A few points to highlight about the above-linked video report we just published on the attempts by Sen. Warren & Adam Schiff to demand Amazon suppress certain books.
First, this is part of a year-long campaign by Dems to use their majority power in DC to mandate censorship.
There are so many reasons why this attempt by the Democratic Party to commandeer Big Tech censorship power for themselves is so dangerous.
Perhaps the gravest is that this is all about imposing a framework where dissent from or questioning of decrees from authorities is banned.
In the video, I revisit the destruction of Parler - it became *the most-downloaded app*, when leading Dems demanded Apple, Google and Amazon destroy it, and they obeyed.
A key Dem with amazing candor said why: Big Tech now knows Dems rule DC & thus must comply with their orders.
That Democrats should use their political domination of the US Government to censor the internet is now a widespread view of most Democrats, as is the view that tech monopolies should do so. Polling data makes clear: internet censorship is extremely popular among Democrats.
The most bizarre part is that liberals, to justify censorship, haul out the classic libertarian view that private companies can do whatever they want.
But that's false: the law is clear: the First Amendment is violated when the state pressures private actors to censor for them.
Many liberals dismiss *state censorship* as just Culture War trivialities -- as if a free internet is like bickering over pronouns.
It's especially bizarre that people who spent 5 years shrieking about fascism are so cavalier about this union of state & corporate power.
The full video report is here. The internet was heralded in the 1990s as an unprecedented tool of liberation from centralized control. The Snowden reporting was about defending internet freedom. It's now becoming the greatest tool of coercion and control:
A residual guardian of GOP establishment foreign policy - @RichLowry - urges rejection of Tulsi by denouncing her support for Snowden.
To do so, Lowrey falsely claims Snowden "handed [NSA docs] over to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks."
Snowden never gave a single doc to WikiLeaks.
This isn't a small error, nor is it an excusable one. Anyone who knows even the most basic facts of the Snowden story -- which should be a requirement for opining so didactically about it -- knows he only gave docs to the Guardian (through me) and WPost (through Laura Poitras).
Lowry also repeats the standard establishment smear against Snowden -- totally false -- that he "defected to Russia."
Even if he had, it'd be understandable - Obama DOJ tried to imprison him for life -- but Ben Rhodes admitted Snowden tried to leave Russia and they trapped him.
Pigs are as intelligent and socially complex -- if not more so -- than dogs. Morally despicable factory farms keep pigs in cases so small they can never turn around, step on their babies, and go insane. The whole industry is a menace to public health, and destroys family farms.
You don't have to be vegan to be disgusted by industrialized abuse of animals. Animals are among the most majestic and beautiful things on earth. They feel pain, suffering and joy from connection.
Most people can't bear to look at what happens inside these monstrous facilities.
Under the past several presidents - including Biden and Trump - the agencies required to regulate factory farms, including to stop abuse, have been run by industry cretins who ignore the law and then get rewarded after.
Beyond that, the letter itself that they fed to their puppet Bertrand (now promoted to CNN as a reward for her service) explicitly referenced claims in the last part of the letter that the materials on the laptop were "Russian disinformation": exactly what Brennan denies.
Indeed, this pre-election lie from CIA goons had only purpose: to protect Biden by deceiving key institutions to believe the materials were unreliable because they were "Russian disinformation."
That's how people like Jen Psaki promoted it, and it's why Big Tech censored it.
The only thing more stunning than watching the US Government forcibly close a speech, information and community social media platform that 170 million of its citizens voluntarily chose to use is seeing that it's Trump, almost alone in DC, fighting to keep it open:
If you think that TikTok was banned was due to fears of China, then you haven't been paying attention. That was the original impetus for it (including under Trump), but everyone involved says the reason it got enough votes was fear of Israel criticism:
A Globo e autoridades brasileiras alegaram que a descrição de Zuckerberg das ordens "secretas" de censura do Brasil eram "sem provas".
Isso é desinformação. Há provas esmagadoras para isso. Em abril, a @Folha publicou um Editorial condenando a censura de Moraes e seu sigilo:
Enquanto a Globo defendeu repetidamente Moraes e suas ordens secretas de censura — da mesma forma que defendeu tudo o que Sergio Moro fez — a Folha, em 2024, condenou repetidamente o esquema de Moraes como perigoso, antidemocrático e inconstitucional: