Wednesday, November 18, 2020

The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving (and wants to steal Christmas)


Currently, the Biden Campaign is using a genuine medical emergency as a pretext for a power grab. Their "war on Thanksgiving and Christmas" is designed to advance a revolutionary program, as detailed in the 2020 Democratic Party Platform, by holding Americans prisoner to Coronavirus.

The Biden campaign has, in my view, increased an oppressive political strategy in the aftermath of November 3rd's disputed election, when Joe Biden declared that no more than ten people should be allowed to celebrate Thanksgiving (although his own experts recommended a five-person limit). 


Red flag: Biden did not cite a single scientific study to support his recommendation.


And in what looks like a full-court press by national media, Democratic politicians and government officials are seemingly determined to make Americans as miserable as possible to force their surrender -- targeting both Thanksgiving and Christmas, as they did the Fourth of July.


Cynical political motives seem obvious, as patriotic celebrations or Trump rallies appear subject to stricter scrutiny than unpatriotic ones.


For example, Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to condemn either Antifa or Black Lives Matter "peaceful protests" as super spreader events in his Congressional testimony last July.


When Cong. Jim Jordan asked, "“Do protests increase the spread of the virus?" Dr. Fauci replied only: “I don’t think that’s relevant...I’m not in a position to determine what the government can do in a forceful way.”


That's not what he said when he lobbied for baseball stadiums to reopen. Incredibly, Dr. Fauci was photographed less than six feet from other people, with his mask off, at a Washington Nationals baseball game he had encouraged to take place despite COVID-19, in a venue where fans had booed President Trump during the 2019 World Series and where players kneeled in support of Black Lives Matter.


Yet, Dr. Fauci told the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association that celebrating Thanksgiving this year may be too dangerous because of COVID-19.   


After this declaration Arlington National Cemetery cancelled this year's "Wreaths Across America" honoring American veterans--an outdoor event involving widely spaced gravesites, therefore unlikely to spread disease, just like baseball. But this time Dr. Fauci didn't object.

In the same interview, Dr. Fauci endorsed Melbourne, Australia's 120-day lockdown, which would end in March, 2021 if implemented here--essentially canceling Christmas.


On the other hand, Dr. Fauci didn't advise canceling Joe Biden's January Inauguration. Nor did he condemn Biden's crowded victory celebrations after Election Day.


Suppression of traditional national holidays in favor of political propaganda festivals has been a hallmark of revolutions, from the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution onwards. 


Nobody is hiding their agenda here. In my opinion, Democrats are using a genuine medical emergency as a pretext for a power grab. This "war on Thanksgiving and Christmas" is designed to advance a revolutionary program, detailed in the 2020 Democratic Party Platform.


Which is in keeping with Democratic politician Rahm Emmanuel's motto: "Never allow a crisis go to waste." His brother Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel is on Biden's Coronavirus advisory board.


In my opinion, this reveals Biden's intent to hold American citizens prisoner to coronavirus, to further claims on the Presidency as "Pretender-in-Chief" ruling a police state.


Another reason I support President Trump's challenges to election fraud.

Friday, November 13, 2020

You Don't Need To Count The Votes To Know That Biden Campaign Committed Voter Fraud

“You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” -- Bob Dylan

As controversy and lawsuits swirl around vote-counting problems in swing states, I'd suggest Bob Dylan's insight applies to the 2020 election.

Simply from looking at the behavior of the Biden Campaign and their supporters, it is apparent that there was a premeditated scheme of voter fraud involved in Democratic Party efforts to retake the White House this year.

Here's the first clue: "Son of a bitch," Joe Biden confessed.

He told interviewer Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama staffer: "...we’re in a situation where we have put together — and you’d [sic] guys, did it for our, the president Obama’s administration, before this — we have put together, I think, the most extensive and and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."

In Washington, a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. This admission was definitely a gaffe. Because it obviously matches the behavior of Democrats in this election. It also matches an accidental admission from NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter, Chiara de Blasio, who slipped and admitted: “Joe Biden was able to steal…" 

Here's another giveaway--a party that really wants to count every vote doesn't cancel caucuses or primaries or choose a candidate without counting all the votes.  Because that's obviously voter suppression.

However, Democrats sabotaged the Iowa caucus when it looked like Bernie Sanders might win.

