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Peter Myers Digest(2):The End of the Road for American Exceptionalism

(1) The Woke Purge - Brendan O'Neill(2) Storming of the Capitol marks the end of American Exceptionalism(3) 'No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again' - CFR president(4) The End of the Road for American Exceptionalism - Ishaan Tharoor in WaPo(5) Rush Limbaugh: Swamp, Pelosi Scared to Death of Trump's Final Days(6) Rasmussen: Trump's Approval Rating Rises After DC Protests(7) Nikki Haley says Social Media banning of Trump is action of Communist Party, not Democracy(8) Lt. General Thomas McInerney claims Special Forces captured Pelosi's Laptop(9) Amazon removes Parler from its servers; will take a week to relocate(10) Dershowitz says Impeachment not feasible, because Trump did not incite violence(11) For comparison: nearly 20 people died in first two weeks of BLM/Antifa protests. Caused $ billions damage(12) Google flags WorldTribune Covid articles "dangerous or derogatory content"(13) Trump's bulk emails blocked(1) The Woke Purge - Brendan O'Neillhttps://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/09/the-woke-purge/The woke purgeTwitter’s suspension of Donald Trump is a chilling sign of tyranny to come.Brendan O'Neill9th January 2021The woke purgeCancel culture doesn’t exist, they say. And yet with the flick of a switch, billionaire capitalists voted for by precisely nobody have just silenced a man who is still the democratically elected president of the United States. With the push of a button in their vast temples to technology, the new capitalist oligarchs of Silicon Valley have prevented a man who won the second largest vote in the history of the American republic just two months ago — 74million votes — from engaging with his supporters (and critics) in the new public square of the internet age.Not only does cancel culture exist — it is the means through which the powerful, unaccountable oligarchies of the internet era and their clueless cheerleaders in the liberal elites interfere in the democratic process and purge voices they disapprove of. That’s what Twitter’s permanent suspension of Donald Trump confirms.The new capitalists’ cancellation of the democratically elected president of the United States is a very significant turning point in the politics and culture of the Western world. We underestimate the significance of this act of unilateral purging at our peril. It demonstrates that the greatest threat to freedom and democracy comes not from the oafs and hard-right clowns who stormed the Capitol this week, but from the technocratic elites who spy in the breaching of the Capitol an opportunity to consolidate their cultural power and their political dominance.Twitter’s ban on Trump is extraordinary for many reasons. First, there’s the arrogance of it. Make no mistake: this is the bosses vs democracy; corporates vs the people; exceptionally wealthy and aloof elites determining which elected politicians may engage in online discussion, which is where most political and public debate takes place in the 21st century. Those who cannot see how concerning and sinister it is that a handful of Big Tech companies have secured a virtual monopoly over the social side of the internet, and are now exploiting their monopolistic power to dictate what political opinions it is acceptable to hold and express in these forums, urgently needs a wake-up call.Secondly, there is Twitter’s deeply disturbing justification for why it suspended Trump. It says Trump’s account ran the ‘risk’ of ‘inciting violence’. And yet the two tweets of his that it cites do nothing of the sort. In one, Trump describes his voters as ‘great American patriots’ and insists they will have a ‘GIANT VOICE’ in the future. In the other he confirms that he will not be attending the inauguration of Joe Biden. That’s it. In what warped moral universe can such standard, boastful Trump-made statements be interpreted as calls for violence?In the warped moral universe of pre-emptive, precautionary censorship being built by our tech overlords, that’s where. Strikingly, Twitter says its censorship of the president is based on how other people might read and interpret his words. It says its censorious motivation is ‘specifically’ the question of ‘how [Trump’s tweets] are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter’. Trump’s comments ‘must be read’ in the broader context of how certain statements ‘can be mobilised by different audiences’, Twitter decrees. So Trump’s words, strictly speaking, are not the problem; it’s the possibility, the risk, that someone, somewhere might interpret them in a particular way.This sets a terrifying precedent for the internet age. It legitimises a new regime of online censorship which doesn’t only punish inflammatory speech — which would be bad enough — but which punishes normal, legitimate political speech on the grounds of how other, unnamed people or groups might respond to it.There would be no end to what could be censored. Trans-sceptical feminists, already victims of Silicon Valley’s woke purges, would be completely wiped out on the basis that some idiot might interpret their intellectual, non-bigoted critiques of genderfluidity as an instruction to bash a trans person. Christians sceptical of gay marriage, pro-life campaigners furious about abortion, radical leftists who say ‘smash the system’ — all could potentially fall foul of this new diktat that says we are not only responsible for what we ourselves think and say, but also for the myriad interpretations that everyone else, from the man in the street to the weirdo incel, makes of what we think and say.On this basis the White Album should be banned, given its songs ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘Piggies’ were ‘mobilised by different audiences’ to terrible ends — the killings carried out by Charles Manson’s Family. Catcher in the Rye? Censor it. Don’t you remember how it ‘mobilised’ Mark David Chapman to kill John Lennon? As for the Bible, the Koran and any number of political texts and anthems — the risks of ‘mobilisation’ that they pose are clearly too great, so, to be on the safe side, let’s scrub those too.It isn’t just Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg (zero votes) had already indefinitely suspended Trump (74million votes) from Facebook. Reddit has scrubbed its Donald Trump thread. All social-media accounts that promote the mad Qanon conspiracy theory are being suspended. Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell have been banished from Twitter. YouTube is now banning any video and account that says the American election was fraudulent. This shows how ideological Silicon Valley oligarchs have become. For four years leading members of the media and cultural elites in the US and the UK have said the American presidential election and the EU referendum of 2016 were frauds. That they were meddled with, illegitimate, should be overthrown. You’ll find tens of thousands of videos on YouTube featuring people saying the vote for Brexit was a fit-up by Ruskies or an ‘advisory’ vote fraudulently turned into an instructional one. They won’t be taken down. Because our tech overlords are engaged in acts of openly political censorship.And then there’s Parler, the libertarian alternative to Twitter. Google this week removed the Parler app from its store on the basis that it doesn’t control its users’ inflammatory speech strictly enough. Apple is threatening to do likewise. All those who said ‘Just make your own social-media platform’ clearly underestimated the tyrannical determination of the woke elites to erase ‘offensive speech’ from every quarter of the internet. This is a full-on purge of any voice that significantly runs counter to the worldview of the anti-populist elites.That the left is cheering this on is cretinism of the most remarkable kind. They are green-lighting the most thorough assault on freedom of speech that the capitalist elites have ever carried out. They are sanctioning the control of speech by billionaires. They are celebrating as corporate oligarchies interfere directly in the democratic process. They are making a fetish of private property rights, insisting that the corporate rights of virtual monopolies like Twitter and Facebook, in this case their right to throw people off their platforms, override the social, democratic good of free public debate.I know this is unlikely anytime soon — given the entirely bullshit and pseudo ‘leftish’ posturing of the Silicon Valley elites — but imagine if at some point in the future the tech overlords decide that Bernie Sanders or some rabble-rousing organiser of protests outside Google’s HQ might ‘mobilise audiences’ to do something bad and decide to ban them? What will the left say? Nothing, presumably. Or nothing that should be taken seriously, given they will have helped to create this web of tyranny. They have forgotten the cry of the true radical Thomas Paine: ‘He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.’There is danger in the current moment. It comes not from horn-helmeted idiots and racist scumbags who paraded through the Capitol Building for an hour, but from those who wish to turn that despicable incident into the founding myth of a new era of woke authoritarianism. The business and political elites, determined to crush the populist experiment of recent years, will busily launch wars on ‘domestic terrorism’, clamp down on inflammatory speech, purge from the internet and from workplaces anyone with ‘incorrect’ thoughts, and blacklist those who believe populism is preferable to technocracy. They’re already doing it. The Biden administration isn’t even in power yet and this is already happening. Imagine how emboldened the new oligarchies and their woke mobs will become once Biden and Co are ruling. Brace yourselves; the purge is only beginning.Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboyRush Limbaugh: Swamp, Pelosi Scared to Death of Trump's Final Days(2) Storming of the Capitol marks the end of American Exceptionalismhttps://www.rt.com/russia/512022-biden-policy-repair-damage/American exceptionalism hurt by violent Capitol debacle, expect Biden to push aggressive foreign policy in bid to repair damage9 Jan, 2021 14:57By Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion ClubHow could something like this happen in Washington? It was assumed that, despite all its social and political problems that have worsened in recent years, America was different and far more robust than we are now seeing.A habit of being specialThe rule of thumb was, ‘there is America and there are others’. With the others, shortcomings are natural and to be expected, even if many of them are well-established democracies. But America is a different story, because by default, the US is a role model that was supposed to remain the democratic icon forever.Exceptionalism is foundational for America’s political culture. This type of self-identification was the cornerstone on which the nation and society were built a couple of hundred years ago. That’s how Americans are raised. And you will run into this phenomenon everywhere.When asking his supporters gathered by the Capitol building to go home, President Donald Trump said, "You are special." People from the more liberal political camp have even deeper convictions about the US being exceptional and therefore under an obligation to bring light into the world, as they see it.That’s why everybody is shocked – how could this have happened? The reaction was followed by a wave of explanations as to why the clashes near and inside the Capitol building only looked like similar events in other countries, but in reality, they were something entirely different. Here is a comment from the CNN website, "Sure there are superficial similarities... but what’s happening in America is