Newly released documents indicate the same Biden White House that routinely bemoans perceived threats to freedom and democracy hasn't just pressured social media companies to censor speech and hide conservative news — it has also gone after literature that contains disfavored views.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) revealed Monday that documents subpoenaed by congressional investigators indicate Amazon "bowed down to Biden White House pressure to censor BOOKS."
An internal Amazon email sent on March 9, 2021, regarding a meeting with the White House includes the question of whether the Biden administration was asking the company "to remove books, or are they more concerned about search results/order (or both)?"
Jordan indicated this question was a priority at Amazon because "Andy Slavitt — the senior Biden White House official who demanded that Facebook censor a meme and true information — was pressuring Amazon at the same time."
Slavitt is the senior Biden adviser who helped steer COVID-19 policy, told Americans they "could have all done a little bit better" during the pandemic, and pressured Facebook to censor Tucker Carlson videos and memes about vaccine side effects.
Jordan indicated that Slavitt and other people in the Biden White House "ran keyword searches for controversial topics, such as 'vaccine,' and emailed Amazon when [they] didn't like how the search results appeared."
In an email sent on March 2, 2021, Slavitt pressed Amazon on who the White House could "talk to about the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?"
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Slavitt wrote in another email, "If you search for 'vaccines' under books, I see what comes up. I haven't looked beyond that but if that's what's on the surface, it's concerning."
Zach Butterworth, Biden's former public sector liaison, similarly hectored Amazon employees about books on the site, expressing concern in one instance that there was no Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning label on the sales page.
Amazon initially refused to manually censor books for fear of drawing too much heat from the public.
The company's exchange administrative group noted in a March 2, 2021, email, "We will not be doing a manual intervention today. The team/PR feels very strongly that it is too visible, and will further compound the Harry/Sally narrative (which is getting the Fox News treatment today apparently), and won't fix the problem long-term problem [sic] because of customer behavior associations."
"If we completely remove customer behavior associations it will break the search," continued the email.
Rather than censor outright, the company decided — at least at first — to "widen the search light flag for COVID-19 CDC website re-direct so that it comes to the top of the page on more search keys."
Despite these efforts, the Amazon group conceded that "it won't be satisfactory. The WH will probably ask why we don't take the content like FB/Twitter do if we aren't taking it down. That is an option being explored by [sic] that we don't want to disclose to avoid boxing in."
On account of the Biden White House's pressure campaign to censor wrongthink, Amazon generated canned excuses, including:
Amazon's canned responses evidently failed to satisfy the ruling power.
One week later, Amazon representatives "feeling pressure from the White House" met with members of President Joe Biden's cadre "to take a closer look at books related to vaccine misinformation and debating additional steps Amazon might want to take to reduce the visibility of these titles."
It appears the White House got what it wanted: more censorship.
"Starting March 9—the same day as its meeting with the White House — Amazon enabled 'Do Not Promote' for books that expressed the view that vaccines were not effective," said Chairman Jordan.
A March 12, 2021, internal Amazon email indicated that the company had "CRM review all titles mentioned and have worked with the teams who specialize on Search, Reviews, and Personalization tools."
"One book (out of 9) was found to violate our COVID policy and was removed," continued the damning update. "As a reminder, we did enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective on 3/9, and will review additional handling options with these books."
Jordan denounced the Biden White House's coercive efforts during a committee hearing Tuesday, stating, "I've been thinking about it. Government pressuring Amazon to ban books. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube — all this big combination to impact [an] election and now we find the same thing was happening, the same dynamic was happening at Amazon."
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Concerning the new revelations about the state-driven censorship push at Amazon, Aaron Kheriaty, director of the Bioethics and American Democracy Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, tweeted, "More evidence of the reach of the federal censorship leviathan — not just social media but also books on Amazon."
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education noted, "If accurate, these new documents are yet another disturbing example of government pressure on private actors to suppress disfavored views."
Allum Bokhari, a journalist who has exposed various censorship efforts in the digital space, wrote, "The people who call their critics 'fascists' and enjoy cringe catchphrases like 'democracy dies in darkness' spent early 2021 using government pressure to ban books."
Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford School of Medicine and co-author of the "Great Barrington Declaration," wrote, "At this point, if the Supreme Court doesn't stop this Biden administration censorship nonsense (perhaps in the Missouri v. Biden case), the United States may as well apologize for its revolution, close up shop, and give itself back to the British Crown."
In August 2022, Bhattacharya joined Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Reopen Louisiana activist Jill Hines, and the states of Missouri and Louisiana in their legal effort to hold the Biden administration responsible for running roughshod over the First Amendment rights of critics and questioners of government COVID-19 policies.
U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in a July 4 ruling in their case that "if the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history."
Doughty issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration, barring its agencies and top officials from leaning on social media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce "content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms."
However, a three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit reversed the injunction for all officials save for the CDC, the White House, the surgeon general, and FBI.
The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently stayed the Fifth Circuit's order and is set to hear the case in the 2023-2024 term.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis squared off in a debate last night, and one thing was crystal clear: the two could not be more diametrically opposed on every single political issue.
Unsurprisingly, one subject that was broached was public education — what it should include and what it should not include.
Florida has been very open about rejecting the inclusion of gender ideology in its school curriculums, believing it is not the role of the school but rather of parents to determine how children should be taught in matters such as sexual orientation, gender ideology, etc.
