Tag Archives: first amendment

Twitter exodus for Digital Gestapo?

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As most people of a Conservative bent already know — it’s certainly no secret — the social media giants love Leftists because they are Leftists. They are the first to quash the accounts of Conservatives whilst tolerating the same precise activity by Leftists. The hypocrisy is unabashed, obvious, clear, flaunted and entirely unacknowledged by the social media giants themselves. With one slight adjunct exception. Later.

This has been documented hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times. Twitter has “shadow-banning.” And NO social media site will tell you precisely why you were “suspended” or had your account removed wholesale — instead providing a paragraph or two of mushy non-descript weasel words.

For fuck’s sake, people have told me I’ve been shadow-banned for a time. And I have about two followers.

There is an alternative social media site called Gab.ai, which takes pride in the fact that it doesn’t remove people for political reasons simply due to disagreement. I am a member of Gab but have been a shadow of my former self at that site because, well, I find it kinda clunky and the interface — to me — is less than intuitive. I say that predicated upon the fact that I am in my 7th decade. And oh yeah: a TechnoLuddite.

At one time, however, Gab.ai was so popular that it took me well over a month before I was approved. I don’t know why that is, I simply know that it was. Backlog? Lack of technicians due to a massive flood of converts? I truly do not know.

But I am a full member of Gab.ai now and I submit: perhaps you should be too. Quickly.

I received an email from Gab.ai on December 11th, and it read as follows:

GAB.

Hello everyone,

We’ve made some incredible progress this month on the product in preparation for Twitter’s strict new enforcement rules that will be going live on December 18th. Twitter will be judging user behavior both on and OFF of their website. Meaning if you visit another website that they don’t like or show “support” for groups they don’t like, you can get banned. This unprecedented level of censorship and blacklisting of groups from the public square is unlike anything in history and will be a huge opportunity for Gab.

Of course, on Leftist sites it goes something like this. From Mashable.com:

Twitter to neo-Nazis: you have until December 18

by Kerry Flynn

Twitter is cracking down on hate speech and not just by looking at its own site. 

Oh really. Do tell. Wait for it.  .  .

In what amounts to a major shift in Twitter policy, the company announced on Friday that it will be monitoring user’s behavior “on and off the platform” and will suspend a user’s account if they affiliate with violent organizations, according to an update to Twitter’s Help Center on Friday. 

Certainly Twitter will be as responsive and clear and transparent as it’s been with every other Conservative issue to date. Of course. History meet lies.

“You also may not affiliate with organizations that — whether by their own statements or activity both on and off the platform — use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes,” the update reads.

The Dec. 18 deadline also applies to using “hateful images or symbols” in profile images or profile headers. Twitter will also monitor for hate speech in usernames, display names, and profile bios.

 This new rule closes a loophole that Twitter’s critics had long pointed out: That known white supremacists and others affiliated with hate groups could still use the platform to send a sanitized version of their message and use their followers to bolster their overall profile.

 

Let me break it down for the uninitiated. Signing up for Twitter or Facebook will be similar to submitting to chipping. And that’s not so far off.

In the same article:

Twitter’s decision to monitor users off site sparked concern from free speech advocates such as Andrew Torba, founder of social network Gab. “This is a scary precedent to set,” he wrote in an email to Mashable. “Rules like this will only force dissidents and those who are speaking truth to power to silence themselves or risk being silenced by Twitter.”

There were actions and reactions, this being Monday, December 18th. Two articles from incidents that occurred immediately.

Twitter Bans Account Retweeted by President Trump

by Chris Tomlinson

Twitter began its “purge” of right-wing accounts Monday and has terminated the account of Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen, who reached global attention after she was retweeted three times by U.S. President Donald Trump last month.

Ms. Fransen, along with the official Britain First Twitter account and the account of leader Paul Golding, was suspended Monday afternoon. The banning comes after Fransen posted three videos purporting to show Muslim violence which were retweeted by President Trump and caused outrage among the establishment class who labelled the videos racist.

