Trump’s blanket ban from social media proves the information war is over
By Helen Buyniski | RT | January 9, 2021
US President Donald Trump has been banned from most social media platforms, supposedly for inciting riots at the Capitol. But with no one capable of holding the tech behemoths to account, even fervent Trump-haters should worry.
Twitter permanently banned the president from its platform on Friday, following in the footsteps of Facebook, Snapchat, Twitch, and other platforms that used Wednesday’s riot at the Capitol as an excuse to do what much of Silicon Valley has wanted to do for years.
But it wasn’t Trump’s on-platform conduct that was the problem, according to Twitter – it was “how [his tweets] are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter,” a post on the company’s blog declared on Friday. The platform then interpreted two seemingly innocuous tweets – regarding not attending Democrat President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration and giving his fans a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” – as a call to arms directed at his supporters, far out-crazying the so-called “conspiracy theorists” Twitter has also sought to deplatform.
Logically speaking, it’s impossible for anyone – especially a public figure like Trump – to control how his words are being interpreted, or even who’s reading them to begin with. For Twitter to translate the president’s praise of his supporters and promise not to attend his successor’s inauguration into a call for violence requires a full-on break with reality.
But platforms like Twitter, and especially Facebook, have been declaring all-out war on reality for years now, merely ramping up hostilities in the wake of the Capitol riot. On Facebook, even just sharing footage of Wednesday’s riot was off-limits, as was posting Trump’s speech to his supporters. Any call for further protests, no matter how peaceful, was also targeted for removal.
These platforms’ notorious echo chambers have no room for dissenting narratives, whether it concerns the Capitol protests or the growing contingent of Covid-19 dissenters crying foul as lockdowns drag on (and cases go up) with no end in sight. And while a Trump-scale individual may be able to create their own means of addressing the people, thousands of others have been wiped out over the past year for political or public-health wrongthink.
The narrative managers are unlikely to stop at wiping their ideological nemeses off the internet, either.
Perhaps emboldened by social media’s iron-fisted approach to building its own alternate reality, New Jersey assemblyman Paul Moriarty has been lobbying cable TV providers to stop carrying conservative channels like Newsmax, OANN, and Fox News.
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley (R) had a book deal revoked for challenging the results of November’s elections.
Social media, once sold as a tool for promoting democracy and giving ordinary people a voice they previously lacked, revealed its true identity over the course of 2020. Whether attempting to delete records of an entire event, as Facebook has done with the Capitol protests, or memory-holing inconvenient facts about the Covid-19 pandemic, the ‘new and improved’ reality crafted by the media establishment provides the ideal foundation for the police state being constructed around the human mind.
The average person might go through life unaware this invisible thought-barrier is even there – but anyone who steps out of line is quickly zapped back into obedience. And if they refuse to cooperate even then? Deplatforming, in an age where face-to-face contact has gone the way of the dodo, is the modern equivalent of ‘disappearing’ dissidents in broad daylight.
Indeed, these platforms have merged with government in too many ways to count here. Those who express political ‘wrongthink’ online aren’t just disappeared from the digital public square – they can be barred from supposedly apolitical apps like AirBnB, or even denied the use of their bank accounts.
The US constitution does not permit the government to punish individuals who aren’t even suspected of committing a crime. Nor does it permit the suppression of lawful speech or allow authorities to paw through private citizens’ lives in the hope of turning up something incriminating. But private corporations – as the neoliberal center never tires of reminding us – can do what they like, including depriving Americans of their First and Fourth Amendment rights. Such capabilities explain why Washington has looked the other way for so many years while Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Amazon became preposterously huge, insanely profitable monopolies.
But the joke’s on the government, in this case. With hundreds of billions of dollars at their disposal, and a user-base trained to embrace their mental slavery with a positively Pavlovian response, Big Tech seems to have realized it no longer has to pretend to play nice with Big Government.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
Big Tech giants want to prove they are ‘American gods’. Anyone watching the watchers?
By Frank Furedi | RT | January 9, 2021
Big Tech has just taken a gigantic step toward its objective of gaining total control over what can and what cannot be said on the internet.
Apple and Google have commanded Parler, a social network used by conservatives, to police its users. In effect, what their warning issued to Parler means, ‘do as you are told or face digital annihilation!’.
Google suspended Parler from its Play Store, declaring that it will shut the network until it rigorously polices its app. Apple was reported to have followed suit giving Parler 24 hours to fall in line; otherwise it would be removed from Apple’s App Store.
Apple and Google’s declaration of war on Parler has serious implications. These two giant companies make operating systems that support nearly every smartphone in the world. That means that if Apple shuts Parler out of its App Store, people would not be able to download the app on their iPhones or iPads.
The timing of the edict issued by the masters of Silicon Valley is not a coincidence. Parler is one of the fastest growing apps on the internet. Millions of conservatives fed up with the censorious behavior of Twitter and Facebook have been attracted to this social network. In the aftermath of President Trump being forced off Facebook and Twitter, it was expected that millions of his supporters would turn to Parler to freely express their convictions.
Big Tech censorship is nothing new. In recent years, social-media companies – once reluctant to be drawn into becoming official censors and arbiters of truth – have increasingly clamped down on what they deem to be hate speech or misinformation.
Since the beginning of the pandemic Big Tech companies have behaved as if they are digital gods. These powerful unaccountable billionaires have issued one Papal Bull after another. Facebook has used the pandemic to expand its policing of what can be posted. Initially it stated that it would continue to remove “misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm,” while deploying its army of fact-checkers to flag certain posts, depress their distribution, and direct sharers of such material to ‘reliable’ information. A few weeks later in April, 2020 it was reported that it was removing event posts for anti-lockdown gatherings.
