Pro-Life Activists Can Proceed With Freedom of Speech Lawsuit, Court Rules

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that a lower court was wrong to dismiss a lawsuit brought forward by pro-life activists who argued that the city violated their First Amendment rights by arresting them for writing a slogan on a sidewalk in 2020.

In August 2020, police arrested 22-year-old Erica Caporaletti, a student at Towson University, and Warner DePriest, a 29-year old D.C. resident. According to The Washington Post, the two were writing “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter” with chalk on the sidewalk outside a D.C. Planned Parenthood. It is reportedly illegal for people to write on public or private property without a permit.

Shortly after, the pro-life activists sued D.C., arguing that their constitutional rights were violated because it allowed others to paint slogans like “Defund the Police” during the Black Lives Matter protests.

In 2021, a district court dismissed the lawsuit. This week, the appeals court ruled to allow the lawsuit to move forward.

“The First Amendment prohibits the government from favoring some speakers over others. Access to public fora must be open to everyone and to every message on the same terms. The District may act to prevent the defacement of public property, but it cannot open up its streets and sidewalks to some viewpoints and not others,” Judge Neomi Rao, who was nominated by former President Donald Trump, wrote in the opinion.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/08/19/appeals-court-sides-with-pro-lifers-in-dc-first-amendment-lawsuit-n2627224

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How Big Tech tried to silence my voice

Peta Credlin is opposed to "Voice", a forthcoming Left-led referendum in Australia designed to privilege blacks



On August 3, Sky News posted my night’s editorial on Facebook, substantiating the argument that the Uluru Statement is a lot more than just the PM’s one-page poster. A week later, the Big Tech censors blanked it out, plastering this statement where the video used to be – “False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers” – and a link to a document from a hardly unbiased partnership between the RMIT and the ABC.

In the document, the RMIT-ABC “fact-checkers” simply asserted that the Prime Minister, the Uluru Statement’s authors and the NIAA had denied my claim. They were completely oblivious to six years of previous statements by the authors who said otherwise, and disregarded the NIAA’s earlier written confirmation, from its FOI legal team, that Document 14 was indeed the full Uluru Statement.

A clear case of fact-checkers ignoring inconvenient but relevant facts, and Big Tech then blocking anything that’s doesn’t pass the RMIT-ABC test of political correctness.

This is not the first time Big Tech has censored arguments against the voice. Facebook has previously blocked an Institute of Public Affairs discussion featuring senators Jacinta Price and James McGrath. It’s also blocked a post from Advance Australia stating that the voice conferred “special rights” on Indigenous people, again citing RMIT-ABC fact-checkers, despite former judges making the very same point.

It’s wrong for Facebook to cancel views it doesn’t like, rather than be the platform for free speech that it used to claim to be, and letting people judge for themselves.

But think just how much worse this will get if the Albanese government’s proposed bill against mis­information and disinformation passes. Politically correct censorship will become routine if Big Tech faces multimillion-dollar fines for posting material that faceless government officials think is misleading or false. Especially with formerly free speech that the PM himself claims is “misinformation” because it doesn’t fit the political case he’s trying to make.

So far, there’s no suggestion that Big Tech has blocked any pro-voice advocacy, notwithstanding any number of social media posts that it’s racist to vote No or false claims that the official No campaign was using AI to fake Indigenous opposition to the voice.

This voice debate has become quite a dangerous moment for our country. There’s the PM committed to implementing “in full” a statement that he hasn’t fully read, in a bad case of endorsing the cover but not the contents.

There’s the risk Australians may be pressured by moral intimidation and weight of advertising into abandoning our historic commitment to being, in Bob Hawke’s words, a country with “no hierarchy of descent” and “no privilege of origin”. And then there’s the threat to free speech, justified on the grounds that any dissent from the Big Government, Big Business, Big Sport and Big Tech line is somehow “misinformation”.

As a newspaper columnist with my own TV show, I’m not after sympathy. And it’s hard to defend the more extreme statements that difficult subjects always elicit. Yet if free speech is not for everyone, ultimately, it is for no one.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/big-tech-yes-camp-censors-will-only-reinforce-no-vote/news-story/b4d58fd295a9cc8ad3f87dcaad49ea5a

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An old joke but a dangerous one

The Bachelorette star Georgia Love has spoken for the first time since the 'casual racism' scandal that saw her removed from on-air duties at Channel Seven.

The former newsreader, 34, made headlines for the wrong reasons in late 2021 when she posted a video asking whether a cat was on the menu at a Chinese restaurant after seeing the animal in the window.

Georgia, who opted to stay silent in the wake of the scandal, finally spoke to to Stellar magazine this week to call out cancel culture while also apologising for her actions.

'I hate the term cancellation. To think that we have the ability to cancel somebody – whether that means from their industry, their job, their family and friends. We don't have the ability to do that,' she said.

Georgia said cancel culture is unfair because people aren't afforded the opportunity to defend themselves in the 'heat of the moment'.

Georgia also lamented about the fallout from the scandal, telling the magazine: 'I had my dream job. I felt so lucky every day to be doing what I loved and what I had dreamed of for so long.'

'So to have lost that on-air job – I stayed working at Seven, but I was taken off air in the fallout – was probably the hardest thing for me, because I've always put a lot of emphasis and focus on my work and my career.'

Despite this, Georgia said she never meant to 'purposely upset or offend anyone', and is 'deeply sorry' for the upset it caused, adding: 'I've done a lot of reflection. I've learnt a lot.

Georgia posted the controversial footage in September 2021 while she was visiting a Chinese restaurant in her Melbourne hometown.

Filming a cat sitting behind the window of a the eatery, Georgia wrote: 'Shop attendant or lunch?!'

Critics claimed the footage was offensive and perpetrated a harmful stereotype about Chinese people.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12425247/Georgia-Love-calls-cancel-culture-losing-dream-job-Seven-casual-racism-scandal-issues-grovelling-apology-insists-never-meant-offend-anyone.html

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Two “drag queens” have lost their landmark legal fight over free speech

They are not beyond  criticism

Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal member Jeremy Gordon ruled on August 10 that drag queens Johnny Valkyrie and Dwayne Hill were not vilified by Lyle Shelton in multiple blog posts and a video podcast in November 2020.

The blog and podcast referred to the children’s holiday entertainment event called ‘Drag Queen Story Time’ organised by the Brisbane City Council and Rainbow Families at the Brisbane City Council Library at Brisbane Square on January 12, 2020.

Rainbow Families Queensland engaged Mr Valkyrie to dress as drag queen “Queeny” and Mr Hill to dress as his stage persona “Diamond” and they performed for up to 20 kids aged between two and eight years old.

In throwing the case out of the tribunal in his 76-page decision Mr Gordon ruled that all five separate “heads” of vilification alleged by Mr Valkyrie and Mr Hill had failed.

“The belief of those in the hypothetical audience that when performing drag queen story time the complainants were involved in some sort of child abuse or pedophilia, would not have come from anything in the respondent’s published material but from something else,” Mr Gordon said in his reasons.

Mr Gordon also said another complaint that Mr Shelton had vilified drag queens generally also failed.

“There is a difficulty in that, for there to be a contravention of section 124A the incitement to hatred or serious contempt would need to be on the ground of the sexuality or gender identity of drag queens,” he wrote.

“On the evidence I have heard and seen, some drag queens are transgender persons and some are persons with homosexual sexual orientation, but a substantial proportion of drag queens are neither,” he wrote.

The duo complained of vilification as individuals – alleging that Mr Shelton asserted that dressed as drags queens they were dangerous to children, and were child sex offenders – and also vilification of groups of persons where they were member such as drag queens, transgender people, homosexual or LGBTIQ+.

State laws make it illegal to incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule for persons or groups of people on the ground of sexuality or gender identity.

The decision states that Mr Shelton falsely stated that Mr Hill was “a porn star” and was in the “sex trade industry”.

