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White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain offered an interesting insight into Democrats 2022 midterm election strategy on Sunday, musing about French President Emmanuel Macrons ability to win reelection despite a 36 percent approval rating, implying a similar possibility for U.S. President Joe Biden. Instead of trying to turn Bidens sinking approval ratings around by ditching failed policies, Democrats seem content with their underwater numbers so long as they can drive Republicans popularity even lower with smears and censorship.

Bidens approval rating is at 40.9 percent, according to the RealClear aggregate, although a Quinnipiac poll has him as low as 35 percent and a CNBC poll has him at 38 percent. A February NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll reported that 56 percent of Americans thought Bidens first year in office was a failure, and the month before a mere 25 percent were satisfied with his administration.

The Biden administration has helped drive its own approval ratings into the ground with crisis after self-induced crisis. Democrat-led Covid lockdowns and ballooning federal spending have caused the worst inflationary crisis in decades, coupled with energy prices that were on the rise even before Russias invasion of Ukraine thanks to Bidens war on oil and gas. Destabilization in Ukraine and a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan may top the list of Bidens most deadly mess-ups, but theyre far from the only line items.

From a first-day executive order requiringthat schools ignore the biological differences between male and female students from the athletic field to the bathroom if they wish to continue receiving federal funding, and keeping those same schools closed for months, to bragging about working with Big Tech to silence dissent, exacerbating a record-setting crisis at the U.S. Southern border, ousting people from their jobs with medical mandates, encouraging kids to chop off their genitals, and colluding with the National School Boards Association to smear parents as domestic terrorists, the Biden team has done everything possible to alienate voters.

Meanwhile, Bidens radical legislative agenda has crashed and burned, leaving him with nothing to offer voters but a list of failures. Biden could choose to learn from these mistakes and respond by securing the border, unhampering American oil production, respecting parents and free speech, and protecting minors from predatory sex propaganda. But instead, the White House is tacitly admitting it doesnt care that Americans dont like its agenda.

How is that a workable election strategy? It isnt, unless you can convince voters to hate or fear your opposition even more. Democrats spent all four years of former President Donald Trumps presidency pushing the Clinton campaign-funded Russia collusion hoax, aided by propagandists in the legacy media. When The New York Post broke news of sensational and incriminating Biden family scandals in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, Big Tech and big media collaborated to nuke the story and censor those who tried to share it.

Those are just two of the most explosive examples. There are countless more of tech companies censoring conservative perspectives (including a sitting president), journalists running cover for Democrat conspiracy theories while lying about Republicans, and even tech barons like Mark Zuckerberg funneling nearly half a billion dollars to take over local election offices.

In a fair system, a president with approval ratings that are underwater by double digits would be worried about his next election, and probably worried enough to be making some big changes. But Biden has done nothing but double down. That signals just how confident his people are in their ability to collude with the censorship regime to smear their opponents or keep their arguments from reaching voters entirely. Censorship is a powerful political tool, and its part of why the laptop class is so panicked at the idea that someone with slightly more respect for free speech than they now owns the Twittersphere.

All of Bidens disasters point to a Republican victory in the midterms this fall, but Democrats unwillingness to let nosedives in the polls budge their cultural battles should be a chilling reminder to Republicans that Democrats havent played by the rules for years. The collaborators in the Biden White House, in the legacy media, and in Big Tech are so confident in their backroom rigging that they dont think they need to listen to what American voters think.

This should put urgency and tangible political reforms behind the broad and bipartisan desire among Americans to ensure American election processes are beyond reproach.

Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.

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Dems Have Zilch To Offer So They're Smearing, Censoring The Opposition - The Federalist

Resident Evil 4 VR executive producer Tom Ivey recently defended the decision to censor the game pointing to the current year and claiming the censored and cut content didnt fit with the Resident Evil franchise these days.

Source: Resident Evil 4 (2005), Capcom

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As previously reported, Resident Evil 4 VR was discovered to have censored dialogue and more prior to its launch. The dialogue was typically flirtatious in nature, such as Leon flirting with Ingrid Hannigan, Luis comments on Ashleys ballistics, and Ashleys request for overtime at the end of the game.

Source: Resident Evil 4 (2005), Capcom

Another scene of Leon discovering the corpse of an impaled women was also changed, from Guess theres no sex discrimination around here, to I guess no ones safe here.

Source: Resident Evil 4 VR (2021), Capcom

Sources speaking to Peter Pischke ofThe Happy Warrior Substack claimed the alterations were (in Pischkes words) focused on removing any scenes and dialogue that the gaming news media and social justice crowd may deem misogynistic.

In a leaked video sent to Pischke tracking the alterations, Japanese text notes the changes were related to sexual harassment, sarcastic expressions, sexist conversations, and expressions that may be indirectly linked to them have been removed.