Odd, since the official mission of Britain First is this:

Britain First is a patriotic political party and street movement that opposes and fights the many injustices that are routinely inflicted on the British people.

Our policies are pro-British, our approach is no-nonsense and our principles are not open to compromise.

We love our people, our nation, our heritage and culture and will defend them at all times and no matter what odds we face.

The Britain First movement is not just a normal political group, we are a patriotic resistance and “frontline” for our long suffering people.

We require only the most stern, dedicated, loyal, steadfast and incorruptible men and women to help us build a future for our nation.

We want a Britain that is strong, proud, free, sovereign and independent, in which our people live in a healthy, moral and ethical society.

We want our people to come first, before foreigners, asylum seekers or migrants and we are overtly proud of this stance.

We will not stand back and watch as our people are made second class citizens by leftwing-liberal policies and political correctness.

We want British history, traditions and to be respected, promoted and taught to our young folk who deserve a decent future.

We want to eradicate corruption in our democracy, to end the ongoing expenses scandal and restore principles and decency to politics in general.

Heinous! Pro sovereignty. Anti-corruption. Putting Britain first (instead of the rest of the planet — how quaint), love of nation, heritage and culture. Japan is allowed to have, for example, a love of nation, heritage and culture. So is Afghanistan. Why not Britain?

BritainFirst.org has, naturally, had its Twitter account suspended.

Then this from Breitbart.com because, after all, they were inspired by Twitter today, yes?

YouTube Temporarily Bans Europeans from Viewing Cernovich Documentary on Migrant Rape Crisis

by Charlie Nash

YouTube banned Mike Cernovich’s documentary on Sweden’s refugee crisis from being viewed in European countries, then restored the video but placed it in “YouTube Jail,” disabling comments and sharing, while adding a warning message to viewers.

Cernovich shared the email from YouTube that informed him his documentary, Invasion! How Sweden Became the Rape Capital of the West, which was published in March, would be censored in Europe on Thursday.

Mike Cernovich ??

✔@Cernovich

 

My documentary on Sweden, which has no nudity or foul language, has been banned in the EU.

– No explanation given
– No legal right to appeal
– No due process is a scam, social media companies do not support a free and open internet.https://youtu.be/KSGuzv-2qUY 

Twitter Ads info and privacy
 
 

“We have received a legal complaint regarding your video. After review, the following video: Invasion! How Sweden Became the Rape Capital of the West has been blocked from view on the following YouTube country site(s),” declared the company, before listing, “Austria, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, France, United Kingdom, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Croatia, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Martinique, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Poland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Reunion, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, French Southern Territories, Wallis and Futuna, [and] Mayotte.”

Hey, question for Leftists: does this sound like the “net neutrality” you so lovingly embraced? Not to me.

This also creates any number of unforeseen — or is it purposeful — consequences. You’ll now have a new Twitter Narc Class who will take it upon themselves to point at others and scream.

If you recall, we were already admonished to narc on others via Obama’s “reporting of fishy emails” regarding ObamaKare, from TheHill.com:

President Obama: Withdraw citizen reporting program

A troubling new citizen reporting program is being launched at the White House -– targeting those who oppose President Obama’s health care plan –- a program that can only stifle constitutionally-protected free speech.

In an official White House release posted by the White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips claims that “[t]here is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there” both on the web and floating around in chain emails. Phillips states that “[s]ince we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

This is a very disturbing attempt to stifle the free speech of Americans who have the constitutional right to express their opinion and concerns about health care. It’s a move designed to intimidate those who have legitimate concerns about the health care plan. And, worse, it turns the White House into some sort of self-appointed “speech police” -– urging Americans to monitor and report those who engage in “fishy” speech.

What will Obama do with those names. Who will be flagged next?

