SPRING FASCISM PREVIEW: YouTube Says Giorgia Meloni Video Was Removed in Error, Restores It After Inquiry.

YouTube removed a video of incoming Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni elaborating on her conservative vision for the country during a 2019 speech. This was a curious decision that attracted widespread scorn from conservative media outlets, given the recent interest in the philosophy of Meloni, who is expected to become the first woman to lead the country.

After Reason asked YouTube to explain why it took down the video, the social media site reversed course and restored it.

“Upon careful review, we determined this video is not violative of our Community Guidelines and have reinstated it,” says Ivy Choi, a spokesperson for YouTube. “We enforce our policies regardless of the speaker’s political views and when it’s brought to our attention that a video has been mistakenly removed, we review the content and take appropriate action, including restoring the relevant videos or channels—as we have done with this video.”

It’s not clear why the video was flagged in the first place. It’s a recording of a speech made by Meloni at the 2019 World Congress of Families. In her remarks, she pushes back on the idea that her views are fringe or aligned with fascism.

Funny how this keeps happening. Today it’s Twitter’s turn to send Meloni’s videos down the memory hole:

Hey, you know who else were once big on censoring their opponents…?

(Classical — and possibly NSFW — reference in headline.)

GREAT MOMENTS IN MORAL NARCISSISM: Chelsea Clinton says her family is ‘the reason that Fox News was created.’

The former first daughter also said she, along with her mother, made the choice to start the documentary series in an effort to push back at Fox News and other right-wing media outlets.

“Climate change illuminated where Fox News was willing to go and its destructive impact,” Chelsea noted, saying it was frustrating. “The Right proved to themselves, ‘We can hit people with relentless misinformation and every night pipe into their homes to disbelieve scientists — what else could be possible?’ Today, with COVID, it’s the same playbook.”

“They get away with it,” she added. “The so-called mainstream media, even the so-called progressive media, is just not as relentless in rebutting, refuting, and making clear that this is nothing but a play for profits at the cost of truth.”

The former secretary of state and presidential candidate chimed in, crediting President Joe Biden with helping to establish better fact-checking.

“Tech companies, the rest of journalism, ordinary people with platforms, we haven’t done enough to point out the dangers, point out the falsehoods, point out the hypocrisy,” Clinton said.

Flashback: Chelsea Clinton Uses Private Jet to Travel to ‘Clean Energy’ Roundtable.

WEIMAR? BECAUSE WE REICH YOU! German inflation hits double digits for the first time since WWII.

I hope this inflationary bout ends better than what happened after it hit double digits before World War II.

NEW YORK CITY MORPHED INTO DETROIT SO QUICKLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Anti-CRT Parent Advocate Leaving New York City For The ‘Free State of Florida.’ “Say want you want about the tragedy of George Floyd, but the BLM protests and riots that happened over that summer are a direct result of covid lockdowns. Young people, bored and restless, having been cruelly isolated for months with no school, no playgrounds, no outlets save toxic digital media, were all of a sudden let out of their cages. The virtue of staying home to save Grandma was instantly forgotten. The new virtue was to join the protests and atone for the sins of slavery and Jim Crow. The level of hypocrisy was hard to fathom…By this past summer, the answer I had been avoiding was unavoidable. New York City is not savable. Not for a generation at least. Possibly not forever.”

“SOME  FRIENDLY LIBERAL ADVICE TO  REPUBLICANS:”

Once upon a time, Republicans could think that the CIA and FBI, the Justice Department, and the military were balanced, even favorable to their interests. No longer. Once upon a time, the media and the Democratic Party were deeply suspicious of these institutions; now they are the cheerleaders and apologists for them, and regard their personnel as trusted experts whose patriotism is beyond reproach.

Maybe Al Gore did create the Internet. Before tech was Big Tech, it presented itself as a rival to all the Davos hierarchies; now it is their tool. Business rivals work in concert with one another against those they find deplorable, looking to erase them in a world that otherwise catalogues everything.

All these institutions—and their tectonic, aggregated influence—are in Democrat hands. They and their commanding partners understand their asymmetrical superiority, and they think it’s in their short- and long-term interest to demonstrate it now.

Why? The biggest threat that progressive politics faces are the consequences of progressive legislation. Progressivism comes on the scene as a luxury good. The immorality of “poverty in the midst of plenty” is their platform to re-imagine society. But in the end, they always drive out prosperity and make poverty more pathological. Look at New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco—this is the logic of progressive government made real. It doesn’t poll well or perform well at the ballot box.

