By Mike Huckabee
December 9, 2022
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Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee staff! Thank you for subscribing and I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter.
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Righteousness exalts a nation,
But sin is a reproach to any people.
Proverbs 14:34
BREAKING: Twitter lied, engaged in secret censorship and propaganda
December 8, 2022, is another day that will live in infamy.
That date will go down in history as the day the bomb was dropped, but this one is a truth-bomb courtesy of new Twitter CEO Elon Musk and his journalist assistants Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, revealing the magnitude of the fraud that has been sold to us by social media, in this case Twitter. And the response to this needs to be just as unified and strong as anything FDR could have called for. This is as much a threat to our republic as any foreign power.
In “The Twitter Files, Part 2,” Weiss revealed --- appropriately, on Twitter --- that “teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics --- all in secret, without informing users.” And she told us that, contrary to what we’ve known up till now, former CEO Jack Dorsey WAS involved.
Twitter had both a “Trends Blacklist,” where such accounts as the great Libs Of TikTok were placed (Libs of TikTok was still there, as of December 7), and a “Search Blacklist,” where Dan Bongino spent some time. Eminent Stanford physician Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who dared to make the case that COVID lockdowns would harm children (“misinformation!”), was on the Trends Blacklist. There was also a “Do Not Amplify list,” which included Charlie Kirk of Turning Point, USA.
The names are self-explanatory. Being on the Trends Blacklist prevented your tweet from trending. Being on the Search Blacklist made it hard for users to search for you. To accomplish these things, collectively known as “shadowbanning,” Twitter employed a “visibility filtering (VF) tool.” A Twitter engineer told Weiss, “We control visibility quite a bit. And we control the amplification of your content quite a bit. And normal people do not know how much we do.”
The everyday content moderators who did most of the blacklisting were part of the Strategic Response Team—Global Escalation Team (SRT-GET). They “handled” about 200 cases a day. But above them, to handle “the biggest, most politically sensitive decisions” was a secret ivory-tower group called the “SIP-PES,” which stands for “Site Integrity Policy, Escalation Support.” This team included, among others, Vijaya Gadde, then-Head of Legal, Policy and Trust (and also Deputy General Counsel James Baker’s boss); Yoel Roth, then-Global Head of Trust and Safety; former CEO Parag Agrawal; and former CEO JACK DORSEY.
Within their bubble, they dealt with the high-follower and presumably most influential accounts that they deemed controversial. Decisions regarding these accounts were made off-book, as in, “no ticket or anything,” according to one Twitter employee.
Vijaya Gadde was one of the Twitter officials who insisted they didn’t engage in this. “Twitter exists to serve the public conversation, enabling important discussions around the world to occur. Favoring one specific ideology or belief goes against everything we stand for,” she lied in 2018.
As with Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss has an agreement that the documents she reports on have to be posted on Twitter first. But she said, “We’re just getting started with our reporting. Documents cannot tell the whole story here.” And there is still more; Taibbi will have a third installment. In the meantime, here’s Weiss’s complete Twitter thread…
Weiss tweeted that Twitter once had a mission ‘to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.’ Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.” Here’s more from BREITBART NEWS.
Miranda Devine, whose Hunter Biden laptop story in the NEW YORK POST was openly banned --- it couldn't even be shared privately --- and the POST locked out by Twitter, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Thursday night show to react. She found it “gratifying” that the top people at Twitter had been caught in their lies, “because they did lie.” She said she knows she was shadowbanned because now that Musk is in charge and her account is restored, her following is up by 40 percent, “and that’s just something that’s experienced by conservatives across the board.” She noted that while Bari Weiss is not a conservative –- her background includes THE NEW YORK TIMES –- all the accounts Weiss has named in her report have been conservative. “If there were left-wingers that had been banned,” Devine said, “you can bet that she would have named them, to be equal-opportunity.”
“I think Matt Taibbi was snowed,” Devine said, “probably by James Baker,” when he said a few things that “didn’t ring true,” such as that he hadn’t seen evidence of government involvement. (As you know if you read yesterday’s newsletter, former FBI general counsel Baker was just "exited" by Musk for withholding incriminating material to keep these reporters somewhat in the dark.)
She sees this as part of an “overall censorship scheme to stop anyone who went against the Biden administration, “against federal agencies like the CDC.”
She also thinks one reason Musk is doing this now is to get ahead of the revelations coming out of the brilliantly-timed lawsuit brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana against the Biden administration for violating the First Amendment for allegedly “using the social media companies to do their dirty work.” That would have included the shadowbanning of Dr. Batthacharya for his sensible views on lockdowns that dared to challenge the capricious dictates of The Great Dr. Fauci.
Charlie Kirk, whose Twitter account had been knocked back 95 percent, said, “They’re treating my Twitter account with more scrutiny and censorship than the prime minister of Iran?? Than Hamas?? Than people who do actual terrorist-type damage.” Yes, that's what they did, and it's consistent with our story yesterday about the FBI and DHS focusing so intently on what they’ve labeled “domestic terrorism” instead of actual terrorism.
