A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health revealed the number of law-abiding Americans carrying a loaded handgun daily nearly doubled between 2015-19. 

The study titled “Trend in Loaded Handgun Carrying Among Adult Handgun Owners in the United States, 2015‒2019” found the number of law-abiding US adults carrying handguns nearly doubled from 9 million in 2015 to 16 million in 2019.

“Proportionally fewer handgun owners carried handguns in states where issuing authorities had substantial discretion in granting permits,” the study’s authors said. 

The authors claimed that very “little was known about the frequency and features of firearm carrying among adult handgun owners in the United States before this study. In fact, over the past 30 years, only a few peer-reviewed national surveys, conducted in 1994,1995, 1996, and 2015, have provided even the most basic information about firearm carrying frequency.”

Research firm Ipsos conducted the national survey between July 2019 and August 2019. Respondents were from firearm-owning households drawn from Ipsos’s Knowledge Panel, an online sampling pool of approximately 55,000 adults. 

There was no explanation by the study’s authors for the rapid increase in daily handgun-carrying adults. But during the period, social unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore City, Maryland, as well as surging violent crime across certain metro areas, could be the reason behind the trend. 

After all, an overwhelming number of respondents said they were carrying handguns for “personal protection.” 

“And all of these increases happened before the Covid lockdowns and the “Summer of Love” where many US cities experienced massive rioting, violence and staggering increases in crime,” firearms blog Bearing Arms said. Much of this unleashed a tidal wave of law-abiding citizens panic buying guns, even to this day, for personal protection. 

And then there’s this summer’s US Supreme Court’s NYSRPA v. Bruen ruling affirmed the right-to-carry applies outside the home, which forces states to stop arbitrarily denying carry permits to applicants who didn’t meet specific requirements. This ruling has allowed millions of gun owners to conceal carry if they take a two-day class and pass a background check.  

Suppose the authors were to update the study for the pandemic years and the Bruen ruling. In that case, we believe the number of Americans packing heat has dramatically increased as the country is plagued with violent crime in progressively run cities.

Data shows that not only are more gun owners carrying firearms for self-defense, but more law-abiding gun owners are carrying DAILY.

This is what happens when violent crime is on the rise across the country and #SecondAmendment rights are being attacked from every angle.

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 29, 2022

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

At least 42 Biden administration officials were sent letters by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee this month requesting testimony from a variety of White House officials.

Those letters primarily dealt with the suspected politicization of the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ), investigations into U.S. border security, and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

A recent letter (pdf) led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to White House chief of staff Ron Klain requested testimony from Biden administration staffers relating to alleged “misuse of federal criminal and counterterrorism resources to target concerned parents at school board meetings.” Interviews from four White House officials were requested.

Around the same time, another letter (pdf) from Jordan was sent to the Department of Education requesting testimony from three officials, and another letter to the Department of Homeland Security requests interviews from around a dozen administration officials. That includes embattled Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement chief Tae Johnson.

Even more DOJ and FBI officials were asked to testify during the next Congress, according to two separate letters (pdf, pdf) sent by Jordan and others last week. They’re seeking testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and dozens of other DOJ and FBI officials, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of the GOP-backed letters.

It’s likely that Republicans will seek to investigate how the FBI and DOJ handled investigations into former President Donald Trump and the raid that targeted Mar-a-Lago in August. Republicans and Trump have long said the two agencies have exhibited a politically motivated animus toward the former president, coming after Garland announced he had appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate him.

More than a week ago, Garland appointed Smith as special counsel to “oversee two ongoing criminal investigations” into Trump, namely events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach and the Mar-a-Lago raid, according to a DOJ statement. Just days before, Trump announced he would be embarking on a third presidential bid in 2024.

Other Investigations

House Majority Leader-elect Steve Scalise (R-La.) revealed that some of the GOP’s priorities for the incoming Congress are probing the origins of COVID-19, the widely criticized U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and allegations surrounding Hunter Biden.

The House Oversight Committee, under its top Republican and likely next chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), is “ready to go start looking into a lot of the questions that people have had,” Scalise told Breitbart this weekend.

