AOC Calls for Ministry of Truth
Concerned that "free speech can be abused by enemies of the Biden Administration to undermine its policies and programs," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is calling for "the creation of a commission or some similar agency to rein in media who deviate from the truth."
While the United States has relied on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech for the last 230 years to prevent the government from censoring criticism of itself, Ocasio-Cortez contends that "the anarchy allowed by our Constitution is not up to the task of shepherding the American people toward the democratic socialism voters just endorsed in the recent elections. The collective ideal cannot be accomplished if antagonists are free to defame our truths and our spokespersons. Congress is the people's voice and should take action to crackdown on the purveyors of lies and dissension."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey agreed that "we need a mechanism to ensure that a universal truth is reinforced against baseless criticism or disagreement. However, I would argue that my company's efforts on behalf of this goal are more than adequate to the task. As our actions over the last six months have demonstrated, we did a masterful job of undermining incorrect thought. Heretical ideas were flagged or suppressed and their authors penalized via service denial. In just the last week we have totally shutdown Trump's Twitter account and are in the process of purging all nonconforming communications from our platform."
Dorsey pointed out that "the Constitution bans Congress from passing any law that abridges freedom of speech. Twitter is not bound by such a restriction. A truth commission created by Congress could be struck down by the courts. I urge our friends in Congress to be practical and let the private sector media do all the censoring that is needed."
In related news, Cordova, Tennessee high school principal Barton Thorne was put on administrative leave for telling students that Twitter's censorship does damage to freedom of speech. The school district's Office of Equity and Access spokesman Michael Lowe defended the action, saying "Thorne should have known that many people would disagree with what he said. Saying it hurt some feelings and could lead to arguments. This is out of step with the new unity voters elected President Biden to enforce in America. We have to ask ourselves if Thorne is the kind of person who can be trusted in our education system."
Biden's Rescue Plan Will Destroy Jobs
A week ahead of being inaugurated, President Joe Biden announced his $1.9 trillion plan to stimulate the economy. The plan is a list of handouts--$1,400 checks to individuals (including illegal immigrants), unemployment bonus payments, a $15 per hour minimum wage, bailouts for improvident state and local governments, student debt forgiveness, transit subsidies, and "health equity" grants.
Economist Stephen Moore estimates that "this so-called stimulus package will cost four million jobs. None of the elements of this plan reward or encourage work or investment—the two main drivers of economic prosperity and growth. A better plan would be a one-year cut of the payroll tax. This would stimulate businesses to expand and hire more workers. These workers would have more take-home pay to spend. This spending would result in more revenues for businesses and further stimulate prosperity."
Biden's nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, rejected Moore's criticism, saying that "it is the same old Republican nostrum hailing work as the solution to poverty. On top of that, it's impractical since so many businesses have been shut down by gubernatorial decrees in so many places. We need to adapt to this new normal, not fight against it."
"The President's plan doesn't depend on work because he realizes that work is only something people are forced to do to put food on the table," she added. "We repudiate this simplistic and coercive system. Leisure is the aim of all people. Most have to work for decades in order to earn enough to retire so they can enjoy leisure. President Biden aims to free everyone from this wage-slavery. This is what the voters elected him to do and what he will do. If he is successful, by the end of his two terms no one in America will be working for a living."
Bill Would Ban Trump from Capitol
Calling last week's riot at the US Capitol "the worst thing that has ever happened in America," Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA) has filed a bill that would permanently bar Donald Trump from entering the building.
"Above all else, members of Congress deserve to feel safe as they go about conducting the people's business," she said. "I, for one, would be greatly reassured if I knew that the Capitol Police were to be authorized to shoot him on sight should he ever attempt to enter this sacred place."
Inasmuch as Trump was not in the Capitol when the riot took place, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) called Williams' bill "too narrow in scope. Videos show that it was Trump supporters decked out in MAGA gear walking between the velvet ropes that posed the threat. Only the quick thinking of a police officer shooting an unarmed protester saved the day. Now there are some saying that this shooting was unwarranted and that the shooter should face charges. So, what we really need is legislation that bans all suspected Trump supporters from entering the building and immunizes any police officer from culpability for harming any of them who flout the ban. A beneficial byproduct of a properly scoped measure is that keeping the 75 million Trump supporters out of the Capitol will lessen the crowds so true patriots can more conveniently pay homage to us."
Meanwhile, Sen. Dick Durbin is drafting legislation that would criminalize MAGA rallies by classifying them as "domestic terrorist activity." Durbin explained that "we need to think long term. Trump won't live forever. We need to make sure that those who share the same ideas can't keep the dream alive. If we can block the rallies we can block the promulgation of these evil ideas and perhaps demoralize their adherents to the point that they just give up and submit to our new world order."
Objections to Electoral Votes
Despite hundreds of witness affidavits attesting to election "irregularities," videos of suspicious behavior in some vote counting locations, thousands of ballots in the names of dead people being cast, precinct turnouts exceeding 100% of eligible voters in numerous areas, never folded mailed-in ballots, and dozens of malfunctioning vote counting machines—all of which supported the hypothesis that the presidential election may have been stolen, Democrats are currently eager to punish anyone who questions the outcome.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called the raising of questions "dangerously divisive. Trump and his supporters are undermining the legitimacy of the election. It is the patriotic duty of every American to accept the results and obey their new president. Failure to do so is treason."
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a notorious skeptic toward the idea that Joe Biden was the actual choice of a majority of the legally cast ballots, lambasted Raskin's hypocrisy, pointing out that "with a lot less cause, Raskin and other Democrats objected to the electoral votes in 2017. Then the leadership of the Democrat Party spent the entire four years of the Trump Administration making accusation after accusation—all intended to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election. Now, the merest expression of doubt about the 2020 election is labeled treason. These are not words to inspire unity."
Raskin acknowledged his 2017 objections, but characterized them as "a patriotic effort to spare the country from the tyranny inflicted on Americans by Donald Trump. From the very beginning of his campaign in 2015 and throughout his four years in office, Trump maligned the governmental structure erected by both major political Parties, dedicated public servants, mega-donors, and the media. It was in defense of this structure that rallied all right-thinking people to the cause of ousting the interloper by any means necessary. Now that we have the upper hand we are going to clean out all the enemies of this structure so we are never again threatened. His intemperate attack on me has put Mr. Jordan near the top of the list for remedial measures."
Last Abortion Mill in Missouri Closes
Operation Rescue, an organization dedicated to saving the lives of children who might otherwise be killed by abortion, issued a report titled The Status of American Abortion Facilities in 2020. During the past year, 45 abortion facilities throughout the nation either closed of stopped performing abortions. Missouri's last such facility closed making it the only state without any abortion facility. Missouri women wanting the procedure are now referred to a facility 16 miles away in Illinois.
President Biden's nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, warned abortion opponents "to not get so giddy over the declining trends of number of abortions or places where they can be performed. Remember, the Affordable Care Act—often called Obamacare—guarantees that every woman is entitled to receive an abortion whenever she wants. As Secretary of HHS I will be assiduously enforcing this guarantee."
"The presence of a facility especially dedicated to performing abortions is not necessary," Becerra pointed out. "If needed, I will order all hospitals in every state to carry out these procedures. The lame excuses given by some that performing an abortion violates their religious beliefs will be rejected. The Constitutional right to pursuit of happiness supersedes fantasy-based scruples against assisting another person to attain the full enjoyment of this right. The bottom line is that the absence of a facility explicitly devoted to performing the procedure will merely shift the location where the deed is done, not whether it is done at all."
