Elon Musk held a poll on Twitter asking members whether Twitter adhered to free speech or not. The results were as expected.
Even Twitter couldn’t cover up these results. (A good question would be how many bots voted for Twitter in the poll?) In answer to his poll on free speech, over 70% of the more than 2 million who voted said that Twitter does not adhere to free speech.
In response to the results from his poll with over 2 million voting on whether Twitter censors free speech, which it does, Musk asked another question.
Twitter banned President Trump from using its platform after the 2020 Election despite President Trump being the most-watched politician, if not character on the site. Twitter constantly bans free speech on the site. (The Gateway Pundit and myself are banned.)
Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt did not hold back his outrage with Joe Biden on Friday evening’s episode of Hannity.
Hurt and guest host Pete Hegseth were discussing Biden’s visit to the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Poland — and the shocking remarks that he made during the visit.
“We’re based on an idea,” Biden told the troops. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all women and men are created equal. Sounds corny, but it’s the truth of who we are. We’ve never lived up to it, but we never walked away from it.”
Hegseth blasted Biden for being dismissive of the nation’s founding documents.
“He says it in a room full of men and women, probably, who have sworn, who’ve signed up and sworn to give their lives not only for their fellow man beside them, but for that corny document,” Hurt said. “And they would walk into any fire to give up their life for that document. And to have this horse’s ass up there, their commander-in-chief, and I hate talking like this because he’s still the commander-in-chief. And out of respect to those men in that room, you know, you hate to drag the guy, but he shouldn’t be there. He needs to be taken away.”
“He is not fit for this.”
Following his comment, b-roll footage of the president eating pizza flashed across the screen.
“And there he is, defeated by a slice of jalapeño pizza,” Hurt snarked.
While meeting with Polish President Andrezj Duda after the Army visit, Biden coughed and needed to take a sip of his water.
Biden then told the Polish leader, “I was visiting our troops and I had pizza pie with hot peppers on it.”
Joe Biden gave what the White House billed as a “major address” Saturday evening in Warsaw, Poland, invoking the words of Cold War icon Polish Pope John Paull II several times, saying, “Be not afraid.” Biden’s speech was intended to reassure Poland and other NATO allies of the United States’ unwavering commitment to defend “every inch” of NATO territory from Russia as Russia wages a war of aggression on neighboring Ukraine. Biden reiterated his support for Ukraine. Earlier in the day Biden called Putin a “butcher” while speaking with Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
Biden closed his speech with what is either a policy change or a Kinsley gaffe like his comment Friday to U.S. troops they were headed into Ukraine.
Biden said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
New concerns are being raised over the actions of the organization that raises money to promote the message that black lives matter.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the charity that represents the national BLM movement, has been beset with questions over what it is doing with millions of dollars in donations.
Reflecting widespread dissatisfaction with how the organization was accounting for what it took in, what it was spending and who was overseeing the money, the website CharityWatch last month wrote, “It is extremely concerning that the national public charity entity of arguably the largest social justice movement in the United States has not done a better job of communicating its financial activities to the public in a timely manner or of adequately addressing other questions related to its governance.”
Concerns led Amazon to remove the group from its charity platform as multiple states banned the foundation’s activities because it did not comply with the rules. As of Thursday, Washington, which ordered BLM to “immediately cease” its activities, was joined by New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia in banning the group from raising money, according to the Washington Examiner.
The outlet reported Friday that new concerns arose this week after Black Lives Matter sent a message to its supporters that called for support for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and included a button to donate to the charity.
The button, however, goes to the Black Lives Matter PAC, the group’s affiliated political action committee.
“BLM PAC is preparing for the most critical midterm election yet. Every single race is an opportunity to build Black political power,” the fundraising page linked in the message said.”If you’re ready to continue the electoral fight for Black lives, chip in to our efforts and start building for the 2022 midterms.”
Using a charity to solicit political donations “appears to be a clear violation of the IRS rules prohibiting charities from soliciting contributions to a political action committee,” Paul Kamenar, an attorney for conservative watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, told the Examiner.
The agency that sent the message said it was all just a mistake.
“During a recent email send, Fireside Campaigns inadvertently included a fundraising link to a non-fundraising email. We take full responsibility for this error,” said Brad Bauman, managing partner and CEO of Fireside Campaigns.
An IRS presentation posted on its website makes very clear that it is illegal for a charity to solicit money for a partisan political group.