“Whether it’s Hunter Biden’s dealings with all kinds of foreign countries [or] the laptop scandal, which the liberal media tried to dismiss when it came out in 2020,” he added. “It’s been verified.

“It turns out there’s a lot of information on that laptop that raises serious questions, and James Comer’s committee’s going to be asking those.

Read more here…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a video address on Tuesday estimated it will cost more than $1 trillion to rebuild his country following the Russian assault, now over nine months in. If this number sounds absolutely shocking and unrealistic… it is, given this would be five times Ukraine’s entire GDP.

“The reconstruction of our country will become the most momentous economic, technological, and humanitarian project of our time. Even now, we engage dozens of our partner countries to rebuild Ukraine,” Zelensky said during his nightly video address Tuesday, translated by Newsweek. “The total volume of work amounts to over a trillion dollars.”

He slipped this one trillion dollar figure in while saying he hopes his country can show the world its resilience by hosting the World’s Fair in 2030. 

Further, the Latvia-based English language news outlet Meduza described that the Ukrainian leader floated an unusual plan for meeting his astronomical reconstruction price tag. National governments or even large companies could become permanent sponsors of specific regions, cities, or economic sectors: 

According to Zelensky, Ukraine is developing a system that will allow partner countries to become “patrons” of Ukrainian regions, cities, or businesses. “We’re already seeing interest [in the program] from France, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Poland, Portugal, Czechia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Canada, the U.S., Japan, and Australia. And that’s not an exhaustive list,” he said.

This actually isn’t the first time that a stunning $1+ trillion figure has been proposed. 

The first time Zelensky so publicly floated one trillion seems to have been in September, when he was invited to “ring” the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on the 6th of that month (via video feed of course).

He said at the time during comments which included an appeal for $400 billion in foreign investment: “The general project of Ukrainian reconstruction will be the largest economic project in Europe of our time. The largest for several generations. Its volume is already estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Zelensky then emphasized, “And with the necessary modernization of the Ukrainian infrastructure, taking into account security needs, it is more than a trillion dollars and in a fairly short term – less than ten years.”

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Ukraine was worth 200.09 billion US dollars in 2021, according to official data from the World Bank…

Meanwhile, at least one well-known Washington-based think tank has gotten behind this, arguing that it would provide “strategic benefits” to the United States. A report in Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) issued days ago and entitled, United States Aid to Ukraine: An Investment Whose Benefits Greatly Exceed its Cost, had this to say…

“In practice, Ukraine cannot continue to fight and to recover without continuing aid from the U.S. and other powers. Moreover, if the war drags on as it well may do, the total costs of both the war and recovery states could easily rise well over $500 billion. A truly long war could put the total cost of the war and recovery to a trillion dollars or more.”

It noted, “So far, there has been only limited domestic political resistance in the United States to continuing civil and military aid to Ukraine” – suggesting that US officials should push for more and more foreign aid for Kiev amid the general lack of pushback and apathy.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Texas mother, frustrated by her school board’s reluctance to remove books with graphic sexual content from school libraries, found an embarrassing technique for getting board members and the public to pay attention.

Her unusual method may have hastened the removal of one objectionable book from shelves and brought the issue of sexual content in school libraries to the attention of social media viewers worldwide.

At last count, the number of views of her most-recent appearance at a school board meeting had reached nearly 372,000 on Twitter after being shared by Libs of TikTok.

UNREAL. Parent in @friscoisd reads from a pornographic book available to kids. A board member stops her and says “there’s a child in our board room.”

They acknowledge it’s inappropriate to read in front of children but these books can be in the school library. Make it make sense pic.twitter.com/VwpUBWOYnb

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 17, 2022

The video shows Shannon Ayres reading from the book, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” at a board meeting of the Frisco Independent School District on Nov. 16.

Ayres, the mother of grown children who attended school in the district, now serves on the board of the local chapter of the watchdog group County Citizens Defending Freedom.

In the clip, Ayres takes her spot at the podium during public comment and begins reading a passage from the book found in the library of at least one district high school. The excerpt graphically describes a young girl protesting and crying as a boy forces her to perform oral sex.

