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Dollar

Best of the Web: Deutsche Bank, Signature cut ties with US president, call on Trump to resign

Sophie Alexander, Sonali Basak and Steven Arons
Bloomberg
Tue, 12 Jan 2021 21:59 UTC
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank has decided not to do more business with Trump, while Signature Bank closes personal accounts, calls for resignation

Deutsche Bank AG and Signature Bank, two of Donald Trump's favored lenders, are pulling away from the billionaire president in the wake of last week's deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The German lender has decided not to conduct any further business with Trump and his company, said two people with knowledge of the matter, asking not to be identified because the deliberations were confidential. Trump owes the Frankfurt-based lender more than $300 million.

Signature Bank, the New York lender that's long catered to his family, is closing two personal accounts in which Trump held about $5.3 million, a spokesperson for the firm said on Monday. It's also calling for the president to step aside before his term officially ends on Jan. 20.


Comment: More insurrection: a bank calling for a president to resign!


Comment: Pretty rich (pun intended) for Deutsche Bank to be clutching its financial pearls considering all the dodgy business it gets up to around the world. But then again, the world's financial system is irredeemably corrupt to begin with.

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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Facebook bans phrase "Stop the Steal", Amazon suspends donations to pro-Trump lawmakers, GoFundMe removes pro-Trump fundraisers, and more totalitarian nonsense

Time Pearce
The Daily Wire
Mon, 11 Jan 2021 19:10 UTC
facebook vote elections propaganda messaging
Facebook is removing all content with the phrase "stop the steal" ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, the company announced on Monday.

Facebook issued a statement saying that it was removing all content with the phrase, used by supporters of President Trump to question the outcome of the 2020 presidential election because it violates the company's policy against "coordinating harm." Facebook said that it made the decision in light of the pro-Trump riot in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.


Comment: Anniversary tweet:



"We are now removing content containing the phrase 'stop the steal' under our Coordinating Harm policy from Facebook and Instagram," Facebook said in a statement. "We removed the original Stop the Steal group in November and have continued to remove Pages, groups and events that violate any of our policies, including calls for violence."

"We've been allowing robust conversations related to the election outcome and that will continue," the company added. "But with continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the US presidential election that can lead to violence, and use of the term by those involved in Wednesday's violence in DC, we're taking this additional step in the lead up to the inauguration. It may take some time to scale up our enforcement of this new step but we have already removed a significant number of posts."

Comment: Amazon's PAC is halting donations to Republican lawmakers who challenged swing states' electoral college ballots. Salesforce has blocked the RNC from sending out fundraising emails. GoFundMe has shut down numerous fundraisers used to raise money for traveling to pro-Trump protests. They did so after BuzzFeed agitated for their removal. Deutsche Bank, Trump's lender of choice, has decided to cease doing business with him. Airbnb is canceling reservations and banning guests "associated with hate groups."


Ever wondered what it would be like to live through the Russian Revolution, or Mao's Cultural Revolution Devolution? Well, you're getting a taste of it.






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Padlock

Best of the Web: Total crackdown: Facebook boots moderate conservative Ron Paul


RT
Mon, 11 Jan 2021 22:03 UTC
Ron Paul
© Getty Images/Steven Ferdman/ContributorFormer US Congressman Ron Paul
Former US congressman Ron Paul has been mysteriously locked out of his Facebook page and accused of "repeatedly going against our Community Standards." The platform didn't explain which content on Paul's page flipped the switch.

Paul tweeted a screenshot of his official Facebook page on Monday sporting a "You Have Limited Page Functionality" warning screen notifying him that he was "temporarily blocked" from "creating new Pages and managing our existing Pages."
While the warning implied the former Texas congressman had "repeatedly [gone] against our Community Standards," Paul insisted he had never before been given even a notice of violating community standards, let alone a strike or other official reprimand.

Comment: This is not about Ron Paul. It is about absolute control to censor or ban anyone, no reason necessary.

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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Greenwald slams liberals for being 'overwhelmingly supportive' of Big Tech 'brute force' against conservatives

David Rutz
Fox News
Mon, 11 Jan 2021 01:42 UTC
censored
Left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald panned liberals on Monday for supporting concerted Big Tech efforts to "manipulate U.S. politics" over the past three months.

Greenwald pointed to censorship of the New York Post's reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop in October, Twitter's permament ban of President Trump and the suspension of right-leaning social media site Parler from Apple, Amazon, and Google. These companies, he said last week, have more power than any companies in world history due to their ability to control speech and information.

