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Post by Admin on Jan 26, 2021 22:43:06 GMT
Twitter has pulled the plug on the account of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. A spokesperson for Twitter said, "This account was suspended for repeated violations of our civic integrity policy.” Twitter confirmed late Monday that the ban on the entrepreneur from Minnesota is a permanent one.  The ban is the latest in a series of disciplinary actions taken by Twitter that include, most notably, the banning of former President Donald Trump in an effort to reduce the spread of blatant political lies and punish those who incited violence, particularly in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Lindell has been a vocal backer of Trump, and reports surfaced earlier this month that he suggested the president declare martial law in the wake of what he saw as widespread election fraud. Among other things, Lindell alleged that the voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems were part of a conspiracy to rig the election against Trump. Upon threat of lawsuit from Dominion, Lindell told the New York Times: "I would really welcome them to sue me because I have all the evidence against them." Lindell is known to be considering a possible run for governor of Minnesota in 2022. The ban from Twitter would complicate his effort to reach voters. Last year, Twitter held to its permanent ban of Laura Loomer despite her winning the Republican primary in a long-shot bid for Florida's 21st Congressional District. "The account owner you referenced was permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules, and we do not plan to reverse that enforcement action," the company said in a statement at the time. |
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Post by Admin on Aug 13, 2021 22:29:26 GMT
Friday was supposed to be a big day. “The morning of August 13 it’ll be the talk of the world,” Mike Lindell, the MyPillow impresario and purveyor of discredited conspiracy theories about a stolen presidential election, warned during a recent appearance on a conservative podcast. Lindell, who is being sued for billions in damages by Dominion, a maker of voting machines that the right-wing bedding entrepreneur has called fraudulent, promised a day of reckoning, when the “Communists” would be kicked out of power and Donald Trump would rightly reassume his place in the Oval Office. Trump, himself no stranger to barely intelligible theories of political change, was reportedly a believer, telling underlings that he would somehow be reinstated as president in August.
The day isn’t over yet, of course, but none of this has yet come to pass, and I feel fairly confident that it won’t. Instead, Lindell is once again left looking like a fool—that is, except in the eyes of MAGA die-hards, Q followers, credulous right-wing news hosts, and other fellow travelers who, ensconced in filter bubbles, have managed to finger-paint their own reality in which a series of ever-shifting prophecies will one day, somehow, lead to Trump’s restoration and the deaths of their enemies. (This isn’t that unusual: The date the world is supposed to end has changed a lot over the years.) Despite the obvious absurdity of these beliefs, and despite content crackdowns on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Q-style paranoid fantasies persist. It’s difficult to call the movement monolithic, given its fractured and proliferating narratives, but it’s clear that no amount of fact-checking or adversarial media coverage can break these people out of their epistemic prisons. This movement, this paradigm of wild and even violent political prophecy, is here to stay. Trump may be its worshipped figurehead, but for now, Lindell is its lead missionary—a born-again, bumbling millionaire salesman, his success as unlikely, and as indelibly American, as his confused political rantings. There seems little doubt that Lindell will continue to spread this deranged gospel for as long as he can—until, perhaps, Dominion’s lawyers seize his phone from his hands.
Some Republican politicians and MAGA personalities may embrace these beliefs out of expediency—it can pay to be a loyal Trumpist—but what may be more disturbing is the authenticity of belief demonstrated by millions of Americans who have succumbed to delusions about stolen elections, chip-laden vaccines, and a government cabal of child-eating pedophiles. Chalk some of it up to the proliferation of misinformation, but in the absence of decent social policy—of well-funded education systems, universal health care, measures to reduce inequality, and even a general sense of trust in government—these kinds of beliefs can easily fester. Conspiratorial thinking has long been a feature of the American political and cultural scene, and it thrives in times of social and economic upheaval. A cruel, incompetent reality TV presidency capped by a pandemic and economic meltdown—along with the regular climate disasters—is a perfect environment for people to believe that, sure, why not, Trump could be president again, without an election. To paraphrase Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who referred positively to the military coup in Myanmar, it happened there—why can’t it happen here?
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Post by Admin on Aug 14, 2021 19:22:45 GMT
Trump supporters who had pushed a bizarre conspiracy theory predicting the former president would be reinstated on Aug. 13 were thoroughly mocked on social media late Friday as the day came and went with Joe Biden still in the White House. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has hawked the bogus claim, telling a right-wing podcast, “The morning of August 13, it’ll be the talk of the world.” As Friday, Aug. 13 wound down, however, the prediction failed to materialize.
Longtime news anchor Dan Rather, MSNBC’s Joy Reid, and others took to Twitter to mock the baseless theory. Rather wrote, “My bad. I completely forgot to mark #reinstatementday on my calendar. What did I miss?” Reid said, “So who’s got tickets to the Trump re-inauguration and what are y’all planning to wear??? #TrumpReinstatement.” E. Jean Carroll, who alleges the former president sexually assaulted her and has sued him for defamation, wrote, “What time is Trump being sworn in today? I forget.”
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Post by Admin on Sept 8, 2021 4:58:37 GMT
In “A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More confronts Richard Rich, a former protege who lied in court to convict him in exchange for being named attorney general of Wales. As Rich passes by, More asks: "For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales!"
The scene came to mind after Doug Jensen, one of the Jan. 6 rioters, was rearrested for listening to an online speech by Trump supporter and pillow magnate Mike Lindell. Jensen agreed not to use the internet as a condition of bail … but to violate those terms for the MyPillow Guy?
I have long been a vocal critic of Lindell and all those who rioted in Congress. Yet the Jensen case raises a concern about the conditions placed on bail by courts and the message that "rehabilitation" or remorse can be convincingly shown only by denouncing past political viewpoints or association.
After the riot, the Justice Department opposed bail for many defendants. The FBI found no evidence of a broad conspiracy of insurrection, however, and most of the roughly 570 people arrested have been charged only with forms of trespassing or parading. Only 40 face conspiracy charges related to planning to do violence or property destruction. Jensen was one of the best-known figures, pictured standing before police with his arms spread wide wearing a QAnon T-shirt emblazoned with an eagle.
He was charged with seven counts, largely for trespassing, parading or unlawfully entering the building; just one count alleges "assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating, or interfering" with officers. Jensen did not appear to be armed and was shown moving through the halls, verbally confronting officers.
Like many of the arrested, Jensen had to fight for bail for six months before a judge agreed to release him pending trial. In securing bail on July 13, Jensen assured U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly that he no longer believed in QAnon and was deceived by those who questioned the election. Kelly agreed, but only if Jensen stayed away from internet or cellphone access. Two weeks later, a court officer reportedly found Kelly in his garage secretly listening to Lindell.
According to the Washington Post, Judge Kelly initially was not inclined to release Jensen because "he wanted to be part of a revolution.” Kelly said it was "a close question" but decided to release Jensen because the accused man renounced his prior political views and said he was deceived by “a pack of lies.”
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