Mr Hill told the tribunal that he had never been involved in the pornography or prostitution industries and that while he performs as a drag queen under the name Diamond Good-Rim this is only for adult shows, and when working with children he only uses the name ‘Diamond’.

Mr Valkyrie complained to the Queensland Human Rights Commission in January 2020 about Mr Shelton’s blog post in January 2020 which Mr Valkyrie complained “described me as dangerous for children as I am transgender, homosexual and do drag”.

Six months later Mr Hill made a complaint based on the same material to the QHRC, and later both complaints were referred to QCAT.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-qld/two-drag-queens-lose-landmark-free-speech-stoush-over-brisbane-library-story-time/news-story/e60721f2217f8733bde96940e66dca29

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‘Egregiously Obvious’ That Biden Admin Violated First Amendment Rights, Tech Policy Expert Says

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, recently tweeted a lengthy thread in hopes of exposing Americans to the so-called Facebook Files.

Using all capital letters, Jordan wrote July 27: “THE FACEBOOK FILES, PART 1: SMOKING-GUN DOCS PROVE FACEBOOK CENSORED AMERICANS BECAUSE OF BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE.”

Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also has tweeted about other parts of the “Facebook Files.”

Asked by The Daily Signal what the most shocking discovery is so far, Jake Denton, research associate in The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, replies that “none of this really came as a surprise, necessarily.” (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)

“It’s egregiously obvious they were violating our First Amendment rights,” Denton says of the Biden administration, adding:

There’s this huge interplay collusion between Big Tech and big government, and then a week later, no one’s talking about it. And I think that the shock factor has gone away, because we just keep seeing it happen.

If you’re looking for one element of the [document] drops that kind of stand out from all of them, [it] is the correspondence trying to take down a meme, which kind of just shows you the comedic scale that this has reached, where you have government employees whose daily job is to scroll through Facebook [and] Twitter and critique a meme’s role in the information environment.

Mark Zuckerberg heads Meta, parent company of Facebook. Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October, recently renamed it X.

Denton joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the secrets exposed by the “Facebook Files,” why Americans should be concerned, and what the revelations say about the relationship between social media companies and the Biden administration.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/10/egregiously-obvious-that-biden-admin-violated-first-amendment-rights-tech-policy-expert-says/

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Pink censorship

A hallmark of every dictatorial regime is an inability to withstand scrutiny. From the emperors of antiquity to the tyrants (both tin-pot and tech-savvy) of today, what absolutist rulers throughout human history all have in common is an extremely low tolerance for criticism. No matter the nature of their regime—a Latin American junta, an East Bloc nomenklatura, or an African kleptocracy—among the very first actions that the aspiring authoritarian takes upon seizing power is to silence those who might point out his shortcomings.

“Authoritarian” is the word that first comes to mind upon reading the open letter addressed to the country’s largest social media platforms earlier this summer, calling on them to “Stop the Flow of Anti-Trans Hate & Malicious Disinformation About Trans Healthcare.” Organized by the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD, two of America’s leading LGBTQ rights groups, the letter, which was signed by over 250 celebrities including Jamie Lee Curtis, Elliot Page, and Patrick Stewart, faults Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter for “a massive systemic failure to prohibit hate, harassment, and malicious anti-LGBTQ disinformation on your platforms [that] must be addressed.”

Like their effort earlier this year reproaching The New York Times over its coverage of transgender issues, this latest missive on the part of HRC and GLAAD is heavy on adjectives and short on facts. In a glaring tell, the word “dangerous” appears four times to describe various types of constitutionally protected expression. So too does the term “hate speech,” which the Supreme Court, under both liberal and conservative majorities, has continuously refused to recognize as a legal category.

Examples of such “hate speech” that the signatories want banished from the internet include “targeted misgendering and deadnaming,” the latter being the practice of referring to a transgender person by their birth name rather than their chosen one. In a footnote, the letter links to an article declaring that the “relentless misgendering of Dr. Rachel Levine,” an assistant secretary for health and the first openly transgender Senate-confirmed government official, “is violence.” You know, violence, a category that now includes punching someone, stabbing them, and using the name on their birth certificate.

To be sure, deliberately misgendering and deadnaming are rude. But it’s difficult to see how banning such practices from the digital public square would not lead to banning whatever any other group of aggrieved people happens to consider offensive. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is called all sorts of nasty names on the internet. Why should Levine, a public official who routinely uses her platform to push dubious policies regarding the provision of puberty blockers and hormones to gender dysphoric youth, be legally protected from insult but not the dishonorable woman from Georgia? The letter’s organizers unwittingly reveal this slippery slope with their insistence that tech companies “urgently take action to protect trans and LGBTQ users on your platforms (including protecting us from over-enforcement and censorship).” In other words, free speech for me but not for thee.

To justify its call for a vast censorship regime, the letter asserts that online “disinformation and hate” have played “an outsize role in the sharp increase in real-world anti-transgender targeting and violence.” Yet it provides no facts to connect these two phenomena. And it undermines its own claim completely by linking to three of the very videos it claims are provoking violence against trans people—an act that, if we were to take the letter’s argument seriously, would itself constitute a punishable form of “violence.”

From the people who told you that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation and the lab leak theory was a racist lie, here’s the latest update on ‘medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth.’

The greatest problem with the letter concerns “disinformation,” a deliberately elusive term the cynical purposes of which my colleague Jacob Siegel has exhaustively diagnosed, and which appears nine times throughout the text. By “disinformation,” the signatories appear to mean anything questioning the advisability of what they euphemistically term “medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth”—that is, sex changes for children. But like “fake news,” its MAGA equivalent, “disinformation” is in the eye of the beholder. Take the letter’s bald-faced assertion that “every leading medical and psychological association affirms the safety and necessity of gender affirming healthcare for trans people, including youth.” Britain’s National Health Service, Sweden’s Board of Health and Welfare, and the Finnish Health Authority—all of which have drastically limited the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on minors after conducting extensive reviews of their effects—would beg to differ.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/pinkwashing-thought-police

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Scots could face criminal records for calling someone a 'grumpy old man' under SNP's plans for barmy new laws that make ageism a hate crime

Calling someone 'old' could land Scots with a criminal record under new woke laws being introduced by the SNP to tackle 'ageism'.

From next year, the definition of a hate crime will be extended to include threats or abusive language which focus on someone's age.

Critics have warned that being rude or mocking someone for being old – or young – could result in a 'hate crime' conviction, punishable by a prison sentence or hefty fine.

The radical change is part of Humza Yousaf's draconian Hate Crime and Public Order legislation, which he first mooted while he was Justice Secretary.

Under the Act passed during the Covid crisis in 2021, offences are considered aggravated if they involve prejudice on the basis of disability, sexual orientation, transgender identity or variation in sex characteristics.

It also created new offences of 'stirring up hatred' – which previously applied only to race – meaning Scots could break the rules in the privacy of their own home. Now, new guidance has disclosed that age is to become a protected characteristic from next year.

Under the change, the SNP's own Mhairi Black could fall foul of the legislation. Last week she dismissed those who don't agree with her views on transgender rights as '50-year-old Karens'.

Last night, Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said: 'The notion that describing someone as a 'grumpy old man' or a 'callow youth' should be a hate crime is ludicrous.

'How does the Scottish Government propose to police this? It still hasn't activated the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act because Police Scotland doesn't have the resources to investigate the deluge of complaints it will receive, with thousands of neighbours and ex-lovers accusing each other of hate crimes.

'Not a single 'hate crime' set out in the Act has been prosecuted. Adding 'ageism' to the list is therefore just meaningless blather, typical of this zombie government.'

Scottish Conservative deputy justice spokesman Sharon Dowey said: 'Despite its good intentions, this Bill is riddled with ridiculous legislation that risks turning innocent comments into hate crimes.'

According to Police Scotland, current laws cover any existing offence motivated by prejudice relating to race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. Inciting racial hatred and racially motivated harassment are stand-alone hate crime offences.

The legal definition of hate crime is 'any crime understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated (wholly or partly) by malice or ill will'.

