Tag: hypocrisy

EU Defends Censorship Law While Commission Staff Shift to Auto-Deleting Signal Messages

A senior European Union official responsible for enforcing online speech rules is objecting to what he describes as intimidation by Washington, even as his own agency advances policies that expand state involvement in digital expression and private communications.

Speaking Monday at the University of Amsterdam, Prabhat Agarwal, who leads enforcement of the Digital Services Act at the European Commission, urged regulators and civil society groups not to retreat under pressure from the United States. His remarks followed the February 3 release of a report by the US House Judiciary Committee that included the names and email addresses of staff involved in enforcing and promoting Europe’s censorship laws.

“Don’t let yourself be scared. We at the Commission stand by the European civil society organizations that have been threatened, and we stand by our teams as well,” Agarwal said, as reported by Politico.

The report’s publication came shortly after Washington barred a former senior EU official and two civil society representatives from entering the United States. European officials interpreted those moves as an effort to deter implementation of the DSA, the bloc’s flagship content regulation framework governing large online platforms.

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Thomas Massie, Who Loves to Talk About His ‘Principles,’ Just Made Quite the Admission to Politico

Thomas Massie gave an interview to Politico yesterday, in which the publication said he goes “toe-to-toe” with high-ranking members of the Trump administration including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

There was one passage that stood out among many conservatives, one that dealt a major blow to the claims that Massie is operating on principles. Namely, Massie’s vote was contingent on whether or not Speaker Mike Johnson would publicly praise him for releasing the Epstein files.

“One day, they needed my vote, and I offered to give them my vote if he would issue a press release thanking me for my good work on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That’s all I required to get my vote. And I think he probably went and gave somebody else a bill to pass instead of doing the public statement,” Massie told Politico.

Wow.

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Senators Talk Digital Freedom for Iran While Expanding Surveillance at Home

Three US senators want federal funding to help Iranians bypass censorship and access VPNs. The same three senators have spent years supporting the surveillance systems that track Americans online.

We obtained a copy of their letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio for you here.

Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), James Lankford (R-OK), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) are backing funding for anti-censorship technology and virtual private networks abroad.

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), whose privacy record is largely clean, is also supporting the effort. The bipartisan coalition wants to help people circumvent government internet controls. Just not the American government’s internet controls.

Graham’s voting record reads like a blueprint for the surveillance state he claims to oppose overseas. He voted for the Patriot Act in 2001 and has supported every major expansion since. When Section 702 of FISA came up for reauthorization, Graham backed it. When Congress considered making Section 702 permanent in 2017 with no sunset clauses and no congressional review, Graham backed that too.

His encryption stance is just as consistent. Graham co-sponsored the EARN IT Act in 2020, which would pressure platforms to weaken encryption to avoid liability.

He also backed the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data (LAED) Act, a bill that would require companies to build backdoors into their security systems. VPNs work because of encryption. Graham has spent years trying to break it.

He’s also pushed to repeal Section 230 protections and supported requiring government licenses for companies offering AI tools. When surveillance mechanisms he championed caught his own communications, Graham complained. Privacy for senators. Mass surveillance for everyone else.

Lankford introduced the Free Speech Fairness Act, which removed restrictions on political speech by religious and nonprofit organizations. That same senator has backed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which will likely require platforms to implement age verification and give regulators the power to pressure companies into removing content.

He called for Section 230 to be “ripped up” and backed a national strategy against antisemitism that includes government coordination on speech. When Edward Snowden revealed the scope of NSA surveillance, Lankford branded him a traitor for telling the public what their government was doing.

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Arizona Senators Take Up Bills To Criminalize ‘Excessive’ Marijuana Smoke, Even On Private Property

Arizona lawmakers are considering at a pair of measures that would make the act of creating “excessive” amounts of marijuana smoke a nuisance crime punishable by jail time, even if the person is using cannabis in compliance with state law in their own homes.

Sen. J.D. Mesnard (R) is sponsoring the two proposals—one that would amend state statute legislatively that would put the issue before voters at the ballot. Members of the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee are set to consider the proposals this week.

The lawmaker said he decided to push the issue due to the smell of marijuana in his own neighborhood.

Both versions of Mesnard’s legislation stipulate that “it is presumed that a person who creates excessive marijuana smoke and odor causes a condition that endangers the safety or health of others.”

