90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Democrats and Media Do Not Want to Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer its Power to Censor

"Whistleblower" Frances Haugen is a vital media and political asset because she advances their quest for greater control over online political discourse.

Much is revealed by who is bestowed hero status by the corporate media. This week's anointed avatar of stunning courage is Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager being widely hailed as a "whistleblower” for providing internal corporate documents to the Wall Street Journal relating to the various harms which Facebook and its other platforms (Instagram and WhatsApp) are allegedly causing.

The social media giant hurts America and the world, this narrative maintains, by permitting misinformation to spread (presumably more so than cable outlets and mainstream newspapers do virtually every week); fostering body image neurosis in young girls through Instagram (presumably more so than fashion magazines, Hollywood and the music industry do with their glorification of young and perfectly-sculpted bodies); promoting polarizing political content in order to keep the citizenry enraged, balkanized and resentful and therefore more eager to stay engaged (presumably in contrast to corporate media outlets, which would never do such a thing); and, worst of all, by failing to sufficiently censor political content that contradicts liberal orthodoxies and diverges from decreed liberal Truth. On Tuesday, Haugen's star turn took her to Washington, where she spent the day testifying before the Senate about Facebook's dangerous refusal to censor even more content and ban even more users than they already do.

There is no doubt, at least to me, that Facebook and Google are both grave menaces. Through consolidation, mergers and purchases of any potential competitors, their power far exceeds what is compatible with a healthy democracy. A bipartisan consensus has emerged on the House Antitrust Committee that these two corporate giants — along with Amazon and Apple — are all classic monopolies in violation of long-standing but rarely enforced antitrust laws. Their control over multiple huge platforms that they purchased enables them to punish and even destroy competitors, as we saw when Apple, Google and Amazon united to remove Parler from the internet forty-eight hours after leading Democrats demanded that action, right as Parler became the most-downloaded app in the country, or as Google suppresses Rumble videos in its dominant search feature as punishment for competing with Google's YouTube platform. Facebook and Twitter both suppressed reporting on the authentic documents about Joe Biden's business activities reported by The New York Post just weeks before the 2020 election. These social media giants also united to effectively remove the sitting elected President of the United States from the internet, prompting grave warnings from leaders across the democratic world about how anti-democratic their consolidated censorship power has become.

But none of the swooning over this new Facebook heroine nor any of the other media assaults on Facebook have anything remotely to do with a concern over those genuine dangers. Congress has taken no steps to curb the influence of these Silicon Valley giants because Facebook and Google drown the establishment wings of both parties with enormous amounts of cash and pay well-connected lobbyists who are friends and former colleagues of key lawmakers to use their D.C. influence to block reform. With the exception of a few stalwarts, neither party's ruling wing really has any objection to this monopolistic power as long as it is exercised to advance their own...

When They Outlaw Common Sense,

We Are The New Outlaws.

Japan Making ‘Preparations’ for Possible Chinese Attack of Taiwan

Japan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would consider its “options” and make necessary “preparations” toward supporting Taiwan if China continues to ramp up its military intimidation of the island.

Asked by reporters how Tokyo views Beijing’s record-breaking flyovers through Taiwanese airspace in recent days, Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu said he hoped “this matter is resolved peacefully between the two parties through direct talks.”

“Additionally, instead of simply monitoring the situation, we hope to weigh the various possible scenarios that may arise to consider what options we have, as well as the preparations we must make,” he said at an October 5 press briefing.

Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, wearing a face mask to curb the spread of COVID-19, sits at a table during bilateral talks with United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on the sidelines of a G7 foreign ministers meeting, at Grosvenor House Hotel, London, Monday, May 3, 2021. (Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)

“Motegi’s comments on Taiwan mark a departure from the past by explicitly speaking of possible involvement, and were also aimed at drawing international attention to the issue and pressing China,” Reuters observed on Tuesday, citing the analysis of political experts.

“That part was always unspoken … but this time, they’re taking a stronger stand,” Yoichiro Sato, an international relations professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, told Reuters on October 5.

Japan’s use of assertive language while addressing the Taiwan-China conflict on October 5 signaled a significant shift in rhetoric according to Robert Ward, a London-based senior fellow for Japanese Security Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“It is drawing a line of sorts and thus creating expectations,” he told Reuters.

“The new government will continue with the harder line, as Motegi is showing. This fits with Japan’s broader push to balance China from a position of...

Across America, Parents Refuse To Be Intimidated By Biden’s Attorney General Labeling Them Domestic Terrorists

Instead of recognizing a mom as the hero that she is for protecting children from porn and pedophilia in school libraries, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a declaration of war on America’s parents.

Local mother Stacy Langton stood before the Fairfax County School Board in a suburb of the nation’s capital two weeks ago, boldly exposing explicit examples of child porn and pedophilia in library books in area schools, available to children as young as 12 years old.

Langton’s witness ended in mayhem because the school board failed to do something very simple: listen to the stakeholders — and taxpayers — who are parents. Board members rudely interrupted Langton during her two minutes of allotted speaking time and called a hasty recess, a board member later incorrectly claiming that he faced two “exorcisms” by parents praying during the meeting.

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” shouted parents, horrified at the cowardice of the board members.

Now, however, instead of recognizing Langton for the hero that she is for protecting children, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a declaration of war on America’s parents.

“I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to … [address] threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,” he wrote in a memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and the U.S. attorneys generals on Monday night.

Langton, of course, didn’t threaten anyone. But in this war, facts don’t matter.

In just five days, Garland issued that response to a September 29 letter by the National School Boards Association alleging, incredulously: “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

Neither the school board association nor Garland mentioned the word “parents,” as if to acknowledge us, even in an attack, is to validate us. But we know. It’s now the United States vs. America’s parents.

Parents Taking a Stand

The attacks are clearly directed at the thousands of parents who have valiantly overcome their own fears of retaliation, public speaking, and confrontation to advocate in defense of their children, from Beaverton, Oregon, to South Kingstown, Rhode Island, only to be made a caricature by media outlets from...

NYPD arrested 29-year-old Queens woman seen pushing 42-year-old woman into moving train

New York City police said Tuesday that an arrest was made in connection to an unprovoked attack caught on camera at a Times Square subway station a day earlier, where a female assailant was seen getting up from a bench and shoving another woman into a moving train during the morning commute.

Anthonia Egegbara, 29, from Queens, New York, was charged with attempted murder.

Disturbing video released by the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Monday shows a female suspect, believed to be in her 30s, wearing a multicolored scarf, black shirt and beige pants, getting up from a bench inside the 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue station and suddenly shoving a 42-year-old woman, who is standing off camera.

Anthonia Egegbara

The footage shows it happened as a northbound No. 1 train was speeding into the station. The assailant then appears to calmly walk away, as several other bystanders on the platform appear relatively unaffected. Police say the 42-year-old woman did not fall onto the tracks, but rather the force of the push knocked her into the moving train before she ricocheted backward onto the platform.

She was transported to a nearby hospital with injuries to her face and legs which police said were serious but not life-threatening.

Detectives canvassed the area and interviewed witnesses, but no suspect had been found as of Monday. NYPD Crime Stoppers is asking anyone with information to call 1-800-577-TIPS.
The same NYPD officers who responded to the shoving incident were back to work hours later, canvassing both the street and below ground after reports of gunfire at the same transit hub, WNBC reported. A man in his 30s appeared to have been shot in a leg on a...