The Twitter Files

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flyingpylon
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The Twitter Files

Post by flyingpylon » Sat Dec 03, 2022 6:06 am

Here we go…

Part 1
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vnatale
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Sat Dec 03, 2022 9:24 am

flyingpylon wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 6:06 am

Here we go…

Part 1


Saw discussion regarding the above on Twitter last night which contained a lot of criticism of Taibbi.





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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Sat Dec 03, 2022 1:24 pm

I think everyone knew big tech was all in on Biden and intervening heavily in the election. Nothing really new here to me except it looks like Twitter leadership was taking direction straight from the Biden campaign to stop stories or posts or posters they disapproved of.

I've only glanced at the released communications so encourage everyone to look for themselves. Some people I trust are saying it's shocking. We'll see.

Hopefully they move off the laptop and the Biden corruption (which includes kickbacks from the Ukrainians obv) and onto election fraud evidence suppression and then covid vaccine censorship.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Mark Leavy » Sat Dec 03, 2022 5:59 pm

I doubt that anything actionable will ever happen. Because ... {grifter or feckless}

It is, however instructive (and humorous) to monitor the reactions of both pundits and partisans.

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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by whatchamacallit » Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:35 pm

Free speech isn't the issue democrats care about so it won't change any minds.

I imagine everyone has an issue that would cause them to abandon their party if the other party had their preferred stance.

I know I would abandon all other positions if the republicans were the ones shutting down speech and mandating lockdowns and vaccines.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Sat Dec 03, 2022 9:23 pm

whatchamacallit wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:35 pm

Free speech isn't the issue democrats care about so it won't change any minds.

I imagine everyone has an issue that would cause them to abandon their party if the other party had their preferred stance.

I know I would abandon all other positions if the republicans were the ones shutting down speech and mandating lockdowns and vaccines.


What is your definition of free speech?

This is the first item that popped up on my internet search:

https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal- ... /what-does

What Does Free Speech Mean?
Among other cherished values, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech. The U.S. Supreme Court often has struggled to determine what exactly constitutes protected speech. The following are examples of speech, both direct (words) and symbolic (actions), that the Court has decided are either entitled to First Amendment protections, or not.

The First Amendment states, in relevant part, that:

“Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech.”
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by whatchamacallit » Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:01 pm

It can be hard to define but the government deciding what is truth and not allowing public discussion does shut down free speech.

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/08/24/fol ... ance-board
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:24 pm

whatchamacallit wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:01 pm

It can be hard to define but the government deciding what is truth and not allowing public discussion does shut down free speech.

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/08/24/fol ... ance-board


Except in this case because of the concerns expressed by others who shared your concern .... this never ended up happening.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Sun Dec 04, 2022 8:06 am

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/0 ... s-00072015

ECHNOLOGY

‘This will be awesome’: Musk leaks Twitter's Hunter Biden files

The tech billionaire's latest move will likely ingratiate him further with conservatives — and plunge the social media platform deeper into political controversy.



By BEN SCHRECKINGER

12/02/2022 10:11 PM EST

Elon Musk is stoking controversy on a new front, this time revealing sensitive internal deliberations at Twitter around Hunter Biden’s personal computer files in the fall of 2020.

On Friday evening, Twitter’s new owner promoted a leak of documents on his personal account, just the latest sign that the tech billionaire continues to steer the platform in a direction more favorable to conservatives and libertarians. Ahead of the midterm elections, Musk urged his followers to vote Republican. Last month, he reinstated former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account after taking an informal online poll.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by boglerdude » Mon Dec 05, 2022 12:23 am

> favorable to conservatives and libertarians

Oh no!
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Maddy » Mon Dec 05, 2022 7:35 am

vnatale wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:24 pm
Except in this case because of the concerns expressed by others who shared your concern .... this never ended up happening.
Are you seriously contending that no harm, and no infringement of constitutional rights, occurs when the government conspires to prevent certain political speech from being heard--so long as it is possible to hear a similar political viewpoint expressed elsewhere?