Early on in the pandemic Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, declared that she saw their role as the arbiter of truth on the coronavirus. She stated that anything that contradicted the recommendations of the WHO would be removed from her platform.
That Big Tech sees itself as a veritable global power that stands above elected governments was strikingly illustrated by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, when he announced that Trump’s page would be closed down, at the very least, for the rest of his presidency. A day later, Twitter followed suit and suspended Trump’s account permanently. This humiliation of the American president indicates that a handful of billionaire capitalists now get to decide who can have a voice in the digital public square.
Big Tech companies censoring their own platforms is bad enough. However, when they take it upon themselves to determine how another independent social network must police itself, they have in effect assumed a tyrannical role over the entire internet. Their declaration of war on Parler, indicates that they see themselves as not simply private companies but as global institutions that can wield political and policing power over the digital world.
It is likely that Parler will be forced to cave in and accept the terms imposed on it by Apple and Google. John Matze, Parler’s CEO, has gone on record to state that he believes that “we can retain our values and make Apple happy quickly.” If Parler is forced to fall in line with the edict issued by Big Tech then it will constitute the greatest blow struck against internet freedom so far.
Despite its rhetoric of supporting diversity, Big Tech is distinctly opposed to the diversity of opinion. As recent events show they intend to turn the digital world into an entirely homogeneous system, where the only values that can be freely expressed are those of Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
Restoring the freedom to express whatever view you want to put forward on the internet is one of the most important challenges confronting genuine democrats.
Frank Furedi is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century.
Twitter Bans Trump! What’s Next?
By Stephen Lendman | January 9, 2021
Dark forces against an open, free, fair society pushed for silencing Trump.
Twitter complied. Facebook and perhaps other significant social media may be next.
Who’ll next be censored and silenced?
Will muckraking, investigative, truth-telling journalists be banned by Twitter and other social media?
Will everyone diverging from the falsified official narrative face online banishment across the board?
Will cutting edge websites I and many others follow no longer be accessible ahead, including my own?
Will my writing and by others I respect and follow be criminalized if continued?
GW Bush once calling the Constitution “just a goddamned piece of paper” is reality as tyranny incrementally replaces the rule of law in the US.
It began happening post-state-sponsored 9/11, especially since last year to the present and what may lie ahead.
Daniel Ellsberg explained the ominous threat revealed by releasing the Pentagon Papers.
Arundhati Roy called them “mesmerizing, not as documentation of the history of the US war in Indochina, but as insight into the minds of (diabolical) men (and women) who planned and executed it.”
The Pentagon Papers exposed US war on humanity abroad.
Police state America wages it at home.
Most Americans are unaware of what’s going on and the ominous threat it poses — notably looking ahead to what may follow what’s happening now.
The road to tyranny moves incrementally toward becoming full-blown.
How it happened in Nazi Germany may be replicated in the US — wrapped in the American flag for mass deception.
Ellsberg called 9/11 — followed by Bush/Cheney’s contempt for the rule of law — “a coup (with another to come from) the next 9/11,” adding:
What’s happening is “a steady assault on every fundamental (aspect) of our Constitution (to create) an executive government (to) rule by (police state) decree.”
So far it’s not with jackboots in the streets. It’s by Big Government in cahoots with Big Media manipulation of the public mind and more.
In includes censorship, what I call the new abnormal.
Dark forces in cahoots with social media perhaps intend banning online content entirely that diverges from the official falsified narrative.
Friday I stressed that if social media can deny a US president his First Amendment rights, will state approved censorship on everyone diverging from the official narrative become the new abnormal?
Will truth-telling on vital issues be criminalized?
Will independent voices be threatened, intimidated, and mistreated like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and other heroic whistleblowers?
Will full-blown tyranny ahead permit no challenges to diabolical aims of US dark forces — enforced by police state harshness?
The US Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees speech, media and academic freedom.
If lost, all other rights are threatened with abolition. Tyrannical rule will supersede the rule of law.
On June 30, 1971, the US Supreme Court ruled that the NYT and Washington Post were legally permitted to publish material in the Pentagon Papers.
A per curiam statement (meaning by the court, not a single justice) said the following:
“Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.”
The government “thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling upheld First Amendment rights, stating:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Banning Trump by Twitter with perhaps other social media to follow flagrantly breached First Amendment rights and the High Court’s ruling that upheld them.
It affirmed the constitutional right to speak or publish truthful information in the public interest no matter how it was obtained.
Britain’s mistreatment of Julian Assange on orders from Washington flagrantly breached the US First Amendment — upheld by the US Supreme Court numerous times.
In its Pentagon Papers ruling, Justice Hugo Black said the following:
The government’s injunction to prohibit publication by the NYT and Washington Post “should have been vacated without oral argument when the cases were first presented,” adding:
“(E)very moment’s continuance of the injunctions… amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment.”
“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”
“The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government.”
“The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.”
“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”
“And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people…”
“(W)e are asked to hold that… the executive b ranch, the Congress, and the judiciary can make laws… abridging freedom of the press in the name of ‘national security.’ ”
Justice William Brennan argued that publication of the Pentagon Papers was a First Amendment right.
So did Justice Thurgood Marshall, adding:
The term “national security” is too broad and ill-defined to be used as justification to restrain publication of information in the public interest.
The right of speech, press, and academic freedoms is fundamental in a society claiming to be free.
I profoundly condemn most Trump actions throughout his tenure.
I strongly disagree with and reject most of his views.
But I defend his constitutional right to express them on social media, in speeches, on television, and other public remarks — no matter how contrary to my own.
