Category Archives: News

News

Facebook bans Franklin Graham for “hate speech”, Google YouTube shadow-bans pro-life videos

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Facebook banned Franklin Graham for "hate speech"
Facebook banned Franklin Graham for posting “hate speech”

There were some really interesting stories of censorship by big technology on the weekend. First story is about famous Christian pastor and evangelist Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham. Facebook didn’t like what he shared, so they decided to ban him from their platform.

The Washington Times reports:

The Rev. Franklin Graham was kicked off Facebook for defending North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” which the social-media giant’s review team decided was hate speech.

Facebook acknowledged over the weekend it had banned the prominent evangelist over transgender issues and called the 24-hour ban a mistake that it had already undone. But Mr. Graham was having none of it Sunday, calling the move “a personal attack towards me” and an example of the censorship that Silicon Valley has in store for Christians and/or conservatives.

A spokesman for Facebook told the Charlotte Observer on condition of anonymity that the review team had decided a 2016 post violated rules against “dehumanizing language” and exclusion of people based on, among other things, sexual orientation and gender self-identification. The post was deleted and Mr. Graham prevented from using the service for 24 hours.

I was thinking about this story when another news story popped up, this one about a transgender woman (a biological man) who screamed obscenities and treatened violence against a male store clerk and a female customer at a GameStop store.

Here’s the video: (WARNING: AWFUL VULGAR LANGUAGE)

And the story was reported by Daily Wire:

The video starts with the trans individual cussing out the male GameStop clerk after being offered store credit rather than a refund.

“I don’t want credit, you’re going to give me my f***ing money back,” the customer yells.

A woman not in the view of the camera took issue with the trans person’s vulgar language.

“Excuse me, sir, there’s a young man in here — you need to watch your mouth,” she says in a calm voice.

The trans person instantly becomes aggressive, screaming, “Excuse me — it is ma’am! It is ma’am!”

“I’m sorry. I can call the police if you’d like me to. You need to settle down,” the woman responds, keeping her calm tone.

“You need to settle down!” the enraged customer screams back at her, pointing at her face. “You need to settle down and mind your business!”

The trans person then turns to the clerk: “Ma’am! Once again: ma’am!”

“I said, ‘both of you,'” contends the young employee.

“No, you said, ‘sir’; once again, it’s ma’am!” the trans person screams in response, before threatening to fight him. “Mother f***er! Take it outside! You wanna call me ‘sir’ again? I will show you a f***ing sir!”

The aggressive customer then kicks downs products in the store and walks toward the exit door, but then turns back around.

[…]”I plan on telling the entire LGBTQ community,” he tells the employee. “You’re going to lose money over this.”

Indeed, anyone who disagrees with the LGBTQ community will lose money over it. And maybe even their means of earning money, too. That’s the way things are going these days, and the big technology companies certainly agree with punishing the wicked for their “hate speech”.

Meanwhile, over at YouTube, which is owned by Google, pro-life videos are being shadow-banned, because a pro-abortion journalist complained that she didn’t like seeing pro-life material in her search results.

The Daily Wire reports:

After a reporter from the leftist site Slate contacted YouTube, complaining that search results when using the term “abortion” featured a plethora of videos that were anti-abortion, including some from the pro-life group Live Action and others featuring staunch pro-life advocate Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, suddenly the platform reputedly reflected a change with more videos featured that were pro-abortion or simply not pro-life.

On December 23, Shapiro’s various videos were found behind at least 40 others; videos from Live Action, whose videos have garnered over 140 million views, were far beyond the 150th video to be seen.

April Glaser, writing for Slate, trumpeted her part in effecting the apparent change at YouTube. She started by comparing the results of conducting a search for “abortion” on Google as opposed to YouTube:

When you Google “abortion,” the top results are relatively staid considering the divisiveness of the topic in American life. There’s a link to information about the procedure from Planned Parenthood, a Google map of nearby abortion providers, a link to an overview of anti-abortion and pro-choice arguments from the nonpartisan procon.org, and links to various news sources like the New York Times and the New Yorker.

Glaser writes that she emailed YouTube on December 14 complaining about the search results, and voila! She wrote on December 21, “By the end of this week, the top results (which are dynamic) included a news segment in Tamil, a video in which the director Penny Marshall (who died this week) ‘Opens Up on Drugs and Her Abortion,’ and a clip of an anti-abortion advocate responding to the abortion-legalization law passed in Ireland. Anti-abortion content meant to enrage or provoke viewers was no longer purely dominating the results, though they still looked very different from the generally more sober Google results.”

