RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/prior-removing-transgender-critical-book-amazon-changed-policies-ban-books-hate

Sometime before this week, when it removed from its digital shelves a book critical of transgender ideology, Amazon altered its content policy to explicitly forbid books that promote “hate speech,” a major rule change that could be used to rationalize action against a broader range of books sold by the digital retail giant.

Amazon this week yanked “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement” from its main web store, its Kindle servers and its audiobook lineup with no explanation, even as the book had been available on the site for three years with no apparent controversy. 

In the 2018 book, author and political philosopher Ryan Anderson draws on years of scientific research and data to criticize the prevailing approach to transgender issues in modern medicine. The book “exposes the contrast between the media’s sunny depiction of gender fluidity and the often sad reality of living with gender dysphoria,” according to its sales blurb. 

Anderson told Just the News that he had received no explanation for the ban.

Reached for comment by Just the News, Amazon declined to provide any explanation, offering instead a link to its book content policy. 

A review of those policies suggests that sometime in the last few months Amazon made a major change to the ways in which it moderates book content on its servers, imposing a much stricter standard on books than it had previously done. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/24/the-government-censors-are-here/

“But this is where we are in an America no previous generation would recognize. And the downward spiral is accelerating. Unless our decline is turned around hard and soon, it won’t be long before we’re burning books, because we’re already symbolically burning anyone who dares express a view that dissents from the Democrat-media narrative.”

Congressional Democrats are demanding to know what communications giants such as Comcast and AT&T are going to do about “the spread of dangerous misinformation.” How quickly this country is descending into an authoritarian regime where the government controls speech and the flow of information.

Ahead of a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday, California Democratic Reps. Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney wrote a letter to Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox, Altice, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Hulu. According to the New York Times, which says it has reviewed the correspondence, the pair is not pleased that “the cable, satellite and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets” – likely referring to Fox News, One America News Network, and Newsmax – “have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets.”

The hearing was called to focus on “disinformation and extremism in the media.” In practice it’s a stage for peacock strutting, spin, and projection (a diversionary tactic Democrats are well-practiced in) with the ultimate goal of gaining full control of the flow of information.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/faucis-mixed-messages-inconsistencies-about-covid-19-masks-vaccines-and-reopenings-come-under-scrutiny

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci’s often inconsistent comments and mixed messages on the coronavirus pandemic are prompting renewed scrutiny as debate rages over reopening schools and businesses nearly a year after the lockdowns started.

“Dr. Fauci is a very good public-health official. His job is to advise policy makers and inform the public,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on Tuesday. “But his job is NOT to decide what we can do, where we can go or which places can open or close And his job is NOT to mislead or scare us into doing the ‘right things.'”

“Why should we trust Fauci with a national plan? Back in March, Fauci famously told Americans, ‘There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,'” wrote David Harsanyi in the National Review. “(Fauci now says we should wear two masks. No thanks, Dad.)”

Masks

Fauci in an interview on “60 Minutes” in early March of last year warned of “unintended consequences” of masks, saying “people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” 

On masks, Fauci and former Surgeon General Jerome Adams – who also warned against buying and wearing masks in spring 2020 – said officials recommended against wearing masks early in the pandemic because at the time there was a massive shortage of PPE for medical workers who needed it most. Further, more evidence of asymptomatic spread of the virus later came out. 

Fauci later enthusiatically embraced wearing masks.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/23/5-times-anthony-fauci-proved-he-understands-science-as-a-tool-to-lie-to-americans/

Meghan McCain is right: Fauci should be fired. He should have been a long, long time ago. He is a liar, and he even admits it. So why is he still on TV?

Leftist media is atwitter over Meghan McCain’s criticism on “The View” Monday of Anthony Fauci’s long history of garbling scientific information to control people rather than find and communicate facts.

On Sunday, Fauci appeared on CNN and refused to say whether grandparents who had been vaccinated against COVID-19 could safely resume seeing their grandchildren in person. Instead, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ridiculously communicated doubt about the vaccines — as America faces a high level of vaccine skepticism — rather than clearly communicate the basic and crucial public health message that getting the vaccine is protective for those most endangered by COVID.

Another key public health message his duplicity undermined is the highly motivating assurance that the vaccine is our ticket back to normal. This is not because the vaccines don’t work, it’s because Fauci’s career has hit its zenith and he has strong incentives to keep himself on TV constantly at the federal government’s highest salary no matter how long children have to miss school or how many isolated people kill themselves while he’s there.