That’s what the rule of law in an open, free and fair society is all about.
Without the right of unstricted free expression in all forms — no matter how offensive to some — a nation safe and fit to live in no longer exists.
That’s the ominous state of today’s USA.
Silencing Trump may be prelude to making it the police state law of the land on the fabricated pretext of national security and/or whatever other phony pretext(s) dark forces cook up to justify what’s unjustifiable.
James Madison once called “(t)he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… the definition of tyranny.”
When rule of the people becomes of, by, and for privileged interests at the expense of exploited and silenced others, tyranny is the law of the land.
Things today are at an ominous crossroads.
If left unchecked, the nation I grew up in long ago no longer will exist — replaced by polar opposite what just societies most cherish.
Martin Niemoller’s long ago ominous warning is relevant today in the US, saying:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.”
“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.”
“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.”
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
First they enacted police state laws in the US post-state-sponsored 9/11.
Then came 9/11 2.0 last year — followed by banning a US president’s free expression rights on social media.
Is the the path Niemoller warned about now followed by US dark forces?
Are things well along toward abolishing America as once existed, warts and all?
Is there time to stop and reverse what’s going on?
Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said the following:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”
“Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
I’ve stressed many times that ordinary people have power when they use it.
Now’s the time for its use to save what otherwise may be permanently lost.
A Final Comment
Below is Twitter’s attempt to unjustifiably justify Trump’s “permanent suspension” of his First Amendment rights, saying:
“(W)e have permanently suspended (his) account due to the risk of further incitement of violence (sic).”
In response to Trump’s tweet that he “will not be going to the inauguration on January 20,” Twitter falsely claimed the following:
His tweet “is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets…that there would be an ‘orderly transition’ on January 20th (sic).”
His tweet “may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target, as he will not be attending (sic).”
The above claims defy and reinvent reality.
Nothing Trump tweeted, otherwise stated, or implied encouraged violence on Capitol Hill last Wednesday or possibly ahead.
Claiming otherwise by Twitter and other media reinvented reality to unjustifiably blame Trump for what he had nothing to do with — followed by Twitter’s unconstitutional ban on DJT.
Was its action a shot across the bow warning against others using its platform?
Henceforth will everyone’s views that conflict with the official narrative be silenced by Twitter and other social media?
Biden Is Not Yet Inaugurated and the Establishment Is Already Fomenting Civil War
By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute for Political Economy | January 9, 2021
Trump was demonized before he was inaugurated. He was demonized because he was correctly perceived by the Establishment as a threat to the Establishment. Trump’s election surprised the Establishment. The Establishment thought that Establishment control over the media guaranteed their power and was astonished to realize that enough American voters saw through their lies and propaganda to elect a non-establishment figure.
The world does not understand that the American Establishment has a propaganda organization that shames the one assembled by Joseph Goebbels. The American media, never very independent, lost all semblance to independence during the Clinton regime when 90% of the US media was concentrated into six hands and converted into a completely obedient tool of the Establishment. Anyone who doubts this should explain why on every issue the presstitutes speak with one voice, which is never the voice of the people.
It is extraordinary that anyone could have fallen for the Establishment’s line that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the election from Hillary, but so many did. The Establishment could not permit the realization that the American Establishment had been rejected by the American people in the 2016 election. Using the CIA and FBI the Establishment went to work on Trump. His entire four years was used in fighting orchestrated Russiagate investigations and an orchestrated impeachment. Most people in the world know nothing more about these four years than American presstitute headlines told them.
In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s police state control enabled him to frame Bolshevik leader Nikolai Bukharin as a capitalist spy. In the American democracy, the Establishment has been able in plain view to steal Trump’s reelection and is now framing him as an insurrectionist. The power of this establishment is so great that Republicans have wilted and are kneeling to the Establishment in order to protect themselves. Trump’s appointees are resigning and running for their lives and reputations.
The military/security complex using the DNC and the media has been able to do what Stalin did—eliminate the opposition.
The Establishment has now put out calls for retribution against US Senators and Representatives who supported Trump’s attempt to have the evidence of electoral fraud examined. I have watched presentations of the evidence by nonpartisan professionals, and the evidence of electoral fraud is overwhelming. Yet it has been deep-sixed without ever being examined. In place of examination, from day one the presstitutes, none of whom looked at the evidence, repeated endlessly that there was no evidence. Trump, and not the stolen election, was blamed for discrediting American democracy.
The American Establishment is not through with Trump and his supporters. Propaganda campaigns against them could well end in show trials.
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, like the print and TV media and NPR, are employed to shut down non-establishment explanations. Consequently, new social media organizations, such as Parler have arisen as uncensored forums. Judging from information sent to Mark Crispin Miller and posted on Notes from Underground ( https://markcrispinmiller.com ), Parler is now under attack: “BREAKING – Apple has given #Parler a 24 HOUR ULTIMATUM to implement a “moderation plan” or it’s getting scrubbed from the app store.” If this hasn’t yet happened, it will. “Moderation,” of course, means compliance with Establishment wishes.
Americans and Western peoples in general are very insouciant people. The Establishment has used Identity Politics to disunite whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, men, and women. A population at war with itself has no prospect of standing against the Establishment which exercises power in its interest independently of the interests of the people. In such a system, democracy is merely a cover for oligarchic rule. No one is permitted in public office who is not a servant of the Establishment. Any who somehow get there are removed. Redistricting was used to rid the Establishment of Dennis Kucinich. Ron Paul was eliminated by the RNC by “a systematic campaign of election fraud at state conventions” according to a lawsuit in federal district court. If these methods of elimination are not available, women are trotted out to allege sexual harassment or corruption or tax frame-ups are used. Those who don’t go along with the Establishment do not have a career. This is true as well in corporate employment and universities.