“I ask you why this book has survived two attempts…” Ayres tries to ask board members.

Off-camera, a school board trustee can be heard talking over her as Ayres’ microphone is turned off at the end of her comment period.

“Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you so much. There’s a child in our boardroom, so I’d like for you to please stop reading that,” board president Rene Archambault interrupts, drawing loud complaints from the audience.

Ayres told The Epoch Times she decided to begin reading excerpts from books that remained in libraries after making it through at least one review process. Though distasteful, she felt reading passages would focus attention on the remaining books.

“Identical,” which has a scene where a father rapes his daughter, was already under a second review but removed within 48 hours after she read from it at a previous school board meeting.

So Ayres signed up to speak again during the meeting set aside for public comment. And that’s what drew her public scolding now circulating around the world.

“My heart was beating so hard I felt like they could see it beating through my shirt. It was scary. I had to say a little prayer to get the words out. It’s just vile,” she said.

The irony of Archambault’s comment seems to amaze viewers—that a school library book is too graphic to be presented in front of children.

“The hypocrisy was so blatant,” Ayres said.

Archambault’s comments later in the meeting indicated that the child in the audience was of elementary-school age. She said it was vastly different for a child to be “forced” to listen to the material read during a board meeting versus checking out a book from the library.

She apologized that the child’s mother had to cover her ears while the book passage was read and asked people to email concerns about books in the future so children wouldn’t be exposed to the content during board meetings.

At that point, trustee Marvin Lowe, one of two conservative board members, spoke up.

“I understand what you’re saying for a kid to hear what was in that book, but do we need to apologize to the community that those books are in our library, to begin with?” Lowe said, prompting applause from the audience.

Ayres said she did not realize a child was at the meeting.

“And I was upset when I realized afterward there was a child in the room because obviously that’s what I’m trying to avoid is children having to be exposed to that,” she said.

The frustrating part is that she said some objectionable books have been on shelves for a year after being challenged.

Besides the “Wallflower” book, six other titles remain on the shelves: “Check, Please! Book 1:#1 Hockey,” “Chicken Girl,” “Glass,” “Glass Castle,” “The Perks of Being a Wildflower,” “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” and “The Exact Opposite of Okay.”

Frisco ISD’s website says parents and community members may object to titles that don’t follow district policy. But it also noted that the district must protect students’ First Amendment rights.

Ayres said board members shouldn’t hide behind claims that removing inappropriate books would violate students’ rights.

Ayres said minors aren’t allowed to carry guns, which isn’t an infringement on their Second Amendment rights. Likewise, she added, taking books with sexual content out of libraries doesn’t infringe upon their First Amendment rights.

Even with the intervention of state Rep. Jared Patterson, a Frisco Republican, the seven books remain on school library shelves after two appeals.

Patterson told The Epoch Times he was sorry the child in the audience heard the book’s content.

“I’m sorry that any child has to see that in their school,” he said.

Patterson started objecting to books last November, he said. But when school started in August 2022, there were still 28 books with sexual or inappropriate content in Frisco ISD libraries.

Read more here…

Readers have been well-informed about the slide in wholesale used-vehicle prices. A combination of increasing new car and truck supply, soaring interest rates, and economic uncertainty have been drivers of slowing consumer demand. But let’s concentrate on the luxury side of the used car market, where storm clouds quickly gather. 

Twitter user CarDealershipGuy pointed out that a 2021 G-Wagon with only 3,330 miles just sold at auction for around $187,000. He said the latest auction figures were a 30% plunge from the nearly $300,000 price the luxury SUV commanded earlier this year. 

Exotic car market is getting decimated right now.

2021 Mercedes G-Wagon with 3,378 miles just sold for $187K at auction.

that’s nearly an $80K (or 30%) drop in under 12 months.

— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) November 22, 2022

CarDealershipGuy explained, “exotic car market is getting decimated right,” even though the overall decline in the average wholesale used car prices is only “-13.7% y/y (according to Manheim).” He attributed the turmoil in the luxury space to “crypto bros” panic dumping high-end vehicles. 

