'Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet'

‘Do you think my son was going to eat a black man’s dick?’ the dad yelled

'fulfill their 2020 battle cries to 'stack the court.''

'This is total vindication'

'Radically alter the constitutional landscape'

In recent days, Chinese internet users have found themselves unable to edit their social media profiles. The seemingly inexplicable phenomenon happens every year in China in the days leading up to June 4, to the consternation of the young and uninitiated. “They’re so strict during the university entrance exam period,” wrote one Chinese user, referring to a nationwide standardized test scheduled for June 7 and 8 that largely will determine whether and where high school seniors continue their academic pursuits. Similar comments blaming the inability to edit profiles on security measures related to the exam have been seen across the social media landscape. That these individuals can’t think of any other reason for heightened sensitivity this time of year exposes the naïve innocence of a population cohort still ignorant of the horrors that the government inflicted on its own people on June 4, 1989—the real reason for the social media disruptions. Today is the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.  Each year at this time, the communist regime closes some buildings and public services around the famed public square in Beijing. Virtual private networks, or VPNs, used by many educated Chinese to circumvent the country’s “Great Firewall,” mysteriously stop working. Across China, high-profile dissidents are rounded up and detained. Previous years saw reports of dissidents being forced to take all-expense-paid vacations under the watchful eye of government handlers. The Chinese government goes to a lot of effort to make people forget June 4. Perhaps too much effort—ironically, its bizarre behavior during this period is itself a form of commemoration and makes it hard for the rest of us to forget. When I lived in Beijing, I always knew the Tiananmen anniversary was near when I started seeing increased police presence near university campuses and officers near the city center armed with assault rifles instead of the standard-issue batons police usually carry. Clearly Beijing is petrified of June 4, and with good reason. The massacre is perhaps the blackest mark on the Chinese Communist Party’s record, even more unforgivable than the Great Leap Forward that caused the greatest manmade famine in recorded history and the Cultural Revolution that pushed the entire country into a decade of chaos. Those resulted from policy failures and intraparty power struggles. But this was the People’s Liberation Army opening fire on unarmed civilians—many of them students with promising futures. The Chinese people were shocked that their government would kill its own citizens in cold blood. So divisive was the Chinese Communist Party’s decision to use force that its own general secretary opposed the move and subsequently was purged and kept under house arrest for the remainder of his life. If any incident ever threatened to destroy the CCP and end its regime, this was it. The widespread calls through the years for Beijing to acknowledge the truth and compensate victims’ families consistently have fallen on deaf ears. Beijing doesn’t dare admit the truth, for fear it would irreparably damage the CCP’s legitimacy. Instead, Beijing has spent 35 years attempting to wipe the Chinese people’s brains of any memory of what happened on that horrific night. On the surface, this has been successful. If there’s one topic people don’t discuss in China, it’s Tiananmen. But the fact they don’t talk about it doesn’t mean they don’t remember. Although many in the rising generation know little or nothing of what happened June 4, 1989, their parents know. Some of them eventually break the news to their children when they’re old enough to bear the shock—and to be trusted not to speak about it. For the most part, this is a dangerous topic, though, and ignorance is often deemed preferable to the truth. Beijing can alter and whitewash history, but it can’t change the truth about what happened 35 years ago. Nor should we stand idly by as it tries to do so. The Chinese people still long for freedom. This was apparent with the nationwide white paper protests a year and a half ago, as well as with the lone protester on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge ahead of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s appointment in 2022 to a precedent-breaking third term in power, an incident reminiscent of the iconic photo of a lone man confronting a line of Chinese tanks following the Tiananmen massacre. This longing for freedom also is evidenced by the exponential increase in migration out of China since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in late 2022. We can’t bring freedom to China against the will of its government, but we can help preserve the memory of the Tiananmen martyrs and what they stood for. For decades, Hong Kong carried this torch through a vigil that drew tens of thousands of participants each year. Sadly, that city’s residents no longer can play this role, due to two draconian “national security” laws that made such activities illegal. The U.S. and Europe should help fill the vacuum by holding more vigils, establish June 4-themed museums, and educate the public about what really happened 35 years ago in Beijing. We also can help the cause by empowering Chinese diaspora communities to carry on their march toward freedom. The Chinese Communist Party fears its overseas citizens and uses many means to prevent them from exercising their freedom of speech and other political liberties. We must not let it do that in defiance of our laws and sovereignty. The courage of some Chinese students in recent years to speak out publicly against their government on U.S. campuses—and some students’ attempts to establish student organizations outside the reach of Beijing’s oversight—show that the spirit of freedom that played out on Tiananmen Square 35 years ago remains bright in the hearts of many Chinese. By embracing and cultivating this spirit, we not only enable them to enjoy their guaranteed freedoms, but also contribute to their longer-term efforts to drive greater freedom in China. The post 35 Years After Tiananmen Square, Beijing Still Tries to Erase Memories appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Registered voters across the battleground state of Nevada registered in prison and at commercial addresses such as casinos, strip clubs, and fast-food restaurants—and an election watchdog group is pushing for action before mass mailing of ballots begins.  