The reason behind having both a proposed bill and resolution is related to the potential legal challenges of lawmakers changing the voter-approved marijuana legalization law.

The legislation would establish “a presumption that the creation of excessive marijuana smoke and odor is injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the senses and an obstruction to the free use of property that interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property,” a summary of the proposal says.

If enacted, the loosely defined offense of creating “excessive” marijuana smoke under the bill and resolution would be considered a class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine and up to one year of probation.

“I’m hearing from some people that, depending on their neighbor situation, they may not be able to have their kids go outside because the marijuana smoke is so potent,” Mesnard, the sponsor, said. “It can even creep into your own house or, in my case, into my garage.”

“But experiencing now what’s happened, even in my own neighborhood, is a pretty frustrating situation,” he told The Arizona Daily Star. “You should be responsible neighbors if you’re going to smoke pot… It can be a real issue for families, especially with kids.”

Asked about the seeming double standard given that no such nuisance offenses exist for smoking cigarettes or cigars on a private property, the senator said, “I’ll concede I hadn’t thought about it.”

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The United Nations Gets Community Noted for Misleading Post on Child Marriage

The United Nations (U.N.) is one of the most corrupt and useless governing bodies on the planet, and that’s quite the accomplishment. They’re also fundamentally dishonest when it comes to the issues they supposedly intend to address. In this case, the issue is child marriage. When you hear that phrase, you probably have a mental image of where such practice is common, and who participates in that practice.

But check out the image the U.N. uses to talk about child marriage.

Really? A blonde girl? 

The post got the Community Note treatment, pointing out that the countries that practice child marriage are not white nations. “The image in this post is deliberately misleading,” the Community Note reads. “Even their own site shows that the vast majority of child marriages happen in countries that are predominantly dark skinned. The use of a white woman with blond hair is a dishonest representation of the problem.” 

It then links to the U.N. Population Fund, which does list the countries where child marriage is prevalent. Here are some of them.

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Fauci’s Cruel Animal Experiments Quietly Continue Under RFK Jr. 

The gain-of-function labs you thought were shut down are still running.

Fauci-era biolabs are importing exotic viruses and conducting high-risk experiments in the U.S.—with no national ban in place.

That alone should concern you. But it doesn’t stop there.

In one case, we learned that these poor, defenseless dogs had their heads secured in mesh enclosures while sand flies were allowed to bite them. Some of those dogs even had their vocal cords cut out to reduce the noise of those “procedures.”

A core promise of MAHA was to put an end to this. RFK Jr. was reportedly so disgusted by what Fauci was doing that he wrote about it in his book. So naturally, you would expect stopping this kind of animal cruelty to be one of the first priorities.

Right? Wrong.

Under RFK Jr.’s leadership, not only has the animal testing not stopped, it has expanded, with new projects funded as recently as last month.

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Chicago Claims Its Budget is Balanced. Independent Audit Shows a $41.1 Billion Deficit.

The city of Chicago exists on another plane of the universe than the rest of us. It’s a place where up is down, black is white, and the basic laws of physics are held in abeyance so that when adding one plus one, any number that’s convenient (and politically viable) can be the answer.

In Chicago’s budget, the “new physics” includes the caveat that nothing is real unless we (the aldermen and the city’s hapless Mayor Brandon Johnson) say it is. And even then, nothing is permanent in this alternate plane of the universe. An equation that’s “true” today may not be so “true” tomorrow.

Do you think I’m being facetious? 

“Chicago finished fiscal year 2024 with a $41.1 billion gap between the money it has available to pay bills and the obligations it owes, according to a new report from Truth in Accounting, placing the city among the worst financially managed major cities in the nation,” according to The Center Square.

That’s only half the story. The city denies there’s a deficit at all. City officials say (how can they not giggle when saying this) the budget is balanced.

Truth in Accounting CEO Sheila Weinberg clears up any ambiguity.

“They only include the expenses they’ve paid, not all the expenses they’ve incurred,” Weinberg said. “They also include loan proceeds as revenue and still claim the budget is balanced. In the real world, borrowing money to balance your budget would be insane. But in government budgeting, that’s how they do it.”

One person’s “insanity” is another’s denial of reality.

