Devin Nunes Will Depart Congress to Become CEO of Trump Media and Technology Group

Interesting developments that add a more fulsome context to the Axios report about alternative Tech platforms earlier in the day.

Several news outlets are now reporting that Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) will exit his congressional seat at the end of this month and take a position as CEO of the newly formed Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG).

Many people are wondering why hire a congressman and not a technology expert.  To wit, I would say Trump’s not hiring a congressman.  It looks to me like he’s hiring a professional with specific expertise in the intelligence arena.

If you think about the bigger battleground, a technology CEO with subject matter expertise in the U.S. intelligence system is a skillset to be appreciated.

NY Post – Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a prominent ally of former President Donald Trump, will leave Congress at the end of this month to head up Trump’s new social media company. 

Trump Media & Technology Group announced the appointment of Nunes as CEO in a Monday evening statement. 

“The time has come to reopen the Internet and allow for the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship,” Nunes was quoted as saying. “The United States of America made the dream of the Internet a reality and it will be an American company that restores the dream. I’m humbled and honored President Trump has asked me to lead the mission and the world class team that will deliver on this promise.”

Trump described Nunes in the statement as “a fighter and a leader” who “will make an excellent CEO of TMTG.”

“Devin understands that we must stop the liberal media and Big Tech from destroying the freedoms that make America great,” the 45th president added. “America is ready for TRUTH Social and the end to censorship and political discrimination.” (read more)

This announcement follows an interesting sequence of events (citation links in the dates):

♦ October 20 – Donald Trump announces the basic outline of Truth Social, an upstart social media system for MAGA supporters.  The financing would come through Digital World Acquisition Group (DWAC).  Shares of DWAC skyrocket after the announcement.

♦ October 24 – CTH receives a tip that Patrick Byrne is investing $1 million in Locals (launched by Dave Rubin Dec 2019)

♦ October 26 – Rumble and Locals announce they are merging into one company. Rumble purchases Locals.

♦ November 02 – Rumble announces they are relocating the company HQ to Florida.

♦ December 01 – Rumble announces an IPO through Cantor Fitzgerald.

♦ December 04 – Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) announce $1+ billion raised in private equity, through Digital World Acquisition Group (DWAC).

♦ December 06 – Axios writes article about rise of “right-wing” social media infrastructure. Focuses on financial aspects.

♦ December 06 – SEC opens an investigation of the equity fundraising through DWAC.  “Trading of Digital World’s shares has driven TMTG’s valuation from $875 million in October to close to $4 billion.”

♦ December 06 – Devin Nunes is announced as CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group.

♦ December 06 – Rumble announces a deal with TMTG through Cantor Fitzgerald.  “Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Rumble’s parent company Cantor Fitzgerald, stated on Monday that they have worked out a distribution deal with Donald Trump’s planned “Truth” social media platform.” … “Truth and the 45th president are going to use Rumble’s infrastructure, their technology, their cloud distribution capability, so they are going to be a service provider, a tech provider to the president’s Truth Social,” Lutnick told interviewer John Bachman on his “John Bachman Now” show.

Great. So in essence, Trump Media will use the tech architecture of Rumble.  There will be a partnership.

That’s the sequence of events as to how these two networks (Rumble & TMTG) came into the position they are now.  Let me say with clarity and emphasis, I want to see these platforms succeed.  I will support, as we do already, each and every platform against the interests of Big Tech, and I will encourage all Treepers to support each platform.  That said, there’s something in this timeline that looks disconcerting to me:

• Patrick Byrne invests in Locals.
• Locals merges with Rumble.
• Rumble goes into an IPO with Cantor Fitzgerald
• Trump forms TMTG.
• TMTG Raises funds from private equity ($1 billion+ DWAC)
• SEC investigates TMTG equity funds from DWAC.
• TMTG announces Devin Nunes CEO
• Cantor Fitzgerald announces Rumble will partner with the newly formed TMTG.

This is the sequence of events.

The Axios article and SEC moves on same day point to someone on the inside of the organizational network (TMTG/Rumble) tipping off someone outside.  And the people they are tipping off are not good characters.  This is someone deep enough inside this newly forming media/tech operation to walk media and government insiders through the plans and funding sources, and trigger those simultaneous responses.

If you see that pattern, stay with me.

