Donald Trump declared that Facebook is hindering his First Amendment rights. That is an absolute lie. His right to free speech extends to what he writes, public speaking, except in fraud, libel, slander, child pornography, purgury, blackmail, incitement to lawless actions, true threats and solicitation to commit crimes. On privately owned platforms there is no First Amendment priveledge. Facebook, and other platforms, have the absolute right to control the type of speech on their platforms. One of the more infamous type of barred speech comes from insider trading on Wall Street where one party knows of something that is going to affect his company and tells outsides to buy or sell stocks based on that knowldge.

McCarthy and Cruz have blasted these platforms claiming they are part of a liberal bias against conservatives. Nothing could be further from the truth, and they know it however they are cowtowing to a still popular former president who has a large and loyal base. They are far more interested in the political funding they get from siding with Trump then speaking against him.

But there are two Republican centrists who advocate the truth, have spoken out against Trump’s lies and know are pariahs in their own party rather than be touted as heros of the party. They are Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney. McCarthy is so incensed with Cheney’s sticking to the truth that he has arbitrarily decided that she must be removed from power. He decided this without conferring with other members of his party. But he is probably on safe ground as a large portion of Republicans either agree with Trump or are too fearful to speak against him.

It would seem that Republicans themselves are more against free speech than they are in protecting it. They seem cowed by the lingering presence of an out-of-office president who is probably the most devisive personality since Andrew Johnson. I do hope that in the near future cooler heads will prevail, that truth will prevail and that Republicans will get their heads out of their butts and just do the right thing!