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Is it time to sanction the European Union?

We do it all the time to punish tyrannical governments, and the European Union has become authoritarian. 

The semi-government of transnational Europe, the European Union, has been on a tear attacking the free speech rights of its citizens and working furiously to restrict the rights of Americans as well, wielding the Digital Services Act as a weapon to silence anyone and censor anything judged “misinformation” or “offensive” to unelected bureaucrats. 

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You may recall that the EU tried to silence Donald Trump during the campaign, threatening Elon Musk and X and warning that platforming the once and future president would bring massive sanctions against both X and all of Elon’s other companies. Elon, as is his want, gave the middle finger to the bureaucrats and had his discussion with Trump, and the EU pushed ahead with an investigation that could strip his companies of 6% of their worldwide revenue. 

That is insane. For all the whining about Elon inserting himself into European politics, the bureaucrats of the EU literally tried to silence Donald Trump during a campaign. 

Now they are doing the same, interfering in the German election by threatening Musk over his planned “Spaces” with the AfD’s leader Alice Weidel. Up to 150 bureaucrats will be monitoring the discussion as it happens (and presumably the transcript) looking for reasons to punish X for allowing the leader of a political party in the middle of a campaign to speak. 

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This is, of course, absolutely incompatible with anything resembling a democracy, but the European Union sees itself as the ultimate judge of what is acceptable, and anything they deem “far-right” must be silenced. The same people who embrace the “diversity” of Islamists who openly proclaim their intention to take over Europe and install Sharia law are silencing anybody who objects. 

“Diversity is our strength, and if you disagree with our version of diversity, you will be exiled.”

BRUSSELS — When tech tycoon Elon Musk interviews German far-right leader Alice Weidel on X on Thursday night, Europe’s powerful tech regulators will be watching closely for possible violations of EU law.

They’ll be less concerned with the banter than with how the Musk-owned platform and algorithm pushes the livestream to its more than 100 million EU users. In particular, they’ll be evaluating whether X gives an unfair campaign advantage to Weidel’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party over its rivals.

Musk’s online interview comes just weeks before Germany’s Feb. 23 general election, with the anti-immigration AfD currently polling second. Musk recently praised the group as the “last spark of hope” for Germany, drawing widespread accusations of election interference.

A team of up to 150 European Commission officials in Brussels and Seville will help scrutinize whether Musk’s social media site plays by the European Union’s tech rules. They wield far-reaching investigative powers that allow them to visit X’s offices and request access to its algorithm and internal correspondence.

The Brussels-based enforcers of the Digital Services Act (DSA) at the Commission’s DG CONNECT tech department are assisted by experts from the European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency in Spain.

Evidence gathered Thursday evening could bolster the EU’s landmark case against X under the DSA. The bloc formally charged Musk’s platform with failing to respect EU rules in July and is finalizing its decision — a first-of-its-kind verdict under the tech law.

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Any claim that Musk is giving a “campaign advantage” (what IS that?) to the AfD is bizarre since this amounts to just another podcast interview. Pretty much every news outlet and the EU itself spews out anti-AfD propaganda, always characterizing it as “far-right,”–the meaning of which has simply become “not transnationalist” or “unapproved speech,” and THAT doesn’t give AfD’s competition an unfair advantage?

Of course not. Nothing that benefits the left is unfair. 

Europeans have been flexing their muscles trying to silence speech not only in their own territory but worldwide. There is no limit to their ambition, and there is lots of talk of arresting Americans for things they say even while in the United States or anywhere else. 

This is unacceptable. Restricting the rights of Europeans is bad enough–we have alliances with these countries because they are part of what we call the “Free World,” but silencing Americans is beyond the pale. Trying to silence the man who will be the next president is insane. 

There would be no Europe as it exists but for the US pulling their chestnuts out of the fire and making trillions of dollars in investment over the years in their defense. With the US, NATO would become a paper tiger, and during the Cold War it would have become part of the Warsaw Pact. 

The Commission will also be watching closely to see how X respects the DSA, a law that orders platforms to take down illegal content and act against disinformation, and that prompts them to map and deal with threats to elections and public discourse.

X is such a large platform that it’s under the direct supervision of the EU’s DG CONNECT digital department. The social media platform was the first target of the DSA in December 2023, with a probe that escalated to charges in July for misleading users, lacking transparency, and failing to share some public data.

Regnier told POLITICO that the Commission’s DSA enforcement team could decide to widen the ongoing probe and send new requests to access information based on how the algorithm handled the AfD livestream.

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It’s time to teach them a lesson. The UK is insulting us by sending an Ambassador who said that Trump was a danger to the world, European leaders have insulted our next president and interfered directly in our election to prevent his victory (good job, Brownie!), and they are setting up to destroy X and Elon Musk in order to silence all our citizens. 

Sanction them. Hard. 

We keep being told that Trump is undermining NATO. I beg to differ. The Europeans are doing so, both by disarming themselves and becoming nearly useless to the alliance and by attacking the fundamental rights of Americans. 

I am sad to see this and wouldn’t revel in a trade war or abandonment of our alliances. I grew up during the Cold War and have basically warm feelings for the continent due to our cultural ties. But those ties are frayed, and not by anything we have done. 

So, if they continue, I say screw ’em.