Not even two months into their reign as the majority party that controls the White House and both houses of Congress, key Democrats have made clear that one of their top priorities is censorship of divergent voices. On Saturday, I detailed how their escalating official campaign to coerce and threaten social media companies into more aggressively censoring views that they dislike — including by summoning social media CEOs to appear before them for the third time in less than five months — is implicating, if not already violating, core First Amendment rights of free speech.
Now they are going further — much further. The same Democratic House Committee that is demanding greater online censorship from social media companies now has its sights set on the removal of conservative cable outlets, including Fox News, from the airwaves.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday announced a February 24 hearing, convened by one of its sub-committees, entitled “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media.” Claiming that “the spread of disinformation and extremism by traditional news media presents a tangible and destabilizing threat,” the Committee argues: “Some broadcasters’ and cable networks’ increasing reliance on conspiracy theories and misleading or patently false information raises questions about their devotion to journalistic integrity.”
Since when is it the role of the U.S. Government to arbitrate and enforce precepts of “journalistic integrity”? Unless you believe in the right of the government to regulate and control what the press says — a power which the First Amendment explicitly prohibits — how can anyone be comfortable with members of Congress arrogating unto themselves the power to dictate what media outlets are permitted to report and control how they discuss and analyze the news of the day?
But what House Democrats are doing here is far more insidious than what is revealed by that creepy official announcement. Two senior members of that Committee, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Silicon-Valley) and Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) also sent their own letters to seven of the nation’s largest cable providers — Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox and Altice — as well as to digital distributors of cable news (Roku, Amazon, Apple, Google and Hulu) demanding to know, among other things, what those cable distributors did to prevent conservative “disinformation” prior to the election and after — disinformation, they said, that just so happened to be spread by the only conservative cable outlets: Fox, Newsmax and OANN.
In case there was any doubt about their true goal — coercing these cable providers to remove all cable networks that feature conservative voices, including Fox (just as their counterparts on that Committee want to ban right-wing voices from social media) — the House Democrats in their letter said explicitly what they are after: namely, removal of those conservative outlets by these cable providers:
Congresswoman Eshoo boasted on her official site about these efforts, lauding herself and McNerney for “urging 12 cable, satellite, and streaming TV companies to combat the spread of misinformation and requesting more information about their actions to address misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and lies spread through channels they host.”
For the last four years, we were inundated with media messaging that Trump posed an unprecedented threat to press freedoms. The Washington Post even flamboyantly adopted a new motto to implicitly ratify that accusation (while claiming it was not Trump-specific). Other than the indictment of Julian Assange — which most Washington Democrats cheered — what did the Trump administration do in the way of attacking press freedoms that remotely compares to Democrats abusing their majoritarian power to force the removal of conservative cable outlets from the airwaves, just days after doing the same with dissident voices online?
There is not a peep of protest from any liberal journalists. Do any of the people who spent four years pretending to care so deeply about the vital role of press freedom have anything to say about this full frontal attack by the majority party in Washington on news outlets opposed to their political agenda and ideology?
Evidently not. While many conservative outlets are covering this story, it is difficult to find any liberal outlets writing about it at all. An article from The New York Times was one exception, though it largely attempted to justify these censorship efforts, with paragraph after paragraph purporting to demonstrate the dangerous misinformation spread by these channels. The only nods to the dangers of press freedoms in the article came from statements by Fox News and a GOP member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Revealingly, these same two members of Congress who sent this threatening letter to cable providers said during the Trump years that freedom of the press must be safeguarded at all costs. “The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws that abridge the freedom of the press, and we cherish our country’s culture of free expression,” they intoned when writing to the FCC in 2019 to complain that Russian news outlets were concealing their affiliation with the Kremlin. “We’re not requesting any press censorship,” they assured the FCC under Trump. Yet they are clearly doing exactly that now.
In a statement he emailed to me and publicly posted, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr denounced the Democrats’ actions as a “marked departure from First Amendment norms.” He said “it is a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys.” In response to my inquiries, Commissioner Carr added in a separate statement to me:
The greatest threat to free speech in America today is not any law passed by the government—the First Amendment stands as a strong bulwark against that form of censorship by state action. The threat comes in the form of legislating by letterhead. Politicians have realized that they can silence the speech of those with different political viewpoints by public bullying. The letter sent by two senior Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cable companies and other regulated entities, and the Committee’s own hearing this week on “disinformation in the media,” are the latest examples. They are singling out selected newsrooms for their coverage of political events and sending a clear message that these media outlets will pay a price if they do not align their viewpoints with Democrat orthodoxy. That is a chilling transgression of free speech and journalistic freedom. No government official has any business inquiring about the ‘moral principles’ that guide a private entity’s decision about what news to carry.
Carr’s GOP colleague on the FCC, Commissioner Nathan Simington, similarly accused House Democrats of seeking to “intimidate into silence those who would distribute on their platforms disfavored points of view.”
The way Democrats justify this to themselves is important to consider. They do not, of course, explicitly acknowledge that they are engaged in authoritarian assaults on free speech and a free press. Not even the most despotic tyrants like to think of themselves in that way. All tyrants concoct theories and excuses to justify their censorship as noble and necessary.
Indeed, the justifying script Democrats are using here is the one most commonly employed by autocrats around the world to silence their critics. Those they seek to silence are not merely expressing a different view, but are dangerous. They are not merely advocating alternative ideologies but are destabilizing society with lies, fake news, and speech that deliberately incites violence, subversion and domestic terrorism.