Reminder that wholesale used cars are only down 13.7% y/y (according to Manheim)

so yes, crypto bros are hurting.

oh and incase you wanted more proof: pic.twitter.com/moYa9h1AZ4

— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) November 22, 2022

NYPost said, “an uptick in like-new models of sought-after luxury cars has hit resale sites such as AutoTrader in recent weeks.” 

CarDealershipGuy told The Post the crypto winter has forced “crypto bros” to dump luxury vehicles at auctions or list them on online marketplaces. 

“It’s clear that in the last couple of months the decline in prices for exotic vehicles has accelerated and that correlates very, very well with the meltdown in the crypto markets where we know that some of the biggest customers of exotic vehicles were crypto millionaires,” he said.

Here’s the crash in bitcoin.

Software engineer Brianna Wu also noticed an uptick, though she said McLaren listings on AutoTempest were “exploding.” 

The crypto crash is real.

Right now, @AutoTempest is EXPLODING with McLarens – the flashy and extremely unreliable car of Cryptobros who couldn’t change a tire if their lives depended on it. pic.twitter.com/L8Swam8Qmm

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) November 16, 2022

If “crypto bros” are offloading vehicles, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before they unload other assets, such as Rolex, yachts, and mansions, as the winter in the digital asset space could worsen in the months ahead. 

Authored by Dan M. Berger via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Early voting in Georgia’s Senate runoff between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker is setting records, as it did before the November general election.

More than half a million of the state’s 7 million active voters had already voted as the polls opened on Nov. 29.

“Just … Wow!” Georgia’s Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling posted on Twitter late on Nov. 28.

“Georgia voters, facilitated through the hard work of county election and poll workers, have shattered the old early vote turnout, with 300,438 Georgians casting their votes today. They blew up the old record of 233,000 votes in a day. Way to go voters and election workers.”

At the North Fulton County Annex in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, a line of waiting voters stretched out the front door, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk during four different visits by The Epoch Times to the building on Nov. 28 and Nov. 29.

A man who had just voted on Nov. 29 checked his watch and told The Epoch Times he’d waited about 45 minutes.

Early voting continues through Dec. 2. The runoff Election Day is next Tuesday, Dec. 6.

The closely watched, closely matched race will determine whether the Democrats get a 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate or whether the chamber splits once more 50-50 between the two parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.

In the previous Congress, Senate party leaders Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) negotiated a power-sharing agreement in which the parties had equal representation on committees, but Democrats held the gavels.

Polls show the race is close. A Fabrizio/Anzalone poll of 500 likely voters from Nov. 11–17  had Warnock up by four points, still within the margin of error.

Another released on Nov. 28, done by FrederickPolls, Complete Digital, and AMMPolitical of 939 likely voters surveyed from Nov. 23–26, had the two tied at 50 percent each.

Georgia AARP said in a press release that Walker runs nine points ahead among voters aged 50 or older, who make up 62 percent of likely runoff voters. But other demographics showing strongly in early voting include female and black voters, who tend to favor Warnock.

The runoff was forced because while Warnock led in the general election, he failed to reach the 50 percent of the ballots required by Georgia law. He had 49.4 percent, Walker had 48.5, and Libertarian Chase Oliver had 2.1 percent.

There are clues to be taken out of the general election results.

Around one in 10 Republicans voted for Republican Brian Kemp for governor but crossed over to vote for Warnock or not vote in the Senate race at all.

Warnock was the Democrats’ leading vote-getter, well ahead of their gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Will those ticket-splitters come back for the runoff or just stay home? Will Oliver’s Libertarian voters come back? If so, who will they vote for?

Walker constitutes a wild card: a celebrity athlete who has never run for office, with huge name recognition in Georgia, but whom Warnock says is unprepared to represent the state.

Warnock has poured more than $100 million into ads attacking Walker over a number scandals—such as allegations of domestic violence, revelations about previously unacknowledged children born out of wedlock, and allegations about abortions the pro-life candidate allegedly paid for or solicited.