From the perspective of CharityWatch, the Black Lives Matter foundation is a vexing problem because little of what it claims to do can be verified.
“For example, in its 2020 Impact Report, BLMGNF states that it has ‘committed to 30 local organizations and BLM chapters approximately $21.7 million.’ This statement does not say that these funds have actually been distributed to the chapters, and the term ‘committed’ is not defined to communicate if and when such distributions have or will take place,” the organization said.
“An adequate analysis of BLMGNF’s independent audited financial statements and tax filings could shed more light on which chapters received support, when they received it, and in what amounts, as well as the central organization’s other financial activities,” CharityWatch said.
“The same is true for many other ‘impact’ claims BLMGNF made in its 2020 Impact Report — verifying these requires an independent analysis of the charity’s audited financial statements and tax filings, which BLMGNF has thus far not been willing to provide to CharityWatch.”
The watchdog group noted that at the same time the national headquarters of the movement said that money was flowing out to communities, those allegedly on the receiving end told a different story.
“To the best of our knowledge, most chapters have received little to no financial support from BLMGN since the launch in 2013,” a local chapter was quoted as saying. “It was only in the last few months that selected chapters appear to have been invited to apply for a $500,000 grant created with resources generated because of the organizing labor of chapters.
“This is not the equity and financial accountability we deserve.”
“The Internet is watching us now. If they want to. They can see what sites you visit. In the future, television will be watching us, and customizing itself to what it knows about us. The thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we’re part of the medium. The scary thing is, we’ll lose our right to privacy. An ad will appear in the air around us, talking directly to us.”—Director Steven Spielberg, Minority Report
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by such science fiction writers as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood, and Philip K. Dick.
Much like Orwell’s Big Brother in 1984, the government and its corporate spies now watch our every move.
Much like Huxley’s A Brave New World, we are churning out a society of watchers who “have their liberties taken away from them, but … rather enjoy it, because they [are] distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing.”
Much like Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the populace is now taught to “know their place and their duties, to understand that they have no real rights but will be protected up to a point if they conform, and to think so poorly of themselves that they will accept their assigned fate and not rebel or run away.”
And in keeping with Philip K. Dick’s darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state—which became the basis for Steven Spielberg’s futuristic thriller Minority Report which was released 20 years ago—we are now trapped into a world in which the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few skulls to bring the populace under control.
Minority Report is set in the year 2054, but it could just as well have taken place in 2022.
Seemingly taking its cue from science fiction, technology has moved so fast in the short time since Minority Report premiered in 2002 that what once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike—facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on—are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, Spielberg’s unnerving vision of the future is fast becoming our reality.
Both worlds—our present-day reality and Spielberg’s celluloid vision of the future—are characterized by widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, fusion centers, driverless cars, voice-controlled homes, facial recognition systems, cybugs and drones, and predictive policing (pre-crime) aimed at capturing would-be criminals before they can do any damage.
Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness—a philosophy that discourages diversity—has become a guiding principle of modern society.
The courts have shredded the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary America.
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state. Much of the population is either hooked on illegal drugs or ones prescribed by doctors. And bodily privacy and integrity has been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
All of this has come about with little more than a whimper from an oblivious American populace largely comprised of nonreaders and television and internet zombies, but we have been warned about such an ominous future in novels and movies for years.
The following 15 films may be the best representation of what we now face as a society.
Fahrenheit 451 (1966). Adapted from Ray Bradbury’s novel and directed by Francois Truffaut, this film depicts a futuristic society in which books are banned, and firemen ironically are called on to burn contraband books—451 Fahrenheit being the temperature at which books burn. Montag is a fireman who develops a conscience and begins to question his book burning. This film is an adept metaphor for our obsessively politically correct society where virtually everyone now pre-censors speech. Here, a brainwashed people addicted to television and drugs do little to resist governmental oppressors.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The plot of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, as based on an Arthur C. Clarke short story, revolves around a space voyage to Jupiter. The astronauts soon learn, however, that the fully automated ship is orchestrated by a computer system—known as HAL 9000—which has become an autonomous thinking being that will even murder to retain control. The idea is that at some point in human evolution, technology in the form of artificial intelligence will become autonomous and human beings will become mere appendages of technology. In fact, at present, we are seeing this development with massive databases generated and controlled by the government that are administered by such secretive agencies as the National Security Agency and sweep all websites and other information devices collecting information on average citizens. We are being watched from cradle to grave.