In her boastful posting, Rep. Eshoo says her efforts targeting these cable outlets are necessary because “misinformation on TV has led to our current polluted information environment that radicalizes individuals to commit seditious acts and rejects public health best practices, among other issues in our public discourse.” This is the rationale invoked by virtually every repressive state to imprison journalists and ban media outlets.
The Democrats sound a great deal like the Egyptian regime of Gen. Abdel el-Sisi. Just two weeks ago, Sisi’s regime finally released an Al Jazeera journalist who had been imprisoned for four years based on accusations that he had “spread false news” and was guilty of “incitement against state institutions and broadcasting false news with the aim of spreading chaos.” Sound familiar? It should, since that is precisely what House Democrats are saying to ennoble their multi-pronged assault on free expression.
Accusing one’s domestic opponents of being subversives and domestic terrorists is by far the most common way that despots on every continent justify their censorship and silencing campaigns of oppositional media outlets. In 2014, the French journalist Valeria Costa-Kostritsky warned in the Index on Censorship that anti-terrorism laws and accusations of promoting subversion were becoming the primary means which authoritarian states from Turkey and Jordan to Russia and the UAE use to justify the silencing of journalists:
Anti-terror legislation seems to be the perfect tool for a state seeking to crack down on opposition. “It’s so elusive. You can [see] anything as terrorist propaganda. There needn’t be any evidence of violence, any praise of violence. Plus, if you blame someone for having a connection with the [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] the public buys that argument easily, especially in a country that is suffering from terrorism, as Turkey is,” said Sevgi Akarçeşme, former editor-in-chief of Turkey’s Today’s Zaman (the English-language edition of daily Zaman), who had her newspaper taken over by the government in March 2016.
A similar means used by repressive governments to silence disfavored media outlets is to claim they are promoting “extremism.” As Costa-Kostritsky detailed:
There’s another word one can use to browse through reports published on the [Mapping Media Freedom] map: “extremism”. Anti-extremism legislation is used to intimidate journalists in post-Soviet countries, particularly in Russia. On the map, of the 35 incidents flagged with “extremism”, 11 took place in Russia, and seven in Crimea, others include Belgium, Italy, Hungary, France and Spain. Five reports connecting the media to “extremism” took place during the first half of 2016. They include website closures and journalists being put on a list of extremists. In Russia, most cases using anti-extremism legislations against journalists happen via Roskomnadzor, the national media regulator.
When China arrests journalists it typically justifies its actions by accusing them of fomenting extremism that jeopardizes national security.
And accusing journalists of spreading “fake news” — always a dangerously vague term from its inception — is equally commonplace when government authorities want to silence media outlets. The Washington Post reported that “as 2019 draws to a close, there are 30 journalists in jail worldwide on charges of ‘false news’ — or, as it’s also called these days, ‘fake news.’” In sum:
It has now become commonplace to throw around fake-news accusations in the United States. But in other countries around the world — like Egypt, Turkey, Somalia and Cameroon — such charges can have very chilling and stifling impacts on the press, according to an annual report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
In Egypt — where General-turned-President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi has been overseeing a crackdown that human rights groups say is harsher than any before — there are 21 journalists in jail for allegedly publishing “false news,” according to the CPJ’s data. In practice, press freedom advocates say, these charges stem from a simple fact: The journalists published news that Sisi didn’t like.
In a passage that the Post would only publish about foreign countries but never about House Democrats, even though it now applies equally, they observed: “There is a serious global problem of disinformation spreading online and sowing distrust and sectarianism. The problem, say press advocates, is that the laws regulating fake news all too often are a means of stifling the media rather than fostering a more transparent environment online.”
This framework is hardly rare in the west either. When the Obama administration collaborated with the UK Government in 2013 to detain my husband David Miranda at Heathrow Airport in connection with the work he was doing in the Snowden reporting, they cited an anti-terrorism law to justify his detention, and repeatedly threatened to prosecute him for terrorism if he did not cooperate by providing all of his passwords to them. He ultimately prevailed in his lawsuit against the U.K. Government on the ground that it constitutes an illegal assault on press freedoms and human rights to abuse anti-terrorism frameworks to intimidate or silence journalists.
Justifying the silencing of journalists by accusing them of inciting domestic terrorism and extremism is now the most common means used globally for censorsing the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists in 2013 said they had “tracked a significant rise in journalist imprisonments.” The culprit, said the group, was “the expansion of anti-terrorism and national security laws worldwide” after the 9/11 attack, which had been repeatedly abused to criminalize media outlets. “The number of journalists jailed worldwide hit 232 in 2012, 132 of whom were held on anti-terror or other national security charges.” In sum: “CPJ’s analysis has found that governments have exploited these laws to silence critical journalists.”
Are there conspiracy theories and disinformation sometimes found on the conservative cable outlets which House Democrats want taken off the air? Of course there are: all media outlets disseminate conspiracy theories and fake news at times. MSNBC and CNN spent four years endorsing the most deranged conspiracy theory imaginable, one with very toxic roots in the Cold War: namely, the McCarthyite script that the Kremlin had taken over control of key U.S. institutions through sexual blackmail over the President, invasions into the nation’s heating system and electric grid, and criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign to hack into Democrats’ emails.