uniquely American. It is that country’s monster."Such restlessness is understandable. If we look at exceptionalism in the context of the world order that we’ve had in recent decades, we see that after the end of the Cold War, the US has held the unique position of the sole global hegemon. No other power in world history has ever reached this level of dominance.Besides massive military and economic resources, America’s exceptionalism has also been relying on the idea that this nation sets the tone for the global worldview. This authorized America to certify systems of government in other countries and exert influence in situations that it believed required certain adjustments. As we all know, this influence took different forms, including direct military intervention.We are not going to list the pros and cons of such a world order in this article. What’s important is that one of the key aspects of this order is the belief in the infallibility of the global leader. That’s why American commentators and experts are so worried about the Capitol Building events and Trump’s presidency in general hurting the international status of the US.Boomerang effectGenerally speaking, post-election turmoil is not a rare occurrence. After all, the US itself has encouraged the new political tradition that has emerged in the 21st century. In recent times, in certain places, election campaigns haven’t ended after the votes were counted and the winner is announced. Instead, Washington often encouraged the losing side to at least try to challenge the results by taking to the streets. Indeed, resistance was part of the US Declaration of Independence after all.Western capitals consistently emphasized the legitimacy of such actions in situations when people believed that their votes had been ‘stolen’. Washington was usually the lead voice in these declarations. Granted, this mostly applied to immature democracies with unstable institutions, but where are all those unshakable, solid democratic countries today? The world is experiencing so much instability that nobody is exempt from major shocks and crises.Information overloadThere is another reason why traditional institutions are losing their footing. They were effective in a solidified informational environment. The sources of information were either controlled or perceived as trustworthy by the majority.Today there are problems with both. Technological advances boost transparency, but they also create multiple realities and countless opportunities for manipulation. Institutions must be above reproach if they are to survive in the new conditions. It would be wrong to say that they are all crumbling. They are, however, experiencing tremendous pressure, and we can’t expect them to be perfect.Looking for a scapegoatThe US is not better or worse at facing the new challenges. Or, rather, it is better in some areas and worse in others. This would all be very normal if America’s exceptionalism didn’t always need affirmation.Situations in which the US appears to be just like any other country, albeit with some unique characteristics, are a shock to the system. In order to stay special, America looks where to place the blame. Ideally, the guilty party should be someone acting in the interests of an outside power, someone un-American.This mechanism is not unknown to Russians from the experience in our country – for a long time now, Russian elites have been keen to blame outsiders for their own failures. But America’s motivation today is even stronger; there is more passion, because simply covering up the failures is no longer enough – America wants to prove that it is still perfect.Democrats are taking back the American political landscape. For the next two years (until the 2022 mid-term elections), they will have all the power – in the White House and Congress. Trump’s supporters have seriously scared the ruling class, and the Capitol building debacle during the last days of his presidency has created a perfect pretext for cleaning house. Big Tech companies are at their disposal (so far).Internal targetsTarget number one is Trump himself. They want to make an example out of him, so that others wouldn’t dare challenge the sanctity of the political establishment. But Trump will not be enough, something must be done about his numerous supporters. The awkward finale of his presidency opens the door for labeling his fans as enemies of the republic and democracy. [...]America’s resolve to prove to the world that it’s not like others will encounter the large-scale ‘material resistance’, which will make a dangerous situation even worse. At least with Trump we knew that he didn’t like wars, and he didn’t start any new ones. Biden’s credit history is very different.(3) 'No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again' - CFR president Richard Haashttps://www.rt.com/op-ed/511963-american-empire-capitol-resistance/The American Empire has fallen, though Washington may not know it yetNebojsa Malic9 Jan, 2021 11:58Wanting to turn back the clock and restore the American Empire to what it was before Donald Trump’s presidency is a fool’s errand. It’s already a thing of the past – and the storming of the US Capitol was just the last straw.Don’t take my word for it, though. "If the post-American era has a start date, it is almost certainly today," argued none other than the head of the Council on Foreign Relations – the foremost think tank advocating for the Empire in Washington – after Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol by several hundred Trump supporters protesting the certification of the election for Biden."No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again," lamented CFR president Richard Haas.We are seeing images that I never imagined we would see in this country-in some other capital yes, but not here. No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again. If the post-American era has a start date, it is almost certainly today.— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) January 6, 2021Sure enough, as Haas was saying this the NATO secretary-general tweeted about the "shocking scenes" in Washington and demanded that Joe Biden’s election "must be respected." British and French leaders followed suit, as did the Organization of American States. Turkey "expressed concern." Canada and India chimed in.Even Venezuela got into the act, condemning "acts of violence" in Washington and "political polarization" in the US, while expressing hope that Americans "can blaze a new path toward stability and social justice."#COMUNICADO| Venezuela expresa su preocupación por los hechos de violencia que se están llevando a cabo en la ciudad de Washington, EEUU; condena la polarización política y aspira que el pueblo estadounidense pueda abrirse un nuevo camino hacia la estabilidad y la justicia social pic.twitter.com/krqqFVV866— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) January 6, 2021Keep in mind that the US has refused to recognize Venezuela’s elected president or parliament, attempting for the past two years to install an unelected ‘interim president’ instead and call it democracy. While the Trump administration has led this effort, the Democrats – now poised to have absolute power in the US – have been fully on board.Likewise, the only time the Republican establishment and the Democrat ‘Resistance’ banded together in near-unison was to override Trump’s veto of the NDAA military funding bill, which contained a provision that would block him or any future president from withdrawing troops from overseas endless wars without prior congressional approval. The commitment to the Empire runs deep in the Washington ‘swamp’, as Trump used to call it."We are seeing images that I never imagined we would see in this country – in some other capital yes, but not here," said Haas.{Richard N. Haass@RichardHaassWe are seeing images that I never imagined we would see in this country-in some other capital yes, but not here. No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again. If the post-American era has a start date, it is almost certainly today.6:43 AM · Jan 7, 2021<https://twitter.com/RichardHaass/status/1346920408386129922>}This unwitting admission of ‘American exceptionalism’ basically says it’s fine for US-backed activists to storm parliaments in "regimes" that Washington dislikes and wants to change, but when Americans rebel against their own government they believe is acting illegitimately, that’s beyond the pale.While what happened Wednesday was not actually a "color revolution," the visuals were certainly similar enough for the world to take notice. It would be wrong, however, to blame the Capitol "insurrection" for the demise of the American Empire, when it was merely the last domino to fall.Again, don’t take my word for it – here’s Ishan Tharoor, a columnist for the notoriously pro-establishment Washington Post, declaring on Thursday that for "many abroad," the vision of the US as a shining city on a hill with global moral influence and authority "has already died a thousand deaths."For many abroad, that vision of the "shining city on the hill" has already died a thousand deaths. For some, it was always an illusion to obscure the Washington-engineered coups and client military regimes that defined their national politics for decades. https://t.co/DG1SnNGmBy— Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) January 7, 2021For some of these people, Tharoor argued, this narrative was "always an illusion to obscure the Washington-engineered coups and client military regimes." Indeed.{https://twitter.com/ishaantharoor/status/1347289344281890820Ishaan Tharoor@ishaantharoor·8 JanThe end of the road for American exceptionalismThere's a brand of Washington myopia that overstates America’s moral influence in the world and underestimates the depth of dysfunction already inherent in the American system.washingtonpost.com·8 JanAfter the storming of the Capitol, a distinctly Washington worldview whirred into focus, one that overstates America’s moral influence in the world and underestimates the depth of dysfunction already inherent in the American system.}Democrats and their neocon allies have spent the past four years blaming Trump’s ‘America First’ policy, lamenting that he was acting unilaterally, antagonizing "allies" and creating a "leadership vacuum" in the world. Those are the talking points of the incoming administration as well.Except they’ve clearly forgotten the events of January 2020, when Trump ordered the drone assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. There were no protests from US "allies" – or should we say vassals? Instead, they fell in line with amazing alacrity.Trump actually embraced the American Empire, he simply dispensed with the polite fictions it had used to dress up as something else over the years.Ironically, it was the mobilization of the entire US political establishment to get rid of Trump – starting with ‘Russiagate’ and the impeachment circus over the phone call to Ukraine, with nationwide riots about "racial justice" and the politically weaponized coronavirus lockdowns along the way – that did the lion’s share of exploding the myths that maintained US hegemony, both at home and abroad.Remember the ‘Deep State’ that was supposedly a Trumpian conspiracy theory? Yet its existence was confirmed in the impeachment hearings, a former CIA director openly praised it, and the eventual revelations of a FBI plot to frame General Flynn removed any vestiges of doubt.The mainstream media’s war on Trump, later joined by social media platforms – censorship of the legitimate and accurate Hunter Biden laptop story just before the election being just the most egregious example – also played out for the world to see. In the end, they banned Trump from every social media platform while he was still in office, even as he said he would leave peacefully.Basically, the entire US establishment was so consumed by the desire to burn Trump at the proverbial stake, they chopped up the scaffolding that held up the Empire to use as firewood.In a speech recently, Joe Biden vowed to "rebuild, reclaim America’s place in the world" as a country that will "champion liberty and democracy once more." That’s a daunting task, on par with putting the genie back into the bottle, un-spilling milk, or putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.Ironically, the only thing that could repair American prestige in the world might be to patch up the American Republic, almost broken by the four years of ‘Resistance’ to Trump. But as that would entail some self-awareness and soul-searching, it remains, shall we say, highly unlikely.