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On Friday, May 12, 2017, I posted a timeline of French media articles about the new French president Emmanuel Macron, most of which concerned his finances.
Anti-Macron French people wonder if the lack of transparency about his personal finances could, if investigated, turn out to be as significant as the Cahuzac affair which saw a former minister of François Hollande’s jailed for three years last December. Dr Cahuzac, originally a surgeon, is also prohibited from holding office for five years.
In February, someone pointed out that Macron, economics minister for François Hollande’s administration, got his start in politics from Cahuzac:
My post also mentioned an article from the Médiapart readers’ site, Club Médiapart, which proved explosive, creating a firestorm of media reaction. Essentially, it asked if Emmanuel Macron is a new Cahuzac.
Médiapart‘s editor Edwy Plénel had to tell the media that the views expressed on Club Médiapart have nothing whatsoever to do with Médiapart‘s editorial line. That said, despite numerous requests to take the article of April 14 down, Plénel refused, saying it did not violate any of their terms and conditions.
The Club Médiapart article did not have much on Cahuzac himself. Most of it focussed on Macron, 39, being an establishment creation, and — although the author did not use the following words, I will — a Manchurian Candidate.
Excerpts and a summary follow, translation and emphases mine.
First, how can one explain the meteoric rise of the youngest president in France’s history?
… the facts are stubborn. Macron’s journey does not go unnoticed without raising some questions: by what means can an individual, unknown until a few months ago, find himself in such a position? To be sure, talent and self-discipline can explain the stunning rapidity of such a trajectory, but, on the other hand, political life is far from linear, and to play a certain role in it, as in the theatre, one must have great directors.
We are convinced that Emmanuel Macron, contrary to appearances and his repetitive chant on reforming the practices of the political world, is not exempt from the old constraints which govern this particular world.
Then there is a certain irony of the public seeing early photos of Macron as a boy acting in a school play, which provides a reference point for his future as an adult. Even better, his drama teacher — now his wife — Brigitte Trogneux had directed the production. What did that portend for Macron’s future?
There is the stage where Emmanuel Macron performs and plays a tailor-made role, and then there is the backstage, where we find characters as diverse as Brigitte Trogneux, Henry Hermand ([recently deceased] multimillionaire, great financier of the Second [modern] Left, and mentor of Macron), François Henrot (Director of the Rothschild bank), David Rothschild (head of the business bank), Jean-Pierre Jouyet (secretary general of the Elysée) and, of course, Francois Hollande.
And there are more establishment figures in Macron’s universe:
So many complex characters, who have alternately played a considerable part in the rise of Macron to the highest levels of the republic. So many characters to whom Macron is devoted, and necessarily indebted. To these key players, we must add the media and financial ecosystem that has anointed him. Alain Minc, Jacques Attali, Pierre Bergé and Patrick Drahi, all these actors have played a more or less direct role in his political journey.
In other words, Macron is anything but an anti-establishment candidate. He is a globalist of the first water.
Don’t be deceived by the media craze. In fact, a radio programme that went against the grain was not allowed to be rebroadcast:
At the beginning of April, a show on LCI, Médiasphère, revealed candidate Macron’s artificiality. Depicted as a puppet serving extraordinary interests, Macron was laid bare during the show. The media effect of this broadcast of a few tens of minutes was such that LCI was forced to cancel the repeat of Médiasphère.
My post of Friday, May 5 explained how two strong candidates — the conservative Francois Fillon and the socialist Manuel Valls — had to be cleared out of the way for Macron to win. The Club Médiapart author says Macron is far from a genius:
Macron is a theatre actor, endowed with a questionable talent, as shown by his poor performance in the various presidential debates. Behind the scenes, a crowd of individuals, more or less commendable, write his role for him, draw up his replies, choreograph him and create the backdrop.
The author concludes that Macron we see is not the true Macron. Who is Emmanuel Macron really?
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Michael Savage is the third person to be censored for discussing Hillary Clinton’s health.
In August, Dr Drew lost his show at CNN for doing the same thing. Around the same time, Huffington Post contributor David Seaman was sacked for writing an article about the Democratic candidate’s health.
Clearly, no one from larger media outlets must question Hillary’s health.
Can you imagine the censorship if she is elected president? She has already said she would shut down the alt-right Drudge Report, Breitbart and Alex Jones.
With regard to Michael Savage, The Conservative Treehouse has this:
Wow. This is quite remarkable.