All of that was false, just as the one-month tale told over and over by the media about a pro-Trump mob murdering Brian Sicknick by bludgeoning him to death with a fire extinguisher was false — a story which remains unretracted or corrected by most who spread it.
Just imagine if, during the Trump years, the GOP Senate had abused its power to bully cable outlets into removing MSNBC from their platforms, or banning liberal journalists and activists from using social media platforms, on the grounds that they were spreading conspiracy theories and fake news. It is hard to overstate how extreme the rhetoric would have been that Trump and the Republicans were engaged in authoritarian measures to destroy free speech and a free press.
And I would have joined in those denunciations (as I did with the Assange prosecution): as much as I loathe so much of what those outlets do, it is not the role of the government to regulate let alone silence them. The corrective is for journalists to rebuild trust and faith with the public by exposing their misinformation and proving to the public that they will do accurate and reliable reporting regardless of which faction is aggrandized or angered.
But corporate media outlets and Democrats (excuse the redundancy) who spent the last four years posturing as virulent defenders of press freedoms never meant it. Like so much of what they claimed to believe, it was fraudulent. The proof is that they are now mute, if not supportive, as Democrats use their status as majority party to launch an assault against press freedoms far more egregious than anything Trump got close to doing.
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Perfect: “Trump Won” Banner Makes Appearance in Switzerland During Biden-Putin Meeting
Osama Bin Laden’s niece Noor Bin Laden made an appearance outside the Putin-Biden Summit in Switzerland today.
Osama Bin Laden’s niec Noor Bin Laden made an appearance outside the Putin-Biden Summit in Switzerland today.
Noor Bin Laden, a Trump supporter, flashed a large “Trump Won” banner from her boat.
Switzerland does not want the world to see this @CitizenAnalyst @based_helvetia1 @JamesBeaurega18 @NickFCerutti pic.twitter.com/36DPsiJmtl
— Noor Bin Ladin (@NoorBinLadin) June 15, 2021
Before the police came pic.twitter.com/zkUAsXCiKS
— Noor Bin Ladin (@NoorBinLadin) June 15, 2021
— Noor Bin Ladin (@NoorBinLadin) June 15, 2021
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 16, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 22 Seconds
Episode 1,026 – American’s Deserve to Know the Truth About Jan. 6. Cortes analyzes inflation rates from the Trump and Biden administration and explains the loss of economics growth will lead to “stagflation” Guests are: Steve Cortes, Darren Beattie, Raynard Jackson.
Soros, Bezos, Buffett, Bloomberg Paid Almost ZERO in Tax While Wrecking America.
Data from the IRS and other sources shows that America’s richest men are often paying the lowest taxes percentage-wise, with high-tax advocates like Warren Buffett at the top of the tax-avoidance list.
In 2007, Jeff Bezos – who is now the richest man in the world but even then was a multibillionaire – did not pay a single penny of federal income tax. In 2011, Bezos paid no taxes again. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and the third-richest man worldwide, did not pay any federal income taxes in 2018. Michael Bloomberg, Carl Icahn, and George Soros all managed to pay zero percent federal income taxes, with Soros managing the feat for three years in a row. . . .
Commemorate Juneteenth With Free Virtual Programs From the Smithsonian
On June 19, NMAAHC will honor the end of slavery in the U.S. with events featuring Annette Gordon-Reed, Adrian Miller and more.
/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/43/cc/43ccbd3e-911d-40e9-8d5c-91d04b4cc734/screen_shot_2021-06-16_at_91228_am.png)
On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and freed the roughly 250,000 enslaved people living in the Southern state. Taking place a full two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the day—known as Juneteenth—marked the end of slavery in the United States. . . .
Amazon’s New Africa Site Draws Ire in Indigenous People Protest
Amazon.com Inc.’s planned new Africa headquarters in Cape Town is to draw demonstrations Wednesday as indigenous people protest its construction on a heritage site.
A march will take place between a central museum and a statue of 17th-century colonialist Jan van Riebeeck in opposition to the project, which was announced in April as part of a 4 billion-rand ($291 million) mixed-use development on the outskirts of the South African parliamentary capital.
While the City of Cape Town — which approved the site — has said the move will create thousands of jobs and give a boost to the Covid-19-ravaged economy, the plan quickly drew criticism from members of the Khoisan people, the original settlers on the land. There are now 50,000 objections from various parties, according to Tauriq Jenkins of the Goringhaicona Khoena Council, a Khoi traditional group.
Opposition is based on “environmental and heritage grounds,” he said, citing the floodplain location and the site of early battles between his people and Portuguese settlers more than 500 years ago. . . .
[ Bloomberg ]
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 16, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 47 Seconds
Episode 1,027 – Exposing the Corrupt Federal Prosecutors and How They Target Innocent People. Mike Lindell Announces ‘Cyber Symposium’ Exposing Election Fraud Evidence. Guests are: Mike Lindell, Sydney Powell, Jason Jones.
Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 16, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds
Episode 1,028 – Bannon Warns of Inflation Trade – You’re Going To Pay For It. Guests are: Jack Posobiec, Boris Epshteyn, John Fredericks, xxxthemarinexxx, Joe Hoft, Jim Hoft.
June 15, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 54 Minutes 14 Seconds
Fox Reporter: Company Is Deceiving Viewers; ‘Fire Fauci Act’ Picks Up More Support. The Biden administration releases the first-ever national plan to tackle domestic terrorism, some Republican members of Congress are sponsoring legislation to reduce Dr. Anthony Fauci’s salary to zero, and a Fox 26 Houston reporter says the company’s viewers are being deceived.