A document released by the Scottish Government last week stated: 'In Scotland, hate crime law will be changing in 2024 to include age.'

It is the latest controversy surrounding the laws. In 2017, a public consultation asked whether homeless people, those who use food banks, refugees or – alarmingly – paedophiles, should also be protected by the legislation. Drug users and travellers were also suggested as possible protected groups.

The SNP's hate crime legislation has raised concerns that it will stifle free speech and debate.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: 'The new offence of stirring up hatred in relation to age requires behaviour that is threatening or abusive.  'Being rude to someone because of their age would clearly not meet this threshold.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12401331/Scots-old-ageism-hate-crime.html

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Popular NASCAR driver, 25, suspended indefinitely for liking a meme about George Floyd on social media

Must not speak of the sainted petty criminal George Floyd with anything but reverence

A popular and rising NASCAR driver was suspended indefinitely for liking a meme about George Floyd on social media.

Noah Gragson was suspended indefinitely by his team – the Legacy Motor Club on Saturday.

"We have made the decision to suspend Noah Gragson effective immediately regarding his actions that do not represent the values of our team," Legacy Motor Club said in a statement. "Josh Berry will drive the No. 42 entry for this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan."

NASCAR not only agreed with the decision to suspend Gragson, but also suspended him indefinitely.

"NASCAR fully supports Legacy Motor Club’s decision to suspend Noah Gragson," the racing association stated. "Following his actions on social media, NASCAR has determined that Gragson has violated the Member Conduct section of the 2023 NASCAR Rule Book and has placed him under indefinite suspension."

Gragson issued an apology online following his suspension.

"I am disappointed in myself for my lack of attention and actions on social media," Gragson said on Twitter. "I understand the severity of this situation. I love and appreciate everyone. I try to treat everyone equally no matter who they are. I messed up plain and simple."

Gragson allegedly liked an insensitive meme about George Floyd on Instagram.

TMZ reported, "The image shows the live-action version of Sebastian the crab from 'The Little Mermaid,' with Floyd's face superimposed. A caption reads, 'Under Da Knee, Under Da Knee.'"

A little over two weeks after Floyd's death in May 2020, NASCAR announced it had banned the Confederate flag at all of its events and properties.

"The presence of the Confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry," NASCAR said at the time. "Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community it creates is what makes fans and sport special."

This was Gragson's first full season racing in the Cup series and he is 33rd in the standings after 22 starts.

The 25-year-old driver was awarded the Xfinity series "Most Popular Driver" award last year.

JR Motorsports said of Gragson last December, The Las Vegas native won eight races in the No. 9 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet in 2022, including a record-tying run of four consecutive in the month of September. He led the team not just in victories, but also set an organizational record with 1,010 laps led along with a series-high 21 top-five finishes."

https://www.theblaze.com/news/nascar-noah-gragson-suspended-george-floyd-meme?

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Newsguard

Newsguard is a censorship organization. They claim to identify misinformation in the media and offer their services to other media organizations as a way of filtering out "wrong" reports from their coverage.

What constitutes misinformation is however controversial and one wonders how Newsguard arrives at its conclusions.

They have recently taken a shot at "TrialSite", an organization devoted to providing informed commentary on recent output of medical research. Needless to say, TrialSite does often criticize Covid research and finds much of it wanting. So Newsguard has been trying to silence them

TrialSite is not taking it lying down however and have just done a big analysis of Newsguard. I have put up their analysis on my DISSECTING LEFTISM blog, which see. They conclude that Newsguard primarly aims to suppress criticism of government reports

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Furious Rudy Giuliani calls indictment 'vague' and tears into Trump Special Counsel Jack Smith for attacking the free speech of every American

A furious Rudy Giuliani waved around the federal indictment against Donald Trump and banged it onto his desk during an interview tearing into special counsel Jack Smith and defending the former president.

'This this indictment is an outrage,' Giuliani said during an interview with Newsmax's Eric Bolling just after Trump was hit with four federal charges for his bid to overturn then 2020 election. 'These crimes, these are very, very vague crimes.'

The former New York Mayor delivered a message to Smith as he raged and slammed down the 45-page indictment: 'This one will be your legacy. Violating the right to free speech of an American citizen - never mind whether he was president or not. It could be anybody. It could be a homeless person.'

He addressed the special counsel directly: 'You don't get to violate people's first amendment rights, Smith. No matter who the hell you are, no matter how sick you are with Trump derangement syndrome.'

On Tuesday, Trump was indicted on four federal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and obstruct the electoral count.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12365057/Furious-Rudy-Giuliani-slams-desk-calls-indictment-vague-tears-Trump-Special-Counsel-Jack-Smith-attacking-free-speech-American-doesnt-confirm-one-conspirators.html

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Our fight for free speech: At first it was political correctness but now it’s the new McCarthyism

by Evgeny Lebedev

Let me take you back to 2006. An Oxford student named Sam Brown has just asked a mounted police officer a question. “Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?” There, among the dreaming spires, he is arrested for making homophobic remarks.

It’s a funny old story, and while I’m glad Britain takes equine offence so seriously, I take greater pleasure in imagining the kind of person who is so sensitive, or in love with power, as to see jovial behaviour as a pretext to get someone into handcuffs.

In 2006 this was an oddity; something incredulous; a plot right out of Monty Python. Brown refused to pay the fine and the prosecution dropped the case. Fast forward nearly 20 years, and absurd stories of the same kind seem to litter our newsfeeds like parakeets in Battersea Park.

Unfortunately, they are no longer so light-hearted. Nor do they end so neatly. When, in 2020, a man was filmed cracking his knuckles outside the window of his car on a US motorway, he was dismissed from San Diego Gas and Electric after the video went viral on Twitter. According to commentators, he had positioned his fingers into a gesture of white supremacy.

We get cancelled for all manner of things nowadays. And, it seems, by all manner of people. The banks can do it, as we now all know (thank you, Nigel), or rabbis taking out adverts in the New York Times to claim that Dua Lipa’s support for Palestinians makes her anti-Semitic.

This is taking place in societies that pride themselves on upholding free expression. There is no end to it, and I haven’t even mentioned author JK Rowling.

Today, the UK finds itself ranked 34th in the world for freedom of expression by Article 19, a British NGO. You read that right. 34th. That’s lower than Ireland (8), Germany (9) and France (23). More chilling is the finding, in its new Global Expression Report, that more than six billion people have less freedom of expression than they had back in 2000. That’s 80 per cent of the world’s population.

Growing up in the Soviet Union means I have never taken free speech for granted. The reason my family invested in newspapers in Britain was because we were admirers of a free press, and with that, freedom to express ourselves. These were values to be upheld, regardless of the cost.

Of course, free speech is also about responsible speech — and those whose liberties know no bounds play a dangerous game. Too often, the media has been found guilty of peddling unsubstantiated stories, putting targets on people’s backs simply because it sells. This imperils our profession — as we saw 12 years ago with Leveson — and compromises freedom itself.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/our-fight-for-free-speech-at-first-it-was-political-correctness-but-now-it-s-the-new-mccarthyism/ar-AA1eGeEK

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Don’t move backward on free speech

The more documents that Big Tech companies are forced to cough up through litigation and oversight, the clearer it becomes that there was in fact a coordinated campaign between social media platforms and the government to suppress speech that is inconvenient for those in power.

This censorship runs counter to our nation’s founding principles. Congress and litigants should keep up the pressure on social media companies to reveal what they did, and safeguards need to be put in place to make sure this never happens again.

The latest revelations of Big Tech-government collusion come from the House Judiciary Committee, where Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) had to schedule a vote to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress before Meta finally agreed to meet the committee’s document request. When Meta finally produced the documents, Jordan called off the contempt vote.

Jordan released exactly what he expected to find from Meta: Evidence that Facebook and Instagram suppressed the content of users that the White House had deemed inappropriate.

One April 2021 email from an anonymous Facebook employee to Zuckerberg and former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg complained of “continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press” to suppress unwanted content. In one case, Facebook bragged that it had reduced the reach of a specific Tucker Carlson video on its platform by 50%.