Fear and demonization are powerful Establishment weapons. Truth and the human achievement of civil liberty are their victims.
Biden Declares War on Trump Voters
Biden’s (the Establishment’s) war on domestic terrorism is a war on Trump deplorables. As I told you, normal white Americans are in for it. Here is Glenn Greenwald to tell you about it:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511976-greenwald-capitol-terror-crackdown/
With unilateral censorship of a sitting US president, Big Tech has proven it’s more powerful than any government:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/511958-social-media-politicians-censorship-riots/
Pelosi consults with military brass on how to keep NUCLEAR CODES out of Trump’s hands:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511975-trump-departure-nuclear-riot-pelosi/
Biden the unifier? President-elect likens Cruz, Hawley to Nazi propagandist Goebbels, says they share blame for inciting violence:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511984-biden-unity-goebbels-cruz/
House Democrats leak draft of Trump IMPEACHMENT for ‘inciting insurrection’:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511982-trump-insurrection-impeachement-draft-leaked/
Black Lives Matter Organizer Seen Entering Capitol Building with Crowd Is Likely An FBI Agent Provocateur
By Eric Striker – National Justice – January 8, 2021
Social media is aflame after it emerged that John Earle Sullivan, a Utah-based Black Lives Matter organizer, was one of the people who entered the Capitol building with Trump-supporters on Wednesday.
Some are theorizing that Sullivan, who was arrested on felony rioting and multiple other charges last Summer after a shooting in Provo, is part of a Black Lives Matter conspiracy to make Trump-supporters look bad. Sullivan, the leader of Insurgence USA, was filmed in July as the ringleader directing a group of armed men who trapped a car and opened fire on the motorist.
Yet unlike dozens of others arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) after they left the Capitol building, Sullivan was released without charges after a short detention.
Despite the Department of Justice and FBI vowing to viciously punish every individual who entered the federal building, Sullivan continues to do public interviews incriminating himself after online sleuths identified him. He also witnessed and filmed the shooting of the unarmed white woman Ashli Babbitt by a black federal agent, but refuses to publish the footage.
While it is certain that Sullivan was at the Trump march to collect intelligence and act as an agent provocateur, evidence suggests he was operating on behalf of the FBI rather than Antifa.
Ideological Informants
During the anarchist riots last summer, National Justice learned of four separate instances of FBI agents approaching members of the Proud Boys and similar groups, offering to pay them large sums of money to fly to Portland and join the Antifa riots to collect evidence to help stop left-wing violence. The Antifa crackdown never materialized.
As they attempted to recruit Proud Boys, the FBI was using the media to seed a baseless claim about far-right provocateurs inciting all the violence at George Floyd riots.
The FBI dangles the prospect of retaliation against ideological enemies as a recruiting tool for informants and marks. While the offer made to right-wing activists has always been a sham later used to entrap them, the FBI is sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter cause.
The FBI At The Capitol
A new article published by Pro Publica suggests that FBI agents and informants played some kind of role at the Stop The Steal rally.
According to the report, the FBI knocked on the doors the day before the event and told various conservative figures they should not attend the First Amendment protest on behalf of the president. Federal agents played a role in the MPD’s decision to arrest Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio on weak charges.
Trump-supporter Milo Yiannopolous told his audience over Parler that FBI agents came to his home and told him not to go, “Just had a knock at the door. I won’t be going to DC. Whatever operation they’ve got running to fuck with patriots, it’s massive and they aren’t playing around.”
While there’s no evidence that the group that overpowered the police and entered the Capitol was inorganic, open questions remain over the role informants and undercover agents may have played in the deaths that occurred.
With unilateral censorship of a sitting US president, Big Tech has proven it’s more powerful than any government
By Helen Buyniski | RT | January 8, 2021
Big Tech’s moves to muscle President Donald Trump off social media have been heralded by some as victory. But a corporate-run state with politicians serving as mere figureheads amounts to the very fascism they claim to oppose.
The smug, palpable air of ‘mission accomplished’ emanating from Facebook, Twitter and Google in the weeks after the media called November’s election for Democrat Joe Biden has been hard to ignore. Thanks to an iron grip on the political narrative and the heavy-handed suppression of any influential dissenting voices, these insanely wealthy companies and their partners in the media establishment have managed to successfully upend what was left of the US’ democratic process.
In short, they have reason to celebrate, having pulled off the first successful national-level coup-by-media in US history. And better yet — for them at least — having helped the ‘right’ guy win, they won’t have to answer to any bogus charges of Russian collusion this time around. Indeed, no less than the Department of Homeland Security came forward to declare the vote the most secure in US history — a baffling claim at best, given the same officials have spent months insisting foreign infiltration supposedly had democracy hanging by a thread.
The epic pearl-clutching that followed Wednesday’s march on the Capitol is almost guaranteed to result in further restrictions on online speech — and as many observers noted, that’s just how Big Tech and Big Brother want it. No explanations have been forthcoming as to why the Capitol was largely unguarded during the protests, even though Trump had for weeks been calling on his followers to stage “wild” demonstrations on that day. Nor was it clear why Mayor Muriel Bowser waited so long before sending in police and the military to rein in the chaos.
The stage seemed to have been deliberately set for disaster, just the sort of spectacle a clever Big Business-Big Tech axis needs to terrify the masses into believing a full-on insurrection is afoot. The only real surprise in Wednesday’s events is that more people weren’t killed — but that’s where the media came in, wielding luridly detailed descriptions and photographing the most bizarrely-attired figures in the group.