The next logical question is to ask who and how?

From my perspective, there is one big glowing worm in this new social media operation.

Patrick Byrne.

Consider yourself warned.

Eject the Fed.

I’m sure President Trump and Chairman Nunes are well aware of the potential risks. Also, I have zero insider knowledge and only work from what data points are publicly visible, and Byrne as a DC operative is pure analytical conjecture on my part.  That said, this wouldn’t be his first rodeo, and sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Don’t Trust the Washington Post on Masks

It’s time to shed the mask regime and breathe the fresh air of freedom.

by Jeffrey H. Andersen for American Greatness

Joe Biden continues to pretend that masks are a highly effective way to prevent the transmission of viruses, while his media allies continue to perpetuate that false narrative. On Thursday, the same day that Biden extended his administration’s transportation mask mandate through mid-March, Washington Post reporter Salvador Rizzo “fact-checked” Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on comments he made about masks. Rizzo gave Paul “Four Pinocchios”—the Post’s worst rating, reserved for “a Whopper”—for saying that “peer-reviewed studies of masks,” specifically an important study from Denmark, have found that masks “didn’t work.” 

In truth, the best peer-reviewed studies of masks, taken in combination, provide little support for Biden’s mandates and much support for Paul’s statement.

When it comes to masks or any other scientific question, randomized controlled trials are the gold standard in medical research. RCTs allow researchers to isolate a variable—such as the effectiveness of masks—while simultaneously making it very hard for the researchers to achieve their own desired results. Especially at a time when research has become highly politicized, RCTs are by far the most illuminating and reliable studies.

In “Do Masks Work? A Review of the Evidence,” I took a deep dive into the 14 RCTs that have tested the efficacy of mask-wearing and found the following: 

In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive.

Paul highlighted perhaps the most noteworthy of these 14 RCTs, a Danish studyconducted last year.

The Post “fact-checker” takes Paul to task for saying the Danish study found that masks “didn’t work,” and for not specifically mentioning any other studies. Paul presumably didn’t have time during a quick television interview to go through the various RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of mask-wearing. What’s more, the Danish study is the only peer-reviewed RCT to have tested masks’ specific effectiveness against COVID-19. 

That study from Denmark—which apparently had trouble getting published because it contradicted the pro-mask narrative—found that 1.8 percent of those in its mask group and 2.1 percent of those in its unmasked control group became infected with COVID-19 within a month. That 0.3-point difference was not statistically significant. In other words, the study found no statistically significant benefit from wearing masks.

The Post discounts the importance of statistical significance, treats the study as “inconclusive at best,” and accuses Paul of “twisting” the study’s findings by claiming masks “didn’t work.” The Post quotes the study’s authors as saying, “Face masks are a plausible means to reduce transmission”—a “plausible means” that the study did not find any statistically significant evidence to support, mind you—and then smugly writes, in parentheses, “(Somehow this passage did not make it into Paul’s summary of the study.)”

One could perhaps quibble with Paul’s having said that the Danish study found that masks “didn’t work,” as opposed to saying that the study didn’t find that masks did work. But this is closer to tomato/to-mah-to territory than it is to “twisting” the study’s findings or telling “a Whopper.”

Beyond that, the Post cites several non-randomized controlled trials, which are not remotely as authoritative as RCTs and were published after the question had already become highly politicized. The Post “fact check” also points to an RCT from Bangladesh that hasn’t even been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal (it was self-published), may contain noteworthy methodological flaws, and didn’t find much evidence to support mask-wearing in any event. (One can only imagine how the Post would have responded had Paul cited a non-peer-reviewed, non-published study as evidence.) The Postignores the other 13 RCTs that collectively suggest mask-wearing provides little to no benefit in preventing viral transmission and might even be counterproductive.

On some level, this isn’t surprising. America’s press corps and its public health officials have become even more pro-mask than some of their international counterparts. Public health officials’ insistence upon masking American children is particularly indefensible. Many localities are requiring children to wear masks this winter while actively playing basketball. In addition to the challenge of how to communicate with their teammates, such unfortunate children will also face the challenge of how to get enough oxygen. 

Such senseless mandates flatly contradict even the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO), which says, “Children should not wear a mask when playing sports or doing physical activities, such as running, jumping or playing on the playground, so that it doesn’t compromise their breathing.” But while the WHO provides this advice for kids as well as for adults, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—and the Biden White House—continue to be zealously pro-mask at every turn.