Planet of the Apes (1968). Based on Pierre Boulle’s novel, astronauts crash on a planet where apes are the masters and humans are treated as brutes and slaves. While fleeing from gorillas on horseback, astronaut Taylor is shot in the throat, captured, and housed in a cage. From there, Taylor begins a journey wherein the truth revealed is that the planet was once controlled by technologically advanced humans who destroyed civilization. Taylor’s trek to the ominous Forbidden Zone reveals the startling fact that he was on planet earth all along. Descending into a fit of rage at what he sees in the final scene, Taylor screams: “We finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you.” The lesson is obvious, but will we listen? The script, although rewritten, was initially drafted by Rod Serling and retains Serling’s Twilight Zone-ish ending.
THX 1138 (1970). George Lucas’ directorial debut, this is a somber view of a dehumanized society totally controlled by a police state. The people are force-fed drugs to keep them passive, and they no longer have names but only letter/number combinations such as THX 1138. Any citizen who steps out of line is quickly brought into compliance by robotic police equipped with “pain prods”—electro-shock batons. Sound like tasers?
A Clockwork Orange (1971). Director Stanley Kubrick presents a future ruled by sadistic punk gangs and a chaotic government that cracks down on its citizens sporadically. Alex is a violent punk who finds himself in the grinding, crushing wheels of injustice. This film may accurately portray the future of western society that grinds to a halt as oil supplies diminish, environmental crises increase, chaos rules, and the only thing left is brute force.
Soylent Green (1973). Set in a futuristic overpopulated New York City, the people depend on synthetic foods manufactured by the Soylent Corporation. A policeman investigating a murder discovers the grisly truth about what soylent green is really made of. The theme is chaos where the world is ruled by ruthless corporations whose only goal is greed and profit. Sound familiar?
Blade Runner (1982). In a 21st century Los Angeles, a world-weary cop tracks down a handful of renegade “replicants” (synthetically produced human slaves). Life is now dominated by mega-corporations, and people sleepwalk along rain-drenched streets. This is a world where human life is cheap, and where anyone can be exterminated at will by the police (or blade runners). Based upon a Philip K. Dick novel, this exquisite Ridley Scott film questions what it means to be human in an inhuman world.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). The best adaptation of Orwell’s dark tale, this film visualizes the total loss of freedom in a world dominated by technology and its misuse, and the crushing inhumanity of an omniscient state. The government controls the masses by controlling their thoughts, altering history and changing the meaning of words. Winston Smith is a doubter who turns to self-expression through his diary and then begins questioning the ways and methods of Big Brother before being re-educated in a most brutal fashion.
Brazil (1985). Sharing a similar vision of the near future as 1984 and Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, this is arguably director Terry Gilliam’s best work, one replete with a merging of the fantastic and stark reality. Here, a mother-dominated, hapless clerk takes refuge in flights of fantasy to escape the ordinary drabness of life. Caught within the chaotic tentacles of a police state, the longing for more innocent, free times lies behind the vicious surface of this film.
They Live (1988). John Carpenter’s bizarre sci-fi social satire action film assumes the future has already arrived. John Nada is a homeless person who stumbles across a resistance movement and finds a pair of sunglasses that enables him to see the real world around him. What he discovers is a world controlled by ominous beings who bombard the citizens with subliminal messages such as “obey” and “conform.” Carpenter manages to make an effective political point about the underclass—that is, everyone except those in power. The point: we, the prisoners of our devices, are too busy sucking up the entertainment trivia beamed into our brains and attacking each other up to start an effective resistance movement.
The Matrix (1999). The story centers on a computer programmer Thomas A. Anderson, secretly a hacker known by the alias “Neo,” who begins a relentless quest to learn the meaning of “The Matrix”—cryptic references that appear on his computer. Neo’s search leads him to Morpheus who reveals the truth that the present reality is not what it seems and that Anderson is actually living in the future—2199. Humanity is at war against technology which has taken the form of intelligent beings, and Neo is actually living in The Matrix, an illusionary world that appears to be set in the present in order to keep the humans docile and under control. Neo soon joins Morpheus and his cohorts in a rebellion against the machines that use SWAT team tactics to keep things under control.