Source: Peter Pischke,The Happy Warrior Substack

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The video also claims These were not unavoidably removed as part of the translation or porting process but were done by Armature Studio at the request of OculusVR and with the approval of CAPCOM.

Facebook later stated that the game also includes select changes to in-game dialogue and animations that we believe will update Resident Evil 4 for a modern audience.

Source: Resident Evil 4 (2005), Capcom

Amid Resident Evil 4 VR on Meta Quest 2 (the rebranded Oculus Quest 2) adding its Mercenaries mode in an update, Eurogamer spoke to Tom Ivey, the executive producer for developer Armature.

Eurogamer asked about the altered dialogue and scenes to which Ivey responded,Its the year 2022 and some of this stuff doesnt age well, and it doesnt fit with the Resident Evil franchise these days.

Source: Resident Evil 4 (2005), Capcom

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So the idea was that were keeping every aspect of the rooms and the creatures that you fight, and the story and how it progresses and the plot points of the story, Ivey explained.

But, you know, just kind of saying its the year 2022 does this fit with the way that Resident Evil should be presented in this day and age? Ivey reiterated. Thats the concept there.

I definitely agree with the changes we made to the game so were definitely on board with that, Ivey defended. We think its the right thing.

Source: Resident Evil 4 (2005), Capcom

Not only did Ivey defend the previous censorship of the game, but he also revealed the there are fundamental changes to Mercenaries.

He noted, All the gameplay from the original RE4, weve kind of cordoned off into one selection, which is called Classic mode. So you can play all the maps and characters, and the way that the timers work and the placement of the timers in the levels and all that is exactly the same.

But theres also things that are fundamental changes to the rules of Mercenaries, he revealed. Theres a mode called Time Rush, which is you start with a very, very limited amount of time. And we place two timers in random locations around the map so you have to look around really quick see that timer and think how am I going to get there while also killing guys while running to keep my combo going? And then I pick it up and I get maybe like 20 more seconds.

Source: Resident Evil 4

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Resident Evil 4 VR Executive Producer Defends Censorship: "It's The Year 2022 And Some Of This Stuff Doesn't Age Well" - Bounding Into...

Cond Nast has announced it is closing its entire Russian franchise as a result of the war in Ukraine and Russias new censorship laws.

The magazine publishers seven Russian publications Vogue, GQ, GQ Style, Tatler, Glamour, Glamour Style Book and Architectural Digest are expected to close with immediate effect.

In a memo emailed to Cond Nasts global staff on Tuesday, the companys chief executive officer, Roger Lynch, wrote: The escalation in the severity of the censorship laws, which have significantly curtailed free speech and punished reporters simply for doing their jobs, has made our work in Russia untenable.

While weve had a successful business in Russia for over 20 years, the continued atrocities brought on by this unprovoked war and the related censorship laws have made it impossible for us to continue operating there.

Cond Nasts Russian editions were initially suspended on 8 March. When Vogue Russia announced its suspension until further notice to its 1 million Instagram followers, it added: We believe that this is not a farewell letter, but only a short pause, after which we will return to you. We hope that soon we will be able to continue our work. It has not posted on the social media site since.

Vogue launched in 1998 as its 10th international edition and the flagship of Cond Nasts Russian arm. Models including Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss, Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner have appeared on its cover.

Fiona McKenzie Johnston, a British journalist who regularly contributed to Vogue Russia, said the Vogue Russia team was very much pro-peace and had used the magazines platform to promote anti-war messaging.

In early March, Vogue Russia shared a series of Picasso-inspired doves illustrated by Russian artists on its Instagram feed. Vogue is calling for Peace was a constant refrain, McKenzie Johnston said.

On its website, Cond Nast said Vogue Russia had more than 800,000 readers and was the most-read high-end fashion magazine in the country. The company claims that the combined reach of its Russian editions was more than 21 million people.

Lynch explained to staff that about 10% of employees in Russia would remain to fulfil certain outstanding obligations.

Its our absolute priority to do all we can and support everyone affected, including providing enhanced severance and benefits, employee assistance and outplacement programs, and dedicated People team guidance in applying for open positions in other markets.

Cond Nast Russias initial suspension followed announcements from numerous fashion designers and luxury goods companies, including Herms, LVMH, Richemont and Kering, that they were pausing trading in Russia.

On 9 March, Hearst Magazines publisher of Elle, Esquire, Harpers Bazaar and Cosmopolitan announced it was terminating its licensing agreements for its Russian publications.

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Vogue Russia closes as Cond Nast stops publishing after rise in censorship - The Guardian

Books on fire. Illustrated | iStock

"There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves," Ray Bradbury wrote of the reasons behind censorship in his story Usher II, part of The Martian Chronicles.

