Image by Julius H.
By Jo Nova
Like rats jumping on to a burning ship, the Australian Labor Govt picks the worst possible moment
Today the Australian Senate will consider whether to put the Labor MAD Misinformation bill into law, which will give government bureaucrats at ACMA the right to use draconian fines on “digital communications platform” (blogs and Social Media) that publish opinions the high priest bureaucrats don’t like. And they are rushing it through so they can shut down or scare off critics before the next election. They only need to win over three more Senators out of six independent ones. They should all be aware of how corrupt and stupid this will look. See details below on which Senators to write to.
Trump takes a warhammer to the censorship cartel
The censorship reached peak-absurdity when the left-wing-corporate-deep-state cartel shut down the US President’s Twitter account. The First Amendment was vaporized. Government officials had told Twitter and Facebook to censor political opinions they didn’t like. Since the FBI-CIA-State-Department have the money, the spies, the army and the assassins, the tech giants complied. The social media corporations also needed the government legal immunity of Section 230, which protects them from liability. Like a post office delivering poison letters — the Tech Giants couldn’t be blamed for what people posted. But Post Offices are supposed to deliver every letter, and the Tech Giants were allowed to read the mail and toss out what they didn’t like. Imagine if US Post decided just to lose Conservative letters, and not even tell them? That’s what shadowbanning is.
And thus and verily, a horrible trillion-dollar-monster was welded together, and this response below, wow.
What a blockbuster speech:
This earns @realDonaldTrump a space on Mount Rushmore. pic.twitter.com/9IQb7lPQyb
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) November 9, 2024
Thanks to @SpartaJustice for the transcript:
ENDING THE CENSORSHIP CARTEL: If we don’t have Free Speech, then we just don’t have a Free Country. It’s as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple just like dominos one by one. They’ll go down.
Trump will cut off the money flow to government agents to censor Americans.
FIRST, within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as “mis-” or “dis-information”.
Then he will sack anyone involved in domestic censorship:
And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship, directly or indirectly, whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.
He will use the full force of the law: “Preserve those emails”
SECOND, I will order the Department of Justice to investigate all parties involved in the new online censorship regime…
These include possible violations of federal civil rights law, campaign finance laws, federal election law, securities law, and anti-trust laws, the Hatch Act and a host of other potential criminal, civil, regulatory, and constitutional offenses.
He will cut off legal protection for any platform that curtails legal speech:
From now on, digital platforms should only qualify for immunity protection under Section 230 if they meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness, and non-discrimination.
Then he’s going after universities that drive the censorship labels — they will lose funding for research and students for five years or more!
FOURTH, we need to break up the entire toxic censorship industry that has arisen under the false guise of tackling so-called “mis-” and “dis-information.” The federal government should immediately stop funding all non-profits and academic programs that support this authoritarian project. If any U.S. university is discovered to have engaged in censorship activities or election interferences in the past, such as flagging social media content for removal and blacklisting, those universities should lose federal research dollars and federal student loan support for a period of five years, and maybe more.
There will be criminal penalties for any federal bureaucrat found to interfere with elections by depriving Americans of information:
We should also enact new laws laying out clear criminal penalties for federal bureaucrats who partner with private entities to do an end-run around the Constitution and deprive Americans of their First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights. In other words, deprive them of their vote. And once you lose those elections and once you lose your borders like we have, you no longer have a country.
He will stop government employees from profiting by quitting their job and moving to a Big Tech platform:
Furthermore, to confront the problems of major platforms being infiltrated by legions of former Deep Staters and intelligence officials, there should be a 7-year cooling-off period before any employee of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DNI, DHS, or DOD is allowed to take a job at a company possessing vast quantities of U.S. user data.
He’s calling for a digital bill of rights, where people have a right to be treated equally online:
FIFTH, the time has finally come for Congress to pass a digital Bill of Rights. This should include a right to digital due process, in other words, government officials should need a COURT ORDER to take down online content, not send information requests such as the FBI was sending to Twitter. Furthermore, when users of big online platforms have their content or accounts removed, throttled, shadow-banned, or otherwise restricted no matter what name they use, they should have the right to be informed that it’s happening, the right to a specific explanation of the reason why, and the right to a timely appeal. In addition, all users over the age of 18 should have the right to opt-out of content moderation and curation entirely, and receive an unmanipulated stream of information if they so choose.
Our quality of life depends upon it:
The fight for Free Speech is a matter of victory or death for America and for the survival of Western Civilization itself. When I am President, this whole rotten system of censorship and information control will be ripped out of the system at large. There won’t be anything left. By restoring free speech, we will begin to reclaim our democracy, and save our nation.
For Australians, the Senators who may stop our Misinformation bill today are:
Senator David Pocock, Jacquie Lambie, Tammy Tyrrell, Fatima Payman, David Van, and Gerald Rennick*.
Senator.David.Pocock@aph.gov.au | senator.lambie@aph.gov.au | senator.tyrrell@aph.gov.au | senator.payman@aph.gov.au | senator.van@aph.gov.au | senator.rennick@aph.gov.au |
But write to all your key elected representatives — let the Labor party know their deceptive methods are obvious, the legislation is a bomb that our largest most powerful allies will detest. It will be unwound. They need to know, so they don’t sell their souls to win the last three Senators over.
*Rennick is obviously a Saint who already opposes this bill and needs our help.
Hat tip to David of Cooyal.
Brilliant! Democracy works. Now to get it back in Australia.
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He needs to worry about his ability to enact policy by staying alive.
Government is too big. It is the natural progression of rampant money printing. Too many people are dependent on too little revenue.
Keynesian economics on steroids mixed with manufactured crisis and self interest.
Trump needs to downside the public service to match government revenue.
