Twitter locked Republican Study Committee chairman Jim Banks from his official account early Saturday morning for a tweet on Tuesday observing: “Four-star first female officer title is taken by a man” – a reference to the official federal transgender Rachel Levine.
Twitter’s ban notification to Banks explained that calling a man a man “violates[s] our rules against hateful conduct. The Twitter ban statement also claimed that accurate descriptions of human biology “promote violence.”
“It’s ridiculous that Twitter is saying that acknowledging biological reality somehow incites violence,” Banks spokesman Mitchell Hailstone said on a phone call Saturday. Hailstone said Banks is challenging the ban with Twitter. The company did not respond within three hours to an email request for comment on this matter.
My censorship statement for tweeting a basic truth and the ban on using my official account on @RepJimBankshttps://t.co/N5MBvJKz6g pic.twitter.com/bwQxhRAUOO
– Jim Banks (@Jim_Banks) 23 October 2021
Banks is a US Naval Reserve officer and has twice deployed to Afghanistan. Levine has no military experience, according to his Wikipedia page, which qualifies him as a woman.
The Biden administration chose Levine as the assistant secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services after Levine’s disastrous run as secretary of health in Pennsylvania. Levine’s tenure in Pennsylvania included removing his own mother from a nursing home while promoting the dangerous and deadly policy of forcing nursing homes statewide to accept COVID-19 positive patients. .
Levine also chaired one of the worst COVID-19 vaccine deployments in the country, and during his Senate confirmation hearings he claimed he supported the mutilation of the genitals of children in gender reassignment operations. .
This is far from Banks’ first clash with censorship: Democrats refused to sit on Banks, with Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, in their Jan.6 commission investigating what happened during The Capitol Riot – one of the thousands of riots in the United States has faced since 2020. Instead, they chose Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – two notoriously hostile members to their own party.