"These documents, and others that were just produced to the committee, prove that the Biden administration abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance," Jordan said in a statement.

While Jordan should continue his investigation, legislation introduced in the Senate last week would essentially legalize the exact suppression of speech Jordan is trying to bring to light. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) unveiled the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act, a bill that they claim will “rein in Big Tech” by creating a government commission to crack down on “disinformation.”

With this commission in place, a future White House wouldn’t need to send emails directly to the CEOs of Big Tech companies asking to take offensive content down. The Digital Consumer Protection Commission could just do it for them. Warren and Graham claim this commission would be “bipartisan,” but ultimately any commission would be made up of commissioners appointed by a president and those commissioners would have the same partisan bias as the president who appointed them. There simply is no way to create a safe and truly non-partisan speech police.

Between Jordan’s investigation, Elon Musk’s Twitter Files, and the ongoing litigation in federal court in which Louisiana and Missouri have secured an injunction forbidding government officials from coordinating with Big Tech, free speech is much safer now than it was in 2020. Now is not the time to move in the opposite direction with the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/don-t-move-backward-on-free-speech/ar-AA1eCp3X

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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The Biden Administration’s Assault on Free Speech

Among the revelations in the so-called Twitter files was that government officials pressured social-media companies to censor posts unfavorable to the Biden administration. The White House has denied this, insisting that companies like Meta and Twitter adopted content-moderation policies on their own. But internal documents newly released by the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government prove that government pressure led Meta to go beyond what it otherwise would have in censoring user speech.

Court-ordered discovery in Missouri v. Biden has already revealed that the White House strong-armed platforms into more censorship than they considered justified—prompting the judge to declare that the administration had made “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” The new documents go further, showing that the administration drove much of Meta’s censorship.

In April 2021, Facebook (now Meta) executive Nick Clegg wrote to the company’s leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg: “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more COVID-19 vaccine discouraging content” (emphasis in original). Mr. Clegg recounted a conversation he had with Andy Slavitt, then White House senior adviser for the Covid response. Mr. Clegg wrote that Mr. Slavitt was “outraged” that Facebook hadn’t taken down a meme, which joked that 10 years from now trial-lawyer commercials would be soliciting the vaccinated to seek damages. When Mr. Clegg protested that the administration was making “a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression,” Mr. Slavitt (according to Mr. Clegg) dismissed such First Amendment concerns on the ground that the objectionable meme “inhibits confidence in Covid vaccines.” This prompted Mr. Clegg to comment to his colleagues that “given what is at stake here,” the company should “regroup to take stock of where we are in our relations with the WH, and our internal methods too.”

Meta acquiesced to the administration’s pressure. An internal Aug. 2, 2021, email from a Facebook employee on the Trust and Safety Team noted: “Leadership asked Misinfo Policy and a couple of teams on Product Policy to brainstorm some additional policy levers we can pull to be more aggressive against Covid and vaccine misinformation. This is stemming from the continued criticism of our approach from the US administration and a desire to kick the tires further internally on creative options.”

An internal Meta email from a few weeks later confirms that the company increased its censorship under administration pressure. After discussing “our response to the Surgeon General on COVID-19 misinformation,” another employee on the Trust and Safety team wrote, “we agreed to further explore four discreet policy options for reducing the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on our platforms.” Those policies targeted 12 individuals known as the “Disinformation Dozen” and were implemented on the platform shortly after the Aug. 2 email, resulting in removal of these accounts and many others.

At the government’s behest, Facebook also adopted a policy of removing posts discussing the lab-leak theory. In July 2021, Mr. Clegg emailed his colleagues to find out “why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man made.” The company’s vice president in charge of content policy responded that “we were under pressure from the administration and others to do more” and continued with regret: “we shouldn’t have done that.”

The First Amendment prohibits the government from “abridging the freedom of speech.” Supreme Court doctrine makes clear that government can’t constitutionally evade the amendment by working through private companies. The newly released documents paint a clear picture of an administration running roughshod over these protections.

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is poised to reconsider the injunction against the government in Missouri v. Biden early next month. The government’s case relies to a significant degree on the claim that it isn’t clear the government caused the platforms’ censorship. And the Sixth Circuit will soon be re-evaluating the denial of discovery in a similar case, Changizi v. HHS.

The latest revelations underscore the need for the injunction in Missouri and for discovery, not dismissal, in Changizi. If the appellate courts fail to recognize the spurious nature of the government’s position, the First Amendment might as well be a dead letter.

More generally, the nation needs to come to terms with the reality and scale of the assault on free speech. Our government has established a vast system of censorship. By keeping it largely secret, it has been able to exert unconstitutional control over medical, scientific and political speech, suppressing debate over questions of great public importance. This is a shocking constitutional violation. All of us, not only the courts, need to recognize what is at stake.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-administrations-assault-on-free-speech-first-amendment-soical-media-platform-meta-facebook-twitter-files-99101669

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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'I'll do it again': Teachers at Christian school fired after publicizing drag queen show

Two teachers were fired from a Christian school in Baytown, Texas, after going to a drag queen performance and posting images and videos on Facebook about the event.

ABC 13 reported that two teachers were both fired from First Baptist Academy because they violated the school's operating policies manual.

Kristi Maris reportedly went to an establishment in Houston, Texas, called Hamburger Mary's, which frequently hosts events featuring men dressed as women. Their website boasts events such as the "SaturGay Brunch Hosted by Lady Shamu" and "Party with the Divaz."

Maris posted photos and videos from her time at the show on Facebook, captioned "This was a blast!!!!" before being contacted by her school.

The senior pastor at the school pointed to the operating policies manual, which Maris had previously agreed to, which stated, "I will act in a godly and moral fashion at work, on Facebook and in my community."

Despite agreeing to the clause, Maris couldn't comprehend why attending a drag show was not seen as "godly" or "moral" and said that she felt she and her coworker "were treated like criminals" when they were contacted by the school over the phone about their jobs.

Both were fired via phone call and complained that they were not able to say goodbye to coworkers or students, according to Q1077 radio.

"They're entertainers. I would've never thought in a million years that this would happen. Never. We were in disbelief. We still are. We were heartbroken. We had relationships with parents and the kids, and I didn't even get to say goodbye to a lot of the kids," Maris said.

"For almost 20 years, I've taught children to love each other. I've talked to them and told them, 'You have to get along. God loves us all equally.' And that's the way we should be," Maris went on. "We should love everybody, and that's what we've been teaching, but they're expecting us not to do that."

The woman told the local ABC affiliate that while she won't be teaching for the time being, she will continue to attend shows predominantly featuring men performing as caricatures of women.

"Oh yeah, I'll do it again," she said. "It was too much fun, and it was good music!"

https://www.theblaze.com/news/baptist-school-firing-dragshow-tx

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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The Intolerant Woke Left is the Only Threat to Free Speech

A clear majority of Americans now back restrictions from both the government and tech companies on "false" content, per the latest Pew Research Institute poll, revealing how successful the effort has been to build a constituency around silencing dissent.

Five years ago, a similar Pew survey showed that a majority of Americans—58 percent—understood that protecting freedom of information was more important than concerns about the veracity of what was posted online. Why did that number flip to 55 percent in favor of silencing so-called false information, with only 42 percent now clinging to faith in free speech?

The blame clearly belongs to the political Left, and in particular, President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, and its corporate media and Big Tech collaborators.

This spirit of intolerance was given new life by the reaction to the 2016 presidential election and the rise of former President Donald Trump. Rather than admit that their ideas and candidate had no appeal to working class voters, Democrats and their press cheerleaders preferred to blame fables about Russia. Liberals and Democrats concluded that Trump constituted a threat that could not be met by the conventional methods of democratic debate; the only answer to conservatives was to label their speech as beyond the pale.

