This is not cultural censorship. Facebook is finally waking up to the reality that lies about our elections are well on their way to starting a civil war. With that display on the 6th, that rhetoric is now over the line. They let it go, right up until the consequences (as heinous as they are predictable) were clear.
for the past 4 years the media spun a narrative of Russian collusion, one that largely proved to be false and filled with fabricated stories.
Nanci Pelosi tweet May 2017: Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.
https://twitter.com/speakerpelosi/status/864522009048494080?...
Which...they didn’t do. Republicans blocked having witnesses or documents appear during the Senate impeachment proceedings.
So no, collusion was not largely proven to be false, because once it moved to the Senate, nobody was called to testify under oath since Republicans blocked it. The Mueller report remains largely unvetted, and while its conclusions are weak due to Justice Department policy on what a sitting president can be charged with (or accused of? I am not clear on this distinction), its evidence appears to be strong. We don’t know if it holds up or not. It was never rigorously examined, because Republicans blocked it.
in my opinion, the objective person would likely agree that Trump and his campaign have been rigorously examined both formally (by Mueller and his team) and informally (by the media).
i don't intend to change topics here, but in context of your usage of "never rigorously examined" one could point to Hunter Biden's international dealings as lacking rigorous examination, as stories on this topic have even been actively suppressed.
And that's bullshit. Mueller Report was a damning document that Mueller didn't have the guts to force Barr's hand, and Barr gleefully lied about and declined prosecution.
Furthermore, the objections by many about the election being "hijacked" was not an actual claim to voter-box or voter fraud, but of disinformation and foreign interference.
You should stop posting false whatabouts on HN, it's unbecoming.
as recent as June of 2020 the NYT ran a piece about "Russian bounties in Afghanistan" that was effectively walked back shortly thereafter after it was deemed "less than conclusive".
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghan...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-offic...
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1282646230779285504
i hope you find this more... becoming :)
No, the media spun the narrative of Russian interference, with possible collusion, something that turned out to be true (interference) and collusion was left uncertain (Muller stated quite clearly that if he could show Trump didn't collude, then Mueller would have said so, but that he was not going to say so).
"'The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,' Mueller told the House judiciary committee, adding that Trump could theoretically be indicted after he leaves office." [1]
Then the Trump DOJ didn't release the summary of the report, but their edited version, leaving plenty out, in order to get people like you to write what you just did. Mueller was so outraged at how the DOJ spun the report, that he immediately did a press conference about it, an unprecedented step.
Here is Mueller's letter to Barr on exactly this [2].
Once Trump is out of office, and several years have gone by without charges, then maybe you can claim these concerns were false, but they most certainly were not fabrications or lies.
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/mueller-refutes-trumps-no-co...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2019/05/01/719004457/read-muellers-lette...
i'd strongly beg to differ. fake news was at its peak during the first two years of "Russia-gate" with networks reporting on hearsay and drawing wild conclusions irrespective of hard evidence. journalistic integrity was thrown to the wind.
it seemed as if every week a "we got him" story broke only to fizzle as it turned out to be false.
the linked article below offers some examples of these fake news stories about Trump. and I do recognize that the second quote is written by Barr, not Mueller.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-mill...
Also, given current events, here’s a fun quote from the linked article:
> The Special Prosecutor literally became a religious figure during the last few years, with votive candles sold in his image and Saturday Night Live cast members singing “All I Want for Christmas is You” to him featuring the rhymey line: “Mueller please come through, because the only option is a coup.”
You might as well cite any fringe blogger. Your proof is like some idiot writing Trump is an Alien Unicorn on a personal wordpress site then claiming mainstream news was calling Trump an Alien Unicorn.
No wonder you're convinced of wild things.
I'm done with this level of dishonesty.
Rolling Stone is not The Economist but I have a hard time understanding the way you seem to be trying to characterize Taibbi.
Can you point to the specific 'wild things' and/or dishonesty in the Taibbi piece?
> You might as well cite any fringe blogger. Your proof is like some idiot writing Trump is an Alien Unicorn on a personal wordpress site then claiming mainstream news was calling Trump an Alien Unicorn.
> No wonder you're convinced of wild things.
> I'm done with this level of dishonesty.
woah.
setting Taibbi aside, can you not see how news cycles were dominated by a "Russian collusion" narrative the first 3 years of Trump's presidency? a narrative that largely proved to be exaggerated, false, and self-serving (it was great for business).
as recent as July of this year, the NYT published a story filled with anonymous sources and accusations of Russian bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan. within days, the media went into their typical "blitz" with this story and Joe Biden even had an ad ready to air in response to it. this story, like many others not only could not be corroborated by any mentioned parties, but proved to be "less than conclusive" and was later significantly walked back.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghan...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-offic...
Otherwise who do you think "Individual #1" is?
So when Trump is cleared by these indictments in the future I'll admit there was nothing provable in court. Until then we should wait to see what these existing charges do when they hit Federal court.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/11/20/937044524/once-out-of-office-...
Further, none of his “Individual #1” references are related to Russia collusion, even though they arose from things that spun out of that investigation.
Yes, unindicted because it's not clear if you can indict a President. Those are waiting for the day Trump is out of office, when indictments will likely follow.
From the sentencing memorandum [1]: Cohen states he "acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1", which is likely a felony - usually crime bosses dictating lower level people to commit crimes get harsher punishments than the underlings - and this will likely be tested once Trump leaves office.
So "Individual #1" is not merely a mention of a person. It's the label of a person that directed felony activities.
[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/12/7/18130805/michael-cohen-sentenc...
it's pretty fact-based and in plain sight
probably normal HN bias?
What's ironic is that people thought he was crazy when he said it would be possible to abolish the IRS, even though he had all the history and facts to back it up.
My take is that he optimistically might almost break into the top 525 most reasonable people in Congress.
> A Nursing Home had Zero Coronavirus Deaths. Then, It Vaccinates Residents for Coronavirus and the Deaths Begin.
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/20...
I think it more likely that Facebook is finally waking up to the imminent risk of heavy and heavy-handed regulation, possibly destroying its business model. I haven't seen evidence that Facebook cares about anything but Facebook.
But I see how quickly and how broadly conservative people are getting muzzled and vilified. I can to some degree see sense in taking away the microphone (and networking apparatus) between now and Jan 20. On the other hand, I can see it becoming the start of a witch hunt. How far are you going to go to shut down conservative voices, and for how long? The fact that it's hitting Ron Paul indicates to me that it is over-reaching reasonable bounds, even for the short term.
Oh, I think more of them do than seem to, but some of them are either hedging their bets with regard to the coming regime in case it happens, or outright supportive. Both groups have a strong motivation not to publicly acknowledge the risk.
You're right, but not for the reason you think.
Politicians, including the incoming regime, are at their mercy and ought to be careful not to step on any toes.