath Keepers were using Facebook to post information and direct message others about the January 6 protest. “Trump said It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!! It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!!” Kelly Meggs wrote on Facebook on December 22. “He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Gentlemen we are heading to D C (sic) pack your shit!!”

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To understand 2021, watch a KGB defector’s mid-1980s interview By Andrea Widburg

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/to_understand_2021_watch_a_kgb_defectors_mid1980s_interview.html

On Thursday, Dan Bongino urged his audience to watch or just listen to a video of Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB defector to Canada, who came to love America and tried to warn Americans about the KGB’s plans. Listen to him is eerie because he spelled out in detail exactly what the Soviet Union was doing – it wasn’t planning to take America done through the military. Instead, it intended to destroy America from within by infiltrating the education system, three generations of young people to hate this country and each other and then watching them go forth and plan the seeds of self-loathing throughout the nation.

When it came to understanding how the Soviet Union operated, Bezmenov was the real deal. His father was a high-ranking army officer, so Bezmenov was raised inside the system. He went to KGB schools and worked for the KGB for a decade until he defected to the West, eventually landing in Canada.

In the 1980s, Bezmenov was able to move to Los Angeles, where he lived for five years. It was in L.A., in 1984 or 1985, that he gave an interview to G. Edward Griffin, a conservative writer and thinker. During the interview, Bezmenov explained that the Soviet Union was not interested in fighting America. It was interested, instead, in coopting it through psychological warfare. It is that interview that you’ll see below.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Election Fraud Hotspots – 10% of the Data are 70% of the Fraud By Jay Valentine

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/election_fraud_hotspots__10_of_the_data_are_70_of_the_fraud.html

The more our team looked at the 2020 election fraud from publicly available records, the more it appeared to have similar characteristics to property casualty insurance fraud.

Beginning in November, like many citizens, we witnessed election fraud possibilities any sentient person would investigate.  Having backgrounds in fraud detection, particularly in the property casualty insurance business, Medicaid fraud, and cyber fraud, gave us a curiosity that never dissipated.

Our interest is 100% in data analysis.  That means looking at the actual votes, the addresses, the information about ballots reported to Secretaries of State.  While there are all kinds of other fraud, the best way to light it up is with data analysis.

Not just the statistical stuff with the graphs and Greek symbols, but old fashioned rows and columns.  Nothing illegal, just the same public data Google uses to profile someone for new running shoes.

If Jesse Morgan did drive a tractor trailer truck with 100,000 ballots from New York to Pennsylvania, how can we find out?  Chris Wray and our hardy pals at the FBI may not want to open that truck’s back door, but we do – with database analysis.

Every one of those ballots has a person’s name and address.  The ballot is cast, illegally for sure, and counted.  The local government is involved as well as the U.S. Postal Service officials at that particular location.  That makes this sovereign, industrial election fraud.

They can hide the truck.  They can claim it never happened.  They cannot hide the record of the ballot. 

Imagine yourself trying to fake 100,000 ballots.  Even with some of your pals, lots of them, sitting around tables with pizza and Cokes and #2 pencils, it’s daunting.  Every ballot needs to tie to an address.  Each ties to a name.  This is fraud infrastructure. 

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Biden Defines Infrastructure Down Now it’s mostly about green-energy subsidies and payments to social workers.

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-builds-government-back-bigger-11617231190?mod=opinion_major_pos1

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic presidential nomination, but you wouldn’t know from President Biden’s first two months in office. First came $1.9 trillion in social spending under the cover of Covid-19, and now comes $2.3 trillion more for climate and political spending dressed as “infrastructure.”

Most Americans think of infrastructure as roads, highways, bridges and other traditional public works. That’s why it polls well, and every President has supported more of it.

Yet this accounts for a mere $115 billion of Mr. Biden’s proposal. There’s another $25 billion for airports and $17 billion for ports and waterways that also fill a public purpose. The rest of the $620 billion earmarked for “transportation” are subsidies for green energy and payouts to unions for the jobs his climate regulation will kill. This is really a plan to build government back bigger than it has ever been.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

A Unanimous Knockout on Media Rules The Supreme Court embarrasses a pair of Third Circuit judges.

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-unanimous-knockout-on-media-rules-11617316109?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Local newspapers and broadcasters have struggled, or worse, as cable and social media become more dominant. But they received some good news Thursday as the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s rules letting local media consolidate to compete with bigger players.

The FCC has broad statutory power to regulate broadcast media “as public convenience, interest, or necessity requires.” In the 1960s and ’70s, the agency issued three rules limiting cross-ownership of newspapers, broadcast TV and radio. The intent was to prevent one company from dominating the local news market. This sounds silly today given the digital media dominance and cross-ownership of Big Tech. Nothing prevents Apple from owning news and podcast platforms.