Is it going to work? They are paying $1T in interest on debt. Soon it will be $2T….., then 10T.
Has the reserve currency already been destroyed and there is no way out?
No one knows.
Money is only valuable if we believe it.
Confidence is paramount.
Australia needs to go back to basics.
Cheap power and water, small government, low taxes, reduced regulation, bi-lateral trade. Everything we are currently doing is not going to end in smaller government.
Victoria is bankrupt. Call in the external manager.
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Trump could tap Dan Bongino to take control of the Secret Service.
If Trump wants to feel safe, that’s the best pick … and Bongino would do it too. Even if offered minimum wage, he would do it as a matter of honour.
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And I detect the strong hand and brilliant advice of Elon Musk. He dropped at least $40Bn buying twitter to stop the major source of globalist and socialist dogma. And stopped their election interference. Zuckerberg backed off too after the Trump’s survived his assassination attempt. He complimented Trump as a ‘badass’. However the left and there is only the extreme left, have now taken on Musk as their mortal enemy. Bad move.
A really good operator like Trump surrounds himself with the best people and takes their advice. The left are now fighting a lot of proven winners. Not just Trump and Musk but a host of really competent qualified and experienced people like Robert Kennedy and J.D.Vance. All people who want the job but don’t need the lousy pay.
The Abraham Accords created by Jared Kushner and others were the first major breakthrough in Israeli/Arab relations in a century and will be back on the table. Trump’s big, young, energetic extended family is a major asset.
I remember Kerry Packer’s wisdom. He said he knew he was dumb, but smart enough to pay for the best advice and canny enough to know who was telling the truth. It’s a winning formula. The left are fighting an army in the White House, not just one man.
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Um, if ALP and Liberals support this, it goes through – they aren’t allowed a conscience vote – they are out of the party if they vote ‘no’…. No stopping it now
10
As someone said: “The LNP and the ALP/Greens are just Two cheeks of the same globalist ****”.
Dutton with his gutless nuclear policy (why can we not use our own coal as India and China do so and how?) proves that he is a globalist eunuch while his support of the censorship bill proves it beyond doubt.
Only ONE party stands up for Oz and the ex-fish & chip shop owner is the ONLY decent and honest party leader and one who actually knows how to run a business, but the snobs look down on her plebian status and pointlessly vote for the LNP. The LNP does not care about us and never has.
However, you can be certain that if the PHOA party become vote popular the globalist inbreeding creatures of the ACT will find a way to do what the UK did to the Reform Party and diminish their success. I personally would love to see Tony Abbott bend his knee in apology to Pauline then assist her to take the swine on, all of them. But that requires honour. integrity and courage. Chances?
Because of the way the MSM paints her: and warps comments like “the removal of 18c is long overdue{(IIRC) it takes the three assets that Abbott lacks to join her and give her the help that she requires.
She needs a JD Vance type to back her and eventually take over and push back the MSM faecal load that handicaps the ONLY honest party that really cares.
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Tony Abbott did not have the power to rescind 18C. The senate wouldn’t allow it. Remember the PUP?
He was clearly reserving that and other issues for a double dissolution election, but Turnbull usurped that double dissolution and blew it.
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Yes there is no doubt about the intentions (Honourable) of DJT, nor his resilience, nor under such severe and unrelenting pressure, nor his courage in the face of threats to, and attempts on his life. This speech put an even larger target on his back than he had before. There will not be more than a handful of men on this planet who would do what this man has done. His guardian angel will be working overtime.
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This is just one part of Trump’s speech. Links to two parts of it have been in comments on the two previous postings by Jo. Does anyone have the link to the full speech, I have been unable to find it.
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How to interpret Trump’s speeches: Take him seriously, but not literally. Democrats tend to take him literally.
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I doubt that Trump will repeat this speech come February.
But because he made it now it won’t be needed come February. The rats will have headed for the exits already
Do you think Kevin O7 will wait till he is pushed?.
The fun part will be watching the “rats” U turnIng as they discover that this time they have nowhere to go.
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Yes, when Kamala took two days off in the last week, you knew she was done. She had never worked so hard in her life. Nor had to fight for anything. And avoided every exam, except this one. And she failed. Biden chose his successor.
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Sleeping your way to the top isn’t difficult. 🤣
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Funny that. It hadn’t yet crossed my mind. But this now does:
How will that oldest of practices fit with the DEI that has been prevailing lately?
It calls for a different set of resources.
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FWIW
I was told that the appropriate answer to
“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir”
is
“Um peu”
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You can be sure that quite (possibly not all) Federal Agencies will comply and delete lots of files.
Otherwise they will be investigated (by either a hostile Senate or a hostile House) with public exposure, followed by collapse of power.
Think what happens to mice when a hungry cat is suddenly introduced.
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Beautifully written. I’m not hopeful with some of those names.
See how they’ve voted
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And by the way, a comment on the internet about the Federal Education Department.
Since 2020 the number of students has increased by 5%.
The number of teachers has increased by 10%,
The number of bureaucrats in Washington has increased by 95%
I wonder where Trump (and Elon etc) could reduce the deficit?
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Graeme No.3,
No link, and you describe the source as a “comment on the internet”. Calls for some scepticism.
1. The numbers look damning, but why percentages? What if that 95% increase in bureaucrats was from 20 to 39? Pretty small swamp.
2. I don’t believe the US Federal government runs *ANY* schools, so they don’t deal with students or teachers.
#2 is the proper reason Trump should be looking to simply abolish the education department. It’s not some percentage change that matters.
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Robert Swan:
It was on Youtube but I don’t have a link. It was by Rita Panahi show SkyNews Sunday 10? interviewing an American Corey Deangelis who claimed that one $2 billion was wasted by The Department of Indoctrination and that money could be better spent elsewhere.