Omigosh Leftists, have you forgotten that so soon? Conveniently so? Should we go to the Russian Model and have duly appointed Political Officers on Twitter and other Leftist social media platforms. We’re not so far away. Frankly, I’d appreciate being able to identify the obvious uniform. Ah, the heady days of the Stasi.

Any other problems? Would you have to obliterate people with a picture of a Confederate flag anywhere in their digital rumblings? How about a Communist flag? How about Antifa? Any linkage to the quite violent Antifa at all?

Further, how would you accomplish this digital search? How many people to assign this task. Evidence? Warrants? Of course not, Simply a Digital Pogrom via your Digital Gestapo. Thousands of Arabic accounts that are astoundingly anti-Semitic? General anti-Semitic accounts or mentions? What about the homophobic, misogynistic accounts of Muslims? Doesn’t a Saudi prince own an assload of Twitter anyway? Why, yes.

This Saudi prince now owns more of Twitter than Jack Dorsey does

by Alice Truong

A Saudi prince has increased his holdings in Twitter, making him the company’s second largest shareholder.

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, who in 2011 invested $300 million in the social network, now owns 34.9 million shares of Twitter’s common stock, according to a new regulatory filing (pdf).

At nearly 5.2%, his stake in the company is now larger than that of Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and newly re-minted CEO, whose 21.86 million shares give him 3.2% of the company, according to FactSet. (The prince previously had a stake of roughly 3%.)

Twitter co-founder Ev Williams remains the company’s largest shareholder, with 46.56 million shares for a 6.9% stake.

Didn’t Twitter originally bill itself as a “free speech platform”? Yes. So did UC Berkeley at one point. Look at them both now.

Twitter has now given itself the authority to police every Tweet. Every one. And for the behavior of each and every individual who sends Tweets — and that, of course, would apply, obviously per President Trump, to those who re-Tweet things as well.

What if nothing Tweeted is considered “offensive” by Twitter, but one’s off-site behavior is deemed “offensive”? Account suspended.

Twitter once billed itself as the “free speech wing of the free speech party.” AYFKM? No. Not at all.

Will these rules be applied in anything remotely resembling consistency, fairness, competence? Hardly. That’s similar to expecting consistency, fairness and competency from government.

Welcome to your officially-declared 2017 Digital Gestapo.

“May I see your papers please?”

Users, flee whilst you can.

BZ

 

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BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Thursday, November 30th, with very special guest Lily Tang Williams

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Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to utilize their studio and hijack their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, thanks to my shameless contract, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show each Wednesday evening.

Thursday night BZ devoted his entire show — the full two hours — to an interview with Lily Tang Williams, the 2016 Colorado candidate for the US Senate via the Libertarian Party.

Hers is a wonderful yet cautionary tale about the search for freedom, Lily having fled Communist China on the heels of the Cultural Revolution. A bit of an inherent rabble rouser as she grew up, she came across

You can find Lily Tang Williams at her website, Lily4Liberty.com, on Twitter @Lily4Liberty, on Facebook and on YouTube. You can email her here, at contact@lily4liberty.com.

Lily Tang Williams appreciates the massive freedoms we enjoy here in the United States — the First Amendment, the Second Amendment. Essentially all the freedoms denied so many other people in China and around the globe.

Listen to the show. Listen to what she has to say about the country she left, the country she embraced — the United States of America — and the jeopardy in which the US now finds itself. Cautionary tale indeed.

If you care to listen to the show in Spreaker, please click on the yellow start button at the upper left.

Listen to “BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Thursday, November 30th, 2017” on Spreaker.

If you care to watch the show on YouTube, please click on the red start button.

Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin (on Twitter @BZep, Facebook as the Bloviating Zeppelin and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.

As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.

  • Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here.
  • Want to watch the past shows on YouTube? Please visit the SHR Media Network YouTube channel here.
  • Want to watch the show live on Facebook? Go to the SHR Media page on Facebook here.
  • Want to watch the show on High Plains TV? Go here.