Logan Churchwell, research director for Public Interest Legal Foundation, wrote Monday to Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena S. Portillo, who oversees voter registration in Nevada’s largest jurisdiction, including Las Vegas.  “In our analysis of Nevada’s statewide voter list dated April 9, 2024, we identified numerous addresses listed as residential that appeared to be commercial buildings where no one resides. Attached to this letter is a list of addresses from Clark County,” Churchwell wrote. “We are including pictures that we have taken at each location along with additional information we collected,” he added in the letter to Portillo. “We request that you conduct your investigation and make any appropriate corrections to the voter roll by June 17, 2024.” Public Interest Legal Foundation also posted a video on social media showing visits to numerous commercial locations where voters are listed as residing, only to find people unaware of the registered voter’s name.  YouTube oddly posted a disclaimer under the video that says: “Mail ballots submitted by voters who meet eligibility and validity requirements are counted in every election. Before they are counted, election officials vigorously verify the validity of every mail ballot submission.”  However, the point of the foundation’s video was to request that election officials verify the location of registered voters, then update voter lists accordingly. “Ensuring the accuracy of the voter roll is especially critical given that Nevada has recently expanded voting by mail,” Churchwell’s letter to Portillo says. As noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” jurisdictions across the United States have done a poor job of updating voter registration rolls in compliance with the federal National Voter Registration Act. This leads to the inclusion of dead voters or those who moved out of state remaining on voter lists in certain locations.  The Clark County Registrar of Voters office didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on this report by publication time.  Public Interest Legal Foundation has sued Washoe County, Nevada—which includes Reno—to force election officials to investigate commercial addresses on the voter lists. Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit.  The document below includes evidence and a list of suspect addresses in Nevada compiled by Public Interest Legal Foundation. Clark-County-NV-Request-for-Investigation-June-3-2024Download The post Casinos, Strip Clubs, Fast Food: Addresses Listed for Battleground State Voters Prompt Concerns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The rise of AI and complaints about online “misinformation” is now being used as an excuse for the Justice Department to deny transparency to the American public. The Justice Department is currently leveraging concerns about the potential for artificial intelligence to create deceptive deepfakes as an excuse to block the release of an audio recording featuring President Joe Biden and former special counsel Robert Hur. Hur is a former US Attorney and a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. He was tasked with investigating the handling of classified documents by President Joe Biden. This investigation was initiated after classified documents were discovered at Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., as well as at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. Hurr recommended that no charges be brought against President Biden as he reasoned that “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” In Hur’s opinion, “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” It was these statements that intrigued the Public about what President Biden testified to while under investigation and what led Hur to believe the President didn’t have the “mental state” adequate for trial. However, the audio recordings of President Biden’s statements have yet to be released, with the Justice Department wanting to avoid offering any transparency about Biden’s testimony. And now, after running out of reasons as to why the recordings should not be made public, the Justice Department argues that they could be used to promote “misinformation” and deepfakes – growing arguments that are used to justify censorship. We obtained a copy of the filing for you here. “The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and ‘deep fake’ technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files,” the Justice Department stated. “If the audio recording is released here, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed.” “A malicious actor could slow down the speed of the recording or insert words that President Biden did not say or delete words that he did say,” the filing argues. “That problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is now widely available technology that can be used to create entirely different audio ‘deepfakes’ based on a recording.” This argument forms part of a broader legal stance outlined in a court filing late Friday, where the Department contends that the release could lead to the manipulation of the audio to misrepresent the president’s words. Critics, however, view this stance as overcautious, pointing out the abundance of publicly available recordings of President Biden that could already be used for creating such deepfakes. They argue that the Justice Department’s fears are perhaps exaggerated given the existing availability of Biden’s voice in various formats across the media. In the court documents, the Department emphasizes the risk of malicious actors altering the recording—either by inserting false statements or omitting actual ones—to produce a fraudulent representation of the conversation. Bradley Weinsheimer, an associate deputy attorney general, has noted in his affidavit that such alterations could be more convincingly passed as the original if the actual audio were released. Conversely, keeping the audio under wraps would purportedly allow the Department and others to more effectively challenge any falsified reproductions. This controversy unfolds against a backdrop of intense legal demands by House Republicans, media groups, and conservative organizations, all pushing for the audio’s disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The administration, however, has only released a transcript of the interview, claiming it mirrors the audio recording with negligible exceptions such as filler words or repetitions. House Republicans insist that the nuances of Biden’s spoken words could offer insights beyond the written transcript, potentially critical to their broader impeachment investigation. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Justice Department Bizarrely Cites AI Threats to Deny Biden Audio Release appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Hmmm. 'The Apprentice' is Making a Splash Around the World but No U.S. Distributor Yet