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Thanks Graeme No.3.
This would be the interview in question. Less than 5 minutes, and well worth listening to (would still have liked Rita to have drilled into those percentages).
It was a bit odd though. The introduction (and the text description) talked about Trump’s “plan to dismantle the department of education”. Great idea.
But the interview dwelt for a while on “school choice” and how it would counteract the “big government is the solution” indoctrination in schools. Apparently this would be forced on the states by the Feds. That’s a “big government” approach, and it will keep a role for education bureaucrats enforcing this policy.
Hope they’re sticking to the “dismantle” idea and he’s just a bit muddled.
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You’d need to get into the argument of, when the fed gov orders a state gov to reduce its pervasive control of the school system, is that a growth of governmental control, or a lessening of it?
I’d vote for, it’s a lessening of it.
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But Swan, that’s what leftist governments do. Hire 100s of 1000s of new public servants and then gloat about creating jobs, and obviously the complying msm applaud. You see it in Australia with every ALP government. The public servants numbers sky-rocket.
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Damnation!! Now there are 2 hungry cats. Those rodents will leave the property & their comfortable living shortly!
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But Swan, that’s what leftist governments do. Hire 100s of 1000s of new public servants and then gloat about creating jobs, and obviously the complying msm applaud. You see it in Australia with every ALP government. The public servants numbers sky-rocket.
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I can’t wait for the 20th January 2025 and I hope Trump carries out his freedom program quickly and exposes the dangerous left wing extremists and their fellow travelers.
Contrary to their Nazi lunacy Trump is the true believer in everyone having a point of view and the freedom to openly express it.
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Leftists almost always tell the opposite of the truth and engage in what psychologists call projection.
If they falsely accuse someone of being a National Socialist, then you know they are referring to themselves.
331
As ye olde adage makes clear:
What Peter says about Paul,
tells me more about Peter
than it does Paul.
Just hope the President-elect has upped his security detail, more so than prior to the election: he’ll be a Wanted Man by a cast of thousands of ‘agents’ and bureau[ ]rats.
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Thanks Jo,
Email sent:
Dear Senators,
Remembrance day is a time to reflect on the freedoms fought for by our predecessors. The Misinformation and Disinformation bill has more in common with the oppressive regimes this country has fought against than it has with the liberal principles upon which Australia was founded.
Passing this bill into law would represent a great darkness passing over this land. Please oppose it.
Regards,
560
My email to the senators (different for senator Rennick). Title: Kill the MAD bill.
Please oppose the Misinformation and Disinformation bill in the Senate. It is a disgusting attempt by the Labor government to suppress free speech in Australia and to give the government a monopoly on disinformation. It has no place in a free democratic society.
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Thanks nb — and this is just one example of why we need comment forums, and why they want to shut them down with the MAD fill and force ID’s with the Under 16 ban.
I really appreciate the help from readers who email and add their voice here to help others do so too.
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Pocock and Lambie are sellouts , not sure about Payman but it’s not looking good for free speech if it’s up to these 2 or 3 .
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Payman is an islamist so will undoubtedly vote in favour of the bill which will enable the suppression of truth.
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That’s correct but once bought, Lambie immediately goes looking for a higher bidder and might not stay bought. There’s no honour amongst politicians.
30
Pocock has now said NO to the MAD bill.
00
Sent nb’s words (thanks for that) slightly modified to all
70
On the positive side, I really can’t see any of the multinational platforms taking a blind bit of notice of the Australian Government in this matter…especially given The Donald’s initiatives and commitment to free speech
This would/will be an almost completely unenforceable law, if it is passed – all it will do is rile The People..
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The social media giants have offices in Australia and are registered corporations in Australia as they earn revenue from Australian advertisers (including Government advertisers) and pay taxes here.
They are absolutely subject to enforceable laws from Australia.
In Brazil Elon Musk decided to close down the X operation rather than comply with similiar draconian demands.
Farcebook and Goolag/YouTube have already complied with Australian Government censorship demands during covid and who knows what else etc..
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It is no accident it is Australia doing this. Australia is the most nanny state of all western modern states. It is somehow in the character of the nation.
I liken it to a horse or cat. It gets the spooks. Any new object in their space is treated with utmost suspicion.
My family line are all socially conservative, prim and proper people. It always amazed me as a kid, when my grandmother, born around 1910-ish, loved and feared the law. For any rule that was put in place it was of utmost importance it was obeyed.
Once in the 1980s, a zealous policeman stopped a car outside of her house and booked the driver for having an arm resting on the open window. Rather than scoff, she thought it was admirable and this law must now be obeyed.
These people were not lefites or commies in anyway, not even remotely, yet the attitude was deeply engrained. Australians know that for a good society it is best laws are obeyed, and we live in an extremely peaceful society as a result.
But there are consequences to that. Your good nature can be taken advantage of.
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Australians always used to have a persona of being anti-authoritarian but I am coming to think this must have been a myth.
Certainly in recent decades Australians have become much more subservient than they used to be, back in the day and Governments impose ever more Nanjy State laws with very little fear of opposition.
There are very few Australians that genuinely believe in freedom and a significant proportion can be found on this blog.
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A great deal of what governments do is completely hidden these days, buried in Acts no one reads and government decisions which are never examined.
Take Daniel Andrews tripling the royalty on coal which forced the closure of Hazelwood. But as we still run on coal, it tripled the cost of coal to all Victorians hidden in their cost of electricity. Given coal exports from Victoria are illegal, it is just more greed from the Victorian government hidden like the Green certificates in your cost of electricity. Governments have become thieves in the night, stealing our rights and our hard won money.
What I mean is that people would be very upset, if they knew the truth. But the truth is carefully hidden.