Thank you one and all for listening, watching and supporting the SHR Media Network: “Conservative Media Done Right.”

BZ

 

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Millennials, Communism and freedom

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First, from the WashingtonTimes.com:

Millennials would rather live in socialist or communist nation than under capitalism: Poll

by Bradford Richardson

‘This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society’

The majority of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist, communist or fascist nation rather than a capitalistic one, according to a new poll.

In the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s “Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism,” 58 percent of the up-and-coming generation opted for one of the three systems, compared to 42 percent who said they were in favor of capitalism.

The most popular socioeconomic order was socialism, with 44 percent support. Communism and fascism received 7 percent support each.

Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said the report shows millennials are “increasingly turning away from capitalism and toward socialism and even communism as a viable alternative.”

Thank you very much, American “educators” (I bandy that term quite very loosely), Leftists, Demorats and, naturally, the American Media Maggots for doing such a spectacular job of disseminating your staggeringly-slanted, agendized bias. Your lies are working on the mush-minds of our youth.

“This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society regarding socialism and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.

This very interesting point:

Millennials were the only age group more likely to say America’s economic system “works against me” rather than “works for me.” Gen Z had the most positive impression of the economy, with 66 percent saying it “works for me,” although many of them have yet to enter the workforce.

On that note, we recently noted 100 years of Communism. From WSJ.com:

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead

by David Satter

The Bolshevik plague that began in Russia was the greatest catastrophe in human history.

Armed Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd—now St. Petersburg—100 years ago this week and arrested ministers of Russia’s provisional government. They set in motion a chain of events that would kill millions and inflict a near-fatal wound on Western civilization.

The revolutionaries’ capture of train stations, post offices and telegraphs took place as the city slept and resembled a changing of the guard. But when residents of the Russian capital awoke, they found they were living in a different universe.

And then all the buttery political fun began.

Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition of private property, their real goal was spiritual: to translate Marxist- Lenin ist ideology into reality. For the first time, a state was created that was based explicitly on atheism and claimed infallibility. This was totally incompatible with Western civilization, which presumes the existence of a higher power over and above society and the state.

Now you begin to see the clouds parting, yes? Western civilization, i.e. more and more citizens in the United States, eschew the existence of a higher power like some tin idol named “godd” or “Bill” or “Berford.” As far as they are concerned, all good things come from The State in terms of our government with one major, vitally-important exception: those damned pesky papers called our “foundational documents” like the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

They are, like, so totally uncool, dude.

The Bolshevik coup had two consequences. In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.

Note this:

In a 1920 speech to the Komsomol, Lenin said that communists subordinate morality to the class struggle. Good was anything that destroyed “the old exploiting society” and helped to build a “new communist society.”

Starting to sound a bit familiar?

This approach separated guilt from responsibility. Martyn Latsis, an official of the Cheka, Lenin’s secret police, in a 1918 instruction to interrogators, wrote: “We are not waging war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. . . . Do not look for evidence that the accused acted in word or deed against Soviet power. The first question should be to what class does he belong. . . . It is this that should determine his fate.”

Then there’s this disturbing part that today’s educators and students miss entirely — perhaps the most disturbing.

Such convictions set the stage for decades of murder on an industrial scale. In total, no fewer than 20 million Soviet citizens were put to death by the regime or died as a direct result of its repressive policies. This does not include the millions who died in the wars, epidemics and famines that were predictable consequences of Bolshevik policies, if not directly caused by them.

The victims include 200,000 killed during the Red Terror (1918-22); 11 million dead from famine and dekulakization; 700,000 executed during the Great Terror (1937-38); 400,000 more executed between 1929 and 1953; 1.6 million dead during forced population transfers; and a minimum 2.7 million dead in the Gulag, labor colonies and special settlements.

