The Roundup: A Catchup

I’ve been BUSY for the past three weeks, and so I’m going to do a dump of news items from the past few weeks that I’ve bookmarked. Here we go.

• Trump declares his candidacy for 2024 (I’ve already written some thoughts here)
• The ongoing developments in the case against government-sponsored censorship and Big Tech election interference
• The January 6 Insurrection Committee Flop
• A bad, bad week for CBSNews
• Republicans take House; Senate still up-for-grabs
• Did voters reward COVID bravery?

The ACLU jumps on board decrying government censorship (finally)x

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) went back to its roots Monday, condemning the government for working with Big Tech to censor certain topics and calling it a betrayal of constitutional rights.^[1]ACLU slams government working with Big Tech to decide ‘what is true or false’, by Alexander Hall, FoxNews, November 2, 2022

Along with the tweet, the ACLU linked to an explosive report by The Intercept, which broke the news on how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was working with tech companies to restrict speech on a variety of major political topics through policing “disinformation.”^[2]Ibid.

In addition, “election interference by Big Tech companies has not only been proven, but their vast, coordinated efforts with partisan operatives are continuing to be revealed.

Google is under intense scrutiny this election cycle after a study from North Carolina State University found that Gmail sent roughly 59 percent more Republican campaign emails to users’ spam folders than Democrats during the 2020 election. The Republican National Committee alleges that this imbalance is ongoing, and intentional on Google’s part.^[3]Media Research Center Report: Google Manipulated Searches in Senate Races, by Allum Bokhari, Breitbart News, October 31, 2022

From manipulating search results to outright censorship of large swaths of the American public, including the banning of conservative news organizations and personalities from social media accounts, it appears that the Biden administration helped lead the way in restricting the voice of those it disagreed with – from politics, to matters of morality and race and to include even views on COVID.

Executives from Facebook and Twitter, including the recently-fired head of trust & safety Vijaya Gadde, held regular meetings with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discuss censorship on a wide range of topics, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, coronavirus, and “racial justice,” according to leaked documents.

The information came to light via leaks to the Intercept, as well as documents and minutes revealed through Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s lawsuit filed against the Biden Administration that alleges government collusion with Big Tech to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights.^[4]Report: Twitter and Facebook Had Regular Meetings with DHS on Censoring Americans, by Allum Bokhari, Breitbart News, October 31, 2022

The Insurrection Committee Flop

Julie Kelley has an excellent piece here about how the January 6 Committee has flopped. A small anecdotal look is the recently announced defeat of Virginia U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., from the 2nd Congressional District seat by State Sen. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach.

According to unofficial results from the Nov. 8 midterm elections, Kiggans defeated Luria with 51.6% of the vote to Luria’s 48.2%, with 246 out of 247 precincts reporting as of Tuesday, Nov. 15.^[5]Kiggans defeats Luria for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District seat, by Stephen Faleski, The Tidewater News, November 22, 2022

According to Kelley:

If there is a poster child for the Democrats’ humiliating failure to make the events surrounding January 6, 2021 a winning issue in the midterm elections, it is U.S. Representative Elaine Luria (D-Va.).

The two-term congresswoman is fighting for her political life in a race now categorized as a toss-up; a recent poll showed Luria tied with Republican State Senator Jen Kiggans just a few weeks before an expected red wave election, despite Luria outspendingKiggans by a more than 2-1 margin. (Before the state’s remap process, Luria represented a district that voted for Joe Biden by 5 percentage points and Hillary Clinton by 6 percentage points. Her new district now has a 3-point Democratic advantage.)

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. No doubt anticipating a tough reelection for Luria, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appointed her to the January 6 select committee—an exercise sold to the American people as a way to investigate what happened that day and prevent future “insurrections.” Primetime televised coverage promised to make Luria a national star, a defender of “democracy,” and a voice of reason in a country purportedly under siege by domestic terrorists—i.e., Trump voters.

“We must leave behind any veil of partisanship at the door because the American people deserve answers on what happened on that day and how we can ensure this does not happen again,” Luria said in July 2021, before the committee’s first public hearing.

But that, of course, didn’t happen. The committee instead descended into the latest iteration of the “Get Trump” crusade; rather than press law enforcement and congressional leadership to explain why they failed to secure the Capitol or identify the alleged “pipe bomber,” or release thousands of hours of surveillance video, the committee, including Luria, fixated on the former president and his inner circle.^[6]The Democrats’ Insurrection Flop: Turns out, the “Big Lie” is that January 6 ever mattered to anyone outside the Beltway, by Julie Kelley, American Greatness, November 3, 2022

A bad, bad week for CBSNews

First, someone at CBS had a knee-jerk response to Elon Musk’s new leadership at Twitter, and they announced that they would be pulling their account down and no longer using Twitter. That last for 48 hours, and they were mocked endlessly:

The statement announcing CBS’ return to Twitter was widely mocked on the platform with Musk defenders tweeting out laughing emojis and memes branding it the “shortest virtue signal ever.”^[7]Elon Musk pokes fun at CBS’ short-lived Twitter hiatus after network resumes tweeting less than 48 hours later, by Yael Halon, FoxNews, November 20, 2022

It’s certainly worth reading some of the responses. ?

On top of the Twitter debacle, CBSNews – two years later – finally admitted that the Hunter Biden laptop is real… Remember, people were banned from social media, and labelled as conspiracy theorists and misinformation for even mentioning “Hunter Biden’s laptop” in October 2020.

On Monday, the news network confirmed via its own forensic investigation that the laptop the New York Post first reported on in 2020 was in fact real.

Major networks at the time refused to acknowledge the story, as Twitter and Facebook moved to stifle the Post’s story ahead of the 2020 presidential election.^[8]CBS tarred and feathered for admitting existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop two years after New York Post report, by Gabriel Hays, FoxNews, November 22, 2022

The Mid-terms: No Red Wave?

A lot of the conservative political talk over the past two weeks since the election has been down-in-the-mouth. The supposed “Red Wave” didn’t happen. However, is that the truth?

One unabashed MAGA proponent pushes back in this piece.

As we begin to get some perspective after the risible “red trickle” falsehoods peddled over Tuesday night, people have begun to realize this midterm election went about as well as any of us had believed.

Not only did President Trump win 219 of his 235 endorsed races (that’s a 93 percent success rate at last count), but the Democrats just guaranteed themselves Joe Biden as their nominee for 2024.

In their zeal to create a “no red wave” narrative, they gave Beijing Joe credit for the disjointed, apoplectic, panicked messaging of abortion and the death of democracy. They have backed themselves into a Biden 2024 corner that is going to be long, arduous, and ultimately, defeated.^[9]The Uniparty NEEDS You To Believe There Was No Trump-Led Red Wave. It’s a Lie. And Here’s Why (And How) They’re Doing It…, by Dr. Gina Loudon, The National Pulse, November 10, 2022

Did voters reward COVID bravery?

Steve Cortes has a fascinating piece, complete with stats and graphs, that demonstrates his conviction that victories in this past election were hashed out by those who responded to the pandemic with bravery and unity instead of fearmongering and division.

Tuesday’s election results provided strong evidence that voters rewarded the true leaders who stood courageously against the Covidian mob in 2020 and 2021. In contrast, the lockdown tyrants who happily did the bidding of Big Pharma, Fauci, and the fearmongering media…saw supporters flee.^[10]Voters Rewarded Covid Bravery, by Steve Cortes, Patria, November 13, 2022