[Fhios]

Interesting to know who’s going to pay for their lawyer or which big name law firm takes it on pro-bono.

[Jack Black]

From the link I posted above:

"Brennan Gilmore’s (the guy suing Gateway Pundit and Alex Jones and Alan West) attorney is Andrew Mandrala who is (was?) an attorney at the WilmerHale law firm. At least four attorneys from WilmerHale are members of the Mueller Special Counsel — including Robert Mueller."

I think all of this needs to be viewed as of a piece, with the ultimate goal being choking off right-wing speech. Consider:

• Facebook updates it's algorithms to disfavor conservative sites. Dozens of conservative sites see traffic drop dramatically. Liberal sites see traffic inscreases.

• YouTube begins "de-monitizing" many conservative sites, including non-controversial and mainstream figures like Dennis Prager.

• YouTube and Twitter go on a campaign of banning right-wing figures altogether, closing their accounts. In most case no proximate cause is given, and no specific posts cited that violate terms of service.

• Facebook and Twitter announce that they are using the anti-Conservative and highly partisan SPLC to determine what hate speech is, essentially turning over censorship on their platforms to loony far-left grievance mongers.

• Many far right web sites have their web hosting services suddenly stop their service. Some appear to be black-listed and have to find services in Russia or Iceland to host them.

• Popular web payment services, including PayPal, Patreon and others, in unison, stop accepting payments for many right-wing web sites. In some cases embargoing large sums of money from the proprieters of these sites.

• A recent survey of American college students show that most do not feel Free Speech includes "hate speech" and most feel that diversity and inclusion are more important values than free speech.

• Moderate right wing, or even liberal speakers with slightly divergent views on a single topic, continue to be subjected to hectoring protests, including violence at many universities, including Portland State (multiple incidents including destruction of the audio equipment of the presenters), Yale, Univ. of Minnesota, and many others.

• Facebook bans Britain First political party, as well as the two most prominent leaders of the party from their platform. Prior to the ban the page had over 2 million followers. One of the reasons cited was the claim made that "we are Islamophobic and proud".

• Canadian Lauren Southern, a 23 year old vlogger is denied entry to UK, where she was headed to interview Tommy Robinson, leader of England First group against immigration and Muslim take over of England. "Racism" is cited as the reason, though the only racist thing she was accused of was creating a "Mohammed was gay" flyer in response to a "Jesus was gay" flyer she saw.

• American Brittany Pettibone was likewise denied entry to UK, where she was to speak at a right wing rally. Pettibone is probably best described as "alt-lite", somewhat like Gavin McGuinness or Mike Cernovich. She was to speak at a rally.

• Her traveling companion Martin Sellner of Austria was also denied entry. Both were held for more than 48 hours before being banned and released outside the country.

• Michigan police fail to provide safe passage into the Richard Spencer speaking event at MSU, eventually most of those wishing to hear him are turned back. MSU relents on allowing him to speak only after losing a lawsuit.

These actions fall under a couple main categories:

• "deplatforming" of conservative and dissident voices, as a coordinated effort by a large group of social media sites.

• harassment of conservative and dissident voices in all public and private speaking settings,
  • failure of police to protect first-amendment rights of speakers,
  • police actively coordinating with violent protesters to create dangerous situations for speakers and their audience via "gauntlets" and other forced confrontations.
  • Police failure to disarm violent protesters.

• And now we add the third leg of the tripod:

  lawfare, a concerted effort to sue, on ridiculous charges, all of the largest major conservative and dissident publications. Targets include Fox News, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, InfoWars and Alan West, a popular news aggregation feed on Facebook.

  • Even our own Matt Bracken has been subject to numerous Facebook suspensions of various lengths for publication of politically incorrect memes and links to articles. He was suspended for a month for using the term "tranny" to refer to a transgendered person. Apparently even common spoken abbreviations are enough pretext to ban people with conservative or dissident voices.

In summary: there is an organized, coordinated effort underway worldwide to marginalize the right, or indeed anyone dissenting from the full leftist orthodoxy on any issue. It is a plainly visible conspiracy, and it is still escalating.

Many leftist leaders are openly calling for limits on speech to be ratcheted up, such as London't mayor in a talk at SXSW this week.

We are under attack, and so far have not come up with a coordinated defense.

We are not hanging together, so as Franklin predicted, we are hanging alone. One after another person being deplatformed, shouted down, or hit with SLAP suits to shut them up.

There is some talk of an Internet Bill of Rights, and we should all be looking into that, in my opinion.

Free Republic is not outside the notice of these forces, I am sure. It's only a matter of time until various strategies are used to go after FR, its owners and members.