310
The truth is carefully hidden but on the other hand it is knowable if the Lamestream Media did their job but they act as agents of the Government and for the suppression of truth.
Plus I don’t know if Victoria’s whistle-blower laws are genuinely effective. I expect whistle-blowers would be ruthlessly persecuted and prosecuted given how corrupt Victoria’s legal system is.
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David, re – ‘Australians always used to have a persona of being anti-authoritarian but I am coming to think this must have been a myth.’
No myth, David. The old Australia was certainly just like that. What has happened is the diluting of that culture via the deliberate introduction of non-compatible cultural viewpoints through ‘multiculturism’. Many recent immigrants who arrive via student and other visa back doors, will not want to rock the boat too much and so become compliant with any and all of the sinister and ever increasing constraints applied by those in power.
Many come from places where boat rocking is definitely not advised.
120
Not enough green thumbs for your reply Gary, you are quite correct. Neither the Indians & associated areas, nor the Chinese are liable to rock the boat, as seen by their attitudes compared to the Muslims. They have vast bureaucracies in India and China, and have had for thousands of years, and don’t seem to value individual thought. Where are the Chinese and Indian criminal gangs compared to the Muslims and the Africans? They are hard-working but compliant peoples, and as far as I can see they side-step politics completely.
60
I would not begin to put India and Modi in the same boat as China. Yet it is true, immigrants coming for jobs do not rock the boat, and have very little power regardless.
00
Amazing stuff from Trump.
I couldn’t have written it better myself. I love how he’s going to prosecute or fire people who have broken laws.
Meanwhile in Australia, the Left are embedding their evil deeper and deeper in every possible way, including censorship, destruction of our energy supply, huge real inflation (hidden by the false official rate), massive spending without destruction, etc..
Under Trump, America will soon be shining bright and free while Australia descends ever deeper into darkness.
It’s tragic.
Incidentally, don’t forget that it was the fake conservative Liberal faction of the Uniparty that was originally responsible for the censorship bill and the e Safety Kommissar.
420
CORRECTION:
STUPID SPELLING CHECKER MADE AN UNAUTHORISED CHANGE:
“massive spending without destruction” should have read “massive spending without restriction”.
140
Just hope that Trump makes it to the inauguration. There was never a threat to Democracy from Trump. There remains a huge threat to the cushy lifestyle of a lot of politicians and public serpents. Someone got to Epstein inside a prison cell. Surely the wheels are in motion to ensure Trump doesn’t get into office. It was important to convict Trump of insurrection, at which point Article 14 of the US Constitution could be invoked to bar him from office. I’m sure that is still an avenue being investigated between now and January.
280
Dig a little deeper and those ‘independent’ teals look to be bankrolled by Holmes A Court, who is WEF. Also the whole premise of the MAD bill is to combat ‘mis’ and ‘dis’ information. This comes from the WEF global risks report, on the WEF website. Truth isn’t defined in the report. The ‘threat’ is clearly to information control. The reader is encouraged to look at the methodology for the risk report. The WEF’s own data use a cohort of around 1000 people surveyed, with the main stratification being age bands. Little else is said about the cohort characteristics other than being prominent individuals across a range of occupations. All too easy to see how bias can creep in and there was no comment I could see about how this was addressed in the survey.
Not only that, look at the risk of ‘mis’ and ‘dis’ information’ outlined for Australia in the report and it is not seen as high! (only in the ‘unsettled’ category)
The report needs to critically debunked and this information given to politicians.
Moreover, now with Musk, an avowed free speech advocate and Trump planning to uproot all the censorship of lawful speech in the US jursidiction, how is the MAD bill going to have any teeth in US based platforms? Musk may well tell e-karen to take a bath with any attempt to fine x or shut it down.
The most delicious thing about it is Rudd branded Trump a traitor ina past tweet, amongst other trash talking of the now president elect, and Krudd is the US ambassador, so could be placed in an awkward position of trying to support MAD. Trump has been informed of Rudd’s past tweet and has reportedly said if Kevin is hostile, “He wont be there long”.
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Don’t forget that Senator Babet, United Australia Party, Victoria, is strongly opposed to this bill and supports free speech, and is pro-freedom, pro-Australian and pro-Western Civilisation more generally. He is a true freedom fighter.
He should be added to the list of Senators opposing this bill.
430
This is going to be a hoot, Trump says in his speech, how they will not deal with corporations who follow the woke agenda by censorship etc. Australia which is busy, with both sides of the uniparty trying to outdo each other in the introduction of the Misinformation/ Disinformation bill, is a corporation registered in New York. Who is going to win that one?
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Under Australia’s censorship laws it will be presumably illegal to report facts that are legal to report in the USA. E.g. if someone was to report a covid “vaccine” injury study from the US or studies of ivermectin (taken according to appropriate protocols) in treating covid the results of those studies would be labelled “misinformation” in Australia and you would have the e Safety Kommisar after you and the Government would force social media to censor you.
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I wonder how the MAD law will treat you if instead of saying, for example,’net zero is tosh’, you say ‘someone on X said net zero is tosh’. I suspect they will prosecute you if and only if they don’t like you.
70
Whether they had a case or not, the Government would silence and bankrupt you through lawfare.
The process is the punishment.
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I salute you Donald Trump. Great to see & hear from a strong leader conveying to the ‘majority’ of American voters integrity, empathy, determination & yes true patriotism. His modus operandi shines a spotlight on western democracies weak leaders such as Stamer, Schultz & upgrade Albo. What was that saying … weak leaders bring hard times…strong leaders…..?
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People seem convinced social media is harmful to kids. Classic Aussie spook mentality. My experience with kids and social media is it causes no problems at all.
In fact, many kids are not interested in it, they just consume the funny clips like we all do. They mostly game interactively which makes friendships, and watch Youtube educational videos on things like history.