Warnock has aired ads featuring Republicans who say they can’t vote for Walker. Those who voted for Kemp and other Republicans running for statewide office—but for Warnock and not Walker—show there is a significant number.

But despite all this, poll numbers in Georgia have hardly moved since the summer. Warnock led narrowly during the summer and Walker in the fall, but always within the margin of error.

Democrats are pressing hard to lock in their base by getting them to vote early.

The party sued and won to get an extra day of early voting on Saturday, Nov. 26, after Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had first said it would be allowed, then changed course and barred it, citing a passage in state election law.

Once permitted, it took place on a county-by-county basis. DeKalb was the only county in the state to start early voting before that, with one day on  Nov. 23, the day before Thanksgiving. Some counties also opened the polls on Nov. 27.

After Nov. 28’s turnout, almost 504,000 Georgians had voted, either through early voting or returned absentee ballots, slightly more than 7 percent of the state’s approximately 7 million registered and active voters. About 468,000 used early voting, while around 36,000 absentee ballots had been returned.

In 11 counties—including DeKalb, the Atlanta metro area county that is the second largest in the state, more than 10 percent of voters had already voted.

Of early voters, about 244,000 were white and 193,000 black, with about 48,000 whose ethnicity was classified “other or unknown,” around 10,000 Hispanics, 8,000 Asian or Pacific Islanders, and a little more than 1,000 classified American Indian or Alaskan Native.

The state is about 57 percent white and 32 percent black, but blacks, who vote heavily Democrat, comprised 41 percent of those voting early.

The news surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the political firestorm it has caused probably hasn’t escaped most people.  The platform which once represented the very root of leftist cancel culture and activist organization for attack mobs has suddenly been turned upside down.  Musk’s position appears to be a simple one:  Free speech within the bounds of the law.  He has so far made good on that promise, and the leftists are losing their collective hive mind because of it.

In the process of coping with the loss of their prize, leftist activists and establishment elitists in Big Tech and government have been searching for a way to undermine or sabotage Twitter.  The bottom line?  If they can’t have it, they will try to burn it all down so that no one can have it.

This mentality has led to a rather predictable outcome, which is for corporations and Big Tech companies to exert economic leverage against Musk.  Why?  On the face of it the explanation is simple:  They hate free speech.  Specifically, though, they hate conservative and liberty minded speech.  

The average leftist on Twitter will never challenge the establishment narrative.  They are absolutely controlled and commonly regurgitate whatever claims the mainstream media makes on a daily basis without researching validity.  Some conservatives do this as well, but then there is the rogue element, the large percentage of conservatives/libertarians that question the narrative and are willing to make a stand based on principles rather than pure emotions and fear.  The idea that such people might have access to an open forum as vast as Twitter terrifies the powers that be.     

The fascinating thing about the Twitter situation is that it reveals a much bigger underlying danger beyond the zealotry of the political left; massive collusion has been revealed between elements of government, corporations and the ideological mob.  

It is hard to say how organized this collusion really is.  The average woke activist is a useful idiot more so than a competent agent of destruction.  But the system is clearly acting to protect itself from the thing it fears most – Fair debate and a level playing field.  In response, they are willing to expose their existing monopoly to stop the shift.

This monopoly is partially economic, with only a small handful of companies in control of a large portion of the overall tech pie, but it is important to understand that it is more dangerous than other historic examples because this monopoly is an ideological monopoly.

In the past companies were primarily motivated by profit and would not sacrifice profit by alienating consumers and users with political zealotry.  These day, however, all that has changed.  Now companies fully discriminate according to political beliefs and are willing to lose untold billions in profits if it means doing damage to people they disagree with.

Leftists argue that this is an example of the “free market” at work, but that is a lie.  It is in fact the the basis of control used within Marxist inspired societies – Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao all advocated for the use of denial of access to the economy and to society as a first line measure to control dissent.  Their reasoning?  If a person is in opposition to the foundations of the collective, then he is dangerous to the collective and therefore the collective must shun him to prevent him from causing harm.  And of course, the elites get to decide what is in the best interests of the collective.  