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 15, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 48 Seconds
Episode 1,023 – Future is Now (w/ Michael Patrick Leahy, John Fredericks, Naomi Wolf). “What are patriots in Arizona doing?” he said. “They’re just doing one thing: they’re just counting the ballots. They’re getting down to the truth, and they’re doing it with an extraordinary level of integrity and precision.” Guests are: Michael Patrick Leahy, John Fredericks, Naomi Wolf.
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 15, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 08 Seconds
Episode 1,024 – MTG vs. The Establishment Branding Conservatives “A Domestic Threat”. “What are patriots in Arizona doing?” he said. “They’re just doing one thing: they’re just counting the ballots. They’re getting down to the truth, and they’re doing it with an extraordinary level of integrity and precision.” Guests are: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Raheem Kassam, Matt Braynard.
Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 15, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds
Episode 1,025– Election Officials Fear AZ, GA, and Other BattleGround States. “What are patriots in Arizona doing?” he said. “They’re just doing one thing: they’re just counting the ballots. They’re getting down to the truth, and they’re doing it with an extraordinary level of integrity and precision.” Guests are: Darren Beattie, Catharine O’Neill, Wendy Rogers, Boris Epshteyn, Sharri Markson.
Mike Lindell On His Election Investigation And FrankSpeech.com | Video: 40 Minutes 29 Seconds
Mike Lindell of MyPillow.com has more evidence of funny business connected with the 2020 election — an explosive new film debut’s tomorrow at LindellTV.com — plus introduces his newest idea: FrankSpeech.com.
June 14, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 52 Minutes 03 Seconds
Huge Explosion Reported at Illinois Chemical Plant; A Movement to Defend the Constitution
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 14, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 16 Seconds
Episode 1,020 – Populist Holy War … The Apes Take on Wall Street. “Don’t go after the apes,” he said. “Don’t look for the splinter in their eye before you look at the plank in your own.” Guests are: Eric Greitens, Mike Lindell.
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 14, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 26 Seconds
Episode 1,021 – A Time for Fighters … Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s Pack of Lions. “I have never seen a bigger takeover of one nation, one ideology than right now,” Pawlowski said. “It should be scary for you. Poland was the second country on earth that had a constitution, after the United States of America. Guests are: Mike Lindell, Pastor Artur Pawlowski, Cindy Chaufin, Beatrix Storch.
A (Small) Pre-Emptive Strike Against the Doomsday Asteroid
With the DART mission, scientists try to prepare for Earth’s worst catastrophe.
/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/18/c8/18c89fe5-277a-4a3c-991c-f3766ba9ecdb/02d_jj2021_replacesd_dart_live.jpg)
In March 1989, an asteroid measuring half a mile wide careened past Earth at 46,000 miles per hour. When it crossed Earth’s orbit, it was only 425,000 miles away—about twice the distance between Earth and the moon and an uncomfortably close shave for an object the size of a football field. If the asteroid had slammed into the planet, it would have punched a hole in Earth’s crust with the force of 20,000 hydrogen bombs, excavating a crater between five miles and 10 miles wide and a mile deep. Anything within a 40-mile radius would have been obliterated, and dust flowing into Earth’s atmosphere would have cooled regional temperatures enough to affect crop growth, causing localized food shortages. If it had slammed into the ocean instead, millions of people worldwide could have been killed by the ensuing tsunamis
NASA officials deemed the flyby a close call. And, they noted, a larger asteroid would wreak even more havoc, from civilization-rending damage to a mass extinction snuffing out entire branches of life.
The asteroid was later formally named 4581 Asclepius, for the Greek god of healing and medicine. It led to a reckoning over how to safeguard the world from harm. . . .
[ Smithsonian Mag ]
43 Shot During Weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago
Forty-three people were shot, three of them fatally, over the weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.
Novavax says its Covid vaccine is 90% effective at blocking the disease
Novavax says its Covid vaccine is 90% effective at blocking symptoms of the disease and doses are ready to be rolled out from September
- American firm said two-dose jab stopped 100% of people falling severely ill
- Trials involved nearly 30,000 participants across 119 sites in US and Mexico
- Only 14 people given jab caught Covid, resulting in an overall efficacy of 90.4%
FBI Sends SWAT Team of 20 Agents to Home of Hollywood Actor Who Left Democrat Plantation and Walked into US Capitol on Jan. 6
The FBI sent a SWAT team of 20 agents to the home of Hollywood actor Siaka Massaquoi in North Hollywood just before 6 AM on Friday.
The Wray FBI felt it necessary once again to use the full force of the law to arrest a Hollywood actor in a predawn raid for walking into the US Capitol on Jan. 6.
The FBI sent a SWAT team of 20 agents to the home of Hollywood actor Siaka Massaquoi in North Hollywood just before 6 AM on Friday.
The Wray FBI felt it necessary once again to use the full force of the law to arrest a Hollywood actor in a predawn raid for walking into the US Capitol on Jan. 6.
Los Angeles-based Siaka Massaquoi posing with activist Philip Anderson
Los Angeles-based Siaka Massaquoi posing with activist Philip Anderson on Jan. 6. Anderson was viciously beaten by Antifa at an earlier protest.
We now know that 38% of the 800 protesters who entered the US Capitol on January 6th were waved in by Capitol Police at the West Terrace entrance.