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Former Obama Adviser David Axelrod Gets Absolutely RIPPED on Social Media for Complaining About Rising Cost of Obamacare

David Axelrod, the Chicago Machine Democrat considered the ‘architect’ of Obama’s 2008 presidential run, recently complained on Twitter/X about the rising cost of healthcare premiums under the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare as it’s widely known.

Other Twitter/X users ripped into Axelrod, pointing out his involvement in this issue.

This has become a running theme among Democrats who desperately want the country to forget that Democrats passed Obamacare on an entirely party-line vote while they controlled everything in Washington during Obama’s first term.

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FBI strategy memo on election violence raises questions about double standard between J6, BLM riots

When the FBI prepared on the eve of the 2020 presidential election for possible violence in case of a disputed election, it made no distinction between left and right-wing groups when it recommended prosecutions to deter illegal activity. 

Yet, months later, there was a disparity in how the FBI, the Justice Department, and local prosecutors were treating illegal activity during the breach of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, compared to the summer of 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.  

An FBI memo reported on by Just the News earlier this week shows the bureau’s Boston office led a tabletop exercise and culled open-source intelligence on the potential for violence from both left-leaning anarchists to right-leaning extremists. It recommended relying on undercover informants and aggressive prosecutions for minor crimes to keep tabs on potentially violent groups and deter them. 

90% of 2020 BLM protesters were not jailed, but 84.6% of J6 rioters convicted

The document raises new questions for congressional investigators about why the bureau failed to heed its own warnings ahead of the Capitol riot and whether it provides further evidence there was a double standard in federal prosecutions. 

News outlets have reported for years on the fact that a vast majority of cases against protesters who broke the law during the fiery and violent summer of 2020 were dropped, especially by localities. A 2021 analysis from The Guardian found that this happened in about 90% of cases across a dozen U.S. jurisdictions that experienced protests. 

In Houston, one of the epicenters of protests in Texas, about 93% of all charges brought were dropped, The Guardian reported. This is despite the fact that the demonstrators blocked a federal highway, threw objects at police officers, and damaged buildings. Eight officers were also injured. In Philadelphia, where protesters smashed windows, looted stores, and set fire to police cars, at least 95% of the arrests resulted in no prosecutions or dropped charges.

Many of these cases were handled by local prosecutors. In the more than 300 federal cases brought against those involved in the protests, fewer than half pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, the Associated Press found.  

Conversely, more than 1,500 individuals were arrested in connection with the Capitol riot, resulting in 1,270 total convictions–making that outcome about 80% of the cases–on the eve of President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardon last year. That comes out to about 86%.

Federal prosecutors also used a controversial statute that allowed them to prosecute some of those who were charged with obstructing an official proceeding for interrupting the Jan. 6 congressional certification of the electoral college vote. The statute was also used in some of the charges levied against President Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith in his case arguing Trump was directly responsible for the violence that day. 

That interpretation of the statute, which Republicans often pointed to as evidence of the double standard of aggressive prosecutions, was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2024. The high court ruled that the law only applied when a defendant prevented the use of “records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding.”

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Rich Elites Ignored Climate Change by Flying Hundreds of Private Jets to the Super Bowl

Wealthy elites, many of whom likely believe that climate change is a big problem, flew hundreds of private jets to attend the Super Bowl this weekend.

These are the same people who support things like banning plastic straws. Funny how all of that goes right out the window when it comes to their comfort and convenience.

They will virtue-signal in public then just do whatever they want to do.

Townhall reported:

Elites Did Their Part to Fight Global Warming by Flying Dozens of Private Jets to the Super Bowl

The Democrats keep telling us we have to address climate change immediately, or half the country will end up underwater. Bernie Sanders, who supports the Green New Deal and calls climate change an “existential threat” to humanity, spent more than half a million dollars on private jets during his “Fight Oligarchy” tour.

Yesterday, following the Super Bowl in San Francisco, hundreds of private jets were seen leaving the area. We’re willing to be that 90 percent or more of them were owned by people who agree with Bernie Sanders about climate change.

As always, it’s (D)ifferent when they do it. The Obamas bought a waterfront mansion in Martha’s Vineyard a couple of years ago, and Kamala Harris just dropped $8 million on a Malibu property with “sweeping ocean views.”

What kind of carbon footprint did all of this produce?

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