Michael Savage is a very well known radio talk personality. The Savage Nation is a nationally syndicated talk show that is the second most listened-to radio talk show in the country with an audience of over 20 million listeners on 400 stations across the United States.
On Monday, September 26, Savage was discussing Big Media bias regarding the presidential debate that evening. Then, he brought up Hillary’s health (emphases mine):
… the broadcaster began discussing Hillary Clinton’s mysterious health condition that Savage believes might be Parkinsons.
Almost immediately, and without any notification, New York (tri-state area) radio station WABC-Radio TV cut Savage off the air and replaced him with the lesser rated Curtis And [Ku]by Show.
It wasn’t just New York, either:
Shortly thereafter, as Michael Savage discovered the issue and began discussing what was going on in/around the New York broadcast area, all Savage affiliates nationwide cut off the broadcast and replaced the live transmission with a recording of a previous show.
Updates to follow.
The audio below carries Savage’s discovery of what was happening, particularly at 23:00 in:
These are dark days for freedom of speech in the United States.
Under a Hillary Clinton administration, they will get even darker.
A while back I criticised the increase in Big Media closing their sites to readers’ comments.
It’s censorship.
On September 14, Damian Thompson — who worked at The Telegraph for many years and has been at The Spectator for the last few — posted an article ‘Comment threads are closing, thankfully – but the underpants brigade have won’.
It’s one of the laziest pieces of journalism I have read this year. He gives no indication as to why he is saying that comments are closing. No what, where or when, either: standard journalistic questions every article should answer.
I learned about that in primary school English class.
Yes, every year our books included a series of journalism lessons with in-class assignments where we had to write a short news, features or sports story. We had to compose them the way they would appear in a newspaper. The teacher would come around to grade them and the best were read out in class.
Not only did we learn something useful; we also began reading newspapers more frequently.
But I digress.
Several years ago, Thompson, a practising Catholic, got into a Telegraph comments row with a group of Catholic traditionalists. One weekend in May, he deleted all their comments from one of his blog posts. I remember it well, because I saw it happen in real time. They soon turned to WordPress, where they have been maintaining their sites since 2009. Sorry, I cannot remember their names, but maybe one of them will come on here to comment!
Bearing that in mind, it’s interesting that Thompson writes this (emphases mine):
For five years I was editor of Telegraph Blogs. Every day, from the moment we switched on our computers, we had to live with the drone of the ‘underpants brigade’, as one colleague called them.
To the casual reader, these Y-front warriors were obvious fruitcakes. But they had a sharp eye for the fragility of the journalistic ego.
Yes, they certainly did, Damian. And you lacked the professionalism to buck up and allow them to voice their opinions.
After he deleted the Catholic traditionalists’ posts, I never read another article by Thompson again until this particular one.
But enough about Damian Thompson and his paltry journalism. What did the readers say in response?
First, he received over 1,480 comments. Well played, readers!
Secondly, one reader offered an eloquent defence of comments:
Since the Telegraph turned off comments, I’ve largely stopped reading it. Funnily enough, Damian, I used to comment on your rather excitable pieces in that paper. I’m mostly on the Guardian now, but I don’t click on articles which don’t allow comments for the same reason I won’t on the Telegraph: most of the articles present a very slanted view of the world, with claims which don’t stand up – and are not above trotting out downright lies …
Comment threads aren’t welcomed by professional writers because they remove their privileged position: embarrassingly, they allow scrutiny of articles to be placed in situ. This doesn’t really affect careful writers who produce well-researched and analytical articles, at worst they’ll get a tide of childish bile from people unwilling to listen to their viewpoint; but for the many charlatans who’ve based their careers on spewing (previously unchallenged) polemic, there’s an almost inevitable payback below every trashy article they produce: comment after comment pulling apart their tawdry arguments. Consequently, comments are the best thing which has ever happened to news media.
Finally, another reader said that any media outlet that drops comments will lose readers:
Like many I stopped paying a sub to the Telegraph and now hardly visit even for the free articles. Other places will get the traffic of the excluded.
That’s definitely true. I, too, stopped reading The Telegraph after they dropped comments. I read a lot more Guardian articles now.
Me too! I didn’t contribute much in the comment sections, but they were the main reason I used and subscribed to the DT. I no longer subscribe and it isn’t even in my Favourites folder any longer. I stopped visiting the site altogether.