(4) The End of the Road for American Exceptionalism - Ishaan Tharoor in WaPohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/01/07/american-exceptionalism-end-capitol-mob/The end of the road for American exceptionalismBy Ishaan TharoorJan. 7, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. UTCOn the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) appealed to the American ideal. A clutch of right-wing lawmakers during a joint session of Congress had challenged the certification of electoral votes confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. It should have been a procedural formality, but President Trump had set the scene for an angry showdown with his refusal to accept the verdict of the November election and propagation of false conspiracy theories alleging mass voter fraud. Sensing the passions of their base — and a political opportunity ahead of the next presidential cycle — a number of prominent Republican senators led the charge on Trump’s behalf."As we speak, the eyes of the world are on this chamber, questioning whether America is still the shining example of democracy, the shining city on the hill," Schumer said. "What message will we send to fledgling democracies, who study our Constitution, mirror our laws and traditions, in the hopes that they, too, can build a country ruled by the consent of the governed?"Only moments later, a mob of far-right Trump supporters burst through the surprisingly meager protections around the Capitol, stormed the building and plunged the proceedings — and the country — into chaos. At least four people died in the tumult. U.S. lawmakers were forced to find shelter, ducking under desks, cowering behind a few armed security guards. The mob rampaged through the august heart of American democracy, raiding congressional offices with seeming impunity.Some American commentators and politicians struggled to find language to describe what was happening. They pointed to the instability of war zones in the Middle East when talking about the rage of the crowds. They gestured to the venality of tin-pot despots in banana republics when talking about Trump’s incitement of an insurrection. They spoke of "3rd world style anti-American anarchy" in the halls of Congress, as if the antics of the mob were a desecration of the American character itself. Biden, in remarks delivered later Wednesday, said the events "do not reflect a true America. Do not represent who we are."As statements of shock and dismay flooded in from concerned U.S. allies, doyens of the Washington foreign policy community mourned what had happened to America’s image in the world. "So much for the peaceful transfer of power, for American exceptionalism, for our being a shining city on a hill," tweeted Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.It also gave Washington’s putative adversaries plenty of ammunition to condemn decades of U.S. rhetoric and policy. "Yesterday’s events showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy," tweeted Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, decrying sanctions placed on his country by the Trump administration.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the drama at the Capitol "showed how weak Western democracy is." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, with a hint of smugness, that her colleagues "hope that the American people can enjoy peace, stability and security as soon as possible."Leaders around the world condemned the pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and reaffirmed their faith in American democracy. (The Washington Post)"After yesterday, they will have one less source of hope, one less ally they can rely upon," wrote Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic, referring to dissident movements chafing under autocratic regimes. "The power of America’s example will be dimmer than it once was; American arguments will be harder to hear."But is that actually true? This piety about the American "example" and the apparent inability of prominent Americans to speak of Wednesday’s havoc as if it could happen here — well, it did — are two sides of the same myopia, one that overstates America’s moral influence in the world and underestimates the depth of dysfunction already inherent in the U.S. system.What happened at the Capitol was intrinsically American, bound within a long tradition of right-wing paranoia and nativist racism. Some in the rioting mob waved Confederate flags; they were goaded on by a president who has tapped into a deep seam of grievance that existed long before he took power.Polling already shows that a younger generation of Americans are less likely to believe in the "exceptional" nature of their country and more likely to want the United States to play a more limited, humble role on the world stage. But it’s those older than them, including key figures within the Washington establishment, who seem to need myths of American exceptionalism to hold onto.For many abroad, that vision of the "shining city on the hill" has already died a thousand deaths. For some, it was always an illusion to obscure the Washington-engineered coups and client