By distracting the public, attributing the violence that claimed five lives to the ubiquitous Radicalized Domestic Extremists™ and banning an ever-growing number of discussion topics, Facebook, Twitter, and Google can dodge a total repeal of Section 230 liability protections and live to blanket the nation in propaganda another day. Never mind the absence of visible ‘white supremacists,’ Nazis, and other undesirables supposedly leading the pro-Trump contingent — it’s always possible to Photoshop in a Nazi insignia or 12 in post.
Ultimately, the narrative diverges from reality just enough to make its point, fingering social media as the culprit, and duping the average American into supporting further incursions on their First Amendment freedoms. The moral of the story becomes “Stop thinking, before someone gets hurt.”
And should the relationship sour, and politicians want their power back? Big Tech can easily scuttle any legislative attempts to break up its monopoly merely by threatening to expose the secrets of the dozens of government agencies that have their data stored in the cloud. Companies like Facebook and Twitter, Amazon and Google have what’s left of American ‘democracy’ by the proverbial balls, and should some crusading politician attempt to disrupt their cozy relationship, they’d almost certainly live to regret it.
It would take just one inconvenient ‘leak’ to turn the public against any Luddite savior attempting to pry Big Tech’s boot off American necks. These firms’ control of the media is so airtight that a manufactured ‘scandal’ could be cooked up and launched into cyberspace in a matter of hours. Such retaliation would serve the dual purpose of destroying the political crusader’s career and reminding other would-be do-gooders not to do anything foolish — like fighting to defend one’s own country against the megacorporations holding it hostage.
By blocking Trump from even posting on Facebook and live-streaming platform Twitch – and only recently allowed back into his Twitter account with a “final warning” after a 12-hour lockout – Big Tech has made it clear they’re no longer satisfied with a mere monopoly over one of the few profitable industries left in the US. They won’t stop accumulating power until they run politics, from the presidency to the smallest local election. With Wednesday’s riots, the carefully-choreographed dance between tech execs and the politicians who do their bidding has been given the green light to ascend to the next level. Deplatforming Trump is only the beginning of a megalomaniacal crusade against all those who would question a government by the algorithms, of the algorithms, and for the algorithms.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
U.S. Experienced Below-Average 2020 Tornado Year, Continuing Long-Term Trend
By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | January 8, 2021
The United States in 2020 experienced fewer tornadoes than average, continuing a long-term trend of fewer of the deadly, extreme-weather events.
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center (NWSSPC) reports 1,247 U.S. tornadoes in 2020, as shown in the graph below from the NWSSPC website.
But there is even more good news: The official data show trends in observed U.S. tornadoes have been declining down over the past 15 years. Note the small table inserted in the upper left of the graph.
That 2020 count of 1247 tornadoes for 2020 comes in below the mean, with the mean being 1,392 tornadoes over years 2005-2020, as shown at the bottom of the table.
But here is the really good news that you won’t see reported in the mainstream media.
According to the data table on that graph, 7 of past 9 years have been below the mean for U.S. Tornadoes, which is reflecting a long-term downward trend. Because the vast majority of tornadoes globally occur in the United States, this means that global tornadoes are becoming less frequent, also.
If you look at the data table from the graph above where I have highlighted in yellow, 11 of the past 15 years have been below the mean for U.S. Tornado counts as well.
Of course, virtually every time there is a tornado on the news, climate alarmists try to claim that “climate change” is the root cause of more tornadoes, when in fact, the official data simply don’t support that narrative. We are actually experiencing fewer tornadoes as the Earth modestly warms.
Climate alarmists won’t tell you good news like this, because the real-world data spoils their narrative. We at Climate Realism will tell you the truth, regardless of political agendas.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Analyzing The MAGA Movement’s Democratic Security Failure
By Andrew Korybko | One World | January 7, 2021
“Democratic Security” In DC
What happened in Washington DC on Wednesday was an exercise in “Democratic Security” which employed classic Color Revolution tactics for the purpose of regime reinforcement, the opposite of the regime change goal that these methods are oftentimes used to further across the world. I explained the conceptual differences and other nuances related to these terms in my two recent analyses about “The Color Revolution In DC: Anti-Constitutional Coup Or Democratic Security Movement?” and “The Moral Dilemma Of Every Color Revolution Coup & Democratic Security Movement”. The gist is that members of the Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement ended up doing almost the exact same thing as their Antifa and “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) ideological enemies have done for over the past half year already, but the difference between these two developments is each person’s individual views about the legitimacy of the political causes that these groups wanted to advance.
Liberal-Globalists vs. Conservative-Nationalists
The contextual backdrop of this week’s dramatic events was the power struggle taking place behind the scenes between different factions of the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”). The liberal-globalists are represented by the Democrat Party and its extensive network of media and “NGO” proxies, and they stand in stark opposition to the conservative-nationalists represented by Trump’s MAGA. The 45th President’s election was a watershed event in global history because it marked the first time that a genuinely grassroots populist movement stood at chance at revolutionizing the political establishment in the heart of the world’s last remaining superpower. I explained the domestic appeal and implications of this in the analysis that I wrote shortly after the 2016 vote titled “Dear Foreign Friends, Here’s Why Trump Won (From A Clevelander)”. Nevertheless, Trump ultimately failed to succeed in his historic quest for a variety of reasons, but mostly stemming from the fact that most of the establishment remained dead-set against him.
