Some libertarians dismiss concerns over social media companies’ suppression of news and opinions that contradict select agendas by pointing out that these platforms are private companies, not part of the government. There are two problems with this argument. First, there is nothing unlibertarian about criticizing private businesses or using peaceful and voluntary means, such as boycotts, to persuade businesses to change their practices.

The second and most significant reason the “they are private companies” argument does not hold water is the tech companies’ censorship has often been done at the “request” of government officials. The extent of government involvement with online censorship was revealed in emails between government and employees of various tech companies. In these emails the government officials addressed employees of these “private companies” as though these employees were the government officials’ subordinates.

Government officials using their authority to silence American citizens is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Yet some conservative elected officials and writers think the solution to the problem of big tech censorship is giving government more power over technology companies. These pro-regulation conservatives ignore the fact that it would be just as unconstitutional if a conservative administration was telling tech companies who they must allow to access their platforms as it is when progressives order social media companies to deplatform certain individuals. Furthermore, since the average government official’s political views are closer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than to Marjorie Taylor Greene, giving government more power over social media companies is likely to lead to more online censorship of conservatives.

Instead of giving government more power over social media, defenders of free speech should work to separate tech and state. An excellent place to start is pushing for passage of the Free Speech Protection Act. Unlike other legislation, such as the PATRIOT Act and the Affordable Care Act, this bill is accurately named. Introduced by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, this bill makes it a crime for any federal employee or employee of a federal contractor to use his position to communicate with a social media company to interfere with any American’s exercise of First Amendment protected rights. Violators of this law would face fines of at least 10,000 dollars as well as suspension, demotion, or even termination and a lifetime ban from working with the federal government.

In addition to working to pass the Free Speech Protection Act, those who object to the big technology companies’ “content moderation” policies should abandon big tech for more free speech-friendly platforms. Many of the newer social media companies were started to meet the demand for a “content moderation”-free alternative to the dominant companies. Senator Paul himself stopped posting videos on YouTube because of its suppression of free speech. While my Liberty Report still airs on YouTube, its main platform is Rumble. It is wonderful to do a show on any topic I choose without worrying about being canceled.

Big tech censorship is a problem created by big government. The solution lies not in giving the government more power but in separating tech and state. Passing the Free Speech Protection Act and making big tech pay a price for cooperating with big government by leaving to use sites like Rumble are two excellent places to start.

 

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

The post Separate Tech and State appeared first on Granite Grok.

New Hampshire loves itself some jackpot justice. They sued Exxon/Mobile over EPA-approved Fuel Additives and loved cashing tobacco settlement checks. But how about this? After preaching the 95% and safe and effective lies, does the State have the hutspa to follow Texas as it sues Pfizer for Deceptive Trade practices?

It’s a fair question because Florida began looking at this a year ago when Gov. DeSantis asked the state courts to impanel a grand jury to explore wrongdoing but has not yet (to my knowledge) formally filed a suit.

Texas AG Ken Paxton has pulled that trigger.

 

How did Pfizer’s vaccine achieve such widespread adoption, yet fall short of the stated goal of ending the pandemic? In a nutshell, Pfizer deceived the public. First, Pfizer’s widespread representation that its vaccine possessed 95% efficacy against infection was highly misleading from day one. That number was only ever legitimate in a solitary, highly- technical, and artificial way—it represented a calculation of the so-called “relative risk reduction” for vaccinated individuals in Pfizer’s then-unfinished pivotal clinical trial. But FDA publications indicate “relative risk reduction” is a misleading statistic that “unduly influence[s]” consumer choice. Indeed, per FDA: “when information is presented in a relative risk format, the risk reduction seems large and treatments are viewed more favorably than when the same information is presented” using more accurate metrics.

 

Who’s with me? There’s gold in them thar hills, boys! Potentially the largest class-action lawsuit in human history.

But not so fast. There are also problems aplenty. While even cash-strapped Democrat states have more reason than anyone to chase another pot of gold, they were the worst of the worst when it came to pronouncing the Pfizer/Moderna vaccine safe and effective. From scare tactics to fear tactics to mandates and vaccine passports, can those locales complicit in the lie (who put a rotten despotism cherry on top) sue Pfizer without getting sued themselves?

I hope they get sued, but their fallback response will be to blame the FDA, CDC, NIH, or NIAD. They approved emergency use repeatedly. Gave us public health marching orders.