As the LA Times reported at the time: "The first electoral contest of the 2020 campaign turned into a major debacle Monday night as the Iowa Democratic Party failed to report the results of its influential presidential caucuses." 

Subsequently, they canceled the New York primary, as the New York Times reported: "The State Board of Elections scrapped the state’s June 23 Democratic nominating contest, citing the risk of spreading coronavirus, in a move opposed by supporters of Bernie Sanders."

Since New York was trending towards Bernie, and had to be stopped-- all NY Democratic votes were suppressed by the DNC, making a mockery of any purported concern for voter suppression.

Maybe Sanders didn't really want to be President, because he accepted cancellation in exchange for control over the party platform. However, there was obviously no free or fair New York Democratic primary--because there was no primary

Today, this year's Democratic primaries look like they were a trial run for general election malarkey--because all the votes were never counted.

Yet another "red flag"--Democrats poisoned the well against President Trump in advance.

Most significantly, well before Election Day Joe Biden publicly warned Trump against claiming victory if votes trended in his favor early, declaring: "... the president is not going to steal this election." Biden was joined in this pre-emptive strike against President Trump by a gang of retired military officers calling themselves "Count Every Hero" and other Democratic operatives, including David Becker of the so-called Center for Election Innovation and Research, who went so far as to opine: "There is no such thing as election night in the United States."

They also maliciously accused him, in the words of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of waging "a campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters.” This was done in order to create doubt and uncertainty about delivery of mail-in ballots, in order to allow delivery without postmarks to facilitate fraud, while simultaneously casting a pall of suspicion around anyone who dared to question their authenticity.

Another unbelievable Big Lie spread by Democrats was that that President Trump wanted to "kill hundreds of thousands of Americans" in order to win re-election, whether to stimulate the economy, or by encouraging in-person voting. For the record, elderly Joe Biden voted in-person in the Delaware Primary, with no apparent ill effects. I voted in-person in Florida's primary and general election, saw other senior citizens there, and had no health problems afterwards myself. Voting in-person was clearly no more dangerous than going to the supermarket, but that didn't stop the smear.

In addition to this slander, Democrats spread a false meme charging President Trump would not accept election results, this time in order to sow doubts about his integrity--designed to undermine in advance what would be any normal human being's reaction to their systematic nationwide ballot fraud scheme. 

So, when President Trump was pressured by journalists to concede the 2020 Election before it took place he simply sidestepped the question, saying: "Well, we'll have to see what happens..." 

However, this perfectly common-sense response was deceptively presented by most media outlets as a refusal to step down.

 For example, "journalist" Susan Page asked Vice President Pence this loaded question during his debate:

 “President Trump has several times refused to commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power after the election. If Vice President Biden is declared the winner and President Trump refuses to accept a peaceful transfer of power, what would be your role and responsibility as vice president? What would you personally do? You have two minutes.”

I'm 64 years old and have never seen a President refuse to leave office after a certified election in my entire lifetime.  In fact, it has never happened in all of American history. 

So, why would Page think there might be a problem this time, unless she knew in advance that Democrats were planning something unusual?

Not coincidentally, fellow journalist Thomas Friedman told us he wanted a coup in his New York Times column a while ago (Friedman has praised Communist China's one-party system, so his commitment to American constitutional democracy was not strong in the first place).

Published accounts of disgraced CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin's masturbation fantasy exposed Page was asking about planning for a media-led coupas detailed in The Spectator:

Toobin says he didn’t know his colleagues could see him when he pulled out his penis last week during an ‘election simulation’ held by the New Yorker and WNYC radio. In preparation for November 3, the two media organizations were playing out various scenarios of what’s likely to happen the first Tuesday in November, and after. New Yorker staff writers were cast as principal players. Biden was played by Evan Osnos, Trump by Masha Gessen. Jane Mayer dressed up as ‘establishment Republicans’. Clearly any election role-playing game would have parts for the candidates and their parties. But why fill roles for the US military and ‘the courts’, performed by Toobin himself?

 

Because it was a coup scenario: what happens if Trump fails to respect the outcome of an election that the New Yorker and other standard-bearers of the liberal order have already decided in favor of Biden? Answer: when the courts rule in favor of Democratic party lawyers litigating every district lost by Biden, and Trump locks himself in a White House bunker, the Pentagon will order the same SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden to frogmarch the Orange Man in an orange jumpsuit out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to the steady applause of a grateful nation.

