For time reasons, I had to cut my actual address a bit short Thursday. This statement, which began with a nod to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, is what was entered into the congressional record:
November 30, 2023
Chairman Jordan, ranking member Plaskett, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak.
Exactly one year ago today I had my first look at the documents that came to be known as the Twitter Files. One of the first things Michael, Bari Weiss and I found was this image, showing that Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had been placed on a “trends blacklist”:
This was not because he was suspected of terrorism or incitement or of being a Russian spy or a bad citizen in any way. Dr. Bhattacharya’s crime was doing a peer-reviewed study that became the 55th-most read scientific paper of all time, which showed the WHO initially overstated Covid-19 infection fatality rates by a factor of 17. This was legitimate scientific opinion and should have been an important part of the public debate, but Bhattacharya and several of his colleagues instead became some of the most suppressed people in America in 2020 and 2021.
That’s because by then, even true speech that undermined confidence in government policies had begun to be considered a form of disinformation, precisely the situation the First Amendment was designed to avoid.
When Michael and I testified before the good people of this Committee in March we mentioned this classically Orwellian concept of “malinformation” — material that is somehow both true and wrong — as one of many reasons everyone should be concerned about these digital censorship programs.
But there’s a more subtle reason people across the spectrum should care about this issue.
Former Executive Director of the ACLU Ira Glasser once explained to a group of students why he didn’t support hate speech codes on campuses. The problem, he said, was “who gets to decide what’s hateful… who gets to decide what to ban,” because “most of the time, it ain’t you.”
The story that came out in the Twitter Files, and for which more evidence surfaced in both the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit and this Committee’s Facebook Files releases, speaks directly to Glasser’s concerns.
There’s been a dramatic shift in attitudes about speech, and many politicians now clearly believe the bulk of Americans can’t be trusted to digest information. This mindset imagines that if we see one clip from RT we’ll stop being patriots, that once exposed to hate speech we’ll become bigots ourselves, that if we read even one Donald Trump tweet we’ll become insurrectionists.
Having come to this conclusion, the kind of people who do “anti-disinformation” work have taken upon themselves the paternalistic responsibility to sort out for us what is and is not safe. While they see great danger in allowing anyone else to read controversial material, it’s taken for granted that they’ll be immune to the dangers of speech.
This leads to the one inescapable question about new “anti-disinformation” programs that is never discussed, but must be: who does this work? Stanford’s Election Integrity Project helpfully made a graphic showing the “external stakeholders” in their content review operation. It showed four columns: government, civil society, platforms, media:
One group is conspicuously absent from that list: people. Ordinary people! Whether America continues the informal sub rosa censorship system seen in the Twitter Files or formally adopts something like Europe’s draconian new Digital Services Act, it’s already clear who won’t be involved. There’ll be no dockworkers doing content flagging, no poor people from inner city neighborhoods, no single moms pulling multiple waitressing jobs, no immigrant store owners or Uber drivers, etc. These programs will always feature a tiny, rarefied sliver of affluent professional-class America censoring a huge and ever-expanding pool of everyone else.
Take away the high-fallutin’ talk about “countering hate” and “reducing harm” and “anti-disinformation” is just a bluntly elitist gatekeeping exercise. If you prefer to think in progressive terms, it’s class war. The math is simple. If one small demographic over here has broad control over the speech landscape, and a great big one over there does not, it follows that one group will end up with more political power than the other. Which one is the winner? To paraphrase Glasser, it probably ain’t you.
It isn’t just one side or the other that will lose if these programs are allowed to continue. It’s pretty much everyone, which is why these programs must be defunded before it’s too late.
The Michigan civil rights law was amended to allow the state to dictate who the religious schools hire. Parents from Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Rapids have filed a federal lawsuit against Michigan officials.
Catholics, Jews, and Muslims unite against anti religious Michigan law. Three major religions in America are united as one when it comes to a civil rights law that was amended to go after Conservative religious beliefs.
The lawsuit has gained support from the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty and the Religious Freedom Institute’s Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team, both of which say the legislation will have “an especially deleterious effect” on minority faiths, according to a report from Fox News.
The Michigan Civil Rights Act was amended to cover sexual orientation and gender identity but “provided no protection for religious organizations that believe marriage between one man and one woman and the immutability of sex support human flourishing,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who is representing Sacred Heart.