In fact, Marxists/socialists tend to treat ideological dissent as far worse that any typical crime such as theft or murder, because political dissent “hurts all of society” rather than one person or a handful of people.   

This is the core rationale for the reactions on display against conservatives in our era, and denial of access is a weapon they have now deemed acceptable.  They pretend as if it is nothing more than private businesses making independent decisions to not associate with certain types of people, but in truth it is a coordinated effort between ideological partners  and often governments.

We saw this with the organized attack on the Parler social media platform and the use of Big Tech collusion as a means to remove them from app stores and from their own server.  Now, leftists are demanding that the tactics used against Parler also be used against Twitter, with companies like Apple threatening Twitter’s availability (according to Elon Musk) for download at their App Store.

Apple and Google control almost all major internet access for online companies via their app stores.  Without download availability, social media companies stand to lose significant traffic and may even be put out of business over time.    

In a move that was once unthinkable only a few years ago, Big Tech corporations are acting on partisan motives to subdue and destroy any social media outlet that presents a legitimate threat to the ideological monopoly.  And it won’t stop there – It is likely we will see the targeting of other websites and individuals in due course.  

Internet server providers, search engines and even banks may act to completely cut off businesses run by conservatives.  We have seen some examples of this (gun manufacturers come to mind), but as the establishment becomes threatened by a balancing of political engagement we are liable to see far more discrimination.     

Monopolies are illegal and they are anti-free market, but the definition of monopoly is too limited.  Economic monopolies are not the only threat to our freedom, now we must also worry about ideological monopolies within the corporate world and their power to limit free speech by extorting media sites and businesses into self censorship. 

During an interview on the far-left Stephen Colbert show, CNN’s Don Lemon claimed that he doesn’t think the network which has viciously attacked conservatives for the past several years “ever was liberal.”  Colbert reacts with understandable surprise and a hint of disbelief at the notion. 

While it’s true that the term “liberal” in the traditional sense has barely applied to the political left in the US for decades, it’s doubtful that Don Lemon is playing word games or semantics.  When he uses the descriptive he is referring to progressive ideology, and to claim CNN was never a progressive echo chamber and propaganda machine is truly jumping the shark. 

This is the same network that consistently pushed the debunked Russiagate narrative, claimed that the Barack Obama wire tapping scandal at Trump Tower was a “flat out lie” (it was absolutely true), asserted that the BLM protests were “fiery but mostly peaceful”, spent a considerable amount of energy attempting to demonize Kyle Rittenhouse’s act of self defense for political reasons and was a primary attack dog against American citizens that stood against the covid lockdown and mandates.  There is nothing centrist about CNN.     

Lemon’s attempt to shift the narrative, though absurd and a form of gaslighting, is more confirmation that the new CNN leadership and new ownership is indeed seeking to clean up the failing news outlet’s image as a partisan spin machine and at least give the appearance of objectivity. Lemon is merely trying to keep his job.

CNN has recently suffered one of the worst declines in viewership numbers and profits in the company’s history, along with the cancellation of it’s CNN+ streaming service after only a few weeks due to lack of public interest.  Lemon was recently booted from his prime time show ‘Don Lemon Tonight’ and was moved to the ‘New Day’ morning show with two other co-anchors; a change which he called “a promotion.” 

Authored by Randolph May via RealClearMarfkets.com,

The Babylon Bee, the satirical website that takes aim – all too effectively in the minds of some – at over-the-top wokeness, has been reinstated on Twitter. A blaring headline from a recent Bee story: “‘Twitter Is Dead,’ 300 Million People Post on Twitter.” A satirical zinger, indeed!

And Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been reinstated too – supposedly based on the results of a poll on . . . you guessed it, Twitter.

Amidst the turmoil and tumult of Elon Musk’s Twitter take-over, predicting what Twitter will be next week, much less next year, is a fool’s game. Count me out. After all, Mr. Musk reportedly has warned the staff: “Bankruptcy isn’t out of the question.”

