RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-censorship-party-11614296803?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Imagine if a pair of Donald Trump’s allies in Congress had sent a letter to cable company CEOs in 2017 blasting CNN and other progressive media outlets and asking why their content is still broadcast. Then imagine that a GOP-run committee in Congress staged a hearing on the societal menace of fake news and the need for government and business to rein in the hostile press.

The media would have treated that as a five-alarm political fire, an existential threat to a free press, the First Amendment and political norms, and a step toward authoritarian rule. “Democracy dies in darkness,” and all that. Yet that’s exactly what Democrats in Congress did this week, targeting conservative media outlets, but the media reaction has been silence or approval.

On Monday Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney sent letters pressing 12 cable and tech CEOs to drop contracts with right-of-center media outlets including Fox News. Two days later the Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing about “disinformation and extremism” in conservative media. The only notable extremism on display was the majority party’s appetite for regulating and policing the free press.

Rep. Mike Doyle, chair of the subcommittee on communications and technology, declared in opening remarks that “it is the responsibility of this subcommittee to hold these institutions”—meaning press outlets he doesn’t like—“to a higher standard.” He said later that “more free speech just isn’t winning the day over the kind of speech that we’re concerned about.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-and-allies-stoked-vaccine-fears-11614295867

President Biden has proposed an “unprecedented” information campaign to persuade people to get Covid-19 vaccinations. Why, when a pandemic has killed 500,000 Americans, does the public need to be convinced? In part because Mr. Biden and his allies spent 2020 stoking fear for political reasons.

The Biden campaign and scientists allied with it impugned the Food and Drug Administration’s independence and integrity. Kamala Harris maligned President Trump’s claims about the speed of vaccine development and questioned its safety and effectiveness. New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo cast doubt on FDA evaluations of Covid-19 vaccines and said states should conduct their own reviews. An Aug. 27 letter from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asking governors for help setting up vaccine distribution elicited a statement from Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer questioning the safety of the vaccines in development. Media “fact checkers” said rapid vaccine development would take a “miracle.”

Between April 1-14 and Nov. 25-Dec. 8 the share of Americans who told pollsters they were likely to consent to vaccination declined from 74% to 56%, even though Pfizer and Moderna released strong vaccine safety and effectiveness results prior to the second survey. The decline occurred in both sexes and all age groups, education levels and racial groups. Many medical workers, including nursing-home staff, are also hesitant to be vaccinated.

Medical authorities were complicit in stoking these fears. Although June FDA guidance confirmed the agency wouldn’t “cut corners” and that expedited development would proceed “without sacrificing our standards for quality, safety, and efficacy,” a Sept. 10 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association claimed that “some” were concerned that political appointees would “insist” on authorizing a vaccine “over the recommendation of FDA career scientists.” The concerned “some” were never named, and no citation was given.

https://dianebederman.com/islamophobia-cancel-culture-and-the-silencing-of-the-lambs/

We are living in a time when many of us are being censored – silenced for making statements or asking questions that may offend some. At a time when we have social media – an opportunity to learn from others all over the world, expand our horizons, ask more questions of people we would never have had the opportunity to meet in person, we are being bullied into silence; on social media! Not only bullied into silence but erased; literally canceled. Cancel culture, today, reminds me of Islamophobia. Both of them operate on the same level. They try to shame and bully us into silence. And they use fear, especially the fear of being called a racist, to suppress opposition to their ideologies. RACIST – the one word that enforces silence.

The terms Islamophobia and cancel culture are left wing ideologies working hand in hand to undermine and destroy the West by vilifying critical thinking.

Let’s start with the amazing success of Islamophobia.

First the definition.

This is from Canada:

“Islamophobia – Includes racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear or acts of hostility directed towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general. In addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling, Islamophobia can lead to viewing and treating Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level.”

The idea that the Senate is racist is the latest brainstorm of the Democrats. It was marked by the leading headline on WashingtonPost.com Wednesday: “Many of Biden’s nominees of color run into turbulence in the Senate.” The story reports that activists for a diverse Cabinet reckon that “Black, Latino, Asian and Native American nominees are encountering more political turbulence than their White counterparts.”

If that were true, we, too, would be up in arms. There’s scant evidence for it in the dispatch in the Post, though. The controversy, it reckons, centers on Neera Tanden, who would be the first Indian American to lead the budget office. Our guess is that there’s not a single American senator — not one — who will vote against Ms. Tanden because her parents came here from India.

Ms. Tanden’s chances for confirmation dimmed this week, when Senator Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, declared his opposition. That means she’d have to win at least one Republican. Mr. Manchin and other opponents are complaining about the cataract of insults that has gushed from Ms. Tanden’s twitter account over the years. She might as well have an advanced degree in tweeting from Trump University.