Elected and public health officials, and everyone up and down either of those food chains, will point a finger toward DC while blubbering, but, but, well, they said it was okay! And if they told you to inject your citizens with poison, would you do that? Would you shout them down, shut them up, make fools of them in public, refuse them access to public spaces, even confine them for wanting nothing more than their right to both free speech, bodily autonomy, or fully informed consent?

Yes, because that is the entire pandemic vaccine policy tragedy in one run-on sentence.

And a private company guilty of fraud, injury, or even murder, as we’ve noted on these pages more than once, isn’t going to be able to hide behind immunity no matter who offered it.

 

The funny thing about getting politicians to promise you immunity from prosecution is that there are limitations to what can be excused. Take deliberate deception and fraud.

If you hide details that lead to harm, the political rats will abandon your ship faster than you can say mRNA Vaccines.

That’s the boat Pfizer may soon find itself in, and it should not expect its Pfederal Pfriends to lift a finger to help, noting that any who might have probably “retired” and have packed their”stipends” and inducements in their saddle bags as they ride into the sunset. Any still on the payroll (wink-wink) also got what they wanted. A full-scale global tyranny test that a majority of the Western World Pfailed.

 

Pfizer/Moderna got in bed with some of the dirtiest criminals on the planet. Politicians and bureaucrats who promised them they would protect them. Organizations and individuals with no intention of protecting the people from the known risks of harm from their products; so what chance would Pfizer have when things went sideways?

Sure, everyone kept lying. The drug companies, government, public and private health, the media, and big tech actively censored the truth to protect the fraud. And as Igor Chudov notes in the linked piece, don’t be surprised when they get sued, too.

Pfizer lied to everyone, but they had a lot of help. Deceptions that continued long after the Pfizer docs and internal emails explained what we saw in the real world. They knew early and not only released it to the public but engaged in one of the most deceptive promotional campaigns in history.

A lot of people need to be sued. Pfizer is likely doomed.

So, who is going to step up and follow Texas? Who will sue Pfizer before there’s nothing left on the carcass for these vultures to pick? And how much fun will it be for us to flog them ceaselessly for it? You called us deniers and accused us of spreading misinformation. And now that is the foundation of any claims against Pfizer.

Grab some popcorn, people.

 

HT | Igor Chudov

The post COVID-19 Vaxx: Texas Sues Pfizer for Deceptive Trade Practices – How Many Other States Will Follow Their Lead? appeared first on Granite Grok.

In September, Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut spoke to the Brentwood Republican Committee. I don’t hang out there, but Frank had just announced his non-candidacy for Governor, and a neighbor and fellow Grokster was aching to understand the skullduggery behind the move and offered me a ride to the event.

Frank gave a talk, not on himself or his aborted campaign but on education in New Hampshire. Before the talk, he told us he had not discussed pulling out with the Republican hierarchy, as they are not supposed to take a position in primaries. He did not talk about low name recognition and low odds against the Morse and Ayotte fundraising machines, but these are common knowledge.

Frank described demographic and cultural trends in New Hampshire. He called them “headwinds,” and I call them excuses. He said that government schools have been delivering poor results for decades, with more than half of students measured as not proficient. He said it started to trend worse in 2012, then drastically worse with the Covid outbreak. I asked him what happened in 2012, and he instantly said, “Common Core,”–though he added that people he views as credible have studied it and found no reason the federal curriculum standard would worsen outcomes. (Not directly, but mightn’t the imposition of federal mandates tend to drive bright and innovative people out of the field? And you don’t need Washington to mandate math and reading; if DC mandates other things, doesn’t teaching these take time away from teaching the fundamentals?)

We want to thank Spike for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.

Turning to policy recommendations, Frank espoused thinking outside the box. He questioned the assumptions that we need buildings, rigid daily schedules, and children sitting at desks filling out forms. He described numerous experiments presented to the Board of Education for programs involving a small group of kids with shared interests, such as robotics–teaching kids what you want to teach them as offshoots of a project they want to build. Sometimes, teachers and parents want these options badly enough to consider leaving government schools. Sometimes local school committees agree with the plan. But repeatedly, “the bargaining unit wouldn’t go along with it.”

(Now, thinking way outside the box, the education industry probably doesn’t need a subsidized government option as the dominant provider, a single State Board, and a State Commissioner who talks about matching “my students” to “my schools.”)