 

The New Yorker exercise was part of a subgenre of fantasy fiction that has grown in popularity with the Acela establishment as the election draws nearer. Washington Examiner columnist Byron York coined the phrase ‘coup porn.’ 

 

In August, the New York Times reported on a war game conducted by The Transition Integrity Project in which former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta played Biden and after a Trump win alleged voter suppression. Rather than concede the election, he threatened that California would secede from the Union.  ‘Team Trump,’ according to the scenario, ‘encouraged provocateurs to incite violence, then used the resulting chaos to justify sending federalized Guard units or active-duty military personnel into American cities to “restore order”, leading to still more violence.’ It turns out that every outcome they gamed led to violence, except for a Biden landslide.

 

A scenario concocted by two retired Army officers assumed a Biden victory and Trump’s refusal to accept the ‘peaceful transfer of power’. That would leave Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Mark Milley to decide between enforcing the Constitution and turning a blind eye to tyranny. ‘Should you remain silent,’ the authors warned Milley, and refuse to order troops to remove Trump, ‘you will be complicit in a coup d’état.’

 

No wonder Toobin got overexcited.

One more giveaway--the name chosen for this coup was: The Transition Integrity Project.  Not "The Election Integrity Project." Because obviously actual election integrity would make "transition" to a losing candidate installed by the media impossible.

For the Democrats' coup to succeed, voting results would need to be muddied and reporting confused, chaos would need to be triggered among the general population, and a crisis generated of such proportions that Joe Biden would be able to "escort trespassers out of the White House" without legitimately winning the election...because nobody could know for certain who actually won. 

Which would be consistent with New York Times tweet (subsequently deleted) claiming the media, rather than election officials and state legislatures, decide elections. Why publicly declared partisans who have opposed President Trump since 2016, called that election for Hillary Clinton in advance, and never recognized the legitimacy of the current administration should be permitted to make such a blatantly unconstitutional claim in the first place is beyond belief.

Essentially they announced their role would be kingmakers propagandizing for one faction, rather than honest news media reporting election results...which delegitimizes and undermines confidence in the election itself. 

Partisans of one candidate may not claim the right to adjudicate an election, because such a claim is obviously unfair. You can't have fair elections with unfair judges.

Such an outcome would mean legitimacy would instead to be conferred by force rather than consent, since public confidence in election results would have been be subverted.

Which explains Nancy Pelosi's statement that President Trump would be "fumigated" out of the White House...a Nazi-like reference if I've ever seen one. Coming on top of her tearing up the State of the Union on live TV, it reveals a deep-seated contempt for the Constitution and the American electoral system.

No wonder Joe Biden called the American electorate "Chumps." That's exactly what he thinks of us.

Adding insult to injury, the Pennsylvania Attorney General announced in advance that President Trump would lose his state, calling into question the fairness of that state's electoral process.

Political Science 101: If you know the results of an election in advance--it isn't a fair election.

In addition to acts of commission listed above, there have been acts of omission.

Particularly this dog that didn't bark in the night: Last time I checked, nobody has cited this year's state-by-state exit polls on behalf of Biden's claims, unlike in the 2000 election battle between George W Bush and Al Gore. At that time, the Gore campaign pointed to exit polls data to argue he had done better than Bush in Ohio.  

Believe me, if any honest state exit poll had supported Biden, we'd know it by now. We don't, because they didn't.  More evidence Democrats knew he had lost.

After the election, the Biden camp continues to act guilty. 

Their actions illustrate a legal cliche: "If the facts are for you, argue the facts; if the law is for you, argue the law; and if both are against you, pound the table." And Democrats have been loudly pounding the table since Election Day.

First, they arranged for major news media and social media to call the election for Biden even though remaining votes had not been counted, the sitting President had not conceded, results had been disputed, and lawsuits had been filed alleging voter fraud and civil rights violations. Any honest journalist would recognize the dispute was the story--not phony claims of victory.

Indeed, calling the race for Biden made them part of the story, rather than objective reporters. They became partisans,  invested in a "narrative" they had constructed,  just like other subsequently discredited media crusades like the "1619 Project," "Covington Catholic Boys," "Jussie Smollet," "Christine Blasey Ford," "Trump Dossier," "Russiagate," and "Impeachment." The list goes on and on...simply put, media assertions lack credibility, due to an indefensible track record, including calling Hillary Clinton winner of the 2016 election and calling Al Gore winner in 2000.