Beyond not providing their promised health benefits, masks undermine human society in a myriad of ways. In “The Masking of America,” discussed on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” I concluded, 

[N]ot only do masks apparently not work as advertised, they are uncomfortable and unhygienic. They obscure our humanity and undermine our children’s development. They prevent us from seeing the emotions, sensibilities, and affections of others, or sharing our own. They limit communication and erode understanding. They profoundly compromise human interaction and substantially reduce our quality of life.

Joe Biden and his ideological allies ignore all of this, while attempting to impose a mask regime that defies long-standing Western norms, is unsupported by the best scientific evidence, and encourages governmental authorities to forget that we are each unique individuals endowed with certain unalienable rights. It’s time to shed the mask regime and breathe in the fresh air of freedom.

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more-Dec 6

 

Very active day today! Here's tonight's news:

Big Tech and the Woke Military Censor Critics for Attacking Pedophiles

It is time for the people’s representatives to intervene. Congress needs to pass legislation prohibiting the military’s senior leaders and generals from using public social media in uniform.

by Josiah Lippincott for American Greatness

Big Tech and America’s woke military care deeply for the feelings of America’s child molesters.

At least this is what my recent suspension from Twitter would suggest. Last Thursday, Jack Dorsey and company suspended me for seven days for suggesting that if pedophiles received the death penalty, there would be fewer incidents of child abuse.

The Silicon Valley commissars didn’t like that one bit. They also didn’t act alone. Uniformed members of the U.S. military have been waging a coordinated campaign to silence my account by flagging it for “inciting violence” and “targeted harassment.” These military officers on Twitter are upset at my criticisms of their political activities in and out of uniform.

The ringleader is Major Justin Rose of the U.S. Army Reserves. Two months ago, I wrote a piece condemning the vaccine mandate for the Department of Defense. Major Rose took issue with my work. I had never interacted with him on Twitter before, but he decided to attack my article, stating that I was a “fucking moron” who wasn’t “hazed” enough as a “boot” (a term for a young Marine).

Posted to Twitter

Defending hazing and launching profanity laced tirades against civilian critics is unseemly, but when I responded, Rose amped up the viciousness of his attacks. He posted photos of my family that he found on personal Facebook accounts to Twitter, and made lewd insinuations about a female family member.

Vitriol on Twitter is nothing new. But it is truly a “mask-off” moment to see commissioned officers currently serving in the United States military attack critics of the Department of Defense so openly.

Rose didn’t stop there. Over the ensuing weeks, he continued dogging my account and my writing. Most concerning of all, he published parts of my official personnel file from the Marine Corps database. He leaked my physical fitness scores, incorrectly suggesting they disqualified me from criticizing General Mark Milley for being out of shape.

This leak of “Official Use Only” documents from internal Marine Corps systems raises the question of what my critics can access to harass other Americans. If my personnel file can be leaked at will, then what is to stop other bad actors within the federal government from doing the same to other Americans who dare challenge the military-industrial complex?  

Rose’s actions are unacceptable for a commissioned officer. He has a duty to the American public, the taxpayer, and to the Army itself to be professional in his conduct on social media. But Rose is not alone in his bad behavior. He is simply one example among many of uniformed officers in the American military attacking civilian critics and promoting strident ideological viewpoints using social media.

What makes Rose unique is that he is working openly to censor my ability to speak. Over the past several weeks, he has coordinated a mass reporting campaign against my account on Twitter.  Rose and his more than 2,000 followers, many of them liberal veterans and woke service members, have reported every one of my tweets. This campaign has been successful. Twitter has suspended me multiple times in the past two weeks on ridiculous premises, including defending Kyle Rittenhouse and calling for harsh punishment for child molesters.

I was suspended from Twitter for the first time for stating that Kyle Rittenhouse did nothing wrong after the jury had acquitted him on all charges. I wrote an article for The Federalist pointing out that Twitter had defamed Kyle Rittenhouse’s character by refusing to acknowledge the outcome of his jury trial. Twitter, rightly, got nervous, and lifted the suspension of my account.