Massaquoi is a staunch conservative and Trump supporter who left the Democrat plantation to support President Trump and conservative causes.
Democrats hat this.
The Daily Mail reported:
A Hollywood actor who has appeared in the TV reboot of Lethal Weapon as well as the series S.W.A.T. and NCIS: Los Angeles had his home raided by the FBI last week after he allegedly took part in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Some 20 agents in tactical gear raided the home of Siaka Massaquoi in North Hollywood just before 6am on Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The home that was raided also lists another individual, 42-year-old Brian Burks.
Burks’ ex-wife, Luvelle Mendoza, told the Times that her former spouse was briefly detained by authorities. It is unclear if Massaquoi was arrested.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Massaquoi for comment.
Mendoza said that the two young boys that she had with Burks, ages three and seven, were at home at the time of the raid.
‘My heart breaks,’ Mendoza said.
‘They had to see the big guns and I just think, I wasn’t there to console them.’
Mendoza said her ex-husband called her at around 6am on the day of the raid and told her he needed to drop off the children.
The post FBI Sends SWAT Team of 20 Agents to Home of Hollywood Actor Who Left Democrat Plantation and Walked into US Capitol on Jan. 6 appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Police: Vehicle plows into Minnesota protesters, killing 1
A woman was killed and another person was injured after being struck by a car during a protest in Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood where a Black man was fatally shot earlier this month during an arrest attempt, police said Monday.
Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 14, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds
Episode 1,022– The Rise of the Apes Meets the Evolution of Scientism. “Don’t go after the apes,” he said. “Don’t look for the splinter in their eye before you look at the plank in your own.” Guests are: Boris Epshteyn, Phillip Patrick, Joe Allen.
Antifa Exposed: Jack Posobiec Reveals Antifa Money Trail
Peter Navarro is joined by Jack Posobiec, who wrote the “definitive book” on antifa.
“Julian Is Suffering”: Family of WikiLeaks Founder Assange in U.S. to Demand His Release from Prison
The U.S. State Department is pushing to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain, where Biden is now meeting with leaders during the G7 summit. A U.K. judge blocked Assange’s extradition in January, citing serious mental health concerns. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if brought to the U.S., where he was indicted for violations of the Espionage Act related to the publication of classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes. We speak with Assange’s father and half-brother, who are on a tour of the United States to advocate for his release. “The G7 meeting is based upon values, and yet they have, just a few kilometers down the road, a foremost journalist in jail,” says John Shipton. Assange is a victim of “an abusive process” meant to punish him for his journalism, adds Gabriel Shipton. “The situation there is really dire, and Julian is suffering inside that prison.” . . .
New York Mayoral Candidate Refuses to Answer Whether She Thinks the U.S. Is Comparable to the Taliban
New York City mayoral candidate Maya Wiley would not say whether she thinks the U.S. is comparable to the Taliban Thursday, video shows.
Wiley was questioned about Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s comments comparing the U.S. and Israel to the Taliban and Hamas, video shows. She refused to answer and added that she was proud of her multiple congressional endorsements.
“I am not going to answer this question because I have been, actually, just come out of the debate, I appreciate you asking,” Wiley said in the video.
Caught up with mayoral candidate @mayawiley after the democratic mayoral debate asking her reaction to comments from @IlhanMN comparing America and Israel to the taliban, Hamas. Wiley says she’s been focused on the mayoral race pic.twitter.com/1kXS75wgce
— Elad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) June 11, 2021
Wiley was endorsed by Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and four other New York Congressional representatives, according to her website. Ocasio-Cortez said she was “pretty sick & tired of the constant vilification, intentional mischaracterization, and public targeting of [Omar] coming from our caucus,” in a Tweet Thursday.
Omar received bipartisan criticism after posting a video where she questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about U.S. opposition to the International Criminal Court’s investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Israel and Afghanistan, NBC News reported.
“We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity,” Omar tweeted Monday. “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.”
We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.
We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice. pic.twitter.com/tUtxW5cIow
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 7, 2021
Wiley did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
– – –
Kaylee Greenlee is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
The post New York Mayoral Candidate Refuses to Answer Whether She Thinks the U.S. Is Comparable to the Taliban appeared first on The Georgia Star News.
Judge dismisses suit challenging Houston Methodist requirement for workers to get COVID vaccination
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit waged by more than 100 Houston Methodist hospital system workers seeking to challenge the organization’s requirement that workers get vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition for continued employment. . . .
Beijing Working to Subvert UN Human Rights System, Warns Rights Activist
The Chinese communist regime is trying to subvert the global human rights system to avoid accountability for its sweeping repression of rights within its own borders, according to rights activist Laura Harth.
Harth, the campaign director at Madrid-based nonprofit Safeguard Defenders, said the regime has been active at the Human Rights Council (HRC), the United Nations’ highest body for human rights, to remold the norms surrounding U.N. scrutiny of countries’ rights records.
“They’re proposing this definition: this idea of human rights with Chinese characteristics, with socialist characteristics,” Harth told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. . .
Maya Wiley rails against billionaires — despite big-bucks backing by George Soros
Mayoral hopeful Maya Wiley has been endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and other fellow Democrats who regularly decry the power of special interests and big money in politics — even though she has for decades been bankrolled by hedge-fund billionaire George Soros.
