Less than one week after Fox News abruptly ousted its most popular host, Tucker Carlson, President Joe Biden joined in the chorus of corporate media, Democrats, and celebrities praising the exit as a victory for the left.
Biden began his speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night with a tribute to the press and the First Amendment that keeps them in business.
“The free press is a pillar — maybe the pillar — of a free society, not the enemy,” he said in his opening comments.
'A free press is a pillar … of a free society — not the enemy.'
Pres. Biden began his speech at the #WHCD with a serious message, speaking about the imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia. pic.twitter.com/UXKIZ36pKP
Minutes later, after he quoted Thomas Jefferson’s letter about preferring “newspapers without government” over a “government without newspapers,” the Democrat took a moment to toot his own horn and relish in Tucker Carlson’s abrupt departure from Fox News at the same time.
‘Well, the truth is we really have a record to be proud of,” Biden started. “Vaccinated the nation. Transformed the economy. Earned historic legislative victories and midterm results. But the job isn’t finished. I mean — it is finished for Tucker Carlson.”
Joe Biden complains about getting booed for trying to trash Tucker Carlson.
Biden’s jab was met with an “oooh” and laughter from the crowd.
“What are you wooing about like that?” Biden said between laughs. “Like you think that’s not reasonable? Give me a break. Just give me a break.”
It’s hauntingly ironic that the president and his allies in the corporate media spent their weekend laughing at the dismissal of one of their top political enemies while regular Americans mourn the loss of the nation’s most influential critic of the corrupt ruling class.
Ever since the Murdochs decided to yank “Tucker Carlson Tonight” from the air, disenfranchised viewers committed to divorcing the network in droves.
At the end of the day, however, neither Biden nor the corporate media care that the man whose show consistentlyranked as the highest-rated cable news programming, including among young Democrat viewers, is no longer on screens all over the nation.
It’s been clear for years now that the same First Amendment rights the media’s preferred candidates like Biden pretend to affirm are not afforded to commentators like Carlson or anyone else who questions The Narrative™.
“No, we have a First Amendment. That can’t happen here, but it has,” Carlson said at The Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala celebration.
It is easy for Biden to sing the praises of the press when all he gets from them are fawning, optimistic attention, and cover that caters to his every request. For those like Carlson who expose the cozy relationship between Democrats and media, only condemnation awaits.
Because Carlson reports on issues that the president’s allies refuse to — like Biden family corruption, election maladministration, and Democrats’ Jan. 6 show trial — the Biden White House has repeatedlysought to discredit the host and his former employer.
Biden pretends, like at the Correspondents’ Dinner, that the journos who gladly help Biden use cheat sheets at his few and far between press conferences are not “the enemy” of society and democracy — though Americans overwhelmingly know better. At the same time, he gloats that one of his personal enemies, a member of the press, could potentially stay off of cable news for good.
Biden’s “joke” about the former Fox News host may have been hilarious to a room full of people who rooted for the death of Carlson’s career for years, but it didn’t land with the American people. If anything, Biden’s Carlson crack further confirms that the regime only plans to recognize the constitutional rights of its allies.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
To support their left-wing agenda, corporate media occasionally allow members of the conservative movement or Republican Party to appear for a few moments on camera to give an illusion of balance. These select few are always significantly outnumbered by the legion of left-wing activists who dominate these programs and have to really use their time smartly and effectively to fight the propaganda and agenda-pushing that dominate our press.
In the case of Brendan Buck, the corporate media are engaged in a deliberate disinformation operation against the public. They have mislabeled him as someone representative of Republican voters when, in fact, he parrots some of the most preposterous Democrat talking points and ignores obvious facts to push back against those talking points.
Buck trades on the fact that he was a longtime top aide to former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Like many of the old-guard GOP establishment operatives, he has had to deal with the widespread voter rejection of the Romney-Ryan era he helped craft. For him, this has included joining with left-wing critiques of those who supplanted the former GOP leaders. It is not surprising, therefore, that Democrat activist Chuck Todd frequently uses Buck on his Sunday morning news panel for NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The panel this past week also included Democrat activist and NBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend; Valerie Jarrett’s daughter Laura, who is a legal analyst at NBC; and an anchor from the left-wing PBS “NewsHour.” Buck was ostensibly supposed to balance out those three and the hard-core partisan Todd.
Instead, he allowed every single left-wing talking point to pass by without even a slight reproach. In some cases, he joined in enthusiastically.
For example, Todd led a subliterate discussion about Tennessee on Sunday. In the real world, the situation was that a trans-identified shooter in Nashville murdered three Christian children and three of their caregivers. Left-wing activists, including three elected Democrats, responded by orchestrating a takeover of the legislature in an attempt to restrict self-defense rights. The manner in which they led this takeover of the legislative assembly included violations of rules for which they were removed from committees and, in two cases, the legislative body. Many in the propaganda press have willfully lied about these facts to push a left-wing narrative.
So, in Chuck Todd’s world, this story meant there were “loud echoes from our recent past in the south and in the ’60s,” and it “felt like a whole bunch of people who just don’t deal with dissent.” He allowed Sanders-Townsend to falsely claim, “What is happening in Tennessee, and frankly across the South, is in fact Jim Crow.” She even said the potential pardon of a man convicted in a self-defense shooting of a Black Lives Matter demonstrator “is an assault.”
Now, I’m no fancy-pants Republican media strategist, like Buck’s bio claims he is. I don’t have a single day, much less decades, of experience in Republican messaging, as Buck has. And I certainly don’t get paid the big bucks to fight four left-wing activists on NBC while posing publicly as the representative of the majority of the country that is not represented by those activists. But I know literally any Republican on Earth could have done a better job than Brendan Buck did in this circumstance.
He said, and I quote, “Yeah. Well, this is again a situation where there’s no infrastructure. There’s nobody calling the shots. We are being defined as extreme, and it’s why Republicans are on the run in just about everywhere across the country.”
By the way, he said “again,” because earlier in the program he had joined with his left-wing buddies as they spouted falsehoods about which party’s abortion views are, in fact, extreme.
Are you kidding me? Now, do I expect Todd or Sanders-Townsend or any other Democrat activist to push a narrative of Republicans being extreme and on the run? Of course, I do. But why is Brendan Buck, Paul Ryan’s longtime aide, pushing this falsehood?
Just a cursory review of the most recent news shows this is simply not true. The Associated Press wrote just last week in an article headlined “North Carolina state lawmaker switches parties, gives GOP supermajority,” that, “A Democrat in the North Carolina state House switched to the Republican Party on Wednesday, giving the GOP veto-proof control in both chambers of the legislature and handing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper a setback in trying to block hardline conservative policies in his final two years in office.”
Buck may agree with his super-duper best friend Todd that Republicans are just so extreme for supporting safe streets, biological reality, protection of children, sane foreign policy, constitutional order, and the like, but outside the confines of that NBC studio, there’s a very different world he should probably think about visiting. A world with Republicans, for one thing, but also a world where Democrats are forced to flee the party that Buck thinks everyone is running to:
Cotham, a former teacher and assistant principal who had served in the House for nearly 10 years through 2016 before returning in January, announced her decision at a news conference at North Carolina Republican Party headquarters. ‘I will not be controlled by anyone,’ Cotham said as she announced she would switch her party registration to the GOP. She said the Democratic Party is no longer a big tent party and tries to bully its members. She said that she was considered a ‘spy’ and a ‘traitor’ and that the turning point was when she was criticized for using the American flag and praying-hands emoji on social media and on her vehicles.
The range of topics corporate media are eagerly dishonest about is reaching a level that is a serious threat to the republic. In service of a Democrat agenda, they lie with alarming frequency about nearly everything — including crime, abortion, radical gender ideology, racism, taxes, foreign policy, gun rights, civil liberties, free speech issues, freedom of religion, the right to protest, due process, dueling standards of justice, and other important issues.
Those lies affect political and policy outcomes with devastating effects on the American people.
The GOP establishment from the past may be having a temper tantrum about how unpopular the views of the Romney-Ryan era are, but they need to have that tantrum on their own time, not during these limited opportunities to push back against the vile lies of the corporate media.
Democrats and their media organs have enough tools for disinformation. There is no need for Brendan Buck to be one of them.
Mainstream Media have egg on their faces as more right-wing conspiracies come true, like the Wuhan lab leak. CNN, NPR, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NY Times, WaPo, etc., shame on you.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The following is adapted from a talk delivered at Hillsdale College on Feb. 7, 2023.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter last October and the subsequent reporting on the “Twitter Files” by journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and a handful of others beginning in early December is one of the most important news stories of our time. The “Twitter Files” story encompasses, and to a large extent connects, every major political scandal of the Trump-Biden era. Put simply, the “Twitter Files” reveal an unholy alliance between Big Tech and the deep state designed to throttle free speech and maintain an official narrative through censorship and propaganda. This should not just disturb us, it should also prod us to action in defense of the First Amendment, free and fair elections, and indeed our country.
After Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter, he fired a slew of useless or insubordinate employees, instituted new content moderation policies, and tried to reform a woke corporate culture that bordered (and still borders) on parody. In the process, Musk coordinated with Taibbi and Weiss on the publication of a series of stories based on internal Twitter documents related to an array of major political events going back years:
the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, Twitter’s secret policy of shadowbanning,
President Trump’s suspension from Twitter after the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot,
the co-opting of Twitter by the FBI to suppress “election disinformation” ahead of the 2020 election,
Twitter’s involvement in a Pentagon overseas psy-op campaign,
its silencing of dissent from the official Covid narrative,
its complicity in the Russiagate hoax,
and its gradual capitulation to the direct involvement of the U.S. intelligence community — with the FBI as a go-between — in content moderation.
As Taibbi has written, the “Twitter Files” “show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government — from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”
The “Twitter Files” contain multitudes, but for the sake of brevity let us consider just three installments and their related implications: the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the suspension of Trump, and the deputization of Twitter by the FBI. Together, these stories reveal not just a social media company willing to do the bidding of an out-of-control federal bureaucracy, but a federal bureaucracy openly hostile to the First Amendment.
Hunter Biden’s Laptop
On Oct. 14, 2020, the New York Post published its first major exposé based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which had been dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019 and never picked up. It was the first of several stories detailing Biden family corruption and revealing the close involvement of Joe Biden in his son’s foreign business ventures in the years during and after Biden’s vice presidency. Hunter, although doing no real work, was making tens of millions of dollars from foreign companies in places like Ukraine and China. The Post’s bombshell reporting shined a bright light on what was happening.
According to the emails on the laptop, Hunter introduced then-Vice President Biden to a top executive at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that was paying Hunter (who had no credentials or experience in the energy business) up to $50,000 a month to sit on its board. Soon after this meeting, Vice President Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor investigating the company.
In an earlier email, a top Burisma executive asked Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” to benefit the company. The Post’s ensuing stories revealed more of the same: a shocking level of corruption and influence-peddling by Hunter Biden, whose emails suggest his father was closely connected to his overseas business ventures. Indeed, those ventures appear to consist entirely of Hunter providing access to Joe Biden.
Twitter did everything in its power to suppress the Biden story. It removed links to the Post’s reporting, appended warnings that they might be “unsafe,” and prevented users from sharing them via direct message — a restriction previously reserved for child pornography and other extreme cases. In an extraordinary step, Twitter also locked the Post’s account and the accounts of people who shared links to its reporting, including White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. These actions were justified under the pretext that the stories violated Twitter’s hacked-materials policy, even though there was no evidence, then or now, that anything on the laptop was hacked.
Twitter executives at the highest levels were directly involved in these decisions. Former head of legal, policy, and trust Vijaya Gadde, the company’s chief censor, played a key role, as did former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth. Oddly, all this seems to have been done without the knowledge of Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey. And it was done despite internal pushback from other departments.
“I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe,” wrote a Twitter communications executive in an email to Gadde and Roth. “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” asked former VP of global communications Brandon Borman. His question was answered by Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker — a former top lawyer for the FBI and the most powerful member of a growing cadre of former FBI employees working at Twitter — who said that “caution is warranted” and that some facts “indicate the materials may have been hacked.”
But there were no such facts, as Baker and other top Twitter executives knew at the time. The laptop was exactly what the Post said it was, and every fact the Post reported was accurate. Other major media outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post would begrudgingly admit as much 18 months later, after Joe Biden was ensconced in the White House.
If there were no hacked materials in the Post’s reporting, why did Twitter immediately react as if there were? Because long before the Post published its first laptop story, there had been an organized effort by the intelligence community to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden. The laptop, after all, had been in federal custody since the previous December, when the FBI seized it from the computer repair shop. So the FBI knew very well that it contained evidence of straightforward criminal activity (such as illicit drug use) as well as of corruption and influence-peddling.
The evening before the Post ran its first story on the laptop, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sent 10 documents to Roth at Twitter through a special one-way communications channel the FBI had established with the company. For months, the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies had been priming Roth to dismiss news reports about Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 election as “hack-and-leak” operations by state actors. They had done the same thing with Facebook, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted as much to Joe Rogan in an August 2022 podcast.
As Michael Shellenberger reported in the seventh installment of the “Twitter Files,” the FBI repeatedly asked Roth and others at Twitter about foreign influence operations on the platform and were repeatedly told there were none of any significance. The FBI also routinely pressured Twitter to hand over data outside the normal search warrant process, which Twitter at first resisted.
In July 2020, Chan arranged for Twitter executives to get top secret security clearances so the FBI could share intelligence about possible threats to the upcoming presidential election. The next month, Chan sent Roth information about a Russian hacking group called APT28. Roth later said that when the Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop broke, “It set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack-and-leak campaign alarm bells.” Even though there was never any evidence that anything on the laptop was hacked, Roth reacted to it just as the FBI had conditioned him to do, using the company’s hacked-materials policy to suppress the story as soon as it appeared, just as the agency suggested it would, less than a month before the election.
Suspending the President
The erosion of Twitter’s content moderation standards would continue after the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, reaching its apogee on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol riot. That is when Twitter made the extraordinary decision to suspend President Trump, even though he had not violated any Twitter policies.
As the “Twitter Files” show, the suspension came amid ongoing interactions with federal agencies — interactions that were increasing in frequency in the months leading up to the 2020 election, during which Roth was meeting weekly with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. As the election neared, Twitter’s unevenly applied, rules-based content moderation policies would steadily deteriorate.
Content moderation on Twitter had always been an unstable mix of automatic enforcement of rules and subjective interventions by top executives, most of whom used Twitter’s censorship tools to diminish the reach of Trump and others on the right through shadowbanning and other means. But that was changing. As Taibbi wrote in the third installment of the “Twitter Files”:
As the election approached, senior executives — perhaps under pressure from federal agencies, with whom they met more as time progressed — increasingly struggled with rules, and began to speak of ‘vios’ [violations] as pretexts to do what they’d likely have done anyway.
After Jan. 6, Twitter jettisoned even the appearance of a rules-based moderation policy, suspending Trump for a pair of tweets that top executives falsely claimed were violations of Twitter’s terms of service. The first, sent early in the morning on Jan. 8, stated: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” The second, sent about an hour later, simply stated that Trump would not be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
That same day, key Twitter staffers correctly determined that Trump’s tweets did not constitute incitement of violence or violate any other Twitter policies. But pressure kept building from people like Gadde, who wanted to know whether the tweets amounted to “coded incitement to further violence.” Some suggested that Trump’s first tweet might have violated the company’s policy on the glorification of violence. Internal discussions then took an even more bizarre turn. Members of Twitter’s “scaled enforcement team” reportedly viewed Trump “as the leader of a terrorist group responsible for violence/deaths comparable to Christchurch shooter or Hitler and on that basis and on the totality of his Tweets, he should be de-platformed.”
Later on the afternoon of Jan. 8, Twitter announced Trump’s permanent suspension “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” — a nonsense phrase that corresponded to no written Twitter policy. The suspension of a sitting head of state was unprecedented. Twitter had never taken such a step, even with heads of state in Nigeria and Ethiopia who actually had incited violence. Internal deliberations unveiled by the “Twitter Files” show that Trump’s suspension was partly justified based on the “overall context and narrative” of Trump’s words and actions — as one executive put it — “over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.”
That is, it was not anything Trump said or did; it was that Twitter’s censors wanted to blame the president for everything that happened on Jan. 6 and remove him from the platform. To do that, they were willing to shift the entire intellectual framework of content moderation from the enforcement of objective rules to the consideration of “context and narrative,” thereby allowing executives to engage in what amounts to viewpoint discrimination.
Private companies, of course, for the most part have the right to engage in viewpoint discrimination — something the government is prohibited from doing by the First Amendment. The problem is that when Twitter suspended Trump, it was operating less like a private company than like an extension of the federal government.
***
Among the most shocking revelations of the “Twitter Files” is the extent to which federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies came to view Twitter as a tool for censorship and narrative control. In part six of the “Twitter Files,” Taibbi chronicles the “constant and pervasive” contact between the FBI and Twitter after January 2020, “as if [Twitter] were a subsidiary.” In particular, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security wanted Twitter to censor tweets and lock accounts it believed were engaged in “election misinformation,” and would regularly send the company content it had pre-flagged for moderation, essentially dragooning Twitter into what would otherwise be illegal government censorship. Taibbi calls it a “master-canine” relationship. When requests for censorship came in from the feds, Twitter obediently complied — even when the tweets in question were clearly jokes or posted on accounts with few followers.
Some Twitter executives were unsure what to make of this relationship. Policy Director Nick Pickles at one point asked how he should refer to the company’s cooperation with federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, suggesting it be described in terms of “partnerships.” Time and again, federal agencies stressed the need for close collaboration with their “private sector partners,” using the alleged interference by Russia in the 2016 election as the pretext for a massive government surveillance and censorship regime operating from inside Twitter.
