Tag Archives: rights

Stonewalling

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We’re seeing it already in the witnesses that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D, CA) will permit the minority Republicans on his committee to call during the public hearings the Progressive-Democrats are holding, beginning tomorrow, pursuant to their partisan effort to impeach President Donald Trump.

The Republican list—required to be submitted before Schiff identified the scope and subject matter of his hearings in sufficient detail to allow a proper list to be assembled—is this:

  • Devon Archer—knowledge of Burisma’s alleged role in Ukrainian corruption in general, central to Trump’s desire to be sure of the degree to which the new Ukrainian government is getting corruption under control
  • Hunter Biden—knowledge of Burisma’s alleged role in that corruption: “Mr Biden’s firsthand experiences with Burisma can assist the American public in understanding the nature and extent of Ukraine’s pervasive corruption….”
  • Alexandra Chalupa, former Democratic National Committee staffer—alleged to have worked with Ukrainian embassy to the US to “gather political dirt” on Trump’s then-campaign for office. Also admitting to providing such dirt to the DNC and to Hillary Clinton’s then-campaign for the same office. “…Ms Chalupa is a prime fact witness…understanding facts and circumstances surrounding Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election.”
  • David Hale, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs—”firsthand knowledge of events preceding and surrounding Ambassador Yovanovitch’s recall from Ukraine…[and] Hale’s communications with Ambassador Taylor regarding Ukrainian matters….”
  • Tim Morrison, former Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs on the NSC—three House Progressive-Democrat-run committees have questioned Morrison; those transcripts are not yet released. Morrison was present on the telecon in question and worked with the NSC immediately afterward. If LtCol [Alexander] Vindman is called to testify, Morrison must be as well.
  • Nellie Ohr, former contractor for Fusion GPS—she “is a prime fact witness…understanding facts and circumstances surrounding Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election.”
  • Ambassador Kurt Volker, former US Representative for Ukraine Negotiations—”primary interlocutor and trusted confidant of the Ukrainian government” and firsthand knowledge of discussions, including those with Rudy Giuliani, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Ambassador William Taylor
  • The anonymous whistleblower
  • All witnesses used by the whistleblower “in drafting his or her second hand complaint”

This is a much too short list, driven by Schiff’s withholding the scope of his “inquisition.”  I would have liked to have heard directly from Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill, and Vindman, also, all of whom seem to have lied to one degree or another during Schiff’s secretive Star Chamber questionings.

Withal, though, Schiff already has barred Biden, the whistleblower, and presumably by extension the whistleblower’s “sources.”  It’s plain that the Progressive-Democrats only want those “facts” convenient to their predetermined outcome to be heard by us average Americans.  All the facts seem to be anathema to the Inquisitors.

Free Speech vs No Free Speech

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The Progressive-Democratic Party vs the Republican Party.

Progressive-Democratic Party icon—and proud progressive—Hillary Clinton wants to ban free speech, and the first step is Twitter’s Jack Dorsey’s ban on the free speech of political advertising, done with her wholehearted and full throated support.

Twitter made the right decision to say, “Look, we don’t want to get into the judging game.” I think that should be the decision that Facebook makes as well.

Never mind that banning political ads—a form of the speech explicitly protected under the 1st Amendment—is a most fundamental bit of judging speech.  Note that Clinton desire to extend the ban to Facebook:

If you were to say to your expert engineers, our algorithms really favor the explosive, the inflammatory, the blatantly false, and we love to hook people into them and they seek more of it and then they get absolutely barraged by all of this information, we need to tweak the algorithms[.]

Never mind whose judgment—not that of us average Americans, whose judgment plainly is inadequate, we being merely a gang of deplorables—would be used to make those definitions of falseness; never mind whose judgment—certainly not our own—would be used to determine the badness of “inflammatory” or “explosive.” This is a move to protect the established, the elite, the Know Betters.

On the other hand, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) objected to such limits on free speech.  He objected, as paraphrased by Fox News,

the new Twitter policy as an effort to undermine the First Amendment right to free speech.