“The missing protections mean that the change to the law requires Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish and its school, Sacred Heart Academy, to hire faculty and staff who lead lives in direct opposition to the Catholic faith, speak messages that violate Church doctrine, and decline to articulate Catholic beliefs in teaching students and when advertising the school to prospective students or job applicants,” ADF said in a statement.
Who will they come for next? Progressives goal to wipe out diversity and social disagreement. Have you noticed that those who claim that diversity is their goal want only those who think like they do?
The target since the Obama age was only single white males, then females, and white married couples were added. Children were the last that were added to the list. And maybe they will achieve their goal when they import the new China virus.
Ann Coulter did a take on a famous poem I’m sure you will recognize. Whites are still the main target, but only the beginning.
First they came for working class whites and I did not speak out— Because I was not a working class white.
Then they came for white police officers and I did not speak out— Because I was not a white police officer.
Then they came for white women who call the police, and I did not speak out- Because I was not a white women who calls the police.
Then they came for the white college applicants, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a white college applicant.
Then they came for statues of white male American heroes and I did not speak out— Because I was not a white male American hero.
Then they came for whites applying for jobs with the S&P 100 and I did not speak out— Because I was not a white applying for a job with the S&P 100.
Young Voters Flee Biden. Who Turns 81 Today. Happy Birthday Joe. My question is why they have voted for him in the first place?
The list of bad things that he and his administration have caused is so long. The Border, COVID, Crime increasing, Wars around the world, Weaponization of the courts, etc.
Among young voters (18-34 years old) — just 20% of whom view Biden favorably on Israel’s war on Hamas — Biden (42%) trails Trump (46%) by 4 points, which is outside the poll’s margin of error.
“This could be a massive sea change,” according to NBC News poll analyst Steve Kornacki, who noted Biden was plus-26 points on younger voters in 2020.
Field service employees at the National Education Association, which represents teachers, voted Monday to authorize a strike.
The NEA, the nation’s largest union, usually stokes strikes across the country, but Axios noted that the NEA is dealing with its own internal troubles among its 48 employees.
Despite the small staff, the union represents around 3 million education professionals from preschool to graduate school. It has been without a contract since May.
LaToya Johnson, the staff union’s bargaining chair, told Axios that NEA staffers are asking for the same kinds of benefits that they are fighting to get for teachers.
“The NEA is going to have to step up and honor the values of the organization,” Johnson said.
The union is asking for a raise in line with inflation. Unless both sides reach a deal this week, a two-day strike will begin Friday with a picket line at an NEA conference in Atlanta.
The staff rebellion comes amid a year of labor-movement resurgence, typified by the United Auto Workers strikes that have shut down dozens of plants as workers seek higher wages, better benefits, and new protections.
Even within those strikes, divisions have begun to surface. UAW members at some Ford and General Motors plants in Kentucky and Michigan rejected a tentative agreement between the car unions and companies.
Teachers’ strikes also are heating up, notably in Portland, Oregon, where the public school district just offered a significant salary increase. However, local unions rejected the proposal.
“When it comes to class sizes and caseloads, there was no improvement,” said Portland Association of Teachers President Angela Bonilla.
“For planning time, it’s the status quo for a majority of our members and less planning time for a portion of our educators. When it comes to a cost-of-living increase, there was no movement beyond a small one-time cash bonus.”
The scenic Ohio-based Oberlin College has been rocked again by a major antisemitism scandal with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights investigating the college for failing to stop harassment of Jewish students.
The new federal probe is just the latest setback for the liberal arts college, which has been reeling from a 2021 Fox News Digital report that its “Professor of Peace” Mohammad Jafar Mahallati called for the eradication of the Jewish state when he served as the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. in the late 1980s.
According to a late September U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) letter, “OCR will investigate whether the College failed to respond to the harassment of students based on national origin (shared Jewish ancestry).”
The OCR letter was sent to Oberlin College alumnus Dr. Melissa Landa, who filed the formal complaint in 2019. Landa told Fox News Digital: “Before Professor Mahallati deleted his students’ blogs, I read them along with other alumni, and saw that they reflected his violent antisemitic teachings. Through his lectures and his readings, Mahallati taught his students that Israel is an apartheid, settler-colonial regime and that Hamas is a benevolent organization that represents the will of the Palestinian people.”
Oberlin College in Ohio is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights for allegedly failing to stop harassment of Jewish students. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Landa spoke to “The Big Money Show” on Fox Business in early November about the alleged outbreaks of antisemitism at Oberlin College.