Soros, the 90-year-old liberal kingmaker often criticized by Republicans and others for his outsize political influence, has ties to Wiley dating back to the 1990s, and recently pumped $500,000 into an independent expenditure group backing Wiley’s City Hall campaign, on top of direct donations.
“If we don’t come together as a movement, we will get a New York City built by and for billionaires, and we need a city for and by working people,” said Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist representing parts of Queens and the Bronx, in endorsing Wiley earlier this month. “So we will vote for Maya #1.”
Wiley, a former MSNBC contributor and legal counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, tweeted the quote last week in soliciting campaign donations — to further stock a war chest already directly and indirectly aided by Soros. . .
Reporter Who Broke Story Of 2016 Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch Secret Tarmac Meeting Found Dead Of Apparent Suicide
Birmingham TV anchor and veteran newsman Christopher Sign was found dead Saturday morning of an apparent suicide, police said.
After receiving a call at 8:13 a.m., Hoover, Alabama police and fire personnel arrived to find the 45-year-old Sign dead, which Hoover police Lt. Keith Czeskleba said is being investigated as a suicide, AL.com reported.
Sign was a longtime reporter for several local ABC affiliates and had been the evening anchor on ABC 33/40 since 2017.
“Our deepest sympathy is shared with Chris’s loving family and close friends,” Sinclair Broadcast Group Vice President and General Manager Eric S. Land said. “We have lost a revered colleague whose indelible imprint will serve forever as a hallmark of decency, honesty and journalist integrity. We can only hope to carry on Chris’s legacy. May his memory be a blessing.”
In June 2016, while he was working as a reporter and morning anchor at ABC affiliate KNXV-TV in Phoenix, Sign broke the story of a secret tarmac meeting that occurred between former President Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
[ The Daily Caller ]
Oracle Engineer Who Helped Design CDC Coronavirus Tracking System Dies from COVID-19 Two Months After Getting the Vaccine
[Post has been updated with Joel R. Kallman’s Photo ]
The Oracle engineer who created the APEX System and then worked with the CDC to develop a COVID tracking system died late last month from coronavirus.
Joel Kallman announced he took the vaccine back in March.
The COVID Blog reported–
Mr. Joel Kallman started his career at Oracle in 1996. He was the Senior Director and Vice President of Software Development for the company’s Server Technologies Division. He led the team that created Oracle APEX, an app development platform that streamlines processes by eliminating complex coding and utilizing simple computing architecture.
In March 2020 the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) teamed up with Oracle APEX, under Mr. Kallman’s leadership, to create the v-safe After Vaccine Health Checker.
The v-safe after vaccination health checker was created by Oracle developers for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), using the Oracle APEX low-code development tool, Oracle Analytics, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. People who receive a COVID-19 vaccination can register with v-safe to voluntarily report side effects, such as pain or nausea, for the first days, weeks, and months after injection. The CDC can reach out to people who have experienced a concerning adverse reaction to gather more data, and medical professionals use this data to better understand how different patients and populations—particularly at-risk populations—respond to different vaccines.
On March 26, Joel Kallman got his first vaccination shot. He posted about it on Twitter.
Joel Kallman passed away from COVID-19 on May 25th, just two months after receiving his first vaccine for the China virus.
We’re heartbroken to share that Joel Kallman has passed away from Covid-19 on May 25th. He was 54.
Joel’s warmth and enthusiasm touched countless across the globe. We miss him dearly.
We invite you to share your memories: https://t.co/xTKGi7AAXo#orclapex @joelkallman pic.twitter.com/3kzF4nQxoA
— Oracle APEX (@OracleAPEX) May 27, 2021
The post Oracle Engineer Who Helped Design CDC Coronavirus Tracking System Dies from COVID-19 Two Months After Getting the Vaccine appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
What Happens if Election Irregularities are Found?; How the AZ Audit was Narrowly Saved
The Maricopa County audit has come up against “every challenge that could be thrown at it. The Democrats have now tried several rounds of lawsuits against the auditors, which we defended”, according to Cyber Ninjas (main auditing firm) Lawyer, Alex The audit is almost complete, with roughly 80% of ballots checked so far. So, what happens […]
The post What Happens if Election Irregularities are Found?; How the AZ Audit was Narrowly Saved appeared first on NTD.
Will Any Anti-Trump Story Hold Up?
Source: AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
No profession loves themselves like journalists love themselves. After all, they “write the first draft of history.” However, as with any writing, history gets its say as well, and story after story in that “first draft of history” is proving to be untrue. It’s enough to make you wonder if any story from the Presidency of Donald Trump will stand up to even basic scrutiny in a year?
People get things wrong – we’re people, after all, and wildly imperfect. But journalists have gotten so much wrong over the last 4 years it makes you wonder if they got anything right. You name the “scandal” some left-wing outlet reported between 2016 and today about the former President and you will see a story that not only strains credulity, but one that doesn’t stand up to basic fact-checking.
Here are a few examples of “bombshell” stories that had “the walls closing in” on Donald Trump that have completely collapsed the second anyone bothered to be the most basic of journalism on them:
Trump called dead Allied soldiers “losers.”
Russia “hacked” the 2016 election.
Trump ordered Georgia officials to “find votes.”
Hydroxychloroquine has no value and is basically poison that will kill people with COVID.
Trump ignored Russia putting bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan.
COVID was not from a lab in Wuhan.
Trump ordered the teargassing of “peaceful protesters” so he could have a photo-op.
Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people.”
Donald Trump Jr. got early access to Wikileaks emails.