"Tech monopolies -- FB, Google, Apple, Amazon -- have more concentrated wealth & power than any in history. They have used brute force 3 times in 3 months to manipulate US politics: censoring NY Post, banning Trump, destroying Parler. And liberals are overwhelmingly supportive," Greenwald tweeted.

"That these Silicon Valley monoplies are grace menaces to political freedom & economic well-being is *not* a right-wing view," Greenwald wrote, paralleling Democrats supporting Big Tech with their alliance with the War on Terror, of which he has been deeply critical. "Authoritarians never believe they're authoritarians, no matter how much censorship, surveillance, jingoism, & imprisonment they demand."
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: UK government may only let people out ONCE A WEEK

Steve Watson
Summit News
Mon, 11 Jan 2021 01:37 UTC
sad window
© Justin Paget / Getty Images
The British government has reportedly discussed upping COVID restrictions even further by only allowing people to leave their homes once per week.

Claiming that the National Health service is at breaking point, the government is said to be considering implementing stricter rules, including compulsory mask-wearing outdoors, and banning so called 'extended bubbles', where people are allowed to meet one person from another household.

Most chilling, however, is the revelation that cabinet ministers have privately debated preventing people from talking to each other in the street and in supermarkets, and even preventing people from leaving home more than once per week, and introducing curfews.

Speaking to reporters, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said "We're reviewing all the restrictions," adding "I am worried about supermarkets and people actually wearing masks and following the one-way system, and making sure when it's at capacity they wait outside the supermarket."
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NPC

Best of the Web: House Democrats plan to vote Wednesday to impeach Trump

Jeremy Herb, Manu Raju, Lauren Fox and Phil Mattingly
MSN
Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:45 UTC
pelosi
© Samuel Corum/Getty Images
House Democrats plan to vote Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Democrats on a caucus call Monday, setting up an impeachment vote one week after rioters incited by Trump overran Capitol police and breached some of the most secure areas of the US Capitol.

The House will vote Tuesday evening on a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, and then plan to vote Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET on the impeachment resolution, Hoyer said.

Democrats formally introduced their impeachment resolution Monday, charging Trump with "incitement of insurrection" as they race toward making him the first president in history to be impeached twice. Wednesday's vote underscores Democrats' fury toward Trump and his supporters after months of false rhetoric about the election being stolen whipped the President's most ardent followers into a deadly mob Wednesday that ransacked the Capitol, forced lawmakers to evacuate both the House and Senate -- and could have been worse.
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Merkel slams Twitter's decision to ban Trump: 'Problematic' violation of 'fundamental right' - and more internat'l response to big tech purge

Time Pearce
The Daily Wire
Mon, 11 Jan 2021 19:11 UTC

Comment: When your liberal-globalist allies have to remind you that you're supposed to be against fascist tactics, that's a sign you might have gone a bit far in your crackdown against dissent...


merkel
© Andreas Gora; Pool/Getty Images
German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized Twitter's decision to permanently ban President Donald Trump from the platform, calling the action "problematic."

Merkel delivered her thoughts on Trump's ban through her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, on Monday. Seibert told reporters that Twitter's decision potentially undermined the "fundamental right" to freedom of speech.

Merkel's spokesman said that social media companies "bear great responsibility for political communication not being poisoned by hatred, by lies and by incitement to violence" and that such companies should take steps to against such communication, such as flagging messages, according to The Associated Press. He added, however, that the right to freedom of opinion is of "elementary significance."

"This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms," Seibert said. "Seen from this angle, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the U.S. president have now been permanently blocked."

Comment: Hungary just launched an anti-censorship social media network, Hundub.
According to a report from French newspaper La Croix, the network has some differences from Facebook, including a button that allegedly encourages users to post politically incorrect images on the platform.

Csaba Pàl, the founder of the network, said he was surprised at the platform's rapid growth. However, some have criticised Hundub's launch; others have even claimed that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is secretly behind the network, which the creators have denied.
If the bit about the button is true, that is hilarious. (BTW, under law, swastikas and the hammer and sickle are banned in Hungary, so they are not allowed on the platform.)

Poland looks like it's showing everyone how it's done:

Turkish authorities are launching a probe into Facebook and WhatsApp over sharing users' data.

Back in the USSA, Rep. Nunez is calling for a racketeering investigation into big tech following the Parler ban:
"This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute. There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us, like me, like you, Maria," Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo.
Here are some Russian responses:
Alexey Pushkov, a prominent Senator and Chairman of the Federation Council on Information Policy and Media Relations warned on Sunday that the "diktat of internet giants" set a dangerous precedent. In a message posted to his official Telegram channel, the politician added that Moscow would "draw serious conclusions from the blocking of Trump by US social network conglomerates. Almost totally depending on foreign internet platforms is incompatible with the sovereignty of the country," he argued.