Requests for content moderation, which increasingly resembled demands, came not only from the FBI and DHS, but also from a tangled web of other federal agencies, contractors, and government-affiliated think tanks such as the Election Integrity Project at Stanford University. As Taibbi writes, the lines between government and its “partners” in this effort were “so blurred as to be meaningless.”
The Deputization of Twitter
After the 2016 election, both Twitter and Facebook faced pressure from Democrats and their media allies to root out Russian “election meddling” under the thoroughly debunked theory that a Moscow-based social media influence operation was responsible for Trump’s election victory. In reality, Russia’s supposed meddling amounted to a minuscule ad buy on Facebook and a handful of Twitter bots. But the truth was not acceptable to Democrats, the media, or the anti-Trump federal bureaucracy.
In 2017, Twitter came under tremendous pressure to “keep producing material” on Russian interference, and in response it created a Russia Task Force to hunt for accounts tied to Moscow’s Internet Research Agency. The task force did not find much. Out of some 2,700 accounts reviewed, only two came back as significant, and one of those was Russia Today, a state-backed news outlet.
But in the face of bad press and threats from Democrats in Congress, Twitter executives decided to go along with the official narrative and pretend they had a Russia problem. To placate Washington and avoid costly new regulations, they pledged to “work with [members of Congress] on their desire to legislate.” When someone in Congress leaked the list of the 2,700 accounts Twitter’s task force had reviewed, the media exploded with stories suggesting that Twitter was swarming with Russian bots — and Twitter continued to go along.
After that, as described by Taibbi, “This cycle — threatened legislation wedded to scare headlines pushed by congressional/intel sources, followed by Twitter caving to [content] moderation asks — [came to] be formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement.”
Late in 2017, Twitter quietly adopted a new policy. In public, it would say that all content moderation took place “at [Twitter’s] sole discretion.” But its internal guidance would stipulate censorship of anything “identified by the U.S. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.” Thus Twitter increasingly allowed the intelligence community, the State Department, and a dizzying array of federal and state agencies to submit content moderation requests through the FBI, which Chan suggested could function as “the belly button of the [U.S. government].” These requests would grow and intensify during the Covid pandemic and in the run-up to the 2020 election.
By 2020, there was a torrent of demands for censorship, sometimes with no explanation — just an Excel spreadsheet with a list of accounts to be banned. These demands poured in from FBI offices all over the country, overwhelming Twitter staff. Eventually the government would pay Twitter $3.4 million in compensation. It was a pittance considering the work Twitter did at the government’s behest, but the payment illustrated a stark reality: Twitter, a leading gatekeeper of the digital public square and arguably the most powerful social media platform in the world, had become a subcontractor for the U.S. intelligence community.
***
The “Twitter Files” have revealed or confirmed three important truths about social media and the deep state.
First, the entire concept of “content moderation” is a euphemism for censorship by social media companies that falsely claim to be neutral and unbiased. To the extent they exercise a virtual monopoly on public discourse in the digital era, we should stop thinking of them as private companies that can “do whatever they want,” as libertarians are fond of saying. The companies’ content moderation policies are at best a flimsy justification for banning or blocking whatever their executives do not like. At worst, they provide cover for a policy of pervasive government censorship.
Second, Twitter was taking marching orders from a deep state security apparatus that was created to fight terrorists, not to censor or manipulate public discourse. To the extent that the deep state is using social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to subvert the First Amendment and run information psy-ops on the American public, these companies have become malevolent government actors. As a policy matter, the hands-off, laissez-faire regulatory approach we have taken to them should come to an immediate end.
Third, the administrative state has metastasized into a destructive deep state that threatens to bring about the collapse of America’s constitutional system within our lifetimes. Emblematic of the threat is the fact that “the intelligence community” has proven itself incapable of not interfering in American elections. The FBI in particular has directly meddled in the last two presidential elections to a degree that should call into question its continued existence. Indeed, the FBI’s post-9/11 transformation from a law enforcement agency to a counter-terrorism and intelligence-gathering agency with seemingly limitless remit has been a disaster for civil liberties and the First Amendment. We need either to impose radical reforms or scrap it entirely and start over.
The late great political scientist Angelo Codevilla argued that our response to 9/11 was completely wrong. Instead of erecting a sprawling security and surveillance apparatus to detect and disrupt potential terrorist plots, we should have issued an ultimatum to the regimes that were harboring Al Qaeda: You make war on these terrorists and bring them to justice or we will make war on you. The reason not to do what we did, Codevilla argued, is that a security and surveillance apparatus powerful and pervasive enough to do what we wanted it to do was incompatible with a free society. It might defeat the terrorists, but it would eventually be turned on the American people.
The “Twitter Files” leave little doubt that Codevilla’s prediction has come to pass. The question we face now is whether the American people and their elected representatives will fight back. The fate of the republic rests on the answer.
John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
The media fell head over heels for a shoddy propaganda operation spearheaded by an ex-FBI agent. Twitter, internally, understood the operation to be partisan hackery but never spoke out. Organizations full of influential ex-government officials promoted the operation. And it’s only thanks to Matt Taibbi’s most recent contribution to “The Twitter Files” that we know the full extent of institutional corruption in the mind-boggling case of Hamilton 68.
American intelligence operatives have a history of using credulous reporters to spread disinformation for political purposes. (Remember when President Nixon’s team forged cables about John F. Kennedy and tried to get them in Life? Or the fate of Jean Seberg and her baby, thanks in part to COINTELPRO and the Los Angeles Times?) We’ve learned more and more about this in the years after the Cold War, yet elite media outlets eagerly swallow tactical disinformation when it confirms their priors.
The consequence? Self-appointed disinformation police in government and media shape American politics with actual disinformation, crafted specifically to quiet dissent.
New Information
Given access to Twitter’s internal records by new CEO Elon Musk, Taibbi pulled the company’s communications surrounding Hamilton 68 and reported his findings last Friday. The project styled itself as a “dashboard” that tracked Russian disinformation on Twitter.
As Taibbi wrote, “The secret ingredient in Hamilton 68’s analytic method was a list of 644 accounts supposedly linked ‘to Russian influence activities online.’ It was hidden from the public, but Twitter was in a unique position to recreate Hamilton’s sample by analyzing its Application Program Interface (API) requests, which is how they first ‘reverse-engineered’ Hamilton’s list in late 2017.”
The files unearthed by Taibbi show Twitter’s internal audit of the Hamilton 68 list found it to be, in the words of former executive Yoel Roth, “bullish-t.”
“These accounts are neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots,” another employee said. What Hamilton 68 was passing off as foreign disinformation was largely legitimate speech from anti-establishment American tweeters. Here’s Roth again: “Virtually any conclusion drawn from [the dashboard] will take conversations in conservative circles on Twitter and accuse them of being Russian.”
The “dashboard” confirmed elites’ bizarre anti-Trump Russia-collusion narrative by secretly classifying as Russian activity political speech from Americans with whom they disagreed.
Who ran Hamilton 68? Created by former FBI Special Agent Clint Watts, the project was supported by the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the German Marshall Fund. That means a host of powerful former government officials with long histories in and around intelligence agencies promoted the shoddy research for years or, at the very least, were complicit in Hamilton 68’s work by lending their support. Watts himself is an NBC News and MSNBC contributor. (Bill Kristol is a member of the Alliance’s advisory board.)
Institutional Corruption
It gets so much worse on three fronts: academia, Big Tech, and media.
First, Taibbi notes the suspicious research was promoted uncritically by elite American universities, including Harvard and Princeton. Second, the files show Twitter declined to call out Hamilton 68 publicly, opting to “play a longer game here,” in the words of one employee who now advises Pete Buttigieg at the Department of Transportation.
Third, and most importantly, Twitter’s efforts to privately nudge reporters away from the story failed miserably. Taibbi found, “[Emily] Horne wrote several times that she had no luck in steering journalists away from these hack headlines. ‘Reporters are chafing,’ she wrote, adding, ‘it’s like shouting into a void.’” Horne works for the Biden administration as well.
This is a damning illustration of the institutional corruption rotting American politics and culture. You may wonder how ex-spooks could create a secret list, hide their results, pass off the research as legitimate, convince just about every major media outlet to run with the findings, convince elite universities to run with them, and keep Twitter quiet in the process. The answer is that some institutional powerbrokers are corrupt, some are inexcusably incompetent, and others are a combination.
Media Enable It All
If the media, however, had a semblance of the competence and virtue journalists claim to have, there would be much more incentive for powerful people in other institutions to stop behaving badly.
Watts and Co. did not make an honest mistake. When leftists at Twitter saw the same information, they immediately and literally called BS — privately, at least. Even their warnings could not dissuade dozens of journalists and politicians from blasting Hamilton 68’s findings to millions of Americans for years. This was an attempt to create junk science, hide the results with a laughable excuse, and use it to bolster a false narrative that discredited a political opponent.
“This was an attempt to create junk science, hide the results with a laughable excuse, and use it to bolster a false narrative that discredited a political opponent.“
Journalists did their part and took the bait. Bear in mind that NBC News and MSNBC have used Watts himself as a national security contributor for years, ignoring plenty of evidence that he was a dishonest propagandist using their airwaves to advance the interests of intelligence agencies. They actually used their own “disinformation” reporters to spread more disinformation.
My colleague Mollie Hemingway called this out all the way back in 2018, when the likes of Adam Schiff, Dianne Feinstein, and an astounding array of media outlets were promoting Hamilton 68.
“Hamilton 68 won’t let anyone review their dashboard to determine in any way if they’re tracking actual Russian propaganda bots, or just conservative Americans who, for instance, care about FISA abuse,” Hemingway wrote. “Yet Hamilton 68’s claims are repeated uncritically by a media that asks no questions about the methodology.” (Twitter seemed to be misrepresenting its internal knowledge at the time, as well.)
Five years ago, making that point was met with attacks from anti-Trump activists who engaged in amateur intellectual gymnastics to classify every argument they disliked as Russian propaganda. The effect was to turn down the volume on people who were undercutting the campaign against Trump, empowering their own false narrative. Taibbi’s reporting vindicates the people who pushed back.
Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist and host of Federalist Radio Hour. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young America’s Foundation. She’s interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including “Fox News Sunday,” “Media Buzz,” and “The McLaughlin Group.” Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center, co-host of the weekly news show “Counter Points: Friday” and a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.
Perhaps the most important outcome of these releases is the broadening recognition that Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al., are part of government propaganda operations.
It’s not clear whether Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is hostile.
Musk could be motivated by deeply personal reasons to battle Big Tech’s enforcement of Marxist identity politics. Or he could be attempting to do damage control for the regime by duping people who have reason to distrust the regime into believing Twitter is now more trustworthy. There are many other possibilities, too, and it’s impossible for outsiders to know which is true.
After all, the Twitter Files haven’t so far released that much new information. We already knew Big Tech was colluding with federal officials to deny Americans free speech and therefore self-government. We already knew the internet’s dominant infrastructure is completely rigged. We already knew Donald Trump’s Twitter defenestration was based on Twitter employees’ personal animus against him, not any objective reading of company policy.
We already knew Joe Biden is likely owned by foreign oligarchs who pay his son Hunter for access and influence, and that the Hunter Biden laptop story’s suppression was a deep state influence operation that tipped the 2020 election.
Whatever is going on behind the release of the Twitter Files, good things can come of it. This wormhole likely goes very deep, and even what we’re seeing now, quite close to the surface, is alarming and indicative enough. Perhaps the most important outcome of these releases is the broadening recognition that Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al., are part of government propaganda operations.
This is very likely why we’ve been hearing increasing alarms about “protecting democracy.” The existence and prevalence of this chant online is itself a strong indicator that democracy, or the concept of self-rule through free and fair elections, as the basic bloke thinks of it, doesn’t really exist anymore. At least, that’s certainly the case if Big Tech, in collusion with unelected officials who are almost as far-left as Twitter’s employees, selects what information voters may receive.
Twitter censorship directly or indirectly is what led to the horrendously regressive COVID policies, Biden's presidential victory, and why we got the record inflation, energy, crime, illegal immigration and Fentanyl crises. We are here today because of what Twitter did.
This Twitter-capade reveals further details about Big Tech’s function as an arm of U.S. “national security” and “intelligence” agencies. Decades ago, these agencies started going rogue on the formerly inalienable constitutional rights of American citizens, with tacit acquiescence from Congress through repeat authorizations and increased funding. These agencies and the entities they’ve colonized now treat the American people like occupied foreign territory, subject to psychological manipulation and institutional infiltration in a manner reminiscent of the Chinese Communist Party.
In fact, this whole affair emits more than merely a whiff of totalitarian collectivism, both communist and fascist. For one thing, the Twitter Files details about the revolving door between U.S. intelligence agency employees and Twitter — and surely also Google and Facebook — recall that Germany’s infamous National Socialists embedded party operatives on “private” company boards. So does today’s Chinese Communist Party.
One must also consider the possibility, if not absolute likelihood, that many of these “former” U.S. military and intelligence agents working at Twitter and Co. are not actually former, but covert government agents. I hear the practice is called “sheep dipping.” Former Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker certainly fits that description. So does Vijaya Gadde.
Over the weekend, while we both dealt with obstacles to new searches, it was @BariWeiss who discovered that the person in charge of releasing the files was someone named Jim. When she called to ask “Jim’s” last name, the answer came back: “Jim Baker.”
It’s also noteworthy that a number of these types, including Baker and big fat lying former CIA Director John Brennan, seem to be laundered through CNN and MSNBC stints as “security analysts.” I.e. to use TV to spread regime-desired disinformation, such as to help quash the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.
"…multiple episodes suggesting that Twitter had been penetrated by foreign intelligence agencies and/or was complicit in threats to democratic governance" pic.twitter.com/6Nm4ds0rtk
So, twitter employees were working with the FBI and foreign intelligence. And the higher ups were warned and were totally cool with it to the point they fired the whistle blower to silence the story. Just amazing. https://t.co/FxUsK8wajF
— The Dank Silent Knight, Holy Knight 🎄🦇 (@capeandcowell) December 12, 2022
This use of spycraft against American citizens seems to be an increasingly recurring and increasingly visible aspect of our post-2016 dystopia. Recall that it appears to have been a feature of the Jan. 6, 2021 “insurrection,” the 2020 Michigan tyrant “kidnapping” false flag operation, the Spygate operation, the attempted FBI entrapment of Sen. Ron Johnson, and many more.
While the vast majority of Americans don’t use Twitter, it has a massive, outsized influence on every American’s everyday life. We saw that in real-time with the consent spiral manufactured, possibly by national security agencies, to impose unprecedented lockdowns in 2020.
Twitter has a fraction of the users of every other major online network, yet it controls the political conversation because of who uses it and how they use it. It’s helpful, even if not literally true, to think of Twitter as an influence operation targeted at Congress, the executive agencies, the corporate media that control the ruling Democrat Party, and other members of the ruling class. That’s who its users overwhelmingly are, especially the most active.
Twitter is where people go to link up to the woke hive mind. That’s why it’s poison to everyone, but especially Republican officeholders.
This is why Republican politicians make some of their stupidest decisions when framed by what they see on Twitter, because the Twitter “consensus” reflects the opposite of their constituents’ views. (This disconnect is a major reason The Federalist exists.) It’s simply a pressure tool for the leftist mob. That’s also why big business leaders are idiots to respond to Twitter mobs — the majority of their customers don’t pay any attention to Twitter.
This information asymmetry has been highly destructive to the American republic but highly useful to the nefarious actors who run our deeply corrupt federal agencies. For one thing, it has allowed the veiled imposition of a vast information iron curtain across Western countries where many people believe themselves to be free citizens. Twitter is the tip of the spear for this growing censorship regime now consisting of a shadowy web between federal officials, social media-sponsored “fact checking” censorship hacks, Big Tech, corporate media, intelligence agencies, and who knows what other entities.
Twitter has been the typical initiator of bans on a person, organization, idea, or conversation from an online voice — and sometimes from basic life necessities such as banking. Then Facebook, Apple, Google, and others follow suit. The other colluding entities get Twitter to do the heavy lifting of canceling a dissenting person, political movement, conversation, or idea, then just file behind and copy Twitter so they avoid blowback.
We now have more evidence to add to the growing pile establishing that Twitter wasn’t just functioning this way because almost all of its employees were far-left Democrat activists. It also has been rigging public conversation, and therefore public life and elections themselves, at the behest of elected and unelected Democrats using their public positions for deeply partisan gain.
The Biden administration admitted it was flagging specific posts for Twitter to take down. It called for Big Tech to inflict “consequences” on those who disagreed with Democrats, and attempted to publicly formalize its evisceration of this vital tool of democracy — free speech — with a “Disinformation Governance Board.” The Biden administration’s national security apparatus openly declared that anyone who doesn’t agree with Democrat politicians could be investigated as a potential “domestic terrorist”!
These government-entwined monopoly platforms obviously exist to disseminate coordinated information operations and kill competing information. They are staffed with de facto or actual intelligence agents at levels high enough to disappear key internal records. Anyone who claims these are simply “private companies” is either not intellectually competent, in denial, or part of the ongoing psy-op to deny Americans the right to make their own political decisions based on genuinely free and open public discussions.
Leftists push their gender ideology on children, yet conservative parents complaining about Drag Queen Story Hour are blamed for starting a culture war.
Can the gaslighting on gender and sexual identitarianism from the left get any more absurd? The Washington Post last month ran a story about how a decision by the community center in McLean, Virginia to co-sponsor a “Drag Story Book Hour” for children during Pride Month has, in their awkward wording, “set off culture wars.”