… it was the comments that entertained, not the articles!
Yes, I used to read the comments for useful responses and links rebutting or adding more to the articles.
Ironically, that’s exactly what happened with Damian Thompson’s article. A reader sent in a blog link discussing the Catholic Herald‘s suppression of comments.
The Catholic Herald article attempts to strike a regretful tone in announcing its new policy and ultimately sends readers to Facebook. What about readers who don’t want to be on Facebook yet would like to contribute?
… we are a small team. Our three full-time editorial staff (including me) work round the clock with a little army of part-timers to produce an up-to-the-minute news site and a weekly magazine (we made the change in 2014, after 127 years as a broadsheet).
Inevitably, time is scarce. And that is why we’ve decided to close comments on our articles (in common with many other Catholic websites).
The decision has been a difficult one. Readers have, over the years, offered insightful, funny and heartfelt responses to our articles. But moderating comments is a time-consuming daily task. We believe that time could be better spent on offering readers more news and analysis.
This does not mean the end of dialogue with our readers. We know that this bond is vital. When major issues arise we will post items that allow for comments. Meanwhile, our Facebook page is always open for discussions.
The Catholic site discussing this new policy has this:
Shame. The Catholic Herald had done so well for so long. It is so sad that it has finally capitulated to various pressures at such a crucial time in the Church’s life.
Whatever financial rewards come their way, I’m sure it won’t be through their print edition since whenever I go into a Church there are always a good few copies to spare.
Certain people, however, will be happy about this decision. This decision is a slap in the face to their readership. I won’t be reading it anymore. What a self-defeating decision. Their writers – talented as some of them are – are not the main attraction of blogs. The main attraction of blogs is that others can contribute to the issue being dealt with. I would have thought that to those interested in gaining an audience in the Catholic world today that this was self-evident.
But you know, what do I know?
Pray for blogs, pray for bloggers and pray for journalists and the Catholic Press. I guess you could say we’re all up against it in one way or another.
Every person hungry for the truth, whether it be religious or secular, laments every occasion when yet another major media site closes comments.
Now imagine if The Spectator had closed comments on Damian Thompson’s article. Nearly everyone reading it would have wondered what he was talking about. He had no news at all to support his headline. We would have walked away none the wiser.
However, that one comment linking to the Catholic Herald policy adopted in August helped flesh out the matter.
That is, if that’s what Thompson was referring to.
Last week, Big Media insisted that Donald Trump was going to be shut off from the black community in Detroit.
Sure, he would do an interview with Bishop Wayne Jackson of Great Faith International Ministries which will air on his Impact Network then attend one of his church services. But the Republican candidate would not be speaking with or addressing people. He would remain silent.
How wrong they were.
On Saturday, September 3 Trump gave a one-on-one interview to Jackson and attended a church service. Jackson announced that Trump had prepared a few words to say and that he was welcome to address the congregation. Jackson had a special podium brought out and Trump spoke.
Trump acknowledged at length the importance of black churches in American life. He talked about the importance of Christianity in America as a whole. He complimented Jackson on his interviewing skills, saying they were superior to that of professional interviewers. He also paid compliments to his wife, Dr Jackson. He spoke of the division in America and how people ‘talk past each other’. He said he wanted to unify America and to bring people together as a nation. He said he was proud to represent the party of Abraham Lincoln and put emphasis on the fact that Lincoln was a Republican. He was pained to see the closed shops and people sitting in doorways in Detroit because they had no jobs. He pledged to bring jobs to the city and get people working again. He also pledged that the schools would improve.
Trump ended with 1 John 4:12:
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
He received a warm reception from the congregation.
Afterwards, Jackson gave him a prayer shawl which he had personally prayed and fasted over. He put it around Trump’s shoulders. He also gave him two Bibles — one for him and one for Melania.
He then spoke of the importance of reading the Bible when things got tough and situations seemed impossible. It was really moving. The congregation were listening intently, many taking pictures with their phones.
Then Reuters — the company filming the event — cut the filming.
The full address — and most of Jackson’s words — are in the following video:
A commenter at The Conservative Treehouse tells us what happened next (emphases mine):
I live in metro Detroit and was watching both a local stream from the church’s site and the networks feed on CNN from Reuters. I saw the networks video get cut live as it happened, where the feed from church was still going. I got to see the rest and it was the most moving part. I knew they were not going to let that happen since it would jump over everything negative they were trying to frame ahead and after the event.
