Germany Vs. Gab

Social network Gab could be blocked in Germany for supporting free speech (reclaimthenet.org)

I’ve always liked Gab. I love their Dissenter app, which allows you to comment on web pages that don’t allow comments. I liked them when everyone else was oohing and ahhing over Parler.

And I like it because it supports free speech.

Which turns out to be why Germany hates it.

Gab, one of the few censorship-free alternatives to Big Tech platforms, could be banned in Germany because of the government’s insistence that it should censor its users, and therefore undermine the point of the product.

Germany was one of the first governments to pressure tech platforms to censor content and, as a country, famously has a poor history of free speech.

A statement from Gab founder Andrew Torba:

“Recently the German government has been coming at Gab hard to try and force us to comply with their draconian online censorship laws,” Torba wrote in the post.

“We have obviously refused to do so and now they are coming after us with fines of tens of thousands of dollars and other legal action. Our lawyers informed us that we have three options:

“1) Obey German censorship laws and start censoring content that the German Govt doesn’t like (not going to happen)
“2) Disobey German censorship laws and pick a fight with the nation-state of Germany (I wouldn’t ever be able to leave the US again, they would come at us from every possible angle through state-sponsored deplatforming, and Lord knows what else.)
“3) Cease providing this service in Germany by blocking German IPs.
“So obviously a very difficult decision, but one that must be made very soon. I wanted to share with you all to be fully transparent with what is going on.”

*sigh*

For those of you unclear, this is what fascism looks like.

“This Isn't a Fact-Check. It's Some Democrats With Press Passes Doing Damage Control for the President.”

USA Today "Fact-Checks" Biden Looking at His Watch - by Jim Treacher - Who the Hell Is Jim Treacher? (substack.com)

It's true. Joe Biden checked his watch during the dignified transfer of the servicemembers killing in Afghanistan at the airport. You can see him jerk his left hand to pull the watch out from under his sleeve, then look down at it. pic.twitter.com/M3QVzJbTIm

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) August 29, 2021

Uh oh. That sounds pretty disrespectful. Get me a fact-check, USA Today! Stat!

 

New fact check: A viral photo makes it look like President Biden checked his watch during a ceremony honoring U.S. service members killed in Kabul. But that's misleading. https://t.co/F6bjQFYVbC

— Daniel Funke (@dpfunke) September 1, 2021

Whew. That’s a relief. I was afraid our dear President was disrespectful to fallen troops.

Oh, wait…

But here’s the thing, though: It’s not misleading at all. That’s exactly what happened. Biden did what he’s accused of doing. It’s true. There’s proof and everything.

This isn’t a fact-check. It’s some Democrats with press passes doing damage control for the president.

Apparently one of the adults at USA Today realized how bad this looks, but only after allowing this garbage to be published. Now the “fact-check” has been “clarified”:

“This story was updated to note that, uh… the thing we claimed to be false was actually true.”

It’s nice that we have “objective” media running interference for the President. I wish Republican Presidents could get this kind of treatment.

No, actually, I don’t. I don’t want Republican Presidents to be treated with kid gloves. I want them treated fairly. And I want Democrat Presidents to be treated the same way Republican ones are.

Democrat Presidents Are Awful to Blacks

Remember, under President Donald Trump (R-USA), black unemployment reached all time lows before the China Virus. Obviously unemployment went up across the board, then. It has now dropped considerably, with at least one notable exception.

The Black unemployment rate INCREASED to 8.8% in August.

The unemployment rate for Black men INCREASED to 9.1% in and INCREASED to 7.9% for Black women in August.

The unemployment rate for Black youth (16-19 years old) INCREASED to 17.9% in August. https://t.co/r2okuX9Vqq

— Shermichael Singleton (@Shermichael_) September 3, 2021

Good thing we got rid of Trump, eh?

And It Was Unanimous. The FEC Has No Interest in Protecting Election Integrity

FEC rules Twitter shadowbanning Congressman Matt Gaetz wasn't election interference (reclaimthenet.org)

It’s hard to see what else it could have been, but don’t worry, the FEC will twist itself in knots to explain it to you.

The FEC rejected the argument, Business Insider reported, referring to a 2019 legal analysis by its general counsel that found out that Twitter could legally limit an account’s activity if it is concerned about “divisive content.” The analysis also concluded that Twitter messages are not “debate within the meaning of the Commission’s regulation,” as its definition of debate means “face-to-face appearances or confrontations.”

Ah. It’s not a debate platform. Ok, ok, tell all the people debating on it to just stop, then.

In the original complaint, Gaetz said that Twitter’s shadowban amounted to “making an in-kind contribution to [Gaetz’s] political opponents.”

He used a “free billboards” analogy to make his point: “Imagine the following: a billboard company in Florida wants to get involved in the political process, so it offers all candidates running for office… free billboards to promote their campaigns.”

“If the company did not randomly assign locations, but rather, offered large billboards in premium locations within the district to Democratic candidates, but only offered billboards stuck behind dumpsters, outside the district, to Republican candidates, it could not credibly argue that it was not giving an “in-kind” donation to the Democratic candidates.”

The complaint also argued that Twitter was a debate platform, and, therefore, it is supposed to follow FEC’s regulations on political debates.