So, if you’re wondering how the big Silicon Valley / Seattle technology companies work, it’s simple. If you disagree with their far-left socially progressive agenda, then they either ban you outright, or they drop your content down in their search results.

Google’s censorship of Wintery Knight

In my own case, the number of Google search referrals from this blog has dropped 90% since Google lost the 2016 election to Trump. That’s when Google decided to get serious about censoring my content and dropping it in their search results. Once upon a time, Google would send me 1000 search referrals for every 1 sent by DuckDuckGo. But now, DuckDuckGo is sending me more search referrals than Google. If I search for keywords I’ve written about, my results are far, far back in Google’s search results. But on Duck Duck Go, my blog is usually in the top 10. My friends have verified this.

If you haven’t tried DuckDuckGo, please give it a try, and switch. They are now using Bing for maps, and Yelp for store reviews. The search results are more accurate than Google’s biased results.

News

Mainstream media and Democrat politicians silent after illegal immigrant murders police officer

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California Police Officer Ronil Singh
California Police Officer Ronil Singh

Did you hear about the news story of a California police officer being murdered by an illegal immigrant during a traffic stop? Well, if you get your news from left-wing media sources, then you probably didn’t. The North American news media had almost nothing to say about it. I only found the story on a British newspaper’s web site, the UK Telegraph.

They wrote:

A manhunt has been launched after an illegal immigrant gunman shot dead a California police officer during a traffic stop.

The suspect had been stopped for possible drink driving when he shot the officer, Ronil Singh.

[…]Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson in California said authorities have identified, but won’t yet name the illegal immigrant suspect.

They believed he was still in the area, around 100 miles southeast of San Francisco, and was armed and dangerous.

Sheriff Christianson said: “This suspect is in our country illegally. He doesn’t belong here. He is a criminal.

“The sheriff’s office will spare no expense in hunting down this criminal.”

Fighting back tears the local police chief Randy Richardson said Mr Singh, 33, originally from Fiji, had a newborn son, and was an “American patriot”.

The police chief said: “He came to America with one purpose, and that was to serve this country.

[…]”Please remember the man. Yes, he was a police officer, but he was a human being. His five-month old he will never hear talk, he will never see his son walk because a coward took his life.”

I just want to remind everyone that it’s not just police officers who get murdered in open border / sanctuary city states like California. It’s unarmed civilians, too.

Remember the story of Kate Steinle? She was just walking with her family on a pier in San Francisco when an illegal immigrant – who had been deported many times – used an illegal firearm to murder her for no reason at all.

The Miami Herald reported at the time:

It was July 1, 2015, and Kate Steinle was walking with her father on Pier 14 in San Francisco.

But seemingly out of nowhere, a bullet ricocheted off the concrete and struck the unsuspecting 32-year-old in the back, according to NBC News. She died two hours later in a nearby hospital.

On Thursday, a jury found Kate’s accused killer, 45-year-old Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, not guilty on charges of murder, assault with a deadly weapon and involuntary manslaughter, The Washington Post reported. Garcia Zarate, a Mexican citizen who has been deported from the United States five times, was found guilty of possessing a weapon as a felon.

The defense argued that Garcia Zarate, a seven-time felon, found the gun, a Sig Sauer P239, on the pier and accidentally fired it when he picked it up, according to KTVU. That same weapon had been stolen four days earlier from an off-duty Bureau of Land Management Ranger’s car.

Zarate was acquitted of murder and assault charges against Kate Steinle. That’s right. He was ACQUITTED of murder and assault charges. He had been deported FIVE TIMES before this, and convicted of felonies SEVEN TIMES. In my view, every single California leftist should be tried and convicted of murder and assault, for allowing things like this to happen.

Republicans tried to introduce a law to stop killings like this from happening. They called it “Kate’s Law”. It was supposed to give tougher penalties to illegal immigrants who are deported and then re-enter the country to commit MORE crimes. The bill went up for a vote in the California house, and 166 Democrats voted against “Kate’s Law”. Only 24 Democrats voted for the law.

DID YOU GET THAT???? 166 DEMOCRATS OUT OF 190 DEMOCRATS VOTED AGAINST A LAW GIVING STRONGER PENALTIES TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO ARE DEPORTED, THEN RETURN TO AMERICA, COMMIT MORE CRIMES, AND ARE CAUGHT AND SENTENCED AGAIN.