Democrats should take a hit this November—so they are flexing their muscles across the commanding-heights marketplace to solicit an advantageous response. Their prospects improve with political violence. Preceding Biden’s speech was the legally sanctioned raid of former President Donald Trump, who is widely expected to pursue one more presidential campaign. After the speech, the FBI legally served and netted all the president’s men, with no blowback at all from the mainstream press. Poke, poke.

Don’t take the bait. If you do, you’ll be playing into the trap set for you.

It’s excellent advice, but perhaps the columnist who calls himself “Liberal Guy” should have aimed his cri de coeur in a more bipartisan direction: Man Admits To Killing Teen He Claimed Was ‘Republican Extremist:’

According to a local North Dakota report, early Sunday morning a man called 911 and admitted to the hit and run of an 18-year-old. His motive? A “political argument” with a Republican.

Forty-one-year-old Shannon Brandt said he was afraid 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson was “part of a Republican extremist group and that he was afraid they were ‘coming to get him.’”

So he allegedly killed Ellingson with his car.

Read the whole thing, which will be memory holed by the DNC-MSM in 3…2…1.

Related: This leftist didn’t understand why he was just arrested for running over, killing an 18-year-old “Republican extremist.” Huh. “A judge ordered Brandt held on $50,000 bail, which he objected to, saying he’s not a flight risk…Brandt posted bail, and is back on the streets. He is now in the process of scrubbing his social media.”

More: MSM don’t think man confessing to ‘politically motivated’ vehicular homicide of Republican teen is worth covering for some reason.

Earlier:

• Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History.
• ‘Not fitting their narrative’: Waukesha feels abandoned after tragic parade attack.

Evergreen:

UPDATE:

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Berkeley Develops Jewish-Free Zones.

The real issue here is discrimination, not speech. By adopting anti-Jewish bylaw provisions, these groups are restricting their successors from cooperating with pro-Israel speakers and groups. In this way, the exclusionary bylaws operate like racially restrictive covenants, precluding minority participation into perpetuity.

Universities should not have to be legally compelled to do what is obviously right. Anti-Zionist policies would still be monstrously immoral, even if they were not also unlawful. The students should be ashamed of themselves. As should grownups who stand quietly by or mutter meekly about free speech as university spaces go as the Nazis’ infamous call, judenfrei. Jewish-free.

But remember, Giorgia Meloni is the real fascist.

HOW IT STARTED: How Joe Biden Is Positioning Himself as a Modern FDR.

—Headline, Time magazine, October 28, 2020.

How it’s going:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 57% of American Adults believe it’s likely that, over the next few years, the United States will enter a 1930s-like Depression, including 21% who think a depression is Very Likely. Thirty-two percent (32%) don’t think a depression is likely, and another 12% are not sure.

—“Mister, Can You Spare a Dime?”, John Hinderaker, Power Line, yesterday.

Didn’t Time magazine also declare the previous Democratic president to be the second coming of FDR, even before he took office?

Though to be fair, on economic issues, Biden is definitely outperforming Time’s previous wannabe-Roosevelt: FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.

Speaking of which: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROPHECY:

● Shot: 9 Reasons Not To Worry About The Tanking Economy.

—Headline, the Babylon Bee, Monday.

● Chaser: 7 ways a recession could be good for you financially.

—Headline, the Washington Post, yesterday.

QUESTION ASKED: Can The EU Survive Europe’s Conservative Election Wave?

Now, the Eurocrats in Brussels are running scared. The natives are restless, and they have the votes to put new leaders in. The EU started out as a seemingly harmless organization stressing economic efficiency, trade, and a common currency. Now it’s a socialist octopus, looking to use its tentacles to rule Europe by bureaucratic decree.

Why is this sudden turn to the right happening? Simple. The EU and its member political elites have utterly failed their citizens. Europe is now suffering from absurd “net-zero” green policies that will lead to people literally freezing to death this winter, while their economies and beloved euro currency crash. In Germany, energy prices have shot up by 1,000%, leaving people with awful choices — the same ones the rest of Europe and Russia will have to make.

A sampling of recent dire headlines tell the tale: “Europe’s Economy And Living Standards Are Plummeting,” “European Countries Are On The Brink Of Economic Disaster, OECD Says,” and “Recession clouds gather in Germany, Europe’s largest economy.” The list goes on.