The May election for three open seats at the community center has attracted nine candidates, including Katharine Gorka, a former Trump administration official who has criticized the diversity, inclusion, and equity policies that resulted in the drag event. WaPo reporter Antonio Olivo observed, with editorial flourish, that this is “an example of how nothing is safe from the nation’s raging culture wars.”
A suburban community center hosts a drag queen story hour (DQSH) for elementary school students, yet it’s conservatives who are the ones stoking the culture war by complaining about it? A Florida school board member last year chaperoned a group of elementary school children on a field trip to a gay bar and the state’s community centers promote DQSH, but it’s conservatives who are the dangerous extremists for supporting a Florida parental rights in education bill?
Drag queens do bizarre, borderline pornographic acts in front of children, but it’s conservatives who are responsible for miseducating and damaging American youth? Come on.
Anything but Innocent
DQSH, as Gorka recently told me, “is not, as the American Library Association dishonestly describes it, an effort to combat ‘marginalization and underrepresentation.’” Rather, as the DQSH website itself declares, it is “drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores” in order to “capture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.”
That word “play” is a bit concerning, especially given the sexually explicit nature of DQSH, and the many allegations that this pedagogy equates to grooming. A drag performer at one DQSH event in D.C. last year sang shirtless with duct tape on her breasts, sported a thong, and pretended to have fake sperm over her mouth.
Another DQSH event in Portland, Oregon in 2019 showed photos of children “lounging atop of the costumed queens on the floor, grabbing at false breasts, and burying their faces in their bodies.” This is not exactly light-hearted, appropriate public entertainment, notes Gorka.
A Concerning National Phenomenon
It would be more accurate to say that DQSH events bring the culture war directly to America’s children, with an ideological gameplan expressly dedicated to sexualizing our nation’s youth and urging children to consider themselves gender dysphoric. The first DQSH event in the United States was held in San Francisco in 2015. Since then, the events have spread across the country.
As of 2020, the official DQSH website boasted almost 50 independently operated chapters across the United States, including in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. It is also supported by the American Library Association, whose extensive resource page includes information on how libraries can resist and censure people in local communities who object to these events.
Terrifyingly, the grooming charge is reality. In 2021, the former president of an organization that served as a sponsor for the Milwaukee Drag Queen Story Hour was charged with possessing child pornography depicting the sexual abuse of underage boys, including toddlers. In 2019, the Houston Public Library admitted a registered child sex offender to read to kids in a DQSH event. Allyn Walker, a transgender former assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University in Virginia, sought to defend people who are attracted to minors.
As I noted in a recent Federalist article, the media and schools aggressively promoting transgenderism have created a national crisis. There has been a dramatic, unprecedented surge in people identifying with sexual identities other than heterosexual.
As Abigail Shrier documents at length in her alarming book “Irreversible Damage,” the consequences for those who seek hormone treatment and/or sexual reassignment surgery are lifelong. DQSH marks an attempt to push the boundaries even further, not only for children entering puberty but to early elementary school and pre-K.
This truly is a national challenge. DQSH now reportedly has chapters in 29 different states, which means there is plenty of local political work to be done. As Gorka notes, “pornographic books such as ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ can be found in hundreds of school libraries across the country, thanks in part to the fact that The Young Adult Library Services Association (a division of the American Library Association) put the book at the top of its Teens’ Top 10 book list in 2021.”
Malevolent Gaslighting
This makes the left’s abusive and hyperbolic rhetoric on conservative resistance to DQSH and other grooming activities all the more insulting and infuriating. The Washington Post provocatively featured a political cartoon in April portraying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as responsible for the deaths of trans children. Liberal media outlets are claiming that conservatives should be held responsible for the suicides of children struggling with dysphoria.
Yet who encouraged prepubescent children to think about myopic topics like gender dysphoria in the first place? I certainly never heard of such things when I was in grade school in the 1990s. Who told children that their gender and sexual identity were the most important thing about them, and that misidentifying or misgendering amounted to the worst possible offense? Who is making millions of dollars off lying to and emotionally damaging impressionable, easily-manipulated children?
The answer is those advocating DQSH and the many other ubiquitous forms of sexual and gender propaganda influencing millions of American youth. It is they who are deceiving — and often permanently damaging — an entire generation of Americans for the sake of their own ideological agenda, the normalizing of bizarre, pornographic behavior.
No, conservatives did not inflame the culture war over trans ideology and drag queens. But we sure would like to stop it.
Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.
Now that a judge has stayed the federal mask mandate on public transportation, it’s important to have an honest accounting of what this entire mask situation was truly all about. A lot of people will make a lot of claims. A tiny sliver will continue to claim mask mandates actually helped mitigate the spread of Covid-19. They will be the outliers because, in terms of stopping the spread of Covid or any other virus, wearing a mask is the equivalent of doing a rain dance: it might make you feel better, and some quacks will tell you it works, but ultimately it does nothing except make you look foolish and give you a false sense of security. (Vaccine mandates were the modern equivalent of burning witches at the stake.)
It was all so stupid and foisted on us by people we’re supposed to trust, which is why we need this honest accounting of what it was really all about. A lot of people will claim the masks were about establishing and maintaining control. That’s fair, but it wasn’t their primary purpose. The primary purpose of the mask mandates was to make every person who wore one a walking advertisement for fear. If you were wearing a mask, then you were doing your job, because you had given up your right to free expression and replaced it with one, constant sentiment: “I’m afraid, and you should be too.”
That was the main purpose of the masks. That’s why they wanted everyone to keep wearing them. It was about control, yes, but far more than that, it was about promoting fear. That’s why they lied about the threat Covid poses. That’s why they inflated the number of deaths, counting so often all who died with as having died from. That’s why they convinced so many Americans that the threat of hospitalization or death is exponentially higher than it actually is. (For the record, the survival rate for Covid is 99.7 percent for unvaccinated adults, 99.9 percent for vaccinated adults, and 100 percent for unvaccinated children.)
All they did the entire time was work as hard as they could to promote as much fear as possible, and masks were an excellent weapon they could force on you to help spread their message of constant fear, division, and dehumanization. The mask stripped you of your right to free expression and replaced whatever you wanted to communicate with one single piece of speech: “Be afraid.”
That was the primary purpose. That’s why they were all so fired up about it. That’s why they were all so desperate for you and everybody else to wear them.
It’s important we have our heads around that because it will help us avoid letting them do it again in the future. It wasn’t just about control. It wasn’t just about dividing and dehumanizing us. It wasn’t just about turning us against each other and forcing us to deny science so we could devastate each other’s social, psychological, and emotional health.
All of those were welcome byproducts to the “public health experts” and other elites who to this day claim masking provides value. But the primary purpose was to promote fear, and to stifle your speech and expression so you perpetually signaled that fear to everyone else.
You were obedient, yes. But more than that, you were afraid. That was the message, whether you wanted to send it or not. It was the primary reason they made everyone wear them, and it’s important we never let them do that to us again.
Hrand Tookman is a Cleveland, Ohio native with a background in interpersonal communications. He writes with an objective of exposing media bias, and inspiring unity in defiance of so many forces today that thrive off of division.
If outfits like the Aspen Institute’s “Commission on Information Disorder,” along with Big Tech’s faceless “fact-checkers,” ever get a total monopoly on dictating reality, the result will be a 24/7 mix of falsehoods with the occasional limited hangout to cover up their lies. The icing on this fake cake is the use of conferences about disinformation, such as the recent stunt at the University of Chicago that served as cover for justifying political censorship. There former President Obama presented the perfect picture of psychological projection: a panel of propagandists accusing others of wrongthink.
The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, for example, sought to censor the reality of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by announcing she didn’t find it “interesting.” See how that works? Truth depends upon how our elites personally feel about what should be true. But it gets much worse, because political censorship creates deep dysfunction in society. In fact, the surest way to kill a democracy is to practice political censorship under the guise of protecting society from disinformation.
Censorship causes disinformation. It’s the grandaddy of disinformation, not a solution to it. The sooner everyone recognizes this obvious fact, the better off we’ll be. Whenever a self-anointed elite sets up a Ministry of Truth, the link between censorship and disinformation becomes clear. Before long, they invent reality and punish anyone who expresses a different viewpoint.
So, it’s no small irony that those who claim to be protecting “democracy” from disinformation are the biggest promoters of disinformation and greatest destroyers of real democracy. Their dependence on censorship obstructs the circulation of facts. It prevents any worthwhile exchange of ideas.
Unchecked Censorship Isolates People
Consider what happens if a society is only permitted one propagandistic narrative while all other ideas and information are silenced. People start self-censoring to avoid social rejection. The result is a form of imposed mental isolation. Severely isolated people tend to lose touch with reality. The resulting conformity also perpetuates the censorship. This is unnatural and dangerous because human beings depend on others to verify what’s real. People weren’t able to verify reality in Nazi Germany, during Joseph Stalin’s Reign of Terror, or during Mao Zedong’s brutal Cultural Revolution. All were societies in the grip of mass hysteria because of ruthless censorship to protect a narrative.
As psychiatrist Joost Meerloo noted in his book “The Rape of the Mind,” no matter how well-meaning political censorship might be, it creates dangerous conformity of thought: “the presence of minority ideas, acceptable or not, is one of the ways in which we protect ourselves against the creeping growth of conformist majority thinking.”
The only way we can strengthen ourselves against such contagion is through real freedom of speech that allows fully open discussion and debate. However, if we’re confined by Big Tech to a relentless echo chamber and punished for expressing different thoughts, we’ll just keep getting more and more disinformation. In fact, we are now drowning in the distortions produced by “fact-checkers.” Take, for example, narratives that promote the gender confusion and sexualization of children. Public school teachers routinely post TikTok videos of themselves spewing forth their gender confusion. And if someone calls out Disney for its open grooming of children, Twitter suspends them.
If we never push back against such absurdities, we ultimately end up in a state of mass delusion, each of us a cell in a deluded hive mind, obedient to commands about what to say, how to act, and what to think. To get an idea of what that looks like in a population, check out this clip from North Korea:
Censorship-Invoked Social Contagion Is Real
One of the most telling incidents of censorship over the past year was YouTube and Twitter’s take-down of virologist and vaccine inventor Dr. Robert Malone, claiming he was “spreading misinformation”—i.e., spreading a second opinion—about Covid vaccines and treatments. But big tech saw an even bigger threat in Malone’s discussion of Mattias Desmet’s study of Mass Formation Psychosis (MFP) on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. This is a big reason Spotify was under pressure to de-platform Rogan entirely. Open discussion of such things would erode the illusions big media and big tech so doggedly prop up.
Malone explained how a propaganda-saturated population can end up in a state of mass hypnosis that renders people incapable of seeing reality. He described Desmet’s theory about how social isolation, a high level of discontent, and a strong sense of free-floating anxiety are keys to the development of this psychosis.
The anxiety is so painful that it causes people to cling, trancelike, to any narrative that seems to offer stability. Once all other views are censored, people become so invested in the narrative that they cannot consider any alternative views. They will even mob anyone who endangers the narrative. This phenomenon was prevalent in the German population under Nazism. Their obedience to the propaganda rendered them incapable of understanding any opposing narrative.
Mass psychosis should not sound farfetched. There’s nothing new about it. Hundreds of instances of mass hysteria are documented. In the 19th century, Scottish journalist Charles MacKay wrote up a whole catalog of them. In 2015 medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew co-authored a compendium of popular delusions or “mass sociogenic illness.”
Most past incidents of mass hysteria have been confined to geographic regions, such as the witch trials in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. But with the internet accessible and addictive in the 2020s, the possibility of mass delusion on a global scale is upon us. Censorship—in the name of protecting “democracy” from disinformation—is the key to creating it.
Propagandists Guard Their Illusions Like Magicians
By definition, propaganda aims to psychologically affect people and change their attitudes. So, our social survival depends upon becoming aware of such phenomena. Building self-awareness about our vulnerability to crowd psychology would serve as a sort of psychological vaccine. Of course, elites do not want us even entertaining the possibility that we can be manipulated or vulnerable to social and psychological pressures. Propagandists are illusionists by nature. If their illusion falls apart, then the game is over for them. This is why they depend so heavily on the slur “conspiracy theorist” to distract us from the truth and from their use of censorship to cut us off from other ideas.
The late Nobel laureate Doris Lessing spoke against the dangers of social conformity and censorship in 1986. She noted there was a great body of knowledge that was continuing to be built about the laws of crowd psychology and social contagion. It was odd that we weren’t applying this knowledge to improve our lives. Lessing concluded that no government in the world would willingly help its citizens resist group pressures and learn to think independently. We have to do it ourselves. Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and it sure looks like the keepers of this secret knowledge use it as a means of social control.
No sane person would want to live inside the boxes that the censors who claim to be fighting disinformation are building around us. If we want to escape this Twilight Zone existence, we must destroy that canard and insist on real freedom of speech everywhere.
Stella Morabito is a senior contributor at The Federalist. Her essays have also appeared in the Washington Examiner, American Thinker, Public Discourse, Human Life Review, New Oxford Review. In her previous work as an intelligence analyst, she focused on various aspects of Russian and Soviet politics, including communist media and propaganda. She has also raised three children, served as a public school substitute teacher, and homeschooled for several years as well. She has a B.A. in journalism and international relations from the University of Southern California and a Master’s degree in Russian and Soviet history, also from USC. Follow Stella on Twitter.
The Walt Disney Company will soon be airing an ad on all of its channels featuring the mother of a trans-identified child lambasting supporters of bills banning genital mutilation surgeries for children and the teaching of LGBT ideology in schools. The mother accuses these Americans of trying to “tear our families apart.”
The LGBT advocacy organization GLAAD released the public service announcement called “Protect Our Families” last week. The 60-second ad profiles the Briggle family, which includes Amber Briggle along with her husband and her two children. The ad focuses on her trans-identified daughter, who now identifies as a boy and goes by the name Max.
The LGBT advocacy group says the video shows that “families with transgender kids are just like any other family: they love their kids unconditionally and simply want the best for them.”
In the video, Briggle discusses Max’s interests as she narrates a background video of her daughter in an effort to persuade those watching the ad that society should support parents who want their children to be given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, saying a transgender child “is no different than yours.”
“There are some politicians who are trying to tear my family apart, simply because my [daughter] is transgender,” she asserts. “Trans kids don’t have a political agenda. They are just kids. They just want to be left alone.”
CNBC reports that the ad, which does not explicitly mention any legislation, in particular, will air on channels owned by The Walt Disney Company as well as channels owned by Comcast, WarnerMedia and Paramount. The Walt Disney Company has received intense criticism over its outspoken opposition to a Florida parental rights bill recently signed into law by the state’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The legislation states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation and gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” While states including Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas have passed laws banning the prescription of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to minors, the Florida law does not include such a provision.
After initially declining to take a position on the Florida bill, Disney, which operates the popular theme park Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, came out hard against the bill after critics derided it as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Disney’s opposition to the law that prevents teachers from exposing young children to LGBT ideology, motivated worship artist Sean Feucht to hold a protest in front of Disney’s headquarters in Burbank, California.
Last month, Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute and City Journal released video footage of Disney officials discussing their efforts to incorporate “queerness” and other LGBT ideology into programming directed at children as part of what he described as “Disney’s all-hands meeting about the Florida parental rights bill.”
Briggle, a progressive activist who is running for city council in Denton, Texas, operates a blog titled “Love to the Max.” In an August 2019 blog post, Briggle listed “3 things your child can do to help make middle school better for my trans son.” Accompanying the blog post is a photograph of Max, which identifies the child as a member of the fifth grade graduating class of 2019. This seems to indicate that Briggle’s child is now in eighth grade and is either 13 or 14 years old.
In the blog, she noted that “my sweet [daughter], Max, socially transitioned in 1st grade — changing [her] name and pronouns, but otherwise living life exactly the same (only much, much happier).” In a speech at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards, Briggle said, “We live in Texas, where Gov. [Greg] Abbott issued a directive to investigate parents like my husband, Adam and I for child abuse because we provide Max with the gender-affirming care he needs.”
'I am angry every single day because of the way the world treats my son' — Mom Amber Briggle delivered a tearful speech at the GLAAD Media Awards after being investigated for providing gender-affirming care for her trans son in Texas pic.twitter.com/q4nc6kiP68
Briggle added that Child Protective Services recently visited their home and questioned them. She expressed relief that “a court has barred Texas from investigating parents of trans kids.”
Supporters of legislation banning what LGBT advocates refer to as “gender-affirming care,” including the American College of Pediatricians, warn that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones can have negative side effects. Side effects of puberty blockers identified by the American College of Pediatricians include “emotional instability” as well as “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility.”
The medical organization lists “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan” as possible complications of cross-sex hormones.
While supporters of providing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to youth with gender dysphoria maintain that such procedures help improve the children’s mental health, children who underwent some form of gender transition only to regret doing so later insisted that such procedures worsened their mental health.
The newsmagazine program “60 Minutes” profiled a group of “detransitioners” last year, including a male who once identified as female explaining to CBS’ Lesley Stahl that he “had never really been suicidal before until I had my breast augmentation.” He told Stahl that “about a week afterward, I wanted to actually kill myself,” adding: “I had a plan, and I was going to do it but I just kept thinking about my family to stop myself.”
Another detransitioner, who once sought to transition from female to male, developed a “really disturbing sense that, like, a part of my body was missing, almost a ghost limb feeling about being like, there’s something that should be there.”
The night of Feb. 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine sat at anchor in Havana, Cuba. A few minutes after 9 p.m., the nightly ritual of “Taps” from Fifer C. H. Newton’s bugle descended over the ship. Some half an hour later, the forward end of the ship rose suddenly above the water.