But Frank was more engaging and more authentic than I expect Morse and Ayotte ever to be. Morse’s recent, content-free campaign revolved around “603 Values,” only I have my own values and they aren’t based on my phone number. Ayotte’s last content-free campaign had the slogan, “Listening, Learning, and Then Leading.” That’s right; I’ll know what I believe just after I chat with you. No sale.

In stating his non-candidacy, Frank wrote that he preferred to finish his current job rather than seek a new one. Of course, his content-free boss famously took him to the woodshed for communicating with “the silly fringe,” that is, us.

I disagree with Frank’s decision based on my interpretation of the facts as he presented them. He has been in the job for six and a half years, supervising a system that has always failed most of its kids and is now failing badly. He has an understanding of the current situation as an executive who studies things and incorporates what he learns. He knows exactly what needs to be done–and, for institutional reasons, the Education Commissioner can’t make it happen and won’t be able to for the foreseeable future.

School Town Meeting is locked down by those receiving, benefitting from, or massaging the loot, and these “bargaining units” hardly bargain; they dictate. Frank is ready for a new challenge–and we are ready for a candidate for Governor who is not the state’s Backslapper Emeritus, nor the latest NHGOP Year of the Woman gimmick who let NBC wedge her away from her party’s own President a full four years before loudly splitting from Trump became a fad. (Meanwhile, the Democrat candidates are less interested in education than in barring a conservative like Dennis Prager from offering even educational materials that they concede are not conservative.) Thinking outside the box suggests that Frank Edelblut could do more for New Hampshire and even more for education in a new role.

 

The post Frank Edelblut Should Get Back in the Race appeared first on Granite Grok.

It would be best if you never trusted anyone who sees no limit to how much the government can spend, always increases budgets, and then claims they want to lower your property taxes. They are lying to you. They have to tax you more, but they don’t want it showing up as a bill in your mailbox.

Taxpayers find it irksome, and legislators don’t want to have to explain to the peasants why they need more and more of your increasingly devalued dollars. Your role is to shut up and pay. If you must do anything, applaud all the services the state provides, none of which you use, while those you need, like plowed roads and public safety, take a back seat to things like making electricity unaffordable, gender-reassignment surgery, housing illegals, and buying needles for addicts.

There is no lowering of taxes under Democrats, ever, so any suggestion to the contrary is a bald-faced lie.

That’s the bait and switch New Hampshire Dems have been working for years. They can’t shut up about high property taxes but have never lowered a budget or cut a taxor spending in their political lives – unless forced by Republicans. Their ‘lowering the property tax scam’ is sleight of hand. Deflections and distractions. Were they to succeed, you might briefly see a lower rate in that next bill, but you’ll pay in more places and more often. Total taxes will rise, property values will follow (because they spent that money, too), and then those tax rates will increase, and before you know it, you’re Vermont with some of the highest total tax burdens in the nation.

And I’m not claiming that any Democrat in Vermont ever promised they’d lower property taxes; I’ll leave it up to our Vermont readers to clarify the history, but the spending that always follows a Democrat majority has come to call upon the Green (as in higher taxes) Mountain State, and it is an impressive abuse of Vermonters property rights.

 

This year’s letter projects property tax bills to increase by an average of 18.5 percent next fiscal year, driven largely by a forecasted 12 percent increase in year-over-year education spending. In addition, many districts are seeing changes in pupil counts due to implementation of the new pupil weights from Act 127 of 2022. Changes in pupil counts affect education tax rates, which are based on per pupil spending.

“I understand that this will not be welcome news for Vermonters,” said Commissioner Bolio, “This forecast predicts an unprecedented property tax increase next year, with very real financial impacts at a time Vermonters are already struggling to pay for housing.”

 

Governor Scott is less than pleased, not that he can do anything about it but bitch, which he has.

 

“Vermont’s tax burden is already, unfortunately, among the highest in the country, and families are bearing an incredible burden with increased costs of living across the board, including new and higher taxes and fees imposed by the Legislature. Put simply, a nearly 20% property tax increase would hurt Vermonters and our economy, and we cannot let it happen.

“At a time when housing costs and interest rates are elevated, higher property taxes will make our housing and workforce crises worse, and I sincerely hope the Legislature agrees.

“For years, I have warned that Vermont is unaffordable for too many families and small businesses. This is why for seven years I focused on holding the line on higher taxes and fees, while offering solutions to reduce the tax burden on Vermonters. And for six out of the seven years, we were successful in preventing new taxes and fees.