Their 2020 Biden call marks a trifecta of errors and lies by seven major news media outlets deemed "official" by Twitter. Of course, calling unofficial media outlets with partisan agendas, "official" is misleading and harmful misinformation...because the only actual official counts are currently in dispute by the official officials officially responsible for the official results.

In other words, Twitter lied about who the officials are.  Then, to coverup their lies, they censored Trump supporters on social media and in traditional media. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites slowed, throttled, shadow-banned, suspended, banned, deplatformed and otherwise persecuted Trump supporters, following their blackout on evidence of systemic corruption found in Hunter Biden's laptop.

In perhaps the most well-known example, Twitter suspended the New York Post.  USA Today killed Glenn Reynolds' column criticizing Hunter Biden's corruption, even though Reynolds is a law professor. Likewise, Fox News' Judge Jeanne Pirro was suspended for her criticism of already reported Biden crimes. Steve Bannon announced on-air the other day that his daily Warroom: Pandemic broadcast had come under cyberattack. There are many more such reports.

Nothing apparently has been too small to escape such censorship. 

I recently quit Twitter following my suspension after retweeting Roger Kimball's graphs illustrating Benford's Law, a type of mathematical analysis of statistical abnormalities used to discover data reporting problems.  

Even more disturbing are reports that President Trump had been censored 65 times by Facebook and Twitter following the election. Apparently, social media don't recognize his right of reply to the onslaught of attacks from the Biden Campaign and media in the 2020.

To make matters worse, Democrats are currently threatening blacklists of Trump supporters, a McCarthyite tactic noticed by Russian televison.  The Lincoln Project is among those making threats, behavior more suited to Communist Front "Lincoln Brigades" during the Spanish Civil War than an contemporary American Republican organization.

Even more chilling, some of President Trump's law firms have been pressured to drop him, as Daniel Greenfield has noted. Meanwhile, Justice Samuel Alito recently pointed out many in the legal profession have abandoned their commitment to First Amendment protections for free speech.  

Censorship, threats, and intimidation are not actions of people confident of the rightness of their cause. Like Mafia threats, they are they are desperate actions typical of desperate and lawless criminals, like the late Boston Irish Mafia boss "Whitey" Bulger, uncle of Hunter Biden's alleged business associate James Bulger

If Joe Biden really wanted to put the issue of systemic fraud in the 2020 election to rest, he and his supporters would obviously have welcomed ballot audits instead of fighting them.  He would want to have an open, fair and transparent inquiry to show that he was right. 

He would say: "Sue me." And look forward to his day in court. But he hasn't.

Instead, the  Biden Campaign, Democratic Party, and their supporters in the media are acting guilty. 

That alone should be enough to tell anyone with common sense that they are guilty as charged--without counting any votes.

In conclusion, I would recommend that Donald Trump follow Joe Biden's own advice to him and not permit Biden to claim early victory--as well as Hillary Clinton's advice to Joe Biden:

"Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out."




Wednesday, November 11, 2020

“This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.”

“This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.” ― Euripides, The Phoenician Women

Sunday, November 08, 2020

Twitter Said They Just Restored My Account...but did they?


Here's my response:

I don't believe it was an error.

If Twitter was wrong about my post, why should I believe them regarding the 2020 Election results?

Bottom Line: Twitter have no moral or legal authority to censor Tweets, especially given their proven record in my case--they are either reckless, as they apparently claim...or malicious, as I believe...or both.

UPDATE:

12:42 PM Apparently even their apology is a lie: I don't have full functionality. I just tried to tweet, but got this message:










 

Strange Coincidence Today...


 

Charge is false:

Same thing happening to other people:

FYI re Twitter ban (same thing happened to this guy):

Avatar
I hope all of you who have received Charlie's notice realize you will show up on any check as porn distributors. This is false and defamatory on it's face, and you should all be retaining lawyers.




Saturday, November 07, 2020

Why I Believe President Trump Won

 


Like "Russiagate" and impeachment, Joe Biden's putative "victory" is, in my opinion, a hoax based upon criminal fraud, enabled by Fake News. Which is why I believe Donald J. Trump won the 2020 Election fair and square.