The Pastor was providing a gift of … some sort of pin, maybe a cross? He stated something like when you [are] alone in the darkness… struggling with difficult decisions… you feel the weight of the world upon you, wear these and reflect to God to provide you with the wisdom and serenity to make the right choices. Something [of] that nature.
Behind the sound and the cameras, Reuters personnel were having a kerfuffle. One did not want to cut the feed and said he didn’t care if he were demoted. This video has dialogue, including subtitles, of what they were saying:
I’m shooting, I don’t care what … I’ll take a demotion …
Then, from the supervisor:
Shut this down …
Answered with:
What?
Supervisor:
Shut it, yeah …
And finally:
Yes, Michael. Do it.
Reuters — the company that changed its polling methods in July so that Trump would look as if he were sinking. It worked for a few weeks. But even Reuters’s polling fix can’t keep him down. The latest Reuters/Ipsos polls from Wednesday, August 31 show that Trump is only down by one and two points.
Reuters are shameful both in their polling and their censorship of a pivotal event.
Afterwards, Trump took a tour of the neighbourhood where Dr Ben Carson grew up and stopped in front of his house. Trump spoke with the lady who owns the house now as well as a few of her neighbours. Trump left, probably to see more of Detroit, and Carson spoke to CNN’s Jeremy Diamond.
The good doctor has infinite patience.
Diamond kept asking if Trump should have said in reference to black Americans at an earlier rally elsewhere in the United States ‘What do you have to lose?’
Carson kept explaining that it wasn’t the way Trump said it that mattered but the message behind that question. That was what people were missing. Including Diamond, but he is too much of a gentleman to say so.
In closing, someone else on The Conservative Treehouse said they were glad they saw those two videos — posted there — because they happened to watch a television newscast which said that Trump’s visit to Detroit had been a flop. There were protesters outside the church and he was made to feel unwelcome.
Well, there were protesters outside the church, but, inside, something very profound and solemn was taking place. His conversation with the people outside of Ben Carson’s home seems to have gone well, too, brief though it was.
Oh, yes. One last thing. Never mind what someone from CNN tweeted about the Trump campaign asking for the feed to be cut. That seems rather doubtful. Damage limitation, anyone?
How many more lies do we have to endure from Big Media?
CNN wasn’t the only media outlet to put paid to Dr Drew Pinsky, although they were the most drastic.
KABC radio took down a link with his thoughts about Hillary Clinton’s health.
Here’s a look at both.
KABC
On August 17, Gateway Pundit reported:
KABC-AM has taken down the web page that featured Dr. Drew Pinsky speaking frankly about his concerns regarding the health and treatment of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton that was titled, “Dr. Drew Speaks Out on Hillary’s Health.”
When you access the page, you get this message:
Whoops! Page Not Found
Don’t fret, you didn’t do anything wrong. It appears that the page you are looking for does not exist or has been moved elsewhere.
If you keep ending up here, please head back to our homepage or try the search form below.
This video features a brief excerpt from the interview with Dr Drew, ‘America’s most trusted physician’:
Fortunately, the full audio is still available. Anyone wishing to hear the interview can do so by clicking here.
Infowars has highlights of the KABC interview, excerpts of which follow (emphases mine):
Appearing on KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning, the hosts of the show were expecting Dr. Drew, known as “America’s most trusted physician,” to debunk claims that Hillary is having significant health problems, but Pinsky instead dropped several bombshells.
Pinsky said he and his colleague Dr. Robert Huizenga had already analyzed what medical records on Hillary had been released and were “gravely concerned….not just about her health but her health care.”
Pinsky noted that after her fall, Hillary suffered from a “transverse sinus thrombosis,” an “exceedingly rare clot” that “virtually guarantees somebody has something wrong with their coagulation system.”
“What’s wrong with her coagulation system, has that been evaluated?” asked Dr. Drew, adding, that Hillary was being given “weird” medication that could be exacerbating her health problems …
Pinsky said the situation was “bizarre,” adding that Hillary’s medical condition was “dangerous” and “concerning”.
Dr. Drew also highlighted when Hillary had to wear prism glasses after her fall [in 2012], declaring, “that is brain damage, and so that’s affecting her balance….tell us a little more about that – that’s profound.”
CNN
Unfortunately for Dr Drew, CNN did not like what he said on KABC and cancelled his show on their HLN (Headline News) network.