RINO Rampage
The liberal-globalist faction of the “deep state” had nearly completed its silent seizure of power prior to his election, as Hillary’s wrongly predicted victory was supposed to have been the crowning achievement heralding the onset of a new era. Trump was never supposed to have won, yet he did anyhow, so his opponents united in order to fiercely oppose him tooth and nail. This importantly included the so-called “Republicans In Name Only” (RINOs), who are basically liberal-globalists just like their Democrat partners are except they sometimes support (or make a pretense of supporting) conservative socio-political issues such as the Second Amendment and anti-abortion. It was they who led the “deep state’s” sabotage against Trump by foiling most of his agenda despite their party controlling all levels of government from 2016 until the 2018 midterm elections. This practically eviscerated the political implementation of Trump’s agenda. It also bought the Democrats enough time to win back the House, partly due to the Republican base’s disgust at their party’s disloyalty to their chief.
Information War Meets Hybrid War
It also bears mentioning that the Mainstream Media and Big Tech collaborated to wage an historically unprecedented information war against the democratically elected President of the United States. This failed to dent the MAGA movement’s zeal since Trump scored millions of more votes in 2020 than he did four years prior, but it nevertheless succeeded in radicalizing opposition to him to the point where Antifa-BLM violence against his supporters became “normalized” in society over the past half year. I elaborated on their role in events and how extensively their cadre were cultivated over the years in my analysis last summer about how “The Hybrid War Of Terror On America Was Decades In The Making”. Further insight into that process was shared in one of my follow-up pieces about how “The Syncretism Of Economic Leftism & Social Fascism Is The World’s Newest Danger”. Importantly, those destabilizations unfolded in the midst of the full-spectrum paradigm-changing processes catalyzed by the world’s uncoordinated efforts to contain COVID-19.
The Strategic Context Of World War C
I described this historic development as World War C, and the reader can click on the hyperlink in the prior sentence, the three in this one, and/or here to learn more about my views on this globally significance series of trends which are beyond the scope of the present analysis. Their relevance is only important insofar as how this period of unprecedented uncertainty was exploited by the Democrats to push their agenda of mail-in voting, which the MAGA movement claimed ahead of time was highly susceptible to fraud and purportedly proved it in the two months after the election. The simultaneous unrest driven by Antifa-BLM during that time created an atmosphere of fear and tension that was intended to demoralize Trump supporters while energizing their opponents, though the first-mentioned goal failed as evidenced by the record-high number of votes for Trump while the second is debatable considering the President’s accusations of fraud. Even so, Trump promised never to give up the fight as recently as Wednesday’s Save America rally, yet he capitulated the day after the unrest.
Trump’s Suspicious Surrender
The circumstances behind his surrender are extremely suspicious. It wasn’t even he who announced as much, but White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Director of Social Media Dan Scavino on Twitter after Trump was temporarily blocked by Big Tech despite having publicly called on his supporters to follow the law, protest peacefully, then go home once everything got out of control. Trump had actually “gone dark” for almost an entire day prior to that happening, with nobody able to credibly account for his whereabouts after Big Tech censored his two latest de-escalation statements. One can only speculate what happened during those fateful hours, but it might very well have been the case that the President was pressured to comply with his “deep state” opponents’ demands or face ominous consequences for his refusal to do so. After all, the language in Scavino’s tweet which reportedly came from Trump himself is uncharacteristic of him and represents an unexpected about-face from his previously uncompromising position of never giving up.
Wild Wednesday
Extrapolating further, it’s worthwhile to recall what transpired on Wednesday. The massive Save America March descended on the US Capitol, after which some of its most radical participants clashed with police before the latter passively facilitated their takeover of that symbolic government building. It was only after they had seized control of the premises to the shock of everyone else and began broadcasting footage of their Antifa-BLM-like “occupation” that the decision was made by Pence — not Trump, according to reports — to dispatch the National Guard to quell the unrest. This very strongly suggests that the presidential chain of command was broken by the Vice President, who seems to have conspired with Trump’s “deep state” foes to wrest control of the armed forces from the Commander-in-Chief, perhaps because the latter might have even been temporarily detained during the prolonged period of time that he was forced to “go dark” like I speculated above. 6 January 2021, after all, was a significant day not just because of what ultimately unfolded, but because it represented the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win and the point of no return for the MAGA movement.
Trump’s “Master Plan”
It can’t be known for sure, but Trump might have had something resembling the mythological “master plan” that his most passionate supporters have long speculated that he was plotting. His congressional allies promised to object to the certification of votes from some states in order to provoke an extended debate about them during which time they could publicly present their evidence of fraud to the American people on live TV. Trump wanted his supporters to peacefully rally in their support during that time in order to create a powerful impression on the American people, perhaps to even serve as the pretext for whatever dramatic action some people rumored that he might have been plotting. Unfortunately, some radical participants of the Save America March — be they “uncontrollably zealous” supporters of the MAGA movement, “false-flag” Antifa-BLM provocateurs, or a combination thereof — broke ranks with the vast majority of peaceful protesters to violently attempt the seizure of the US Capitol building, which was curiously facilitated by local security forces.
The Sequence Of Events
That event served as the trigger for the “deep state” to spring into action by having their Big Tech allies censor Trump from social media, during which time Pence unconstitutionally broke the presidential chain of command by successfully ordering the National Guard to deploy to Washington DC. This might have even occurred while Trump was speculatively detained and possibly even threatened to indirectly release his statement of surrender through Scavino under what could very likely have been duress (hence why there’s no video footage of him recording the message). All that’s known for certain is that Trump, for whatever reason, mysteriously gave up the cause that he had just promised tens of millions of his supporters the day before that he’d never stop fighting for. He might not even have written the statement that’s attributed to him since the language isn’t anything like his own. It also strangely ended with the claim that “it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!” despite him already claiming credit many times for having successfully done this.