“They saw what I had to say as a direct threat to the regime,” Kirk said, adding that he wants to know if they were told by the administration to do this. He recounted a “very warm” meeting he had with some of the Twitter employees, including Jack Dorsey, in the summer of 2018, in which Dorsey personally assured him that shadowbanning was not happening. “I didn’t really believe him at the time,” Kirk said, though he sort-of accepted that answer because he wasn’t yet experiencing the censorship that was to come after COVID hit in 2020. By then, he said, he “couldn’t even get a response out of Twitter.” That’s when he saw the company morph into “a Democrat SuperPAC.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever be able to measure the impact of what Twitter did to our voices online, in the calendar year of 2020...”
Of course, this is a fast-developing story and there is much more to come. It seems the next logical step is to very specifically reveal the role of the FBI and various intelligence agencies, as reflected in whatever it was James Baker didn't want the reporters to see.
RELATED NEWS: PERKINS COIE WAS TWITTER'S OUTSIDE COUNSEL
In today's most shocking-but-not-surprising news, Twitter's outside counsel was reportedly Democrat powerhouse law firm Perkins Coie. When Elon Musk was called out on this on Thursday, he tweeted, "Twitter isn't using Perkins Coie. No company should use them until they make amends for [Michael] Sussmann's attempt to corrupt a Presidential election."
On Thursday, some observers were disputing that Perkins Coie really is gone at this time. Let's hope Musk "exited" them at the same time he pushed James Baker out the door. If there was any doubt that Twitter was a by-Democrats, for-Democrats propaganda operation, the fact that they were represented by Perkins Coie should dispel it.
More on the prisoner exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner
As we were finishing up yesterday’s morning newsletter, word arrived of President Biden’s deal to free WNBA player Brittney Griner from a Russian penal colony in exchange for Viktor “The Merchant of Death” Bout, one of the most dangerous arms dealers in the world. My immediate response was that I was glad Ms. Griner was coming home, but that sounded like the worst prisoner exchange deal ever. Since then, many people have had the same reaction, and the more we’ve learned since, the worse it gets.
For one thing, when pressed on why they didn’t also insist on the release of decorated Marine veteran Paul Whelan, who’s been held in a Russian gulag for nearly four years on bogus espionage charges, the White House claimed that Vladimir Putin just wouldn’t agree to it and insisted on releasing no more than one American in exchange for Bout. I can’t imagine Donald Trump accepting those terms, and indeed, he made it abundantly clear that he would not have. He blasted the deal as a “stupid and unpatriotic embarrassment” and said Whelan would have “been let out for the asking.”
Or at least he would have if any President other than Biden had asked. Putin would have easily given up two political prisoners and maybe more for the Merchant of Death (who will likely now help him obtain weapons to kill even more Ukrainians), but with Biden, he knew he didn’t have to. Note to Joe: Putin is the dictator of Russia, not of you.
Even Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the release of Bout “deeply disturbing” and warned that it would incentivize dictators and rogue nations to take Americans hostage as bargaining chips.
Stephen Kruiser of P.J. Media had the most brutal take, writing, “Brittney Griner is a cliché America-hating lefty who was stupid enough to pack drugs for a trip to a hostile foreign nation. If ever anyone needed a harsh lesson about why America is better, it’s this idiot. She should have had to serve out her labor camp penalty in Russia until she was ready to wake up and sing the Star Spangled Banner every day…Bout was a HUGE bargaining chip. The U.S. should have been able to get a lot more than a dumb junkie broad for him. Paul Whelan is still incarcerated in Russia because our idiot communist overlords prioritize LGBTQ checklists über alles. Heaven help the Republic.”
This may be the worst prisoner exchange deal in history, and Biden’s most tragic botch job since the Afghanistan pullout (I consider the tragic border botch job to have started on day one.) It’s also the latest example of Biden again leaving one of our service people behind. This link has more, including Whelan’s response to being abandoned, and Biden’s non-answer when asked what is being done about Whelan’s release.
Finally, another fact worth mentioning: Just 12 hours after speaking at a vigil for victims of gun violence (most of whom these days are victims of criminals released by Democrats), Biden released one of the biggest and most dangerous arms dealers in the world, a man who arms terrorists.
Sinema leaves the Democrat Party
As Chuck Schumer was celebrating the Democrats’ win in the Georgia runoff and plotting to use their 1-vote Senate majority to force all sorts of radical garbage onto an unwilling nation, a seismic quake appeared out of nowhere: Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced that she has left the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent.
Sinema often joined West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin in being the only two Democrats in the Senate who stood up against the worst excesses and impulses of the leftists and their willingness to destroy the system to force through their agenda (ending the filibuster, stacking the Supreme Court, etc.) Manchin should have switched to the GOP long ago, but his going along with bad legislation, then getting stabbed in the back when the promises made to him were broken, have made him persona non grata in both parties.