His last programme will air on September 22, 2016.
Dateline Hollywood sums up CNN’s likely reasoning on Pinsky’s pronouncements:
It played nicely into Donald Trump’s position that Clinton is not healthy enough to serve as POTUS.
People don’t call CNN the Clinton News Network for nothing.
On a forum discussion of the topic, the first comment nails it:
He broke the 1st commandment of the liberal media: Thou shalt not speak ill of Hillary.
Too right.
CaribFlame agrees, explaining:
Clinton has thus far refused to release her full medical records to the public but has been rumored to be suffering from a plethora of medical ailments, including dementia, post-concussion syndrome, Parkinson’s Disease, brain injury, complex partial seizures, along with a number of other ailments.
Furthermore, bolstering these claims is a Clinton email, recently released by WikiLeaks, which revealed Clinton asking a State Department staffer to research new drugs for Parkinson’s disease.
Regarding Pinsky’s departure from HLN, CNN Executive Vice President Ken Jautz said: “Dr. Drew and his team have delivered more than five years of creative shows, and I want to thank them for their hard work and distinctive programming.” Jautz added, “Dr. Drew and I have mutually agreed to air the final episode of his show on September 22.”
Contrary to the public statement by CNN, the timing of CNN’s cancellation of Dr. Drew’s show leaves the distinct impression that his assessment of Clinton’s health was at least partially responsible for the abrupt sacking of his show.
Conclusion
Fortunately, Pinsky has other work to fall back on. He is:
Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, former Medical Director for the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California,[3] staff member at Huntington Memorial Hospital, and a private practitioner.[4]
A number of Hillary supporters have read about her health problems, concluding ‘So what?’
The problem is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Fitzgerald Kennedy had problems with pain, not cognitive difficulties or seizures. Their brains functioned normally.
Hillary Clinton has to be carefully managed in order to appear in public. Even then, she has petits mals in front of others:
As I said in yesterday’s post, which features two of Clinton’s health-related emails, she has conditions that could rightly restrict an average person’s employment, never mind that of a president and leader of the free world.
Clinton supporters should be aware of their candidate’s serious health issues — and acknowledge them openly. Furthermore, her campaign team should urge her to make her health records public before November 8 to enable voters to make an informed decision.
Last weekend, Huffington Post sacked their contributor David G Seaman for an article in which he questioned Hillary Clinton’s health.
Seaman must have been pretty fed up by the time he wrote this, excerpted below:
Hillary Clinton: Stronger Together. How strong? Well, the great woman’s health is excellent, superb even …
The same Hillary Clinton who recently became the latest unintentional star of YouTube, with a truly endless upload stream of videos purporting to show Hillary Clinton wildly seizing up when several reporters begin questioning her at once? Yes, the same Hillary Clinton who became the star of this Paul Joseph Watson video, attracting 3,554,177 views since it was uploaded on August 4th:
I realise some readers might be wondering after watching Paul Watson’s video … how is she strong, or healthy, after seeing all that?
Look, guys, I need to keep my job and platform. A lot of people read the Huffington Post and AOL properties. We all know what happens when you speak a little too much truth about the Establishment-beloved Clintons …
Well, no sooner posted on Sunday, August 28, than deleted — and sacked.
Seaman made a video that evening about his experience. Huff Po could have given him a warning, but they chose not to. Was it because Watson works for Infowars, a verboten media outlet for the Left?
In the video he says:
“It was a very newsworthy thing for me to link out to, people are talking about, that hashtag has been quite popular, and whenever a video concerning a presidential candidate’s health is viewed more than 3.5 million times, somebody who is under contract with The Huffington Post and to AOL should be able to link out to that… without having their account revoked without any notice… late on a Sunday night,” he said.
“I’ve filed hundreds of stories over the years as a journalist and I’ve never had anything like this happen….I’ve never experienced this,” remarked Seaman.
“This is spooky, to me this is extremely spooky – I don’t like it,” he added.
“They’re deleting and censoring commentary on her health – why is that?” asked Seaman. “Do they not want more people to watch that video on YouTube, is that what’s going on here?”
I saw Alex Jones of Infowars interview Seaman earlier this week. Jones, very empathetic, said that he will find some contract work for him.
I hope so. He is perfect for alt-media sites.
Whilst looking for another assignment, he has been perusing and tweeting Wikileaks’ emails regarding Clinton, her health and the media.