Assuming for present purposes that Twitter can ensure the security and stability of the platform going forward, I know what I want the platform to be. Throughout this now fifteen part “Thinking Clearly About Speaking Freely” series, I’ve argued that Twitter, along with other major social media platforms, have been far too censorious in restricting content that should remain subject to public debate. And throughout, I’ve cited examples of overly censorious actions, such as restricting posts relating to the origin of COVID-19, the effectiveness of various treatment options, and the educational and economic costs of school and business lockdowns.

I’ve never contended there shouldn’t be any content moderation at all, but rather that Twitter should operate much more like the digital town square that Elon Musk, as a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” long has said he wanted.

In other words, censorship should be considerably more limited, say, to posts demonstrably facilitating terrorism or sex trafficking, or inciting violence.

Perhaps it should not be surprising that amidst all the present chaos, including the substantial downsizing of staff, including those on the “Trust and Safety Team,” that there are more strident calls for the government to exert greater control over Twitter. By way of example, I want to focus on a November 16 letter from the left-leaning Open Markets Institute (“OMI”) to the heads of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. Along with asking these government officials to investigate Mr. Musk’s take-over, OMI proposes to subject Twitter to stringent government control.

Claiming that Twitter is an “essential communications platform,” OMI says that “Twitter long ago proved it serves a unique and irreplaceable role in enabling citizens to communicate and debate key issues of the day.” It contends Twitter’s status as a “utility” is clear.

With Twitter denominated a public utility, it’s not a far leap for OMI to beseech government officials to protect “all communications and political debates” on Twitter from interference by Twitter’s executives, Board members, or employees. And according to OMI, Twitter should be required to enforce its terms of service “without prejudice or discrimination, in a completely transparent manner.” 

If taken literally, OMI is asking that Twitter be regulated in the same “common carrier-like” way that the conservative Texas legislature required when it enacted a law mandating that Twitter and other social media platforms not discriminate in their content moderation practices on the basis of “viewpoint.” And that Justice Clarence Thomas suggested might be appropriate two years ago in his concurring opinion in Biden v. Knight First Amendment Institute of Columbia University. There, Justice Thomas took note of what he characterized as the dominant market positions of Twitter, Facebook, and Google, along with the fact that the latter two essentially are controlled by one or two persons. Of course, that’s now true of Twitter too, and it is this concentration of control in one person upon which OMI primarily bases its case for government regulation.

As I pointed out in Part 2 of this series, in his Knight First Amendment Institute opinion, Justice Thomas declared there is a “fair argument” that Twitter, Google, and Facebook could be deemed common carriers, including by laws enacted in the states, so that they would be prohibited from excluding lawful speech from their platforms. And he speculated that the Supreme Court soon would have “no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.”

If enough of his fellow justices agree, as widely suspected, to review the Fifth Circuit’s NetChoice, L.L.C. v. Paxton decision upholding the Texas law mandating that Twitter and other major social media platforms operate like common carriers, then Justice Thomas’s predilection for imposing common carriage obligations on the major platforms might prevail.

Given the excessive censorship in which Twitter and the other dominant social media platforms have engaged, I have considerable sympathy for the impulse motivating calls for common carrier-like regulation of the platforms. But as I said in Part 2, and elsewhere in this series, I have serious concerns about this supposed remedy.

Here’s the nub of the matter as I explained in Part 3:

“As traditionally applied, the core elements of common carriage – rate regulation and nondiscrimination mandates – stifle investment and innovation. And, in any event, the traditional criteria used to assess whether an entity is a common carrier don’t neatly fit the web platforms, or at least not all of them.”

So, rather than embracing the call by the Open Markets Institute, and presumably Justice Thomas too, for imposing common carrier-like control over the platforms’ censorship practices, I continue to prefer offering free market solutions to address my concerns. Previously, I’ve advocated that Twitter and other platforms incorporate explicit presumptions favoring free speech in their terms of service. This presumptive “free speech default” would provide that content will not be removed absent clear and convincing evidence that the speech violates some specific, clearly delineated content prohibition. Such a presumption may be embedded in Mr. Musk’s mind, but it also should be embedded in the terms of service so that it more readily becomes part of the corporate culture.