To this list should be added nearly a million Gulag prisoners released during World War II into Red Army penal battalions, where they faced almost certain death; the partisans and civilians killed in the postwar revolts against Soviet rule in Ukraine and the Baltics; and dying Gulag inmates freed so that their deaths would not count in official statistics.

If we add to this list the deaths caused by communist regimes that the Soviet Union created and supported—including those in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia—the total number of victims is closer to 100 million.

Then this fact — not a suggestion, but a fact:

That makes communism the greatest catastrophe in human history.

Yay Communism.

What is it I’ve said for years? “Everybody always thinks they can do Socialism/Communism better than the last guy.” Except: it never works.

Also this, ripped from today’s screaming headlines about the opinions regarding “freedom” (hok-putui, such a nasty word) on today’s university campuses, from of all places the WashingtonPost.com:

A chilling study shows how hostile college students are toward free speech

by Catherine Rampell

Here’s the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants “safe spaces,” or otherwise conflating mere words with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech.

Just ask college students. A fifth of undergrads now say it’s acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes “offensive and hurtful statements.”

That’s one finding from a disturbing new survey of students conducted by John Villasenor, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and University of California at Los Angeles professor.

We already know about speech being the “same” as violence according to Leftists.

In August, motivated by concerns about the “narrowing window of permissible topics” for discussion on campuses, Villasenor conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year colleges. Financial support for the survey was provided by the Charles Koch Foundation, which Villasenor said had no involvement in designing, administering or analyzing the questionnaire; as of this writing, the foundation had also not seen his results.

Many of Villasenor’s questions were designed to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment. Colleges, after all, pay a lot of lip service to “freedom of speech,” despite high-profile examples of civil-liberty-squelching on campus. The survey suggests that this might not be due to hypocrisy so much as a misunderstanding of what the First Amendment actually entails.

The most shocking?

For example, when students were asked whether the First Amendment protects “hate speech,” 4 in 10 said no. This is, of course, incorrect. Speech promoting hatred — or at least, speech perceived as promoting hatred — may be abhorrent, but it is nonetheless constitutionally protected.

Freedom of speech “important”? Nah.

Since were on the subject of polls, another poll no one else will reveal to you, from my blog post via JihadWatch.org:

51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S.

by Robert Spencer

Really, what did you expect? A considerable portion of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is based on the assumption that Islam in the U.S. will be different: that Muslims here believe differently from those elsewhere, and do not accept the doctrines of violence against and subjugation of unbelievers that have characterized Islam throughout its history. But on what is that assumption based? Nothing but wishful thinking. And future generations of non-Muslims will pay the price.

51% of Muslims living in the U.S. just this June (2015) told Polling Co. they preferred having “the choice of being governed according to Shariah,” or Islamic law. Or the 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 who told Pew Research they’re more loyal to Islam than America.

These are all clues. These are all indicators of America in the desperate grip of those who wish to tear this country apart from within. Presently there is an active attempt to install mob rule in the United States utilizing not just overt violence, but a highly-funded, organized and systematic undermining, overtaking, eliminating and rewriting of our fundamental founding documents, our history in written form, in oral form, in photographic form and in physical form.

Universities, once admirable towers of higher learning and critical thought now tolerate none of it. The past two generations are shockingly willing to relinquish almost every freedom they possess — to have the government, when it deigns so, to sell those freedoms back. More and more the government is disinterested in such a sale. It simply wants to acquire and keep the power and control.

Is it for this that 500,000 Americans died in the Civil War — so we can become slaves of the government? Do the 1.5 million American deaths during service in war time mean nothing? Must we do it all over again? Historical Alzheimers? Must we go out of our way to prove George Santayana correct anew?

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Communism and Socialism have been tried numerous times in numerous — dozens — of countries in the past two centuries. It always fails. And every new dictator thinks that, in the past, it simply wasn’t “done right.” As I wrote, they believe they are the ones who can “do it right” this time. Then they fail and kill hundreds if not thousands if not millions of their own countrymen.