“The View” played a segment of the interview Monday. McCain commented afterward: “The fact that Dr. Fauci is going on CNN and he can’t tell me that if I get the vaccine if I’ll be able to have dinner with my family…if I can go to dinner at friends’ houses who are older — it’s terribly inconsistent messaging and it continues to be inconsistent messaging.”

She then pointed out that Israel is communicating to its populace that if they get the vaccine they can get back to normal life: “Is the science in Israel different than the science here in the United States of America?” She continued:

I for one would like something to look forward to and to hope for, because if getting the vaccine means that just nothing changes and we have to wait another few years until everyone gets it — there’s already a lot of people not getting it. We’re already having a messaging problem getting people to take this vaccine. So I’m over Dr. Fauci. I think we need to have more people giving more opinions and I honestly quite frankly I think the Biden administration should remove him and put someone else in place that maybe does understand science or can talk to other countries about how we can be more like these places that are doing this successfully.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/23/supreme-court-denial-of-2020-election-cases-invites-erosion-of-voter-confidence/

On Feb. 22, the Supreme Court refused to hear two 2020 election-related appeals, falling one vote short of the four needed for the high court to agree to hear the case. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the denial of certiorari, as did Justice Samuel Alito in a separate dissent, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

With Joe Biden now a month into his office as president of the United States, Americans may shrug at the court’s decision, but we shouldn’t: The Supreme Court’s abdication of its authority to answer important constitutional questions only encourages further lawlessness by state election officials and courts, undermines voter confidence, and threatens even more chaotic federal elections.

The two cases the Supreme Court rejected on Monday both involved the 2020 election in Pennsylvania and the constitutionality of a state court decision overriding an unambiguous deadline the Pennsylvania legislature established for the receipt of mail-in ballots of 8 p.m. on election night. As Justice Thomas explained in his dissent, “Dissatisfied, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended that deadline by three days. The court also ordered officials to count ballots received by the new deadline even if there was no evidence—such as a post mark—that the ballots were mailed by election day.”

The Republican Party of Pennsylvania and several members of the Pennsylvania House and Senate attempted to challenge the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in the U.S. Supreme Court before the election, but, at the time, the justices refused to expedite the case, leaving the petitions for review to proceed under the normal briefing schedule. But following briefing, the court denied the petition on Feb. 22.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-2-22-big-tech-deplatforming-beco

In case your memory doesn’t go back that far, the “deplatforming” thing did not just start in the past couple of months. It was way back in 2016 that Twitter first banned right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos; Facebook followed in 2019. Others getting the same or similar treatment from Twitter, Facebook, and/or Google two or more years ago include Alex Jones of InfoWars and Congressional candidate Laura Loomer.

Then, few on the serious right pushed back. After all, these people are not really our type. Often, they say outrageous things just to provoke a reaction.

But there is a reason why the ACLU, at least in its heyday, thought it was important to defend the rights of avowed neo-Nazis to march in heavily-Jewish Skokie, Illinois. Once the speech-suppression thing gets even a little toe-hold, it can quickly go from seeming insignificance to bold audacity. And thus we had Twitter, in the run-up to the election in October, banning none other than the New York Post — one of the largest-circulation newspapers in the country, and also the oldest — for having broken a story about a laptop of Hunter Biden, a story that happened to be completely true but also embarrassing to the Democratic candidate for President. And then on January 8 Twitter banned Donald Trump, who was not only the then-sitting President of the United States but also Twitter’s singe biggest generator of traffic. That ban appears since to have become permanent. On or about January 10, all of Amazon, Apple and Google took action to deplatform Parler, a web commentary site and alternative to Twitter to which many conservatives had been fleeing.

So, have we come to the end of this wave, or are we just at the beginning? For readers who aren’t following this all that closely, I thought it might be interesting to do a small round-up of some other recent “deplatformings.” The summary is, if you think that there isn’t a concerted effort going on to silence important dissenting speech coming from the right, you are just kidding yourself. A few recent examples:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/02/22/is-there-waste-or-bloate

Over the weekend, the U.S. House posted a first draft version of the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” – a $1.9 trillion emergency aid package to help America recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Previous legislation has already provided at least $4 trillion in funds for testing, paid family leave, small business relief, direct payments to individuals and families, the Kennedy Center, and a plethora of non-related COVID “relief.”

Since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team essentially wrote the bill, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found what House Democrats consider coronavirus-recovery “essential” spending:

$1.5 million earmarked for the Seaway International Bridge, which connects New York to Canada. Senate Leader Chuck Schumer hails from New York.
$50 million for “family planning” – going to non-profits, i.e. Planned Parenthood, or public entities, including for “services for adolescents[.]”
$852 million for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Vista, and the National Senior Service Corps – the Corporation for National and Community Service – civic volunteer agencies. This includes $9 million for the AmeriCorp inspector general to conduct oversight and audits of the largess. AmeriCorps received a $1.1 billion FY2020 appropriation.

