This view that only government's can censor, that only state agents coming to your house and slapping something over your mouth counts as limiting free speech, really needs to be tackled.

The oddest part is that's it's generally the left which seems most content to let private companies wield extraordinary power over who can speak and how.

There are all sorts of legitimate reasons to limit free speech. Right now we are seeing one of them with Trump - to prevent incitement to violence and a threat to the functioning of democracy. But it is still censorship.

We need to be clear that that is what it is, rather than limiting our definition of censorship to the smallest range of actions conceivable.

This is not a new idea. Benjamin Constant, Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill were treating the silencing which comes from society as equivalent, or more dangerous, than that of the state hundreds of years ago.

And now a happy-making Christmas story. “Alan Jones settles defamation lawsuit with SBS.” https://t.co/OhEaHlVea7

“SBS filed a defence of truth to the imputations that Jones was a racist, a misogynist, a liar and a disgraceful high school teacher.”

“SBS also denied the meanings claimed by Jones, pleaded the defence of honest opinion, and asserted that Jones’ reputation was already so bad it could not be damaged by the broadcast.”

This relates to a tribute segment on “the Feed” by Alex Lee which said Jones "made a career out of bullying people", "gleefully used racial slurs" and "spread lies and fake news".

As the story says: Jones claimed in court documents that the broadcast conveyed ten defamatory imputations about him, including that he "achieved his success as a broadcaster by habitually seeking to intimidate vulnerable people".

That SMH story goes on to list a number of other things that Jones claims the story suggested.

Anyway SBS said this was either all trust or honest comment. An agreement was reached to take down the segment, and no apology or compensation to Jones is needed.

@tedcruz just announced he is one of the 12 Republicans joining the #SeditionCaucus ... call his office right now and tell him you choose #CountryOverParty

DC: (202) 224-5922
North TX: (214) 599-8749
South TX: (956) 686-7339
Central TX: (512) 916-5834
East TX: (903) 593-5130

just announced he is one of the 12 Republicans joining the #SeditionCaucus ... call his office right now and tell him you choose #CountryOverParty

DC: (202) 224-5323
Milwaukee: (414) 276-7282
Madison: (608) 240-9629
Oshkosh: (920) 230-7250

just announced he is one of the 12 Republicans joining the #SeditionCaucus ... call his office right now and tell him you choose #CountryOverParty

DC: (202) 224-5754
Oklahoma City: (405) 231-4941
Tulsa: (918) 581-7651

just announced he is one of the 12 Republicans joining the #SeditionCaucus ... call his office right now and tell him you choose #CountryOverParty

DC: (202) 224-2651
Helena: (406) 443-3189
Billings: (406) 245-6822
Bozeman: (406) 587-3446
Great Falls: (406) 453-0148

just announced he is one of the 12 Republicans joining the #SeditionCaucus ... call his office right now and tell him you choose #CountryOverParty

DC: (202) 224 4623
Baton Rouge: (225) 926 8033
New Orleans: (504) 581 6190
Shreveport: (318) 670 5192

1/ How do we prevent the next grifter-in-chief and stop Congress from enabling criminals in government?

2/ Trump and McConnell are both pushing pardons. Trump wants pardons for his criminal cronies, enablers, and children. McConnell wants pardons for meat packing plants and corporate criminals.

3/ Although past presidents have had family members working for them - Attorney General Bobby Kennedy is a famous example - none have ever had to pardon their family members for criminal activity in the White House. Until Trump.

4/ Trump’s family of grifters have been extracting money from our government and the American people since day one, starting with the inaugural fund scandal. Just since he lost the election. Trump has raised over $170, million: the grift continues!

5/ Trump has sold out our country and our values. He’s given top-secret information to foreign adversaries, embraced dictators and autocrats around the world, and enthusiastically damaged our relationships with allies. It’s almost as if he’s working for a foreign government.

TIL that the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency (CIGIE) Integrity Committee, which is charged with performing audits of IG shops & investigating complaints of IG misconduct, takes the position that all of the military service IGs are beyond their reach.

They maintain that they only have oversight over the DOD IG, but that means that the only entity overseeing some of the most important OIGs in the government is ANOTHER OIG, subject to the whims of whomever happens to be leading it.