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.comhttps://thelatest.com/tlt/why-i-believe-president-trump-won-joe-biden-donald-trump-2020-el-1604766062

Sunday, October 25, 2020

The Plot Against the President

 

Amanda Milius's important new feature documentary now streaming on Amazon Prime Video is about a story you won't see on Frontline or 60 Minutes...

Friday, October 23, 2020

Trump Beats Biden on Points in Round Two

While he didn't land a dramatic knockout blow, President Trump successfully undermined Vice President Biden's credibility and character in the second debate...

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/trump-beats-biden-points-round-two-donald-j-trump-joe-biden-2020--1603463666

Thursday, October 22, 2020

A Timeline of U.S. Political Transformation by Peter Miller

Because key facts often emerge out-of-synch with real-time events, the ongoing flow of information can be confusing and misleading. Dissemination of deceptive information, or disinformation, occurs most frequently to hide embarrassing, impolitic, or illegal activities, or to justify actions for which no justification really exists. Officials count on the public’s short attention span to shrug off each deceptive statement, allowing themselves to get away with it, until they end up believing their own propaganda. The passage of years gives us the ability to correct the record.


Unlike standard chronologies, this timeline establishes the proper sequence of events by inserting later-revealed facts into the time-slot when they actually occurred, regardless of any real-time misrepresentations. Its chief merit is to show the actual sequence of actions taken by specific individuals on specific dates. Sources include news articles, court filings and judgments, discovery documents, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, intercepted emails, official reports, videos, social-media posts, and others, many of which were concealed when they occurred. For the purpose of this timeline, the relevant dates are not when the information first saw the light of day, but when the referenced events actually occurred. Inferences are kept to a minimum, but are drawn when the cumulative weight of facts makes them obvious. 

One useful discipline a timeline imposes is to include only what is tied to a specific date and actor (though sometimes only the month is recalled). Temporal proximity gives a sense of the chaos of multiple events swirling around at a given time, without necessarily implying a causal relation. To be clear about who did or said what, we note that buildings such ‘the White House’ or ‘the Kremlin’ don’t do things; people do. 

Placing events in their actual sequence suggests patterns of purpose that were left unstated by the principals, and causal relations between seemingly unrelated events. Thus the activities of Uranium One, secret Mideast diplomacy, the explosion of vague ‘about’ queries to the NSA database concerning political opponents, and an elaborate investigation into U.S. election interference all appear related when arrayed in their actual sequence of occurrence. 

Re-experiencing these momentous events in their real sequence recalls the dizzying speed with which they galloped into view, to be quickly displaced by other momentous events. With this timeline we understand the origins of many revelations that appear shocking only because they seem to come out of nowhere. But they did in fact originate somewhere, in relationships, choices, and actions undertaken years earlier. Some were innocent or at least well-intentioned at the outset; with this timeline we can witness the progression into rule-bending, gray areas, sleaze, coverup, and full-time corruption. 

Granted the powers of omniscient observers, we can see their predicament and appreciate how difficult it is to do the right thing while a storm is swirling about. Elaborate plans are of no avail in the thick of the moment. At such moments, this is what education, instinct, and procedure are for. Crises seem to bring out inept historical analogies, but it is the ability to fine-tune past experience to the instant situation that matters. Some common-sense of right and wrong, whether derived from religion, philosophy, secular morality, or some other source, is also critical. And, contrary to results-oriented preference, established procedures are also critical. Here we see the importance of ritual — procedure followed for unknown or forgotten reasons — as a restraint on official behavior. The many derelictions of duty documented here might serve as a reminder of the virtue of scrupulous adherance to Constitutional and legal procedure.

Perhaps this timeline will also help dispel the collective amnesia, and the tendency to tune-out, that engulfs everyone who tries to make sense of what goes on from day to day. The result will be, I hope, if not perfect transparency, at least some improved clarity.

Read the whole thing here: https://kamprint.com/realities/?p=66.

Friday, October 16, 2020

President Trump's Post-Coronavirus Resurrection

For me the NBC Town Hall wasn't about the issues, Trump v. Biden, or even Trump v. Guthrie. It was about Trump v. Coronavirus....

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/president-trump-post-coronavirus-resurrection-donald-trump-coronavirus-savan-1602857079


Thursday, October 08, 2020

Pence v. Harris: Less Heat, More Light

The debate between Vice President Pence and Senator Kamala Harris may have appeared sedate on TV, but it shed plenty of light on differences between Republican and Democratic candidates in 2020... 