Is this seriously what you are saying?
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:30 am

Maddy wrote:
Mon Dec 05, 2022 7:35 am

vnatale wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:24 pm

Except in this case because of the concerns expressed by others who shared your concern .... this never ended up happening.

Are you seriously contending that no harm, and no infringement of constitutional rights, occurs when the government conspires to prevent certain political speech from being heard--so long as it is possible to hear a similar political viewpoint expressed elsewhere?

Is this seriously what you are saying?


I think you may have overlooked two of my key words above? I was referring to one specific, not making any general statements.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Maddy » Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:35 am

whatchamacallit wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:35 pm
Free speech isn't the issue democrats care about so it won't change any minds.
Oh, they care about it plenty when it is their ox that's being gored.

This is the essential problem with modern liberalism: a nearly total lack of capacity for principled thinking. What is good and right is whatever suits its adherents at the moment.

In fact, I'd go further and say that this is why today's liberals have a deep-seated contempt for the rule of law generally. Having to abide by a principle that, by its very nature, cuts both ways that makes it particularly unsuitable for getting what you want all of the time.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Maddy » Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:39 am

vnatale wrote:
Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:30 am
I think you may have overlooked two of my key words above? I was referring to one specific, not making any general statements.
What "one specific" is that?

Are you contending that it was permissible for the government to conspire to shut down speech in this specific instance because it was still possible for other, similar viewpoints to be heard, or because it was still possible for the speaker to be heard somewhere else?
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:29 pm

Maddy wrote:
Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:39 am

vnatale wrote:
Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:30 am

I think you may have overlooked two of my key words above? I was referring to one specific, not making any general statements.

What "one specific" is that?

Are you contending that it was permissible for the government to conspire to shut down speech in this specific instance because it was still possible for other, similar viewpoints to be heard, or because it was still possible for the speaker to be heard somewhere else?


The "one specific" was above -- responding to the URL that whatchamallit had provided:

"whatchamacallit wrote: ↑Sun Dec 04, 2022 12:01 am

It can be hard to define but the government deciding what is truth and not allowing public discussion does shut down free speech.

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/08/24/fol ... ance-board


My response: "Except in this case because of the concerns expressed by others who shared your concern .... this never ended up happening.""



I was not contending either of what you were asked if I was saying. What I attempted to say (but apparently failed to make clear) was in that instance of the policy that was referred to in that ULR there were many other people / institutions who shared and expressed the same concerns as whatamacallit which then led to the policy never being implemented ("this never ended up happening").

However, I hope you will be happy to know that because of what you have just recently wrote about this topic ... when I was at the library a few hours ago and looking at books to check out ... I had one in my hand that I was not going to take. But then I looked at it again and said I owe it to Maddy to read this book. I think I ended up taking out 20 books in total and right now I don't feel like going through the three bags of books to find it. However, I promise that I soon will and report to you the book title / author.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by vnatale » Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:58 pm

Just went through the three bags of books and the book was the last of the 21 I pulled out of those bags:


The Hidden History of Big Brother in America: How the Death of Privacy and the Rise of Surveillance Threaten Us and Our Democracy (The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series Book 7) Kindle Edition
by Thom Hartmann (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DFNCYL2/?r ... l_huc_item
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Mountaineer » Mon Dec 05, 2022 6:37 pm

vnatale wrote:
Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:58 pm
Just went through the three bags of books and the book was the last of the 21 I pulled out of those bags:


The Hidden History of Big Brother in America: How the Death of Privacy and the Rise of Surveillance Threaten Us and Our Democracy (The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series Book 7) Kindle Edition
by Thom Hartmann (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DFNCYL2/?r ... l_huc_item
Hmmmm, sounds like a book about the Regime. ;)
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Maddy » Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:37 am

Except that there is nothing "hidden" about it. Accordingly the title provides a pretty good clue that this book is a veiled attempt to protray facts as unsubstantiated "conspiracies." Anybody want to take the other side of the bet that this author is a self-proclaimed "progressive?"

