John Hinderaker 🔥 How to Stop Big Tech Censorship

• How to Stop Big Tech Censorship
• Voter Fraud? Nothing to See Here
• Voting By Mail: How Other Countries Do It
• The Week in Bernie Memes
• A Guardsman at the Capitol

How to Stop Big Tech Censorship Posted: 24 Jan 2021 04:02 PM PST (John Hinderaker) A consensus is emerging about the most effective way to stop the censorship of conservatives by left-wing social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. The solution, as Paul’s correspondent was among the first to argue, is to work through the states. There are plenty of states controlled by conservatives–or at least people who believe in free speech–to make this happen. In my opinion, if a critical mass of states, say 10 or 15, enact such legislation, authorizing substantial statutory damages for each violation along with attorneys’ fees, the social media platforms will have no choice but to stop suppressing conservative voices. Bills have been introduced in several states, including Mississippi, North Dakota and (I think) Arizona, intended to stop online discrimination on political grounds. I have probably missed some, and more will be offered soon. Here in Minnesota, I believe a bill will be introduced in the state Senate sometime next week. When that happens, I will publish it here. My organization has been participating for some time in a group called the Free Speech Alliance, which was founded by the Media Research Center. Representatives of 52 organizations, including a couple from foreign countries, attended an FSA zoom last week. The subject of the call was how to fight back against Big Tech suppression of conservative views. My view that our most effective approach is to work through state legislation is, I think, becoming pretty universal. Watch for much more along these lines in the weeks to come.

Voter Fraud? Nothing to See Here Posted: 24 Jan 2021 12:36 PM PST (John Hinderaker) Senator Rand Paul appeared on George Stephanopoulos’s ABC show this morning, and Stephanopoulos, on behalf of his Democratic Party, demanded that Paul agree that the presidential election wasn’t stolen. That triggered a good discussion of voter fraud, which obviously exists and obviously is a problem. But the Democrats demand that we all go along with their pretense. Rand Paul was having none of it: Via Ann Althouse, where you can read the transcript.

Voting By Mail: How Other Countries Do It Posted: 24 Jan 2021 11:43 AM PST (Steven Hayward) On the podcast this week we discussed John Lott’s statistical analysis of voting anomalies in several key swing states, in which he concluded there were likely around 290,000 fraudulent votes. The difficulty is that the analysis depends on sophisticated regression techniques that are beyond the grasp of most laypeople, and indeed there is a serious critique of Lott’s paper that argues that Lott’s result is largely an artifact of the way Lott handles and classifies the data. I see this problem all the time in a lot of social science statistics that clutter my desk. Unless one is, as I describe Lott, a “level-six statistical regression ninja,” it is hard to judge these advanced techniques, which are far beyond the old two-standard-deviations-on-a-bell-curve that we all learn in Statistics 101. Leaving that difficulty aside, there is a lot of useful background information in the Lott paper on the experience of mail voting in other democracies, namely, that most other democracies severely restrict it, and/or have strict voting ID requirements—all things that the left here calls “voter suppression.” This is worth taking in and passing along: Concerns over fraud with absentee ballots is not something limited to Republicans in the United States. Indeed, many European countries have voting rules stricter to prevent fraud than what we have in the United States. For example, 74% entirely ban absentee voting for citizens who live in their country. Another 6% allow it, but have very restrictive rules, such as limiting it to those in the military or are in a hospital, and they require evidence that those conditions are met. Another 15% allow absentee ballots but require that one has to present a photo voter ID to acquire it. Thirty-five percent of European countries completely ban absentee ballots for even those living outside their country. The pattern is similar for developed countries. Many of these countries have learned the hard way about what happens when mail-in ballots aren’t secured. They have also discovered how hard it is to detect vote buying when both those buying and selling the votes have an incentive to hide the exchange. France banned mail-in voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people. The United Kingdom, which allows postal voting, has had some notable mail-in ballot fraud cases. Prior to recent photo ID requirements, six Labour Party councilors in Birmingham won office after what the judge described as a “massive, systematic and organised” postal voting fraud campaign. The fraud was apparently carried out with the full knowledge and cooperation of the local Labour party. There was “widespread theft” of postal votes (possibly around 40,000 ballots) in areas with large Muslim populations because Labour members were worried that the Iraq war would spur these voters to oppose the incumbent government. In 1991, Mexico’s 1991 election mandated voter photo-IDs and banned absentee ballots. The then-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had long used fraud and intimidation with mail-in ballots to win elections. Only in 2006 were absentee ballots again allowed, and then only for those living abroad who requested them at least six months in advance. Some European countries allow proxy voting, but that is very strictly regulated to minimize fraud. For example, proxy voting requires the verification of photo IDs and signed request forms. In Poland, a power of attorney is necessary to have a proxy vote and then can only be granted by the municipal mayor. In France, you must go in person to the municipality office prior to the elections, provide proof of who you are, provide proof of reason for absence (for example, letter from your employer or medical certificate), and then nominate a proxy. Proxy voting is not only very limited, but it prevents the problem that absentee ballots are unsecured. Proxy voting requires that the proxy vote in-person in a voting booth. I’ve omitted the footnotes to each of these instances Lott cites, but if you want to chase after them download the whole paper at the link above. Seems to me we ought to be reminding liberals how often they praise European nations as models of good governance, and advocate that we follow their example of election integrity.