I’ve also urged Twitter and other sites to adopt additional consumer empowerment approaches that put tools in the hands of platform users to determine the parameters of the content they wish to access. If consumers are allowed to avail themselves of such “personalization” tools, they would be able to assume, to a much greater extent than at present, the content moderation function now performed by the platforms.

Rather than looking first to imposing common carrier-like or other government controls, it is preferable to look to free market approaches to address the problem of excessive censorship.

I wouldn’t necessarily bet my house on it, but Elon Musk, with his entrepreneurial bent, may just be able to succeed at making Twitter much more free speech-friendly, while at the same time avoiding what he has described as the “hellscape.”

Following a steady stream of vicious attacks perpetrated by New York City’s homeless, Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday announced a new program that will involuntarily hospitalize people deemed a danger to themselves — regardless of whether they’ve demonstrated a risk to others.  

A statement from the mayor’s office said the policy targets an “ongoing crisis of individuals experiencing severe mental illnesses left untreated and unsheltered in New York City’s streets and subways.” At least 26 people have been shoved from NYC subway platforms this year alone — though not all the attacks were perpetrated by homeless people. 

“The very nature of their illnesses keeps them from realizing they need intervention and support,” said Adams at a City Hall press conference. “Without that intervention, they remain lost and isolated from society, tormented by delusions and disordered thinking. They cycle in and out of hospitals and jails.”

Of course, there’s more to New York’s crime crisis than “mental health” issues. An overly-forgiving judicial system that returns violent criminals to the streets after a scolding is also to blame — but rounding up some of the bona fide lunatics for treatment could be a good thing for all concerned.  

According to the mayor’s office statement, Adams’ directive “seeks to dispel a persistent myth that the legal standard for involuntary intervention requires an ‘overt act’ demonstrating that the person is violent, suicidal, or engaging in outrageously dangerous behavior likely to result in imminent harm.”

Omg. Watch as the woman’s hair he is pulling mouths the words, “please help me..”
I can’t imagine the terror she was feeling as that maniac grabbed her hair. #subway #NYC
Please @NYCMayor build more mental hospitals and get these people off our streets! @77WABCradio pic.twitter.com/ZEbBRODKgB

— Lidia Curanaj (@LidiaNews) May 26, 2022

“The common misunderstanding persists that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent,” said Adams. The new program empowers both cops and medical workers to assess people in public spaces and authorize involuntary hospitalizations.

Hospital capacities have been cited as a limiting factor, but, pointing to a commitment by Governor Kathy Hochul to add 50 new psychiatric beds, Adams said, “We are going to find a bed for everyone.” Maybe, but, in a city of 8.5 million people, 50 beds doesn’t exactly sound like a game-changer.  

The new program is certain to invite legal challenges. Indeed, even the mayor’s policy directive to city agencies acknowledges that “case law does not provide extensive guidance regarding removals for mental health evaluations based on short interactions in the field.” 

It points, however, to a few key indicators that police and other first responders might use to involuntarily take homeless people into custody and into care: “serious untreated physical injury, unawareness or delusional misapprehension of surroundings, or unawareness or delusional misapprehension of physical condition or health.” 

The New York Civil Liberties Union’s Donna Lieberman was among the first to criticize the plan: “The Mayor is playing fast and loose with the legal rights of New Yorkers…The federal and state constitutions impose strict limits on the government’s ability to detain people experiencing mental illness — limits that the Mayor’s proposed expansion is likely to violate.” 

In his Tuesday remarks, Adams assured reporters that people wouldn’t be committed merely “because someone’s sitting on the train talking to themselves.” Rather, an “accumulation of factors” would be used by a “trained professional determine that this person is a danger to themselves because they can’t take care of their basic needs.”  

Next, Mayor Adams needs a plan to address scenarios where serial killers transfer their souls into dolls so they can attack unsuspecting people on the subway:  

NYC Subway – Chucky Attack pic.twitter.com/2iA0Z8sfC0

— Michael Von Irvin MBA BSN RN (@MichaelVonIrvin) July 1, 2022

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