Election 2020 on a Maskless Monday

A fairly light load, rather common on a Monday morning. I'm starting with Stacy McCain's The First Rule of Censorship Club

“The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.”

Something very similar is at work in the operations of Big Tech, acting as a political arms of the Biden administration. Using the pretext of suppressing “misinformation,” Facebook and other platforms are identifying and silencing the administration’s opponents and, even though this is happening in full view of anyone paying attention, you’re not going to know anything about it if you get your news from CNN, MSNBC or one of the broadcast network troika of NBC/ABC/CBS.

In fact, the liberal media are engaged in “fact-checking” that labels reporting about this censorship as (you guessed it) “misinformation.”

Politico reported last week that the Democratic National Committee is going to “work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages.”

Repeat: “text messages.”

The DNC is going to censor your text messages?

A lot of people (among them our friends at Gateway Pundit) were startled by this news, but then the Thought Police “fact-checkers” at USA Today went to work to label this as “misinformation,” explaining that what they were actually talking about was mass-delivery text messages sent via software platforms (known as SMS APIs), the kind of messages you get from political campaigns when you sign up to get text alerts. So the White House is not monitoring your private text messages, but instead is trying to silence groups like Turning Point USA, which sends its members alerts like, “Biden is sending goons DOOR-TO-DOOR to make you take a Covid-19 vaccine. Sign the petition to: No medical raids in America.”

Let us stipulate that a certain amount of hyperbole is to be expected in the messages that political organizations deliver to their followers. How is what TPUSA does any different than what the DNC itself sends to its supporters? If you’re signed up for such text-message alerts from any political outfit, you have volunteered to receive this stuff, and why is it that the effort to suppress “misinformation” is only directed toward opponents of the Biden administration, not its supporters?

It’s the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 all over again.

Chris Barron at the Political Insider (henceforth, PI) opines If The White House Is Looking For Disinformation – The Call Is Coming From Inside The House. Twitchy, THIS! Glenn Greenwald takes Biden’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ APART in brutal thread for openly censoring what they deem ‘COVID misinformation’

If you trust the Biden WH to decree what is "misinformation," these claims have been deemed as such:

* COVID is transmitted human-to-human (Jan 2020)

* You should wear masks to protect against COVID (March 2020)

* It's possible COVID leaked from the Wuhan lab (all of 2020).

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 17, 2021

The Constitutional Conservatives (ConCons) says Defund The Thought Police, Psaki Admits Facebook, Twitter, Are State Actors. Even a VP from Facebook itself attempts to refute the idea that it has promote WuFlu misinformation in Moving Past the Finger Pointing. He doesn't deny political interference, however.

And speaking of Facebook, Tyler 'Meil at PJ Media reports  These States Are Throwing a Monkey Wrench in the Left's Effort to Build 'Structural Bias' Into the Election System

As election lawyer J. Christian Adams explained, the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Technology ad Civic Life (CTCL) directed millions to government election offices around the country to “help” them conduct the 2020 election. These funds — commonly referred to as “Zuck bucks” — built “structural bias” into the election — converting “election offices in key jurisdictions with deep reservoirs of Biden votes into Formula One turnout machines.”

In Philadelphia, for instance, CTCL directed $10 million to boost the city’s election office, which normally has a budget of $9.8 million. The city used that money to hire local activists as city employees to drive around and collect ballots. Officials bought new printers and scanners to accommodate mail ballots. They established satellite election offices across Biden-friendly neighborhoods. They paid the public relations firm Aloysius Butler & Clark to design billboards, posters, bus advertisements, and print ads.

“Hundreds of millions of private charitable dollars flowed into key urban county election offices in battleground states. The same private philanthropic largess did not reach red counties. Urban counties were able to revolutionize government election offices into Joe Biden turnout machines,” Adams explained.

Now in some red states legislators are starting to see the handwriting on the wall, like at the Tate-Bianca murders, and are banning such "gifts", but when possible, Democrat governors are vetoing them.

Althouse is skeptical of this CNN headline: "Half of the US believes a deadly conspiracy theory."

This is labeled "Analysis by Harry Enten." Now, let's get a close look. I'll put to the side for now the question what makes a theory deadly. You don't die just from believing something. Presumably, people who believe something might do something that could kill themselves or others.

Let's see what this theory is:

The two most monumental events of the last year in the US were the election of Joe Biden to the presidency and the introduction of Covid-19 vaccines. Yet there are those who falsely believe Biden won only because of fraud or that they shouldn't get a vaccine.

Oh. It's 2 theories. Don't tell me Enten is going to add the percentages together to get to "more than half"!

Having either belief is dangerous -- for either the health of society or the health of the republic.

It's "deadly" to think the election result wasn't legit? How many people died from believing there was Russian collusion in the 2016 election? Trusting the reported results of the election is like getting immunity from a deadly disease? That's histrionics. Deadly histrionics. Just kidding. It's annoying, bullshit histrionics.

Mediaite whines that Trump Lashes Out at Bret Baier Over Fox News’ ‘Outdated and Terrible’ Coverage on Arizona’s 2020 Results. Is lashing out worse than pouncing? And Politico attempts to  spin facts in Sorting out Trump's comments on the Arizona audit by ignoring the inconvenient ones.

And regarding the Texas delegation's super-spreader event, Joe Concha think Democrats' stunt with Texas election bill will 'blow up in their faces' in 2022. Maybe, but memories are short. Kevin Williamson, writing at NYPo, instead of the usual NR, Democrats fleeing Texas hold democracy hostage while pretending to save it. And in a form of divine (or perhaps merely viral) retribution, Two more Texas Democrats test positive for COVID after fleeing election vote "Five Texas Democrats have now tested positive on their Washington visit," even putting Vice President** Harris at risk

According to the Texas Tribune, the number of COVID-positive Texas state lawmakers in the nation's capital is now five. The news comes on the same day that Vice President Kamala Harris dropped by Walter Reed Medical Center for a "routine" visit after meeting with the group of lawmakers just last week.