Minority Report (2002). Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick and directed by Steven Spielberg, the film offers a special effect-laden, techno-vision of a futuristic world in which the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. And if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams will bring you under control. The setting is 2054 where PreCrime, a specialized police unit, apprehends criminals before they can commit the crime. Captain Anderton is the chief of the Washington, DC, PreCrime force which uses future visions generated by “pre-cogs” (mutated humans with precognitive abilities) to stop murders. Soon Anderton becomes the focus of an investigation when the precogs predict he will commit a murder. But the system can be manipulated. This film raises the issue of the danger of technology operating autonomously—which will happen eventually if it has not already occurred. To a hammer, all the world looks like a nail. In the same way, to a police state computer, we all look like suspects. In fact, before long, we all may be mere extensions or appendages of the police state—all suspects in a world commandeered by machines.
V for Vendetta (2006). This film depicts a society ruled by a corrupt and totalitarian government where everything is run by an abusive secret police. A vigilante named V dons a mask and leads a rebellion against the state. The subtext here is that authoritarian regimes through repression create their own enemies—that is, terrorists—forcing government agents and terrorists into a recurring cycle of violence. And who is caught in the middle? The citizens, of course. This film has a cult following among various underground political groups such as Anonymous, whose members wear the same Guy Fawkes mask as that worn by V.
Children of Men (2006). This film portrays a futuristic world without hope since humankind has lost its ability to procreate. Civilization has descended into chaos and is held together by a military state and a government that attempts to keep its totalitarian stronghold on the population. Most governments have collapsed, leaving Great Britain as one of the few remaining intact societies. As a result, millions of refugees seek asylum only to be rounded up and detained by the police. Suicide is a viable option as a suicide kit called Quietus is promoted on billboards and on television and in newspapers. But hope for a new day comes when a woman becomes inexplicably pregnant.
Land of the Blind (2006). In this dark political satire, tyrannical rulers are overthrown by new leaders who prove to be just as evil as their predecessors. Maximilian II is a demented fascist ruler of a troubled land named Every country who has two main interests: tormenting his underlings and running his country’s movie industry. Citizens who are perceived as questioning the state are sent to “re-education camps” where the state’s concept of reality is drummed into their heads. Joe, a prison guard, is emotionally moved by the prisoner and renowned author Thorne and eventually joins a coup to remove the sadistic Maximilian, replacing him with Thorne. But soon Joe finds himself the target of the new government.
All of these films—and the writers who inspired them—understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan, flag-waving, zombified states, are still struggling to come to terms with: that there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably give way to the desire to maintain power and control at all costs.
Eventually, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, even the sleepwalking masses (who remain convinced that all of the bad things happening in the police state—the police shootings, the police beatings, the raids, the roadside strip searches—are happening to other people) will have to wake up.
Sooner or later, the things happening to other people will start happening to us.
When that painful reality sinks in, it will hit with the force of a SWAT team crashing through your door, a taser being aimed at your stomach, and a gun pointed at your head. And there will be no channel to change, no reality to alter, and no manufactured farce to hide behind.
As George Orwell warned, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.”
Former President Donald Trump is heading to the Peach State Saturday to campaign at a rally for the seven candidates he has endorsed in Republican primary races ahead of the state’s May 24 election.
The rally will take place at Banks County Dragway in Commerce, Georgia, which is situated in a solid red county in northeast Georgia that Trump won by nearly 60 points in 2020.
Former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), who is hoping to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp (R), will speak at the event, as will Senate candidate Herschel Walker, former state Rep. Vernon Jones, and several other guests.
Kemp has become one of Trump’s most sought-after targets since the 2020 election, which Trump narrowly lost — “by a whisker,” as Trump says — after two recounts in the closest race of any state in 2020.
Minneapolis mosques will now be allowed to blast the call to prayer outdoors on loud speakers all year round.
City Council Member Jamal Osman, a very involved member of the Muslim community, was behind the push for mosques to be allowed to play the adhan several times a day, every day.
The call to prayer that will be bellowing from mosques around the city four times a day includes Arabic words like “Allahu akbar,” which means “god is great,” but is also a reminder to some of deadly terror attacks.
“For the faith of Christians in Minneapolis, the tolling of church bells is an affirmation of their faith and the comfort that brings that’s exactly the same purpose of adhan service for Muslims,” Osman told the Star Tribune. “Thousands of Muslims in Minneapolis now have their faith acknowledged the same as everyone else.”
There is one limitation however, the calls can only be played between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. — so the allowance isn’t good enough for the terror-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Muslims pray five times a day between sun rise and sun down, with each prayer lasting up to five minutes. The time restriction means that the adhan for fajr, or dawn prayer, cannot be blasted through the city.