My purpose in writing about this

I just want to make sure that people understand that when I report on these issues, I am not concerned with the race of the person who does the killing. I am not white myself. I am concerned with the politicians and the news media who do not want to protect law-abiding taxpayers in this country from criminals. If you cross the border illegally, then you are a criminal.

We have ways that allow people to come into the country legally. I am in favor of making it easier for skilled, law-abiding people of all races come into the country legally. I am not in favor of illegal immigrants entering out country and then breaking more laws, while imposing costs on law-abiding taxpayers for welfare, schools, health care, policing, and so on. We need skilled immigrants of every race who want to follow the law, pay taxes, and never collect welfare. But we don’t need unskilled illegal immigrants who commit crimes, increase government spending, and collect welfare.

Build. The. Wall.

News

Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Jesus was a refugee: is she right?

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This meme provides a good quick response to the challenge
This meme provides a good quick response to the challenge

I keep hearing that Jesus was a refugee from people on the left like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, things have gotten so bad, that even my Southern Baptist pastor told us the same thing in a recent Wednesday night Bible study! I think we better take a look at this, in case anyone else needs a response.

Fox News reports on the tweet:

U.S. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. wished her Twitter followers a Merry Christmas Tuesday by referring to the newborn Jesus as a “refugee.”

“Joy to the World!” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Merry Christmas everyone – here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)”

And here is the response, in the same article:

Mary and Joseph are not depicted as refugees in the Nativity story. According to the Gospel of Luke, Joseph brings the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem so that he may enroll in a census ordered by the Roman emperor Agustus. The couple are forced to take shelter in the stable where Jesus is born due to a lack of room at the inn.

However, in the Gospel of Matthew, Mary and Joseph flee into Egypt with the infant Jesus after King Herod of Judea orders the murder of every boy aged two and under in Bethlehem after the Magi ask him where to find the newborn “King of the Jews.” The Holy Family escape the slaughter and are told by an angel to return to Israel once Herod is dead.

The second part seems to be more like a refugee situation, until you remember that both Judea and Egypt were different states of the same Roman Empire. The strict definition of a refugee from the United Nations, recognizes persons as refugees:

“who are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence and unable to return there owing to serious and indiscriminate threats to life, physical integrity or freedom resulting from generalized violence or events seriously disturbing public order.”

Did Joseph and Mary cross national boundaries by moving from one Roman-ruled province to another? Did they cross national boundaries illegally? Did they intend to remain permanently? The answers to those questions are NO, NO and NO. So they were not refugees according to the standard meaning of the word.

People try to make the Jesus-birth narrative into an immigration situation because they want Jews and Christians to support open borders. The problem is that the Bible has a lot to say about immigration, and it doesn’t support the left’s open borders agenda.

I always find it funny when atheists on the political left want to misuse the Bible to try to get political support from Jews and Christians. It makes me wonder whether the secular leftists take the Bible seriously as an auhtority on any other issue.

Is Ocasio-Cortez willing to take Jesus seriously on marriage being defined as a commitment between one woman and one man? How about Jesus’ rejection of no-fault divorce? How about Jesus’ view of the exclusivity of salvation? I think you know where what the secular leftists would say about Jesus as an authority on those issues. Most secular leftists don’t take Jesus seriously on any issue. Many don’t even think he existed as a historical figure. But that doesn’t stop secular leftists from trying to win over religious Jews and Christians by appealing to their emotions.

What concerns me about this promotion of illegal immigration and refugees, though, is that people forget who pays the bills for all of this compassion. Ocasio-Cortez isn’t tell you what she’s going to do with HER OWN money when she promotes illegal immigration and refugees. She’s telling you what she’s going to do with YOUR money. And she’s telling you that so that you will think that she’s a very generous, compassionate person. The truth is that her supporters who click retweet and like on her stuff do that in order to communicate that they are also good and generous people.

Everyone is doing what feels good, and what makes them look good to others, but are they willing to pay for it? If Democrats had to PAY FOR the things they claim to want, then would they be in favor of those things? You need only look at the French leftists who voted for Emmanuel Macron to stop global warming, and then they rioted when he passed a gas tax that would stop global warming. Leftists shouldn’t be seen as rational people. They vote in order to feel good and look good to others. When they get what they voted for, they riot in order to get out of it. The same people who elected Ocasio-Cortez will riot against her policies once they realize that they are the ones who have to pay for what they voted for.