No matter. The mass reporting campaign from the woke liberals of MilTwitter struck another blow. My most recent suspension has been the most egregious. I suggested that pedophiles should receive the death penalty as punishment for their heinous crimes. Twitter said I had engaged in “abuse and harassment” of these poor child molesters. Rose celebrated.

This is the world we live in: Big Tech working with the woke military to silence critics in the name of protecting the feelings of the literal scum of the earth. Enough is enough. Congress needs to investigate. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees should call hearings and subpoena the leading generals of all the services regarding social media usage by flag officers and senior officers.

Major Rose and his reporting campaign against me didn’t come out of nowhere. He receives unofficial encouragement from the network of accounts operated by liberal senior leaders on Twitter.

At the forefront are America’s out-of-control woke generals. This past summer, I sparred with two-star general Patrick Donahoe on Twitter over COVID policy. Donahoe is the godfather of MilTwitter. In 2019, he participated on a panel at anAssociation of the U.S. Army conference that encouraged senior military leaders to start using social media more. In the audience was Fred Wellman, a former Army public affairs officer and senior advisor to the Lincoln Project. Wellman and Donahoe frequently interact together on Twitter, despite the fact that Wellman is a known partisan operator and, at the time, was an intense critic of President Donald Trump.

MilTwitter and the Lincoln Project have close informal ties. Which raises questions for conservative representatives in Congress: Are you comfortable with uniformed military officers publicly sidling up to hard Left activists and trying to undermine a sitting president of the United States? Where exactly does this fit in the rubric of acceptable civilian-military relations?

Also on the 2019 AUSA panel was First Lieutenant Kelsey Cochran. Cochran, at the time, ran a popular Twitter account called “Lady Loves Taft” that chronicled her time as a young Army officer. Donahoe and his allies saw in Cochran a model for how officers should engage with social media—which is why this young officer was singled out publicly and her profile elevated. During the talk, General Donahoe, who is five ranks above Cochran, gave her a fist bump.

This is bizarre behavior. In the military, professional standards dictate that senior leaders and young officers have only the most professional of relationships. A general, after all, might one day need to order that young lieutenant to go to her death. He is also responsible for evaluating the officers under his command fairly. Avoiding favoritism is the bedrock of good order and discipline. But MilTwitter plays by a different set of rules. Cochran’s chummy relationship with Donahoe is part of a concerning pattern of male senior army officers closely engaging with, following, and favoring young female officers with a large social media presence. 

To give another example, I recently called out Colonel Daniel Blackmon, the commanding officer of the 434th Field Artillery Brigade out of Fort Sill, Oklahoma for having an unprofessional relationship on Twitter with one of the young female officers on his staff. Male senior leaders should never single out for favorable treatment any of the officers under their command and certainly not on social media and with a member of the opposite sex. The appearance of impropriety degrades martial discipline. 

Blackmon, like Donahoe, doesn’t care. Apolitical professionalism and good order and discipline escape these woke leaders. Blackmon, for instance, ordered the creation of a unit t-shirt for the 434th that featured the Pride flag as part of its design. This overt celebration of leftist causes is just part and parcel of the modern American military.

Blackmon isn’t the only senior leader making his political beliefs known. Major General Johanna Clyborne recently posted a quote from Ruth Bader Ginsburg stating that it was better for people to call a woman a “bitch” than a “mouse” in a comment thread started by a female first lieutenant (a woman five ranks below Clyborne). This general has tweeted liberal cringe before. Back in October, she posted a photo of her removing her nail polish and attacking Army grooming regulations that prevent her from wearing a French manicure while in uniform.

Our woke generals are more concerned with their manicures than the men under their command.

General Clyborne, like General Donohoe, Colonel Blackman, and Major Rose, view Twitter as a way to advance their ideological goals. Whether those goals be feminist empowerment, antiracism, or shilling for draconian COVID policies, the attention-seeking military of today feels compelled to make these pronouncements. This is a massive problem and these limited examples don’t capture the full extent of the threat.

General Mark Milley’s “white rage” comments this summer—an implicit attack on conservatives who reject critical race theory—shocked many Americans who have come to believe that our military is professional and nonpartisan. Nothing could be further from the truth. America’s military today, as evidenced by the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, is incapable of winning wars, successfully accomplishing the policy goals assigned to it by political leaders, or of defending the country. Instead, our generals and their lackeys spend their time waging ideological warfare against the American people and critics of their failure. They appear to be compensating . . . for something.

