YouTube Censors a Trump Adviser

Big Tech is fully invested in defeating Donald Trump in November.

What is surprising, though, are the depths to which Google and YouTube will stoop to silence those with whom they disagree. It’s one thing, for example, for Facebook to de-platform a provocative conspiracy theorist like Alex Jones. It’s another thing, however, for YouTube to remove a June 23 Hoover Institution interview with Dr. Scott Atlas, the noted author and former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and an official adviser to President Donald Trump.

As The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman asks, “Does cancel culture now dictate that Americans must be denied sensible medical information? Google parent Alphabet’s YouTube division seems to have blocked a White House medical adviser’s analysis because it conflicts with the flawed pronouncements of a U.N. bureaucracy.”

But back to Dr. Atlas. What remarks of his did YouTube find so awful, so deeply disturbing, so terribly threatening to the health of the American people and their brothers and sisters around the globe? This: “Dr. Atlas has been making the case in print and in other media that we as a society have overreacted in imposing draconian restrictions on movement, gatherings, schools, sports, and other activities. He is not a COVID-19 denier — he believes the virus is a real threat and should be managed as such. But, as Dr. Atlas argues, there are some age groups and activities that are subject to very low risk. The one-size-fits-all approach we are currently using is overly authoritarian, inefficient, and not based in science.

A thoughtful reader might note that these remarks have aged remarkably well, especially given that Atlas made them nearly three months ago. That reader might also note that these remarks sound as if they might’ve been made by Donald Trump himself, albeit in a more combative way.

SOURCE

Controversial call to officially rename New Zealand

The name New Zealand could be no more, if a general election promise comes to fruition.

The cities of Wellington and Christchurch could also have their British derived names axed under the proposals.

But the suggestion has not gone down well with a rival political party.

Kiwis go to the polls on October 17 after the previous election date of September 23 was postponed due to a new outbreak of coronavirus in the country’s major city of Auckland last month.

The Jacinda Ardern-led Labor Party is aiming to retain power boosted by its pandemic response with the ultimate prize being able to govern in its own right and not in coalition. The opposition National Party is hoping to cause an upset with its focus on rebuilding the post-COVID economy.

However it’s another issue which has caused headlines this week – what the country is called.

The Maori Party has said if it won power it would change the country’s official name to Aotearoa within six years.

More than that, all towns and cities with “pakeha” (European) names would lose them by 2026. The capital of Wellington would become Te Whanganui-a-Tara with Christchurch known as Ōtautahi.

However, the proposal has been rubbished by leader of the New Zealand First Party and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters who said it was “separatism” and politicians should be focusing on jobs and education in the wake of the pandemic.

NZ First governs in coalition with Labor.

“This is plain headline hunting without any regard to the cost to this country,” Mr Peters wrote on Twitter. “It will make our international marketing brand extraordinarily confusing when exports will be critical to our economic survival.”

SOURCE