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/pence-harris-less-heat-more-light-kamala-harris-mike-pence-vice--1602166787

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Michael Anton: Paul Revere of the Trump Administration


As in the 1860s, America cannot continue half-slave and half-free. Either we must become fully enslaved under Chinese-style Communism, or preserved as a free society under the U.S. Constitution ...

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/michael-anton-paul-revere-trump-administration-president-trump-color-revoluti-1601233034

Monday, September 21, 2020

Scientific American's Scientifically Indefensible Biden Endorsement



An editorial that begins and ends with lies is, by definition, not credible and unworthy of a purportedly "scientific" journal ...

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/scientific-american-scientifically-indefensible-biden-endorsement-scientific-american-joe-biden--1600719011

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Diana Rigg Died With Her Go-Go Boots On

 

Diana Rigg as PBS Mystery! Host 
Rigg was holding court at a round table filled with TV journalists at a reception for her PBS series. For some reason, I had been seated right next to her, on her left-hand side. On her right sat a venerable Newark Star-Ledger TV critic, doing an interview. He appeared smitten, and regaled her with the most filthy jokes I had ever heard, in order to impress her. She appreciated them all, and responded with some dirty jokes of her own. Then came my turn to ask questions...

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.Com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/diana-rigg-died-with-her-go-go-boots-on-diana-rigg-bbc-mystery-1599765233

Thursday, September 03, 2020

The LATEST Podcast: Republican Convention 2020

Aug 29, 2020

It’s another episode of agreeing to disagree. 

We welcome back Conservative writer Larry Jarvik from TheLatest.com and progressive political communications professor Keri Thompson of Emerson College to discuss the latest in politics this week: The 2020 Republican National Convention. Your host: Jeff Hall.

Recorded on Thursday, August 27th, 2020

Check out our website: TheLatest.com

Send us feedback: podcast@thelatest.com

Listen here: https://thelatestpodcast.com/32-rnc-recap-are-you-better-off-now-than-you-were-4-years-ago-hidden-meanings-behind-trumps-set-design

Sunday, August 30, 2020

The Republican Convention was President Donald Trump's "Really Big Show"

In the immortal words of Golden Age TV host Ed Sullivan, this year's Republican Convention was "a really big show" that made television great again...

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/the-republican-convention-president-donald-trump-really-big-show-donald-trump-republican-conven-1598710610

Monday, August 24, 2020

My LATEST podcast...

 https://thelatestpodcast.com/31-liberal-and-conservative-commentators-square-off-over-the-dnc-kamala-harris-and-race-relations


COMMENTS REGARDING SECTION 230 REFORM by Laurence Jarvik, Blogger

(Posted August 25, 2020 at https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/108241011213257)

I am a current user of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Gab, Parler, YouTube, Vimeo, Bitchute, Google, Amazon, Netflix and others. In addition, I have been a blogger for some two decades, first with The-Idler.com and later with LaurenceJarvikOnline.  

 

I hosted one of the first panels on the Blogsphere, held at the National Press Club in 2002 (see: http://web.archive.org/web/20021012124918/http://www.the-idler.com/IDLER-02/7-15.html  and  

(http://combustible_boy.blogspot.com/2002_06_23_combustible_boy_archive.html#78331956).

 

I also hold a Ph.D. in Film and Television from UCLA, was Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, Director of the Washington Office of David Horowitz’s Center for Popular Culture, and taught at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School, the University of Maryland University College, Moscow’s Russian State Humanitarian University as a visiting professor, and the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan as a Fulbright Scholar.

 

My books include PBS: Behind the ScreenMasterpiece Theatre and the Politics of QualityPublic Broadcasting and the Public Trust, and The National Endowments: A Critical Symposium. I have testified a number of times before Congressional committees as an expert witness on cultural and media issues, and appeared on radio and television.

 

I have two feature-length documentary films, Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? and The Trump Effect: Deprogramming the American Mind, which have been distributed in a variety of formats.

 

I currently write an online column for TheLatest.com and also have two small publishing imprints, Washington Books and Penny-a-Page Press.

 

Therefore, I have had both personal and professional experience as a content provider and a small publisher for some two decades.

