David Horowitz: Visa, Mastercard Cut Off Payments to My Think Tank Based on SPLC ‘Hate Group’ Label

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has had their donation processing system blocked by Visa and Mastercard allegedly following a campaign by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Visa has since contacted Breitbart News to deny involvement in the blacklisting of the Freedom Center.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center stated in a recent email that its ability to accept donations by credit card has been disabled by both Visa and Mastercard following a campaign by the SPLC to label the Freedom Center as a hate group. This situation comes shortly after Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch was forced off the funding platform Patreon following pressure from Mastercard.

The Freedom Center is the next target of the SPLC, and they are using Mastercard and Visa again in their attempt to shut down conservative voices. In an email sent to supporters, Horowitz outlined how the SPLC had convinced Mastercard and Visa to block the Freedom Center from receiving payments and donations via credit card. In the email, Horowitz requested that supporters send donations via check to a P.O. Box.

In the email to supporters, the Freedom Center lashed out at the move by Mastercard and Visa, saying: “this blow could be the end of the Freedom Center. Decades of work, down the drain because the hateful Left wants to squash free speech and silence an organization that dares to question them.

The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and opinion. But we don’t have freedom of speech or opinion.

The Constitution forbids the government from blocking our rights. But we don’t have any more rights.

Just as the government is not allowed to create databases on the public, it allows the “credit bureaus” to create these databases, and then the government freely accesses these databases.

Since the government is not allowed to block our speech rights, it happily delegates this task to private businesses, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. The government is denying our rights by proxy, since it is very happy to allow this to happen while pretending not to notice.

Read Robert Spencer’s book on Freedom of Speech. Everything he predicted is coming true.

It’s lost. Freedom to think as one wishes is lost.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws

The Sherman Act outlaws “every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade,” and any “monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize.” Long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act does not prohibit every restraint of trade, only those that are unreasonable. For instance, in some sense, an agreement between two individuals to form a partnership restrains trade, but may not do so unreasonably, and thus may be lawful under the antitrust laws. On the other hand, certain acts are considered so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal. These include plain arrangements among competing individuals or businesses to fix prices, divide markets, or rig bids. These acts are “per se” violations of the Sherman Act; in other words, no defense or justification is allowed.

The penalties for violating the Sherman Act can be severe. Although most enforcement actions are civil, the Sherman Act is also a criminal law, and individuals and businesses that violate it may be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Criminal prosecutions are typically limited to intentional and clear violations such as when competitors fix prices or rig bids. The Sherman Act imposes criminal penalties of up to $100 million for a corporation and $1 million for an individual, along with up to 10 years in prison. Under federal law, the maximum fine may be increased to twice the amount the conspirators gained from the illegal acts or twice the money lost by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is over $100 million.

The Federal Trade Commission Act bans “unfair methods of competition” and “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” The Supreme Court has said that all violations of the Sherman Act also violate the FTC Act. Thus, although the FTC does not technically enforce the Sherman Act, it can bring cases under the FTC Act against the same kinds of activities that violate the Sherman Act. The FTC Act also reaches other practices that harm competition, but that may not fit neatly into categories of conduct formally prohibited by the Sherman Act. Only the FTC brings cases under the FTC Act.

It’s not just the social media tech giants that are owned by leftists, many large corporations are as well. And these companies are not all lone wolfs when they target conservatives. They are colluding to silence conservatives. This is a silent coup, and it will escalate as the elections get closer. These leftist corporate heads are still fuming over the election, and can’t allow conservatives to utilize their services to spread their message.

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