The Week in Bernie Memes Posted: 24 Jan 2021 09:10 AM PST (Steven Hayward) Okay, it’s official: The Bernie Sanders Lawn Chair Memes have taken over the world. They’ve rocketed to the top of the socialist charts, the best showing since 1917. This is the first time in recorded history that socialism has ever produced anything in abundance (except misery of course). Chris Christie’s beach chair escapade has been eclipsed, and needless to say, eclipsing Christie is no simple task! So this calls for a special TWiP edition to keep up, because at the exponential growth rate of Bernie Memes, by next Saturday Bernie Memes will take up fully half of the world’s cloud storage capacity. The most fitting place for him.        Don’t cross the streams!

A Guardsman at the Capitol Posted: 24 Jan 2021 07:59 AM PST (Scott Johnson) Apparently having passed the necessary vetting, a long-time reader writes from his unit guarding the Capitol: My guard unit was called up last [week] to help secure the Capitol and has been providing security since [January 16]. In 48 hours of on-duty security I have not seen a single protester — only one drunk guy who cussed my 2nd platoon (which raised morale for a good two hours – soldiers like and respect fluent profanity). Last night I saw probably 2000 riot-prepared soldiers unload from buses and enter the perimeter. This level of military involvement surpasses overreaction, skips past overkill, and pegs “insane.” Whoever ordered this response is completely out of touch with reality. Twenty thousand is a difficult number to explain. It’s especially strange how it’s a much larger number, relatively, than in 7 A.D. when Varian lost about that many in the Teutoburg forest. But 20,000 troops is three times as many as I deployed to Kuwait with in 2019 for a rotation there, and that seemed huge. The cost of having these troops in the District of Columbia for one week, including all the movement, food, hotel rooms, and medical probably runs over $100 million. It is just another data point that indicates the people running the country are not living in the same reality as the rest of us. And now (I wrote my first draft several days ago) there is word that “some National Guard units” will remain in DC through MARCH to “guard the senate.” To guard the Senate? For THREE MONTHS? May I just say, if you had any respect for the FBI or any belief that it was not a fully partisan organization, you were completely wrong. If there was any “credible intelligence” that there was enough of a threat to require 20,000 national guard troops at the Capitol this past week, then the FBI is completely failing. The fact that the alleged credible evidence was clearly inaccurate tells me that I should not ever trust the FBI with anything I would give a 19-year-old soldier…