Concluding Thoughts
6 January 2021 will go down as a dark day in American history, but for different reasons depending on whether one supports Trump’s conservative-nationalists or his “deep state” opponents’ liberal-globalists. The first-mentioned staged an unsuccessful “Democratic Security” exercise — the most dramatic manifestation of which, the storming of the US Capitol, might have even involved “false-flag” elements — intended for regime reinforcement purposes, most immediately in terms of his MAGA congressional allies’ plan to broadcast their electoral fraud indictments live from Congress and which could have speculatively been followed up by Trump executing his rumored “master plan”. The second ones either “saved American democracy” from the MAGA movement’s “defilement” thereof or, as their ideological enemies see it, carried out an anti-constitutional coup by certifying fraudulent Electoral College votes, having Pence break the presidential chain of command, and possibly even temporarily detaining Trump until he agreed to surrender. Regardless, that day will live in infamy.
How the White House COVID Task Force Sank the Trump Presidency
By Jordan Schachtel | The American Institute for Economic Research | January 8, 2021
President Trump took in the early days of 2020 from a position of incredible strength. At the beginning of the year, no serious analyst would have told you that he was in major jeopardy of losing the 2020 election. The American economy was booming, we had solid employment numbers, no major international crises, and the president was setting up a bold agenda for his second term to further “drain the swamp” and bolster his domestic policy priorities. Election fraud was always a potential factor to be monitored, but there was no massive, unprecedented mail-in voting scheme to worry about.
But news reports coming out of Wuhan, China indicated that a potentially threatening situation was afoot. On January 29, President Trump acted with haste in authorizing the creation of a White House Coronavirus Task Force. A month later, the small task force expanded to include Vice President Mike Pence as its chairman. In what will be looked back on as a catastrophic delegation mistake, the VP decided to appoint Dr. Deborah Birx as the response coordinator for the task force. Prior to the COVID crisis, Birx was best known for her work on an HIV/AIDS vaccine, which does not exist. She had never been anywhere near having access to the levers of power in America.
The COVID task force would soon grow to 27 members, but several of the individuals appointed to the task force are cabinet level officials, and could not devote their entire portfolio to the coronavirus. That led to an opening that allowed for Dr Anthony Fauci, Dr Deborah Birx, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and a few others to monopolize the policy shop set up by the task force for the coronavirus crisis.
With much of the world succumbing to total fear, panic, and hysteria, and a wave of new lockdowns hitting Europe and elsewhere, President Trump remained incredibly level-headed. In discussing COVID-19, the president reminded his colleagues that the “cure could not be worse than the disease.” There was a chance that America would join Sweden and a handful of other nations balking at the trend to hit the self-destruct button.
Fauci and Birx had other plans, and they eventually found a diabolical method to ratchet up the pressure to such an incredible extent that the president would finally agree to their demands.
In mid March, with the “European wave” in full swing, the two government bureaucrats presented junk epidemiological models to the president that seemed more like a hostage-like situation than policy advice. Birx and Fauci vouched for the supposed science of a mere model devised by a handful of academics in England, which claimed that millions of Ameicans would die if President Trump did not lock down the nation immediately. The coronavirus was presented as a ticking time bomb that would wipe out a significant percentage of the nation if the president did not act right away. Under enormous pressure to “do something” to react to the crisis, the president made the fatal mistake of agreeing to what was advertised as a very temporary two week lockdown policy initiative. At the flip of a switch, the president authorized the federal response plan, and state governors were now instituting what was marketed as a 15 day reset in order to retain hospital capacity for the supposedly deadly wave that was coming to America. We were told that after the two weeks, things could then return to normal and that the 30 million small businesses across America would be able to open back up relatively unscathed.
15 Days to Slow The Spread then became 30 Days To Slow The Spread. The so-called crisis kept growing to the point that the task force members were soon not even addressing the end point to their draconian policy demands. The president, who already had severe doubts about the policies pushed by Fauci, Birx, Redfield, and crew, eventually acceded so much territory to the public health bureaucrats that it seemed at times he had handed over the keys to his presidency to the task force.
The Fauci-Birx policy goal posts continued to shift dramatically over the course of the Spring. The goals were no longer about retaining hospital capacity, but permanently transforming the nation into a COVID safety regime, despite the data rolling in showing a disease that was not nearly as threatening as once perceived. The U.S. economy was no longer booming. Instead, it was in a self-inflicted freefall. Tens of millions of Americans were in crisis, and right in the middle of what was now a heated election cycle. The health bureaucrats’ coronavirus policies were tearing apart the fabric of the nation, and the presidency was now very much up for grabs. The president could no longer point to his economic record, his peacetime regime, or his steady hand, because all of these talking points were being compromised by bad coronavirus policies.
All of a sudden, the president was now on defense, having completely lost the narrative to the panic mongers in government and media. The 2020 campaign was very much within the margins of a contested election.
President Trump, having privately evolved to “Team Reason” on COVID policy, and having witnessed the reality that the coronavirus was not living up to its destructive hype once promised by Fauci and Birx, wanted to take action to correct the record.
He tried to reset the narrative and bring back a reasonable, rational policy, but it was too late. America had already decided to buy the pseudoscience that Fauci and Birx, among others, were selling to them. It was no longer politically suitable to simply dismiss his prior capitulation to the public health bureaucrats on his task force. Fauci had become a worshipped celebrity figure with solid approval ratings, and sadly, much of the nation was now propagandized into supporting the disastrous lockdowns that were destroying the nation.
