The 2020 General Election Thread

[OakRiver]

Anyone familiar with the name James Baker? If not, he was FBI General Counsel, who was let go over accusations that he was leaking leaking classified national security information concerning the Trump administration to the media.

He is now Facebook's General Counsel. Big Tech hand in hand with The Resistance.

 

[JTScribe]

Great piece.

https://pjmedia.com/election/megan-...ex-tape-and-biden-burisma-corruption-n1054706

 

[OakRiver]

'Member when Harris tried to dunk on Pence for Trump catching COVID?

https://apnews.com/article/election...amala-harris-aa0bb12aca5568d20a7d6b86f24da7d0

"WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden’s presidential campaign said Thursday that vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris will suspend in-person events until Monday after two people associated with the campaign tested positive for coronavirus. The campaign said Biden had no exposure, though he and Harris spent several hours campaigning together in Arizona on Oct. 8.

Harris had been scheduled to travel Thursday to North Carolina for events encouraging voters to cast early ballots.


The campaign told reporters Thursday morning that Harris’ communications director and a flight crew member tested positive after a recent campaign trip."


Do we think Biden will be asked any pressing questions about this during his town hall tonight, or if ABC will give any push back because of potential risk to their staff?

 

[Phase2]

Twitter Suspends Trump Campaign, House GOP Accounts Over Biden Scandal As Jack Dorsey's 'Mea Culpa' Proves Meaningless

Mea Culpa? It was a non-apology and blatantly one-sided.

So, Twitter is now censoring an entire presidential campaign and at least a subset of Republican congressional access. I'm told Democracy dies in darkness and the curtain is being drawn down around free political speech.

Trump should withdraw all media (tweets/videos/etc) from these censoring platforms in the next 24 hours and move to free-speech respecting alternate platforms.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Twitter Suspends Trump Campaign, House GOP Accounts Over Biden Scandal As Jack Dorsey's 'Mea Culpa' Proves Meaningless

Mea Culpa? It was a non-apology and blatantly one-sided.

So, Twitter is now censoring an entire presidential campaign and at least a subset of Republican congressional access. I'm told Democracy dies in darkness and the curtain is being drawn down around free political speech.

Trump should withdraw all media (tweets/videos/etc) from these censoring platforms in the next 24 hours and move to free-speech respecting alternate platforms.

Twitter- Privately owned, not a free speech issue

 

[Phase2]

Twitter- Privately owned, not a free speech issue

Twitter- enjoying Sec. 230 protection while censoring speech. As Jamil already explained to you, this is no different then your phone company cutting off your phone call based on what you say or cutting off your service entirely based on what you say. They are not liable for anything you say because they do not try to control it. This is in fact is a free speech issue not based on Constitutional protections, but based on the protection from civil suits.

 

[jwamplerusa]

Easy fix "common carrier "!

After the behaviors displayed by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and their ilk; a congressperson and a senator should submit a coordinated simple bill to amend the current law to apply common carrier status to those platforms.

Let's watch the Democrats lose their minds with the thought that those entities could be regulated in to actually not interfering in speech that they don't like.

 

[chipbennett]

The CEO of Twitter's non-apology

I think Big Tech is scared of another Republican administration and potential Congress. Their ability to dance between publisher and platform could come to an abrupt end.

Of note: he didn't say the blocking itself was wrong/incorrect; rather, he merely said that they were incorrect for not doing a good job of explaining their censorship.

 

[chipbennett]

For the people that don’t like it, they can start their own tech firm. It’s not election interference.

I'll buy that argument as soon as Big Tech gives up their Section 230 protections.

And, "election interference" isn't defined they way that you imply that it is. At a minimum, Big Tech actions such as these constitute campaign finance violations as "in-kind" corporate contributions to certain political candidates.

 

[printcraft]

For the people that don’t like it, they can start their own tech firm. It’s not election interference.

Aren't you the guy that says it's "problematic" if people say: "If you don't like America you can leave it and start your own country."?

 

[chipbennett]

It’s not by any means a perfect analogy, which I’m sure detractors will point out. But it’s good enough to contain the necessary components to make the point.

We put reasonable restrictions on companies to prevent them from harming society. It’s fair to criticize overbearing restrictions. I formerly criticized nearly all restrictions. I no longer define “free market” as one that should have no restrictions. The invisible hand is a myth. If we say that the most powerful companies may bring to bear all their resources to manipulate the vote, then that promotes the oligarchy. Companies should not be allowed to subvert elections, which is what social media is doing now.

Eh, not so much. The invisible hand is constrained by government regulation, including Section 230 protections.

I would also propose another analogy: Big Tech monopolization of social media is analogous to a wealthy land owner buying up all of the land used as the "public square" or "public forum" buildings in every town, and then asserting private property rights to control the dialogue/discourse in the erstwhile public forums. Social media have made themselves the de facto public forum of the internet age (which they have done, in part, by consolidating a monopoly of social media and by driving all internet discourse away from independent blogs/sites/forums and toward their own platforms), and thus they have a direct impact on the ability of the individual to exercise freedom of speech.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Aren't you the guy that says it's "problematic" if people say: "If you don't like America you can leave it and start your own country."?

<<<<------Trying to figure out how much thought you put into making that comparison.

 

[printcraft]

<<<<------Trying to figure out how much thought you put into making that comparison.

Don't strain anything.

 

[Kutnupe14]

I'll buy that argument as soon as Big Tech gives up their Section 230 protections.

And, "election interference" isn't defined they way that you imply that it is. At a minimum, Big Tech actions such as these constitute campaign finance violations as "in-kind" corporate contributions to certain political candidates.

I'll give you 230 protections, kinda, I guess.. I don't see the these actions as being considered campaign finance violation. Just because it hurts Trump, doesn't mean it's meant to help Biden. You're going to need to make that connection for the violation to stick.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Don't strain anything.

I'm not, I just tried to imagine what you were thinking you we're trying to say when you wrote that, and then gave up, after I figured out it didn't make sense.

 

[Kdf101]

I'll give you 230 protections, kinda, I guess.. I don't see the these actions as being considered campaign finance violation. Just because it hurts Trump, doesn't mean it's meant to help Biden. You're going to need to make that connection for the violation to stick.

I would put forth the crazy notion that, by stifling a story that is not flattering to Biden, it is very much helping him.

 

[jamil]

Twitter- Privately owned, not a free speech issue

It is indeed a free speech issue. It's just not a violation of the 1st amendment.

 

[jamil]

I would put forth the crazy notion that, by stifling a story that is not flattering to Biden, it is very much helping him.

That's a contribution to Democrats, it has high political value, and is essentially an in-kind contribution.

 

[printcraft]

I'm not, I just tried to imagine what you were thinking you we're trying to say when you wrote that, and then gave up, after I figured out it didn't make sense.

Pretty straight forward comparison...

 

[OakRiver]

Of note: he didn't say the blocking itself was wrong/incorrect; rather, he merely said that they were incorrect for not doing a good job of explaining their censorship.

Precisely. Since then I don't think that they ever actually properly accounted for why the story was quashed.