military regimes that defined their national politics for decades. For others, what faith they had in the American example was zapped in the torture wards of Abu Ghraib and the mammoth, multitrillion-dollar excess of the United States’ last two decades of ruinous wars.Then came Trump, who explicitly cast doubt on the validity of American exceptionalism before wielding it as a blunt nationalist cudgel to attack opponents to the left. Under his watch, America became exceptional mostly in the scale of its suffering during the coronavirus pandemic. North of the border and across the Atlantic, onlookers could find in America’s woes reasons for pride in their own countries’ universal health care. And they could see in the weeks of racial unrest in the United States last summer, as well as the neo-Nazi tattoos sported by some of the Capitol rioters, evidence that their own societies’ experiments with multicultural democracy were perhaps enjoying greater health."There are Trumps everywhere, so each and everyone should defend their Capitol," tweeted former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, turning Trump into a metaphor for the perils facing all liberal democracies. Rodrigo Maia, president of Brazil’s chamber of deputies — the equivalent of the U.S. speaker of the House — warned of the possibility of a similar insurrection should far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, lose in the 2022 election.Far from the city on a hill, America had become a harbinger of darker days to come.(5) Rush Limbaugh: Swamp, Pelosi Scared to Death of Trump's Final Dayshttps://www.newsmax.com/politics/rush-limbaugh-trump-swamp/2021/01/09/id/1004889/By Sandy Fitzgerald    |   Saturday, 09 January 2021 10:17 AMWashington's "swamp" and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are "scared out of their gourd" about President Donald Trump's remaining days in office, according to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh."The hatred is visceral," Limbaugh said on his show Friday. "You can touch it. You can see it. You can see it steaming from the electrodes on these Democrats’ heads. I’ve never seen personal animosity like this. I mean, it is almost to the point of uncontrollable and unpackageable."House Democrats have drafted a second impeachment of Trump, several media outlets reported Friday, listing just one charge: ''Incitement to insurrection'' for the Washington protest on Wednesday that breached the Capitol building."They've gotta do this in 11 days. So they’ve gotta call the House together, then they got to get the Senate to go ahead and convict for this, and then they want a proviso that Trump cannot seek the presidency ever again," said Limbaugh. "That doing this is gonna pressure the cabinet and (Vice President Mike) Pence into invoking Amendment 25. But Pence has said that he’s not gonna do this."The push is coming because the "entire Washington establishment" is "scared to death of Trump," said Limbaugh."The four-year coup, the four-year effort to get the election results of 2016 overturned, there are all kinds of people who broke the law, all kinds of people who are quaking in their boots," he added. "They’re worried silly that Trump is gonna unleash some of these classified documents."Limbaugh also said the establishment is "terrified" that Trump will pardon people dangerous to them."The people in the Washington establishment, why did they want to stop Trump in the first place? Because they didn’t want what they have been up to (which is no good) for years to ever come out," said Limbaugh. "They’re worried to death that he’s got a card or two to play here yet, including the pardon power."He added that there was likely a "big sigh of relief" when Trump said he would not go to Biden's inauguration."Imagine if he decided to release a bunch of classified documents right before the inauguration ceremony," said Limbaugh.Normally, the Senate would be using the next few weeks to hold hearings on Biden's cabinet choices, Limbaugh also said, so they can be confirmed by senators on Inauguration day, but not this year."Two long, nervous weeks for the Democrats," Limbaugh said. "Major potential power vacuum. They are scared, folks. Do not doubt me on this."(6) Rasmussen: Trump's Approval Rating Rises After DC Protestshttps://www.newsmax.com/us/rasmussen/2021/01/08/id/1004872/Friday, 08 January 2021 10:42 PMThe Rasmussen poll, one of the most accurate polls of the 2020 election, finds President Trump’s approval is actually rising after Wednesday‘s protests.As Democrats move to impeachment and some establishment  Republicans call for the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, the poll finds 48% approve of the President’s job performance.A source close to the polling firm tells Newsmax that the rolling survey saw Trump’s approval soar to 51% on Thursday night.Trump’s approval has been up overall, jumping from 45% just before Christmas."Americans are disgusted that cities burned for months and Washington and the media did nothing," our source says, "But they still like Trump."(7) Nikki Haley says Social Media banning of Trump is action of Communist Party, not Democracyhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/nikki-haley-likens-trump-twitter-ban-to-act-of-chinese-communist-party_3650028.htmlNikki Haley Likens Trump Twitter Ban to Act of Chinese Communist PartyBY ZACHARY STIEBER January 9, 2021 Updated: January 9, 2021Social media companies banning President Donald Trump is something the Chinese Communist Party would do, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said Friday."Silencing people, not to mention the President of the U.S., is what happens in China not our country," Haley wrote in a tweet. ...