“Along the pier, passersby could hear a rumbling explosion,”detailed author Tom Miller. “Within seconds, another eruption — this one deafening and massive — splintered the bow, sending anything that wasn’t battened down, and most that was, flying more than 200 feet into the air.”
The explosion, which killed more than 250 men on board, was quickly memorialized with cries of “Remember the Maine!” Without directly accusing Spain, which controlled Cuba at the time, a U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry decided a month later that the explosion was from a mine. (A U.S. Navy investigation decades later found it was likely an accidental coal bunker fire.)
Shortly afterward, the United States declared war on Spain, starting the Spanish-American War. One of the biggest warmongering forces in America, capitalizing on the Maine‘s explosion, was the press — a position American media pundits continue to hold as they work overtime to drag Americans into a war with Russia over Ukraine.
When you see talking heads uncritically parroting propagandist stories about Ukraine that turn out to be false, from the “Ghost of Kyiv” to that Snake Island story to old photos taken years ago, you should be asking why the corporate media is so willing to spread such fake news (while it censors conservatives for factual critiques of disproven Covid narratives, no less). It wouldn’t be the first time the press lied to pull Americans into war.
How Newspapermen Helped Start a War in Cuba
It was the so-called golden age of newspapers, after the influence of the Industrial Revolution gave rise to the “penny press” — newspapers you could buy at the street corner without a subscription. Competing magnates like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer fought for readers, and they did so by trying to produce the most sensational news possible.
As the story goes, in the year before the Maine exploded, Hearst had commissioned reporter Frederic Remington to go to Cuba, where Cuban revolutionaries were skirmishing with their Spanish colonizers. When Remington sent Hearst a wire to explain he was leaving Cuba because there was no war to cover, Hearst reportedly replied, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
After the sinking of the Maine, headlines like“Spanish Treachery!” and “Destruction of the War Ship Maine Was the Work of an Enemy!” and“Invasion!” and “Who Destroyed the Maine? $50,000 Reward” splashed across front pages. The United States went to war in April, two months after the Maine perished.
The media’s eagerness to gin up a war mirrored the push for involvement from other voices in politics and culture. Some Americans had sympathy for Spanish-owned Cuba as fellow colonial revolutionaries, while others wanted to see U.S. influence and territory expand internationally.
Half a century prior, when the phrase “manifest destiny” was being coined, the United States had gone to war with Mexico over Texas but also ended the war with acquisitions of what is now California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. By 1898, the United States had purchased Alaska from Russia and claimed several Pacific islands.
Many Americans saw a similar opportunity for territorial expansion in a fight with Spain over Cuba. Sure enough, the United States exited the Spanish-American War with new acquisitions from Guam to the Philippines to Puerto Rico.
While the warmongers weren’t limited to the press, they were certainly concentrated there. The State Department Office of the Historian writes: “Hearst and Pulitzer devoted more and more attention to the Cuban struggle for independence, at times accentuating the harshness of Spanish rule or the nobility of the revolutionaries, and occasionally printing rousing stories that proved to be false.” Sound familiar?
A Century of Dishonesty
“Remember the Maine!” may have been at the height of the yellow journalism era, but it was certainly not the last instance of dishonest reporting in favor of sensational warmongering. During the Spanish Civil War, which saw Nationalist revolutionaries clash with Republicans in the years directly preceding World War II, some Western outlets were criticized for covering the conflict sensationally. The New York Times devoted far more manpower to the war than papers at the time traditionally did, with “highly partisan” perspectives.
George Orwell, who fought alongside Republican forces, wrote in his memoir “Homage to Catalonia” that “for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.”
“I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened,” he recalled. “I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines.’”
Newspaper propagandists’ willingness to cover wars in self-interested ways didn’t always run in the same direction, either. Orwell’s contemporary and fellow writer Ernest Hemingway had similar criticism for propagandist writers who downplayed the carnage of World War I, insisting it was “the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth. Any writer who said otherwise lied, So the writers either wrote propaganda, shut up, or fought.”
Later in the 20th century, The New York Times’ Berlin bureau chief Guido Enderis was providing friendly coverage of Hitler’s Germany, according to writer Ashley Rindsberg’s book“The Gray Lady Winked.” Meanwhile, the paper’s Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty, Rindsberg noted, was downplaying Joseph Stalin’s role in the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine because “at the time, The New York Times was actively pushing for American recognition of the Soviet Union.” President Franklin Roosevelt obliged, recognizing the USSR in 1933.
A more recent example is that of The New York Times and other corporate media outlets reporting baseless stories about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq to gin up support for President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. A year afterward, the Times editors admitted their lopsided reporting on the matter in a lengthy editorial piece.
“We have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been,” they wrote. “In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged.”
“Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these [Iraqi] exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one,” the editors continued. With the rapid dissemination of sensational photos, videos, and information via social media today, there’s no indication the corporate press is any less immune to disinformation when it fits their narrative.
When you see corporate outlets rushing us into war in Europe with sensational stories and flat-out dishonest polling, think twice. The corrupt media has lied to drag Americans into war before, and none of their recent lies on other issues should incline you to think they won’t do it again.
Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.
Russia has released a list of four demands it’s calling preconditions for ending its invasion of Ukraine. A Kremlin spokesman identified the terms on Monday, according to Reuters.
First, Dmitry Peskov said, Ukraine must halt all military action.
Russian propaganda has consistently invoked the “demilitarization” of Ukraine as an objective of the invasion, demanding that one of the largest countries in Europe remain defenseless.
Second, Russia wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as Russian territory.
Russia forcibly annexed Crimea in 2014, seizing the region of southern Ukraine in response to growing pro-NATO and European Union sentiment in the former Soviet republic.
Third, Ukraine must recognize two regions of its territory as independent countries, following Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic last month.
Pro-Russian secessionist groups control population centers within the two regions of Eastern Ukraine, where conflict has occurred since 2014. Such a move could lead to Russian annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk.
After Russian troops poured into Crimea in 2014, the region was briefly declared an “independent country” before its inhabitants supposedly voted to join Russia while facing the gun barrel of a Russian military occupation.
“We have also spoken about how they should recognize that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognize that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states,” Peskov told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Finally, Russia wants Ukraine to amend its constitution to bar the country from pursuing NATO membership.
“They should make amendments to the constitution according to which Ukraine would reject any aims to enter any bloc,” Peskov said, according to Reuters.
“And that’s it. It will stop in a moment,” he said.
Peskov said Ukraine was aware of the conditions. The list of demands was outlined as Russian and Ukrainian diplomats begin a new round of talks at the border of Belarus and Poland. Some Ukrainian leaders, such as former President Petro Poroshenko, have expressed doubt that negotiations will lead anywhere.
The terms, which undermine the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, are extremely unlikely to lead to a diplomatic agreement to end the conflict.
The twice-failed presidential candidate made reference to the Constitution’s treason clause on Friday while implicitly condemning former President Donald Trump and parts of the Republican Party that she alleged have emboldened Russia’s aggression.
During a radio interview this week, Trump described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “very savvy.” He also described Putin’s decision to declare the independence of two Ukrainian regions as “genius.” And regarding the “peacekeepers” — which were Russian soldiers — that Putin sent into those eastern Ukrainian regions, Trump said, “we could use that on our southern border.” Meanwhile, Russian-state media have reportedly used comments from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Fox News host Tucker Carlson for their propaganda purposes.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Clinton referred to Trump’s comments and said that any American who parrots talking points worthy of being broadcast by Russian propaganda outlets must be called out.
“We have to also make sure that within our own country we are calling out those people who are giving aid and comfort to Vladimir Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is, who are unfortunately being broadcast by Russian media, not only inside Russia, but in Europe to demonstrate the division within our own country,” Clinton said.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
Hillary Clinton: What’s Left Of The GOP Must Stand Against Those Giving ‘Aid’ To Putin www.youtube.com
Later in the interview, Clinton described rhetoric from Trump and other Republican figureheads as “heartbreaking” and “dangerous,” and she repeated the accusation that they are giving “aid and comfort” to Putin.
“I think it’s time for what’s left of the Republican Party that has any common sense not just to say, ‘OK, go help defend Ukraine against Putin,’ but to stand against those people in politics and government, in the media and elsewhere in our own country who are literally giving aid and comfort to an enemy of freedom and democracy,” Clinton said.
Such rhetoric, Clinton claimed, emboldens not only Putin, but also Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“It can’t continue because it plays right into the ambitions of not just Putin, but also President Xi of China to undermine democracy, to literally divide and conquer the West without ever invading us, but by setting us against each other,” Clinton said.
Clinton attributed the development of the problem that she identified as happening because “starting with ascent of Trump, there has been, sadly, a total loss of spine and conscience of too many Republicans.”
“There is also another element. These people are naive in such a dangerous way,” Clinton continued. “I think the naiveté that we saw starting with Trump, but which has now been accelerated, is really hard to understand. But we have to deal with it, and we have to call it out.”
Just a year after a record 81 million Americans voted for Joe Biden, they’re now being told it didn’t work out. BOB ANDERSON / MORE ARTICLES
When The New York Times begins publishing op-eds saying Joe Biden should not run again, and that he should announce it soon, then the gig is officially up. Biden is a lame duck. Perhaps someone should tell him.
Columnist Bret Stephens is right to note that the president would be 86 years old at the time of the next election cycle, and that he now “seems … uneven. Often cogent, but sometimes alarmingly incoherent.” More simply, Joe is old and tottering—and he’s unpopular to a startling degree. As Stephens notes, even passage of a multi-trillion-dollar “infrastructure” spending bill didn’t boost his numbers much. He suggests the president liberate his party by freeing new (and younger) candidates to begin exploring a path to the presidency.
Sure, the question of Joe’s future “need(s) to be discussed candidly, not just whispered constantly.” At the same time, can we also ask the other obvious question candidly? Why did the media cover for an elderly septuagenarian with clear age-related issues, thrusting him into a job he was never truly capable of holding—and subjecting the nation to a dangerous period without a strong leader? It’s fine to have a mea culpa moment, and truth delivered late is better than truth denied forever, but as the nation stumbles along with a puppet president there should be some accountability.
Just a year after a record 81 million Americans voted for Biden, they’re now being told it didn’t work out. Sorry. It’s coming within the timeframe of the traditional presidential “honeymoon,” that brief period presidents are normally at their zenith of political power and brimming to pass a bold agenda. Perhaps we should give the public some adjustment time to avoid whiplash from this quick pivot. After all, it wasn’t long ago that the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin was telling them Biden was completely fit for duty, someone who “with his aviator sunglasses (plus his promotion of exercise during the Obama administration), projects vitality and energy.”
Just more than a month before the election last year, a Forbes article claimed Trump and Biden might be “super agers” who would be expected to significantly outlive other men their age. Trump’s activity on the campaign trail perhaps warranted that description, but Biden not so much. He spent more days underground than Punxsutawney Phil and showed frequent difficulty with coherency on the campaign trail, from trying to describe COVID losses “for the past hundred years” to quoting “you know, the thing.”
Days after Biden’s election victory last year, Matt Viser of the Washington Post tweeted that “Joe Biden would often jog onto stage, showing how physically vigorous he is and attempting to dispel questions about his age. Now that he’s the oldest president-elect in American history, that doesn’t change.”
Has it changed now, Matt?
The truth is that establishment Democrats wanted Joe, and they selected him, despite his age and numerous warning signs regarding his mental acuity. He was the blank canvas on which anything could be written, and he could be sold as a “moderate.”
As Bernie Sanders surged in the polls in early 2020 with 45 delegates after the first three primaries and Joe languished in a distant third place with 15, the party took control. Rep. Jim Clyburn stepped in and delivered an influential endorsement in South Carolina that pushed African-American support to Biden’s campaign, propelling him to victory. Stories immediately appeared claiming Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg had “no realistic path to the nomination.”
Despite trailing early in fundraising behind the well-organized Sanders fundraising machine, the Democrat establishment pivoted to push donations to Biden. As the NYT admitted in an article at the time, “The elite world of billionaires and multimillionaires has remained a critical cog in the Biden money machine.” Bernie’s small-dollar donors were no match for the large bundles of corporate and PAC cash. With a lot of help from a sycophantic media, Biden was elected president of the United States, without serious inquiry regarding his physical and mental abilities. Now, suddenly, it’s time to plan Joe’s exit before the new Oval Office carpet has fully settled in place?
We should note that it wasn’t Joe stumbling up the stairs of Air Force One that troubled Democrats into questioning Joe’s fitness. They didn’t question his stability when he at times spoke gibberish. They didn’t seem worried when his physical exam failed to report on his cognitive ability. No, his collapse in the polls is why Joe is suddenly being challenged on the question of running again, and despite Chuck Todd’s protestations, it can’t be blamed on Trump.
It turns out that the public is a bit smarter than Democrats guessed. Reading prepared speeches from a teleprompter is not a substitute for leadership. Neither is putting one’s head down on the presidential podium like a child in the face of tough questions about a military failure in Afghanistan. The blame game can only get a president so far. After voters finish expressing ire at the press for being misled about Biden’s abilities, perhaps they will turn and express sympathy for the old man who so desperately wanted the job. Having run twice before, the party eventually picked him, but not before the gas had run out of his tank.
Joe may have always been a politician, but the man behind the podium now is not the same as the one who ran in 2008, and certainly not the man who ran in 1988. Stripped of his dignity, he has become a caricature of a president, adorned with all of the symbols of the office, but lacking the substance necessary to perform.
Every Trump voter can still name his key issues: closing the border, beating China, restoring American jobs, making America energy independent, and above all, to “Make America Great Again.” Less than a year into his presidency, it’s hard to recall Biden standing strongly for anything in particular, having served more as an official signer of policy goals for leftist special interest groups than for his own agenda.
The truth is that even as his campaign wobbled toward the finish line last year, they were still struggling to coin a definitive slogan. That few can remember the eventual decision speaks to the vacuousness of this man and this presidency.
Joe is in the process of sinking not only himself but also his party in the upcoming midterms and possibly the 2024 election, so the door to retirement is being planned. Perhaps Democrats will at least give him the courtesy of a final national address, a chance to read from the presidential teleprompter one final time. At the end, he can sign off blissfully with, “Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America … end of message.”
Bob Anderson is a partner and CFO of a hotel development company and a former aerospace engineer who worked on the International Space Station and interned in Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) at the Pentagon. He is also a licensed commercial pilot.
And listen for the “Tsk, tsk, you don’t really understand what we’re about, dear.” That’s how it will be in Minnesota and probably elsewhere if a leftist teachers union can spread its ideas on how to respond to its promotion of critical race theory.
Before reading the following, you might want to take a deep breath and exhale or whatever it is you do to reduce stress. You might have to do that after reading it, too.
Education Minnesota is trying to counter growing community pushback against CRT around the state, so it has published a guide on how teachers should respond, a copy of which was obtained by Powerline and publicized by Minnesota’s Alpha News. First of all, the union tells teachers not to call what they’re teaching critical race theory. They know parents are catching on. And the guide presents buckets of mush designed to obscure the issue and talk down to critics.
It’s a classic snow job using the special language of “educanto,” a term coined by the late Paul Greenberg, public school critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning Arkansas newspaper editor. Education Minnesota tells teachers that when asked why they teach kids that all white people are racist, they should give the following response:
“First off, I’m thrilled you’re taking such a deep interest in how and what our kids are taught, a conversation that I feel is long overdue.
“What I know most Americans believe is that we expect our students — whatever their color or background — to be able to learn hard truths and handle honest history and civics.”
May I pat your head?
“I believe in children’s potential to meet new challenges and have an honest reckoning, and when we try to edit and distort our history, we are doing them, and our future, a disservice. My loyalty is to children and who and what they can become.”
That’s how teachers should respond to your question about their “evil white people” push. And, of course, as the left always says: It’s for the children.
Education Minnesota does more than purr in its teacher voice. In its guide for its union members, it provides does some hard-knuckle political messaging against CRT critics by presenting “Key Concepts for Responding.”
Here are excerpts:
“Seize the moral high ground and engage on our terms. With attention on education, let’s talk about the teaching and curricula we support and communicate how it benefits all students.”
“Ascribe motivations to the opposition. Instead of reflexively repeating the opposition’s claims to dispel them (e.g. ‘we are not teaching grade schoolers about XYZ’) talk about why they’re attacking standards, equity and classroom educators.”
“Bring the conversation back to what we want. Don’t stay on defense.”
“Avoid the academic term ‘critical race theory. This phrase, unfamiliar to most audiences, has been redefined by the political right as an all-purpose racial dog whistle. Talk instead about the more honest and more complete education our students deserve.”
“[I]t is so disappointing to see that a few billionaires, and the promoters and talking heads they pay for, have launched a national campaign to mislead Americans about the lessons educators teach about history, culture, gender and politics.”
“Once again, they’re trying to distract and divide us so we don’t demand the richest 1 percent and the largest corporations pay what they owe for what our communities need, like affordable health care for all.”
Leftist educators try to hide what they’re teaching, but word is getting out. The Center for the American Experiment has been monitoring CRT in Minnesota and produced a video noting instances of it. It found that in Burnsville, fourth-graders were reading a book that said police officers were “mean to black people but nice to white people” and deliberately shot black men.
The video cited officials in the Minneapolis suburb of Hopkins as saying school operations were built on “white supremacy” values of logic, linear thinking, perfectionism, objectivity and “requiring black students to turn in assignments on time.” Letter grades are gone since they are part of “a dominant white culture.”
White Bear Lake sixth-graders were divided into groups based on race, sex, religion and place of birth and told to address issues of oppression and privilege.
Edina kindergarteners through second-graders did an exercise on how to identify themselves by their skin color. Kindergarten through second grade!