A warning that fell on deaf ears when whoever or whatever elected a veto-proof majority of spendaholic lefties to the legislature. True to their nature, they overbudgeted, over-regulated, and overspent, and the bill has come due. And this is not the end but the beginning, and I challenge anyone to find an example where this is not the case when Democrats get unobstructed control of a state budget.

For comparison, New Hampshire continues to have one of the lowest total tax burdens in the nation. In 2023, the Granite State was 48th lowest out of 50, while Vermont was 4th highest – before this considerable increase. (Related: Survey: New Hampshire Has Best Return on Taxes in the Nation.)

Vermont is also one of the least Free States (while NH is the most), and those two things are connected.

Vermont should expect to continue to become less free as its tax burden grows. When you rob people for that much, that often, you need to take their freedoms as well.

Still, on the bright side, councilors are available if you’d like help killing yourself – some conditions still apply, though we expect those to get less burdensome over time in relationship to the rise in taxes, regulations, and deliberate abuse of the citizenry.

Fewer peasants are bad for the tax base but good for the planet  – or, at least, that’s their excuse for wanting people to die.

 

 

The post Night Cap: Democrats, Property Taxes, and Vermont appeared first on Granite Grok.

On Tuesday night, DC residents gathered to lament the state of their city.

“We are mad. We are scared in this community. There was a murder in our building just 10 days ago. A woman was shot in the face across the street on Saturday,” one resident told D.C. police Chief Pamela Smith at Tuesday’s town hall.

Smith did her best to respond to these frustrations, but real culprits — champagne race-baiters like Ibram X. Kendi and Patrisse Cullors — were nowhere to be found. Their ideas, however, are painfully present in the daily lives of Washingtonians.

In the capital of the most powerful nation the world has ever known, violent crime is up 38 percent in just one year. Gun violence breaks out in front of upscale restaurants. Eighty-five thousand people in the city’s poorest ward are about to lose their only grocery store due to unrestrained retail theft. Police gave up on stopping carjackers and started handing out free steering wheel locks instead.

And why? Partly because Black Lives Matter riots in major cities had a chilling effect on recruitment and policing. The result has been some 3,000 additional murders over a seven-year period, one study found. In D.C. alone, there is a shortfall of around 400 officers and no wonder. Who wants to be a cop in a city that rewards church-burning rioters by naming a street after them? (RELATED: Watchdog Reveals How Much DC Is Spending To Refresh BLM Mural As Violent Crime Surges)

 

DC’s mayor says nation’s capital is up to 400 cops short and “we have policies that make it difficult to recruit new officers.”pic.twitter.com/Qz0hIrrrd3

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) October 3, 2023

In addition to creating these problems, the prophets of systemic racism have also made it nearly impossible to solve them. The D.C. council’s solution to this crime wave was to reduce the punishments for carjackings and robberies.

When Chicago and Los Angeles had the opportunity to elect pro-police mayors, they doubled down on BLM resentment politics instead. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson immediately set about rebranding teenage looting mobs as “large gatherings.” The idea of doing something to stop those mobs — which drive taxpaying, job-creating businesses out of the city — would never occur to him. That would be racist.

 

 

Imagine being lectured by a guy who thinks “mob action” has anything to do with Al Capone. pic.twitter.com/SX2cYNIIzm

— 16th & 17th District Chicago Police Scanner (@CPD1617Scanner) August 2, 2023

No matter who you are, this ideology has probably made your life measurably worse.

Are you an affluent white woman out for a nice city walk in your Canada Goose jacket? Or a Brooklyn hipster on your way home from a wedding? You may well find yourself robbed at gunpoint or stabbed to death in front of your girlfriend.

If you’re a poor black woman in Southeast D.C., then congratulations! You now live in a crime-ridden food desert. Isn’t life grand without all that “over-policing”?

Maybe you’re an Indian-American family living in a Connecticut suburb, far from the chaos of the inner cities. Sorry, there’s still no escape. They’ll punish your daughter for outperforming her classmates “of color” or maybe cancel her honors classes altogether. Even families in small-town Oklahoma aren’t safe from blue-haired teachers who want nothing more than to privilege-walk their sons down the hallways until they hate themselves, their families, and their country.