It is time for the people’s representatives to intervene. Congress needs to pass legislation prohibiting the military’s senior leaders and generals from using public social media in uniform. America’s generals and senior leaders do not need to be social media influencers. They need to do their job and defend the country. They should be on “Twitter time-out” until they learn how to do so. 

Moreover, Congress and the military service chiefs should crack down on military members who are engaging in unbecoming conduct on social media—especially conduct that targets and censors critics. The unholy alliance between the federal government and Big Tech should be shattered. The American military should be defending free speech, not attacking it.

Why Is It So Important Not to Offend Those Breaking Our Laws?

At a time when tens of thousands of migrants are massing on our border and demanding entry, the effort to soften our language is the political equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.

by Brian Lonergan for American Greatness

The adage that “actions speak louder than words” may be true, but the right words applied to the right situation can inspire actions that otherwise would not be taken.

We are seeing this in dramatic fashion in our current border crisis, which now appears to be the realized dream of Barack Obama when he spoke about “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” 13 years ago. We as a nation are undeniably transforming, and most Americans would argue for the worse. The wheels of that transformation have been lubricated by the enabling language of the anti-borders Left.

The strategy behind this plan has become evident. It starts with a proliferation of “acceptable” language by our corporate media. The federal government, when under the control of the right people, enacts a series of directives to the bureaucracy mandating that language. State and local governments with the right composition of lawmakers do their part to pass supportive legislation. All those efforts have by now so normalized said language to the broader American culture that real pressure can then be applied to members of the U.S. Congress to write such language into federal law.

The dots can be connected fairly easily. The Associated Press Stylebook, the widely-followed guide for word choice in journalism, had long recommended the term “illegal alien.” That changed in 2013—not coincidentally at the same time the “Gang of Eight” in the Senate was proposing a sweeping immigration overhaul—when the AP called on members of the press to stop using the term when referring to a person in the country illegally. Today city newspapers and television news programs have been swept clean of any reference to illegal aliens in their reporting.

In February, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Acting Director Tracy Renaud signed a memo urging “more inclusive language in the agency’s outreach efforts, internal documents and in overall communication with stakeholders, partners, and general public.” What did Renaud define as “more inclusive language?” The term “illegal alien” should be replaced with “undocumented noncitizen” or “undocumented individual.” Instead of “assimilation,” USCIS officials should use “integration or civic integration.”

Now come reports that state representatives are making a full-court press with bills that follow the lead of USCIS and drop terms like “illegal alien” for language that is “not dehumanizing.” Colorado State Senator Julie Gonzalez, co-sponsor of one such bill, argued for the eradication of language currently in state laws.

“That language has been offensive for many people,” she said. “And some of the rationale behind that is really rooted in this idea that a person can certainly commit an illegal act, but no human being themselves is illegal.”

The “no human being is illegal” bumper sticker line is both ridiculous and meant to shame anyone who refuses to get on the anti-borders bandwagon. To refer to someone as an illegal alien is a reference to that person’s immigration status, nothing more.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), our nation’s immigration law, expressly uses the term “illegal alien” when referring to a person who has either illegally entered the United States or violated the terms of their admission, such as overstaying a visa. For example, in Title V of The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which added provisions to the INA, there are five references to “illegal alien” alone while the term “undocumented” is not mentioned once.

The term “alien” has been used in other federal laws, such as when Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to counter political subversion. While the merits of that law have long been subject to debate, no one complained at the time that such language was “dehumanizing” to those who might commit sedition against the country.

Activists like Julie Gonzales acknowledge that those here illegally have committed illegal acts, so why are we supposed to be so worried about hurting the feelings of those who are breaking our laws? A similar crusade has been launched to stop using the term “felon” in favor of “person without lawful status.” These are not the goals of honorable people looking to make our country better.

With their plan well underway, the next and final step will be a congressional rewrite of the INA. The Biden White House is doing its part with the introduction of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which calls for “changing the word ‘alien’ to ‘noncitizen’ in our immigration laws.”

At a time when tens of thousands of migrants are massing on our border and demanding entry, the effort to soften our language is the political equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. While it is certainly absurd, we should not discount the radical agenda and destructive consequences behind it.