St. Louis Park scrapped the gifted and talented program, opening it to everyone and focusing on “anti-racist talent development.”
Minnesota teachers are taking anti-racism training, which, in effect, advocates new forms of racial discrimination, according to the video.
It’s not known if Minnesota schoolchildren are learning, like first- and second-graders in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, that “whiteness is a bad deal” and that if you are white, you essentially are a devil oppressing people of color, as reported Wednesday in a RealClear Policy piece that included shocking curriculum photos.
Education Minnesota defines CRT as “an academic framework that is more than 40 years old and is centered on the idea that racism is systemic, not just a product of individual bias or prejudice, and embedded in our policies legal structure.”
Indeed, CRT came from legal theorists during the 1970s and ’80s. The problem is it left the campus, and no matter how groups like Education Minnesota try to hide it, it is gumming up primary and secondary education.
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist scholar and social commentator whose gravitas stems from also having been a farmer, points out a problem with woke nonsense being dreamed up on the college campus. College professors, Hansen has said, were once like court jesters of old. They could say all kinds of crazy things and no one was offended, not even the king, because everyone knew professors, like jesters, had no real power. Now, according to Hansen, crazy ideas have escaped the campus and are setting public policy.
Classic Marxism may have hit some resistance since its call for dividing people by income and class could be hindered by the relative affluence of most of the U.S. population, at least by world standards. But for sure, today’s Marxists are focused on dividing by race and gender to class. And critical race theory fits right in.
There’s a lot to process here: lying teachers, overt racism, emotional oppression upon very young children. You might want to take that deep breath.
Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.
This cartoon is truer today than when first drawn. Lower and higher education is nothing more than Marxist re-education camps and we’re reaping their propaganda harvest. STOP SENDING YOUR KIDS THERE!
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!… Venmo – @AFBranco
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.
Isn’t it great that they’re teaching ‘tolerance’and ‘diversity’at school? It’s just not so much tolerance for different perspectives or diversity of ideology.
Thomas Sowell, a great thinker wrote A Conflict of Visions in 1987. It is arguably the greatest work on the ideological gulf between the left and the right of the political spectrum that is accessible to the common man.
Watch the two fundamental visions explained here at the 1:25 mark:
That book is seriously life-changing.
Public schools only show one vision of human nature.
The latest target is President Trump.
A new AP History textbook, “By The People,” by James W. Fraser, is used in high schools for Advanced Placement courses for grades 9-12, according to the publisher’s website.
Trump’s supporters saw the vote as a victory for the people who, like themselves, had been forgotten in a fast-changing America–a mostly older, often rural or suburban, and overwhelmingly white group. Clinton’s supporters feared that the election had been determined by people who were afraid of a rapidly developing ethnic diversity of the country, discomfort with their candidate’s gender, and nostalgia for an earlier time in the nation’s history. They also worried about the mental instability of the president-elect and the anger that he and his supporters brought to the nation.
It went further:
Whatever people’s opinions, on January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as the forty-fifth president of the United States. The inner circle of his advisors seemed to represent a mix of some deeply ideological conservatives, traditional politicians, and his family. His cabinet nominees were mostly highly successful business leaders who had made their fortunes and were now joining the team of another unusually successful businessman. They were largely white males, more so than any presidential cabinet since Ronald Reagan.
The textbook also speaks of Barack Obama’s administration:
“Those who had long thought of the nation as a white and Christian country sometimes found it difficult to adjust.”
Further, it promotes an “all-white-people-are-racists” narrative in a section about the activist group Black Lives Matter. The group entered the national stage through demonstrations it held after Michael Brown was killed by Ferguson, Missouri police in 2014.
“The nearly all-white police force was seen as an occupying army in the mostly African American town,”the book states, adding, “…police increased the tensions, defacing memorials set up for Brown and using rubber bullets on demonstrators.”
Source: The Blaze
That would just never fly, would it? So much for teaching students history. They’re not even giving fair coverage of recent history — like a year ago history.
If it’s a day that ends in a y, there’s no doubt that Kim Jong Un’s North Korean regime is issuing a threat to the American military. This time, they targeted one of our submarines.
According to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, the North Koreans threatened the USS Michigan, a submarine deployed by the Navy off of North Korea, with sinking.
“The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming a underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface,”a statement on a North Korean propaganda website read.
“The urgent fielding of the nuclear submarine in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, timed to coincide with the deployment of the super aircraft carrier strike group, is intended to further intensify military threats toward our republic,” the statement continued.
They also warned that “whether it’s a nuclear aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, they will be turned into a mass of scrap metal in front of our invincible military power centered on the self-defense nuclear deterrence.”
The North Koreans had previously threatened to sink the USS Carl Vinson, the aircraft carrier being sent to the region. According to CNN, is a nuclear sub that’s also equipped to deploy Navy SEALs or other special operations troops. That likely sent a red flag to the North Koreans, especially given the possibility of SEAL deployment in the region.
However, it’s pretty obvious that Lil’ Kim’s forces don’t have the ability to either sink a carrier or a nuclear submarine, particularly without serious retribution. This is yet another sign that Kim Jong In is dangerously unhinged, and that the Trump administration needs to do something about it.
Comrade Stalin has done it again! Those slobbering wet kisses from the media just won’t go away until Barack Obama does.
In a fit of journalistic cheerleading that should turn even liberal stomachs, a New York Times article about the latest jobs report is hailing the American economy as a blessed miracle of modern efficiency that a triumphant Obama is handing off to lucky President-elect Donald Trump.
But a reader who makes it through the first gushing paragraphs will realize why Obama’s party is no longer in power.
Under the blatantly pro-administration headline “President Obama Is Handing a Strong Economy to His Successor,”The Times trumpets Obama’s economic stewardship in language befitting the Soviet Union’s old Five-Year Plan pronouncements:
Private sector jobs are up! The unemployment rate is down! Those “utterly terrifying” days of the George W. Bush administration are buried deep beneath the god-like accomplishments of America’s first black president!
Comrade Stalin has done it again!
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Jason Furman, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, was particularly cloying in contrasting the economy of today with the one the country faced in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
“It was an utterly terrifying time, the likes of which none of us had ever seen in our lifetimes,”Furman told The Times, in hyperventilating prose. “The economy was following the same trajectory that it did at the beginning of the Great Depression.”
Now, Furman told The Times, “the economy today is healthy and it’s improving.”
If all that’s true, of course, it raises the question of just why American voters rejected the president’s chosen successor in favor of a candidate and party that have made no secret of their loathing for Obama’s progressive policies and crony capitalism.
It takes a full seven paragraphs into the article before The Times suddenly changes its tune and gets down to the grim, black-and-white reality of the not-so-rosy employment picture.
For all the improvements, tens of millions of Americans understandably feel that the recovery has passed them by. Those without skills are relegated to low-paying positions without steady schedules, security and benefits. Breadwinners who once held well-compensated manufacturing jobs are angry about being forced to settle for lower-wage service jobs — or no jobs at all.
Profound anxiety, particularly among the white working class, about the ability to reach or comfortably remain in the middle class is one of the factors that helped propel Mr. Trump to the White House.
And right on cue in the concerted effort to portray Obama as a wise and wonderful parent handing the keys to a robust economy to a reckless teenage Trump, Politico declares in its own slavishly propagandistic piece, “Trump inherits Obama boom.”
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
It might come as a shock to people who sit on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, but when five of the nation’s 10 wealthiest counties are in a collar around the nation’s capital, there might be a problem with the concentration of wealth and the men and women who are actually benefiting from the Obama Era government.
Americans outside the Beltway and its environs know that Obama’s Potemkin economy was never as good as his sycophantic media pretended, and the juggled statistics might have indicated. The official unemployment rate might indeed be low, but as Business Insider Points out, the labor force participation rate — that is, the percentage of those capable of working who are actually looking for a job — is at its lowest level since the 1970s.
Meanwhile, outside the sunny world of Beltway-area economists, the actual real-world situation isn’t nearly as sunny as The New York Times would have the country believe.
As Business Insider reports:
The big disappointment in the jobs report was wage growth. Average hourly earnings fell 0.1% from October. This was unexpected, given that the tight labor market — characterized by a record number of job openings and fewer job seekers — put some upward pressure on wages in recent months.
In other words, the unemployment rate endlessly touted by the Obama-glorifying media in the past seven-plus years is a cruel joke. It leaves out otherwise healthy individuals who have given up hope of finding work, it counts individuals who have even minimal – not-enough-to-buy-gas-with jobs – as “employed.”
In a controversial column in February 2015, Jim Clifton, president and CEO of the Gallup polling organization, blew the whistle on the whole sham:
There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.
Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org
And it’s a lie that has consequences, because the great American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job is an individual’s primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity — it establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen’s talents, training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.
None of that is going to make it into the mainstream media’s coverage of economic figures from the government for another two months, of course. The final days of the Obama administration are likely to be hailed as the twilight of a golden era in American prosperity. If The Times’ dishonest coverage is any indication of what’s to come from the rest of the mainstream media – and it usually is – the country can expect to hear nothing but solid economic news until at least Jan. 20 or so.
But come Jan. 21, and the first full day of the Donald Trump administration, don’t be surprised if the media suddenly report America heading back into a full-scale depression. And there will be no gushing paragraphs then.
This sheds light on their efforts to discredit him. Oh, and she GAVE them this testimony. They just won’t be using it. Can you guess why?
“I am going to be very truthful and let ABC know that Donald Trump was an absolute gentleman. I never witnessed any inappropriate behavior whatsoever the entire 2 weeks that I participated in the pageant. I’m sure that none of my interview will make the news since I have nothing but positive things to say about my experience with Donald. I do find it interesting and important for people to know that these are the depths the media is going to for their smear campaign,”she added.
Rickley’s praise for Trump was backed up by a former Miss Universe manager who came into contact with thousands of pageant contestants and “never heard one accusation against Mr. Trump.” — Infowars
Is THIS testimony considered ‘newsworthy’?
“I’m coming forward to tell you that these accusations are wrong, they’re false. These young ladies trusted me – if ever there was a time that Mr. Trump had done anything inappropriate, they would have come to me before they would have even gone to their parents,”she said. “Those things that you’re hearing on national television – that’s wrong, it’s very wrong,”she added, calling Trump “a true gentleman”.
True gentleman? But that doesn’t fit the vicious thug narrative.
Just like telling the story that someone with the same name as one of his accusers has had a long-standing axe to grind with Trump. (see the later half of this article)
‘Skip that one, and keep looking for something juicy’— that’s how this works, right?
No these media organizations have a vested interest in making him look like a villain for Hillary to come in on her lily-white horse, challenge, and conquer. Come hell or high water, her media will set that story up.
If the media can strangle Trump by terrorizing people about everything he says, then it’s already over. I’m inclined to think Americans hate the media too much for that to work, but even sensible people can’t think straight in the middle of one of these hate campaigns.
It can be very difficult for people to overcome whatever meaning the press superimposes on what someone has said, no matter how psychotic. Throw in incessant repetition and uniform agreement among the pundits (Hillary cheerleaders versus Never Trumpers), and completely deranged interpretations become historical facts.
Last August, Trump said the following about the way he was treated at the first GOP debate: “(Megyn Kelly) starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions, and you know, you can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her — wherever, but she was, in my opinion — she was off base.”
This was nearly identical to what Trump said about Chris Wallace a few sentences later: “There’s a big difference between Mike Wallace and Chris Wallace because I watched them last night, you know, blood pouring out of his eyes, too.”
Suddenly the words “her wherever” were being described as a clear-cut reference to Megyn’s menstrual blood! (I have it on good authority that Chris Wallace has never menstruated.)
Trump expressed shock, saying of his accusers, “They have all dirty minds — I never even thought about it … I was thinking of ears or nose.” (Accused by the same forces of something revolting, Whittaker Chambers gasped, “What kind of beasts am I dealing with?”)
The day after Trump allegedly referred to Megyn’s period, I happened to have a number of social engagements with people who hadn’t heard about the scandale. So I gave them Trump’s exact words, told them the media were in hysterics about it, and asked them to guess why.
None of them — an Obama-voter, a conservative actor and a union organizer — were able to guess the ludicrous interpretation being placed on Trump’s words. At least one was visibly angry about the accusation (probably because he was on his period). But after a few weeks of media propaganda, even he flipped and became totally convinced Trump was, in fact, referring to Megyn’s menstrual blood.
Most people are highly suggestible. That’s why companies spend billions of dollars on advertising.
The only way to see how media propaganda works is to remove yourself from the immediate panic. In the calm light of day — without people hectoring you from every news outlet, every moment of every day — you can clearly see that two plus two does not equal five, but four.
My entire career has been a test-run for the hounds of hell they’re unleashing against Trump on a daily basis right now. These hate campaigns were waged against me every few months for about a decade, until the media gave up and decided the better part of valor was to pretend I don’t exist. It happened so often, I can’t even remember them all, but a fan reminded me of a good one last week.
On “Good Morning America” about 10 years ago, I was asked about a (fantastic*) joke I’d told about John Edwards four months earlier. (That joke was also lied about, but that’s not today’s topic.)
Here’s the “GMA” transcript, June 25, 2007:
CHRIS CUOMO (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) You say you were joking.
ANN COULTER (POLITICAL COMMENTATOR)
“Oh yeah. I wouldn’t insult gays by comparing them to John Edwards. Now, that would be mean. But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I’ve learned my lesson. If I’m gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”
I’m not a rhetorician, but I believe this would be called a “syllogism,”or “deductive reasoning”:
It is acceptable for a person to say X;
I am a person;
Therefore it’s acceptable for me to say X.
Or maybe it’s just sarcasm about the media’s rank hypocrisy.
Whatever it’s called, the screamingly obvious point was to illustrate how our constitutionally protected guardians of liberty in the press go mental over my every joke, but don’t make a peep about far more aggressive rhetoric from liberals.
Among the possible responses to what I said on “GMA” are:
— That’s different! Maher was talking about Dick Cheney.
— We have a firm policy of pretending not to understand jokes about Democrats.
— OK, OK, you’re right. We were just trying to make you cry, so you’d either come to our side or stop writing.
In the realm of the sane, however, the possible responses do not include: ANN COULTER CALLED FOR JOHN EDWARDS TO BE KILLED IN A TERRORIST ATTACK!
Guess which one the entire media went with?
Mike Baker, Associated Press, Tuesday, June 26, 2007: “Elizabeth Edwards pleaded Tuesday with Ann Coulter to ‘stop the personal attacks,’ a day after the conservative commentator said she wished Edwards’ husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, had been killed by terrorists.”
Marc Ambinder, Atlantic Online, June 26, 2007: “Coulter herself said, ‘If I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.’”
Tom Foreman, CNN correspondent, June 27, 2007: “Conservative commentator Ann Coulter jokes about Democratic contender John Edwards being killed by terrorists.”
CNN’s Kiran Chetry, “American Morning,” June 27, 2007: “Elizabeth Edwards confronting conservative commentator Ann Coulter … She was referring to Coulter’s comments the day before when Coulter said she wished Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards had been killed by terrorists. Coulter responded to Edwards’ request with a laugh.”
Harry Smith, CBS’ “The Early Show,”June 28, 2007: “Welcome back to ‘The Early Show.’ Conservative political commentator Ann Coulter is known for making outrageous comments. This week she said Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards should be killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”
Hundreds of news outlets repeated this lie, without even mentioning Maher — i.e., what we call “the point” — although a few sportsmen included vague references to Maher’s comment deep within their stories.
This isn’t taking something “out of context” — it’s a lie. Try quoting the full sentence! Ironically, the media’s rewrite pretty forcefully proved my point about the gigantic double standard for liberals and conservatives: In order to prove I was a monster, the media put a liberal’s words in my mouth — the exact same words they hadn’t minded when a liberal said them.
I keep hearing abstract claims about Trump being “out of control,” making “mistakes,”saying “outrageous”things, but whenever I ask for a specific example, all I get are the media’s apocryphal versions of what Trump has done — never something he actually did.
All campaign news coverage today is an adaptation of MSNBC’s “In Other Words”game, where a Republican saying, “I don’t think Obama has been a good president” becomes HE CALLED OBAMA THE N-WORD!
The media may think their versions are logical extensions of what Republicans have said, but this is a presidential election. I think voters deserve to hear the truth and not Rachel Maddow’s demented translations.
(*I’m not a professional comedian, but when a room full of 7,000 college Republicans laugh — it was funny.)
In the game of chess, your goal is to know the other person’s moves in advance.
PRAY FOR AMERICA’S POLICE DEPARTMENTS ACROSS OUR NATION I PRAY
That I’m wrong, but during, and after, both Political Conventions there will be major riots. race-baiters, anarchists, political radicals, and possibly, even some Islamic Terrorists and major news networks will use this period for complete mayhem and wave the flames of hate and division… Everyone and everything will be blamed, but the true sources of hate and evil…TRUMP, POLICE, Republican racism, the list will be long.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (right) greets Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, as Al Gore, former vice president of the United States, looks on during welcome reception for the Climate Action 2016 summit on May 5, 2016. (Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)
The Portland Public Schools board voted last week to ban any materials that cast doubt on climate change, the Portland Tribune reported. According to the resolution passed May 17, the school district must remove any textbooks and other materials that suggest climate change is not occurring or that says human beings are not responsible for it.
“A lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt, and obviously the science says otherwise,” said Bill Bigelow, a former Portland public school teacher who worked to present the resolution. Bigelow says textbook publishers are yielding to pressure from fossil fuels companies. “We don’t want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry.”
One commenter to the Portland Tribune story responded to the news, saying, “I have never seen a case for homeschooling more clearly put forward. This is further proof that public schools are not interested in education, only political indoctrination.”