Fortunately, as media markets evolved, Congress in 1996 directed the FCC to review its media ownership rules every four years and repeal or modify those that no longer serve the public interest. The FCC has made several attempts over two decades—most recently in 2017—yet each time has been blocked by Judges Thomas Ambro and Julio Fuentes on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges last ruled in 2019 that the FCC’s rule didn’t adequately consider harm to minority and female ownership.

But as Justice Brett Kavanaugh explains for the Court in FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project, the Third Circuit decision was itself arbitrary and capricious. Despite soliciting public comment on minority and female ownership, the FCC “had received no countervailing evidence suggesting that changing the three ownership rules was likely to harm minority and female ownership.” He adds that the Administrative Procedure Act imposes “no general obligation on agencies to conduct or commission their own empirical or statistical studies.”

Justice Clarence Thomas points out in a concurrence that Congress didn’t require the FCC to consider minority and female ownership. The Third Circuit judges thus had no authority to require it to do so. Congress’s broad delegation to the FCC to regulate local media markets to promote whatever the agency views as the “public interest” deserves judicial scrutiny. But for now the 9-0 decision is an embarrassing rebuke to the plaintiffs and errant judges who couldn’t get a single Justice on their side.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Convicted in Hong Kong China sends the message that if we can get them, we can get you too.

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/convicted-in-hong-kong-11617316506?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

A Hong Kong court Thursday convicted Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee and five others of organizing or taking part in a pro-democracy protest. Mr. Lai, 72, is a billionaire who founded and publishes Apple Daily, which is a frequent critic of the Chinese Communist Party and among Hong Kong’s most popular news outlets. Mr. Lee is 82 and known as Hong Kong’s “father of democracy.”

Everyone in the former British colony understands the message being sent from Hong Kong’s new masters in Beijing: If we can get these men, we can get you too.

That’s especially true for the thousands of other Hong Kong citizens, far less well known, who were also arrested on charges relating to participating in such protests. The Aug. 18, 2019, protest at the center of this trial drew 1.7 million people, which is roughly a quarter of Hong Kong’s population, though police had not granted a permit.

The convictions are the flip side of the recent rewrite of Hong Kong’s election rules meant to ensure that only pro-Beijing “patriots” hold positions of power. This week the U.S. consul general to Hong Kong, Hanscom Smith, explained that the new rules “will not produce meaningful democratic results, and will be neither inclusive nor credible representations of the will of people in Hong Kong.”

For China that’s a feature, not a bug. The real crime of those convicted this week is that they took seriously China’s promise of autonomy for Hong Kong in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. They are being punished today simply for trying to make the governments in Beijing and Hong Kong honor that promise.

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The Horrifying Conditions For Sikhs in Muslim Countries Attacked, abducted, discriminated against – and dying out. Krishna Priya

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/horrifying-conditions-sikhs-muslim-countries-krishna-priya/

Attempting to build alliances in their war against Hindutva, Islamists in India can now be seen wooing the Sikh community. However, the lesser-known chapters of history and the horrifying condition of Sikhs in Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan establish that those who are chasing the dream of bringing the world under the flag of their Islamic faith have no tolerance for people of any other religion.

Centuries ago, Islamic invaders in India martyred the revered Sikh gurus in unspeakable and disturbing ways. Guru Arjan Dev Ji, the fifth of the ten Sikh gurus, was executed by Jahangir in 1606 CE for refusing to embrace Islam.

Two generations later, the brave Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was arrested by Aurangzeb’s forces for confronting the religious persecution of Kashmiri Hindus by the Mughal emperor. His three associates, Bhai Mati Das, Bhai Dayal Das, and Bhai Sati Das, were jailed as well. They were tortured in prison and told to abandon their faith and accept Islam. But true to their commitment, withstanding all torments, they refused to convert. Frustrated with their determination, all three were executed by the Mughal administration. Bhai Mato Das was sawed into two halves, Bhai Dayal Das was boiled in a large iron pot, and Bhai Sati Das was rolled up in sheets of cotton and burned alive. Even these grotesque slaughters of his associates couldn’t move Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji from his convictions. Tired of this, Aurangzeb ordered his execution by beheading in public.

Students in India were denied knowledge of these crucial episodes in history. Instead, they were forced to study history crafted by leftist propagandists who dexterously crafted chapters venerating these Islamic invaders.

The oppression of the Sikhs at the hands of Muslims continues to be common in South Asian countries with a Muslim majority. Muslims in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan frequently exert pressure on the Sikhs to convert to Islam, destroy their properties, seize their homes and businesses, and abduct their women. Their places of worship are attacked practically every time a group of Muslims are having a bad day. These instances are often swept under the carpet by the Muslim-sympathizing leftist establishment that casts a strong influence over the international media.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Anti-Semites Defining Anti-Semitism And why it’s crucial to push back. Richard L. Cravatts *****

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/anti-semites-should-not-define-anti-semitism-richard-l-cravatts/

“It may be inconvenient and even embarrassing for these Israel-haters to finally be named for they are—radical, misguided activists whose unrelenting campaign of vitriol against the Jewish state and its supporters has regularly morphed into pure anti-Semitism—but their efforts to assign the blame to others for the miasma of dark bigotry on campuses they themselves have helped to create shows how crucial such tools as the IHRA definition are, and why its acceptance and use are important to help eliminate, finally, “the oldest hatred” from institutions of higher education.”