The OCR investigation into the management of Oberlin College and Mahallati coincides with Hamas’ mass murder of 1,400 people in southern Israel on October 7. The massacre has catapulted Hamas’ lethal antisemitism and violent jihadi ideology into the spotlight. Landa said, “Mahallati endorsed the terrorist group that was responsible for the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. For this reason alone, Oberlin should terminate his employment.”
Landa, who graduated from the college in 1986, said “Oberlin College is happy to see Jewish students attending Shabbat dinners and baking challah on Friday afternoons. But there is intolerance for Jewish students and faculty who wish to express their Jewishness by supporting Israel. There is a fundamental lack of understanding that for most Jews, a connection to Israel is central to their Jewish identity and an expectation that to be accepted on Oberlin’s campus, all expression of that Zionist expression must be forfeited.”
Andrea Simakis, director of media relations for Oberlin College, told Fox News Digital, “On September 29, the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) notified Oberlin of a 2019 complaint pertaining to alleged harassment of Jewish students on campus. This complaint was filed by a 1986 Oberlin graduate. Oberlin is cooperating with the OCR and working to respond to the request.
Then-Iranian Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Mahallati. Mahallati, now a professor at Oberlin college in Ohio, is under fire for his radical anti-Israel views. (Photo by Bill Foley/Time & Life Pictures) (Getty Images)
She continued that Professor Mahallati is on sabbatical this semester. Professor Mahallati has stated that he believes in the right of all people to exist in peace and endorses a two-state solution that would allow the people of Israel and Palestine to peacefully coexist.”
Landa submitted a dossier to the OCR of the alleged anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents from 2014 to 2017, including student comments about Judeophobia on campus.
According to Landa’s complaint, in the Autumn of 2016, “Oberlin students enrolled in Religion 270 with Professor Jafar Mahallati of Islamic and Peace Studies post anti-Israel blogs online that reflect the professor’s lectures and assigned readings.”
The complaint asserts that Mahallati’s course teaching involved claims that “Israel is a colonialist state” and “Israel is an apartheid state.” The complaint cites him in connection with “support for Hamas and terrorism.”
Numerous Fox News Digital press queries to Mahallati were not returned.
Supporters of Palestinians gather at Harvard University to show their support for Palestinians in Gaza at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
Simakis said, “Oberlin abhors antisemitism and all forms of hate, discrimination and harassment. The college works every day to ensure that our campus is safe for all students, faculty, and staff, including those who identify as Jewish. Antisemitism has no place on our campus.”
Landa fired back that “To correct this oppression, harassment, and ostracization of Jewish students, Oberlin should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Alumni made this request to President Ambar a few years ago, but she ignored our communication.”
Oberlin College’s highly controversial President, Carmen Twillie Ambar, has refused over the years to meet with the family of members of murdered Iranian dissidents whose killings were reportedly covered up by Mahallati, according to two Amnesty International reports.
Fox News Digital has been told by critics that Ambar’s chief of staff, David Hertz, is said to vehemently oppose the college’s adoption of the IHRA definition. Hertz declined to respond to a Fox News Digital press query.
In a fact sheet supplied by the college Mahallati has denied that he was complicit in the clerical regime’s mass murder of 5,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988.
The federal investigation into alleged Jew-hatred at Oberlin College is unfolding at a time when the U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced on Tuesday that he would pull the plug on federal funding for colleges if they fail to combat antisemitism. In 2023, Oberlin College received over $5 million in federal grants.
Students gather in the Dertouzos Amphitheater at the Stata Center of M.I.T. to show support for the Palestinian people. (Fox News Digital/Kassy Dillon)
Andrew Patinkin, Oberlin class of 2019, told the Jewish Press that the bashing of Israel is “pervasive” at the college. The 2016 Jewish Press titled its article about pro-Israel students at Oberlin: “At ‘Liberal’ Oberlin No Speech Rights for Non-Haters of Israel.”
Dr. Frieda Fuchs, an Oberlin-based academic who has previously taught at the college, told Fox News Digital that “Oberlin College has taken limited steps to ensure a balanced approach to the Israel question. Presently, pro-Palestinian students dominate the discourse surrounding the ongoing conflict. While it is commendable that Jewish students receive counseling, support, and comforting meals from organizations like Chabad, there is room for a more proactive engagement from all students.”