If there is one lesson the communist century should have taught, it is that the independent authority of universal moral principles cannot be an afterthought, since it is the conviction on which all of civilization depends.

Is the US condemned?

BZ

 

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More First Amendment regulatory threats

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Leftists and the Deep State can’t wait to continue pushing for the diminishment and possible erasure of your First Amendment rights.

The FEC has been after the Drudge Report for years. So has the FCC. This, on its face, is a ridiculous goal. Matt Drudge hasn’t actually written anything for years; his site is nothing more than a laughingly-simplistic point on the internet that does nothing more than aggregate stories from around the globe.

That’s right. All the Drudge Report does is re-package stories written entirely from external sources. His source material is frequently the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Reuters, the AP, Slate, the Huffington Post, NPR, The Guardian — all bastions of Left-leaning journalism.

No matter; never allow facts, history, logic, rationality, proportion or common sense get in the way of a good fucked-up Leftist inclination, decision or bill. Not surprisingly, it’s a push from the FEC once again.

From the WashingtonExaminer.com:

Drudge, Facebook, NYT readers could face libel suits for sharing ‘fake news’

by Paul Bedard

Political content on the internet, paid or not, should face substantial federal regulation to eliminate undefined “disinformation,” and users of platforms and news feeds, from Facebook, to Twitter, to the Drudge Report and even New York Times, could be punished for sharing “fake news” from those sites, the former Democratic chair of the FEC is urging.

In a broad proposal that adds threatening libel suits to regulatory plans already pushed by Democrats on the Federal Election Commission, ex-chair Ann Ravel believes that there is support for expanded regulation in the wake of reports foreign governments spent $100,000 on 2016 political ads on Facebook.

At whom, potentially, is this proposal aimed? Correct: you and me. People interested in politics and have sites on the internet as well as a social media presence. People who conduct internet radio shows. Like me. That’s next. Make no mistake.

She would include “fake news,” not just paid ads, to be regulated, though it’s never defined other than the Democrat’s description of “disinformation.” And anybody who shares or retweets it could face a libel suit.

Friends, this is a page ripped from the former Soviet Union. Your gulag awaits you!

She would also use regulation to “improve voter competence,” according to the new proposal titled Fool Me Once: The Case for Government Regulation of ‘Fake News.’ Ravel, who now lectures at Berkeley Law, still has allies on the FEC who support internet regulation.

Berkeley, of course — the locus of free speech in America.

The proposal immediately came under fire from from the Republican FEC commissioner who for years has been warning of the left’s effort to regulate political talk they don’t like, especially on conservative newsfeeds like Drudge.

Lee Goodman told Secrets, “Ann’s proposal is full blown regulation of all political content, even discussion of issues, posted at any time, for free or for a fee, on any online platform, from Facebook to the NewYorkTimes.com.”

He was especially critical of the undefined nature of “disinformation” to be regulated and the first-ever call for libel suits to snuff out talk Ravel doesn’t like.

And just whom determines “disinformation”? Kompromat or disinformatzia, tovarisch? A panel of Conservatives or a panel of Leftists? Correct. Leftists. Conservatives won’t be allowed within ten miles of a determination.

In their proposal, the trio wrote, “after a social media user clicks ‘share’ on a disputed item (if the platforms do not remove them and only label them as disputed), government can require that the user be reminded of the definition of libel against a public figure. Libel of public figures requires ‘actual malice,’ defined as knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. Sharing an item that has been flagged as untrue might trigger liability under libel laws.”

We already have Speech Crimes in LeftistLand. There may be ClickCrimes. MindCrimes are, of course, next.

Here is the full Ravel article for reference.

Then there is this from YahooNews.com, with John McCain in apparent agreement.

U.S. bill to regulate internet ads gains bipartisan support with McCain

by David Ingram

(Reuters) – U.S. legislation that would impose new disclosure requirements on political ads that run on Facebook and other websites received support on Wednesday from Senator John McCain, giving a bipartisan boost to a bill already popular among Democrats.