However, the founder of the Russian-created Telegram messaging service, Pavel Durov, has now warned that "the Apple-Google duopoly poses a much bigger problem for freedoms than Twitter." Of the two, he said, Silicon Valley stalwart Apple, worth more than $1.3 trillion, was the most worrying.

This, he suggests, is "because it can completely restrict which apps you use." Over the weekend, the tech giant announced it would ban social media service Parler from its iOS store over apparent breaches to its guidelines. Telegram, which says it prioritizes the right to free speech more than its rivals, has become popular with Trump and his supporters since the president was indefinitely suspended from Twitter and Facebook. Telegram's Durov added that his company was working on a web-based app as a contingency, should it become the next target of an App Store ban.


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Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: Insane politician Nancy Pelosi says rioters chose their 'whiteness' over democracy

Jordan Williams
The Hill
Sat, 09 Jan 2021 23:35 UTC
Pelosi Trump
© CNNHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi • President Donald Trump
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Saturday that the rioters who took part in the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday chose their "whiteness" over democracy.

The Associated Press first reported her remarks, which she made during an online video meeting with constituents in San Francisco. A transcript of her comments were shared with The Hill.

The comment came after Pelosi acknowledged the number of people who died of COVID-19 on Wednesday and Thursday, both of which were records for single-day coronavirus deaths in the United States.

On Wednesday, a mob of President Trump's supporters violently attacked the Capitol building while Congress, including the speaker, were in the process of certifying President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College win. The protesters sought to halt the certification of the election results after Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol.

Comment: These people are flagrantly in breach of the constitution. Trump is well within his rights to cite the Insurrection Act of 1807 and establish a de facto parallel government.

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Vader

Best of the Web: The Democrat-Big Tech censorship alliance just ran a masterclass in media control for dictators around the world

Graham Dockery
RT
Sat, 09 Jan 2021 20:43 UTC
Zuckerberg/Dorsey/Biden
© Adam Schulz/Sky News/KJNMark Zuckerberg • Joe Biden • Jack Dorsey
The takeover is underway.
Despite the mewling of the spineless American media, the real coup this week wasn't committed by President Trump's supporters, but by his opponents. They're writing a manual on modern regime change, and it's ready for export.

When President Donald Trump's supporters forced their way inside the US Capitol on Wednesday, they did not act as a unified force bent on seizing power. Instead they snapped selfies, looted souvenirs, and engaged in petty vandalism. While the rampage ended in tragedy for the protester shot dead by police, the police officer fatally injured, and the three others who suffered "medical emergencies" and died, it was soon snuffed out and Congress returned to work that evening to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory.

Their ringleader even urged them to go home and committed himself to the "seamless" transition of power to Joe Biden. Worst. Coup. Ever.
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Black Magic

Best of the Web: Rob Slane: The masks are coming off

Rob Slane
The Blogmire
Sat, 09 Jan 2021 20:41 UTC
orwell truth
I had intended to start the New Year with a heart-warming piece entitled, "2021: The Year of Censorship of Dissent". It would have been a somewhat prophetical piece, shocking some readers with predictions of a coming crackdown on dissent, and causing others to hoot with laughter because they haven't quite caught up with the times we are in. You know, the types who say things like "Oh perrrlease! Social Media companies are private companies and they have the right to decide who they allow on their platform" and "Stop making out it's the gulag" etc.

Unfortunately, my plans were scuppered by the fact that media and social media companies — let's call them Global Pravda — have come out of the blocks even earlier than even I anticipated, and have been censoring left right and centre. As a result, my intended "prophetical" utterance seems like yesterday's news.

We've had the censoring of Talk Radio on YouTube. Although this was then restored after intervention at the highest level, I understand some of the wonderful conversations between Mike Graham and Peter Hitchens are still banned. YouTube have also banned videos from extremely qualified scientists around the world, including two lengthy interviews given in English by one of the most qualified microbiologists on planet earth, Professor Sucharit Bhakdi.

We've then seen the President of the United States being banned from Facebook, Instagram and more recently Twitter. I am no fan of Donald Trump, but it is clear that he has never used these platforms to "incite violence" - the excuse given for his ban -, and it is obvious that there something else going on there. And we've also seen numerous conservatives and scientists who oppose or question the mass quarantining of healthy people literally losing hundreds of Twitter followers in the last few days. Their followers are simply being deleted by Jack's Magical Dissent Removing Algorithm, which has been invoked with a vengeance.
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