“Twitter, as a self-identified news organization, and as a recognized debate platform, is a staging organization for candidate debates,” the complaint said.

That seems pretty logical. The FEC’s statement…does not.

I Bet Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Is Glad Apple and Google Weren't a Thing When He Was a Political Prisoner

Supporters of the imprisoned de-facto Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have accused Google and Apple of political censorship for deleting his tactical voting app, after caving to pressure from the government. The Russian government threatened to take action if the app was not deleted.

In the days leading up to the parliamentary elections, the Russian government pressured Apple and Google to remove the Navalny Smart Voting initiative app, which focuses on convincing people to vote for opponents of the ruling party. The government accused the tech giants of election interference.

Well, it’s Russia, so what can you expect? But two American companies had no trouble giving in to this demand and trampling all over freedom of speech. That’s pathetic.

Facebook Vs. German Protestors

Facebook deletes groups from German anti-lockdown supporters (reclaimthenet.org)

Facebook has announced that it has deleted about 150 accounts, groups, and pages linked to the Querdenken (Lateral Thinking) movement. Querdenken has made a reputation online and offline for being a group of everyday citizens protesting strict COVID-19 restrictions.

Well, we can’t have that, can we? People might stop being scared and resume their normal lives.

A Perfect Example of the Point I Made in My Last Post

Dr. Sarah Vinson: As Trump fans gather for 'Justice for J6,' the specter of white privilege looms large (nbcnews.com)

January 6 was a nothingburger. “Justice for J6” was even less.

But the media needs you frightened, so they post garbage like this:

As Washington braces for the possibility of more political violence at the "Justice for J6" rally on Saturday, the Black community and its true allies across America await yet another specter of white privilege: the differential threat perception of and accountability for violence by white men.

Seriously, what planet do you live on?

There’s paragraphs and paragraphs on this. I won’t make you read it. I read it. Pretending that “justice has not been served” for the perpetrators of January 6. Well, that part is true. Justice hasn’t bene served. Many are stuck in jail. Their cases have not been properly dismissed.

But rioters in BLM riots were set free in 24 hours. And poor Sarah claims with a straight face that BLM people were treated much more harshly. That claim doesn’t stand up to the lightest of scrutiny, and yet it’s repeated often as if it were true.

These people are so disconnected from reality, it’s stunning. I hope they wake up soon. I hope we all wake up soon.

Maher Almost Gets It Here

HBO’s Bill Maher Blasts Democrats For Spreading Hysteria About COVID-19 (lifezette.com)

He’s discussing a poll in the New York Times.

[T]he question was, what do you think the chances are that you would have to go to the hospital if you got COVID.

For the record, the answer to that question is less than 5%. But what did Democrats respond?

“41% of Democrats thought it was over 50%, another 28% thought it was 20 to 49%. So 70% of Democrats thought it was way, way, way higher than it really was. Liberal media has to take a little responsibility for that, for scaring the s*** out of people.”

He’s absolutely right. Democrats don’t have a clue on this. They’re frightened beyond reason. And the reason they’re frightened is because of the liberal media.

But then he stops. He doesn’t continue down the path. He just blames the media and says they need to get their act together. They don’t need to get their act together. They’re scaring you on purpose.

They frightened you last year to win an election. Now they’re working hand-in-hand with a government that needs you scared so that they can control you.

This isn’t an accident. None of this is.

If Chain of Custody Is Broken, the Ballot Cannot Be Counted. Period.

Roughly 43,000 absentee ballot counted in DeKalb County in 2020 violated chain of custody rule | Just The News

Look, I’m not going to try to convince you that Donald Trump (R-USA) won the election in 2020. I think there are a number of states where the official results are, shall we say, suspect.  But this kind of thing cannot happen, if we want to have faith in our elections.

More than 70% of the 61,731 absentee ballots put in drop boxes in the November 2020 presidential election in DeKalb County, Georgia, were counted and certified by officials, despite violating chain of custody requirements.

I truly doubt my dream will ever come to fruition, but I’m not going to stop harping on it. If the chain of custody is broken for a ballot, then that ballot cannot be counted. No matter what. I don’t care if that invalidates 90% of the ballots for a state. We must protect our system from voter fraud. And making this an inviolate rule will help immensely in getting to that goal. Have a judge strike down a whole swath of ballots, just once, and suddenly people will get serious about following the rules.

And then we can all believe the certified election results. Not just whatever side won.

I Can't Argue With That Either

Biden's Presidency Is Already A Total Disaster, And It's All His Own Fault (thefederalist.com)

The first seven months of Joe Biden’s presidency have been fraught with crises. First it was the coronavirus pandemic and the vaccine rollout. Then it was the border crisis. Then it was the economy.

And now Afghanistan, where the Taliban are now reportedly hanging people by the neck from U.S.-supplied Blackhawk helicopters, and the U.S. withdrawal has left behind hundreds of Americans and perhaps thousands of Green Card holders in what now amounts to the largest hostage crisis in American history.

The administration is stumbling from one disaster to the next, with no end in sight and public opinion plummeting on nearly every major issue. In each case, the disaster has been entirely of the Biden administration’s own making. Events are not overtaking Biden, his own rank incompetence is.

That’s a pretty damning opening three paragraphs. I’m not really sure what else there is to say.  But he does have plenty more to say. Read the whole thing.