Are you a law student excited to hear a prominent federal judge speak on your campus? Too bad. Your classmates, who’ve spent the last few years huffing uncut CRT, can shout the speaker down while a highly paid administrator eggs them on. (RELATED: Federal Judges Won’t Hire Clerks From Stanford Law After Students Shouted Down Federal Judge)

Even major corporations are suffering. Target is so afraid of the next George Floyd dying in its aisles with some chicken thighs stuffed down his pants that it’s allegedly preventing law enforcement from arresting shoplifters in stores. And that’s despite retail theft topping $1 billion for the company this year and forcing nine stores to close. Rough deal for the employees, too.

But maybe you’re just a regular guy who believes in fairness and wants things to work like they’re supposed to. You think planes should be flown by the sharpest pilots, troops commanded by the ablest officers, Oscars awarded to the best movies, professorships and grants directed to the most promising candidates and so on. Sorry. Every organization, in addition to its stated purpose, now has an overriding trinity of metapurposes: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

The FAA exists not to ensure safe air travel but to promote diversity. The military’s primary objective is to maximize equity, not warfighting capacity. The Academy Awards declare dogmatically that there can be no artistic excellence without full inclusion. Awards and positions flow not to the best qualified but to those who can most eloquently restate the DEI Creed. (RELATED: Entire University System To No Longer Require ‘Diversity Statements’ From Applicants)

Everything is like this now. And as a result, everything is worse.

The only real beneficiaries (other than shoplifters) are the priests and priestesses of the anti-racism cult. Kendi got to rake in millions of dollars for a Center for Antiracist Research that published jack shit. Cullors ended up with a $6 million party mansion. Colin Kaepernick compared the NFL to slavery, making him the only slave in history with a seven-figure sneaker deal. Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, a particularly entrepreneurial pair of anti-racist educators, charged white women $5,000 a pop to call them racist and then yell at them for crying about it.

 

An excerpt from the book White Women by Regina Jackson and Saida Rao. This was from a Race2Dinner conversation. I love that we have a tangible example of “the urgency of brunch” now. Also Regina’s response was awesome pic.twitter.com/i8dkgDd4h6

— Holly Jolly MerBear (@WittyVitale) November 27, 2023

 

And, of course, there are all the university diversicrats, HR harpies, and roving DEI educators whose names we don’t know but who are raking in cushy salaries with full benefits for their work as full-time crybullies.

The results are in: Black Lives Matter has been an unqualified disaster across every stratum of American society. Everyone has suffered except for a small handful of grifting opportunists. The wave may be rolling back in some places, but it won’t roll back all the way. Even if it did, the damage is already done.

Grayson Quay is an editor at the Daily Caller.

 

Grayson Quay | Daily Caller

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline, and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The post The Legacy Of BLM — A Few Banked Millions While Literally Everyone Else Is Worse Off appeared first on Granite Grok.

Remember that time at COVID censorship camp when the government was publishing propaganda encouraging you to rat out friends and neighbors for violating mandates (too many people at a party or not following other oppressive mandates)? They wanted you to rat out your family, too.

DHS, through The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), had a cute little video about countering COVID-19 information.

The animated video featured an instructor who provided instructions on “Countering Disinformation: Cybersecurity 101.”

“Since 2020, there has been a lot of false and inaccurate information about COVID-19,” the video stated.

The instructional video produced by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) featured an illustrated version of a social media feed from the perspective of the fictional character, Susan.

“Consider this post from Susan’s feed: It’s from her Uncle Steve, who claims everybody knows COVID is no worse than the flu,” the video continued.

In the fictional scenario, Susan’s uncle is accused of backing up his claims about COVID with unreliable sources, including a “fake news story”.

In contrast, Susan supports her stance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, which is regarded as a “trustworthy” and “fact-based” source due to its large government funding. …

“You can’t win every argument online, but you can protect yourself from disinformation. You can stop it from spreading, too,” the video stated.

That video came down this year, but only this year, and no, I’m not Uncle Steve, though I would happily sub for the role. Both of us were correct: The government was suppressing the truth and propagandizing lies. We all know that, but we are inside a sector of the sausage factory from which not every truth escapes to find life among the majority of disinterested voters.

But they’ve been warming up to the idea.

We see fewer folks practicing the old pandemic ways, and that’s a sign of hope. If we can turn that into something, maybe we aren’t wasting our time with the political primary posturing as we speed toward another attempted presidential election theft.

But I’m not holding my breath.

 

The post ICYMI – DHS Takes Down Video Asking Family Members to Rat Each Other Out appeared first on Granite Grok.