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Trump Moves to Return to Twitter and Facebook After Being Banned Over Risk of ‘Incitement of Violence’ and to Public Safety

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At 8:36 PM on January 6, 2021, Facebook publicly announced it was imposing a 24-hour block on then-President Donald Trump, following the deadly riot and insurrection on Capitol Hill. The following day Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, citing the “use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,” announced the social media giant had banned Trump “indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

On January 8, 2021, Twitter announced its permanent suspension of Donald Trump’s account, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” after the January 6 insurrection. Citing two tweets earlier that day, Twitter “determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

The company found the tweets “are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.”

READ MORE: ‘Next Chapter?’ Manhattan DA Signals Trump Himself Might Finally Land Under Indictment

Two years later Donald Trump is preparing to return to both social media platforms, according to NBC News.

Several factors are responsible.

Over at Facebook, its Oversight Board decided in June of 2021 Trump’s suspension would be in place for just two years, starting in January of 2021, but also appeared to make clear the suspension would be lifted after that time, although its stated it would “look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded.”

“When the suspension is eventually lifted,” Facebook’s Oversight Board said at the time, making clear the suspension would be lifted “when,” and not “if,” “there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future, up to and including permanent removal of his pages and accounts.”

The company has not yet made any decision public, but is expected to do so soon.

And at Twitter, Elon Musk purchased the company and reinstated numerous far right wing accounts, including Trump’s.

Trump has repeatedly stated he would not return to Twitter after starting his own social media platform. Truth Social pales in comparison to both Twitter and Facebook.

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“With access to his Twitter account back,” NBC News reports, “Trump’s campaign is formally petitioning Facebook’s parent company to unblock his account there after it was locked in response to the U.S. Capitol riot two years ago.”

The Trump campaign is urging Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to allow him to return.

“’We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,’ Trump’s campaign wrote in its letter to Meta on Tuesday, according to a copy reviewed by NBC News.”

Tech Policy Press editor Justin Hendrix notes the letter to Meta comes on the “Same day a J6 Committee draft report detailed how he used social media to incite an insurrection.”

RELATED: Unpublished J6 Report Reveals Social Media Companies Allowed Right-Wing Activists to ‘Exploit’ Platforms in Weeks Before Attack

Meta says it “will announce a decision in the coming weeks in line with the process we laid out.”

NBC News, citing two anonymous Trump confidantes, reports, “Trump has sought input for weeks about hopping back on Twitter and that his campaign advisers have also workshopped ideas for his first tweet.”

Another, a Trump advisor, warned if the Facebook ban on Trump is extended,  House Republicans will pressure Meta. NBC’s reporting suggests they would use hearings on how federal law treats social media platforms as “leverage.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and two other colleagues sent Meta a letter urging the ban be extended.

“Trump has continued to post harmful election content on Truth Social that would likely violate Facebook’s policies, and we have every reason to believe he would bring similar conspiratorial rhetoric back to Facebook, if given the chance,” they wrote.

AFP’s White House correspondent Sebastian Smith suggests it is, “Worth remembering Trump was thrown off FBook and Twitter because those platforms were his principle avenues for deluding an enormous part of the country into believing that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’.”

Noah Bookbinder, the president of the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), posted this warning: “Donald Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election that he lost and incited a violent insurrection to try to keep himself in power. That he would be given back the megaphone of Twitter, and now maybe Facebook, is beyond irresponsible.”

 

Image via Shuttterstock

 

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‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was strongly criticized Wednesday after promoting a historically and biblically false, antisemitic claim while declaring antisemitism is wrong.

As the House voted on an antisemitism bill that would require the U.S. Dept. of Education to utilize a certain definition of antisemitism when enforcing anti-discrimination laws, the far-right Christian nationalist congresswoman made her false claims on social media.

“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” Greene tweeted.

The definition of antisemitism the House bill wants to codify was created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Congresswoman Greene highlighted this specific text which she said she opposes: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.”

READ MORE: MAGA State Superintendent Supports Chaplains in Public Schools – But Not From All Religions

What Greene is promoting is called “Jewish deicide,” the false and antisemitic claim that Jews killed Jesus Christ. Some who adhere to that false belief also believe all Jews throughout time, including in the present day, are responsible for Christ’s crucification.

Greene has a history of promoting antisemitism, including comparing mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic to “gas chambers in Nazi Germany.”

Political commentator John Fugelsang set the record straight:

“If only you could read,” lamented Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq., CEO and Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. The Antisemitism Awareness Act “could not convict anyone for believing anything, even this historical and biblical inaccuracy. It only comes into play if there is unlawful discrimination based on this belief that targets a Jewish person. Do you understand that distinction @RepMTG ?”

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“Not surprising,” declared Jacob N. Kornbluh, the senior political reporter at The Forward, formerly the Jewish Daily Forward. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been accused in the past of making antisemitic remarks — including her suggestion that a Jewish-funded space laser had sparked wildfires in California in 2018, voted against the GOP-led Antisemitism Awareness Act.”

Jewish Telegraphic Agency Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas, an award-winning journalist, took a deeper dive into Greene’s remarks.

“Ok leave aside the snark. The obvious antisemitism is in saying ‘the Jews’ crucified Jesus when even according to the text she believes in it was a few leaders in a subset of a contemporary Jewish community. It is collective blame, the most obvious of bigotries.”

“The text she presumably predicates her case on, the New Testament,” he notes, “was when it was collated a political document at a time when Christians and Jews were competing for adherents and when it would have been plainly dangerous to blame Rome for the murder of God.”

“Yes,” Kampeas continues, “that take is obviously one that a fundamentalist would not embrace, but it is the objective and historical take, and *should* be available to Jews (and others!) as a means of explaining why Christian antisemitism exists, and why it is harmful.”

CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere also slammed Greene, saying she “is standing up for continuing to talk about Jews being responsible for the killing of Jesus. (John & Matthew refer to some Jews handing over Jesus to Pilate,not Herod. But also: many, including Pope Benedict, have called blaming Jews a misinterpretation)”

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Potential Trump VP Pick Says ‘If You’re a Billionaire’ You Should Vote for Trump

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One of the possible picks to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, seen as “rapidly ascending” the list, is urging billionaires to vote for the ex-president.

North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum “is quickly moving up former President Trump’s list of possible vice presidential picks because Trump’s team believes he would be a safe choice who could attract moderate voters,” Axios reported on Sunday. “Burgum is on a long list of VP contenders, but Trump’s rising interest in the North Dakota governor has been clear in recent weeks — and reveals his latest thinking about how he thinks his running mate could help him with undecided voters.”

Praising Governor Burgum, the National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty on Monday wrote he was “the only candidate in 2024 to easily exceed expectations in the debates.”

“He is a well-liked governor from a small state. He projects seriousness and sobriety, two qualities Pence also had that were important to balance the 2016 Republican ticket. Burgum is also good at championing Republican policy, including our desperately needed policies of energy abundance and supply-side reform. He is also the right age — 67 — with no signs of slowing down. Burgum needs to survive the millions poured into opposition research, but, if he does, I think he would bring credit and balance to the Republican ticket.”

READ MORE: ‘Next Week, Absolutely’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Will Move to Oust Speaker Johnson

On Tuesday, Gov. Burgum, appearing on Fox News, told Laura Ingraham, “when you see someone who cares this deeply about this country, what he’s going through and what the Democrats and the liberal media is putting him through, and how he gets up and fights for every day people in America every day, and then his policies are all in the right direction.”

“If you’re a billionaire and you care about your shareholders, you care about your family and your grandkids, you should be voting for someone that’s going to bring prosperity to America and peace to the world, that’s what President Trump is going to do, that’s what he did for us when he was president,” Burgum claimed.

The Hill adds, “Ingraham suggested a lot of billionaires are still planning to support President Biden, especially those that are the ‘Wall Street types.’”

Last year, asked if he would ever do business with Trump, Bergum told NBC News, “I don’t think so,” and added, “I just think that it’s important that you’re judged by the company you keep.”

Some reports call Bergum a billionaire, while Forbes last year reported it “estimates Burgum’s net worth to be at least $100 million.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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‘Next Week, Absolutely’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Will Move to Oust Speaker Johnson

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), standing in front of posters showing Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson casually embracing Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and behind a podium with a sign calling Johnson the “Uniparty Leader,” announced she will call up her “motion to vacate,” to try to oust Johnson “next week, absolutely.” She made her announcement despite public and private remarks and signals from top Republicans opposing the move, and despite it having little to no chance of passing.

Speaking Wednesday morning at a press event, Greene lashed out at the Republican House Speaker and Democratic Minority Leader after  Jeffries announced Democrats will vote to keep Johnson as Speaker.

“Now we have Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats coming out, embracing Mike Johnson with a warm hug and a big wet sloppy kiss.”

She later claimed taxes will go up if Democrats take the House in the November election because Johnson and Jeffries are “holding hands together.”

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Backing herself into a corner, the far-right Georgia MAGA Republican has positioned herself as the outraged opposition to her own party, with a small following – just two other House Republicans have announced they will support her move to oust Johnson.

Early into her remarks Greene said she had the right to try to oust Johnson because “I elected him,” also adding that she had voted for Johnson for Speaker.

Greene then unleashed a lengthy list of grievances against Johnson.

“Americans all together gave Republicans the House they gave us the House in 2022,” she said, according to a rush transcript. “You want to know why? Because they were fed up with the Democratic agenda that is destroying this country, wide open borders. An economy that’s crashing, freedoms being stolen, COVID shutdowns, all the horrors that happened when Joe Biden took the White House and Democrats took full control.”

The COVID shutdowns happened during Donald Trump’s presidency and were ordered by governors of both parties.

“He passed three continuing resolutions, and then he finally passed a two part omnibus that fully funded Joe Biden’s agenda and the Democrat agenda, funding the Department of Justice,” she said, adding that funding DOJ is effectively putting “President Trump in jail for the rest of his life, which is a death sentence.”

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“Mike Johnson fully funded the FBI which raided Mar-a-Lago and gave them a brand new building as a gift. Pro-life Mike Johnson funded full term abortion clinics, funded the trans agenda on children that 70% of Americans are completely against on both sides of the aisle. And he fully funded Joe Biden’s open border policies, the number one issue in America.”

“Mike Johnson fully joined the disgusting business model of Washington, D.C. to fund forever wars. Yeah, that’s what this is. The uniparty is Make Ukraine Great Again. The uniparty is all about funding every single foreign war. They think this is the business model that needs to be done.”

She went on to angrily complain about funding “the murder and killing in foreign countries.”

“Our economy should not be built on the blood of wars in foreign countries. That’s not what our economy should be built on. That’s not how you grow jobs in America. That is that is horrific. It is evil it needs needs to end but that’s what the uniparty does. And that’s what they continue. Mike Johnson fully embraced it. And he funded $61 billion to Ukraine, funded war in Israel, while he funded Hamas and Gaza. How do you support Israel when you’re funding Hamas? And give more money away while our border stays open? And today 300 Americans will die from fentanyl tomorrow 300 Americans will die from fentanyl and the next day 300 more Americans will die from fentanyl poisoning because there’s a war on America. Led by the cartels in Mexico and nobody in Washington, D.C. gives a damn and has enough courage to face it.”

Watch clips of Greene above and below or at this link.

 

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