Musk vs. The Deep State
Kudos to Elon Musk for making extraordinary efforts to expose the truth about censorship at Twitter! Here’s the key to understanding the controversy.
In the summer of 2020, the FBI went to Twitter and warned of possible “hack-and-leak” operations by Russia and other countries to influence the election. Yoel Roth, a former Twitter executive, told the Federal Election Commission in December 2020 that he was informed these operations would involve Hunter Biden, which was certainly very specific information.
Some left-wing commentators are suggesting that this is exactly what the FBI should do, and Twitter can’t be blamed for acting when information involving Hunter Biden’s laptop appears in the press and seems to be hacked and leaked.
Don’t fall for this excuse!
It doesn’t pass the straight face test because the FBI had the laptop in its possession since December 2019. The FBI wasn’t speculating about foreign disinformation campaigns. The FBI knew the laptop and its contents were real because they had it!
This was not a normal investigative or law enforcement action for the Bureau to take. It was running political interference for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
Some commentators have pointed out that this wasn’t the Biden Administration’s FBI doing this because he hadn’t been elected yet. But it involved the same left-wing elements of the Deep State that interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
The FBI allowed itself to become a tool of the Clinton campaign when it pushed the Russia collusion hoax without any evidence. The same left-wing Deep State hacks who went to bat for Hillary were going to bat for Joe Biden by working with left-wing hacks in Big Tech.
And they were in fact some of the very same people. For example, James Baker was a top FBI lawyer involved in approving FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016. By 2020, Baker was a top official at Twitter who helped censor the Hunter Biden story!
Just to be clear, leftists in the FBI were coordinating with leftists in Silicon Valley to ensure that conservative voices were suppressed and that conservatives didn’t win elections. This was not a “mean FBI” threatening a private company. These were activist hacks in both organizations working together to silence MAGA conservatives.
By the time the 2022 elections rolled around, the relationship between the Deep State and Big Tech had only grown deeper. The Biden Administration’s “Disinformation Governance Board” was meeting weekly and government censors had direct access to Big Tech platforms via special portals. Anything related to COVID coming from the Wuhan lab to satire from the Babylon Bee was shut down.
We must get to the bottom of this, and I am hopeful that the new House majority will do just that. We need to know to what extent this was also going on at Google and Facebook.
We already have Mark Zuckerberg’s statement that the FBI pressed Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, and I suspect we will discover far more was done.
Media Malfeasance
As extraordinary as it is for Musk to expose the inner operations of Twitter, the media’s reaction is even more extraordinary and disturbing. Just as the media spiked the laptop story, it spiked the Twitter disclosures over the weekend.
If they covered it at all, it was largely to attack Matt Taibbi, a former editor of Rolling Stone, who had access to the Twitter files. Before the weekend was over, Taibbi was accused of “selling his soul to the richest white nationalist on earth.”
The left’s theme of “saving democracy” is a total sham. The Washington Post’s motto – “Democracy dies in darkness” – is a total lie. The left-wing media are totally willing to lie when it serves their purposes. But it’s this kind of propaganda media that puts democracy in danger.
The “free press” is supposed to serve as a check on abusive government power to preserve free speech. It is not supposed to support Big Government’s abusive efforts to suppress free speech.
And it’s equally disturbing that large American corporations stopped advertising on Twitter. Why did they do that? Because Musk was restoring free speech.
But why are so many American corporations uncomfortable upholding one of the central rights of the American Republic? Because they are scared of the woke left-wing mob.
Again, that’s evidence that our constitutional Republic is in danger -- not from conservatives, but from the intolerant, totalitarian neo-Marxist left.
By the way, Apple CEO Tim Cook was on Capitol Hill last week to meet with House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and other top Republicans. Reports suggest it wasn’t a very comfortable meeting for him.
There’s video of Cook walking through the Capitol refusing to answer questions from a Fox News reporter about Apple’s activities in communist China. (He looks like a criminal suspect about to plead the Fifth.) But Cook’s decisions and Apple’s recent actions raise serious questions as to whether Apple really is an American company or a communist Chinese company.
More First Amendment Risks
The threats to free speech are not confined to Silicon Valley and Big Tech. The “tyrants of tolerance” in the militant LGBTQ movement and in Big Government are threatening free speech and religious liberty at every turn.
This morning, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging the way Colorado enforces its “public accommodation” law. If this sounds familiar it should.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado violated the First Amendment rights of Christian baker Jack Phillips. But it did so on narrow grounds that avoided larger constitutional issues at stake in the case.
And because the justices dodged those issues in 2018, Phillips continues to be harassed by radical activists who are determined to drive him out of business.
So much for “live and let live.” The left has no intention of letting conservative Christians live out their faith in the public square. (See last item.)
Seeing how the Phillips case was playing out, web designer Lorie Smith preemptively sued the state in 2016. Smith, who is a Christian, wants to provide services creating websites for couples getting married. But she does not believe in same-sex marriage, and does not believe the state can compel her to create websites that promote it.
Colorado disagrees, and believes it can either force Smith to promote same-sex marriage or punish her financially for refusing to compromise her faith.
This is the situation men and women of faith increasingly find themselves in as a result of the left’s growing demands for “tolerance.”
While Smith initially lost her legal challenges in the lower federal courts, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears likely to uphold her First Amendment rights of free speech and religious freedom.
She’s Baaack!!!
Hillary Clinton is back in the news. She compared the pro-life movement in America that is saving preborn babies to the Taliban and other Islamic extremists who are killing women in the Middle East.
Her comments are beyond absurd. They are disgusting!
But, once again, Clinton has demonstrated that there is nothing more important to the political left than the assembly line destruction of innocent preborn babies in the name of “women’s rights.”
And to think that were it not for Donald Trump, this woman would have become president!
Help Defend Our Values
For years, many conservatives and libertarians vehemently argued for a “live and let live” philosophy. Some thought it might be the best we could hope for in a divided country.
But the radical left clearly has no intention of allowing pro-life, pro-family Americans to “live and let live.” They want us shut down. They want us to kneel at their altars.
They are trying to intimidate crisis pregnancy centers. Leading senators are lying about CPC’s and demanding that these centers that help women in need be shut down.
The public schools are cesspools of radical indoctrination, and the left is aggressively going after Christian schools, too.
This will accelerate as the left gains power.
A few years ago, the left’s demand was, “Just let us marry who we want.” Now it’s, “I will teach your child about transgenderism, and if you try to stop me, you’re a book-burning Nazi!”
That’s the road we’re on. We will not be allowed to live in peace. The left is coming for you and your children.
I will fight against this with every breath God gives me, but I can’t do it without you.
I must ask you again to step up and stand with American Values, my non-profit public policy organization, today.
We are overworked and understaffed. But we are all in!
And we are counting on you to keep us on the frontlines in the fight for Faith, Family and Freedom!