Russian collusion, etc., etc.
You name the story and the odds that it held up to simple research and reporting is about zero. It makes you wonder why the most basic of reporting wasn’t done before they hit the “publish” button. . . .
Commentary: Minimum Wage Hikes Led to Lower Worker Compensation, New Research Shows
Opponents of minimum wage laws tend to focus their criticism on one particular adverse consequence: by artificially raising the price of labor, they reduce employment, particularly for the most vulnerable in society.
“Minimum wage laws tragically generate unemployment, especially so among the poorest and least skilled or educated workers,” economist Murray Rothbard wrote in 1978. “Because a minimum wage, of course, does not guarantee any worker’s employment; it only prohibits, by force of law, anyone from being hired at the wage which would pay his employer to hire him.
Though some economists, such as Paul Krugman, reject Rothbard’s claim, a recent study found the overwhelming body of academic research supports the idea that minimum wage laws increase unemployment.
New research, however, shows this is not the only adverse outcome of wage floors.
‘When a Higher Minimum Wage Leads to Lower Compensation’
On Thursday the Harvard Business Review published an article under the headline, “Research: When a Higher Minimum Wage Leads to Lower Compensation.”
The article explores research conducted by Qiuping Yu (Georgia Tech), Shawn Mankad (Cornell University), and Masha Shunko (University of Washington), which leveraged a highly granular set of scheduling data to measure how changes in the minimum wage affected workers’ schedules.
“Specifically, we looked at worker schedule and wage data from 2015 to 2018 for more than 5,000 employees at 45 stores in California — where the minimum wage was $9 in 2015, and has increased every year since then — and at 17 stores in Texas, where the minimum wage was $7.25 for the duration of our study,” the researchers said.
The analysis found minimum wage increases had no statistically significant effect on total labor hours at a given store. However, the researchers did find changes in how those hours were allocated to workers.
“For every $1 increase in the minimum wage, we found that the total number of workers scheduled to work each week increased by 27.7%, while the average number of hours each worker worked per week decreased [sic] by 20.8%,” the researchers wrote. “For an average store in California, these changes translated into four extra workers per week and five fewer hours per worker per week — which meant that the total wage compensation of an average minimum wage worker in a California store actually fell by 13.6%.”
This didn’t just result in less overall income for many workers, the authors noted. It also impacted their ability to receive non-wage benefits.
“We found that for every $1 increase in minimum wage, the percentage of workers working more than 20 hours per week (making them eligible for retirement benefits) decreased by 23.0%,” the researchers said.
Strategically Reducing Other Forms of Compensation
These findings should come as no surprise. In a 2019 FEE article, economist John Phelan explained four ways employers typically respond to minimum wage hikes. One way was to cut the hours of workers, Phelan noted; another was to cut other forms of remuneration, including benefits like health insurance.
“Simply put, as the minimum wage rises, other elements of worker compensation fall,” Phelan wrote.
This is precisely what the new research highlighted by Harvard Business Review found.
“[Our research] suggests that as minimum wage increases, firms may strategically adjust their scheduling practices to reduce the number of workers eligible for benefits,” write Yu, Mankad, and Shunko. “Our estimates suggest that the average store in our California data set recouped approximately 27.5% of the increase in its wage costs through savings associated with reducing benefits.”
Again, this is not complicated stuff and should come as no surprise. If businesses are forced to increase compensation in one area, they’ll seek to reduce it in others to protect their bottom line.
The research also helps explain why some economists (a minority) are less certain that increases in the minimum wage will “substantially” reduce employment and provides an explanation for the few studies that don’t show unemployment increasing after minimum wage hikes. Evidence shows employers are finding more creative and productive ways to adjust to minimum wage hikes than simply laying off workers.
The Reality of Tradeoffs
Proponents of increasing the minimum wage have a tendency to believe it is a win-win policy. But economics teaches us that life is always about tradeoffs.
And once again, evidence shows minimum wage hikes come with adverse consequences, which tend to fall on the most vulnerable workers—those with the fewest skills and lowest productivity.
Proponents of minimum wage laws today are making the same mistakes that proponents were making in 1966, when Milton Friedman correctly predicted that a 28 percent national minimum wage increase would negatively impact employment, particularly for teens and minorities.
“Many well-meaning people favor legal minimum-wage rates in the mistaken belief that they help the poor,” Friedman wrote. “These people confuse wage rates with wage income.”
This was true when Friedman wrote it in 1966. And it’s just as true today.
– – –
Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.
The post Commentary: Minimum Wage Hikes Led to Lower Worker Compensation, New Research Shows appeared first on The Georgia Star News.
Iowa man gets 10 years behind bars for brutal beating over face mask
An Iowa man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attacking and coughing on a person who asked him to wear his mask properly.
Shane Wayne Michael, 42, apparently flew into a rage after a man requested that he pull his mask up over his nose in a Des Moines eyewear shop in November, according to local reports.
The victim said Michael followed him to his car, cornered him in the parking lot — and then knocked him to the ground, gouged his eye and kneed him in the groin, according to The Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Michael then coughed in the man’s face, spit on him and said, “‘If I have it, you have it,” referring to COVID-19, the report said.
The Saylor Township resident was convicted last month of willful injury causing serious injury, and sentenced on Wednesday, according to The Des Moines Register. . . .
Overnight mass shootings in three states stoke fears of bloody summer
Officials are worried that the US could face increased summer bloodshed — after mass shootings in three states left two people dead and 30 wounded Friday night into Saturday morning.