In September 2012, James Rubin, a former diplomat and journalist married to Christiane Amanpour, emailed Clinton to suggest that he host an intimate dinner for her with various writers and media ‘opinionators’. Highlights are Seaman’s in his tweet of August 30:
The corp media isn’t a big club insanely devoted to worshipping the Clintons.
Nope, not at all, nothing to see:
Later that year, an email described Clinton’s health problems. Seaman tweeted:
Medically unfit to lead. This one’s about as clear cut as it gets. #HillarysHealth
On December 20, 2012, Clinton sent the following email. Seaman tweeted:
Nursing a cracked head, 2012.
Bobblehead video, 2016.
It’s time the media stopped carrying water for the Democratic candidate by denying what appears to be a serious health condition. What Watson’s video shows are conditions that could rightly restrict an average person’s employment, never mind that of a president and leader of the free world.
I have read people asking in frustration why others use terms such as ‘appears’ and ‘seems likely’. No one can say anything else until Clinton’s health records are made public — in full.
Tomorrow: Dr Drew and CNN
‘For me but not for thee’ sums up freedom of expression in the West.
Conservatives must be shut up because the Left must control the narrative.
The Donald Trump narrative
In June 2016, Rachel Francon, a Donald Trump supporter, saw Facebook suspend her ‘Transgender person in support of Trump’ page.
It was not the first time. Facebook removed a photo of her supporting Trump with Breitbart technical editor and public speaker, the openly gay Briton Milo Yiannopoulos. Let’s not forget that, this summer, Twitter banned Yiannopoulos for life.
Another group that Facebook suspended was Genders United for Trump.
None of these corresponded with the leftist narrative. The Left create the narrative. Everyone must follow.
Conservatives, including the other-gendered, daring to create their own — especially when it favours Donald Trump — must be stopped.
Meanwhile, when a Facebook user registered a complaint about the ‘Assassinate Donald Trump’ page earlier this year, Facebook responded, in part:
We reviewed the Page you reported for having a credible threat of violence and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.
Until this year, authorities always investigated threats or contemplating violence against presidential candidates. Those making such threats can be — and often have been — charged with a felony.
Therefore, it is curious that the ‘Assassinate Donald Trump’ page was allowed to stand when Facebook removed the equally threatening anti-Obama page of Trump’s ex-butler, aged 84, in May.
On this theme — Facebook aside — what about the new comic book which came out this month? It shows Trump being beheaded. Will there be no official investigation? There censorship is appropriate, in accordance with the law.
Facebook and hate speech
In February, Mark Zuckerberg visited Berlin to pledge that Facebook would be policing hate speech against migrants:
“This is an area where we recognize how sensitive it is, especially with the migrant crisis here …
“One of the things that is unique in Germany is that migrants are a protected class,” Zuckerberg said Friday. “And, frankly, before we started engaging more with government and civil society here in Germany, that wasn’t how we operated around the world.”
Yet, on August 25, The Guardian reported that a cross-party group of MPs in Britain accused Facebook — and other outlets — of not doing enough to police Islamic extremism:
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been accused by MPs of “consciously failing” to combat the use of their sites to promote terrorism and extremism.
A report by the Commons home affairs select committee says the social media networks have become the “vehicle of choice in spreading propaganda and the recruiting platforms for terrorism”.
The companies’ failure to tackle this threat had left some parts of the internet “ungoverned, unregulated and lawless”, said Keith Vaz, who chairs the committee. He demanded they worked much more closely with the police, to immediately shut down terrorist activity online.
It emerged last week that the authorities had struggled to get online posts by the convicted radical Islamist cleric Anjem Choudary taken down even after his arrest for inviting support for Islamic State.
The accused were unhappy. Twitter said that they had suspended 235,000 accounts since February. The MPs said this was ‘in reality a drop in the ocean’.
Facebook responded that they:
dealt “swiftly and robustly” with reports of terrorist-related content.
If it’s as ‘swiftly and robustly’ as with the Assassinate Donald Trump page, one wonders. If that page was removed, something similar reappeared. In June, Heavy reported:
Despite recently supporting a European Commission code promising to take down online hate speech within 24-hours of posting, Facebook has failed remove a group titled “I Want to F**king Kill Donald Trump” to the ire of his supporters.