A petition, meanwhile, circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) currently lists nearly 32,000 signers, including 9,000 Ph.D.s, who say, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Still, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says addressing the issue of global warming will help to improve public health, according to U.S. News & World Report.
“I don’t want people to think that EPA is just about big rules, or that climate change is just about polar bears,”EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said. “It really is about direct public health issues like asthma and kids, like cardiovascular and pulmonary disease associated with air pollution.”
The Portland decision comes weeks after Yale University announced its climate change program will close at the end of June.
The shuttering follows three consecutive years of budget cuts for the program, which was established eight years ago to conduct climate change research. The impending closure was announced in an email from the institute’s co-directors, geology and geophysics professors David Bercovici and Jay Ague, and reported by the Yale Daily News.
“While not all good things have to come to an end, sometimes they just do,” the email dated May 2 said.
The Obama administration’s efforts to create a so-called “echo chamber” meant to mislead reporters and lawmakers about the substance of last summer’s comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran may have violated U.S. laws against the establishment of domestic propaganda outfits, according to testimony to Congress by a former Pentagon adviser.
Top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, may have fallen victim to a massive spin operation helmed by White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes, who has come under intense scrutiny following a magazine profile detailing his efforts to mislead the American public and prominent D.C. insiders about the Iran deal, according to testimony offered Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee.
The administration late Monday declined to make Rhodes available to testify to Congress about his press operation, which was run out of the White House by Rhodes and other top members of the National Security Council.
In lieu of Rhodes, the Oversight Committee invited three former U.S. officials to discuss the ways in which the pro-Iran effort intentionally misinformed Congress and negatively impacted American national security.
Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser who testified, told the Washington Free Beacon following the hearing that Congress has grounds to launch an investigation into whether these efforts may have violated U.S. laws against the establishment of domestic propaganda campaigns targeting Americans.
“Rhodes essentially bragged about creating a propaganda operation,”Rubin told the Free Beacon. “It wasn’t simply about spin, rather, it was about denying facts he knew to be true, feeding outright lies into the mainstream press through sympathetic enablers and supposed independent experts on the Ploughshares trough whom he knew were anything but independent.”
“In effect,”Rubin explained, “he was running a propaganda operation against the American public and other officials. There are laws against that. Unfortunately, it seems that Kerry himself—a person whom even staffers have described as too credulous—got caught in that web.”
Questions remain about whether Kerry ever received impartial information from experts functioning outside of Rhodes’ so-called echo-chamber, Rubin said.
“In essence, did Rhodes—working from the National Security Council, a body that was always supposed to coordinate policy across agencies and not run a spin war room—craft propaganda that was fed to State Department leaders through unofficial channels by a network of experts who had financial incentive to amplify what he said?”Rubin asked.
Rubin further explained during his testimony how Rhodes may have deceived Kerry as part of the operation, a situation that raises questions about whether the secretary of state was negotiating with Iran from a sound position.
“Rhodes has placed the security of the U.S. and its allies at risk,”Rubin testified. “Certainly any dissemination of falsehoods to Congress and the American people warrants a broader investigation. National security and Congress’ credibility are at risk.”
Rubin expressed concern that “by creating an echo chamber and only talking to people in it, in effect, what Rhodes did was create a propaganda operation in which he entrapped none other than Secretary of State John Kerry. Did Secretary of State Kerry talk to people outside the echo chamber? If not, then he’s a victim of Ben Rhodes as well.”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), the committee’s chairman, expressed frustration at the White House’s decision to bar Rhodes from testifying. Chaffetz has suggested that Rhodes could be subpoenaed to testify in the future.
“The White House on Thursday claimed that this wasn’t about exec privilege, then, less than 24 hours, before this hearing they reversed course,”Chaffetz said. “Now who’s being inconsistent?”
“You had plenty of times, Mr. Rhodes, to go out and talk to your media friend in the echo chamber”before showing up to testify, he said.
Michael Doran, a former senior director of the White House National Security Council under George W. Bush, said that the White House still has not publicly revealed the complete contents of the nuclear deal.
“In my view, the creation of the echo chamber and war room [by Rhodes] constitutes a deception of the American people,”Doran said at the hearing. “We do not actually know what is in the Iran deal. We still to this day do not know.”
The White House’s spin operation effectively created a false narrative about Iranian moderates rising to power in the Islamic Republic, according to Doran, who explained that this false narrative set the stage for negotiations to take place.
The deepening scandal surrounding the White House campaign prompted a call from leading senators on Monday for President Barack Obama to fire Rhodes, according to a letter sent to the White House and first reported by the Free Beacon.
Some predicted it would only be a matter of time before someone challenged North Carolina’s HB2 law concerning transgender bathrooms. That day is now here. Alexis Adams, a male who has transitioned to female, was allegedly escorted out of the women’s restroom by security at the Durham Transit Center after claiming a janitor confronted him and told him to use the men’s restroom.
Last week, Adams told WTVD News how the incident affected him, saying, “I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I was speechless … It was embarrassing. I was outed in front of everybody.”Adams claimed he felt helpless, “I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t tell them you’re wrong because it is the law,”he said.
However, newly released footage is telling a different story. In fact, local police investigating the claims told the press they were unable to corroborate Adams’ story.
Footage shows Adams entering the women’s restroom. The video then shows a janitor entering the restroom, as well. Adams exits the restroom, leaves the building, and walks down the street with a man who was apparently waiting for him. There was no confrontation with security. There was no perceived embarrassment of Adams by any bystanders, and no display of emotion was noted on security footage. Adams simply entered the restroom, then exited the building.
While there may have been some kind of confrontation between the janitor and Adams, neither the police, nor the Transit Authority have been able to confirm, after interviewing employees, anything Adams said of the incident is factual.WTVD News Reporter Tim Pulliam confronted Adams with the footage. “You told us security was called and police escorted you out of the restroom. But we don’t see that in the video,”Pulliam said. Adams hesitated, but stuck to the story telling Pulliam, “I can’t … I guess you just had to be there to witness it. Security did ask me to leave the premises. They might not have dragged me out of the bathroom, but they were there.”
“The push for global government will not stop, manipulating the public to its acceptance is all that is needed.”
What exactly is propaganda? Most people understand that it is the spread of misinformation intended to push a cause, or a political agenda. Throughout the past century, social scientists have learned, and perfected, the methods of making people accept their propaganda as fact. Joseph Goebbels is, of course, remembered as Adolph Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda and is often times quoted as saying that a lie told often enough will eventually be accepted as truth. In fact, he believed the bigger, more outrageous the lie the better because people would never believe someone would try to pass off such an obvious misrepresentation of the truth. He also believed that the truth was the biggest enemy to the state and that brute force should be used to suppress it. We are rapidly reaching that point in America.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels
We also know that manipulation of the environment can be used as a means of implementing propaganda. B.F. Skinner found that people have a desire to conform, to not stand out. It was quickly realized that this could be used to the controllers advantage as it came to light that environmental circumstances can influence a person’s behavior. Thus, the use of fear and deliberate propaganda campaigns were created with the intention of creating an illusion; a stage show if you will, designed to keep the masses distracted by keeping us focused only on issues that push their agenda.
People who get along together well under the mild contingencies of approval and disapproval are controlled as effectively as (and in many ways more effectively than) the citizens of a police state. (Skinner, 91)
This quote essentially means that people can be manipulated into going with the flow out of a fear of either being for or against any particular issue. Look at what this concept is doing to our presidential race. The argument between the Trumpeters and the Cruzers both is reaching new heights as you either jump on board with a particular candidate, or risk being ostracized. The paralysis displayed by Republicans in congress when it comes to stopping Obama’s agenda is another good example. They are more afraid of appearing “partisan” and unable to compromise than they are of anything else. This is all a deliberate application of propaganda designed to push the values of the voter to the left.
When it comes to politics,everything is propaganda. By now, most of us have come to realize that there is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats; however, they are too quick to assume that an outsider like Donald Trump is truly an outsider, or Ted Cruz is the next Reagan. In order to elaborate on this further, let’s go back to theManual on Psychopoliticsthat is often discussed here at propaganda.news. In order to understand this fully you have to come to accept that our nation has been marked for conquest, and when Obama said fundamental transformation, he meant transformation to a socialist/communist state, period.
If we could effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation we will have won the country. Therefore; there must be continual propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of the citizens in general and the teen ager in particular. The Textbook on Psychopolitics
Very few patriots would argue against the notion that there is a deliberate effort to undermine our sense of nationalism. Where the people split is the presidential race. Is Donald Trump or Ted Cruz the best candidate? Considering the statement above concerning “continual propaganda,” is it possible that these two were deliberately selected by the left because they already knew it would undermine the conservative movement and cause this division? Is it possible that Donald Trump is acting as an agent of social change put in place to make you accept things that eight years ago you wouldn’t have even considered? That is how a social change campaign works, by slowly changing the public’s consciousness on social issues. This has to be considered as a possibility because Donald Trump has donated money to the very politicians we are angry at, has admitted to buying off politicians, has publicly declared that he can change to whatever he wants to be, once proclaimed he was for an assault weapons ban and publicly declared he was for socialized medicine. In other words, he admitted that he was a progressive and expressed favor for things we adamantly oppose; yet, because he is so focused on the issue of immigration, (which, considering all things discussed could be a deliberate attempt tocement in your mind a problem that must be solved so you will compromise your other principles in order to solve it,)the masses are willingly ignoring these facts about him and blindly going along, kind of like Obama voters.
Please don’t mistake this as advertising for Ted Cruz, the man was born in Canada and his wife co-authored a document with the Council on Foreign Relations describing the plans for a North American Union. This makes the points being made in this article more relevant because this issue is causing great strife between Trump supporters and Cruz supporters. Instead of focusing on the left, conservatives are busy trying to prove to one another the downfalls of each other’s candidates.
Either the points made about each candidate are true, or it is all deliberately placed misinformation designed to undermine our resolve and split the Republican Party. Either way, this is exactly what is happening. It is due time conservatives stop bickering over a narrative defined for us and demand that conservatives who believe in liberty and the values we hold dear be selected to be our candidate. Not people with the numerous question marks surrounding their campaigns.
Remember, Goebbels said that repeating a lie often enough would eventually make it the truth. Well, here at propaganda.news I’ve decided to apply that same concept except I am going to keep repeating certain truths until people get it. One of these truths is best expressed through a quote found in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and in my opinion, it best describes what we are witnessing today.
There’s another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.
By accepting Ted Cruz or Donald Trump as our presidential candidates we are signaling to the left that we are willing to surrender certain values in order to solve problems they have forced upon us. It’s that simple, we are being socially engineered. Of course, this is just my opinion.
It’s been only a day since the bombings in Brussels, and the New York Times has issued a warning. No – it isn’t a warning of ISIS carrying out more attacks. It was a warning to reject the rhetoric of Donald Trump. As the Washington Examiner reported:
The New York Times editorial board responded to a wave of terror attacks that washed over Brussels early Tuesday morning by begging its readers to reject the rhetoric of billionaire businessman Donald Trump.
The appropriate response to the attacks, which have so far claimed the lives of 34 people, is “courage and steadfastness in the face of a threat that will take many years to eliminate,” the board wrote.
“It emphatically does not mean hysterical fearmongering of the sort promptly voiced by politicians like Donald Trump,” they added.
Call it “hysterical fearmongering” all you want – but he’s the only candidate who’s actually offered solutions in response to the attacks. Isn’t it liberals who mock conservatives for praying after tragedies instead of taking action to prevent them?
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has been terrorizing the Middle East for almost three years. Unfortunately, the mainstream media and President Barack Obama act as if they want the public to remain ignorant about a radical Islamic group so horrific that al-Qaeda does not want anything to do with them.
These are the facts that every American must know.
1. ISIS IS WINNING THE SOCIAL MEDIA WAR
Facebook. YouTube. Twitter. If it is a social media outlet, ISIS knows how to use it to amp up their recruits and spread their message.
In February, former National Security Council staffer Hillary Mann Leverett claimed the terrorist group sends out 90,000 social media messages a day.While that seems like a lot, others believe the number is actually double that number.
“My best estimate is something over 200,000 a day, including retweets, but that comes with a lot of caveats,”explained J.M. Berger, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It is not entirely possible to break down members vs. fanboys and the bulk of accounts don’t visibly differentiate. But a plurality of the accounts we examined for the study appeared to be based in Iraq and Syria.”
Breitbart News regularly reports how militants use social media to recruit Westerners, especially women. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College discovered that the feeling of “sisterhood” was just as much of a draw as finding a mujahid groom for the majority of women from the West.
2. ISIS RAKES IN BETWEEN $25 TO $90 MILLION A MONTH FROM OIL SALES
The squabble between Turkey and Russia pushed the subject of ISIS-controlled oil fields into the headlines. Both countries accuse each other of purchasing oil from ISIS, but how much does that give the group?
In July 2014, experts believedoil earned ISIS at least $3 million a day, or roughly $90 million a month. The group captured numerous oil fields in Syria’s Diar Alzour province, including the Omar oil field. Almost a year later, the U.S. claimed ISIS was weakening, but militants “seized most of the Baiji oil refinery, the largest in Iraq.”
Other analysts said that ISIS only makes $2 million a month from oil, which is around $24 million a year.
3. ISIS CALIPHATE SPANS UP TO 35,000 SQUARE MILES
On, November 17, GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush tweeted out this picture of the caliphate.
The picture shows the state ISIS has formed so far is about the size of Indiana, with over 8 million residents. They established Raqqa, Syria, as the capital of their caliphate. In 2014, one publication said the the caliphate sized at 12,000 square miles while others put it at 35,000 miles. Either way, one thing remains constant: “They would like the entire world to be Muslim, but they want the world to be Muslim in a very, very narrowly defined manner,”said William Beeman, chair of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota. “They are fundamentalist Muslims and their idea of Islam is quite different from the rest of the Islamic world.”
4. FBI RUNNING OVER 900 INVESTIGATIONS OF ISIS OPERATIVES IN THE 50 STATES
In October, FBI Director James Comey told intelligence officials his department is currently running at least 900 investigations against alleged ISIS operatives in America. However, the stats also showed that the majority of Americans are not fleeing to ISIS. That only means the domestic threat rises if they stay in the states.
5. THOSE INVESTIGATIONS SPAN TO ALL 50 STATES
Comey also alerted the nation that ISIS “tentacles” spread to all 50 states. Unfortunately, though, potential recruits and ISIS use encrypted software to communicate.
“ISIS is sending a poisonous message that buzzes in the pockets of troubled souls, unmoored people, all day long,”said Comey. “The challenge we face is finding those needles in a nationwide haystack, assessing where they are on a spectrum between consuming this poison and acting on it, and disrupting them before they act.”
6. 72 DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY EMPLOYEES ON FEDERAL WATCHLIST
The second amendment clearly states that“the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”But Sunday night, President Barack Obama pushed for more gun control at the federal level by urging Congress to make sure people on the federal no-fly list can buy a gun. However, that list is far from perfect.
On December 1,
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) revealed an investigation in August showed 72 employees of the Department of Homeland Security were on the watch list. This led to Lynch and other Democrats voting with Republicans on a bill to “ramp up screening requirements for Syrian and Iraqi refugees.” He said:
Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector General did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security. The director had to resign because of that. Then we went further and did and eight-airport investigation. We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate. We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.
Which leads us to the final fact:
7. ZERO SAN BERNARDINO TERRORISTS WERE ON THAT NO-FLY LIST
The no-fly list mentioned 72 Homeland Security employees. In the past, the name “T. Kennedy” appeared on the list, causing troubles for former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). Civil Rights icon
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) ended up on the list, which caused numerous headaches and travel delays. Babies and toddlers remained on the list.
But Obama and Democrats want to rely on the list, even though San Bernardino terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik never appeared on the list.They slaughtered 14 people in cold blood. Investigators believe Malik pledged allegiance to ISIS. Others said the bombs the couple made mirrored those in al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine. CBS confirmed reports that both of the attackers viewed ISIS propaganda online.
A former intelligence analyst, Stella Morabito, who grew up in a left-wing family and calls herself a “realist,” is speaking out about mass manipulation, political correctness and the transgender agenda. Her writings at The Federalist got the attention of Rush Limbaugh back in June when he seemed fascinated by her piece on mass delusion. A subsequent related piece is here.
In this exclusive video interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, she details how the left uses mass manipulation techniques to confuse Americans and grab power. She condemns conservatives for not even realizing the behavior modification techniques being employed in the political square,such as those encouraged by liberals such as Cass Sunstein, who wrote the book “Nudge” or George Lakoff.
It was a project of cultural Marxists to capture the mediating institutions in our culture for ideological gain – the media, Hollywood, pop culture, academia and more. “If you push an agenda to centralize power, you need mass ignorance and effective propaganda.”
Morabito says political correctness provides “a semantic fog where manipulation can occur under the guise of being fair or non-discriminatory.”
She details three tactics of the manipulation she observes. These include being subtle enough that people are not aware of the manipulation, changing our language to achieve thought control and the leverage of social isolation being used to force conformity to the elite’s narratives.
As for those who dissent from the elite’s orthodoxy or narratives, Morabito praises their courage. She mentions three positive possibilities of people who have the courage to be politically incorrect against the dominant narratives in this culture. First, such a neighbor or friend could embolden a like-minded person who is fearful, causing a positive “ripple effect.” Second, they could influence a “fence-sitter” by nudging deeper thinking, she says. And lastly, even if the listener disagrees and rejects your point of view, you may water down the stereotype or caricature made of those who hold core American principles.