As the 2016 Internal Holocaust Remembrance Association’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism continues to be adopted by organizations and universities who find it useful as a way of identifying instances of anti-Semitism—and especially the “new anti-Semitism” which couches itself as criticism of Israel—predictably, though unsurprisingly, groups that wish to continue to slander and libel the Jewish state have come out in opposition to it. What bothers these indignant individuals? Possibly the section of the IHRA definition that suggests that “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” is anti-Semitic.

While two of the academic groups that published extensive denunciations of the IRHA definition, the Nexus Task Force and The Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism, assured us that they are concerned with anti-Semitism that emanates from the far right and white supremacists (the Left’s favorite boogey man since the election of Donald Trump), their concern for bigotry against Jews apparently ends when Israel is involved in the conversation.

A group calling itself the Nexus Task Force, for example, from the Knight Program in Media and Religion USC Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism, created to confront what it calls a “disturbing trend to politicize and exploit antisemitism and Israel is growing in conservative and right-wing political circles,” came up with its own definition, “designed as a guide for policymakers and community leaders as they grapple with the complexities at the intersection of Israel and antisemitism.” The Nexus definition suggests that, contrary to IHRA definition, “criticism of Zionism and Israel, opposition to Israel’s policies, or nonviolent political action directed at the State of Israel and/or its policies should not, as such, be deemed antisemitic,” that “[e]ven contentious, strident, or harsh criticism of Israel for its policies and actions, including those that led to the creation of Israel, is not per se illegitimate or antisemitic,” and that “[p]aying disproportionate attention to Israel and treating Israel differently than other countries is not prima facie proof of antisemitism.”

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Vaccination Passports: The Cornerstone of a Totalitarian State Ushering China’s Social Credit System into America. Matthew Vadum

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/vaccination-passports-cornerstone-totalitarian-matthew-vadum/

“Illegal aliens may not need a real passport to get into America, but actual Americans may soon need a vaccination passport to travel inside America if they don’t take action.America needs to get back to being America, not this nightmarish dystopia we are rapidly becoming.”

Vaccination passports, like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want everyone to be forced to carry, are profoundly un-American.

This data-driven authoritarianism, if it comes to pass, will wash away what remains of the rule of law and the Constitution, and annihilate the American way of life.

First, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) inflicted their possibly lab-designed Wuhan Virus on America, and now we get their Social Credit System, their totalitarian digital architecture for society as well.

America’s placeholder president, the Communist Chinese ventriloquist’s dummy who fantasizes about becoming the new Franklin Delano Roosevelt, wants these vaccination passports badly.

POTUS 46* signed Executive Order 13998 on January 21 directing government agencies to “assess the feasibility of linking COVID-19 vaccination to International Certificates of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP) and producing electronic versions of ICVPs.”

The Biden-Harris administration is now working on a “vaccine passport” for Americans to carry to prove they have received a vaccination against the novel coronavirus, according to the Washington Post.

“The passports are expected to be free and available through applications for smartphones, which could display a scannable code similar to an airline boarding pass,” the Jeff Bezos mouthpiece reports. “Americans without smartphone access should be able to print out the passports, developers have said.”

Five administration sources supposedly told the “Democracy dies in darkness” fabulists that COVID Czar Jeff Zients is working with unidentified private entities to institute the program. A reported 30 international airlines are said to be demanding vaccine passports.

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Biden White House Wildly Misleads Public On COVID Vaccinations

By on April 2nd, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/04/02/biden-white-house-wildly-misleads-public-on-covid-vaccines/

The Biden administration is playing up its role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, big time.

“Help is here,” shouts a headline at the top of the WhiteHouse.gov website, referring to the $1.9 trillion spending extravaganza President Joe Biden signed a few weeks ago.

There’s no mention of the $3 trillion in help that was delivered last year by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump — in record time — to help small businesses stay afloat, workers stay attached to their jobs, customers to keep spending, and that has led to an economic recovery faster than the “experts” predicted.

But where the White House is really being deceptive is when it comes to vaccination progress.

On the front page of WhiteHouse.gov is a bar chart showing how many shots have been delivered relative to Biden’s new goal of 200 million shots by April 29. (See chart below.)

There’s a curious feature about this chart, however. Based on the scale, there were zero shots administered on Day 1 of the Biden administration. The chart is divided up into equal 50 million shot increments. So, it appears that on Biden’s “Day 1” there’d been none, when in there had already been more than 21 million shots administered.

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