The point is, the EU and left-leaning governments across Europe have failed horribly at delivering stability, prosperity, and peace to their citizens. So, before it’s too late, the citizens are hitting the brakes, voting for the opposition in recent elections.

Faster, please.

DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: John Fetterman wipes Black Lives Matter section from campaign site amid attacks over crime. Fetterman’s website previously stated he has ‘championed the idea that Black lives matter’ before the phrase became a ‘hashtag.’

MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH! Kamala in South Korea: “The United States shares a very important relationship, which is an alliance with the Republic of North Korea.”

Was it over when the North Koreans bombed Pearl Harbor?! Forget it; she’s rolling.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Watch: Lizzo plays former President James Madison’s crystal flute and twerks in DC.

RIP: Rapper Coolio Dead at 59.

THE BANNINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES: Twitter suspended Libs of TikTok again, for unspecified “hateful conduct.” “Most likely, yes, that’s what it is: Monopoly tech is pro-pedophilia. They are attempting to mainstream pedophilia, and hide it from the public until they feel the public is ready to tolerate pedophilia.”

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Pelosi Drafts Articles Of Impeachment Against New Prime Minister Of Italy.

UNEXPECTEDLY! The View’s New Token ‘Republican’ Says She May Vote Democrat.

She insisted, “The Donald Trump party is not a conservative party. It’s a populous, nationalist rightwing party that I have about as much in common with as I do Bernie Sanders.”

Nationalism, of course, is (per Merriam-Webster) a point of view which “[exalts] one nation above all others and [places] primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations.” That used to describe the professed bipartisan aim of American government. But evidently, times have changed.

Alyssa asserted the GOP is opposed to legal immigration:

“[I] want to get back to something where we’re pro-free trade, pro-globalization, for legal immigration into the country — securing the border but with legal immigration. And that’s just not what we are now.”

Given that, she’s entirely open to voting Democrat:

“As far as supporting Democrats, I’d be able to on a case-by-case basis. I’d have to look at their policies. And that’s kind of where I am.”

So goes the portrait of a reasonable Republican — in the vein of Joe Scarborough, Nicolle Wallace, and The View frequenter Ana Navarro.

You can make an excellent living as a talking head being presented as a Republican who never actually votes for Republicans.

PAUL MIRENGOFF: It’s not just the economy. Concern about crime is also driving the midterms. You can tell, because Dems are talking about Willie Horton.

Naturally, the Post sympathizes with the Democrats’ claim that the GOP’s focus on the crime issue is racist. It quotes a black pollster who worked for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. He calls the GOP’s ads “Willie Horton 2.0.”

This, of course, refers to a highly successful attack ad against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign. Horton was an inmate at a Massachusetts corrections facility serving a life sentence for murdering a man when he received a weekend pass thanks to a prison furlough program maintained by then-governor Michael Dukakis over the objection of the state legislature. While out of prison, Horton twice raped a Maryland woman after pistol-whipping, knifing, binding, and gagging her fiancé.

Democrats howled “racism” and have been invoking the Horton spot for decades in order to ward off ads attacking them for being soft on crime. This amounts to an attempt by Democrats to escape the dire consequences of their lenient social engineering projects by shouting “racism.”

The stunt has succeeded in part because of Republican cowardice, but mostly because crime receded dramatically thanks to tough-on-crime policies adopted after Dukakis’ defeat.

Now that crime is again rampant — thanks in large part to the abandonment of tough-on-crime policies — invoking Willie Horton isn’t going to deter any sensible Republican candidate.

Nor should it. The Willie Horton was neither illegitimate nor racist. Dukakis’ decision to release Horton, in violation of the wishes of a liberal state legislature, directly led to multiple felonies and serious injuries.

He’s right, though it’s curious that CTRL-F “Al Gore” brings back zero results on the post.

THE LEFT FEAR ITALY’S NEW PRIME MINISTER, AND THAT IS WHY THEY VILIFY HER:

Meloni represents everything the Left hates and fears. She believes in the nuclear family as a foundation of her country’s survival. She is also a woman and pro-life — perhaps the Left’s worst nightmare. She is against indoctrinating the youth with radical gender ideology. She embraces her religion instead of shunning it. She’s against same-sex marriage. She is also an outspoken critic of the contemporary radical leftist politics that has dragged down Italy for years.