I suspect a few kids have “made an early exit” due to some online bullying, and this ban is a huge overreaction to these events, spurred on by parents in a hyper-emotional state.
You know something else that can be seriously damaging to kids? School. It can be a hellish torturous place if you get on the wrong side of someone. Some don’t make it out alive. Do they seek to ban school? No. And I note that these “early exit kids” (you cant use the real word), the bullying was from people they knew in real life, at school.
Social media could act as a great place of solace for socially rejected kids. Imagine some kid who has friends online where he can be himself without the school nightmare, and suddenly they have it ripped away from them. “go outside, and play”. What, with the people who torture you? Classic ignorance. Classic Aussie.
I personally remember such events. At high school, I hated going surfing because the surf crowd were horrible aggressive people; I hated school socials, Friday night discos would bring on high anxiety. All these things you were encouraged and even forced to do. Caused me damage that persists to this day. Cruelty can be difficult to shake, especially when it’s in real life. Online, you just turn away, or give it back, its easy, and teaches you battle skills with language.
And like your clumsy parents and teachers, ignorant of reality, the government acts in the same ham-fisted way. I think this is why the under 16 ban is being largely accepted by Australians.
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As Jo has pointed out, the reason they claim its harmful to kids is so that for “age verification purposes” they can get every single user of social media to be positively identified and then all your postings will be connected to your digital person number.
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It’s the reason the government wants it yes, but there is good level of support in the public for banning under 16s.
21
So does that mean that anyone who has maintained an account for 16 years or more is automatically “in”?
00
There is a popular groundswell against the Bill.
‘Australians are firming in their support to protect freedom of speech as the debate about the proposed misinformation laws goes on:
45 per cent believe free speech should be protected, even if this means wrong, inaccurate, or false information is published, just 34 per cent disagree.
This compares with 38 per cent who agreed and 37 per cent who disagreed in May 2024.
‘Young Australians are most opposed to the federal government’s proposed online censorship laws, with a majority of Australians aged 18-34 believing freedom of speech should be protected online.’ (IPA)
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It’s alarming that only 45% of people believe in free speech in Australia.
210
Ask anyone in the street and a majority will say they haven’t heard of the Bill and unaware of the debate.
40
Longer term, it’s obvious that the Australian Government wants your social media posts attached to your digital person number for the ultimate objective of generating (using AI presumably) a CCP style social credit rating to decide what type of housing you are eligible for, schooling, if yiu can get permission to leave the confines of yiur 15 Minute City or the size of your insect and gruel rations etc..
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If the bill passes, Elon Musk may need to set up via Starlink an uncensored internet feed from X and elsewhere for Australians. This would need to be combined with some type of anonymous payment mechanism so that the Australian Government wouldn’t be able to find, prosecute and send to the Gulag those engaged in the “crime” of participating in free speech on X or elsewhere.
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Much more effective woud be to have the White House announce that it does think that countries which impose authoritarian restrictions on their citizens are not worth defending by US soldiers.
50
I’m having a problem copying and pasting these important email addresses can any body please assist/enlighten?
10
Here they are in plain text but once copied into your email program you will have to remove the space I put before the ampersand. Putting a space there was the only way to make them into plain text instead of links. Hope that helps.
senator.David.Pocock @aph.gov.au
senator.lambie @aph.gov.au
senator.tyrrell @aph.gov.au
senator.payman @aph.gov.au
senator.van @aph.gov.au
senator.rennick @aph.gov.au
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Sent my first one to Pocock, more to follow.
Here is the text of the email I sent –
Dear Senator Pocock,
Please do not support the Misinformation Bill as it is draconian and places too much power in the hands of a Commission that can interpret as it sees fit (that is very very subjective).
When you were elected as a Senator I was quite pleased as I believed your values were so appropriate and needed in the Parliament.
However, since you took office my personal friends and I have been quite disappointed by your actions to support the Labor government on important legislation and processes by agreeing to do so as long as they agreed to support some of your causes/proposals. After you supported Labor they then watered down many of your proposals to a state that you did not originally propose.
So, as Labor have been quite duplicitous and not able to be fully trusted, why would any rational or logical Senator support their Misinformation Bill.
I trust you will try to make a good Logical and Fair decision based on the Bill alone, and not on a quid pro quo basis.
Thank You
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Senator Pocock immediate email response was a standard one and stated that he would likely take some time to see any emails.
In the text of his email it said –
“If you are not a constituent and you would like to leave your comments or ideas about a particular policy issue, you can do so here (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSecGR1b5SwpCtelvpiPtF5vaEVT3UFpUzCOI0iLRRdZ7bvNBg/viewform?usp=sf_link). I regularly check this feedback.”
So I have sent to there aswell.
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I did right-click – copy email address. Then pasted into email ‘To:’ field. I’m on Linux / Evolution but I think it should work on other systems. There was an issue with Senator Van, though, who copied as Rennick. I had to amend by hand.
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Sorry. Mike. That typo is fixed. Thank you for reporting it.
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By banning free speech in Australia, the Uniparty wants to permanently remove the possibility of a Trump-style leader or pro-freedom movement or Government ever happening in Australia.
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It’s not just Australia. Here’s an example of censorship from the UK:
The media are (nearly) all reporting on the new law in Iraq, reducing the age of consent to 9 in order to protect girls from immoral relationships. Not a peep from the BBC.
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Of course the BBC would be silent.
In pride of place at the entrance of their headquarters they have sculptures by Eric Gill, a person who sexually abused his daughters, had an incestuous relationship with a sister and also sexually abused a dog, among other things. The sculptures themselves are hardly appropriate. (SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Gill?wprov=sfla1 )
50
Again, just in time, the Australian Labour Party lumbers in to do exactly the wrong thing to solve a non-probklem.
