Jan. 21, 2021 - Epoch Times
15:23
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| Good evening. | |
| After President Trump was impeached yesterday, he came out and delivered a video message calling for peace, law and order. | |
| And surprisingly, even though he was banned from YouTube earlier in the day, his message was still available on the platform. | |
| Now afterwards, Mitch McConnell, he came out and made a statement confirming that any possible Senate hearing would not happen until after January the 20th, perhaps making the entire thing moot. | |
| Now, over in the House, lawmakers are now being fined up to $2,500 for not wearing masks, and they're being fined even more for not going through metal detectors. | |
| And meanwhile, over on Twitter, their value nosedived by 12%, and afterwards, Jack Dorsey came out, and he made a statement about how banning Trump set a dangerous precedent and further division in the nation. | |
| However, some people are not buying it. | |
| Let's go through these stories together. | |
| This is your never-ending 2020 election update, and I'm your host, Roman, from The Epoch Times. | |
| Now, let's begin today by talking about the developments related to the impeachment. | |
| So, of course, as we already discussed in yesterday's episode, President Trump was impeached by the House for a second time. | |
| The vote wound up being about 10 Republicans and 222 Democrats voting in favor of charging President Trump with inciting an insurrection that resulted in the breach of the U.S. Capitol on January the 6th. | |
| Now, since then, Mitch McConnell, he came out and he said that the second impeachment trial in the Senate would not begin until after January the 20th, basically after the end of President Trump's first term. | |
| In a statement, he said, And then he went on, | |
| This is not a decision I am making. | |
| It is a fact. | |
| And now I want to note something. | |
| While a number of media outlets, politicians, and critics blame President Trump for what happened at the U.S. Capitol, I'd like to point something out. | |
| We here at the Epoch Times, we piece together a timeline which shows step-by-step what actually took place on January the 6th. | |
| Everything in it is fact-based, it's well-sourced, and it shows in chronological order exactly what took place. | |
| Now, even though this timeline is purely based on facts that are publicly available, that are in the public sphere, because of the possibility of censorship here, I'm not about to go through it. | |
| But, the link will be in the description box below this video for you to check it out for yourself, and I would highly, highly recommend that you do, because it'll give you the full picture. | |
| Now, after the impeachment passed the House, President Trump delivered a message to America. | |
| I was actually surprised that I was able to find it on the White House's official YouTube page, because earlier in the day, YouTube had officially kicked President Trump off of their platform altogether, but the video was there. | |
| Regardless, in that video, President Trump called on all Americans to promote peace. | |
| In the speech, here's what he said. | |
| I want to be very clear. | |
| I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week. | |
| Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement. | |
| Making America Great Again has always been about defending the rule of law, supporting the men and women of law enforcement, and upholding our nation's most sacred traditions and values. | |
| Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for. | |
| No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence. | |
| No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement or our great American flag. | |
| No true supporter of mine could ever threaten or harass their fellow Americans. | |
| If you do any of these things, you are not supporting our movement. | |
| You are attacking it. | |
| And you are attacking our country. | |
| We cannot tolerate it. | |
| Now, it's unclear as of yet whether the big tech censors will also interpret that message as a potential dog whistle for more violence. | |
| We'll have to wait and see. | |
| However, while we're on the subject of big tech censorship, let's talk about Twitter. | |
| Jack Dorsey, who is of course Twitter's CEO, he issued a statement which basically said that banning President Trump set a dangerous precedent and further division in this country. | |
| It's kind of interesting. | |
| In a tweet, Jack wrote that Was this correct? | |
| And then he went on to further say, I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. | |
| We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. | |
| Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real and what drives our policy and enforcement above all. | |
| Now, Jag Dorsey is getting a lot of criticism for that comment. | |
| First of all, to give you a little bit of context, that statement came after Twitter, which is a publicly traded company, took a nosedive in value. | |
| Shortly after banning President Trump, Twitter's stock price fell 12%. | |
| And secondly, while Jag only spoke about his thoughts on President Trump, Twitter has a history of censoring conservatives on their platform. | |
| And we don't even have to look far back into the past for evidence. | |
