Tag: police state

State Attorneys General tell Facebook and Twitter to kill vaccine skepticism

12 state attorneys general, headed by New York’s Letitia James, want Facebook and Twitter to do more to stop the spread of coronavirus vaccine skepticism. The AGs said that Facebook and Twitter are not enforcing their existing policies on vaccine misinformation.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

In a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the coalition of state Attorneys General called on the social media platforms to fully enforce their vaccine misinformation policies immediately. James argued that vaccine skepticism is jeopardizing the coronavirus vaccination program and America’s road to recovery. James wants skepticism silenced.

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Canada To Censor “Hurtful” Comments About Politicians, Implement Internet Kill-Switch

…but, constituents to remain fair game for abuse from party apparatchiks.

A colleague forwarded me the text of an article from Blackrocks Reporter, which covers Canadian politics from Ottawa, our capitol.

It’s a report on Federal Heritage Minister Steven Guibeault’s ongoing vendetta against non-conforming political speech on the internet, in which he’s calling for censorship of “hurtful” comments against politicians and implementation of an internet killswitch to facilitate it.

Blackrocks is behind a paywall, permit me to quote it here:

‘Federal internet censors should target hurtful words against politicians, says Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. The Minister added pending regulations may include an internet kill switch to block websites deemed hurtful, but called it a “nuclear” option.

“We have seen too many examples of public officials retreating from public service due to the hateful online content targeted towards themselves or even their families,” said Guilbeault.  “I have seen firsthand alongside other Canadians the damaging effects harmful content has on our families, our values and our institutions. As a dad and a stepdad to six kids, I know more can and should be done to create a safer online environment.”

Guilbeault made his remarks in a podcast sponsored by Canada 2020, an Ottawa think tank affiliated with the Liberal Party. Legislation to censor internet content will be introduced shortly, he said.

“I am confident we can get this adopted,” said Guilbeault. “Once the legislation is adopted, clearly creating a new body, a new regulator like that in Canada, would take some time.”’

The same story is covered here by the Post Millienial (the rest of Canada’s “approved media”, as in the ones who received hundreds of millions in tax breaks and subsidies from the Federal Government in the run up to the last election, are not giving it a lot of airtime for some reason).

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Anti-War Activist Harassed By Plainclothes Cops For Tweet Exposing AOC’s Foreign Policy Incompetence

A leftist anti-war activist was visited by the California Highway Patrol for a tweet he made that lightly criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) pandering and bumbling comments about a “two-state solution” in the Middle East. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office has denied contacing police about the tweet.

On April 7, activist Ryan Wentz tweeted, “On April 1, @AOC did a livestream with Michael Miller, the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. She was asked about ‘peace between Israelis and Palestinians.’ Her response was incredibly underwhelming, to say the very least”…

The next day, Wentz was visited in Los Angeles by two plainclothes members of the California Highway Patrol, who reportedly accused him of “threatening” Ocasio-Cortez.

Wentz posted a picture of a business card provided by one of the officers, with the caption, “I’m really shaken up right now. I was just visited by two plainclothes police officers from California Highway Patrol at my home. They said they came here on behalf of the Capitol Police and accused me of threatening @AOC on Twitter yesterday. This is provably false.”

The activist added, “I felt scared, intimidated, and violated. They knew my name and where I live. It was done on behalf of a congresswoman who advocates against police state tactics.”

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BC teacher suspended after showing class ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ film

A British Columbia elementary school teacher was suspended this week after showing her students the 1962 American drama To Kill A Mockingbird.

The teacher, Andrew Michael Dennis, showed his Grade 6/7 students the film in September 2018, a resolution agreement by the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation found.

The resolution states that the film dealt with themes too mature for students that age, such as sexual assault and racism, as well as racial slurs.

“In the B.C. curriculum, the book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is listed as a secondary school-level resource for Grades 10 and higher,” the commissioner wrote in the disciplinary form.

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Brits At Pubs Will Have To Register On Government Tracking App, Hand Over Phones

According to a report in the London Telegraph, anyone wishing to drink in a pub garden in Britain from Monday (only the outside areas will open) will be forced to hand over their phone to venue staff who must check the individual is registered on the government’s tracking app.

Venues will face fines of £1000 if they are found to be admitting people who have not registered on the NHS Test and Trace app with all their personal details and then scanned a QR code on entry to the outdoor portion of the venue.

The official government guidance notes “should someone choose to check in with the official NHS QR code poster, a venue should check their phone screen to ensure they have successfully checked in”.

The word ‘choose’ is odd because the guidance makes clear that it is mandatory for everyone to individually register on the app, or fill in a paper form.

There is no ‘choice’ in the matter.

Pubs have also been told to refuse entry to anyone they believe has given false details.

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Standing Army: Biden Surpasses Trump on Flow of Military Weapons to Cops

The controversial 1033 program became a source of citizen outrage after images of police armed with military-grade weaponry, including grenade launchers and armored MRAPs, were beamed into people homes across the country during the battlefield-style police response to the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

As many Americans noted, Ferguson, Missouri looked like a war zone, with police kitted out in Marine-issue camouflage and military-grade body armor, toting short-barreled assault rifles, and rolling around in armored vehicles — virtually indistinguishable from US soldiers.

Shortly after the American public became widely aware, and largely outraged, over the extreme militarization of their local police forces, President Obama signed an Executive Order (EO) that blocked large-caliber weapons, armored vehicles, grenade launchers and other heavy military hardware from being repurposed from battlefields across the globe to small town USA.

Obama argued at the time, that police utilization of such weapons of war cast the police as an “occupying force,” and only served to deepen the divide between police and the community.

“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like they’re an occupying force, as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them,” Obama said in announcing the ban in 2015.

This was one of very few notable pro-liberty moves by the Obama administration, however, thanks to the Trump administration, it was overturned. And now, Biden has picked up where Trump left off and has expanded it.

Despite Biden and Kamala Harris paying lip service to police brutality and riding the waves of the Black Lives Matter movement during their campaign, the president and his vice president have refused to even meet with the group. This is also in spite of the fact that BLM formed a PAC, which helped fund its ad campaigns to mobilize Black voters to go out and vote for Biden.

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