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Today, on the day that we remember those who fought and died for our freedom, dictator Albo and Co move to pass laws that remove it.
Hopefully the next election will remove the ALP.
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And surely not a coincidence.
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Will Albo actually learn from history, learn from Trump’s win, learn why the censorship & spying focussed Demonrats lost, learn how all the lies get exposed and those responsible get their just rewards, or will he keep blundering along leaving a trail of devastation until the next election removes him and installs a real government?
Yep, you guessed it!
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In order to stop Australia becoming an isolated Socialist dystopian backwater, concerned Australians must vote the Albanese Labour government, plus their Greens and Teals enablers, emphatically out of office next election.
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With the economy in bad shape I think that over the Xmas break some Labor Members will be debating whether it is best to have Albo (and his dumb chum Bowen) as leader into the next election or whether some other leader might save the Party from a catastrophe.
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Why is it that I am more than 98% certain the current government would consider your call to remove them in the next election to be “mal”-information?
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The USA first amendment on free speech is not reflected in the UN charter of human rights. That is interesting in itself because it is such a basic freedom.
Meanwhile the UN is hard it defining “hate speech”.
But there is a hint of good news from the UN:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/06/1137827
But I still think “CO2 induced climate change is nonsense” would be in the category of hate speech from the perspective of the UN.
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António Guterres is probably only saying that because at the time when he said it in June 2023 he was probably terrified that Donald Trump would become US President and would defund the UN and the US is the source of much of the UN’s wealth and power, including his.
Guterres is a socialist (a member of the Socialist International) and globalist. Of course he doesn’t fundamentally believe in free speech.
Never trust or believe a Leftist.
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‘blanket bans and internet shutdowns – may also violate human rights’
And remember, if people are not on the internet, adopt subterfuges, use software such as MySQIF, go into analogue pamphletering, make films – just a few among many strategies – the panopticon will be far less effective. To censor you is to hide you – from them. The good guys will argue for the human right of free speech, of course, but it is also in the interests of the bad guys. The UN was never the good guy.
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The fundamental difference between the United States and the Commonwealth countries is the belief or not in natural rights. Free speech is considered a natural right in the US but a qualified privilege in the Commonwealth countries (which can and is removed deoending on the whims of Government), for example.
The reason the former British colonies Australia, Canada and NZ and Once Great Britain itself reject notions of “natural rights” is because they were influenced by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham who did not believe in natural rights as derived from God or nature (depending upon your belief). He thought rights only came from man, i.e. government.
The founding fathers of the US on the other hand were influenced by philosophers like John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Baron de Montesquieu who did recognise God-given natural rights and this is reflected in the US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, including the right of free people to engage in free speech (First Amendment) and to bear arms (Second Amendment).
There is a video about “Jeremy Bentham’s Attack on Natural Rights” at: https://youtu.be/Ecp-PR_K1JI (16 mins)
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Yep, and the beauty of “God given rights” and liberty, is that by nature they are above and superseed human law. Those that reject this naturally and inevitably strive to become God. The US democratic party formally removed God from their platform during the Obama term.
Even a reasonable atheist can see the necessitie for this protection.
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To be bi- partisan, just remember that most of the LNP are also on board with this. Even Dutton and his shadow comns minister like the U16’s social media ban. It’s also not a crazy thought that Murdoch media and the other MSM want this legislation as well. Because it would help them to detract or reduce the influence of social media, particularly X. By all means write to these independent senators , but also write to your LNP and ALP equivalents as well.
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Today is a work day in Australia which is mostly when the resident Leftists here post but their silence is deafening. Aren’t they going to come out in defence of censorship?
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This topic is of particular personal interest to me because I believe that I was the first scientist (and possibly the first person) to have my account suspended by The Conversation. I was completely banned, which was irregular because The Conversation was partially funded by governments and so it was ultra vires to ban as it did. Worse, my inquires led to the chief at The Conversation using the old line that no further conversation would be entered into. Use of that tactic has had a horrible effect on debate in Science.
I will celebrate mildly if or when this MAD bill fails to become law. Geoff S
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The statist have shut down all debate, and that is the tragic goal of such legislation. I have been trying to get word to the Trump administration to do P.S.D.s. ( Presedential sponsored debates) on all controversial subjescts. If the left refuses, have the debate anyway, just put in a proxy to make the arguments they make on line. The whole world would watch. The MSM would be forced to cover.
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Remember that most Uniparty politicians don’t bother reading, nor would most understand, the legislation they are voting upon. Like the mindless drones they are, they just vote as instructed.
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they just vote as instructed.
I understand that is policy of the current government, but hopefully the LNP members at least get a chance to read the bills before voting on them, without major retribution promised.
Nominally the independents are independent for that reason.
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Many commentators, even so-called ‘experts’, fail to understand Trump. In reality, he isn’t the unpredictable, complicated man they keep saying he is. They should remember that, above all else, he is a deal maker and negotiator. Ho observes the old business rule, ‘Speak softly but carry a big stick’. Consequently, much of what he says is bluff and negotiation tactics designed to hide what he really wants, or what he will accept. Ambit claims are part of his toolkit.
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Was just listening to the start of a podcast. It came up on auto after I finished my last podcast. It was Neil Mitchell who once ran the morning radio show on Melbourne’s FTA 3AW for decades. Has a mild dose of TDS and all through 2016-2020 was critical of Trump. Today he started his podcast by saying how Trump was unpredictable and prone to exaggeration – the usual garbage that most of the MSM come up with. He’s not unpredictable,for goodness sake, he’s written books about all of his beliefs and policies and has been talking about them for most of the last 9 years. What we have is just lazy media who don’t (or wont) do their research beyond their major talking points.
