There’s a report at Rolling Stone that Twitter had an entire database of Republican requests to censor posts. I don’t know if this fact came out during last week’s House Oversight Committee hearing dedicated to expressing outrage because Twitter took down Hunter Biden’s dick pics, but it’s out now.
These are important hearings because, as everybody knows, if more people had only gotten a better look at Hunter Biden’s junk, Trump would have won the election. Which he says he did win anyway, but it was stolen from him. Whatever.
The testimony at the hearings showed that requests to delete offensive tweets routinely came from people of both parties, a fact that shouldn’t surprise reasonable people.
The obvious irony here is, the sources note, that Republican leaders and elected officials have long been committing precisely the kind of “government interference” that they are now investigating, fundraising off of, and accusing Democrats and the so-called anti-Trump “Deep State” of perpetrating. Some of the loudest conservative and MAGA voices on Capitol Hill — who’ve been endlessly demanding taxpayer-funded, high-profile investigations into Big Tech “bias” and “collusion” — were themselves engaged in the behavior they now claim is colluding.
One wonders if this committee will hold any more hearings on how Big Tech and the Democratic Party are trying to “censor” them. They probably will.
And then, of course — one more time — we find that the wingnuts don’t grasp what
censorship is or what “free speech” is protected. Rep. Jamie Raskin explained to the committee that a private company, which Twitter is, can curate its own content any way it likes. The First Amendment prohibition on censorship only applies to government.
James O’Keefe is on “paid leave” from Project Veritas and may be ousted from the company he founded by its board. It turns out he’s an asshole who doesn’t work well with others. Imagine.
This one’s fun — the Trump campaign paid researchers to prove 2020 fraud but kept findings secret. (No paywall.)
The campaign paid researchers from Berkeley Research Group, the people said, to study 2020 election results in six states, looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts. Among the areas examined werevoter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.
Because the researchers found that nothing had happened that would have changed the results. But you knew that.
Note that this study was completed before January 6. It’s more evidence that Trump knew, or should reasonable have known, that his stolen election claims were false.
Senior officials from Berkeley Research Group briefed Trump, former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others on the findings in aDecember 2020conference call, people familiar with the matter said. Meadows showed skepticism of the findings and continued to maintain that Trump won. Trump also continued to say he won the election. The call grew contentious, people with knowledge of the meeting said.
Some people can’t handle the truth.
Do read this Greg Sargent column, This Gen Z Democrat is deftly skewering right-wing fantasies. It’s about Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), the first Gen Z member of Congress. Rep. Maxwell seems very good at doing obvious things that Democrats have somehow managed not to do in the past. For example:
Frost: When President Biden took office, did your agents stop enforcing the border and just allow everyone to come in thus creating what we hear is an open border.
Chavez: The answer is no pic.twitter.com/RGP8t6KWrM— Acyn (@Acyn) February 7, 2023
Yes, Dems, Is that so hard?
Anyone criticizing Gen Z folks as being lazy, or of being dullards, needs to follow Maxwell Frost ("Maxwell's 'Smart'"*)!
He be da real deal!!!!
Ok, let me ask if this's just me – or could it be me, thee, and possibly a few they's, them's, and thoses?:
Every time I turn on the news, and there's any mention of the House Republicans, I get a feeling of "deja vu**" – that feeling you get that you've seen or experienced something before.
Why does that feeling of "deja vu" come over me?
Well, maybe because it seems like every time the Republicans gather into one of their House Investigation Committees (which always eventually prove to actually be about psychological projections of shit conservatives have done before, shit they're doing now, or shit they aspire to do when the moment's ripe for mischief – or better yet, some tragic consequences for the "Others" among them), the conclusion is always the opposite of what they hoped to prove by their "investigation."
They want to prove presiDUNCE tRUMP didn't do something?
Instead, the results come back, and prove not only that he DID do something A, but that he also committed crimes B, C, and probably, D!
They want to blame liberals/progressives/Democrats for something bad or criminal?
Well, instead, if one were to spend more than a few seconds looking beyond the surface, one might discover that the results would actually prove the opposite:
That bad or criminal something always seems like it had its roots in soil first fertilized by Republican politicians and pundits – and their capacity to spread manure over any fields by pulling endless amounts of shit out of their own asses!
* Oy… Showing my age.
And feeling it! Oy… Oy… Oy…
** BTW: Actually, I feel less a sense of having "deja vu," and more a sense of what I call, "veja du":
Which I define as the definite feeling that you never want to see or experience that something again!
Why do I think a group of Trump lawyers just said, "Oh, CRAP!" The defendant paid for the research which proved Trump knew before he sent the mob at Congress – that Trump lost the election. Trump will say he rejected the conclusions of the experts he hired but that's unconvincing to a jury. Trump now has to show he had credible evidence before Jan. 6 which proved massive fraud – fraud that only days before, Trump's experts told Trump does not exist.
The research and conclusions "belong" to Trump. He paid for the research – he can throw away the report. In a criminal trial, the people who did the research can be called to testify and there's nothing they can do except tell the truth. IMO, the Justice Department is gathering irrefutable evidence that Trump knew he lost and tried to reverse the results anyway. I'm simple-minded but there's no way they can walk away from a direct attack on the democratic process.
Trump lost the election. Trump knew he lost. Trump gathered an armed mob. He knew some of them were armed. He sent them to the Capitol Building to overturn the election despite the result. None of this is conjecture – it's factual and can be proven in a court to a jury.
BTW: Trump was sucking up to Pence on Truth Social the day after the word came out that Smith had subpoenaed Pence re J6. Gee, I wonder if the sudden friendliness is related to what Pence could testify to.
I sure hope Maxwell Frost can keep chipping away, and build a base in Florida. What a joy to behold someone so young and so sharp. This season's AOC but without the home field advantage of hailing from a deep blue state.
Shades of, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"…