On today's Morning Joe, Defender of the Faith Joe Scarborough ruled that an evangelical leader who expressed his support for Trump was guilty of "depravity," and "straight-out blasphemy."  What a display of religious illiteracy. Scarborough was outraged that the pastor had pointed out that, like Trump, Jesus had been convicted of crimes, and yet Christians worship Jesus. Blasphemy would be saying Trump is Christ, not that he's persecuted like Christ. Nodding along like Scarborough's own Ed McMahon-style sidekick, Willie Geist agreed: "There used to be a word for that: blasphemy." Scarborough didn't specify the punishment to be doled out to the pastor whom he condemned for blasphemy. Perhaps Joe will take inspiration from history: we're just a few days past the anniversary of Joan of Arc, condemned as a heretic, having been burned at the stake.  Eugene Robinson, who doubles as a Washington Post columnist and an MSNBC analyst, had kicked off the conversation, playing off his current WashPost column: "Here’s how Trump could make America great." You can guess Robinson's predictable answer: Trump should drop out of the race.  Careful what you wish for, Gene! Before Trump wrapped up the nomination, polls showed any of the other likely contenders would run stronger than he would against Biden! Back in January, for example, a CBS poll showed Nikki Haley trouncing Biden by nine points, whereas Trump only edged him by two. But back to Scarborough. Now that Joe has established himself as the arbiter of Christian morality and theology, beyond the unidentified pastor in question, how many more of the millions of evangelicals who support Trump will Defender of the Faith Joe banish for blasphemy?  Notes: Scarborough claimed that Trump was convicted of 34 "different" felonies. Wrong. As this CBS News article explains, Trump was convicted of 34 counts of one felony: "falsification of business records" in connection with the way that Michael Cohen was reimbursed for his payment to Stormy Daniels. But DA Bragg managed to manufacture 34 counts by charging every check, invoice, and voucher connected to the reimbursement as a separate crime.  Robinson claimed that in contrast with Trump, who has been convicted of 34 felonies, "the only thing [Biden] is guilty of is living to 81." Not so. Last year, we caught Robinson, in a bit of embarrassing sycophancy, claiming that Biden is "sharp as a tack." There are plenty of octogenarians with all their marbles. But as Robinson would surely admit in a candid, private moment, Biden ain't one of them.  Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 6/4/24 6:07 am EDT EUGENE ROBINSON:  Any other moment in our history, a candidate for IIany office who was convicted mid-campaign of 34 felony charges, would have been out, out of the race before the jury foreman had finished the 34 guilty verdicts, right? It would have just been automatic, unthinkable that, that someone would stay in any race given the status as a 34-time felon . . . All these sort of, you know, hand-wringing Democrats and chin-stroking pundits, they've been calling for Joe Biden to step aside. And the only thing he is guilty of is living to 81, you know?  SCARBOROUGH: Gene brings up such a great point, Willie. In the good old days, back, back when I was in Washington, I mean, heck, if somebody got indicted of 34 counts, they immediately resigned from Congress and, you know, went to prepare their defense. Here, Donald Trump gets, gets convicted 34 times,  34 different felonies, and, of course, you have United States Senators who are trying to use it as a badge of honor that their guy is being persecuted by the state. WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, I mean, martyrdom, right? I mean, he's been compared to religious figures, without irony, by members of the United States Congress, by people on TV, as a rallying cry behind him. And that's the, that's the Trump way, though,isn't it? Never surrender. Never apologize for anything. Put your head down, and keep moving. And pretend, despite all the facts around you, that you are the victim. SCARBOROUGH: And always, always play the victim. I mean, that's -- GEIST: Yes. SCARBOROUGH: That's always it. Always play the victim. Always play the martyr. You know, he was asked in, in this weekend, Fox and Friends interview, about evangelicals supporting him.  We even saw people that used to be -- I just saw shocking things by evangelical so-called leaders. One of them having Trump next to Jesus on a cross, saying, why wouldn't you vote for somebody who's been convicted? You worship somebody who was convicted. And that shows you, just the depravity that, that, that many of these people are willing to sink to. It's just straight out blasphemy. GEIST: I was going to say, there used to be a word for that: blasphemy.