Morabito continues by discussing the emergence of gender identity theorists who seek a gender-less society and maximum conformity in order to amass power. She discusses the newly-introduced Equality Act and how dangerous its scope is.
Near the end, she condemns Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner for living out how he subjectively imagines a woman’s life to be. She says this is merely part of the mass confusion where there is “more detachment from reality to make us think we’re happy.”
In his speech on the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon last week, President Obama sounded more upset about America’s gun laws than about the horrific massacre. We barely had the preliminary facts about the shooting, the shooter and the victims, and he was already lecturing the nation again on gun control.
Instead of calling the nation to prayer, he said we would learn about the victims in the coming days and then “wrap everyone who’s grieving with our prayers and our love.” Those words out of the way, he immediately pivoted to complaining that “our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel (or) prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week or a couple of months from now.”
We didn’t hear much “heartache and grief” in his speech, but his anger was palpable. It wasn’t anger at the shooter, and it wasn’t sympathy for the victims. It was outrage — or apparent outrage — at America’s Second Amendment advocates.
“We are the only advanced country on earth,”said Obama, “that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months. … The United States … is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings.”He said these events happen so often that they’ve “become routine. … We’ve become numb to this.”
He may speak for himself, of course, but I don’t know too many people, especially gun rights advocates, who are numb to such savagery. Many of us believe our society would be safer against gun violence if there weren’t so many “gun-free” zones and if we had more armed guards.
As he has so often done before the powder is dry after similar incidents, he used his bully pulpit (emphasis on “bully”) to misstate statistics as if he were trying for a record number of Pinocchios from fact-checkers.
He said: “We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don’t work — or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens, and criminals will still get their guns — is not borne out by the evidence.”
What he conveniently omitted is that Oregon had recently strengthened its laws on gun sales and is above average among the states on gun regulation. It is one of only 18 states that require universal background checks before the sale of any firearm.
Being a proud Chicagoan, Obama is surely aware that his beloved city, which has distinguished itself in recent years for epic gun violence and death, is in a state that has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. How, then, can he claim that gun laws work? And how would implementing his idea of “common-sense gun-safety laws” make sense?
Though the United States has a high actual number of fatalities from mass shootings given its larger population, Obama ignores that other nations — such as Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Israel and Switzerland, which all have restrictive gun laws — have higher ratios of such shootings per capita.
The president also fails to acknowledge author John Lott’s findings as of 2010 that all the multiple-victim public shootings (where three or more were killed) in Western Europe and in the United States occurred where civilians were not allowed to carry guns.
Charles C.W. Cooke, in his “The Conservatarian Manifesto,” urges that we regularly debunk “the claim that America is in the midst of a gun-violence ‘epidemic’.… Two reports, both released in May 2013, revealed a striking drop in gun crime over the past twenty years.” Cooke writes that “during the very period that gun laws have been dramatically liberalized across the whole country, gun crime has dropped substantially.”
In his rant, Obama didn’t just distort the evidence. He effectively accused the Republican Congress of allowing these deaths by opposing gun control laws for political reasons, proving that projection is still an important weapon in his partisan arsenal. At a time when he should be using his office and his influence to urge healing and unity, Obama uses them for strident community organizing to advance his agenda.
It is instructive that Obama rages at conservatives and scapegoats the weapons themselves rather than the criminals involved or the state of the human condition that underlies their actions.
It is remarkable that he demands an unconstitutional and meaningless change in the laws purportedly to save innocent lives but vigorously opposes all laws that would protect innocent babies in the womb.
And it is disgraceful that he seeks to inflame our emotions to seduce us into ignoring the facts and suspending our critical faculties long enough to surrender our vital Second Amendment rights.
It turns out we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with the slaughter of those students at Umpqua Community College. We had already seen glimpses of the killer’s hatred — especially of Christians— in the initial accounts of surviving witnesses. But others are now painting a more complete picture of his cruelty.
He said he’d spare an 18 year old girl if she begged for her life. She begged. He shot her anyway.
The doomed Christians were ordered to crawl to the middle of the room before being shot dead.
Evidence already suggests that this was planned some time before. It was calculated, deliberate. He wanted people to die. We know by his choice of victims that this was not random. He hated a particular, identifiable group. He hated Christians and wanted them to die.
Any other group so clearly singled out, and the bandwagon would inevitably roll out some kind of a hashtag-lives-matter campaign — vigils, t-shirts, the whole shebang.
As Caleb Howe rightly points out, when the narrative suits the usual talking heads, they will dive headlong into questions of “motivation”. But this tragedy didn’t play by their rules. There is no helpful racial angle, no way to blame the victims. So, in keeping with that “never let a crisis go to waste” motto, they are trying to bring the story back to that well-worn path: gun control.
Never let the story get away from the intended narrative. And definitely steer it away from any conversation about the growing number of Christians targeted by violence.
No, they will steer this story back to gun control. Of course they will. They have to.
Because where we see a tragedy born out of cruel hate, they see an opportunity to harness public emotion for political advantage.Public emotion is gold for politicos with big goals and weak arguments. It’s undirected angst looking for answers, and just look who’s ready to ride in on that white horse to save the day.
Gun control. That’s the solution, right?
If only those students, the ones begging for their lives, and crawling across the floor under a sadist’s gaze had been somewhere else — somewhere safe. Maybe in a gun-free zone. That would have changed everything… right?
Knuckle-dragger that I am, maybe I’m just too thick to see they’ve got a valid point. I mean, just look at how safe their gun laws have made Chicago.
FOX News confirmed today that the US ran guns from Benghazi to Syria before the attack on the US consulate on September 11, 2012. The US Ambassador to Libya and three others were killed in the terrorist attack. The Obama administration were running weapons to Syria.
FOX News reported Monday that the US was sending guns to Banias and Borj Islam, Syria before the Benghazi terrorist attack.
US Intelligence agencies were fully aware that weapons were moving from the terrorist stronghold in Libya to Syria before the attack that killed four Americans…
September 16, 2012 DIA Memo copied to the National Security Council, CIA, and others concluded the Benghazi terrorist attack was planned at least ten or more days in advance…
The memo also tied the attack to 9-11… No discussion of a demonstration or anti-Mohammad video.
US officials were aware that weapons were being shipped to Syria by the Port of Benghazi.
The US was in fact running guns from Benghazi to Syria when the annex and consulate were attacked.
Senator Rand Paul questioned Hillary Clinton about this gun running program back in January 2013 during her testimony on the Benghazi terrorist attack. Hillary Clinton said she did not know about the program while testifying under oath.
Here is the transcript:
Sen. Rand Paul: My question is, is the US involved in any procuring of weapons, transfer of weapons, buying, selling anyhow transferring weapons to Turkey out of Libya?
Hillary Clinton: To Turkey? I’ll have to take that question for the record. That’s, nobody’s ever raised that with me.
Sen. Rand Paul: It’s been in news reports that ships have been leaving from Libya and that they may have weapons. And what I’d like to know is, that annex that was close by, were they involved with procuring, buying, selling, obtaining weapons and were any of these weapons being transferred to other countries? ANy countries, Turkey included?
Hillary Clinton: Well, Senator you’ll have to direct that question to the agency that ran the annex. And, I will see what information was available.
Sen. Rand Paul: You’re saying you don’t know?
Hillary Clinton:I do not know.I don’t have any information on that.
Rand Paul accused the Obama administration in January 2013 of running guns to Syrian rebels. Rand Paul was right.
Twenty-two of the 37 corporations nominated for a prestigious State Department award — and six of the eight ultimate winners — while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State were also donors to the Clinton family foundation. The published donor records of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation don’t give exact dates or amounts of its contributors, but it is possible to create a general timeline for when many of the corporations donated and when they were either nominated or selected for the award.
Silicon Valley giant Cisco was the biggest foundation contributor nominated in 2009, giving the Clinton charity between $1 million and $5 million. The company then won the award in 2010 when eight of the 12 finalists and two of the three winners had donated to the foundation.
The other Clinton contributor to win that year, candy-maker Mars, Inc., had given between $25,000 and $50,000. Coca-Cola was the most generous foundation donor to be honored as a finalist in 2010, giving a $5-10 million donation.
TOM’s Shoes, a 2009 winner for its work in Argentina, donated between $100,000 and $250,000.
The other 2009 winner, Trilogy International Partners, gave between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Overall, seven of the 10 finalists in 2009 were foundation donors.
Seven of the 12 finalists for the award in 2011 gave to the charity. One of the winners, Procter & Gamble, had contributed $1-5 million. The other 2011 winner, Sahlman Seafoods, does not appear to have been a donor.
Tiger Machinery, a 2011 finalist, is the Russian dealer of Caterpillar, Inc. tractors and other heavy equipment. Caterpillar gave between $1,000 and $5,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Intel, another Silicon Valley giant, was nominated for an award each year of Clinton’s time in office, winning the award in 2012. The technology company donated between $250,000 and $500,000.
Five of the eight finalists and one of the two winners were foundation donors in 2012. A finalist that year, Esso Angola, is an international subsidiary of Exxon-Mobil, a prolific contributor to the Clinton Foundation. Exxon-Mobil gave between $1 million and $5 million.
Each of the companies listed appear to have made at least a portion of their donations before 2013. However, the Clinton Foundation’s vague listings prevent a more thorough review.
Kerry Humphrey, spokesman for the department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, said “senior representatives” from multiple federal agencies selected winners from among those nominated by U.S. embassies for “corporate excellence” abroad, including “demonstrating respect for human rights” and “promoting respect for the environment.”
The early days of Clinton’s second presidential campaign have been overshadowed by widespread criticism from across the political spectrum of foreign donations to the former chief U.S. diplomat’s family foundation, as well of her use of a private email and server to conduct government business while Secretary of State. She then unilaterally destroyed an estimated 30,000 emails she claimed were personal.
A forthcoming book by Peter Schweizer called Clinton Cash purports to show “a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds.”
Happy National Hate Week! Today, we’re all hating on Indiana. Who will be the left’s Emmanuel Goldstein next week?
Evidently, the sole function of the media these days is to subject the public to a steady stream of manufactured events: “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”; nuclear power kills; Lena Dunham’s rape by a college conservative at Oberlin; the “mattress girl” raped at Columbia University; Jon Stewart is funny; a fraternity gang-rape at the University of Virginia; and a law protecting religious freedom will lead to separate water fountains for gays in Indiana.
The whole country has to keep being dragged through these liberal hate campaigns, but as soon as the precipitating event turns out to be a gigantic hoax, the truth is revealed like a bedtime story being read to a child: The ending is whispered and the narrator tiptoes out of the room.
Here’s a time-saver: Whenever one of these conscience-shocking stories is promoted to front-page status by The New York Times and involves:
police brutality;
the environment;
a campus rape; or
gays;
… you can be pretty confident it’s a hoax.As the saying goes, it didn’t happen until it’s reported by The New York Times, and not even then.
Many months, several million wasted taxpayer dollars and one cop’s career later, even Eric Holder’s Justice Department finally admitted that the whole “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” story was bunk.
After the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan four years ago, Bill Nye “the (self-proclaimed) Science Guy” gravely informed CNN viewers, “This is all bad and very scary. … You know, it’s nothing but danger. It’s nothing but very serious, very, very long-term problems.” Wired magazine recently reported that, in the four years since the disaster, more than 96 percent of food, fish and agriculture throughout Fukushima has contained less than one-sixth of the radiation permitted in food imported to Europe.
Lena Dunham, star of HBO’s “Girls,” was forced to retract her autobiographical account of having been raped by a campus conservative named “Barry.”
The alleged rapist of Columbia University’s mattress girl finally released her alluring texts to him, and now we all know she was a desperate, spurned lover, not a rape victim.
Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s much-celebrated Rolling Stone story about a fraternity gang-rape at the University of Virginia turned out to be based on one poor, sad girl seeking attention by creating a fake online boyfriend and fantasizing her own gang-rape.
And this week, we all have to be in a panic about Indiana passing a measure that enshrines a basic principle of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, because of the utterly apocryphal assertion that the law will be used to turn gays away from restaurants.
The idea that generally applicable laws may, in certain circumstances, be required to accommodate individual religious beliefs has been around for centuries. That’s why priests don’t have to reveal penitents’ confessions to the police and Quakers don’t have to join the military.
Having won the war on gay marriage (by judicial fiat), now some liberal zealots insist on going house-to-house and shooting the survivors. They seem to seek out Christian businesses to provide floral arrangements and cakes for gay weddings so they can call the cops if the Christians try to pass. A roomful of gays would say, “Why don’t you guys just go to one of the nine out of 10 florists who would be happy to have your business?”(My guess is, if the zealots looked really hard, they might even be able to find a gay florist!)
That is all the religious freedom laws do: Encourage steely-eyed activists to stop requiring every last Christian to celebrate gay marriages.
Right now, in states that don’t have religious protection laws, Christians are being compelled, by general non-discrimination laws, either to participate in gay marriages — or go out of business. With the law, the Christian gets a legal argument. He might win in court or he might lose, but he’d at least have an argument, thus encouraging the kill-the-survivors nuts to go to another shop for their gay weddings and stop doing their victory dances on top of Christians.
It’s utter nonsense that any shopkeeper, least of all a nice Christian, would turn away a customer for any reason other than a deeply held religious belief, such as not wanting to participate in a gay wedding, a Planned Parenthood gala or any event involving Bill Clinton.
Do not assume that because liberals are in an absolute panic over Indiana’s law, they must have a point. To the contrary, the more hysterical they are, the more you should assume the whole story is a sham.
When the journalist Richard Bradley raised questions about Erdely’s Rolling Stone gang-rape story, Anna Merlan responded at Jezebel, calling his questions a “giant ball of sh*t,” in an article titled “‘Is the UVA Rape Story a Gigantic Hoax?’ Asks Idiot.” Even after Rolling Stone had retracted the story and Charlottesville chief of police Timothy J. Longo confirmed that the man Jackie accused of precipitating the gang-rape didn’t exist, his department merely “suspended” the investigation. I’m going to call Chief Longo with a complaint that I was raped by a unicorn to see if we can get him to actually “close” a case.
It’s one thing to treat disturbed girls falsely crying rape with kid gloves. (Though the boyfriend of the Duke lacrosse false-rape accuser, Crystal Gail Mangum, might have wished she’d been held a little more accountable: Mangum was never prosecuted for her lies and she later murdered her boyfriend, thus dashing her hopes for a primetime show on MSNBC.)
But why do we have to treat liberal fantasists in the media as if they’re children, too? Believing there’s a monster under the bed is cute. Falsely accusing cops of murder, men of rape and an entire state of homophobia is not.
Every single cause championed by liberals is based on a fake story. They make up events that didn’t happen and get apoplectic over things that never will happen. The definition of “liberal” is quickly becoming: people who believe their fantasies should be facts.
Julie West, founder of Parents for Truth in Education, finds some scary stuff on the Williamson County, TN Schools website. She goes to the 7th grade Social Studies page and points out a few shocking things, beginning with the fact that we have been told “Common Core is only Language Arts (English) and Math.” First red flag. Here are other red flags that prove Common Core has an Islamic agenda prepared for the minds of our next American generation.
Why is CCSS, Common Core State Standards on the Social Studies page? Haslam/Looney said CCSS is only Math and Language Arts.
Why is a “religion” being taught in school? Christianity is banned, including the word Christmas, and prayer, etc. So why Islam? And, why only Islam?
According to the WCS website, more time is being spent on teaching Islam than on teaching the Roman Empire and its effect on American Law and Government, architecture, etc.
Under the heading ‘Islamic World Standards. Africa,’ the CC Curriculum teaches this; ‘Pillars of Islam.’ ‘Discover Islam.’ “Explore. Discover. Be Convinced.” Then, there’s “My Journey to Islam,” someone’s conversion story.
Is there a conversion to Christianity story in the CCSS curriculum? No. A Conversion to Judaism story? No.
Common Core Curriculum links to a Muslim gear page that includes T shirts bearing the Aqida, the Muslim creed.
Under ‘Other Religions,’ there’s a link entitled, “Islam and Other Religions,” not “Christianity and Other Religions.”
Under the Heading, “Prophets and Messengers,” Jesus and Mohammed are listed.
Under same heading it says; “Was Jesus sent to be crucified?”
Public schools are teaching this.
Common Core Curriculum says, “It is very clear from the above verse Matthew 26:39 that Jesus had no intention of dying.”
Julie West responds, “That is a pretty overt attack on the foundational belief of most of the students in Williamson County schools, again on a public school website.”
Next paragraph is entitled, “The Post Crucifixion Prophesied Events Never Happened.”Wow.
Julie West points out, “It doesn’t say, “Muslims believe they didn’t happen.” It doesn’t say, “Many people question this account,” or “it’s a belief of Christians.” It categorically states, on a public school website, apparently enforcing a Common Core Standard (all tests to get into college will be held to this standard), that the post crucifixion prophesied events never took place. Again, this is the faith of the majority of residents of this county, and the district web site is instructing students that that information is not true.”
Julie West continues, “So once again I ask Commissioner Huffman, Governor Haslam, Director of Schools Mike Looney, and really anyone else, why is this okay, that this is what our children are being exposed to, not just for one day or two, but according to the scope and sequence, for the vast majority of at least the first nine weeks? I’ve got a feeling it goes on. So thank you, and by the way, I really am waiting for an answer.”
So are we Julie. Thank you for your research. I am very angry at how our elected and appointed leaders are lying to us. They work for us, and they need to be accountable.
This is obvious indoctrination, brainwashing, propaganda. Civilization Jihad according to experts, link here and here, is Islamic Jihad infiltrating a society without violence by taking over the education system, the courts, the churches, the government, etc.