| Just yesterday, the Students for Trump Twitter account had been locked without any explanation. | |
| The co-chair of that group came out and he said, Now granted, Twitter did come out and say that banning Students for Trump was due to a system error. | |
| But I've read people online arguing that these types of system errors tend to overwhelmingly happen on one side of the political aisle. | |
| Now let's go back and discuss the ban of President Trump a little bit more. | |
| Quite a few leaders, as well as organizations, have come out in opposition of that ban. | |
| For instance, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, she said that,"...silencing people, not to mention the President of the U.S., is what happens in China, not our country." Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he said that... | |
| Now, more surprising, at least to me, even the ACLU, which has historically opposed President Trump's administration in a number of capacities, has come out and warned of the unchecked power that these giant tech companies now wield. | |
| In a statement, the ACLU wrote that... | |
| We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions, especially when political realities make those decisions easier. | |
| And furthermore, they want them to say that President Trump can turn his press team or Fox News to communicate with the public, but others who have been censored by social media companies will not have that luxury. | |
| It is our hope that these companies will apply their rules transparently to everyone. | |
| Now, one way to actually make that happen is to revise Section 230. | |
| Section 230, by the way, is the regulation in our law which allows companies like YouTube, like Facebook, and like Twitter to not be held liable for the content that are published on them because basically they are designated as platforms rather than as publishers. | |
| Section 230 offers these companies massive protections. | |
| Essentially, they treat them like the phone company. | |
| For instance, I mean, nobody would hold Verizon liable if you make a phone call to someone in order to sell them illegal drugs, right? | |
| However, a platform is not supposed to be able to edit, control, or censor legal public discourse, at least in theory. | |
| Imagine, for instance, that you're on the phone with your friend talking about a controversial topic, and then the phone company suddenly cuts you off. | |
| Right? | |
| That just wouldn't happen. | |
| But it does happen on platforms like Twitter. | |
| And so, along that line, last year President Trump issued an executive order asking the FCC to clarify the meaning of Section 230. | |
| However, the outgoing FCC chairman, he just revealed a few days ago that his agency will not fulfill President Trump's executive order. | |
| In a statement, he said that... | |
| I do not intend to move forward with the notice of proposed rulemaking at the FCC. The reason is, in part, because given the results of the election, there's simply not sufficient time to complete the administrative steps necessary in order to resolve the rulemaking. | |
| Given that reality, I do not believe it's appropriate to move forward. | |
| And so, as of now, everything is in limbo and Section 230 stays exactly where it's been. | |
| Now, Joe Biden, he has given indications that he might clam down further on online speech. | |
| In a tweet that was released while he was on the campaign trail, he said that: "Online hate speech hotbeds like 4chan have slid by far too long. | |
| We cannot allow a generation of young men to fall for such bigoted propaganda. | |
| We must come together and introduce legislation to stop the spread of such extreme rhetoric and propaganda." Now, the problems that critics have with that sort of approach is the question that naturally arises from it: who gets to determine what "hate speech" actually is? | |
| Invariably, it's likely going to be either politicians or those who control the means of communication platforms. | |
| In fact, I read a great exchange online between Elon Musk and somebody else, and that other person wrote that West Coast high-tech has to make the distinction between banning hate speech and banning speech that it hates. | |
| And Elon Musk responded by saying that this is an important distinction. | |
| And I agree with him. | |
| As you saw with what happened on Twitter with the banning of President Trump, their reasoning was that some people might interpret what President Trump said as being a call to violence. | |
| Now, if you'd like to read about anything that we've discussed thus far, the impeachment, Mitch McConnell's statement, or anything regarding big tech censorship, those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And you know that description box is the one right below that like button that I hope you smash. | |
| I mean, it goes without saying that big tech censorship is hurting channels like ours that talk honestly about what's happening in this world right now, not just with the election, but with everything. | |
| But when you smash that like button, you are forcing the YouTube algorithm The same one that combs the internet and censors videos like ours to push this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide. | |
