Google censors two posts

"What they mean by democracy" was based on NYT reporting. "Democrats' Kari Lake mistake" was based on NBC reporting. Google said both had "unreliable and harmful claims"

I decided to call my mascot Kadiddlehopper.

Clam Kadiddlehopper.

(Once when I came back from one of my many topdown drives, my wife said my hair made me look like Klem Kadiddlehopper. 45 years of marriage and she still thinks I look like a TV star.)

Every time that Goggle censors a post at my blog — https://donsurber.blogspot.com — I will repost the censored piece here and let readers decide for themselves. This is an extra. My weekly column will be at noon Eastern on Saturday.

So far this week, Google censored two posts. The censorship only hastens my move to Substack only. There is a Kafkaesque feel to the censorship. Google cites “unreliable and harmful claims” but does not tell you what those claims are. Then it says you must fix it or lose your advertising income. There is no way of communicating with Google. Its censors hide in the corporate shadows.

This first post originally ran on Tuesday, October 18, 2022. Five days later, Google censored it. Good luck figuring out why.

What they mean by democracy

Even by New York Times standards, the NYT headline was odd: "Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority."

Huh?

Isn't voting democracy in action?

NYT does not think so. In reporting on its own poll, NYT said, "71% of all voters said democracy was at risk — but just 7% identified that as the most important problem facing the country.

"These ostensibly conflicting views — that voters could be so deeply suspicious of one another and of the bedrock institutions of American democracy, while also expressing little urgency to address those concerns — may in part reflect longstanding frustrations and cynicism toward government.

"Still, among voters who saw democracy as under threat, the vast majority, 81%, thought the country could fix the problem by using existing laws and institutions, rather than by going outside the law, according to the poll. Those who said violence would be necessary were a small minority."

Like most of the media, NYT decried those who denounced the ballot harvesting by Democrats in 2020 to deny Trump a second term.

Unmentioned is the NYT's role in delegitimizing Trump's startling win in 2016. NYT, WaPo, CNN, AP and the rest promoted Hillary's hare-brained notion that Putin fixed the election. They are the Original Election Deniers.

To them, democracy is choosing between Frick and Frack, government-approved candidates who pose no threat to the game of Corporate America hiring lobbyists to get the bureaucracy to promulgate rules and regulations that serve as barriers to competition.

Remember that BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico under Obama? That resulted in raising the bonds companies must post to $2 million per oil rig. BP could post that. Wildcat competitors could not. Never let a crisis go to waste, even if you create the crisis.

Having denied that Trump was elected in 2016, the media tries to conflate parading in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, into Democrats attacking Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, with cannons. They denied the 1860 election results like Democrats would deny the 2016 election by trying to delegitimize the Republican winner.

Joe Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-approved historian, ran a column in Time titled, "Lincoln Saved American Democracy. We Can Too."

Meacham wrote, "The battle of the third decade of the 21st century is, for now, of a different scale. But we have already seen attempted insurrection, and many adherents of one of our two major political parties refuse to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election, setting the stage for subsequent denials of reality as soon as next month’s midterms. While the Civil War era, therefore, is not a precise analogy, we would be derelict in our duties as citizens if we did not reckon with what Lincoln reckoned with: the often self-sacrificing demands of decency and of democracy."

In his second inauguration speech as the civil war wound down, Lincoln forgave Democrat rebels by saying, "With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Democrats responded 39 days later by assassinating him, which installed a Democrat president.

America is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic. Assassinations, unfounded impeachments, entrapment by the FBI and the imprisonment of political opponents undermine that republic, as do presidential edicts that legalize illegal immigration and the like. The raid on President Trump's residence to see pictures and other mementoes of his presidency was a smack in the face of the 328 million people who call the United States home.

The way you protect democracy is by voting for the candidate of your choice, be he Corporate America's puppet or be he a man who wants to Make America Great Again.

***

The second censored post ran on Thursday, October 20, 2022.

Democrats' Kari Lake mistake

Democrats bestowed on Kari Lake -- Arizona's Republican gubernatorial nominee -- the title that any sensible Republican seeks.

She is now worse than Trump.

Greg Sargent of WaPo wrote, "The way Lake has imitated Trump’s rhetoric is obvious, but as I’ve followed her in the months since, something else has become clear: She is much better at this than Trump’s other emulators. That makes sense, given her first career in front of the camera, cultivating trust among thousands of Maricopa County viewers. But this is more than imitation: Lake has made MAGA her own. She’s agile as a politician in a way that other high-profile Trump-endorsed candidates, like scandal-plagued Herschel Walker and crudités-eating Mehmet Oz, are not. Lake is more likable than Senate hopefuls like Blake Masters or J.D. Vance. And she bats at the press with a vivacity unmatched by anyone but the big man himself."