And when damning evidence of Biden family corruption was uncovered during the last weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, the Left closed ranks to ensure that the New York Post's story about Hunter Biden's laptop was suppressed. They then bought into the lies concocted by the Biden campaign—backed up by dozens of former members of the security establishment—that it was Russian "disinformation," effectively ensuring that the Democratic candidate was protected from the fallout.

The spirit of that effort continues to this day as liberal media still downplays or refuses to cover new revelations from whistleblowers about the presidential family's corrupt activities.

But it was the coronavirus pandemic that did more than anything to legitimize opposition to free speech.

We now know that the lockdowns, mask and then vaccine mandates were both misguided and failed to protect Americans from the disease. The medical establishment's lies about what the "science" truly was and then their determination to silence all opposition to their pronouncements and rulings led to their labeling of all dissent as dangerous "misinformation" which should be suppressed rather than debated. As we learned from the revelations provided by the Twitter Files, they used their power and ability to influence the few companies that effectively control the Internet to brand a great deal of information that was actually truthful as lies that were too dangerous to be allowed to be heard.

It was the Biden administration that fully weaponized the effort to shut down opposition to its COVID-19 mandates. Silicon Valley oligarchs effectively own the virtual public square where contemporary debate takes place. They were the Biden administration's willing accomplices. The result was a dramatic curtailment of free speech that has no previous precedent outside of wartime.

Similarly, in another arena entirely, the Left's conquest of academia, the education establishment, and much of the press enabled them to push a false narrative about American racism. The promotion of critical race theory indoctrination as well as ideas about race and gender in schools prompted a furious pushback from grassroots groups of parents across the nation. But here again, the Left's appetite for silencing opposition went into effect. Not only were critics of local school boards who wished to protect their children from being lied to and sexualized falsely labeled as racists and homophobes. They also became targets for investigation by the Biden Department of Justice that was quick to label them and other dissidents from liberal orthodoxies as "domestic terrorists."

Two and a half years into the Biden administration, we've seen a clear pattern of efforts to target political opponents for prosecution and to use the powerful combination of corporate media and Big Tech to shut down or marginalize the speech of their opponents.

By contrast, it is conservatives who are fighting back against this toxic collusion of corporate and government power. The Pew survey shows a stark partisan difference when it comes to support for curtailment of free speech with Republicans opposing and Democrats supporting them. If our freedoms are to survive this assault, it will only be made possible by the defeat of the woke Left and its Democratic Party handmaids.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-intolerant-woke-left-is-the-only-threat-to-free-speech-opinion/ar-AA1emhFA

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Censorship of "Epoch Times"

"Epoch Times" is a news site run by anti-Communist Chinese living in the West

The content is mostly mainstream conservative so the Left do not like it one bit. It also puts up articles critical of the official line on Covid

And I have just found out how heavily censored it is. I took one very simple article that seemed to me to be uncontroversial and checked whether it could be found via the main search engines. The article was this:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/new-residents-flooding-into-florida-bring-billions-with-them-report-5424112

Neither Google nor Bing had ever heard of it. It did not exist as far as they were concerned. So it would seem that there is a blanket ban on recording ANYTHING that appears on Epoch times.

I subscribe to them and I would encourage others to do likewise if you want to be fully informed. The subscription cost is small

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Pew Research: Democrats Value Free Speech Far Less Than Republicans

In case you were in doubt—and if you were in doubt, that means you aren’t following what is happening in America to the most important freedom of all—Pew Research has confirmed that Democrats value free speech far less than Republicans do.

Read the following statistics and conclusions and weep for our country:

“The share of U.S. adults who say the federal government should restrict false information has risen from 39% in 2018 to 55% in 2023.”

“Just over half of Americans (55%) support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits people from freely publishing or accessing information.”

“Support for government intervention has steadily risen since the first time we asked this question in 2018. In fact, the balance of opinion has tilted: Five years ago, Americans were more inclined to prioritize freedom of information over restricting false information (58% vs. 39%).”

“The partisan gap in support for restricting false information has grown substantially since 2018.”

“Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online (70% vs. 39%). There was virtually no difference between the parties in 2018, but the share of Democrats who support government intervention has grown from 40% in 2018 to 70% in 2023.”

“A large majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (81%) support technology companies taking such steps, while about half of Republicans (48%) say the same.”

Here are 10 conclusions:

No. 1: The most important human freedom is freedom of speech. Free speech is what makes the pursuit of truth possible. It is what makes the advancement of science possible. It constitutes the very definition of a free society. And free speech is what makes human dignity possible. People who cannot say what they believe are dehumanized. They ultimately become robotic beings exemplified by North Koreans.

No. 2: America has been the freest country in the world for all of its history. That is why the French gave America the Statue of Liberty. It is rapidly relinquishing that title.

No. 3: Free speech is seriously threatened for the first time in American history.

No. 4: The threat to free speech comes entirely from the Left.

No. 5: There is no example in history of the Left attaining power and allowing free speech. From the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution to the Maoist takeover of China to almost any university in America today, wherever the Left comes to power, it suppresses speech.

No. 6: The Left must suppress speech in order to retain power. If it were to allow dissent, it would lose its hold on power.

No. 7: That is why conservative speakers are rarely allowed to speak on college campuses. Left-wing professors, deans, and administrators know—consciously or subconsciously—that an effective conservative speaker can undo years of left-wing indoctrination in just 90 minutes.

No. 8: Given that “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online (70% vs. 39%),” the often-stated claim that “there is little difference between the two parties” is false.

No. 9: All tyrannies label dissent “misinformation.” That is what Vladimir Putin’s government labels all dissent in Russia today.

The communist regime in the Soviet Union named its official newspaper “Pravda”—the Russian word for “truth”—because in a left-wing tyranny, the left-wing regime determines truth. Anything else is “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

That Western societies are moving toward Soviet-like suppression of speech is obvious in America and was made particularly clear in 2020, when the then-prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, told her country: “We will continue to be your single source of truth” and “If you do not hear it from the government, it is not true.”

Fittingly, Ardern was awarded with two teaching fellowships at Harvard University—one of them at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, based at Harvard Law School, where she “will study ways to improve content standards and platform accountability for extremist content online.”

No. 10: Liberals are abandoning liberal values—in particular, their storied commitment to free speech. There are far more liberals than leftists, but over the past few years the liberals’ unswerving commitment to the Democratic Party, unswerving commitment to The New York Times, The Washington Post, or virtually any other mainstream news source, and their unswerving opposition to conservatives and the Republican Party has led them to embrace and unswervingly vote for left-wing values.

As for the future, this is what Pew reported regarding young Americans: “The shares of younger adults who say they support tech companies and the government restricting false information online have increased substantially since 2018 (by 14 and 19 percentage points, respectively).”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/25/pew-research-democrats-value-free-speech-far-less-than-republicans/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Support the Free Speech Protection Act

We have come full circle with government censorship.  Of late we have suffered that kind of widespread government suppression of speech critical of the Biden Administration and its policies that the nation experienced in its formative years during the Adams administration under the Sedition Act of 1798.

The Biden Administration’s censorship is far greater than anything the authors of the Alien and Sedition Acts could have imagined.  By exercising coercion, cajolery, and influence over Big Tech and major media, the Biden Administration’s FBI and White House staff have achieved a degree of censorship far greater, more comprehensive and more devastating than ever before to the health, welfare and security of all Americans.  

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago the Sedition Act became law on July 14, 1798.  Under it, any who uttered, wrote, or published content deemed defamatory to the government were subject to punishment.  Republican journalists who published content critical of the Adams’ administration were arrested under the Act.  There were 25 arrests and 10 incarcerations.  Thomas Jefferson and James Madison fought behind the scenes for an end to the censorship against the early Republicans by secretly writing resolutions of condemnation of the Act.  Jefferson was Adams’ Vice President at the time.  The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were passed by both legislatures and helped form a popular basis for nullifying enforcement and ending the reign of censorship.  In the election of 1800, Jefferson became President and allowed the Sedition Act to expire.  