The group was created on May 14 with a post reading “Donald Trumps Hair Looks Like A Bleached Mop – Gordon Ramsey 2016.” The most recent post is, “What Is Your Weapon Of Choice?” Asking what weapon people would use to kill Trump if given the chance.
Hate. It’s okay when the Left and extremists practise it.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
On August 18, Time published an indirect appeal for Internet censorship by wringing its hands over online trolls.
Before going into what they got wrong, here’s what they did correctly. They rightly pointed out that many people — real life examples are in the article — can truly be hurt by reading negative or threatening comments about themselves.
Furthermore, there is a practice called doxxing — revealing personal data about an individual online — which is very serious. Such comments and data need censoring. They are being censored. I have never read any comments — and I’ve read tens of thousands since 2005 — which go that far.
Here’s what the article got wrong. Time clearly infers that conservatives are to blame for hateful comments. In some cases, that might be true. However, by and large, the most aggressive, foul and hurtful comments come from leftists.
Yesterday’s post, which discussed the Bernie-turned-Trump supporting Reddit moderator — now sacked — revealed two leftist moderators’ foul language, which was too offensive to reprint here.
People can look at any left-of-centre comment thread and find the most offensive and crudest accusations of conservatives. The same is true in the UK.
So, Time is largely wrong in hanging online incivility around the necks of conservatives.
The site is also wrong in saying trolling began with 2014’s Gamergate.
It took off in earnest in 2008 when the Obama campaign not only hired online trolls to verbally shoot down McCain/Palin supporters in comments sections but encouraged activists to insult Sarah Palin in the most vulgar way in public.
Paid trolls attract unpaid trolls, which made the 2008 discourse all the more disgusting.
In October 2008, at least four Democrat activists sported tee shirts that called the vice presidential candidate one of the worst words in the English language. That link has a photo and the story, both of which someone at a rally in Philadelphia emailed to Wake up Americans. I’m glad that page is still up so that I can share it with you eight years later.
The rest of this post has off-colour and crude language from Democrats. Be warned.
I shall heavily censor what the email said (emphases mine):
I was at a Sarah Palin event in Philadelphia, at the Park Hyatt Hotel – late Saturday afternoon (Oct. 11th). If you are easily grossed out by the “C” word, I am sorry. But as Andrea says below, if McCain supporters wore a shirt that said
[any number of highly insulting things about Obama, spelled out to give equivalency]
they would either be thrown off the premises, have their heads kicked in, or even be detained at the local police station (I know this for a fact: I just had on a McCain button at a recent Obama event and I didn’t think I was going to get out alive).
Sorry the picture is not clearer. But these four young people were right in front of the hotel. They have on the nicest shirts. There were worse. There was group as well carrying around a fake dead fetus – exclaiming that “abortion should have been the path for Bristol(?) Palin”. And quite a few smoke bombs, etc. etc.
I also had some nice words thrown at me.
There were about 500 organized protesters. And about 500 not so organized at this event. The police and hotel security and secret service were letting me all the way up to the hotel steps. In a few cases … a few protesters got into the lobby.
In my family, the “C” word is about as bad as you can get.
Was this reported on the Philadelphia News. No!. Was anyone outraged? No! All that was on the Philadelphia local news last night was: Obama was at several rallies in Philadelphia earlier in the day (but went home Saturday night to be with his children). Obama and Palin were in Philly on the same day. And was there any mention of Palin – No! In the Sports section of the local evening news at 11:00PM, they did mention that Palin was at the Philadelphia Flyers game “dropping the first (hockey) puck”. The guy said it with a smirk. Then he added that Sarah Palin WAS NOT going home to spend the evening with her children.
Oh, that’s rich, coming from an equal rights Democrat news presenter.
Around that same time, Michelle Malkin posted a round-up of the foul and violent threats made against Palin and anti-Bush events and websites. I’ll look at the anti-Bush items in a moment.
But, never mind that. Malkin cited two Democrats’ false accusations against Republicans:
Paul Krugman is trembling: “Something very ugly is taking shape on the political scene: as McCain’s chances fade, the crowds at his rallies are, by all accounts, increasingly gripped by insane rage…What happens when Obama is elected? It will be even worse than it was in the Clinton years. For sure there will be crazy accusations, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some violence.”
Frank Rich decries “Weimar-like rage” and the “violent escalation of rhetoric.”
Then Malkin went into what leftists — today’s Democrats — had to say about Palin:
Let’s talk about “insane rage” and “violent escalation.”