As opposed to, say, ALL THE OTHER OIGs, ...

who are answerable to an entire committee comprised of IGs from across the government, which is NOT subject to any particular member's whim.

Let's put this in some perspective. An agency OIG is charged with an awesome responsibility. They are often a whistleblower's only ...

recourse, & if they reach a decision that there's nothing to see here, there's practically nothing you can do about it. Because of this, by design they are supposed to operate independently of the agencies they oversee, so they won't be captured by the subjects of their review.

In order to carry out this important & often unappealable work, it is important that they be subject to close oversight by an objective outside body. It is also mandatory that this objective outside body be charged with investigating whistleblower claims ABOUT THE OIG.

1. A brief thread on why we should not panic but should worry, even be a bit...alarmed.

I've been speaking with former Trump Administration officials and with other former senior national security types who remain plugged in to the Pentagon.

2. They think we'll most likely "be ok;" but they are worried about what one called the three I's:
Iran.
The Insurrection Act.
and (White House and civilian DOD leadership) Insanity.

3. Iran.

January 3 is the anniversary of Suleimani's killing, followed shortly by the end of the 40-day mourning period for Fakhrizadeh. So there is the prospect of Iranian retaliation, to which a U.S. response (or conceivably preemptive action) would certainly be legitimate.

4. Iran (cont'd)

But of course there's also the possibility of the Trump Administration using an Iranian provocation to launch an action that's way beyond proportionate, as well as the possibility of simply inventing a predicate for U.S. action.

5. Iran (cont'd)

This obviously wouldn't stop the transition or even endanger it; but it would create an atmosphere of crisis and even chaos in which the second possibility--the Insurrection Act--might seem more doable.

1. Military Intelligence contact continued:
. Everything is being coordinated and the funds were finally situated at 3:30am EST this morning Sat 12 Dec for what we have been waiting for FOREVER to pay out the final accounts (downstream liquidity in payouts to lowest level...

2. ... accounts Over the initial 72 hours after the shotgun release starts approx Mon 14 Dec);
. They are finishing this weekend the final settlements, closings, and processing of the master major accounts--that's what started at 3:30 am EST today Sat 12/12 when Trump, the...

3. ... top 5 Chinese Elders, and everyone got on the same page to start the release process;
. They are ON IT and Tue 15 Dec is the date to start Tue-into-Wed 15-16 Dec--it would take a major BOMB of interference to move it from that date—he said PLEASE PRAY.

4. . Trump wants everything FINISHED by Wed 23 Dec by mid-day--so the RV teams are pressing extremely HARD this weekend to get things ready, closed, funds settled in accounts GLOBALLY in all the levels, tiers 1-4, to start on time next week;(edited)
[10:42 PM]

5. . They will move forward within A 72-HOUR PERIOD with MON 14 DEC as INTENDED kick-off day but it WON'T REACH T4B till TUE-WED 15-16 at the earliest; currently they EXPECT T4B start APPROX. WED 16 DEC but it could go beyond that;

The White supremacists who attacked the Capitol on 1/6 claimed they were defending America from the coming destruction of an antiracist politics. This fearmongering piece argues antiracist demands at schools “would destroy the institutions themselves.”

White supremacist violence is tacitly being fomented by pieces like this one. McWhorter urged people to “resist destructive demands” and press “for the very survival of the institution,” and praised a professor who said the demands would lead to a “’civil war on campus.’” 2/9

And, as usual when writing on antiracism, McWhorter is arguing against himself. He misrepresented the position of campus activists and argued against his own misrepresentations. 3/9

He misrepresented these activists as believing their institutions are entirely racist, have never made antiracist changes, and need “to be blown up.” Then he points to the reforms these schools have made. 4/9

In fact, these activists would almost certainly acknowledge the existence of past reforms. But the issue is these institutions still have widespread and pervasive inequities and injustices which of course McWhorter fails to mention. 5/9

Finally got around to listening to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's Monday news conference, and *** I AM SO CONFUSED!!! *** 1/

On one hand, Lee told reporters that he did not impose a mask mandate because statewide mandates don't work, that people will only listen to their local elected officials. 2/

"A trusted voice in their community is their local official, the people that they elected to be their leaders," Lee argued. 3/

But, in Nashville where the local officials HAVE imposed a mask mandate, Lee said: "We know that people don't wear masks even when there's a mandate." 4/

So even local mask mandates don't work? 5/

1. Montana Governor

On the face of it, this looks good, govt extending the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' visa scheme from 10,000 to 30,000 to address lack of labour for farming industry after the end of Free Movement.
Here's grinchy Zoe to explain why it's bad. Sorry...