While Bradbury more famously took on censorship in his book Fahrenheit 451, in some ways this quote best summarizes the human need to blot out information we don't like. The fear he described is once again visible in Florida right now.

And how far back does this fear go? As far as civilization itself.

In ancient Egypt, pharaohs who didn't like their predecessors would literally deface their monuments taking the faces off their statues and reworking the stone into their own likeness. They also removed cartouches (pre-classical nameplates) from buildings or other objects, chipping away with hammer and chisel. Cartouches were considered so important because they were thought to contain a part of the owner's soul.

The first Roman emperor, Augustus, concerned about the legitimacy of his rule, tried to snuff out information he didn't like, including records of senatorial proceedings. He even exiled poets, such as Ovid, who wrote works he didn't like.

And the desire to limit access to information is not a Western thing. It's a global thing, with the East's history just as long as the West's.

Perhaps every religion, at one point or another, has tried to ensure its way to the truth would be the only one people could know. Nonreligious ideologies have done this too: The Nazis' book burnings of 1933 are rightly famous for their horror, and they previewed other horrors to come. Author Helen Keller's works championing social justice and equality for the disabled were among those burned, and the Nazis would later try to systematically kill the disabled to remove "useless eaters" from their "more perfect" Germany.

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What the Nazis did wasn't original, nor did anyone seemingly learn from it. Americans have famously burned lots of different books, or at least worked to make sure they never darken the door of any library in the Union. My favorite, in several senses, is Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. I wrote my senior thesis on it in college, unoriginally positing the Mississippi River as a metaphor for a journey into growing darkness. Huckleberry Finn has been in trouble since its publication, just like the titular boy himself.

Some people didn't like the friendship between a poor white boy and the Black slave, Jim. Others said the language (it's written almost entirely in dialect) makes Southerners sound stupid. And then there's Huck's troubling (if historically accurate) use of the N-word throughout.

It's a disturbing book. It's meant to be a disturbing book to disturb the status quo that's why Twain wrote it. So you're disturbed? Good. I've heard it said that Jesus disturbed a lot of people, too.

Books belong on shelves, not pyres, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that doesn't belong somewhere in a library. Don't want to read it? Don't check it out. And I'll stick by that till the end for adults maybe even most high school students. But kids in elementary school and middle school classrooms? That's where my resolve starts to crumble.

Thinking of the children is the most compelling excuse for censorship. It can lead down a slippery slope right to the devil, too. People are always concerned about their children's education. They move across town for the better school. They lie, cheat, and steal to get their kids in where they want them to go. And who wants their children to be taught something they believe is factually incorrect or, worse, immoral?

The sad thing for a free speech near-absolutist like myself is that children genuinely are impressionable. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to learn anything, and they need to be able to learn everything to grow up and function in society. And not only are children more absorbent than a roll of Bounty paper towel, but they don't get to choose what they are taught. Adults can choose for them and must choose carefully. Right now, many people are concerned about critical race theory, and it's leading to serious issues around the country, including which math textbooks get into Florida classrooms.

This is something it is critical to get right. It is also something we never will get right, not least because what seems "right" at one time will most certainly be wrong at another. Huck Finn makes that obvious enough.

The problem is who will be the arbitrator of what gets into our schools. Who do we trust to get this right? Elected officials who blow with the wind? School board members with axes to grind? Parents who have no particular expertise to decide how children should be taught but undeniable interest in what their children are learning?

Here is where I should turn to a panel of perfect experts, philosopher kings of education. Unfortunately, as even Plato knew, these are but ideals we must strive for, not realities we live with. So, we'll continue to do our best with this mixed muddle and hope that what we decide is not simply the sum of our fears.

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Censorship is as old as the pharaohs and as new as today - Yahoo News

If outfits like the Aspen Institutes Commission on Information Disorder, along with Big Techs faceless fact-checkers, ever get a total monopoly on dictating reality, the result will be a 24/7 mix of falsehoods with the occasional limited hangout to cover up their lies.

The icing on this fake cake is the use of conferences about disinformation, such as the recent stunt at the University of Chicago that served as cover for justifying political censorship. There former President Obama presented the perfect picture of psychological projection: a panel of propagandists accusing others of wrongthink.

The Atlantics Anne Applebaum, for example, sought to censor the reality of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by announcing she didnt find it interesting. See how that works? Truth depends upon how our elites personally feel about what should be true.

But it gets much worse, because political censorship creates deep dysfunction in society. In fact, the surest way to kill a democracy is to practice political censorship under the guise of protecting society from disinformation.

Censorship causes disinformation. Its the grandaddy of disinformation, not a solution to it. The sooner everyone recognizes this obvious fact, the better off well be.

Whenever a self-anointed elite sets up a Ministry of Truth, the link between censorship and disinformation becomes clear. Before long, they invent reality and punish anyone who expresses a different viewpoint.

