Daily Archives: 3 December 2019

Score One for Facebook

Posted on by
Reply

Facebook had a post up, recently, that the government of Singapore didn’t like and of which that government disputed the truthfulness.

As a result, By Order Of the Singapore government, Facebook added a notice—a “label”—to the post:

Facebook is legally required to tell you that the Singapore government says this post has false information.

For a wonder, Facebook didn’t take the post down, nor did it make any effort to “correct” its content.  Instead, it posted the notice, letting readers decide for themselves…whether they should take seriously the post or the notice required by a mendacious government.

Of course, I am assuming a motive for Facebook’s action.

Smart Move

Posted on by
Reply

Although, had it been me, I would have ignored it, not dignifying the thing with a response.

“It” is House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s (D, NY) pro forma invitation to President Donald Trump to send along his lawyer to be present at the Nadler Impeachment Inquisition, so long as Trump responded by Nadler’s deadline with the lawyer’s name and impeachment areas of interest.

The smart move was Trump’s refusal to accede to Nadler’s demand.

Note, too, that Nadler is beginning his hearings even before the House Intelligence Committee has prepared its report on its just concluded hearings and sent it along to Nadler.  Nadler will be starting his inquisition before he and his committee even know (at least officially) what the Intel Committee’s findings are.

The refusal letter included this in part of its explanation of Trump’s decision:

As for the hearing scheduled for December 4, we cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings[.]

[U]nclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process.  Pat Cipollone, White House Counsel and author of the letter, is being generous.  It’s actually crystalline that there is no fair process to be had in the Judiciary Committee proceeding.  This is what House Resolution 660, passed on strictly partisan lines by the House Progressive-Democrats, says:

SEC. 4. IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY PROCEDURES IN THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY.
(c)(1) The ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized, with the concurrence of the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary, to require, as deemed necessary to the investigation—
(A) by subpoena or otherwise—
(i) the attendance and testimony of any person (including at a taking of a deposition); and
(ii) the production of books, records, correspondence, memoranda, papers, and documents; and
(B) by interrogatory, the furnishing of information.

Only with the permission of the Committee chairman can any Republican member of the Committee do anything. Of course, the Rules go on to say that the Chairman’s decision can be appealed to the committee as a whole—to the Progressive-Democrat majority membership. There’s nothing in this Progressive-Democrat-passed set of rules that even pretend to be a fair process.

There’s nothing going on in the House that warrants White House participation. There is a great deal going on in the House that warrants strong voter participation in the upcoming elections. We are, indeed, in a battle for the soul—and the safety—of our nation. The Progressive-Democratic Party is just too desperate to undo our choice in 2016 and to prevent us from exercising our choice in 2020.