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From my perspective he bluffs very little. Yet he does allow fear of supposed “unpredictability” to aid his efforts.
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The absolute least bad politician Australia has (in a major party) to offer that is even slightly conservative is Dutton, and even he is a believer in the anthropogenic global warming fraud and the censorship bill (which came from his party in the first place).
Vote for Conservative parties only:
United Australia Party
Libertarian Party
One Nation
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David Pocock (a left-wing extremist) will vote in favour of the bill.
Jacquie Lambie, a moron whose power has gone to her head, and Fatima Payman probably will too.
Dunno about Tammy Tyrrell and David Van.
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Americans now wake up to hope.
Australians wake up to despair, no matter which faction of the Uniparty is in power. Admittedly the Liberal faction is slightly less bad than Green Labor.
Hopefully one or several of the conservative parties can get the balance of power if the Liberals have the numbers to make Government. We might then be able to have a few conservative policies.
Vote conservative:
United Australia Party
Libertarian Party
One Nation
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Thanks for the prompting Jo.
I have just sent off 6 emails!
The proposed legislation is not good . .
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I got banned from the Conversation when I called the UN a bunch of tax eaters and that reef grifter, Ove Huge-Goldbrick.
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Good. It is meant to be an intelligent conversation; it is not a place for emotive rhetoric. And because of people like you they just don’t have conversations any more.
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If “they” are anything like the left in the US, going a trillion plus more in debt every 3 months or so, then tax eaters and grifters, is an understatement, not rhetoric.
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What the hell does this have to do with comments on a web site?
00
Sometimes ad hom is ta only way to go!
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No sense of humour, lefties.
40
Have you ever seen Leftist “comedy”? It’s both cringe-worthy and vomit-worthy.
I think even some of the Lefties have to force themselves to laugh. If they don’t laugh their comrades will abuse them.
20
The Green Left have killed comedy.
Many years ago I attended a Barry Humphries show at the Seymour Centre and the place was packed to the rafters with lefties.
He sent them up and they laughed with gusto at their own foibles, sadly those days have passed into history. We desperately need a satirical movement spearheaded by someone in politics or standup comedy.
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Truth Alert: 🤣😂💪💪💪💪💪
As most of the “disinformation” is Far-Left political propaganda this will be the big chance for Conservatives to shut down the Far-Left lying bigots with their own laws. 👹👹👹 👩⚖️👩⚖️👩⚖️👩⚖️👩⚖️
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Remember that free speech in the US isn’t protected for: Incitement to violence, Defamation, Obscenity, Child pornography, Lying, True Threats, Unlawful conduct, Commercial speech, and ……..
Fighting words (!)
I think you will find that almost all requests to remove posts from social media platforms are not covered by free speech.
Universities absolutely have the right to counter and debate misinformation in its role as an independent voice not tied to the Government of the day.
The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for public security if misinformation is threatening that security, anyone here remember the Jan 6th riots?
The Department of Health absolutely has the right to counted misinformation (not through censorship) that leads to detrimental outcomes, such as unjustified vaccine hesitancy.
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Simon The core nonsense in a litany of your mistakes was this:
Universities are dependent on government funding, can never be “independent” of the government, and the government has the absolute right to call their work traitorous and self serving material, and cut off their funds.
No vaccine hesitancy is “unjustified” until you provide the 10 year long term placebo controlled trials that don’t exist.
You are a part of the Blob Simon. You are just defending the team that feeds you.
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Simon, you have a profound and typically Leftist misunderstanding of “free speech”. No advocate of free speech has ever said that those things mentioned in your first paragraph, which involve actual criminal acts or civil wrongs, are permitted under a free speech regime or should be.
Leftists always quote those supposed “exceptions” of criminal acts or civil wrongs to justify restrictions on speech unrelated to those categories.
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I don’t think “fighting words” are restricted, and all of them need a great deal of clarification. For instance, most anything can fall under “unlawful conduct” if a law defines all opposing speech as unlawful. Simon has no idea what he is talking about. \
As to Jan 6th…
Transcripts Show President Trump’s Directives to Pentagon Leadership to “Keep January 6 Safe” Were Deliberately Ignored
Press Release; Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight
ROBERT W MALONE MD, MS
SEP 24
Many are aware that the January 06, 2021, US Capital protest events, supposed pipe bombs, and associated claims have been weaponized and propagandized to support the narrative that President Donald Trump himself was and is an insurrectionist. The contrived narrative of this event and associated misleading video footage have been highly edited and manipulated – essentially a form of “cheap fake” PsyOp propaganda. This has been previously discussed at length in the coverage of the Epoch Times, in Kash Patel’s book “Government Gangsters,” and in many articles published in alternative media.
Many are also aware that the false narrative of a January 06, 2021 insurrection by Trump supporters, which include Make America Great Again enthusiasts and patriots who had become convinced that there was widespread ballot box manipulation during the preceding presidential election cycle has been carefully contrived and manipulated by the corporate media, Democratic party operatives, elected officials such as Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney, and the House January 06 committee.
Selectively edited video and a wide range of manipulated “leaks” and press releases were used by the J6 committee to develop and reinforce this narrative. And then there was the lawfare and unconstitutional violations of due process involved in the political sham trials, convictions, and over-the-top sentencing of a wide range of individuals who, at most, had committed misdemeanors.
So it should come as no surprise that, when the Republican-controlled House convened investigations into these matters (Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight), it was revealed that there was a wide range of lies, withholding of information, and promoted false narratives. Yet still the Mockingbird corporate media persisted with their lies and misrepresentations, and continued to support the promoted narrative of President Trump being an insurrectionist.