So, its no small irony that those who claim to be protecting democracy from disinformation are the biggest promoters of disinformation and greatest destroyers of real democracy. Their dependence on censorship obstructs the circulation of facts. It prevents any worthwhile exchange of ideas.

Consider what happens if a society is only permitted one propagandistic narrative while all other ideas and information are silenced. People start self-censoring to avoid social rejection. The result is a form of imposed mental isolation. Severely isolated people tend to lose touch with reality. The resulting conformity also perpetuates the censorship.

This is unnatural and dangerous because human beings depend on others to verify whats real. People werent able to verify reality in Nazi Germany, during Joseph Stalins Reign of Terror, or during Mao Zedongs brutal Cultural Revolution. All were societies in the grip of mass hysteria because of ruthless censorship to protect a narrative.

As psychiatrist Joost Meerloo noted in his book The Rape of the Mind, no matter how well-meaning political censorship might be, it creates dangerous conformity of thought: the presence of minority ideas, acceptable or not, is one of the ways in which we protect ourselves against the creeping growth of conformist majority thinking.

The only way we can strengthen ourselves against such contagion is through real freedom of speech that allows fully open discussion and debate. However, if were confined by Big Tech to a relentless echo chamber and punished for expressing different thoughts, well just keep getting more and more disinformation.

In fact, we are now drowning in the distortions produced by fact-checkers. Take, for example, narratives that promote the gender confusion and sexualization of children. Public school teachers routinely post TikTok videos of themselves spewing forth their gender confusion. And if someone calls out Disney for its open grooming of children, Twitter suspends them.

If we never push back against such absurdities, we ultimately end up in a state of mass delusion, each of us a cell in a deluded hive mind, obedient to commands about what to say, how to act, and what to think. To get an idea of what that looks like in a population, check out this clip from North Korea:

One of the most telling incidents of censorship over the past year was YouTube and Twitters take-down of virologist and vaccine inventor Dr. Robert Malone, claiming he was spreading misinformationi.e., spreading a second opinionabout Covid vaccines and treatments.

But big tech saw an even bigger threat in Malones discussion of Mattias Desmets study of Mass Formation Psychosis (MFP) on Joe Rogans popular podcast. This is a big reason Spotify was under pressure to de-platform Rogan entirely. Open discussion of such things would erode the illusions big media and big tech so doggedly prop up.

Malone explained how a propaganda-saturated population can end up in a state of mass hypnosis that renders people incapable of seeing reality. He described Desmets theory about how social isolation, a high level of discontent, and a strong sense of free-floating anxiety are keys to the development of this psychosis.

The anxiety is so painful that it causes people to cling, trancelike, to any narrative that seems to offer stability. Once all other views are censored, people become so invested in the narrative that they cannot consider any alternative views. They will even mob anyone who endangers the narrative. This phenomenon was prevalent in the German population under Nazism. Their obedience to the propaganda rendered them incapable of understanding any opposing narrative.

Mass psychosis should not sound farfetched. Theres nothing new about it. Hundreds of instances of mass hysteria are documented. In the 19th century, Scottish journalist Charles MacKay wrote up a whole catalog of them. In 2015 medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew co-authored a compendium of popular delusions or mass sociogenic illness.

Most past incidents of mass hysteria have been confined to geographic regions, such as the witch trials in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. But with the internet accessible and addictive in the 2020s, the possibility of mass delusion on a global scale is upon us. Censorshipin the name of protecting democracy from disinformationis the key to creating it.

By definition, propaganda aims to psychologically affect people and change their attitudes. So our social survival depends upon becoming aware of such phenomena. Building self-awareness about our vulnerability to crowd psychology would serve as a sort of psychological vaccine.

Of course elites do not want us even entertaining the possibility that we can be manipulated or vulnerable to social and psychological pressures. Propagandists are illusionists by nature. If their illusion falls apart, then the game is over for them. This is why they depend so heavily on the slur conspiracy theorist to distract us from the truth and from their use of censorship to cut us off from other ideas.

The late Nobel laureate Doris Lessing spoke against the dangers of social conformity and censorship in 1986. She noted there was a great body of knowledge that was continuing to be built about the laws of crowd psychology and social contagion. It was odd that we werent applying this knowledge to improve our lives.

Lessing concluded that no government in the world would willingly help its citizens resist group pressures and learn to think independently. We have to do it ourselves. Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and it sure looks like the keepers of this secret knowledge use it as a means of social control.

No sane person would want to live inside the boxes that the censors who claim to be fighting disinformation are building around us. If we want to escape this Twilight Zone existence, we must destroy that canard and insist on real freedom of speech everywhere.

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The Only Way To Fight Disinformation Is To Fight Political Censorship - The Federalist