Related Stories:
Common Core is not “state-led” as Gov. Haslam and Superintendent Looney have lied. It is world wide. A Common Core Conference in Dubai just took place Oct. 2014. Link here. It is globalism, as is Agenda 21. Both tied to the United Nations.
Common Core curriculum in Pearson Textbooks was written by two Muslims, Mansuri and Douglass. Link here.
Islam Dominating Public School Curriculum. Story here.
Andrew MakhoninVladimir “Putin is a gift to caricaturists,” said Barry Blitt, a New Yorker artist, when he designed a Sochi Olympic-themed cover earlier this year, featuring the Russian leader in frilly ice skating attire. The caricature artists of Russia take a very different approach. On Friday a gallery titled “No Filters” with the work of about 100 cartoonists opened in Moscow, and just about all their images show Putin favorably: as a strongman, a political chess master, and a fighter against fascists and terrorists. In one conspicuously large work, Putin is spanking President Barack Obama, who has the body of schoolboy.
“Targeted sanctions,”the caption on that caricature reads – a jab at America’s economic strategy against Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Another image shows Putin tugging on Obama’s ear, scolding him not to “touch” Ukraine again. A third shows Obama and Ukraine’s president, both dressed as peasant girls working the fields, cowering from Putin who sits atop a tank and asks, “Hey girls, have you seen any fascists here?”
There is some truth to the first image, at least. Putin has run circles around the U.S. when it comes to the war in Ukraine. The Obama administration has called for an end to Russian aggression since Putin invaded Crimea. The U.S. has tried to put pressure on Russia by initiating first targeted sanctions and then broad ones. That began in March, and yet Russia’s military incursion persists to this day, and has grown worse. Obama gave his own policies credit as being “the only reason” a ceasefire was agreed upon in September – some of the bloodiest fighting started shortly thereafter. And, in spite of strong rhetoric one week, like the U.S. “will not accept Russia’s occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea or any part of Ukraine,” Obama allegedly privately admitted around the same time that Crimea was “gone” for good.
Obama’s shortcomings aside, Putin is not the savvy strongman his propagandists present him as. Russia’s currency continues to hit record lows, and the nation’s economy is at recession levels. And the annexation of Crimea leaves Russia with a 10,000-square mile welfare money pit.
That Putin is fighting against fascism is laughable. The “Young Guards,” the youth-wing of his political party, set up the gallery to display the work of “patriotically oriented artists” who want to “restore in the minds of citizens respect and pride in their country.”
New students at Harvard Universitywill soon be treated to a mandatory special orientation programdesigned to teach them all about societal “privilege and power” structures. The group responsible for overseeing the program explains (kind of) what the “class” is:
A mandatory power and privilege training that examines components of race, gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, ability, religion, international status, and power differentials . . .
And why it’s important for Harvard students:
The exercise of public leadership … requires an honest assessment of structural power dynamics, of in-group and out-group dynamics, and of privilege.
Maybe you’re not up on the vagaries(1) of Newspeak. So I’ll explain the class rather bluntly: it’s a class designed to make white, Christian, heterosexual males feel guilty about the fact that all the good things in their lives have been handed to them on a silver platter, and they don’t deserve any of them. And it’s also a class to empower feminists, homosexuals, atheists, and racial minorities in their quest to gain the privilege and power they currently covet, and do not possess (apparently).
I think that about sums it up. Just why such an orientation would be necessary is beyond me. Harvard will already do a fine job teaching these poor unsuspecting students to use catchalls like “Heteronormativity(2),” “white privilege,” “structural sexism/racism,” and the like. Even without the special mandatory brainwashing session.
“Sounds to me like communist countries “Brainwashing” re-education prison camps.” JB
Harvard, interestingly enough, was started by white, Christian, heterosexual males as a seminary. So if there is a group at Harvard that has inherited an undeserved legacy from their forefathers, its liberal Harvard students. A tragic irony if ever there was one.
Do they really think Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest would have come about in any other environment than Christian America? No. Atheists, homosexuals, feminists, and racists don’t build schools like Harvard. They just destroy them.
vagaries:an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion
Heteronormativity: Heteronormativityis the body of lifestyle norms that holds that people fall into distinct and complementary genders (man and woman) with natural roles in life.
They insist we don’t need another committee to investigate the attack—but they’re really afraid of the incompetence the truth will reveal.
I read with interest my Daily Beast colleagueMichael Tomasky’s columnWednesday, in which he asserted that the establishment of a Special Select Committee to investigate Benghazi is nothing more than bulls**t. Putting aside that disrespectful characterization of a search for truth and accountability for an attack in which four Americans lost their lives, I’m troubled by the motivation of many on the left, who have sought to demonize anyone who questions the narrative the Obama administration has spun for nearly two years.
I concur with our colleague Kirsten Powers, whowritesthat the glib, evasive, and arrogant posture of the White House and the president’s supporters has brought about the present Benghazi inquiry. The American people were told repeatedly in the days and weeks following the attack that it was the result of an offensive video‚ an assessment the president and secretary of state surely knew within hours was far from the truth.
Rather than level with the American people and admit what senior administration officials knew—as well as taking steps to protect our diplomatic assets abroad—the Obama administrationstuck with the linethat GM was alive, Osama bin Laden was dead, and al Qaeda was on the run. It was hard to square that circle when the Libyan prime minister and our deputy chief of mission in Libya immediately asserted that Benghazi was a preplanned terrorist attack.
Returning to Tomasky’s piece, I was incredulous at his view of the Benghazi attacks and the prism through which he sees the world. First he tells us:
“Benghazi is and has been for some time a witch hunt that perverts all notions of democratic accountability and that obviously carries one purpose and one purpose only—the humiliation or worse of as many Democrats as possible, preferably the big cheeses (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton).”
Let’s start with the notion that this is a witch hunt with the sole purpose of humiliating as many Democrats as possible.
Ambassador Chris Stevens was a political appointee of President Obama and worked under the immediate supervision of Secretary State Hillary Clinton. Democrats, both. Neither Obama nor Clinton have explained why their political appointee’s requests to get security in Benghazi increased were denied. The American people deserve to know the truth. That is hardly a partisan question, but it could expose incompetence once the real answers are uncovered.
Next Tomasky tells us that the Benghazi attack has been probed with two Senate reports and eight House reports. Case closed, right? What he doesn’t tell us is that Secretary of State Clinton has not been interviewed directly under oath. He mentions the investigation chaired by Admiral Mike Mullen and Thomas Pickering but fails to note that the secretary did not make herself available for questioning. Surely one cannot have a comprehensive review of the actions and activities undertaken by the State Department when the secretary is not part of the review process. For that matter, isn’t it odd that none of the personnel from the diplomatic compound in Benghazi have been interviewed on the record? What was their experience that evening, and did they witness a protest sparked by a video? A Select Committee on Benghazi will certainly provide these answers.
Tomasky tells us that Susan Rice, then U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, merely told the American people what the CIA told her to say about Benghazi. I’m sorry to say that’s not true. The truth, sadly, is that the Obama White House misled the American people when it redacted a lawfully subpoenaed document that was disclosed only after a lawsuit by Judicial Watch. In that document, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodespushed the notionthat the attack was triggered by a spontaneous demonstration, not a breakdown in policy. The first three goals in the document, which was withheld from Congress, were:
“To convey that the United States is doing everything we can to protect our people and our facilities abroad;
“To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy;
“To show we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast during these protests.”
Perhaps Tomasky can tell us how the United States has done everything to protect our people and our facilities abroad when our own State Department denied the ambassador’s requests for additional security. Perhaps he can show us how the protests were rooted in an Internet video, a claim our intelligence services and military officials immediately knew to be false. Or perhaps he can explain how the Obama administration has brought “people who harm Americans to justice” when The New York Times wasable to interviewa terrorist ringleader about the attack as he sipped a strawberry frappe barely a month after the attack. The grand total of those apprehended or held responsible to date has been zero.
I’ll tell you what’s BS: The Obama administration has misled, dissembled, and otherwise given the finger to the families of those who lost their lives that night.
Finally, despite all the congressional Democrats’ snickering and posturing this week, a Select Committee on Benghazi can answer one question that remains unanswered: Where was the president of the United States the evening of September 11, 2012, and what steps did he take that evening?
We know from former National Security Council spokesman Tommy “Dude, That Was Two Years Ago” Vietor that the president was in the Executive Mansion but not in the Situation Room on the evening in question. Did he monitor the events unfolding overseas? Was he briefed throughout the evening? Why didn’t he order a military rescue mission? Only after the attack occurred did we find out it spanned nearly eight hours. Surely military assets could have been sent to Libya from Italy or elsewhere. Did the commander in chief ask military assets to stand down?
I’ll tell you what’s BS, Mr. Tomasky: The Obama administration has misled, dissembled, and otherwise given the finger to the families of those who lost their lives that night in service to their country. I’m willing to believe that the personnel on the ground in Benghazi were terrified, confused, and hoping the cavalry was on its way to save them from terrorists seeking to kill them. We need a Special Select Committee on Benghazi to ascertain these facts and ensure that such a disaster never occurs again. We need truth, not bullsh*t, from the president and his administration, but so far, that’s all they’ve been shoveling.
The liberal media is trying to protect Obama.
Check it out:
The Drive-Bys, they’re not interested in this at all. They don’t really think there is anything, and those of them who do know that there’s something here want to cover it up. Now, the Drive-Bys are made up of a lot of stupid people. And the Drive-Bys are made up of a lot of uninformed people and the Drive-Bys are made up of a lot of people with a lot of prejudice. And there are a lot of reporters who will discountBenghazisimply because of who is interested in it. For example, Fox is interested in it and it automatically is nothing. If I’m interested in it it doesn’t rate any interest, because Fox and me, all we want is to get Obama.
That’s how prejudiced they are and short minded. You have some of the Drive-Bys who know full well what they’re doing and they’re working with the regime to cover it up. Then you have real activists in the Drive-Bys who know exactly what happened and who fear the truth coming out and are going to do everything they can to protect Obama, including trying to lay the blame off on Republicans somehow or the military, or thevideothat nobody ever saw. Here’s Dr. Krauthammer, who was last night in the roundtable, the all-star panel, Special Report with Bret Baier who said, “A few weeks ago Dr. K you said right here on this panel that Republicans should move on, that they should kind of leave Benghazi alone, that it was a dead end. Have you changed your mind?”
A fifth gradeworksheetin Florida declares that the Federalists were different than the anti-federalists because they “believed in a strong national government that would have power over the states.” The Federalists believed in a central government, but it was to be a “limited government.” The anti-federalists believed that there should be no central government, and pushed for full sovereignty of the states.
The Federalists, according to the worksheet, included “John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton.” While it is true that the Federalists wanted a central, or a “general,” government, the worksheet does not stress how important it was to the Federalists to ensure that the government did not become too powerful.
In fact, the worksheet explains,
“The purpose of the convention was to discuss how to make the national government stronger.”
Both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were dedicated to a system where government would not become tyrannical. This is evident to anyone who reads the words of the founding fathers. But in the worksheet, the phrases “checks and balances” and “separation of powers” are forgotten.
An attachment to the worksheet titled, “Federalist and Anti-Federalist Quotes,” quotes James Madison as saying,
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary… You must first enable the government to control the governed..” – James Madison, Federalist Papers “Number 51”
“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
The meaning is much different when the full quote is revealed.
Perhaps an even more egregious example is a quote from Benjamin Franklin. The worksheet quotes him as saying,
“I agree to this Constitution, because I think a general government is necessary for us…. . . I hope … we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this constitution . . .” – Benjamin Franklin, Constitutional Convention, 1787
“In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”
Although Franklin indeed went on to endorse the Constitution, it is clear that he was well aware of the potential for tyranny in the government.
The worksheet is a part of Florida’s “sunshine standards,” which were established after Common Core state standards became politically toxic.
The anti-Federalists eventually came around to the idea of a general government, and their input was pivotal in establishing the Bill of Rights. But it seems that some educators and others attempt to portray the Federalists as big government and the anti-Federalists as “anti-government,” which is grossly inaccurate, as both groups agonized about how America could prevent the inevitable tyranny that eventually occurs in all governments, everywhere.
This truth is evident to anyone who reads the Federalist papers.
As James Madison wrote,
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. –James Madison, Federalist 45, 1788
The Federalist papers can be found here. The anti-Federalist papers can be foundhere.
Victims of Obamacare are sharing their stories across the internet; by victims, I mean those individuals who have had their healthcare insurance policies canceled and hit with higher premiums and deductibles because of the Obamacare roll out. Some of these individuals favored health care insurance for all in the form of Obamacare while others did not support government intrusion into their private lives.
Because of this backlash, Obama made what is now being called a “fake apology” on national television. But, what how are the Democrats in Congress handling this “bungled” implementation of a “thrown together in a rush” health care fiasco? With the 2014 elections just around the corner, one Democrat is calling Obama’s guarantee of “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan, period” grossly misleading the American public.
Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) stated on KGW-TV, “A lot of Americans, a lot of Oregonians, have stayed with the same policy for a number of years and are shocked that their policy got canceled.”
“So I think the President saying you could stay with it and not being honest that a lot of these policies were going to get canceled was grossly misleading to the American public and is causing added stress and added strife as we go through a really difficult time with healthcare,” Schrader added.
Democratic Minority Whip Steny Hoyer acknowledged two weeks ago that Democrats had been aware that some people might lose their insurance plans when the law took effect, saying, “We knew there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage.”
At a Tuesday briefing with reporters, Hoyer said he disagreed with Schrader’s statement.
“Do I think he grossly misled? No,” Hoyer stated.
“I think the president was not precise, and I think that, he should have been precise,” Hoyer said. “We all should have been more precise.”
Wow! There is so much manure coming out of Washington these days that a couple of these Democrat Obama idolators needs to stand in the small garden plot my parents have to fertilize it for this spring’s planting season. They would have a bumper crop for sure!
It is nice to see that Schrader is calling Obama’s statement “grossly misleading;” however, Obama lied – not once, not twice, but repeatedly, in order to deceive the American public into accepting Obamacare for something it is not. The only reason America is going through a “really difficult time with healthcare” is because of the unconstitutional, atrocious Obamacare. Schrader is attempting to fool his constituency and the American public into thinking he is advocating for the citizenry. The only thing he is advocating for is keeping his seat in the House to be exempt from Obamacare and assist with the “nobility rule” of the American masses.
Steny Hoyer admitted that Democrats knew “there would be some policies that would not qualify” resulting in individuals being required to purchase more extensive coverage. Translation:
“We knew some people had policies that covered what they needed but we wanted them to purchase more than what they needed because we know what is best for everyone where their health is concerned.”
I can see where single males might need that prenatal care coverage or contraceptive coverage and possibly baby murder coverage; after all, the pregnancy rate among single males is staggering. (Yes, this is heavy sarcasm.)
Hoyer, in contrast to Schrader, excuses outright lying by qualifying that the president and Congress “were not precise.” Hello? Hoyer? Anybody home in that brain of yours? I can see the lights are on but no one is answering the door!
These people think Americans are stupid. Video evidence abounds showing Obama making a precise, definitive, clear, unmistakable statement – “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan, period.” I pride myself on reading and verbal comprehension as it was drilled into me by first my mother, then my college professors and nursing instructors. Can someone please tell me where this statement is not precise and where this statement is unclear? Obama didn’t give all the details and hid from the American public the true effect of this healthcare monster. He engaged in deception and fraud.
Obama has been back-peddling and issuing qualifying statements in contrast to his “less than precise” statement, even to the point of denying making that definitive statement. This man thinks everyone in America is a fool and that video evidence is a lie. Everyone is lying; everyone is against him; everyone misunderstood. This is the repertoire of victim mentality.
Poor, poor Obama! He’s a victim of those nasty Republican, the terrorist Tea Party groups and those annoying Christians so we have to help him by supporting his anti-American agenda; if we don’t, we’ll be labeled as racists. Democrats act like their hands are tied by their political party. Democrats passed this law without a single Republican vote. Democrats passed this law without even reading it. Democrats chose to knowingly inflict injury on the American public. So, Democrats own this mess and no amount of “playing victim” can change that. There are no victims in Washington.
Schrader and Hoyer need to go; vote them out. Obama and his cronies knew when this law was passed millions of Americans would lose healthcare insurance they were satisfied with. Those Democrats who were elected after the law was passed knew weeks before implementation millions of Americans would lose healthcare insurance they were satisfied with. Schrader is hitting the band wagon early to keep his position. Hoyer, his nose still up Obama’s anus, really doesn’t give two shakes so he follows lead by issuing qualifying statements.
As time goes on and the full impact of Obamacare is exposed, there will be more manure, back-peddling, and qualifying statements issued all around in order that these deceiving Democraps can keep their seat of power. It all revolves around keeping themselves part of the “ruling nobility:” no more, no less. Sadly, they don’t care what they have to do to remain there even if it means selling out their constituents and all of America. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson would be so proud of this “New Deal – Great Society.”
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2017.
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Published by ClashDaily.com on April 16, 2018
The Portland Public Schools board voted last week to ban any materials that cast doubt on climate change, the 
Some predicted it would only be a matter of time before someone challenged North Carolina’s HB2 law concerning transgender bathrooms. That day is now here. Alexis Adams, a male who has transitioned to female, was allegedly escorted out of the women’s restroom by security at the Durham Transit Center after claiming a janitor confronted him and told him to use the men’s restroom.
While there may have been some kind of confrontation between the janitor and Adams, neither the police, nor the Transit Authority have been able to confirm, after interviewing employees, anything Adams said of the incident is factual.WTVD News Reporter Tim Pulliam confronted Adams with the footage. 
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