| Now let's go through with what's happening around the country. | |
| Let's start over in Washington, D.C. In the House of Representatives, they amended their rules and introduced several new fines. | |
| Fines for what? | |
| Well, any House member who is not wearing a mask can now be fined. | |
| How much? | |
| Well, the amount wasn't exactly outlined, but according to reports, the violators would be penalized $500 for a first offense and $2,500 if they violate the rule again. | |
| That's a lot of money for not wearing a mask. | |
| The second reason that they can be fined is if House members refuse to go through a newly installed metal detector. | |
| Basically, after what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, there were several new metal detectors installed throughout the building, and anyone entering has to go through them. | |
| Because after the Capitol was stormed, the natural idea to defend it better was to make sure that all of the lawmakers are unarmed. | |
| Now, the fine will be $5,000 for a first offense, and then $10,000 for any second offense after that. | |
| That's a lot of money to skip a metal detector. | |
| Now, at least one representative, Lauren Boebert, she's a Republican from Colorado, she has affirmed that she plans to carry firearms on Capitol grounds, and she criticized the new metal detectors. | |
| However, we have not gotten a statement from her on whether she actually plans to change her mind after these new fines have been introduced. | |
| Now let's go over to New York City. | |
| Mayor Bill de Blasio is ending the gifted and talented exams that were given to four-year-olds in what he calls an effort to ease racial disparities. | |
| Basically, if young kids take that test and are deemed exceptional, they are offered specialized instruction as well as enrichment opportunities. | |
| However, over the past two years, the de Blasio administration, they've been arguing that the program's admission format unfairly favors affluent white people, as well as Asian American middle-class families who can afford thousands of dollars on test prep for their four-year-old kids. | |
| Now, the advisory panel that actually recommended this change decried white supremacy and highlighted the fact that black and Hispanic students made up only 27 percent of the students in these gifted programs, even though they account for about 70 percent of the students citywide. | |
| Now, critics of this move argued that the government was killing excellence in the name of promoting racial diversity. | |
| According to one senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute... | |
| If you sincerely believe that habits and traits that led to success constitute white supremacy, and you oppose white supremacy, then you simply must inhibit opportunities for children to develop those qualities by dismantling advanced coursework. | |
| Now let's move over to Texas. | |
| A woman who bragged about being able to deliver thousands of votes for tens of thousands of dollars in cash was arrested on charges which included election fraud as well as illegal voting. | |
| So the woman was filmed in an undercover video by Project Veritas, which showed her saying that she could deliver at least 5,000 votes countywide for $55,000 in cash. | |
| And she acknowledged on that video that she knew that what she was discussing could land her in prison. | |
| Here's a short clip from that tape. | |
| At least 5,000. | |
| For the entire team that I'm looking at, I'm looking at $55,000. | |
| If not more, I'm not going to over promise because remember, we're 16 days till election day. | |
| You can give me cash, you can do whatever you want to do. | |
| That's right. | |
| She now faces up to 20 years in prison if she's convicted. | |
| Now let's head on over to Silicon Valley. | |
| Yesterday, Google announced that they will support Joe Biden's immigration reform plan, and they offered to cover some of the fees associated with the DACA program. | |
| Now if you remember, DACA was established back in 2012 by an executive order from Barack Obama, and it enabled immigrants who came to the U.S. while they were children to be shielded from deportation. | |
| It also gave them the opportunities to obtain legal documents so that they could be employed as well as go to school. | |
| Now President Trump, he tried to end that program, but he was blocked by the courts. | |
| Now in terms of Joe Biden, he has been a longtime supporter of expanded immigration, and when the Supreme Court ruled against President Trump on DACA, Joe Biden, he vowed to make DACA permanent by sending a bill to Congress on his first day in office. | |
| So there you have it. | |
| If you want to go deeper with any of the stories that we just discussed, those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm, subscribe to this channel if you want honest news content like this delivered directly into your YouTube feed, and also head on over to theepictimes.com. | |
| I'll throw a link into the description box below, and subscribe to The Epoch Times there, because right now when big tech is censoring honest discourse, at least there you know that you will be getting uncensored news. | |
| And so until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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