Today, Rand Paul and Jim Jordan have followed in the footsteps of Jefferson and Madison, mounting an attack on Biden Administration censorship.  They have risen to fight against Biden Administration collusion with Big Tech and the mainstream media to suppress voices critical of Biden actions and policies.  That collusion resulted in widespread removal of content, de-platforming of opinion makers, and limits on access to content, among other techniques employed digitally to censor.  Paul in the Senate and Jordan in the House have introduced the “Free Speech Protection Act.” Passage of that bill will be a litmus test of member support for the Constitution of the United States.

The bill recites landmark Supreme Court decisions that re-affirm the First Amendment’s central premise: that under our Constitution there is no allowance for government to exercise control over the content of messages expressed by private individuals.  That includes when government agents in the FBI and White House collude with Big Tech or other media to avoid publication of views antithetical to the Administration’s policies and to censor content which exposes the corruption of those in power; the misgivings of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and denials of early treatment options; content of the Hunter-Biden laptop or the influence peddling and bribery schemes entered into by Biden family members; and conservative opposition to the climate change agenda.  

The Twitter files and the Missouri v. Biden decision have brought to light this Administration’s multifaceted and extensive First Amendment violations, ones committed on a scale never before witnessed in American history, affecting almost all Big Tech platforms and mainstream media.  The Free Speech Protection Act would make it a federal felony subject to civil penalties and adverse employment effects for any federal employee to use any form of communication “to direct, coerce, compel, or encourage a provider” to engage in censorship prohibited by the First Amendment.  Those actions include, among others, removing speech from Big Tech platforms, suppressing speech on those platforms, removing users from Big Tech platforms, labeling speech as false, disinformation or misinformation, or “blocking, banning, demonetizing, de-boosting, limiting the reach of, or restricting access to speech.”

I am among those who have experienced censorship for my criticisms of the Biden Administration’s actions to compel mass COVID-19 vaccinations and for my criticisms of Biden Administration support for international organizations intent on denying American physicians and patients’ freedom of choice in the provision of care during health emergencies. Undoubtedly many lives have been lost along with innovations in medicine and many truths have been suppressed due to the censorship of discussions related to the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines, the preferability of early treatments, and the imprudence of conferring on international bodies, like he World Health Organization, authority to recommend and direct patient care.

Rand Paul and Jim Jordan appreciate that it is insufficient for Americans to await case by case adjudication of acts of widespread government censorship that effectively shut down the robust and wide-open idea and information marketplace on which we depend for ferreting out truth and for innovation essential to the betterment of mankind and the saving of lives.  Rather, targeted legislation, like the Free Speech Protection Act, is essential to drive out of existence federal speech suppression.  I only wish that its penalty provisions were more robust with jail time required for and restitution required by federal employees and Big Tech/media executives responsible for the censorship.    

https://townhall.com/columnists/jonathanemord/2023/07/25/support-the-free-speech-protection-act-n2626143

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Australia: Why Labor’s threat to free speech must be rejected

The right to be wrong is both the most vital of freedoms and the most constantly threatened. Vital, because the freedom of expression is the guardian of every other liberty, alerting the public to the abuse of power; and constantly threatened because few temptations come more readily to governments than that of suppressing views they regard as irksome, dangerous or simply incorrect.

That is why John Stuart Mill called the freedom of thought and discussion “the most fundamental doctrine” of a free society. And it is why the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 poses so serious a threat to our democracy.

Extraordinarily open-ended, the proposed legislation’s stated purpose is to protect Australians from misinformation and disinformation that is likely to cause “serious harm” – that is, “harm that affects a significant portion of the Australian population, economy or environment, or undermines the integrity of an Australian democratic process” – where misinformation is “online content that is false, misleading or deceptive, that is shared or created without an intent to deceive”, while disinformation is misinformation that is “intentionally disseminated with the intent to deceive or cause serious harm”.

To that end, the legislation empowers the Australian Communications and Media Authority to require digital platforms to implement systems that identify and suppress any offending information.

The government’s Guidance Note suggests the legislation is comparable to the European Union’s Digital Services Act (2022); what it does not say is that the relevant provisions of the DSA apply only to “very large” online service providers. In contrast, the legislation would apply to “social media, search engines, instant messaging services, news aggregators and podcasting services”, regardless of their size and reach.

Indeed, few websites would fall outside the legislation’s ambit, giving ACMA powers whose scope has no equivalent in a liberal democracy.

Virtually none of the legislation’s crucial terms is tightly defined, nor does the legislation even attempt to distinguish questions of fact from those of opinion, creating uncertainty that can only chill the expression of controversial views. And the examples the Guidance Note gives of information it might seek to suppress – such as content that “falsely claims that specific community groups in Australia are responsible for a range of social issues” – so obviously involve matters of opinion as to simply heighten the resulting concerns.

The government has attempted to calm those concerns by claiming that “ACMA would have no role in determining truthfulness”; but that contention is plainly incorrect.

That is because the legislation effectively requires ACMA to audit whether the systems regulated entities have implemented adequately curb misinformation or disinformation. But it is impossible to see how such an audit could be undertaken without assessing the truth or falsity of the content those entities have posted.

And it is inconceivable that ACMA could evaluate complaints about false or misleading content without determining whether the content they refer to is or is not false or misleading.

The legislation does provide a number of exemptions, including for “professional news content” (but not for comments on that content) and for content produced by “accredited educational providers”. However, those exemptions merely highlight the legislation’s underlying lack of logic.

After all, if content is so manifestly odious that it should be suppressed, why would the fact that it appears on (say) a university’s website reduce the danger it poses to the community? One would, on the contrary, expect vesting the content with academic authority to increase its credibility and so aggravate the resulting harm, making the case for its suppression all the stronger.

But reliance on arbitrary distinctions is hardly the legislation’s worst flaw. In effect, the legislation gives ACMA the power to impose vast penalties on regulated entities if their systems are ineffective at eliminating what it considers mis- or disinformation. There are, however, no penalties whatsoever if regulated entities suppress information that is neither false nor harmful.

Given that asymmetry in rewards and penalties, content providers will inevitably prefer to make the error of removing information that does not merit removal to that of not removing information that does merit removal: they will, in other words, convict more “innocent” content so long as that reduces, even marginally, the likelihood of any potentially “guilty” content slipping through their net.

Yet it is hard to conceive of an outcome more starkly at odds with the public interest. In an open society, falsehoods can be – and usually are – corrected by truths; but no number of falsehoods can replace a censored truth. It is therefore far better to allow ten falsehoods to run loose than to rob the public of a single truth: which is the exact opposite of this legislation’s design and likely effect.

None of that means the issues the legislation is seeking to address should be ignored.

Even as unflinching an advocate of freedom of expression as John Stuart Mill recognised the harm certain forms of speech could inflict – and there are, of course, already laws in place that deal, for example, with incitement to violence, online harassment and vilification.

But as Mill rightly pointed out, the harm “caused by an opinion is itself a matter of opinion”. And he warned that deterring the expression of the “opinions and sentiments which happen to be in a minority” necessarily encouraged the oppressive conformism, enforced by vindictive and intolerant majorities, and the resulting intellectual “stagnation and immobility”, which Mill considered “the real danger in democracy, the real evil to be struggled against”.

That danger would, for sure, disappear were the regulator “an infallible judge of opinions”, as well placed “to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false” – but infallibility is not of this world.

Mill therefore argued that any restraints on speech should meet three conditions: parliament should precisely set out the nature of the offending speech and take political responsibility for doing so; there should be no prior censorship of that speech, but only its ex post prosecution; and every alleged breach should be dealt with individually by the courts, giving the impugned content a chance to be defended and allowing any possible harm to be assessed within the context in which it occurred.

Applying those principles to an online environment is undoubtedly challenging. But this legislation simply ignores them altogether. Vague to the point of inviting administrative arbitrariness, it involves parliament delegating legislative authority to a regulatory agency; in turn, that agency can compel regulated entities to exercise prior censorship of speech; and what review mechanisms the legislation provides are hardly capable of identifying, correcting and penalising the suppression of inconvenient truths.