People of goodwill can debate each of these goals, but is it truly emergency spending or funding related to COVID?

For example, what is the public purpose for a hike in the minimum wage to $15 per hour – which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says will cost the economy 1.4 million jobs?

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/539971-bidens-unity-effort-falters

This month’s impeachment trial in which seven Republicans joined 50 Democrats in voting to convict former President Trump of inciting an insurrection may be the high-water mark of bipartisanship under President Biden, according to grumbling GOP senators.

Republicans acknowledge that Biden has improved the tone of civility in Washington, but they complain that he and his party haven’t made much of an effort to work with them.

Democrats don’t appear interested in having a real bipartisan negotiation on a COVID-19 relief bill or an upcoming infrastructure and jobs package, the senators complain.

They argue that other than one meeting at the White House earlier this month, Biden has done less to engage with Republican lawmakers on legislative priorities than then-President Obama did in 2009, when Democrats negotiated extensively with the GOP on an economic rescue package and a health care overhaul bill that became the Affordable Care Act, at a time when the party held nearly 60 seats.

Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), who was one of 10 GOP senators to meet with Biden at the White House earlier this month, said Republican lawmakers are waiting to hear back from the White House on a proposal to scale down the size of Biden’s COVID-19 proposal.

Asked if there’s still a possibility of a bipartisan deal, Portman said: “You’d have to ask them.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/22/garland-will-make-january-6-investigation-his-priority/

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck filled with two tons of explosives parked outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 168 people, including 15 children under the age of six at the site’s child care center.

It was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil between Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Everyone old enough still remembers when they first heard the news and saw the first horrific images of firefighters gently carrying out the broken bodies of dead toddlers.

The Oklahoma City bombing bears no comparison to what happened at the Capitol building on January 6. To suggest so not only is an historical false equivalence but a heartless diminution of the suffering and loss McVeigh and his co-conspirators, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, inflicted that day—a painful affront to the families left behind.

But during his confirmation hearing Monday, Merrick Garland, Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general, insisted the current political climate is worse than the divisive climate leading up to McVeigh’s mass murder nearly 26 years ago. 

“We are facing a more dangerous period than we faced in Oklahoma City,” Garland told Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.). “From what I have seen . . . it looks like an extremely aggressive and perfectly appropriate beginning to an investigation all across the country in the same way our regional investigation was but many, many times more.”

He continued. “I can assure you this will be my first priority and my first briefing.”

The Democrats’ Consigliere

Garland, of course, is referring to the ongoing and partisan Justice Department inquisition into the so-called “insurrection” at the Capitol building on January 6. Top officials warn the probe will be one that is “unprecedented in size and scope.” More than 200 people already have been arrested, mostly for misdemeanors, and dozens remain behind bars denied bail; federal prosecutors argue defendants with no criminal record nonetheless pose a risk to the community for the thoughtcrime of doubting the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/merrick_garland_neera_tanden_xavier_becerra_the_dems_are_really_overplaying_their_hand.html

Merrick Garland, the man Obama wanted to put on the SCOTUS, is now President Biden’s choice to be his attorney general.  Based on what we heard Monday, we can breathe a sigh of relief that he never made it onto the Supreme Court.  

But then again, those that Trump did get confirmed for the court have thoroughly abdicated their responsibility, betrayed the oath they took as justices.   With the exception of Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch it appears there are no other actual constitutionalists seated there.

But back to Garland.  He evaded answering most questions posed by Republicans.  He compared the January 6th events at the Capitol to the Oklahoma City bombing (168 killed)!  He refused to condemn the billions of dollars in damage done by Antifa and BLM as domestic terrorism but vowed to prosecute all who were involved in the January 6th breach, even though the only person with a gun was the person who shot and killed Ashley Babbitt.   It should be clear to every sentient American that what happened that day was carefully planned, not by Trump supporters but by their opponents, who strategized that a conflagration would be the perfect stunt with which to impugn the President.

Garland’s evasive non-answers were truly shocking.  Why didn’t the Republicans in the room get up and walk out?  Why do the Republicans always cave in collective knee-jerk fashion to the authoritarian pretenses of the left?  It is a question for the ages for it has so long been true.  Trump’s brash courage to fight back showed us who the good guys are and who the cowards are.  Sadly, those with the courage of their conservative pro-

American convictions are too few.