Meloni has already unequivocally condemned fascism. She previously stated that fascism was wrong, archaic, and “handed over to history for decades now.” However, this still isn’t good enough for most of the leftist cult, because they are not interested in what she actually believes — they are just trying to defame her in order to prevent people from listening to what she has to say.

This is why Meloni has been dubbed a “fascist” or the “next Mussolini” by these idiots. None of these issues are fascist, mind you; they just threaten what the radical Left believes. As a result, leftists turn to what they know best, sensationalist fear-mongering. It’s a core tenet of the Left’s global messaging strategy, and it has been so for the last 120 years. They don’t want her to lead Italy because she can become a beacon of hope and potentially change the toxic culture of infanticide that has run rampant around the civilized globe for far too long. The Left fears her influence.

And for good reason, Karol Markowicz writes in the London Daily Mail: The left and feminist harpies are not wrong to hate Italy’s first female prime minister. Giorgia Meloni is everything they are not — independent and plain-spoken.

In a 2018 interview with Reuters, she worried about Italy’s birthrate and the difficult choices facing mothers.

‘The first thing we asked for was a grand plan to sustain the birth rate and give incentives to become parents, which is a priority in our program,’ she said.

Children as important, as necessary, should be a mainstream idea, but the women ‘perfecting’ feminism rarely speak up for them.

Meloni will likely be neither the villain portrayed by the left nor the hero that some on the right hope she will be. Politics in Italy are tumultuous, and her success is not a given. But she is nothing like the monster invented by the left.

Maybe the newly minted Italian politics experts can take a seat and watch from afar what the woman, mother, Italian, Christian does or doesn’t do.

If the GOP takes one or both houses of Congress in November, expect a similar freakout from the DNC-MSM and leftist denizens of social media. I hope Republicans are prepared for it, but strongly suspect they won’t be.

WAPO: 7 ways a recession could be good for you financially.

5. Unemployment is still relatively low. People with jobs and money to spare can spend on luxuries such as a vacation.
Despite higher prices and rising interest rates, millions of Americans have been taking leisure trips.

More than half of Americans plan to travel for one or both of the holidays this year, even though airfares will be 43 percent higher than last year, according to Hopper, a travel booking app.

However, the unemployment rate did rise to 3.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, if you’re worried about your job security or a recession, just cancel your vacation plans for 2023.*

6. Your used car is worth more. If you’re looking to upgrade to a newer car, and your car is in fairly good condition, you’ll get more for your trade-in.

Used car and truck prices jumped 7.8 percent, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unfortunately, new car prices were up 10 percent from a year ago.

This was the stuff of Saturday Night Live routines in the late ‘70s:

* And since there’s an Obama administration retread in the White House, enjoy the funemployment! “For the ‘funemployed,’ unemployment is welcome.”

UPDATE: Not the Bee asks us to “Look at this actual WaPo headline from today:”

Notice how she keeps comparing Biden to FDR?

That’s because the Party and Biden himself want the president to be compared to FDR.

But he’s not. The inflationary cycle we are in makes him Jimmy Carter 2.0, except that’s an insult to Carter.

Oh, I don’t know; I can see an FDR comparison here: FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.

And a Woodrow Wilson comparison as well: Biden’s age, re-election plan recall Woodrow Wilson.

(Updated and bumped.)

TIM RYAN SAYS AMERICANS NEED TO GIVE UP GAS CARS AS HE DRIVES AROUND OHIO IN GAS GUZZLERS:

Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) says the United States is ready to ban gas cars, arguing in 2019 that socialist Bernie Sanders’s plan to ban gas vehicles wasn’t ambitious enough. On the Senate campaign trail, Ryan is sticking to gas guzzlers.

Ryan’s first Senate campaign ad features him riding around with his son in a 2020 GMC Yukon, which gets roughly 14 to 15 miles per gallon around town. When leaving a campaign stop in Zanesville, Ohio, last month, Ryan boarded a 15-mile-per-gallon Chevrolet Tahoe.

Sometimes Ryan prefers his comparatively eco-friendly 2020 GMC Sierra, a truck, which gets around 23 miles per gallon. GMC does make an electric truck, the Hummer EV, which can get around 350 miles on a single battery charge, but it will set consumers back nearly $110,000.