 

It is my conclusion from this personal experience, as well as from observation of actions by companies with dominant market share, that Section 230 requires serious reform -- due to bad faith, misleading and fraudulent practices by social media companies which rival the “Quiz Show” and “Payola” broadcasting scandals during the 1950s.

 

Whether as a producer or consumer, one nowadays can have little faith that purported search results are honest, rankings are genuine,  that people have  not been shadowbanned, locked, blocked, or banned arbitrarily, unreasonably, based on false or defamatory charges, or that others have been boosted by suspicious means.

 

Initially promised as an open forum to provide a marketplace of competing ideas, much of the internet, especially social media, has become instead corrupted by large corporations pursuing commercial, political and private agendas which conflict with the free exchange of ideas and are inimical to the public interest, good government, and honest competition.

 

Indeed, political speech, the one form of speech which America’s Founding Fathers judged deserved the highest level of protection, has been specially targeted by social media companies, which have banned Florida Congressional candidate Laura Loomer, among others—while permitting their opponents to communicate.

 

I’m sure other comments in this docket will provide numerous examples of serious problems, so I’d like to emphasize that by definition one cannot provide a neutral forum while picking and choosing, or boosting and shadowbanning, messages which are preferred over those which are disfavored.

 

It is a logical contradiction, therefore absurd—and Orwellian.

 

Sadly, one can’t be sure that content being favored is not being promoted on the basis of favors exchanged between business partners in “off-the books” agreements as happened in the Quiz Show and Payola scandals. 

 

News feeds that favor established big media companies with proven track records of error, fraud and outright lying—including substantial settlements in defamation cases—cannot reasonably be held to be reliable or honest sources. 

 

In addition, there is no way to know how cases are actually being adjudicated. 

 

Vague references to “terms of service” often lack specifics as to what exactly the infraction might be—or to any form of due process to rectify the decision. I can’t tell you what qualifications, expertise or experience persons or entities being used to judge such controversies by social media companies might have…and I bet the FCC can’t do so either.

 

Whenever I have seen media coverage of such issues in a political context, reported “fact-checkers” or other similar judges used by social media companies have appeared to be partisans, selected by unclear and mysterious procedures.

 

One just cannot serve simultaneously as a neutral platform and a publisher, as Senator Cruz and others have said. 

 

The only reasonable solution to the current conflict over Section 230 is to entirely separate the platform function from the publishing function, in order to cut the Gordian knot.

 

Just as the telephone company may not refuse to complete a telephone call because they don’t like what someone is saying, social media companies should not be permitted to regulate content on their electronic platforms.  

 

Of course, obscene, threatening, or fraudulent telephone calls are against the law—criminal and civil charges may be brought against those who make such calls. But the phone company cannot deny service on the basis of eavesdropping or complaints from third parties.

 

The same principle needs to be applied to social media. The FCC or other enforcement bodies need to establish reasonable due process for adjudication of any claims of illegal communication on social media, either at the FCC or in the courts—in order to preserve the rights of the accused and the integrity of neutral platform. Some sort of FCC bureau may need to be established to perform this function.

 

However, social media companies must be stripped of their rights to alter, edit, boost, ban, shadowban, trend, or affect the ranking of content in any way that is not completely neutral, objective, fair, open, honest, unbiased, and apolitical..

 

If individuals find a tweet or post offensive, they are free to unsubscribe, block, or delete it—but they don’t have the right to censor it.

 

Social media companies are at present serving two masters by simultaneously acting as platforms and publishers. 

 

To solve this problem, the FCC must force social media companies to choose one or the other:  Either to become publishers legally responsible for content they provide, or to become truly neutral platforms which do not interfere with freedom of speech.

 

As Luke 16:3 says: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other…”

 

In my opinion, for FCC action in this regard is long overdue, especially during an election year in which social media companies play a significant role. 

 

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Interview with James Kurth about THE AMERICAN WAY OF EMPIRE


James Kurth talks about the influence of Samuel Huntington's CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, briefing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on China, why General Douglas MacArthur provided a model for dealing with Asia, how George Soros sponsored a chapter, and his upcoming book on the Coronavirus crisis, inspired by St. Agustine's CITY OF GOD.


Monday, August 17, 2020

The Audacity of Chutzpah

 

Democrats apparently want to undermine democracy itself in order to defeat President Trump in November. That's "Chutzpah."