(8) Lt. General Thomas McInerney claims Special Forces captured Pelosi's Laptophttps://whiskeytangotexas.com/2021/01/09/lt-general-thomas-mcinerney-ret-claims-special-forces-captured-nancy-pelosis-lap-top-computer/Lt. General Thomas McInerney (Ret) Claims Special Forces Captured Nancy Pelosi's Lap Top ComputerAnn Vandersteel's interview of Thomas McInerney begins at 36:15. His claim that special forces took Nancy Pelosi's lap top on January 6th is at 46:05(9) Amazon removes Parler from its servers; will take a week to relocatehttps://www.newsmax.com/politics/parler-ceo-statement-tech/2021/01/10/id/1004955/Parler CEO: Tech Companies Coordinated Plan to Close Us DownBy Eric Mack    |   Sunday, 10 January 2021 09:08 AMThe silencing of conservative speech on social media has spiraled into a "coordinated effort" by big tech to close down Parler, according to the social media platform's CEO John Matze."This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill the competition in the marketplace," Matze's statement read. "We were too successful too fast."You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don't count us out. #speakfreely."Matze's statement comes as Amazon is removing the platform from its webservers, which might take the conservative social media platform down for about a week."Sunday at midnight Amazon will be shutting off all of our servers in an attempt to completely remove free speech off the Internet," he wrote. "There is a possibility Parler will be unavailable on the Internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch."We prepared for events like this by never relying on Amazon's proprietary infrastructure and building bare metal products."Matze called out Amazon, Google, and Apple for orchestrating the "coordinated effort.""We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business; however, Amazon, Google, and Apple purposely did this as a coordinated effort knowing our options will be limited and knowing this would inflict the most damage right as President Trump was banned from the tech companies."(10) Dershowitz says Impeachment not feasible, because Trump did not incite violencehttps://www.independentsentinel.com/dershowitz-impeaching-the-president-for-the-riot-is-unconstitutional/Dershowitz: impeaching the President for the riot is unconstitutionalBy M. Dowling -January 10, 20210Democrats and some Republicans want to impeach President Trump claiming he incited people to riot. His trial is scheduled for his last day in office.Harvard Law Professor Emeritus, Alan Dershowitz claims that impeachment is not only wrong but unconstitutional, reports Newsmax."It's unconstitutional," Dershowitz told host Carl Higbie on "Saturday Report." "I mean, you cannot impeach a president unless he's committed high crimes and misdemeanors and these don't constitute high crimes and misdemeanors, they constitute Constitutionally protected speech.""You can condemn, you can attack, you can refuse to vote for, you can do all of those things which are politically available to you, but the one thing you can't do is use the law, which is impeachment, on something which is protected by the First Amendment."Dershowitz added the president cannot be blamed for the actions of the rioters who must be prosecuted."[Impeaching the president] would do more enduring harm to our Constitution than even the horrible rioters did, although they are strongly to be condemned and I'm very glad they're being prosecuted to the hilt," Dershowitz said. "It's part of the core theory of the First Amendment that you prosecute the actors, you don't prosecute the speaker."The speaker has a Constitutional right to advocate … advocate, not incite … advocate, which is what President Trump did. So, going after the actors, rather than the speaker is the way our Constitution laid it out."(11) For comparison: nearly 20 people died in first two weeks of BLM/Antifa protests. They caused $ billions damagehttps://www.worldtribune.com/after-year-of-equivocation-on-blm-corporate-media-reverses-position-for-capitol-breach/After year of equivocation on BLM, corporate media reverses position for Capitol breachBy World Tribune on January 8, 2021The leftist corporate media's coverage of the breach of the U.S. Capitol and its aftermath was a major departure from how it portrayed Black Lives Matter-led "peaceful protests" that ravaged American cities for much of 2020."At the time, many reporters, commentators and news organizations took pains to contextualize, rationalize and in some cases soften their coverage" of the BLM and Antifa-led burning and looting of U.S. cities, Daniel Payne noted in a Jan. 7 analysis for Just the News.Nearly 20 people died in the civil unrest in the first two weeks of BLM/Antifa protests. They caused billions of dollars in damage to businesses, homes and other property, "turning some urban centers into fiery wastelands and sending business owners scrambling to fortify their shops against destruction," Payne noted.In early June, CNN personality Chris Cuomo argued at the time that protesters should not be expected to be "polite and peaceful" during their demonstrations."[P]lease, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful," he said at the time. "Because I can show you that outraged citizens are what made the country what she is and led to any major milestone. To be honest, this is not a tranquil time."In the midst of Wednesday's breach of the Capitol, Cuomo appeared to have sharply changed his tune: "Those who stoked these flames must be remembered. They fed lies and moved people to exactly what we are seeing.""This is what you all pushed for," Cuomo said, referring to Trump-aligned conservatives. "Stoked. Agitated. Deceived. So angry, all 'us vs them' … and this is where it led. As you all knew it might." He further referred to the breach as "the low point in modern history."The Associated Press, meanwhile, appeared in its coverage of what transpired in D.C. to depart from a new stylistic approach it adopted last year, Payne pointed out.Informing readers that it would be "us[ing] care" in describing civil unrest, the news organization in September wrote on Twitter: "A riot is a wild or violent disturbance of the peace involving a group of people. The term riot suggests uncontrolled chaos and pandemonium."The AP argued that "focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, going back to the urban uprisings of the 1960s."Suggesting an alternative, the AP wrote: "Unrest is a vaguer, milder and less emotional term for a condition of angry discontent and protest verging on revolt."The AP appeared to utilize that standard in its coverage of the BLM/Antifa violence, when in the late spring it described looting, arson, flag-burning and clashes with police as "unrest." It similarly described as "unrest" sustained chaos in Minneapolis that involved the burning of a police station and multiple other buildings, some of which firefighters were unable to access due to ongoing violence."Yet the Associated Press in multiple stories this week described the Capitol crisis as a 'riot,' making it unclear just how the news service applies the standards it appears to have developed in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests last year," Payne noted.CNN personality Don Lemon also appeared to sharply reverse his position on after Wednesday's developments.Criticizing what he alleged was President Donald Trump's culpability for the breach of the Capitol, Lemon addressed Trump as "the worst of the worst" and said: "Some day in the future that will be all anyone remembers of you, that you were awful, terrible, the worst president, and that you won by an electoral fluke and by lying to people. You are a complete and utter disgrace is what people will remember."On Twitter, meanwhile, Lemon wrote of the protests: "So much for [law and order]."Yet Lemon during last year's Black Lives Matter demonstrations, Lemon said: "Our country was started because [of] the Boston tea party. Rioting."In late May of 2020, after two nights of violence, arson and destruction in Minneapolis, "Today Show" personality Craig Melvin said the network would be refraining from calling the mayhem a "riot.""While the situation on the ground in Minneapolis is fluid, and there has been violence," he wrote on Twitter, "it is most accurate at this time to describe what is happening there as 'protests' — not 'riots.' "On Thursday, the "Today Show" referred to the Capitol breach as a "riot."(12) Google flags WorldTribune Covid articles "dangerous or derogatory content"https://www.worldtribune.com/google-slaps-worldtribune-for-two-covid-related-stories-deemed-dangerous/Google slaps WorldTribune for two covid-related stories deemed 'dangerous'By World Tribune on January 8, 2021by WorldTribune Staff, January 8, 2021Two WorldTribune.com articles on the coronavirus, both of which cite the findings of scientists extensively, were deemed as having "dangerous or derogatory content" by Google.Upon reviewing the stories and making minor style corrections, WorldTribune submitted them for review but they were flagged a second time.Readers are invited to review the articles for "dangerous or derogatory" content that should be revised.The first, from August 10, 2020, — Testing: Countries using HCQ to treat covid have lower mortality rate than those which ban it — notes that scientific studies from around the world, 33 of them peer reviewed, showed the effectiveness of using hydroxychloroquine in early treatment of covid patients. <https://www.worldtribune.com/testing-countries-using-hcq-to-treat-covid-have-lower-mortality-rate-than-those-which-ban-it/>The second, from September 14, 2020 — 'Not from nature': Chinese virologist says her research shows covid originated in Wuhan lab — cites virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who fled China because she believed she would be "disappeared and killed" due to her intent to reveal information on covid's origins. <https://www.worldtribune.com/not-from-nature-chinese-virologist-says-her-research-shows-covid-originated-in-wuhan-lab/>(13) Trump's bulk emails blockedhttps://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/01/09/email-service-cuts-off-trump-campaigns-ability-to-send-to-followers-in-multi-pronged-censorship-blitz-1014159/Email service cuts off Trump Campaign’s ability to send to followers in multi-pronged censorship blitzJanuary 9, 2021 | Frieda PowersThe unprecedented censorship of President Donald Trump and his campaign continued as the team’s ability to reach supporters through emails has been blocked.Shortly after the president and his campaign were permanently banned from Twitter, their email service provider suspended the account’s connection to millions of supporters.  Campaign Monitor, the company used by the president’s campaign team, confirmed the move to the Financial Times.0:13 / 0:59"The self-service account associated with the Donald Trump Campaign has been suspended as of today, January 7th, 2021," Campaign Monitor said in a statement."Typically, political campaigns use multiple email service providers to send campaign, fundraising and other emails. Based on the low volume of emails that had been sent from the Campaign Monitor account, this is likely a very small portion of total email activity from the campaign," the company claimed.Here’s @CampaignMonitor‘s statement. I had been trying to pin down the other possible (likely bigger) providers. If you have any insight — please get in touch. DMs open, email in bio. pic.twitter.com/Y9Rbn6NfiW— Dave Lee (@DaveLeeFT) January 9, 2021Dave Lee of the Financial Times noted in a tweet that there "hasn’t been any Trump emails for more than 48 hours.""Almost unheard of — he sent 33 in the first six days of Jan; 2,500+ last year," he added.There hasn’t been any Trump emails for more than 48 hours. Almost unheard of — he sent 33 in the first six days of Jan; 2,500+ last year. (h/t @TrumpEmail)At least one of the services the team used, @CampaignMonitor, has suspended Trump’s access, the company confirmed.— Dave Lee (@DaveLeeFT) January 9, 2021 ...