Steve Simpson with Ben Bayer on Section 230 and Social Media “Censorship”
https://youtu.be/5Fv78ueOJkMPhilosopher Ben Bayer of the Ayn Rand Institute's New Ideal speaks with Steve Simpson, Senior Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, on the "de-platforming" of conservative websites, Section 230, and censorship.Related Reading:
Tulsi Gabbard: Advocates of a U.S. Police State are More “Dangerous Than the Mob That Stormed Our Capitol”
The outspoken and independently minded, former Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, of Hawaii, roundly criticized former CIA Director John Brennan, House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and big tech “oligarchs” seeking to censor fellow Americans after the January 6 Capitol riot."The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6 to try to stop Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities were behaving like domestic enemies of our country. But let’s be clear. The John Brennans, Adam Schiffs, and the oligarchs in big tech who are trying to undermine our constitutionally protected rights and turn our country into a police state with KGB-style surveillance are also domestic enemies, and much more powerful and therefore dangerous than the mob that stormed our Capitol."[...]"Now President Biden, I call upon you and all members of Congress from both parties to denounce these efforts by the likes of Brennan and others to take away our civil liberties that are endowed to us by our creator and guaranteed in our constitution. If you don’t stand up to these people now, then our country will be in great peril."Here is the entire video:https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1354035548524957697
Abigal Shrier: Biden Rule and Boys (Who ‘Identify as Female’) On Girl’s Sports Teams
Writes Abigal on "Joe Biden’s First Day Began the End of Girls’ Sports" in the WSJ:
Amid Inauguration Day talk of shattered glass ceilings, on Wednesday President Biden delivered a body blow to the rights of women and girls: the Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation. On day one, Mr. Biden placed all girls’ sports and women’s safe spaces in the crosshairs of the administrative state.The order declares: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.” The order purports to direct administrative agencies to begin promulgating regulations that would enforce the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision Bostock v. Clayton County. In fact, it goes much further.In Bostock, the justices held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited an employer from firing an employee on the basis of homosexuality or “transgender status.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a 6-3 majority, took pains to clarify that the decision was limited to employment and had no bearing on “sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes”—all regulated under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. “Under Title VII, too,” the majority added, “we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.”The Biden executive order is far more ambitious. Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department. If this policy were to be broadly adopted in anticipation of the regulations that are no doubt on the way, what would this mean for girls’ and women’s sports?“Finished. Done,” Olympic track-and-field coach Linda Blade told me. “The leadership skills, all the benefits society gets from letting girls have their protected category so that competition can be fair, all the advances of women’s rights—that’s going to be diminished.” Ms. Blade noted that parents of teen girls are generally uninterested in watching their daughters demoralized by the blatant unfairness of a rigged competition.Read the rest.Related: Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our DaughtersUpdate: She also made an appearance on Tucker Carlson to discuss her views:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Sz_7G_coY
The Biden Blizzard
Quart provides a list of the Biden administration's 17 Executive Orders executed on the first-day of taking office. From "Biden signed more executive actions on day one than Trump, Obama, and Bush combined":
An executive order requiring that people wear masks, and keep their distance from each other, on federal property.The launch of a “100 Days Masking Challenge” to encourage Americans to wear masks.The reversal of Trump’s decision to remove the US from the World Health Organization.An executive order that creates the position of Covid-19 response coordinator and restores the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, a team in charge of pandemic response, within the National Security Council.Calls to Congress to extend Covid-19 aid, and requests to various departments to extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums and pause payments for federal loans.An “instrument” that will allow the US to re-join the Paris Agreement on climate change within 30 days.An executive order reversing actions Trump took that Biden’s agencies judge to have been harmful to the environment, public health, or the national interest, and asking agencies to revise these standards to tackle climate change.An executive order with the aim of “embedding equity across federal policymaking and rooting out systemic racism and other barriers to opportunity from federal programs and institutions.” This order will also disband the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission.An executive order reversing a Trump administration order that excluded undocumented immigrants from the Census.A memorandum directing officials to “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.An executive action repealing two proclamations, informally known as the “Muslim ban.” that restricted entry into the US from majority-Muslim countries.An executive order revoking Trump’s “harsh and extreme immigration enforcement” and directing agencies to set immigration policies more “in line” with the Biden administration’s “values and priorities.”A proclamation that will pause the construction of the border wall with Mexico and determine how to best divert those funds elsewhere.A memorandum to extend a designation allowing Liberians who have been in the US for a long time to stay.An executive order directing the government to interpret the Civil Rights Act as prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, not just race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.An executive order enacting new ethics rules for government officials.An executive order reversing “regulatory process executive orders” enacted by the Trump administration.
Capitol Riots Were Not Incited By Trump Speech But Were A Pre-Planned Conspiracy
A Washington Post article indicates that Trump did not incite the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 with his speech. Evidence suggests the attack was planned in advance:"Self-styled militia members from Virginia, Ohio and other states made plans to storm the U.S. Capitol days in advance of the Jan. 6 attack, and then communicated in real time as they breached the building on opposite sides and talked about hunting for lawmakers, according to court documents filed Tuesday."While authorities have charged more than 100 individuals in the riot, details in the new allegations against three U.S. military veterans offer a disturbing look at what they allegedly said to one another before, during and after the attack — statements that indicate a degree of preparation and determination to rush deep into the halls and tunnels of Congress to make “citizens’ arrests” of elected officials."U.S. authorities charged an apparent leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group, Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Berryville, Va., in the attack, alleging that the Navy veteran helped organize a ring of dozens who coordinated their movements as they “stormed the castle” to disrupt the confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory.[...]
"The arrests this weekend of several people with alleged ties to far-right extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, suggest that the riot was not an entirely impulsive outburst of violence but an event instigated or exploited by organized groups."“This is the first step toward identifying and understanding that there was some type of concerted conspiracy here,” said one senior official with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is leading the investigation.CNN reported the same conclusion:
“Evidence uncovered so far, including weapons and tactics seen on surveillance video, suggests a level of planning that has led investigators to believe the attack on the US Capitol was not just a protest that spiraled out of control, a federal law enforcement official says.”
Democrats are seeking to remove Trump on the basis of his remarks to supporters before the rioting at the Capitol. Like others, I condemned those remarks as he gave them, calling them reckless and wrong. I also opposed the challenges to electoral votes in Congress. But his address does not meet the definition for incitement under the criminal code. It would be viewed as protected speech by the Supreme Court.When I testified in the impeachment hearings of Trump and Bill Clinton, I noted that an article of impeachment does not have to be based on any clear crime but that Congress has looked to the criminal code to weigh impeachment offenses. For this controversy now, any such comparison would dispel claims of criminal incitement. Despite broad and justified condemnation of his words, Trump never actually called for violence or riots. But he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to raise their opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to back the recent challenges made by a few members of Congress. Trump told the crowd “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices be heard.”[...]The damage caused by the rioters this week was enormous, however, it will pale in comparison to the damage from a new precedent of a snap impeachment for speech protected under the First Amendment. It is the very threat that the framers sought to avoid in crafting the impeachment standard. In a process of deliberative judgment, the reference to a snap impeachment is a contradiction. In this new system, guilt is not doubted and innocence is not deliberated.Here is the full speech:https://youtu.be/1OXFmnTtO6s