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House Democrats, Targeting Right-Wing Cable Outlets, Are Assaulting Core Press Freedoms

Not even two months into their reign as the majority party that controls the White House and both houses of Congress, key Democrats have made clear that one of their top priorities is censorship of divergent voices. On Saturday, I detailed how their escalating official campaign to coerce and threaten social media companies into more aggressively censoring views that they dislike — including by summoning social media CEOs to appear before them for the third time in less than five months — is implicating, if not already violating, core First Amendment rights of free speech.

Now they are going further — much further. The same Democratic House Committee that is demanding greater online censorship from social media companies now has its sights set on the removal of conservative cable outlets, including Fox News, from the airwaves.

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Welp, It Turns Out Weather Modification Wasn’t Just Another Crazy Conspiracy Theory

Weather modification and manipulation don’t exist.

Weather modification is a crazy conspiracy theory.

Weather modification is not scientifically possible.

All of these are phrases that have been repeated ad nauseam by mainstream media for years. Suddenly, however, now mainstream media outlets can (and do) openly discuss ongoing weather modification programs from both corporations and foreign governments.

It looks like weather modification is one of those “crazy conspiracy theories” that isn’t so crazy after all.

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Absurdity: Automated Police Surveillance Will Reduce Racial Bias And Allow People To “Maintain A Safe Lifestyle”

As the pandemic enters its second year, two recent stories used to justify increasing public surveillance seem almost too incredible to believe.

Two years ago, I reported on an absurd claim about how the Riverhead Police Departments’ surveillance drones could be used to create a “community connection.”

Splitting Riverhead’s current police foot patrol sector into two sectors would “create more of a community connection in the area that the officers are patrolling,” Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said. “There’s more eyes and ears in the area, and hopefully that will lead to more people coming to shop and recreate in downtown more.”

In my story I noted how the Department Of Justice’s guidebook the “Community Policing & Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Guidelines to Enhance Community Trust” was designed to help law enforcement convince the American public to accept surveillance drones.

The Police Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, has developed this guidebook to help public safety agencies successfully assess the appropriateness of acquiring a sUAS in their jurisdiction, all the while ensuring public support, avoiding public-relations pitfalls, and enhancing community trust along the way.

A recent Fox 5 DC story about traffic cameras could rise to the top of my absurd reasons to convince the public to accept more police surveillance.

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Media Matters Campaign to Deplatform Fox News Off Cable and Satellite Systems Gains Ground With Democrat Hearing in Congress This Week

The current push is based on accusations by liberals that Fox, Newsmax and OANN broadcast disinformation about the COVID pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. However, Media Matters has a campaign that preceded the current controversies, launched in 2019, called “UnFoxMyCableBox” urging liberals to demand that they stop being charged for Fox News and Fox Business as part of bundled fees.

MMFA boasted their president Angelo Carusone was quoted blasting Fox in Kristof’s column published Feb. 11:

As America debates whether to hold former President Donald Trump accountable for inciting insurrection, what about his co-conspirator Fox News?

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…We can’t impeach Fox or put Carlson or Sean Hannity on trial in the Senate, but there are steps we can take — imperfect, inadequate ones, resting on slippery slopes — to create accountability not only for Trump but also for fellow travelers at Fox, OANN, Newsmax and so on.

That can mean pressure on advertisers to avoid underwriting extremists (of any political bent), but the Fox News business model depends not so much on advertising as on cable subscription fees. So a second step is to call on cable companies to drop Fox News from basic cable TV packages.

…“Given all the damage that Fox News has caused and the threat that it remains, they absolutely should unbundle Fox News,” Carusone told me. “It’s not a news channel. It’s a propaganda operation mixed with political smut. If people want that, they should be forced to pay for it the way that they pay for Cinemax.”

“During 2020, Fox News’ caldron of lies and extremism boiled over,” Carusone said. “They made us sicker and put up obstacles to the pandemic response by flooding the airwaves with over 13,150 instances of COVID misinformation. They fomented racial animus and promoted white supremacy as a response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. And, in the first two weeks after the election was called for Joe Biden, Fox News laid the groundwork for the attack on the Capitol by challenging the results on 774 individual instances with wild conspiracies and flat-out fabrications.”

House Democrats wrote a letter to cable and satellite providers in advance of this Wednesday’s hearing with this direct question:

“Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax on your platform both now and beyond the renewal date? If so, why?”

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At least 800 Ethiopians killed after defending ‘Ark of the Covenant’

At least 800 people were reportedly killed in Ethiopia as worshippers and soldiers risked their lives to protect what Christians there say is the sacred Ark of the Covenant from local militia.

Ethiopian Christians claim the Ark — the wooden chest built to hold the Ten Commandments of Moses — is being kept safe in a chapel in the holy northern city of Axum in the Tigray region.

The battle between Ethiopian soldiers and rebel fighters happened in the fall, The Sunday Times reported, but it is only being reported now.

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