Sinema is still too liberal on many issues to be a Republican, but she’s also not on board with the radical left lurch of her party, and especially not with the nasty bullying tactics they’ve adopted, like harassing her in bathrooms or making death threats against her on social media because she won’t agree to blow up the rules so that they can grab power. This is one case where we're lucky that "social justice warriors" have no social skills.
Sinema told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “both parties have created this kind of requirement or a pull towards the edges that you just unthinkingly support all of one party’s viewpoints. It’s made it difficult to find folks who are willing to work together and solve problems.” She said it won’t change what she’s been doing that much, but “I’ll be able to show up to work every day as an independent and not be stuck into one party’s demands of following without thinking.”
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that Schumer will lose his majority since Sinema will reportedly continue to caucus with the Democrats. But it is a hopeful sign that by driving her out, they’ve lost their leverage over her to impose their more radical, "transformative" changes. And maybe having been lied to, played as a fool and burned so badly, Manchin has also learned his lesson about trusting Chuck Schumer. He should remember the old fable about the scorpion that stung a frog that was giving it a lift across a river. When asked why he’d do such a thing and kill them both, the scorpion said, “I’m a scorpion. It’s in my nature.”
Elon Musk is learning this truth about Democrats
Democrats no longer even bother to try to hide their abuse of government power to target political opponents, as Elon Musk is learning. The more truth he exposes and the more free speech he allows, the more he’s being threatened with government “investigations.” But the latest bullying attempt is eliciting nothing but derisive laughter.
Musk has been providing some beds in empty Twitter offices for workers who are putting in long hours and want a place to take a nap without having to drive home. That inspired San Francisco’s leftist Mayor, London Breed, to threaten to send inspectors to look for code violations on these unauthorized sleeping places.
https://redstate.com/kiradavis/2022/12/08/musk-needs-to-move-twitter-out-of-san-francisco-n670744
That earned some very well-deserved mockery online. As Kira Davis notes at the link, the inspectors would have to pass vast homeless camps and dodge drug needles and human feces just to get to the clean, safe building where they’re demanding stringent adherence to rules about sleeping places. Some commenters observed that by putting a few beds in empty offices, Musk created more affordable housing than San Francisco’s leaders have in 20 years. San Francisco is now a place where it’s fine to sleep on a dirty sidewalk, blocking a store’s doorway, but illegal to sleep in a bed in Twitter’s luxurious headquarters.
The answer to this is obvious, but since San Francisco voters will seemingly never come to their senses, Davis has the perfect plan B: Musk should move Twitter to Texas. Some of his other operations are already there. Why continue to live in a blue nightmare where he pays exorbitant taxes that fund radicals who are trying to destroy him when Texas is waiting with open arms? That's a question a LOT of San Francisco residents (or former residents) have been asking themselves lately.
No kidding
I doubt that this will come as a shock to you, but a new survey by the retail technologies company Swiftly found that for most Americans, “food costs are too high.”
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2022/12/07/swiftly-true-cost-grocery-survey/6951670456855/
The survey found that about two-thirds of Americans are struggling to afford groceries, and 83% use coupons or other rewards programs to try to bring prices down. Three-quarters of consumers have changed their grocery shopping habits to deal with high food prices. That includes more shopping for deals, buying cheaper alternatives and forgoing certain food items. And there’s been a big drop in online shopping and grocery deliveries. Both exploded during the pandemic, but now, more people are going to the store themselves, which is cheaper.
The study’s authors said this affirms the importance of keeping brick and mortar stores around for people to be able to shop themselves for food they can afford. I would add that it also affirms the importance of ending the wave of thieves going through stores like a swarm of locusts, stealing everything they can carry with nobody stopping them and nobody prosecuting them.
Of course, some people would disagree with that, but fortunately, they’re idiots. Like the prominent feminist author who’s being lambasted on social media for drawing some stunningly dumb conclusions from seeing diapers locked up behind security glass at her local Rite Aid.
She claimed this symbolizes that America is a country that “wants to force women into childbirth and then lock up diapers.” She went on to advocate that women who need diapers should be allowed to steal them, then added “Law enforcement (esp in NYC) would like us to believe that there are roving gangs of shoplifters who are interested in diapers for reasons beyond keeping babies clean. It’s disgusting.” Then she topped off that insanity by claiming that since security is tighter in poor neighborhood stores than in wealthy neighborhoods, that’s a sign of prejudice against low income women.
Now, let’s smash that with the hammer of facts: EVERYTHING in New York City Rite-Aids is being kept behind security glass because thanks to Soros-backed Democrat prosecutors, there are roving gangs of shoplifters that will steal literally anything they can pick up. Yes, shoplifters are interested in diapers for reasons beyond keeping babies clean, like selling them to get money. After all, it's not as if the stores have any. Security is tighter in poor neighborhoods because crime is higher there. If you legalize shoplifting, those stores will close, as many already have. As noted above, stores are necessary for poor people to find affordable food, and she’s advocating for something that will force stores in poor neighborhoods to close.
Finally, something I haven’t heard anyone else mention: if leftists care so much about poor families being able to obtain diapers, maybe they should stop fire-bombing pro-life pregnancy centers that provide them free of charge.
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