Lake was a news anchor on KSAZ in Phoenix, where she worked for 22 years. Arizona voters saw her in their living rooms for decades.

Democrats are nervous. 538 says she has a 55% chance of winning. Remember, 538 gave Trump only a 35% chance of winning in its last prediction in 2016.

But Democrats have only themselves to blame if there is a Governor Lake after the election.

On July 13, NBC reported, "Kari Lake watched her lead narrow in the polls and big players in Arizona’s Republican establishment coalesce around her top rival weeks before the state’s Aug. 2 primary for governor.

"So Democrats stepped in.

"The state party, in an email blast this week, thanked her opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, for past donations she made to Democrat candidates. The move was quickly interpreted as another example of Democrats’ meddling in midterm election primaries to help draw the general election opponent believed to offer the easier matchup in November — in this case Lake, an election denier endorsed by former President Donald Trump."

In the email, Josselyn Berry, a spokesperson for the state party, said, "As the Republican primary for governor continues to stir toxic infighting, the Arizona Democratic Party will always be grateful for Robson’s longtime support in helping elect Democrats up and down the ballot, including this November."

Lake should thank Democrats for thanking her opponent.

I credit Democrat blind hatred for Donald Trump because they did not see the danger in backing his supporter. He lost the state by 12,000 votes out of 3.3 million cast. Biden's low approval numbers will keep his supporters on the porch while Trump supporters elect his female surrogate.

Her telegenic looks and ability to communicate has her Democrat opponent, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, running scared. Literally. 

The hardly MAGA Arizona Republic reported, "Katie Hobbs running away from a debate with Kari Lake is the debacle that just won't die."

The story said, "If Katie Hobbs loses, remember October 12 – the day she ran away from confronting Kari Lake.

"Democrats in Arizona are known for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but Hobbs’ refusal to debate her opponent on Wednesday represents a new level of political malpractice.

"It’s right up there with David Garcia, who while running for governor in 2018 gave a speech in which he waxed poetic. 'Just imagine, no wall,' he said. 'No wall in southern Arizona.'

"He was never heard from politically again."

Hobbs refused a Citizens Clean Elections Commission debate. I can see her point. Kari Lake is Reagan in this election; Hobbs is Carter.

Earlier, The Atlantic declared, "Trumpism Has Found Its Leading Lady.

"The Republican candidate for Arizona governor not only won Trump’s endorsement but has emerged as his most talented emulator. Is Kari Lake the new face of the MAGA movement?"

The answer is of course. That is why Democrats are so hysterical.

In a CNN column, Dean Obeidallah declared, "Some people have described Kari Lake as a Donald Trump in heels. And like the twice-impeached Republican President who endorsed her candidacy to be Arizona’s next governor, the election-denying Lake poses a threat to our democratic republic if she wins."

Only in La La Liberal Land is people voting for the candidate they want a threat to democracy. 

Biden barely nosed out Trump in Arizona in an election Hobbs oversaw. What was weird is the media called it hours before it declared Ohio for Trump -- and he carried Ohio by 8 points.

The Democrat story line is Lake is an election denier.

Not everyone is buying the narrative.

ABC reported, "Former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for president in 2020 as a Democrat and endorsed Joe Biden after her exit from the race, on Tuesday campaigned in Arizona for the state's Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, a fervent election denier Trump loyalist."

Gabbard did not just endorse Biden. She ran for president specifically to stop Trump. After 18 months of Biden, Gabbard is running to the MAGA camp for help.

Lake took reporters to task over election denialism.

She said, "Let’s talk about election deniers. Here’s 150 examples of Democrats denying election results. Look at this, this is from Joe Biden’s Press Secretary ‘remember Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and Stacey Abrams.’ A Democrat was saying that, is that an election denier? 

"Oh look at this, ‘just heard Republican Ryan Costello said it would be difficult for Stacey Abrams to win because she lost her state bid, but she’s still claiming she never lost.’ Hillary Clinton: ‘Trump is an illegitimate President,’ is she an election denier? This one says ‘was the 2016 election legitimate? It is definitely a question worth asking.’ That was the Los Angeles Times. 

"So it’s okay for Democrats to question elections but it’s not okay for Republicans? It’s crock of BS, everyone knows it, we have our freedom of speech and we’re not going relinquish it to a bunch of fake news propagandists. If you want a copy of these I’m sure Anthony will help you get a copy and help you learn how to be a journalist but look it up. It has been happening for a long time."

As the state's chief elections officer, Hobbs may have fixed the 2020 election for Biden but she cannot fix this election for herself. 

A Lake victory will be Trumpenfreude.