Happy Thursday!

Today’s Brew comes with a whiff of Orwell. But first …

Strange Things Going on at Twitter: Conservative Blue Checks See Spike, Liberal Blue Checks See Drop

Something strange has happened since news broke that Elon Musk was buying Twitter. Overnight, notable conservatives saw a huge spike in followers and likes, while liberal blue checks were seeing drops.

Take actor James Woods. (Who’s endured several battles with Twitter censors over the years.)

It is astonishing how severe the suppression of free thought was during the #TwitterDarkDays. Now I get tens of thousands of likes per tweet, and gained over 50,000 followers just yesterday alone. Hard to imagine the effect of this level of suppression on the 2020 election.

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) April 27, 2022

Donald Trump, Jr. has gained 220,000 followers in two days, former President Barack Obama dropped 300,000 followers overnight.

Twitter insists the sudden increases and decreases are “organic.” New activations by conservatives, while liberals quit the site. NBC reporter Ben Collins thinks “apolitical users fled.” Like Alyssa Milano and Debra Messing? Those kind of “apolitical” users, Ben?

Don Jr. is more suspicious. He was used to getting perhaps a few thousand new followers a day. “It seems someone took the shackles off my account,” Trump tweeted. “Wonder if they’re burning the evidence before new mgmt comes it.”

Christopher Bouzy, founder of Bot Sentinel, an app that monitors inauthentic social media engagement, agrees. He told DCNF the sudden rise in follows and likes, “doesn’t pass the smell test.”

Sen. Josh Hawley wants Musk to “open the books on who Twitter has shadow banned, who Twitter has suspended, who they’ve throttled, and who was responsible for the egregious censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop reporting. Make it all public.”

Musk is promising transparency.

They aren’t all just freaking out about free speech coming back to Twitter

They’re freaking out at what Elon will find behind the curtain

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 27, 2022

How panicked is the Deep State about free speech? …

Biden Creating a ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ at Homeland Security Dedicated to ‘Countering Misinformation’

The Constitution says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Biden is saying, “Heck with free speech and Congress! I’ll just create a Board.” Yes, the Biden Regime is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board” within the Department of Homeland Security. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the announcement Wednesday.

He claims the board is designed to “counter misinformation related to homeland security, with a focus on Russia and irregular migration.”

Well, anything can be related to “homeland security” when you are creating a fascist state. Criticizing the administration, for example. Heck, they’ve already labeled petitioning the government “domestic terrorism.”

Besides, this is the same crowd that pushed the Trump-Russia Collusion hoax and rounded up a bunch of Swamp Creatures to insist the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian “misinformation.” They also labeled as “misinformation” any facts about COVID or the vaccines that countered what Fauci and WHO were peddling on any given day.

Funny thing — and I’m not the first to point this out — the same regime that wants to define “misinformation” is the same regime that can’t define “woman.”

Besides, Mayorkas can’t even stop hundreds of thousands of people from waltzing across the border. He thinks he can stop “misinformation” from flowing?

Oh, He Was Serious? DHS Sec Claims to Have ‘Effectively Managed’ the Illegals Pouring Into the Country

Speaking of those hundreds of thousands illegally flooding our border, Secretary Mayorkas made this doozy of a statement yesterday while testifying on Capitol Hill. “We have effectively managed an unprecedented number of non-citizens seeking to enter the United States.”

Here’s footage of Mayorkas’ testimony.

Sorry. Wrong tape.

DHS Secretary Mayorkas: "We have effectively managed an unprecedented numbers of non-citizens seeking to enter the United States”

Who’s gonna tell him? pic.twitter.com/4i8AAiwQyT

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 27, 2022

Even Mayorkas’ dodge betrays the administration. His job isn’t to “manage” the flow of illegal immigrants. His job — at least the one the White House is supposed to have — is to stop illegal immigration.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Biden has added over a million illegal immigrants to our population since taking office. That puts the total number here illegally to 15.5 million at a cost of $143.1 billion a year.

FAIR’s number may be low. CBP encountered 221,303 illegals in April alone.

But perhaps that’s the point. Mayorkas also said, “We will not lose operational control of the border.” If true, isn’t this a confession that the Biden Regime has operational control of what’s happening, and therefore are deliberately coordinating the invasion of our nation?

Shifting Veterans Affairs Doctors and Nurses to Border to Treat Illegals?

You know how Democrats always accuse Republicans of trying to kill off grandma? On Wednesday, DHS Secretary Mayorkas all but admitted the Biden Administration wants to shift doctors and nurses away from our military veterans so they can go to the border and serve illegal immigrants instead.

Abandoning our heroes. (Shouldn’t be too surprised after what happened with the Afghanistan withdrawal and with nursing homes in blue states during COVID.)

The transfer of doctors and nurses from Veterans Affairs hasn’t happened yet. But when asked directly by Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa if it’s going to happen, Mayorkas dodged. She asked again:

I’m just asking you a yes or no question: Are you planning on taking resources away from our veterans to help deal with the surge at our southern border? That’s a yes or no question.

His response again was slippery.

Congresswoman, the resources that the medical personnel from the Veterans Administration would allocate to this effort is under the judgment of the secretary of Veterans Affairs, who prioritizes the interests of veterans above all others for very noble and correct.

She pressed again, asking if he knew of any conversations about relocating VA assets to the border. Mayorkas admitted talks are going on between “teams” at DHS and Veterans Affairs.

‘Out of the Pandemic Phase’ … or Are We?

Dr. Tony Fauci declared on Tuesday that we are “out of the pandemic phase.” Specifically he told PBS NewsHour, “So, if you’re saying, ‘Are we out of the pandemic phase in this country?,’ we are.” Seems simple enough.

But that was Tuesday. On Wednesday, Fauci “clarified.” No, he told the Washington Post, America’s only “out of the full-blown pandemic phase.”

The world is still in a pandemic. There’s no doubt about that. Don’t anybody get any misinterpretation of that. We are still experiencing a pandemic.

He told the Associated Press “We’re in a different moment of the pandemic. We’ve now decelerated and transitioned into more of a controlled phase. By no means does that mean the pandemic is over.”

24 hours from “We’re out of the pandemic phase” to “We’re still experiencing a pandemic.”

What changed? Well, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declared the pandemic is not over.

PSAKI: "COVID isn't over, and the pandemic isn't over." pic.twitter.com/Z8DzqgGqAw

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 27, 2022

Yeah. This is all about the science.

Fauci also hinted Tuesday he may be (finally) stepping down before too long.

Along The Stream

Check out part two of Tom Gilson’s pivotal “The Minuteman Strategy: How Your Church Can Still Change the World.”

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, chief barista for The Brew and co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl at GETTR, Gab, Parler, and real soon at TRUTH Social.