Fuchs, a veteran campaigner against antisemitism in Oberlin, noted, “As long as Oberlin College maintains a culture of passivity on the Israel issue, the challenges related to anti-Israel sentiments will persist. Empowering students to take a more proactive stance and address the issues surrounding the Israel narrative is crucial. Overcoming the fear of potential social or academic repercussions, along with the support of campus leadership, is essential for students to express their perspectives and contribute to a constructive dialogue.”
The owners of Gibson’s Food Mart and Bakery sued Oberlin College in 2017, claiming that the school had libeled them and said that their business was harmed by their actions. (AP)
In 2016, after a high-intensity campaign to oust an Oberlin professor, Joy Karega, who wrote a series of antisemitic Facebook posts blaming Israel and Jews for 9/11, the college grudgingly fired the non-tenured academic.
The prominent Iranian-American human rights activist Lawdan Bazargan has campaigned to compel Oberlin to fire Mahallati’s from his college position since 2020.
Landa and Bazargan spoke at a protest against Mahallati on the campus of Oberlin in November 2021. Bazarga’s brother Bijan was murdered by the regime for his left-wing views in 1988. Bazargan told Fox News Digital, “Oberlin College maintains that Professor Mahallati ‘believes in the right of all people to exist in peace.’ Mahallati’s silence on the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas terrorists against Israel raises questions about his stated beliefs.”
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting with a group of students in Tehran, Iran, on Wednesday, November 1. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
Iranian dissidents from Bazargan’s organization have accused Mahallati of being loyal to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The U.S. government has classified Iran’s regime as the world’s worst international state-sponsor of terrorism.
Bazargan said “Mahallati has not publicly condemned the atrocities committed by the gender-apartheid Islamic regime of Iran against women, children, and youth. Despite the regime’s well-documented human rights abuses, there is a conspicuous absence of critique from Mahallati on these issues. Furthermore, documents suggest that Mahallati glorifies Hamas terrorists and labels Israel as an apartheid state, yet he has never articulated his perspective on the two-state solution or acknowledged the rights of Jewish people to a sovereign state.”
She added, “Oberlin College’s continued support for Mahallati is a shameful endorsement of Mahallati’s views and a disregard for justice, accountability and human rights.”
Oberlin College has a long tradition of radical activism. In 2019, the owners of a local bakery were awarded $44 million after being falsely accused of racism by students and members of the school administration.
The quickest way to teach what “peace” isn’t and “intolerance” is among conservatives is to minimize Veterans Day at our kids’ schools. That is what one elementary school in Washington State is finding out.
Benjamin Rush Elementary in Redmond decided to forgo the annual Veterans Day assembly, according to Jason Rantz of KTTH-AM in Seattle.
Instead, school officials thought they’d replace it with something more current and, by way of their actions, important.
The school noted the new event in the school newsletter on Oct. 29 and Nov. 5.
No one knew what it was, however, or that it would be replacing the expected Veterans Day assembly.
It was an unwelcome change for the community. The patriotic songs sung by the choir as well as praise for the heroes who served weren’t going to be heard this year.
One very annoyed and not-so-tolerant father of a Benjamin Rush student refused to take the attack on the holiday and all veterans lying down. He contacted “The Jason Rantz Show” to rant about the injustice.
He expressed his disappointment but said he wasn’t surprised. Maintaining his anonymity for fear of reprisal, the father said that “the school administration has moved strongly away from pride in our traditions and American history.”
The harm of this decision spans well beyond the veterans and widespread participation in the event by the community. The students will be robbed of learning the importance of honoring history, tradition and the lives of those who fought on their behalf for both.
Veterans once got an assembly and respect here. Now that pride is being redirected to a U.N. holiday.
The U.N. General Assembly proclaimed Nov. 16 as the “International Day for Tolerance” in 1996 following UNESCO’s adoption of a “Declaration of Principles on Tolerance” a year earlier.
“Among other things, the Declaration affirms that tolerance is neither indulgence nor indifference,” the organization’s website says. “It is respect and appreciation of the rich variety of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance recognizes the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of others. People are naturally diverse; only tolerance can ensure the survival of mixed communities in every region of the globe.”
What is really being taught in the school’s move speaks to the reason our nation is falling apart and will continue to do so. The school is replacing a real holiday pregnant with historical meaning and example with a mock holiday being forced down our throats, one that means nothing to any of us.