“It’s very disturbing what we’re seeing across the country and the level of gun violence that we’re seeing across the country,” Savannah’s police chief, Roy Minter, Jr. told reporters Saturday.
“It’s disturbing and it’s senseless.”
The top cop made the statement after one man was killed and seven other people were wounded, including two children, during a shooting at an apartment complex in the Georgia city.
Meanwhile, in Austin, Texas, cops arrested one suspect after a fight between two groups sparked a shooting spree on a crowded pedestrian plaza packed with revelers. Fourteen people were injured, and another suspect was still being sought.
[ New York Post ]
Bannon’s War Room | Saturday Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 12, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 08 Seconds
Episode 1,018 – Merrick Garland’s 3:10 to Yuma … Corrupt Biden Regime Panics Over Arizona Audit. “This is aimed right at the canvas,” said Navarro. “They’re trying to stop the canvas, because the canvas involves having to verify whether voters who are at a certain residence are actually the legal registered voters.” Guests are: Dr. Peter Navarro, AG Ken Paxton, Steve Bannon.
Bannon’s War Room | Saturday Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 12, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 49 Seconds
Episode 1,019 – Fess Up, Fauci … China’s Plan to Kill You From Space, Fauci’s Crimes. “This virus was genetically engineered in the Wuhan Institute of Virology using American taxpayer money and gain of function experiments authorized by Tony Fauci,” he said. Guests are: Dr. Peter Navarro, Dr. Greg Autry, Eric Greitens, Ben Bergquam, Jack Posobiec.
Algeria: Escalation of pre-election crackdown with arrest of two prominent journalists and opposition leader
Responding to the news that Algerian authorities have arrested journalists Khaled Drareni and Ihsane El Kadi as well as the emblematic opposition leader Karim Tabbou last night, ahead of legislative elections on 12 June, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Amna Guellali said:
“These arrests mark a chilling escalation in the Algerian authorities’ clampdown on the rights to freedom of expression and association ahead of the elections. Instead of rounding up journalists and political opponents in a bid to crush dissent and intimidate members of the Hirak protest movement, Algeria’s authorities should focus on respecting their human rights obligations.
“It is highly likely that the three men have been targeted as retribution for their ties to the Hirak protest movement, which has called for radical political change in Algeria through peaceful means. Their detention follows an alarming pattern in recent months of arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of journalists and activists calling for social justice and political reforms. Unless the authorities have clear grounds to justify these arrests, the three men must be immediately released.”
Background:
The three men were arrested separately in the evening of 10 June and have been detained in Antar security centre for interrogation. It is not the first time they have been targeted by Algerian authorities.
Khaled Drareni was sentenced to three years in prison after a grossly unfair trial for his coverage of the Hirak protest movement in August 2020. The sentence was reduced to two years on appeal. He was released in February 2021 and his case was sent for retrial by the Supreme Court in March 2021.
In March 2020, political leader Karim Tabbou was sentenced to one year in prison on trumped up charges in relation to comments made in videos published on his political party’s Facebook page in which he criticized the role of the army in politics.
Ihsane El Kadi, director of Maghreb Emergent and RadioMPost, has faced legal proceedings for “defamation and insult” against Algeria’s president. In response, the authorities blocked the media outlets he runs.
As of today, there are 223 people currently detained in Algeria in connection with the Hirak protest movement according to local groups and activists monitoring the human rights situation on the ground.
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For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact: press@amnesty.org or call +44 20 7413 5566
US Senator Slams Apple, Amazon, Nike for Enabling Forced Labor in China
WASHINGTON—A U.S. senator on June 10 slammed American companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., and Nike Inc. for turning a blind eye to allegations of forced labor in China, arguing they are making American consumers complicit in Beijing’s repressive policies.
Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang region, Republican Senator Marco Rubio said many U.S. companies had not woken up to the fact that they were “profiting” from the Chinese government’s abuses.
“For far too long companies like Nike and Apple and Amazon and Coca-Cola were using forced labor. They were benefiting from forced labor or sourcing from suppliers that were suspected of using forced labor,” Rubio said. “These companies, sadly, were making all of us complicit in these crimes.” . . .
G7 gathers to pledge 1B COVID vaccine shots for the world
CARBIS BAY, England — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson greeted world leaders on a wooden boardwalk on the freshly raked sand of Carbis Bay to open the Group of Seven summit Friday, offering elbow bumps to dignitaries gathering for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus was set to dominate their discussions, with leaders of the wealthy democracies club expected to commit to sharing at least 1 billion vaccine shots with struggling countries.
A commitment from U.S. President Joe Biden to share 500 million doses and one from Johnson for another 100 million shots set the stage for the G-7 meeting under gray and moody skies in southwest England, where leaders will pivot Friday from their “family photo” by the seaside directly into a session on “Building Back Better From COVID-19.”
“We’re going to help lead the world out of this pandemic working alongside our global partners,” Biden said. The G-7 also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. . . .
Wisconsin Senate Passes Bill Banning Zuckerberg-Style Election Interference.
The Wisconsin State Senate has passed a bill prohibiting the outside, private financing of elections – a move that follows the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s large-scale 2020 election interference.
As originally reported by The National Pulse ahead of the 2020 election, Zuckerberg ploughed cash into heavily Democrat districts in order to privately march more left-wing voters to the ballot box. . . .