The Tribune reports, “the time restriction violates Muslims’ constitutional rights, said a local representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. The organization said it also wants to see formal language in the council’s resolution acknowledging that mosques have the right to call for prayers.”
“The practice of religion is not constrained by the Constitution of the United States,” Mohamed Ibrahim, CAIR-MN’s deputy executive director told the Tribune. “The … right to generally practice religion supersedes the city’s ordinance.”
Osman said he is willing to fight for the dawn prayer alarms.
“If some mosques want to broadcast dawn prayers, we can advocate for that,” Osman said. “This is a moment to celebrate and a lot of people in the community are happy about this.”
The Tribune reported that “the adhan can be heard in other U.S. cities with large Muslim communities. In Detroit most calls to prayer are broadcast inside mosques. In the Detroit suburbs of Hamtramck and Dearborn, though, some broadcasts are done publicly, according to CAIR national.”
Residents of other cities where they are permitted have complained about the overwhelming noise from the calls.
There are more than 20 mosques across Minneapolis and over 150,000 Muslims.
An example of the loud call to prayer can be heard here:
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who backed Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, is preparing for a 2024 Senate run that could pit him against Sen. Mitt Romney in a GOP primary.
Reyes, who has been elected statewide three times, in recent weeks has discussed the matter with key players in Utah politics and with allies of the former president, according to a person who is familiar with Reyes’ plans. Reyes will make a final decision and likely announce his intentions in May.
“Sean is very seriously considering running, regardless if Mitt runs or not,” the person said. “He’s confident that regardless of what Sen. Romney wants to do, he’s going to pursue this.”
Romney hasn’t publicly discussed his 2024 plans. The 75-year-old former GOP presidential nominee and Massachusetts governor is being encouraged by some anti-Trump Republicans to run again for president, though multiple political operatives in Utah believe Romney is likely to retire from politics at the end of his current Senate term.
“I guarantee Trump will come up with somebody,” said Carson Jorgensen, chair of the Utah Republican Party. “There’s enough vitriol there that no matter if Trump is running for president, he will run a candidate against Romney.”
Rather than going after the Biden administration, Mitt Romney has spent his time smearing Trump and his allies.
White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he does not want to take sides when asked about New York City Mayor Eric Adams exempting entertainers and athletes from the city’s vaccine mandate.
The mayor has been facing extreme backlash for exempting those industries while still forcing mandates on city workers.
Fauci made the comments on Friday while speaking to Neil Cavuto on Fox News Channel’s “Your World.”
“Well, you know, Neil, that’s obviously a delicate situation in New York. I really don’t want to be out there out there outguessing the mayor, who I’m sure is trying to do what’s best for the city. But he made that decision to pull back on the requirement for vaccination for certain entertainers and sports figures and some of the athletic teams,” Fauci said. “I mean, as you mentioned, there is a pushback on that, that that might be unfair to others. But I’m not there on the ground in New York. I don’t have a good feel for what the situation is. So, it really is a tough problem. So, I’d rather not–.”
The host followed up by asking, “but just why couldn’t it be for everybody, doctor? I guess I’m saying if you’re going to not require vaccinations for athletes and entertainers, do the same for everybody else, or if you are, include the athletes and the entertainers, be consistent. What do you think?”
“Well, again, Neil, I don’t want to be taking sides on that. I think that the mayor had a difficult decision to make, as you mentioned, when you introduced the topic. There’s been a lot of pushback on that. Because some are seeing it as unfair. You can understand that. But you also have to look at the mayor’s side. Again, it’s a tough call. It’s really a tough call,” Fauci stated.
Adams claims that he made the decision to help the city’s economy.
“By putting our home teams on equal playing field, we increase their chances of winning and then has a real impact on our city,” Adams said. “This is just not fans in the stands, but it is people in the stores.”
The Patrolmen’s Benevolence Association, the city’s largest police union, has blasted Adams for the move.
“We have been suing the city for months over its arbitrary and capricious vaccine mandate – this is exactly what we are talking about,” PBA President Pat Lynch said in a statement. “If the mandate isn’t necessary for famous people, then it’s not necessary for the cops who are protecting our city in the middle of a crime crisis. While celebrities were in lockdown, New York City police officers were on the street throughout the pandemic, working without adequate PPE and in many cases contracting and recovering from COVID themselves. They don’t deserve to be treated like second-class citizens now.”