In this father’s own words, “We should be taking the time to show our children and our community that we have brave men and women who are willing to stand up and fight for our freedom and the peace that other places in the world can only dream of.”
According to KTTH, a district representative responded in defense of the elementary school, saying it will celebrate the U.N. holiday by having students watch videos and make cards that will be distributed to the Seattle VA Medical Center. The paltry justification fell flat on the father’s ears — and rightfully so.
It showed a lack of intelligence and ill-intention. Frankly, if school officials truly were all about honoring veterans and teaching peace, they could celebrate both holidays.
Ten other schools in the Washington Lakes district are celebrating Veterans Day. Benjamin Rush Elementary is not. Read between the lines, folks.
This school is making a name for itself and opening the door for the rest to follow suit. Its move is consistent with the agenda pushed by progressives, Democrats, and the radical left to remove history and tradition from children’s lives and replace it with fantasy, self-hatred, and hatred for everything American.
There is nothing embarrassing or hateful about being an American. We have much to be proud of despite our imperfect history. And hidden in that “imperfection” are lessons our children can learn from.
Honestly, “tolerance” in the United States has gone overboard. There is too much of it. This father sets a great example by putting his foot down.
We need more like him to do the same today. We need to stop redrawing history and playing pretend. And although I applaud his courage, we need to show our faces as we do. That’s how we save America and set an example for our children to follow.
Ultimately, removing Veterans Day isn’t the answer to national peace. Removing these kinds of woke decision-makers from their jobs and our schools is.
What Trump or any other Republican should do day one when they are President January 20, 2025. DE weaponize all departments.
Former President Trump said he would return the favor to the Biden administration when it comes to weaponizing the Federal Government. First be it Trump or any other Republican, here’s my recommendations.
Fire all the top department heads. They need to go. Fire all the lawyers in the DOJ. Set up a commission to look into the department heads to see if any had committed crimes. If so, bring charges. Not as a group, but individually.
Finally remove all the Executive orders and remove the EPA’S ( and any other department ) power to make laws.
According to some German leftists she isn't diverse and inclusive enough.
Hits: 22
A German nursery said it wanted a name ‘without a political background’ but it comes amid growing concern at the rise in anti-Semitism.
The alteration was seen as particularly biting in light of rising antisemitism in Germany.
News of the plan to alter the name drew criticism and escalated media attention on Tangerhütte, a small town in northern Germany where the center has operated under that name since the 1970s, for fifty years.
The alteration was seen as particularly biting, in light of rising antisemitism in Germany, and against the backdrop of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the terror group’s devastating October 7 atrocities in southern Israel.
The city of Tangerhutte issued a press release on Monday clarifying the decision to rename the daycare center which is currently named after Anne Frank, a German Jewish girl who had kept a diary while hiding in Amsterdam from Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Officials said the topic had been brought up months prior to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
After Frank’s death of Typhus at the age of 15 in a concentration camp in 1945, her father found her diary, and it was published.
“As early as July 2023, the daycare center and the board of trustees presented the new concept and the changes to the local council as the first responsible body in a daycare inspection,” the city wrote in its press release. “On this occasion, the topic of name changes also came up. These discussions are still ongoing without a decision being made at the moment.”
Linda Schichor, the daycare director reportedly explained that a more child-friendly name had been chosen as the story of Anne Frank is difficult to understand, and added that parents with a migrant background don’t relate to the name, according to n-tv.
Tangerhutte Mayor Andreas Brohm added city council had “received many constructive suggestions and proposals,” noting that they were “very grateful.”
City officials said several parents and employees from the daycare had brought up the idea of the name change, according to the outlet.
“We wanted something without political background,” Schichor said, the German media outlet Volksstimme first reported.
The renaming of the daycare was met with criticism. Sven Schulze, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Germany wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the CDU members in the city council of Tangerhutte would “not agree” to renaming the daycare.
A field hockey injury on Thursday in Massachusetts sparked arguments relating to transgender women in sports.
SCOTT BARBOUR/GETTY IMAGES
Hits: 14
What happens when Transgender boys play on girl team sports.
A high school field hockey game in Massachusetts has become the latest flashpoint for transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports.
During a match between Swampscott High School and Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School on Nov. 2, a Dighton-Rehoboth player was struck in the face by a ball raised by a male player. Video of the injury circulated online, prompting outrage from many people, according to Newsweek.