He went on: the ban on political advertising—on a form of political speech—would

just amplify the already privileged speakers who already possess multimillion-dollar platforms. It would just help clear the field for those elites by denying the same tools to fledgling speakers who are not already famous.
[It does] not bolster our democracy. It would degrade democracy. It would amplify the advantage of media companies, celebrities, and certain other established elites while denying an important tool to the Americans who disagree with them[.]

There’s that judgment bit again, and how it would work were the Progressive-Democrats’ attack on our speech successful.  Of course Dorsey, Clinton, and Party leadership know this full well—they’re just after protecting their narrative and their positions atop the political pantheon.

And, with Dorsey’s established practice of censoring Conservative speech in general, a more insidiously subtle effort to expand that censorship.

Remember this next fall.

How Terrible Is That?

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Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour Party’s MFWIC, has “accused” British PM Boris Johnson of pushing for US-style deregulation of health care.  The horror.

As the UK election campaigns got underway, Corbyn said his rival wanted to “unleash Thatcherism on steroids” once the country was no longer bound by EU trading treaties and regulations.

Channeling our own Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT), Corbyn thinks “capitalism” is a dirty word.

He went further:

Corbyn also said…that Johnson wants to strike a trade deal with US President Donald Trump to sell off parts of the UK’s National Health Service, or make it easier for US pharmaceutical firms and medical companies to sell into the UK healthcare market.

Because all that foul capitalism would lower health costs to British citizens and deprive Government of control over their health choices.

Then Corbyn made plain the breadth of the wicked that the Brits’ way comes:

They want to move us towards a more deregulated American model of how to run the economy.

It’s clear that Corbyn—and his fellow Labourites—think British citizens are just too blind stupid to make their own health decisions; he and his insist those unwashed masses must be led by his Know Betters.  Just like our own Progressive-Democrats.

Love Me that Censorship

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That’s what that icon of the Left, Juan Williams, says.

The reality is that [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to understand, from my perspective, that he’s undermining his brand by allowing political lies to be put on his platform. That, to me, lessens the trust that the consumer has.

Because censoring speech—especially politically speech—is the way to win the hearts and minds and trust of the consumer.

Certainly, controlling speech and allowing only that which the Left approves—what Juan Williams personally approves—can be a tool for winning controlling the hearts and minds of citizens, but trust? No. Censorship destroys trust.

But, hey—the Left doesn’t approve.  Juan Williams doesn’t approve.  That makes it all OK.

Williams had this gem, too, accusing folks who disagree with him on this—Conservatives—of flip flopping:

I remember when the right was always on Facebook, “Oh, you’re trying to silence…conservatives.”  Now it’s like, “Oh, yeah, put Trump’s lies there, please.”

Because objecting to censorship is flip floppery.  And that last bit: the Right Reverend Juan Williams is the arbiter of lies, distortions, and facts because us ordinary Americans are just too grindingly stupid to make the discriminations for ourselves.

This is another example of the Left’s—the Progressives’—utter contempt for those who don’t agree with them.

Typical

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Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, has struck again.  Now he’s banning “all political advertising on Twitter globally.”  He’s justifying this move with this bit of fantastical rationalization:

We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.

I suppose, then, he believes television, radio, print media—along with his competitors, Facebook, Alphabet, et al.—also should ban political advertising on their platforms.  After all, political message reach should be earned, not bought.

A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people.

This contempt for ordinary Americans is just Liberal Know Better-ism. No one is forced to read the material whose promotion is paid for; we all can make our own decisions to read or to scroll past. It’s even already clearly identified by Dorsey’s minions as promoted material.  Beyond that, it may be the case, especially with the rapidity with which the Twitter feed runs, that the first many folks learn of a political message is when a promoted one appears at the top of their feed.

We don’t need the Big Brothers of the Left to lead us around by the nose, instructing us on what we’re to read or not to read.

Maybe Dorsey should just get out of the censorship business.