Should it pass, our credibility, when we criticise dictatorships for attacking the freedom of expression, will be severely compromised. However, the greatest harm will be to the fabric and vigour of our democratic life.

“Whatever you do, keep, at all risks, your mind open,” an ageing but still passionate Mill urged his country’s youth, “do not barter away your freedom of thought” and “the liberty of expressing and publishing opinions which is practically inseparable from it”. At a time when the right to take unpopular stances is more threatened than ever, his call should ring in our ears.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-labors-threat-to-free-speech-must-be-rejected/news-story/3982f3faa6792fed957c67c1e736b639

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Black lesbian Harvard law grad is CENSORED for 'hateful' post saying transgender women should not be allowed to compete in women's sports

Cripes!  Transgenders get even higher privilege than a black Lesbian!

A black lesbian Harvard law graduate claims that she has been censored by a blogging site for saying transgender women should not be allowed to compete in female sports.

Monica Harris said that she had her post removed less than 24 hours after posting it on Medium for 'violating community rules'.

She wrote about the 'impact of transgender inclusion on the rights of women and lesbians', but claims she was told she had posted 'hateful content'.

Harris referenced transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the blog, and pointed out that former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines felt she was 'emotionally blackmailed and gaslit into silence.'

The entertainment lawyer said she was 'shocked' to have the blog removed, saying it is a 'timely subject' and 'as a gay woman of color' she had a 'vested interest in the issue'.

Writing in a column for Fox News, she said: 'Much of my writing focuses on bringing people together around our shared values and interests. I've never been accused of advocating hateful positions.

'This incident is laced with many ironies, not the least of which is that I've spent much of my life feeling invisible and not having a voice.'

Harris, who is on the Board of Advisors of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism at Harvard Law, wrote int eh blog that transgender people need to have their personal choices honoured.

But the blog-hosting website claims she breached the terms and conditions by claiming 'the playing field is tilting — literally — in the wrong direction'.

The lawyer claims that content curators removed the article 'because it 'disempower[ed]' and excluded others based on 'protected characteristics,' i.e. biological men who identify as women.'

She said: 'Yet they had no qualms about disempowering and excluding me — a member of not one, but three 'protected' groups — from their community.

'Further, I was silenced for expressing my belief that inclusion of biological men in women's sports, prisons and other historically protected spaces potentially undermines the rights and safety of biological women and lesbians.

'Yet the act of deplatforming my article was, itself, proof of the marginalization I lamented in my article.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12326723/Black-lesbian-Harvard-law-grad-CENSORED-blogging-site-Medium-hateful-post-saying-transgender-women-not-allowed-compete-womens-sports.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Democrats Try to Censor RFK Jr. During Hearing on Censorship

House Democrats attempted to prevent President Joe Biden’s Democrat primary rival Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from giving public testimony during a hearing investigating government censorship.

Kennedy was among witnesses who testified Thursday to the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about collusion between the federal government and Big Tech companies to block speech.

Early on, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., cited House Rule 11, Clause 2, “which Mr. Kennedy is violative of,” she said.

“I move that we move into executive session because Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly made despicable antisemitic and anti-Asian comments as recently as last week,” said Wasserman Schultz, whose run as former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee came to a controversial end after WikiLeaks emails appeared to show DNC staffers tried to tip the scales against the candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and in favor of eventual nominee Hillary Clinton.

House Rule 11, Clause 2 requires any House witness with testimony that would “defame, degrade or incriminate any person” to be given in closed session, out of public view.  

During his testimony, Kennedy insisted his remarks were mischaracterized.

“In my entire life, I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or antisemitic,” Kennedy told the House panel.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., asked to table the Wasserman Schultz motion, and she responded by asking for a roll call vote.

All Republicans on the select subcommittee backed Massie in voting against going into closed session for Kennedy’s testimony. All Democrats voted in favor of Wasserman Schultz.

Wasserman Schultz said it was voting against “allowing a witness to degrade others and to violate the rules and not have his testimony and degradation amplified rather than given in executive session.”

Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said he was voting, “No to hate speech.”

Last week, Kennedy suggested that COVID-19 could have been a deliberate bioweapon from the Chinese, and said: “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Kennedy, the son of former Attorney General and New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, is challenging Biden for the Democrat presidential nomination

“I was censored, not just by a Democratic administration, I was censored by the Trump administration,” Kennedy said during the House hearing. “I was the first person, as the chairman [Jim Jordan, R-Ohio] pointed out, I was the first person censored by the Biden administration two days after he came into office.”

Massie noted “irony and cognitive dissonance from the other side of the aisle is deafening.”

“This is a hearing on censorship that began with an effort with a formal motion from the other side of the aisle to censor Mr. Kennedy,” Massie said. “They do not want him to speak. Yet that is the topic of this hearing. They have kept him from speaking, the collusion between government and private organizations.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/20/democrats-try-to-censor-rfk-jr-during-hearing-on-censorship

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Here’s the Real Reason Obama Went Out of His Way to Defend Librarians in a ‘Banned Books’ Letter

Former President Barack Obama just came out in favor of porn in schools.

Sure, the former president didn’t say that outright. He released a letter lamenting the supposed trend of “banned books” and standing with school librarians as if they were under siege.

“In a very real sense, you’re on the front lines — fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas available to everyone,” Obama wrote in a public letter Monday. “Your dedication and professional expertise allow us to freely read and consider information and ideas, and decide for ourselves which ones we agree with.”

Obama’s letter emphasized a core American value; namely, the idea that the solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. Yet, as with so much of Obama’s soaring rhetoric, the real message appears between the lines. Behind the effusive praise for librarians—who help “us understand each other and embrace our shared humanity”—Obama’s letter rebukes the concerned parents who dare to question why school librarians defend sexually explicit books.

“Today, some of the books that shaped my life—and the lives of so many others—are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives,” Obama wrote. “It’s no coincidence that these ‘banned books’ are often written by, or feature, people of color, indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community—though there have also been unfortunate instances in which books by conservative authors or books containing ‘triggering’ words or scenes have been targets for removal. Either way, the impulse seems to be to silence, rather than engage, rebut, learn from or seek to understand views that don’t fit our own.”

Obama has mastered the appearance of political neutrality while advancing his agenda. He likely knows the “banned books” talking point is false—that the real debate involves whether sexually explicit books belong in school libraries.

In supporting his argument, Obama shared a link to an American Library Association project, “Unite Against Book Bans.” The American Library Association, echoing the organization PEN America, also released a list of the 13 “most challenged books of 2022.”

Even ALA admits that every single one of the “most challenged books” faces challenges because they are “claimed to be sexually explicit.”

Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, and Madison Marino, a research associate with the center, analyzed PEN America’s report claiming to identify 2,532 books banned in public schools during the 2021-2022 school year. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

PEN America’s claim is “simply false,” Greene and Marino write. They “examined online card catalogues and found that 74% of the books PEN America identified as banned from school libraries are actually listed as available in the catalogues of those school districts. In many cases, we could see that copies of those books are currently checked out and in use by students.”

PEN America’s report claims that certain school districts have banned some classic works—such as the diary of Anne Frank, “Brave New World,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”—yet Greene and Marino found each of those books listed as available in the card catalogues of the respective school districts.

Greene and Marino failed to find some books in the card catalogues of school libraries, however. They noted that those books “would strike most reasonable people as unlikely to be age-appropriate for school libraries.”

“Works like ‘Gender Queer,’ ‘Flamer,’ ‘Lawn Boy,’ ‘Fun Home,’ and ‘It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health’ either contain images of people engaged in sex acts or graphic descriptions of those acts,” the Heritage analysts wrote.

Parents don’t oppose those books due to racism or animus against those who identify as LGBT—they raised concerns about sexually explicit images and passages in the books. “Gender Queer,” for example, contains pictures of sexual acts between a boy and a man. “Lawn Boy” contains long sections in which a boy reminisces about explicit experiences he had at 10 years old. “All Boys Aren’t Blue” contains sexually explicit passages. (Warning: Explicit passages quoted in the link.)

