Twitter Files: Reject Censorship Won’t Work
Twitter’s censorship of the Hunter Biden scandal to ‘protect the Biden campaign’ was a ‘tragedy’ for democracy that now ends in ‘farce, as the same censorship apologists struggle to excuse’, sighs Jonathan Turley at Fox News. “Backchannel communications between the Biden campaign and Democratic operatives show willful use of [Twitter] remove political discussion” ahead of the 2020 election. Now, after the Twitter files have been released, “a lot of those same numbers have changed to excuse censorship.” But that won’t work – nor will “efforts to delete the story itself”. Twitter promises more files, and the Chamber should launch an investigation. “Indeed, the increasingly strident refrain that ‘there’s nothing to see here’ can only ’cause people to take a closer look.
Health Expert: Bassett’s Missed Opportunity
As state health commissioner Mary Bassett is set to step down, her “term looks like a missed opportunity,” laments Bill Hammond of the Empire Center. “Bassett was well positioned to lead a unique overhaul and modernization of pandemic defenses.” Yet instead of seeking to restore a battered and shaken public health system, she “resisted the idea of unraveling past events — and made no obvious effort to better prepare the state for future viruses.” Tellingly, when Governor Hochul finally “ordered a review of the pandemic response, she assigned her Homeland Security Commissioner to coordinate it rather than Dr. Bassett.” Now, “Bassett leaves behind a health department that still needs rebuilding.”
China Watch: the cowardice of the Apple CEO
“Tim Cook took a beating on his business comfort with Beijing,” observes William McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, and he responded “silently” to a series of pointed questions from the media about China’s authoritarian policies and the his company’s cooperation with them. . “When coupled with his outspokenness at home, accommodations on China make him look like a hypocrite”, as he “joyfully joined a chorus of business leaders who condemned” Georgia for the non-existent voter suppression and post-Floyd “deep-rooted discrimination”. Cook cannot be “so brave in places where the risk of speaking out is low while remaining silent about the real oppression in places where speaking out can really hurt the bottom line.”
COVID Journal: Scientists’ ‘Lab Leak’ Flip-Flop
Recently released emails show that during a February 2020 discussion between Anthony Fauci and other public health officials on “how to formulate a report discrediting the idea that the Covid virus”. . . could have escaped from a lab,” two leading virologists overnight “went from concluding that the virus was made to arguing that it couldn’t be,” writes Nicholas Wade at City Journal. “Fauci. . . knew his agency was funding “research in Wuhan. He surely didn’t want “the mother of all public inquiries into the possibility of a connection between . . . research in Wuhan and the outbreak of the pandemic. Remember that he and other bigwigs control “a huge chunk of the money” in virology. Thus, the lab leak was “scientifically correct” but “politically wrong”.
Conservative: Beware Big Tech, GOP ‘pleas’
The Federalist’s Rachel Bovard reminds Republicans, who now control the House, to enter discussions with Big Tech CEOs with “eyes wide open” as their lobbyists offer “the sweetest of pleas.” Apple’s future “likely hinges on how effectively ‘the company’s top brass can’ approach new town sheriffs,’ as it faces ‘the specter of at least one draft antitrust law that could curb its monopolistic practices”. Yet Apple’s removal of the conservative social media platform Talk from its app store, its lobbying against a bill “that would have effectively banned American companies from using slave labor to make products,” and its bowing to the Chinese government suggest that Republicans should not be “easily passed out”. with “minor jokes”. GOP voters are “watching closely” how Washington deals with Big Tech and will punish the party “in the public square and at the ballot box for its lack of backbone.”
Compiled by the Editorial Board of The Post