For some serious scholarship on the UNHIDDEN agenda of the globalist authoritarians, see the research of Patrick Wood and Anthony Sutton. In recent years, Patrick Wood has put out a number of very readable books oriented toward the popular audience, including "Trilaterals Over Washington," "Technocracy Rising," "Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order," and "Globalization and the Crucible of Global Banking."
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:57 am

Maddy wrote:
Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:35 am
This is the essential problem with modern liberalism: a nearly total lack of capacity for principled thinking. What is good and right is whatever suits its adherents at the moment.

In fact, I'd go further and say that this is why today's liberals have a deep-seated contempt for the rule of law generally. Having to abide by a principle that, by its very nature, cuts both ways that makes it particularly unsuitable for getting what you want all of the time.
Do you think maybe it's just that a large portion of our "adult" population is arrested development? young people are staying in school longer, delaying families and home ownership and responsibility longer, or putting it off indefinitely. They get participation ribbons in school, get passed onto the next grade regardless of performance, everyone is above criticism etc. Obviously there's a huge decline in fathers at home and more households relying on welfare so the kids don't see a responsible working adult providing for the family.

I think this is causing a lot more adults to be stuck permanently with a childlike mentality. To get elected to government you need to appeal to these "children". The only way to do that is to tell them stories about bogeymen who are bad and promise them things rather than personal responsibility. The ENTIRE democrat party is based on pandering to grown up children, I mean, just listen to the speeches.

Sorry for the diversion. It's good that Elon is shedding light on this, but everyone should have known it already. Maybe it will wake up a few good people that were asleep. He should move onto Covid vaccines and outright election fraud next.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Dec 06, 2022 10:45 am

My perspective: we are reaping the consequences of removing Judeo-Christian ethics from our society. For example: devaluing the importance of family that is headed by a married man and woman, minimal respect for others and their property, faith only in self, failure to believe the 10 Commandments are God’s will for how we are to live in community, etc.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by SilentMajority » Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:32 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Tue Dec 06, 2022 10:45 am
My perspective: we are reaping the consequences of removing Judeo-Christian ethics from our society. For example: devaluing the importance of family that is headed by a married man and woman, minimal respect for others and their property, faith only in self, failure to believe the 10 Commandments are God’s will for how we are to live in community, etc.
I think you're onto something. Christianity has declined from over 90% in the 1950s to under 70% at present, same proportion as Americans of European heritage. Those things might or might be related.

Has this subject and it's causes (or people deliberately pursuing it) been explored in another thread? It could easily derail the Twitter files convo.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Maddy » Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:29 pm

I agree that the disappearance of a common religious underpinning has had its effect. However, there has always been a significant slice of the population who, for entirely secular reasons, has adhered to more-or-less traditional ethical precepts. I would suggest, based upon purely anecdotal observation, that the ethical underpinnings of this diverse group, also, have come unglued.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Mark Leavy » Tue Dec 06, 2022 4:15 pm

Meanwhile, on the twitter files...

It looks like James Baker. Yes, that James Baker was holding up the release of additional documents. It turns out that Sir James left the FBI in 2020 and became the Deputy General Counsel for twitter. Oops.

He got his walking papers today.
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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by flyingpylon » Tue Dec 06, 2022 4:23 pm

Here's a bit more about James Baker:

Six Degrees from James Baker: A Familiar Figure Reemerges With the Release of the Twitter Files by Jonathan Turley

Anyone wonder why there are so many former FBI people at Twitter?

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Re: The Twitter Files

Post by Xan » Tue Dec 06, 2022 4:44 pm

Mark Leavy wrote:
Tue Dec 06, 2022 4:15 pm
Meanwhile, on the twitter files...

It looks like James Baker. Yes, that James Baker was holding up the release of additional documents. It turns out that Sir James left the FBI in 2020 and became the Deputy General Counsel for twitter. Oops.

He got his walking papers today.
I thought James Baker III was "that" James Baker.
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