The sainted Obama would not dare to write, “I support sexually explicit pictures and passages in school libraries,” but that is the ultimate message his letter conveys.

Obama’s letter references classic authors like Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, but also includes Toni Morrison, whose book “The Bluest Eye” (on the ALA list mentioned above) reportedly features incest, pedophilia, a graphic description of a married woman’s distaste for intercourse with her husband, and more.

Contrary to the rhetoric of “book bans,” parents are not calling for the government to purge these tomes from existence. They’re complaining about students in elementary schools and middle schools having access to sexually explicit materials in their school libraries.

I remember when school was about education, leading children out of ignorance and equipping them with basic math, language, and writing skills to face the world around them, not indoctrinating them into a hypersexualized identity.

Rather than agreeing with the moms and dads who are rightly outraged about porn in schools, Barack Obama stood with those falsely claiming that concerned parents are trying to suppress minorities.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/07/18/obama-comes-favor-porn-school-libraries/?

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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The 34 Professors Who Protested My Speaking at Arizona State University

Dennis Prager

In February, I was invited along with Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), and Robert Kiyosaki, author of the bestseller, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," to speak at Arizona State University (ASU) at a conference titled "Health, Wealth and Happiness."

The invitation came from the TW Lewis Center for Personal Development, an independent center affiliated with Barrett College, the honors college of ASU.

About a week before the scheduled event, 34 (Ann Atkinson -- see below -- counted 39) of Barrett College's 47 faculty members signed a letter to the dean of ASU condemning the event on grounds that Charlie Kirk and I are "white nationalist provocateurs ... purveyors of hate who have publicly attacked women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, [and] institutions of our democracy."

In June, in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that went viral, the then-director of the Lewis Center, Ann Atkinson, wrote, "The faculty protests extended beyond the letter. Professors spent precious class time denouncing the program."

In addition, the "administration's position ... was no secret. All advertising about 'Health, Wealth, and Happiness' was scrubbed from campus walls and digital flyers. Behind closed doors, deans pressured me to postpone the event indefinitely. I was warned that if the speakers made any political statements, it wouldn't be in the Lewis Center's 'best interests,' which I interpreted as a threat."

"The faculty's illiberal tantrum was devastatingly effective on two fronts.

"First, the scare tactics worked on undergraduates. Many students told me they were intimidated by professors into not attending. Some would attend only if we promised that cameras wouldn't face the audience...

"Second, the event cost its organizers dearly. Shortly after 'Health, Wealth, and Happiness,' Lin Blake, the events operations manager at ASU Gammage Theater, was fired... And as of June 30, ASU will dismantle the Lewis Center and terminate my position as its executive director."

As will be clear, these 34 professors epitomize the low moral and intellectual level of nearly all our universities.

I will not address the specious attacks on Charlie Kirk. I will only note that this alleged "hater" devoted his entire half-hour speech to explaining why he, though a Christian, observes the Sabbath each week from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. He spoke about the enriching benefits to his life and to his marriage and family of abstaining from work one day every week, an abstention that includes turning off his cell phone for 24 hours.

Does that strike you as something a hater, let alone a white supremacist, would talk about to students? Furthermore, wouldn't any student benefit from hearing such a talk, especially from a young person?

Here are some of the accusations of the 34 ASU professors:

"During Black History Month Barrett is hosting two white nationalist provocateurs who have decried the social prohibition on using the n-word and called for the cancellation of Black History Month."

Their primary "proof" of my being a white nationalist is a statement I once made on my radio show. I told a caller that I believe it is ludicrous that one can never say the N-word -- unless, of course, one calls or refers to a black person using that word, in which case, I said, "it is despicable." You can hear me say it is despicable to call a black person the N-word on the broadcast linked to the professors' letter.

The context of my statement about the N-word was my saying on the air the word "Kike" in quoting the 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning David McCullough biography of President Harry S. Truman. A caller asked me why people can say "Kike" -- the N-word for Jews -- but never the N-word. That is when I made the common-sense point that there are times when enunciating awful words is warranted -- as when one wishes to condemn its use or quote literature, to cite two examples.

In fact, the New York Times recently published an op-ed piece by Columbia University Linguistics Professor John McWhorter on the N-word in which he and the New York Times repeatedly spelled out the word -- precisely to show that sometimes it is entirely legitimate to say or write the word. In short, the professor (who is black) and the New York Times (which is as left-wing as the 34 ASU professors) essentially said what I said about the N-word.

The 34 provided two other examples of my being a "white nationalist provocateur":

One is that I said in 2020, "If you see the entire video, (George Floyd) is sort of hysterical from the beginning of his encounter with the police, who were completely decent with him. He says he can't breathe; he can't breathe before they touch him."

The other is that I condemned Black Lives Matter.

On the basis of these three examples -- none of which is in any way racist -- the ASU professors labelled and libeled me as a "white nationalist provocateur."

They owe me a public apology. More importantly, they owe ASU and their students an apology. Should they not apologize and retract their libels, if ASU has any commitment to truth, it should censure every one of the 34.

Every other example the 34 cited to smear me was equally specious and intellectually dishonest.

Every example they used to condemn me was taken from a left-wing group called Media Matters, whose raison d'etre is to smear conservatives. Media Matters is as far left as Proud Boys is far right. Imagine if a conservative group condemned liberals using only Proud Boy sources. That would be the equivalent of what the 34 professors did.

This is important to understand because the professors based their entire smear of me on one, radical, source; they clearly never read any of my work.

The charge of my being a "white nationalist" is as vicious as it libelous. It would be impossible to find a written word in my ten books or more than a thousand columns (all available on the internet) or an uttered sentence in forty years of broadcasting that expresses sympathy with "white nationalism."

I am a religious Jew who hates white nationalism, the doctrine that murdered two out of every three of Europe's 9 million Jews just a few years before I was born. My father, an Orthodox Jew, joined the U.S. Navy and risked his life to fight that evil. As anyone who has heard or read me can testify, the motto of my life, taken from Viktor Frankl's classic "Man's Search for Meaning," is that "there are only two races: the decent and the indecent."

Unlike the 34 professors and the rest of the left, I divide people by morality, not race or class.

So, given the dishonesty of the smears, why did the 34 professors condemn ASU for having me come to speak at ASU?

The reason is that left-wing professors, deans and students are terrified of articulate conservatives coming to their campuses. They rightly fear that if students are exposed to one of us for just 90 minutes, we can undo four years of leftist indoctrination.

And here's one proof: It is almost inconceivable any one or, for that matter, ten, of these professors would invite me to ASU to debate them.

Meet a few of them -- exactly as described on their individual pages on the ASU website.

Dagmar Van Engen, a 'non-binary' individual whose preferred pronoun is 'they,' and whose "current project argues that transness is central to queer and feminist science [and is the] author of 'How to F*ck a Kraken: Cephalopod Sexualities and Nonbinary Genders in EBook Erotica.'"

Lisa Barca, whose "area of expertise includes ... Feminism and Gender Studies and (whose) recent research uses an ecofeminist approach to the intersections of speciesism . . . and other forms of discrimination."

Alex Young, "a scholar of transnational settler colonialism."

David Agruss, who has done "research in gender and sexuality studies, postcolonial studies, queer theory, and animal studies" and who "filed a lawsuit against Montana State University, saying he was denied tenure and fired because he is gay."

Joseph O'Neill, who "recently led a seminar on the 'whitewashing of Ancient Greece and Rome.'"

Rachel Fedock, whose "research interests include ... feminist ethics, Black feminism, abolition, gender, race..."

And Rebecca Soares, an editor of "The Female Fantastic: Gendering the Supernatural in the 1890s and 1920s."

These are the people who teach your children at Arizona State University -- in their "honors" college, no less.

https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2023/07/18/the-34-professors-who-protested-my-speaking-at-arizona-state-university-n2625852

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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