“Tim loves his UAW-built American-made Tahoe,” Ryan campaign spokeswoman Izzi Levy told the Washington Free Beacon, “and wouldn’t trade it for anything—not even the $70,000 BMW that chauffeurs J.D. Vance around Ohio.”

The debate over how much the United States should embrace electric cars has been a flashpoint in Ohio’s Senate race, in which Ryan is facing off against Republican J.D. Vance. Although Ryan is a rubber stamp for President Joe Biden’s green agenda, which has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into renewable energy initiatives, he has remained mum on how much the federal government should be regulating what cars Americans drive.

“When Tim Ryan ran for president, he fully embraced banning gas-powered vehicles and said that Bernie Sanders’s climate change plan didn’t go far enough,” a spokesman for the Vance campaign told the Free Beacon. “Now that he is running for Senate in Ohio, he’s doing everything he can to run away from those radical, far-left positions. Simply put, Tim Ryan will say whatever it takes to get elected and then sell out working-class Ohioans at the first chance he gets.”

I’ll believe global warming is a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis act like it’s a crisis themselves, to coin an Insta-phrase. In the meantime, I don’t want to hear another word about Glenn Reynolds’ carbon footprint.

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden appears to ask if dead congresswoman is at White House speech: “Biden’s mistake came during his remarks at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. [Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN)], who was tragically killed in a car crash in August, was a core congressional ally in planning the conference alongside Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN). ‘I want to thank all of you here, including bipartisan elected officials like Rep. McGovern, Sen. Braun, Sen. Booker, Rep. — Jackie, are you here?’ the president said near the top of his remarks. ‘Where’s Jackie? I thought she was going to be here — to help make this a reality.’ In August, when news of Walorski’s passing first broke, Biden wrote in a statement that the accident left him and first lady Jill Biden ‘shocked and saddened.’”

Flashback: Joe Biden Tells Paraplegic Chuck Graham to Stand Up.

CNN LAYS OFF PODCAST EMPLOYEES IN LATEST ROUND OF CUTS:

CNN let go a number of employees in its podcasting unit Tuesday, the latest in a series of cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. and its news division.

One affected employee, Alexander McCall, tweeted that he and his colleagues were told the network would produce fewer audio series next year.

“It’s just a bummer to watch companies pull the plug on or disinvest from business units that are so young,” McCall tweeted. “Especially when you’ve seen firsthand the work of so many people to make it profitable.”

In a statement to Bloomberg, a CNN spokesperson said that while audio remains an important area of focus, the network had learned a lot about the topics and productions that most resonate with audiences. “As a result, we’ve refined our strategy to focus our resources more specifically in those areas,” the spokesperson said.

Related: Biden tells coal miners to “learn to code.”

BIDEN FINALLY SPEAKS TO DESANTIS FOLLOWING BACKLASH OVER NOT REACHING OUT AHEAD OF HURRICANE.

Flashback: Biden White House neglects to commemorate anniversary of D-Day during his first year in office, doesn’t mention it his second year in office until being barraged by social media for hours:

Related: Journo Twitter runs the Biden administration.

ADAMS TO KANSAS: DROP DEAD. ‘Kansas doesn’t have a brand:’ NYC mayor takes stab at Sunflower State.

Adams also talked about how people from both countries welcomed him because they recognized New York City.

“We have a brand, and when people see it, it means something,” Adams said. “You know when we go there… Kansas doesn’t have a brand. When you go there, OK, you’re from Kansas. But New York has a brand, and that brand means diversity.”

While campaigning for mayor, Adams also made headlines for telling new arrivals in Brooklyn to “go back to Iowa,” the New York Times reports.

Even though he’s on the other side of the state line, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas weighed in on the fellow Democratic mayor’s comments:

“Not my fight exactly, but it’s always good to be in someone’s head,” Lucas said on Twitter.

Related: Major crime continues to surge in NYC, up 36% this year: new police data.

More: Woman savagely beaten by homeless parolee in unprovoked attack inside Queens subway station: ‘Do you know how scared I am now?’

(Classical allusion in headline.)

HOW IT STARTED: California governor signs fast food bill into law that could raise minimum wage for workers in the state to $22 an hour by next year.

—Business Insider, September 5th.

How it’s going: Chipotle To Test Robotic Chip Maker After Gavin Newsom Signs Minimum Wage Bill.

—Outkick the Coverage, today.

The real minimum wage is always zero.