This is insane rage — Madonna bashing Sarah Palin and shrieking “I will kick her ass:”
This is insane rage — Sandra Bernhard bashing Sarah Palin and cursing her head off with hate warping her crazed face:
This is violent escalation — Palin-hating artwork designating her an “M.I.L.P.” (Mother I’d Like to Punch). Hat tip: Edge of Forever …
Malkin points out from other resources that Democrat violence against Republicans — online and offline — actually started in 2004, when Bush was still in office.
The Obamedia diaper-wetters are gripped with fear over a few over-the-line catcalls at McCain-Palin rallies.
But, as Glenn Reynolds notes, they’ve looked the other way at the last four years of anti-Bush assassination chic — a subject I covered extensively in Unhinged and on this blog:
bushgun.jpg
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She follows that with a very long list of arrests of anti-Bush people in violent incidents, including (emphases in bold in the original, those in purple mine):
Gainsville, Fla., Democrat David P. McCally was charged with battery after he allegedly barged into a local GOP office, assaulted a cardboard cutout of President Bush, and punched a local Republican chairman in September 2004. (Credit: Alachua County Jail.)
In March 2004, Carol Lang, a campus secretary at City College in New York, reportedly assaulted a police officer trying to arrest unruly anti-war protesters. Police arrested Lang and charged her with second-degree assault, disorderly conduct, and obstructing governmental administration. (Credit: New York Police Department.)
Nathan Winkler of Tampa, Fla., was arrested and charged with aggravated stalking in March 2005 for allegedly terrorizing a mother who had a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker on her car. Click on the video here to listen to an excerpt of the mother’s frantic call to 911. Winkler reportedly had a handmade sign in his window that read, “Never forget Bush’s illegal oil war murdered thousands in Iraq.” (Credit: Tampa Police Department.)
In closing, Time‘s Joel Stein is mistaken. It would appear his appeal is for censorship of conservative views. However, he forgot or ignored the violence from Democrat candidates’ supporters.
It was true in 2004, became more widespread in 2008, continued in 2012 and is alive and well in 2016.
Censorship? Democrats should remove the plank from their own collective eye first.
Around ten days ago — and without warning — Breitbart reported that a Reddit moderator lost his post for declaring his support for Donald Trump.
It is interesting that Jeffrey Minter, known on Reddit under the username /u/Kwiztas, had previously supported Hillary Clinton’s rival in the primaries:
I feel I was blindsided. This came out of nowhere. No one cared what I said when I supported Bernie. No one had issues with my activity then.
Officially, the Reddit moderating team said he had not been moderating his assigned subreddit actively enough. They also criticised this posting of his:
They don’t seem to mind that I support Trump… Now I might be in the minority so my say isn’t always listened to when rules are made.
And this one:
I try my hardest to make /r/Politics MAGA
MAGA is the acronym for Trump’s slogan Make America Great Again.
Another reason Reddit moderators gave was Minter’s earlier interview to Breitbart, which was beyond the pale:
It’s long been suspected that /r/Politics looks upon Breitbart in an unfavourable way but this is the first time a connection with Breitbart has been used as a direct reason for demodding a user.
Minter’s girlfriend gave Breitbart a list of moderators involved in his ban. Some are clearly anti-GOP. One moderator, StrictScrunity told:
conservative users in /r/News to “shut the [censored] up” and that they “needed therapy”.
Another moderator, Qu1nlan, describes himself as a:
socialist, SJW [censored]
Breitbart points out the double standard between Minter’s accusers and Qu1nlan’s own postings, among them:
He posted to the anti-Trump subforum /r/EnoughTrumpSpam specifically speaking “as an /r/Politics mod” – a phrase that Minter was reprimanded for – while discussing “shills” i.e, people paid to post in favour of a particular presidential candidate.
Breitbart rightly calls this censorship:
The only difference between Minter’s actions and the other moderators is that he is a quiet supporter of Trump, while the rest support Clinton or third party candidates such as Jill Stein. There have been many claims of politically-motivated censorship in Reddit’s subforums which Breitbart has reported on previously. This is just the latest.
Qu1nlan denied allegations of censorship, saying:
All decisions we make, including adding and removing moderators, have nothing to do with any moderator’s political beliefs.
Censorship is alive and well, friends. It operates from the left-of-centre. If Hillary Clinton is elected, you can be sure it will be here to stay and get worse.