Read the whole thing at TheLatest.com: https://thelatest.com/tlt/the-audacity-chutzpah-2020-election-trump-us-postal--1597681240.

Thursday, August 06, 2020

Peter Miller's Letter to Chris Boggs About Insurance Companies Paying for Antifa/BLM Riot Damages

Dear Mr Boggs,

Thank you for a very interesting and informative article on the applicability of
the Insurrection Act of 1807 to the current riots in American cities. The link
was sent to me by Laurence Jarvik in response to his article on BLM and Antifa
possibly owing reparations for damage they have caused:

https://thelatest.com/tlt/antifa-black-lives-matter-democratic-party-could-owe-americans-reparations-reparations-black-lives-matter-1596485365

It is quite helpful to have the original Insurrection Act, its applications, and
the exegesis of Latin terms defining applicability, or not, of the insurrection
exclusion to insurance claims.

I gather from your article that insurance companies will pay damage claims due
to rioting regardless of whether the Insurrection Act is invoked. This
conclusion appears to be based on a reading of the minds of the rioters that
they do not intend to overthrow the (Federal?) Government, i.e. that the riots
are random acts not attributable to any organized plan of revolt. This raises
three questions:

(1) What was the purpose of the bricks, shields, fireworks explosives, lasers,
and incendiary devices delivered to rioters? Were these deliveries made by some
organization that supplied funds, transportation, and staff, and if so, would
that level of organization fit the legal definition of insurrection?

(2) A novel feature of the current riots is that Mayors and Governors appear to
be encouraging them or are 'in cahoots with' the rioters. (That's not Latin, but
I trust the meaning is clear.) Local officials' explicit orders to police to
refrain from taking action to quell violent law-breaking, their sudden removal
of funds from police departments, disbanding of plain-clothes police units in at
least one city (New York), and their public endorsement of rioters' political
goals indicate a substantial degree of collaboration with those engaged in
violence, arson, and other illegal activities causing widespread property damage
(as well as loss of life, and injury). Indeed, unprecedented though it may be
since the Civil War, if any insurrection may be said to exist, it is one in
which insurrectionists have ALREADY CAPTURED local and State Governments. The
question then becomes: Would the insurrection exclusion apply to an effort by
local and State Governments, using BLM and Antifa as their militia, to overthrow
the Federal Government?

(3) If later evidence were to disclose a substantial degree of insurrectionist
organization, planning, intent, and purpose behind the riots in 20 or more
American cities, how would such evidence affect the insurrection exclusion? I
can only speculate on the nature of the evidence that might be found, but there
could be a trail of documents, emails, and phone conversations related to the
purchase and deployment of vehicles, explosives, lasers, incendiary devices, and
other materials and equipment not normally readily at hand. Websites and social
media sites have enabled calls for 'volunteers' who are paid to assemble at
pre-arranged times and places to await instructions from organizers. Of course
the language of such calls fits the 'peaceful demonstration' narrative whereby
said 'peaceful demonstrations' 'intensify', as one news source put it, into
violent rioting. Would such evidence 'trigger' the insurrection exclusion?

I am neither an insurance expert, nor do I have any bias (that I am aware of) in
favor of or against insurance companies. I am certainly sympathetic, as anyone
must be, to the business owners and individuals all across the United States who
have suffered collectively billions of dollars of damage to their property
caused by rioters and their collaborators in local and State Government. For the
sake of the communities that rely on the services those businesses provide, I
hope they can be made whole as soon as possible.

If insurance companies do not seek relief from claims-payments obligations via
the insurrection exclusion, then the cost of the damage from the current riots
will likely be paid by policy-holders in general, through increased premiums.
That might be considered an instance of the fundamental insurance principle of
risk-spreading. That, however, raises the further question of 'moral hazard'
similar to what occurred with Federal bailouts of mega-banks during the last
U.S. financial crisis. Could insurance payouts reduce societal incentives to
place financial responsibility where it belongs, namely on the rioters
themselves, and their sponsors? The risk, from both an insurance-company and
societal perspective, is that further riots (whether or not they are deemed
insurrections) with even greater loss of life, injury, and property damage will
be 'baked-in' to any arrangement that does not exact financial responsibility
from those who are in fact responsible.

Again, thanks for your article, which as you can see from the above, is
thought-provoking.

Sincerely,

Peter Miller