Until now, most seasonal agricultural work was taken on by migrants benefitting from the right to Freedom of Movement in the EU. This meant they could come, pick on this farm, move to that farm with the changing harvest, switch into other work, basically just live.

With the end of Free Mov the Home Office insists less & less convincingly that all lower-paid work our industries need can be covered by the domestic work force.

The "pick for Britain" drive to get British workers into these jobs was a car wreck, filling just 15% of vacancies.

So, yes. There is an urgent need for an alternative source of probably migrant labour to pick, sort and package food on British farms from January.

Two years ago they introduced a pilot visa scheme for this, originally to bring over 2,500 workers for 6 months at a time.

One year ago they extended and expanded the "pilot" scheme to 10,000 workers. There was of course no evaluation of the pilot's success before this expansion, no consultation with expert groups, no evaluation of the risks of the scheme (which I'll explain, are many).

One year ago, the US targeted killing of #Iran’s #GeneralSoleimani in #Iraq became the first known incident outside the context of a declared conflict in which a State invoked self-defence as justification for an attack against a State-actor.

The international community feared its aftermath would see military escalation with devastating consequences. However, while the worst in terms of a global conflict was avoided, worse struck nevertheless.

On 8 January,176 innocent people subsequently lost their lives when their flight, PS 752, was struck down by Iranian missiles. A month later, Iranians were killed, and hundreds arrested, as they demonstrated for accountability and truth from the Iranian leadership for this attack

And what of the young Iraqis killed throughout 2020 because they dared demand a better world? Because they dared reject the rule of the militias? A year later, those demonstrations have been crushed in blood.

So yes, there was no international war. But many paid the highest price, and many more continue, in the name of justice, to risk the same. And didn’t the US attack and its aftermath hammer yet another nail in the coffin of international law and international rule?

FBI official Steven D'Antuono says the bureau has opened 160 case files relatd to U.S. Capitol insurrection.

"That's just the tip of the iceberg."

Acting U.S. attorney Michael Sherwin on U.S. Capitol investigation.

"I think the scope and scale of this investigation in these cases are really unprecedented not only in FBI history but really in DOJ history."

He says the Capitol Grounds are, essentially, a crime scene.

SHERWIN describes "mind-blowing" range of criminality. Range of charges include:

-Simple trespassing
-Theft of mail
-Theft of digital devices
-Assault on local/fed officers
-Theft of potential national security info
-Felony murder

SHERWIN adds this is just the beginning.

He says they're charging some of these suspects quickly on the first possible charge, which buys law enforcement time to develop far more significant investigations leading to bigger charges.

🚨SHERWIN: "We're looking at significant felony cases tied to sedition and conspiracy."

Thx to @USAmbIsrael David Friedman for his time: Intvu ran > 2 hours. Lots of important/interesting stuff didn’t make it into piece. But for students of the conflict, it’s worth setting down some of that here. This will take 2 threads. Here goes 1st.

Straining credulity, he insisted there’d been no pressure campaign vs. the Palestinians. “I would call it minimal accountability, not maximum pressure,” he said — “holding them accountable to sort of basic norms of conduct.” /2

E.g., after PA Pres. Mahmoud Abbas defied Congress and urged the Int'l Criminal Court to prosecute Israelis, allowing the PLO mission to remain in Washington would have required the administration to defy Congress, too. “None of us wanted to shut down the mission,” DF said./3

Similarly, he argued that attacking UNRWA was not tantamount to harming the Palestinians, it was about defunding a “corrupt, decidedly unhelpful” agency that “perpetuates rather than relieves” suffering./4

“Almost every single thing that was adverse to the Palestinians by way of aid was completely avoidable” had they conformed to U.S. laws, he said: “These were all unforced errors on their part.” /5