“The role of the school is to educate kids, not indoctrinate kids,” DeSantis said, “and what we've said in Florida is it's inappropriate to tell a kindergartener that their gender is a choice; it's inappropriate to tell a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body.”
“Now California has that–they want to have that injected into the elementary schools,” he continued, pulling out an excerpt from a book commonly found in California elementary schools called “Gender Queer.”
Holding the page up to the camera, DeSantis revealed several blurred out pornographic images (images that he says “would not be able to be put on air”) that are featured in this “children’s” book.
Newsom’s face when DeSantis showcases the graphic images is a combination of haughty and perturbed as he looks down at his feet.
“When people on the left say that somehow you're banning books by removing this from a young kid's classroom — no, this is not age appropriate, and so we're going to stand for the rights of parents,” DeSantis continued, adding that he hopes to do this “nationwide.”
“I don't think you can have a situation where some states just trample on the rights of parents. Parents have a fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their kids.”
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California Democrats are taking action against what have now been deemed “conservative school boards.”
Governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento are rolling out new penalties for school districts that break state rules.
Among those penalties are a threatened $1.5 million fine if a school district refuses to back a state curriculum mentioning the late California gay rights leader Harvey Milk.
Officials will also be investigating board members, be creating new laws to fight banning books that are generally considered wildly inappropriate for children, and have issued a lawsuit against the school district that’s challenging a policy that requires schools to notify families when a child claims to identify as transgender.
In a clip on MSNBC, California Superintendent Tony Thurmond shows how excited he is for these new endeavors, claiming California “students are calling out and asking for help against MAGA extremists who are threatening them.”
“Sadly, the actions of some of the board majorities in our state are leading to violence against those who are in the LGBTQ-plus community and against students of color," he adds.
Dave Rubin, per usual, is not amused.
Rubin calls MSNBC a “televised mental institution” and adds “you’re going against parents,” not school boards.
“Parents are on school boards. They’re interested in a little transparency. They want to know what their kids are learning, who’s teaching them these things,” Rubin explains.
Rubin notes that the $1.5 million penalty for refusing to teach about Harvey Milk is incredibly laughable, because “Harvey Milk was also having an affair with a 16-year-old boy.”
Thurmond was also kicked out of a school board meeting in Chino after being told by the school board president that he was “not going to blackmail” them, to the cheers of the audience. This was in a fight with the superintendent over the idea that teachers should keep the children’s claimed “identity” a secret from the parents.
“It’s controversial to know if your kid is being secretly taught that they’re a girl if they’re actually a boy,” Rubin says. “That should not be controversial.”
“God bless these parents,” he adds. “There are still a few sane people in California.”
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As the world becomes oversaturated with what is basically flat-out insanity, it’s become impossible to tell the truth from satire.
And while this isn’t exactly a good thing, sometimes, it makes the satire even better.
Dave Rubin is well aware of this. Which is why he’s happy to share a satirical skit centered around the left’s claim that Ron DeSantis is using his position as Florida governor to “burn” books.
The skit features DeSantis with flames around him, joking that the governor is banning “classics like ‘P is for Penis,’ ‘Whore and Peace,’ ‘Moby’s Dick,”’ and “in a shameless act of partisan politics” is “even going after President Biden’s beloved pop-up book: ‘Shower Time.’
“Does your second-grader want to read ‘Charlotte’s Webcam’? Well, thanks to Ron DeSantis, that book has been banned,” the skit continues.
The satire was inspired by the intense backlash DeSantis has received from LGBTQ+ activists who believe the governor is banning books from schools that deserve to be on the shelves.
However, DeSantis sees nothing wrong with his “ban.”
“In Florida, pornographic and inappropriate materials that have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students violate our state education standards,” DeSantis said in a statement about the ban.
The ban began after parents of children in Florida schools found a myriad of completely inappropriate books in their schools' curriculums and libraries.
Some of these books were “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” a pornographic book showing sex acts; “Flamer,” a graphic novel about young boys performing sex acts at summer camp; “This Book Is Gay,” a manual on “the ins and outs of gay sex"; and “Let’s Talk About It,” a manual on how to masturbate for males and females.
Dave Rubin, a resident of Florida himself, finds the ban justified and the skit hilarious.
“It’s impossible to tell the truth from satire these days,” Rubin laughs.
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Wait, wait, wait ... Pat Gray actually AGREES with Joe Biden on something?!
Joe Biden has expressed that he can’t believe he’s actually having discussions about book banning in America. He’s just flabbergasted that people would want to ban sexually explicit books for children – books that teach “every single sexual position, perversion, and preference known to mankind.”
We have to wonder how he felt about the Democratic push a few years ago to ban "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Dr. Suess. Knowing him, he probably would’ve been on board.
But book banning is not the subject on which Pat Gray and Joe align.
In fact, Pat diametrically opposes Grandpa Joe on nearly every issue out there:
“Here's a guy who's been an active participant in overseeing the end of actual science and biology.”
“He's been an active participant in the fanatical effort to kill babies.”
“He is striving hard to destroy free speech, ... our sovereign borders, pronouns, women's sports, [and] affordable energy, including gasoline.”
“He's been instrumental in eliminating affordable food.”
“And maybe worst of all, he is the all-time leader in the evil war to eliminate truth itself.”
So what exactly is it that they agree on?
Biden claims that he never thought he’d be the president of the United States.
“I never thought he'd be president either, so at least we agree on that.”
Want more from Pat Gray?
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