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April 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Tucker Carlson must be one of the most popular conservative commentators in the country. His show on X attracts clicks by the hundreds of thousands. This week he sought falsely to blacken Israel’s reputation by promoting the views of a Bethlehem pastor that Israel mistreats Christiand. In so doing, he obviously seeks to drive wedge between Israel and Christian supporters of Israel. While Israel is engaged in a fight for
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April 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Tucker Carlson devoted the October 9 episode of his X show to the Hamas/Israel war. He opened by searching for “the wise path forward” and asking what we should “do next in this chaotic moment.” For some reason, he didn’t directly answer his own question. We were to infer, however, that it’s none of our business. It might be best to avert our eyes. “War begets more war,” he advised.
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April 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I found the oral argument of the case now styled Murthy v. Missouri last month to be utterly demoralizing. As soon as the oral argument concluded I rashly hazarded my assessment that it portends a victory for the massive censorship-industrial complex represented by the Biden administration, probably on procedural grounds (i.e., standing). My assessment was a hot take based on the tenor of the argument. The argument seemed to me
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March 29, 2024 — Scott Johnson
RealClearPolitics has posted the video (below) of Dave Rubin’s panel session earlier this month with the winners of the first RealClearPolitics Samizdat Prize — Twitter Files reporter Matt Taibbi, Great Barrington Declaration co-author Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and New York Post reporter and Laptop From Hell author Miranda Devine. RCP has also posted transcribed excerpts along with the video here. It’s hard to keep up with the news of the day,
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March 25, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Professor Jonathan Turley has concerns about the fate of the First Amendment based in part on the oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri. He writes: In Murthy v. Missouri, the court is considering a massive censorship system coordinated by federal agencies and social media companies. This effort was ramped up under President Joe Biden, who is arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. Biden has accused companies of
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March 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I found the oral argument of the case now styled Murthy v. Missouri this past Monday to be utterly demoralizing. As soon as the oral argument concluded I rashly hazarded my assessment that it portends a victory for the massive censorship-industrial complex represented by the Biden administration. My assessment was a hot take based on the tenor of the argument. The argument seemed to me to reflect a fantasy world.
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March 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
This morning the Supreme Court held oral argument in the case that is now styled Murthy v. Missouri. C-SPAN has posted audio of the oral argument here. The case arises from the government’s “encouragement” of censorship by the social media platforms, as documented in the Twitter Files. We have followed the case as it has wended its way through the district court to the Fifth Circuit and then to the
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March 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson
According to his Martin Kulldorff bio, Ph.D., Dr.h.c., is an epidemiologist, a biostatistician, and a founding fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom. He was a Professor of Medicine at Harvard University for thirteen years. Dr. Kulldorff’s research centers on developing and applying new disease surveillance methods for post-market drug and vaccine safety surveillance and for the early detection and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks. In October 2020,
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February 19, 2024 — John Hinderaker
In 1962, there was a Senate race in South Dakota between Republican Joseph Bottum and Democrat George McGovern. The seat was open due to the death of Republican Francis Case. I was just a kid, but I remember that election well. Bottum was the favorite, but in the closing days of the race the Democrats spread a rumor that he was an alcoholic. That ploy may have been crude, but
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January 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In March 2023 Tablet published Jacob Siegel’s “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.” Subhead accompanied by the profile of a blackbird’s head: “Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation.” (The subhead and graphic allude to the Wallace Stevens poem.) Siegel’s magnum opus runs to some 13,000 words. I meant to include Siegel’s column in my take on “The year in columns.” Indeed, I had devoted a separate post
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December 10, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi appeared as a witness to testify at the recent congressional hearing in which Rep. Dan Goldman made a fool of himself again. Taibbi chronicled the doings in his Racket News column “Dan Goldman, Democrats, Make a Clown Show of Censorship Hearing,” behind the Racket News paywall. However, Taibbi has posted a narrated version of the column in the video below. I thought some readers would find this of
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December 1, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Lately Democrats have fallen into the habit of labeling all facts they would rather not talk about as “conspiracy theories.” They must think it works. Yesterday, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified before Jim Jordan’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Matt recorded the experience, which he describes as “surreal,” at Racket News. Representative Dan Goldman is the Democrats’ attack dog on the subcommittee. Goldman hasn’t given
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September 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Virginia Democratic House of Delegates candidate Susanna Gibson is mired in a scandal of her own making. If she survives it, she deserves to be the “face” (broadly understood) of the Democratic Party. Like us, the Washington Free Beacon is giving the Gibson scandal the kind of attention it would get if she were a Republican. Joe Simonson’s Free Beacon story is headlined “Cocksure Virginia Democrat Slams Media for Reporting
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August 9, 2023 — John Hinderaker
We now know that the federal government, led by the FBI, has engaged in a prolonged program of censorship that focused on social media. It began, as far as we know, during the Trump administration, and at that time was directed largely against the President. It has flourished during the Biden administration, in which the FBI and other agencies have acted as enforcers, suppressing dissent from the Biden administration’s line,
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August 3, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi published his powerful July 28 Racket News column “The New ‘Facebook Files’ Show Everything the First Amendment Was Designed to Prevent” for subscribers only. Racket New has now posted the column as narrated by Jared Moore on YouTube and on podcast platforms. I have embedded the video below. Toward the end of his column Taibbi warns: “In hindsight it could equally be argued Biden was killing people [as
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July 25, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Former New York Post editor Emma-Jo Morris testified last week to the House Weaponization of Government Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan. The committee has posted the text of her statement here. I have posted video below. Morris was the deputy politics editor leading national coverage at the Post, where she also reported the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” series. Her work for the Post is collected here. She has
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July 16, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi has made a valuable contribution to the documentation of the government’s suppression of heterodox and nonconforming speech on Twitter. He is an honest and dogged journalist. I have therefore sought to draw attention to his work in face of such denials and evasions as those to which FBI Director Christopher Wray testified under oath on July 12 before an occasionally showboating congressional committee last week. Taibbi wrote in
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