Many on the “Team Reason” side of the debate celebrated the appointment of Dr. Scott Atlas, — at the personal request of President Trump — as a desperately needed breath of fresh air for a task force that was peddling failed ideas and junk science. But Atlas, to no fault of his own, failed to make an impact on the task force. That’s because the fix was in from the beginning. The team assembled by VP Pence, which at this point was unapologetically, publicly recommending an extreme COVID policy agenda of economic and societal destruction, went to work immediately to distance themselves from Atlas, and waged a full fledged information warfare campaign against him.
Sources in the Trump Administration, who had first-hand access to Coronavirus Task Force meetings and conversations, made it clear to me that the health bureaucrats made it their mission to destroy and delegitimize Scott Atlas, who quietly resigned from his role in late November. Sources familiar with Atlas’s thought process told me that he was incredibly frustrated by the government bureaucrats’ devotion to their select non pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns, mask mandates, and other forms of societal and economic devastation. Atlas also remained frustrated by what could be described as a lack of overall intellect on the task force.
Emails surfaced showing that White House Task Force members such as Birx, Fauci, Redfield, and others were enraged that Dr Atlas came to the table with a different set of ideas, and they rightly perceived him as a threat to their monopoly on their pro-lockdown COVID messaging campaigns. Birx, for her part, routinely sent out emails through private channels to media reporters and her colleagues seeking to undermine the ideas presented by Atlas, while simultaneously refusing to defend her ideas or debate his solutions in person.
By the time President Trump decided to rebuke the task force in calling for an expedited return to normalcy, the political damage had already been done. The president’s campaign messaging was stuck in a strange place between attempting to have their COVID cake and eat it too, in recognizing that polling shifted in the direction of the restrictionist camp.
By agreeing to Fauci and Birx’s initial COVID ransom situation demands, the president set in motion a wave of momentum against him that he could never get back.
We are now just days away from President Trump being replaced by Joe Biden, and the White House COVID Task Force, led by career bureaucrats and incompetent politicians, continues its broken mission. For reasons that remain unclear, Fauci, Birx, and the gang remain on the COVID Task Force, and to this day, the White House is still delivering corona panic to states across the nation. The Task Force will live on, and to the not-so-hidden delight of its members, President Trump is president no more.
Featured Video
Racist Seinfeld Dances for Joy as Bibi Unveils His New Map
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
TV Drama Review
Japanese drama projects Japan’s wartime atrocities onto Chinese characters
Global Times | October 25, 2026
By portraying Chinese characters as perpetrators of ruthless violence while casting Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) intelligence operatives as defenders, the season 2 of the Japanese drama Vivant has recently drawn criticism from Chinese netizens, who argue that its depiction turns historical reality on its head while ignoring Japan’s wartime atrocities.
The TBS drama series – a spy suspense story in which an alleged unofficial intelligence unit of the SDF operates across the globe — has attracted a passionate fanbase. Its currently airing season 2 opened with a household rating of 18.8 percent, the highest for a TV drama this year, according toa commentary article by Japanese media Toyo Keizai.
What draws attention is the portrayal of the enemies in the series, the article noted. Scenes in which the Chinese organization subjects kidnapped members of the SDF unit to brutal torture are repeated with unrelenting intensity.
It is rare for Japanese TV dramas to explicitly portray a real-life country as the enemy, the article noted.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also made a reference to the drama, saying that she has been recording Vivant and hopes to binge-watch it over the year-end and New Year holidays, according to Japanese media outlets.
China’s CCTV News report on Sunday revealed that the drama features scenes in which Chinese personnel cut off the fingers of and stab Japanese intelligence operatives in the abdomen. Such acts bear striking similarities to the torture inflicted on Chinese nationals by invading Japanese troops during the World War II.
The drama distorts the truth by attributing these atrocities to modern Chinese characters. Beneath the surface, it subtly glorifies Japan’s cross-border overseas operations, blurs the functional boundaries of the SDF and implicitly promotes an expansionist narrative, per CCTV News. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- EU facing trillion-euro debt hole while seeking more cash for Kiev
- How US, Europe, Persian Gulf states exhausted missile stockpiles, splurged billions to defend Israel
- Up in arms… Koreans reject U.S. empire’s plan to make South Korea the next Ukraine
- Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia could advance region-led security framework in Tehran: FM spox
- Netizens condemn Japanese drama for projecting Japan’s wartime atrocities onto Chinese characters
- Racist Seinfeld Dances for Joy as Bibi Unveils His New Map
- A West Bank War for Netanyahu’s Election Campaign, Could It Backfire?
- Yemen denounces European Parliament’s ‘hypocritical’ push to blacklist Ansarullah
- Qalibaf: UAE’s UN bid aims to ‘clear the runway’ for ‘Greater Israel’, whitewash genocide
- Pakistan reopens Iran border after boosting security: Report
- If Americans Knew
- Israel punishes Palestinian prisoners with solitary confinement for making a cake
- US midterms: Where do candidates in key Senate races stand on Israel, Gaza, and Iran?
- Israeli forces demolish Hebron homes, displace thousands of Palestinians as raids expand
- Their Son Died in Israeli Prison. No Answers. No Body
- Biden’s Israel Catastrophe
- Why Israel’s latest assault on Hebron is so significant for the West Bank
- Israel Used “Where’s Daddy?” AI to Relentlessly Murder Palestinian Journalists and Their Families in Their Homes from October to December 2023
- DAILY UPDATE: Latest essential news on Palestine, Israel, & region
- Netanyahu Says Israel Must Prepare for Banking Sanctions, Floats Crypto as a Possible Bypass
- Latest updates from Israeli assault on West Bank
- No Tricks Zone
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