And then on September 20, 2024, the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight released a bombshell report which clearly documents that DoD refused to act on a presidential command to secure the Capital in anticipation of these protests. This is yet another example of the consequences of the politicization of the bureaucracy or administrative state (“The Blob”), in this case involving the Pentagon and Department of Defense and, in particular, the failure of the DoD Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to act on a direct Presidential order.
Both President Trump and Kash Patel’s version and timeline of events during those fateful days have been exonerated, and of course the Mockingbird Media has nothing to say for themselves. The press release below should have been MSM headline news – instead, all that was heard in newsrooms across the nation was crickets.
10
“anyone here remember the Jan 6th riots?”
Riots?
I thought it was an organized insurrection?
You may be subject to an administrative reprimand for this propaganda messaging rhetorical error.
Also, we’ve hardly been allowed to forget something that had no actual impact on the POTUS transfer of power.
Professional note: blathering on about Jan6 (while ignoring* the BLM/ANTIFA city burnings) might one of the things that turned the electorate towards Trump.
*Like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Washington,_D.C.
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unlawful comment? please define as I think you have no idea what you are talking about.
“Fighting words” , What are you talking about? These 8 violent statements by Obama..
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=50042aa763&attid=0.2&permmsgid=msg-a:r8355955762328688214&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=f_m3chqwmm1&zw
00
Jo please delete, I was trying to delete and edit, and ran out of time. wrong link to my saved files…
00
If Trump had made that speech 4 years ago no-one would have believed him. Even though his loss in 2020 ultimately caused harm to America, that loss caused the “deep state” to expose itself as they went after Trump. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and the release of the ‘twitter files’ exposed to everyone the censorship and control exercised by faceless bureaucrats. People woke up to how utterly untrustworthy the MSM are and thanks to the internet the truth got out. How Trump withstood the “slings and arrows” aimed at him for almost 8 years beggars belief. There has been a great awakening and that’s why that speech by Trump now strikes a chord with everyone who hears it.
140
The rule about politicians is simple : don’t trust any of them . The only thing they are concerned about is getting elected and gathering power . I will admit that I am a cynical old man who has seen too much history and heard too many lies . Words are cheap , actions count . Power is a drug that will turn anyone into an addict who will do what ever it takes to hold on to it . History has plenty of examples .
30
Absolutely!! Its why democracy will always fail, it attracts exactly the wrong kind of people, those who just want to enrich themselves and impose their will upon the rest of us. Liars and bludgers, all of them!
01
That’s the usual misunderstanding of democracy. The power of democracy is not that the people can put the people they like into government, the power of democracy is that the people can remove a government they don’t like. A recent case in point was the UK, where they removed Rishi Sunak for not governing for the people. They put in someone they didn’t really want, because the imperative was to remove Rishi Sunak’s Tories. Will Kemi Badenoch’s Tories be different? Yes, I think they will.
Democracy certainly is not perfect, but in its various forms it’s the best system we’ve got.
30
Actually democracy itself is rightly described as “Two Wolfes and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.”
Without God given individual rights above human laws in the form of a constitutional republic, all systems of government will fail. Without high morals, even the best system will fail.“Tyranny is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness” — George Washington”
Power surprisingly is not the problem here…
https://anderdaa7.substack.com/p/does-absolute-power-corrupt
21
Once again Jo, I have not seen this covered in my, admittedly small, information aquarium.
So thanks again.
I can’t see The Blob submitting to the described founding Constitutional command structure.
I think it’s been a charade for a few decades now.
I expect a massive counter offensive, likely mid December-ish.
I am at a loss about what happened.
It may impossible for the average person to have an accurate construct of the political occurrences we are pummeled by.
Pandemic is the ultimate example of this … so far.
This statement by Trump you detail is a declaration of kinetic action against the Jabba the Blob that’s spread its’ odious suffocating fleshy corpulence across the Western intelligentsia.
Obvious incongruencies sit like elephants in the public room.
How did Trump win with 13 million less votes than Biden?
How was Pandemic hysteria promulgated with precisely mirrored action and rhetoric across governments?
How does the UN and the WHO keep functioning while extruding their embarrassing and ludicrous “the oceans are boiling” and “get your 10th booster” BS.
Is all this just theatre?
After the Climate Change prequel.
30
J D Vance, the incoming VP, lobbed a similar bombshell into Europe by suggesting that countries who condone or encourage censorship do not belong in NATO and i.p. that the US would not send its soldiers to war in order to protect such a rotten system.
20
What kind of “due process”? …‘substantive due process’ or ‘Procedural due process’??
Substantive vs. Procedural Due Process
https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment5/annotation07.html
01
Our government agencies have been shutting down free speech for years.
Most ABC news articles don’t allow any comments or feedback and if they do conservative leaning comments are not published. You can write to ABC News but where your feedback goes is not transparent.
Try getting a straight answer from NBN or Telstra. Ever had to deal with the incompetence in Centrelink, get frustrated and there are bored security guards to remove you. You have no choice but to grit your teeth and tolerate their ineptitude with a smile on your face.
40
FWIW – another view
“BOOM! Free Speech Was on the Ballot and Won Big”
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/11/11/boom-free-speech-was-on-the-ballot-and-won-big-n3796887
10
FWIW
“owing to the many roadblocks the establishment powers had begun putting up against dissident voices like ours here. With a Kamala victory, we would have undeniably been beset by an extremely hostile regime tasked with coming after any and all “misinformation” or “disinformation” purveyors, which of course conveniently includes anyone with a large following who happens to voice opposition to the regime agenda and narrative alike.”
More at
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/40k-subs-milestone-and-another-one
10
FWIW – latest Kustler
“Mysteries Revealed
“People in the media are aware of how illegitimately they’ve done their jobs that they think they’re on the verge of being locked up” —Scott Adams”
More at
https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/mysteries-revealed
10