McCain, a longtime supporter of regulating campaign finances, and two Democratic senators, Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner, plan to introduce the legislation on Thursday, according to a statement from their offices on Wednesday.

Good old John McCain. You can generally count on him to put his thumb in the eyes of freedom of speech any more. Or anything that he perceives President Trump might possibly support.

Online political ads are much more loosely regulated in the United States than political ads on television, radio and satellite services.

The lack of regulation was highlighted last month when Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc said that they had found election-related ad buys on their services made by people in Russia in the run-up to last year’s U.S. presidential election. Non-Americans are generally not allowed to spend money to influence U.S. elections.

How about, instead of law after law, we just ask the social media to be more wary? Anyone think of that?

Speaking of Loving John, here is a bit of witty repartee between McCain and Fox’s Peter Doocey.

The question by Doocy was “has your relationship with the president frayed to the point where you’re not going to support anything that he comes to you and asks support for?”

McCain replies: “why would you ask anything that stupid? Why would you ask something that dumb? Huh? My job as a United States senator, as a senator from Arizona which I was just re-elected to, you mean that I’m somehow going to behave in a way that I’m going to block everything because of some personal disagreement? That’s a dumb question.”

Let’s see, John. Would that possibly be because you are in fact so vehemently opposed to most anything that President Trump has proposed, that you’ve worked hand-in-hand with the Demorats to slaughter the repeal of the ACA much less any replacement — you know, the very thing you ran on for eight years — as well as the slaughter of tax cuts? With regularity and consistency? John? Perhaps those things?

And John, while we’re at it, have you forgotten what you said in Philadelphia this Monday, October 16th?

PHILADELPHIA — An emotional Sen. John McCain on Monday leveled a blistering attack on what he called the “half-baked, spurious nationalism” that seems to have inspired President Trump’s administration to retreat from the world stage.

In a speech to accept the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal, McCain, R-Ariz., emphasized that the United States is “a land made of ideals, not blood and soil,” a rebuke to the Nazi slogan about bloodlines and territory chanted in August by White supremacists demonstrating in Charlottesville, Va.

An at-times raspy-sounding McCain drew applause and cheers at the Philadelphia event when he said:

“To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last, best hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.”

A reminder:

I value two things primarily: honesty and clarity. So let’s be clear: the only reason the FEC or the FCC wish to limit and regulate speech under the guise of “fairness” or “equanimity” is to limit the speech of only one side: the conservative side. To limit the dissemination of information which thusly informs voters and allows Conservatives to acquire facts, data and particulars on political issues.

Because, after all, everything is political now.

Finally: where are the Republicans on this? Why no public GOP umbrage over the issue? Statements? Decisions to oppose? Republicans taking a stand against this?

Another reason Conservative trust in the GOP has almost vanished. Another reason that Republican fundraising is down this quarter. Consequences for inaction? Gridlock? Failure to keep election promises? Failure to coalesce and utilize power the GOP possesses presently?

Not difficult to figure out.

BZ

P.S.

Great article on the Fairness Doctrine from 1993 is here.

 

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Seattle gun tax = less crime

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Right?

Wrong.

From FoxNews.com:

Seattle gun tax failure? Firearm sales plummet, violence spikes after law passes

by Dan Springer

When the City of Seattle passed a tax on all sales of guns and ammunition, the measure was hailed as a way to defray the rising costs of gun violence.

But since the tax took effect, those costs have only risen as gun violence in the city has surged. And the tax has apparently brought in much less than city leaders projected it would.

“How much data do you need?” asked Dave Workman, senior editor of TheGunMag.com and member of the Second Amendment Foundation. “The data says the law has failed to prevent what they promised it would prevent.”

