Today, Monday, I'll be back behind the Golden EIB Microphone for three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence In Broadcasting on America's Number One radio show beginning at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific.
Yes, yes, I know: Rush was supposed to be back today, but hold the rotten fruit. As I mentioned last week, he postponed his treatment week by a fortnight to help boost up Trump, so this last bout was a little more clobbering than expected. I'll do my best to keep the Attila the Hun chair warm, and hope you'll want to dial us up either via the iHeart Radio app or on one of over 600 stations across the fruited plain, such as our old friends at WNTK New Hampshire, where you can listen to the full show from anywhere on the planet right here.
It's two weeks since the election, but in America that means the votes are still coming in, albeit rather slowly: on a typical day, California counts more new Covid cases than "election day" ballots. On today's show we'll talk about all that, and the President's tireless lawyer, the great Sidney Powell, will join me to update the state of the legal battle. We seem set for another fast-moving news day, and, in the absence of the one and only Rush, we will do our best to stay on top of it.
~As I was saying only yesterday:
To reiterate a point I've made for months: on free speech and related issues, things are going to head south very fast. I carelessly assumed they'd wait till the inauguration, but it seems 'the Office of the President-Elect' is already on the case.
Over the weekend the website Conservative Treehouse received notice from WordPress that they're being deplatformed:
Given the incompatibility between your site's content and our terms, you need to find a new hosting provider and must migrate the site by Wednesday, December 2nd.
I owe Conservative Treehouse a debt of gratitude because, at the absolute low point of all my years in America, they did a piece on certified cockwomble Cary Katz and his vanity network CRTV's breach of my contract. Which, amidst the silence elsewhere, jollied me up no end.
So I thank the Treehouse very that, and I utterly despise WordPress's garbage "notice". As they make explicit, they're canceling the guys because of "your site's content" - which has been unchanged in its general tenor ever since they hung out their shingle. Furthermore, there's no claim by the no-name corporate wanker that Treehouse breached WordPress's "terms", only that "your site's content" is "incompatible" with "our terms". It's like a dating agency: we're simply incompatible; it's never gonna work.
"Incompatibility" is not really a legal concept with respect to contractual terms. It's an ideological breach: We're all-in for the one-party woke-party state ...and you're not. Which suggests a bunch of other websites are likely to be getting similar sayonaras from WokePress.
These guys hate Treehouse. They hate you. They want you cowed into silence and enduring a living death. And, with "President-elect Biden" bestriding the land like a colossus, they see no reason to pretend otherwise. If they ran grocery stores, they'd be happy to deny you food and watch you starve. Take them at their word. Don't patronize these totalitarian tosspots, and get your chums to cut 'em loose, too.
As a guy now in the ninth year of a free-speech case, I've long felt the First Amendment is largely irrelevant. What matters is the broader culture of free expression, and on the Internet that's in its death throes. Might be gone entirely by, oh, April.
~It was a very busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with another go-round of our Clubland Q&A and a splendid hour of questions from Mark Steyn Club members live across the planet. Afterwards, I made a rare Friday appearance on America's Number One primetime show. Tucker wanted to end the week with a glass-half-full monologue on all the good things about America that endure despite electoral setbacks. I'm more of a glass-fifteenth-sixteenth-empty kind of guy, but I did my best to get into the spirit. Click below to watch:
On Saturday I covered for Kathy Shaidle on the movie beat with a prime minister out of season and feeling the chill. My Sunday column looked at Trump's lawyers and lawyering, and our Sunday song selection was the all-time classic standard. If you were too busy rumbling with antifa this weekend, I hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
Also, in the coming days, I'll be launching a brand new Tale for Our Time. Tales for Our Time, Clubland Q&A and The Mark Steyn Show are all made with the support of The Mark Steyn Club. As I always say, Club membership isn't for everyone, but it does come with some special benefits, including:
~Tales for Our Time, our monthly audio adventures of classic fiction, including a very pertinent election yarn;
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly, such as last Friday's;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show, Mark's Mailbox, and other video content;
~My Sunday series of video poetry;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world, assuming I'm ever again allowed to make any;
~Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
See you on the radio at noon US Eastern - and do give me a call.