Oh come on. Let’s be honest because the Leftists certainly won’t. First and foremost, this is another Leftist assault on the Second Amendment, which Leftists despise along with other aspects of the Bill of Rights — to include the First Amendment.

This was how it was portrayed in 2015, with Tucker Carlson responding to Abby Huntsman (ironic?).

You have but to look at and examine a host of violent events in American universities this year and last where speakers were threatened, actually struck, and either physically removed or had their presentations canceled because of Leftist violence and protests.

Leftists and Demorats know that when you have effectively eliminated the Second Amendment you are quite well on your way to eliminating the First Amendment and that is one of their ultimate goals: control of every aspect of your life, including your speech and, literally, your thoughts. When you cannot fight back you cannot stem their tide of monolithic policy, philosophy, suppression and control.

Let me again state the obvious. Those conservative or Republicans who insist the Second Amendment exists to allow good Americans to hunt or sport shoot couldn’t be more wrong. The Second Amendment exists so that good Americans are sufficiently armed in order to stave off attempts by the government to corrupt, arrest, enslave, oppress or subjugate the people of the United States. No more, no less.

Seattle City Councilman Tim Burgess introduced the tax in 2015. It puts a $25 tax on every firearm sold in the city and up to 5 cents per round of ammunition. The measure easily passed and took effect January 1, 2016. Comparing the first five months of 2017 with the same period before the gun tax went into effect, reports of shots fired are up 13 percent, the number of people injured in shootings climbed 37 percent and gun deaths doubled, according to crime statistics from the Seattle Police Department.

Tucker Carlson spoke last week about the so-called “unforeseen consequences” of the Seattle gun tax with anti-gun activist Mark Glaze which were, of course, entirely foreseeable.

Here’s what Leftists really want to take effect, up to and until they can literally remove your firearms and ammunition from your homes. Don’t think there isn’t already a $1,000 gun tax per firearm in effect. From ATR.org:

$1,000 Gun Tax Pushed as ‘Role Model’ for States

by John Kartch

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A $1,000 per gun tax should serve as a “role model” for states, according to the governor of the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, which imposed the $1,000 gun tax earlier this month (2016). An idea first endorsed by Hillary Clinton in 1993, steep gun taxes have now taken hold in Cook County, Ill. the city of Seattle, and now a U.S. territory.

As reported by the Saipan Tribune:

The administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres defended the CNMI’s new gun control laws on Friday as a law that could be “a role model” for other U.S. states and jurisdictions facing seemingly uncontrolled and continued gun violence.

The administration was responding to queries regarding its position on recent reports that the a legal challenge to the new law, Public law 19-42, was likely, particularly over a provision that assesses a $1,000 excise tax on pistols.

The threat of such a tax serving as a role model for other politicians to impose is not an idle one.

Idle? Hell, it’s admired, embraced and salivated-over. Though a few years old, here is another greatly-admired idea from Demorats and Leftists. You can thank your lucky stars that another President Clinton isn’t occupying the Oval Office.

The government and local entities cannot yet physically confiscate your weapons. But they can certainly tax their sales and restrict and/or limit and tax ammunition as well.

Dave Workman doesn’t criticize the study, but he does think the city council should have predicted the results of the gun tax, such as gun dealers leaving with no drop in gun ownership. As for the gun violence, he says that too should not surprise anyone.

“All these gun control laws affect the wrong people,” Workman said. “The gang bangers don’t go in and buy ammunition at retail, at least not around here. It certainly hasn’t stopped them from getting their hands on firearms.”

Tales from Captain Obvious fail to be read by Demorats and Leftists. They continue to double down on laws oppressing the wrong people. Criminals, on the other hand, by definitions printed in their job descriptions, don’t give a shit about your puny laws.

Finally, Colion Noir dares to speak truth to power and truth to you and me.

Gun control is about one thing only. Removing your freedoms. Ask yourselves: just why is it that even Europeans are wishing they had their own Second Amendment these days?

You know the answer.

BZ

 

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