Chief editor at Russian media outlet flees EU country over threats
RT | July 26, 2023
Marat Kasem, a senior journalist at Russian media outlet Sputnik, has fled Latvia after President Edgars Rinkevics suggested that prosecutors had treated him too leniently in a recent case, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
Kasem spent four months in a Latvian jail earlier this year before being fined for allegedly aiding and abetting Russia.
“Would somebody from the White House or Downing Street tell Rinkevics that he is failing them by showing the feral nature of the liberal diktat,” Zakharova asked, during an interview with Sputnik on Wednesday.
The Russian official argued that the US and the UK were patrons of the Baltic states, but had failed to keep their “nationalist” clients in check. Latvia specifically presents itself as a nation that supposedly upholds liberal values, including by protecting journalists, Zakharova noted.
Kasem, who is a Latvian citizen, has faced legal problems in the EU due to his work as editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian branch of Sputnik.
He was first arrested in January, when he arrived in Latvia to visit his dying grandmother. Kasem was initially accused of espionage and violation of EU sanctions, charges that could carry up to 25 years in prison. Four months later, the authorities agreed to move him to house arrest.
Two weeks ago, local media reported that the case had been resolved, with Kasem admitting to aiding and abetting Russia and paying a fine of €15,500 ($17,000).
Latvian President Rinkevics, who took office on July 8, responded to the news by tweeting that “some recent decisions” by the Prosecutor General’s Office “raise questions.” He later clarified that in Kasem’s case and several others, he believed the punishments were too mild and indicated that he intended to seek explanations.
The remarks “made it clear as daylight” that Kasem’s problems in Latvia would continue, prompting him to leave, according to Zakharova.
The Prosecutor General’s Office said the public had not been informed about numerous details of the case due to national security, which it claimed “had an influence on the choice of the final punishment.” It hinted that the interests of other nations were involved.
Moscow considers the situation to be an example of political persecution. International journalism organizations and other Western states have turned a blind eye to it, said Zakharova, who implied that Kasem had admitted guilt under duress.
Zelensky uses martial law to avoid election
RT | July 26, 2023
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Wednesday proposed to extend the state of emergency, thereby effectively canceling the parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
Zelensky announced martial law on February 24, 2022, and has been extending it ever since. The most recent 90-day extension was announced on May 20, and is due to expire on August 18. If the Verkhovna Rada approves Zelensky’s latest request, this will see the emergency extended through November 15.
Ukrainian law calls for parliamentary elections no later than October 29, with a 60-day campaign season starting on August 28. However, it also forbids campaigning and voting during martial law. Another extension would cut into the campaign season for the presidential elections, currently scheduled for March 2024.
“If we have martial law, we cannot have elections. The constitution prohibits any elections during martial law,” Zelensky announced in May. The following month, he told the BBC that “elections need to happen in a time of peace, when there is no fighting.”
Some of Ukraine’s supporters in Europe and North America have been critical of the possible cancellation of elections. Ukraine should prepare for a vote as soon as possible, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) head ‘Tiny’ Kox said in an interview in May.
“Although democracy is far more than only elections, I think we all agree that without the elections, democracy cannot properly function,” Kox said at the time.
Zelensky ran on a peace platform in 2019 and won with 73% of the vote. Soon thereafter, his newly formed party – named after the TV show in which he played a fictional president of Ukraine – won a supermajority in the Verkhovna Rada as well. By late 2020, he had pivoted away from the notion of peace in Donbass and began to openly talk about a military solution for “occupied territories.”
Within three months of the conflict with Russia escalating, in May 2022, Zelensky enacted a law that allowed him to ban any political parties merely accused of being “pro-Russian,” without any right to appeal. He has outlawed a dozen parties since then, including the formerly largest parliamentary opposition bloc.
Earlier this month, the Federal Intelligence Service of Switzerland accused Zelensky of attempting to “politically eliminate” Kiev mayor Vitaly Klitschko ahead of next year’s presidential election. The FIS cited “credible intelligence” to say that Zelensky was “showing authoritarian traits” which may lead to Western pressure, according to a classified report leaked to the outlet NZZ.
UK Blocks Ukrainian Orthodox Priest’s Testimony at UN Security Council
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 26.07.2023
London prevented the religious leader from delivering his first-hand experience of repression against the church in Ukraine.
“Today is an extremely sad moment for the UN Security Council, as well as for the international community as a whole,” said Dmitry Polyansky, first deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation in the UN.
“Western delegations actually agreed with the repressive policy of the Kiev regime against the canonical Orthodoxy. This is a clear evidence of blatant double standards in matters concerning freedom of expression, religion, and in general all those ideals that they preach. Your decision to block the participation of an Orthodox clergyman in accordance with the prerogatives of the president of the UN Security Council is clear evidence of how London treats ideals and how easily it is ready to give them up for the sake of narrowly selfish, petty attempts to prick Russia.”
The UK holds the 15-nation organ’s rotating presidency for July 2023.
Earlier, on July 18, Russia called for a meeting of the UNSC on Ukraine for July 26, in particular on the topic of repression against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
On the same day, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow would raise the issue of the persecution of the vicegerent of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Bishop Pavel, at the upcoming meeting of the UN Security Council.
On July 14, a Kiev court changed the measure of restraint for Metropolitan Pavel from round-the-clock house arrest to detention until August 14.
For his part, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia called on the UN, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and heads of churches, including Pope Francis, to protect the vicegerent of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
Earlier this month Pope Francis responded to the appeal of Patriarch Kirill and spoke against politically motivated arrests in Ukraine.
The Kiev regime started to exert pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2022. Ukrainian authorities gave an ultimatum to the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra to vacate the monastery’s premises until March 29 under the pretext of allegedly violating the terms of the lease – jurisdiction over which is divided between the National Kiev-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Preserve, a Ukrainian secular organization and the UOC. Lavra monks condemned the eviction order as illegal as it was not backed by a court decision. As they resisted the Kiev regime’s attempts to expel them from the monastery, the Ukrainian authorities resorted to persecution.
Other Ukrainian Orthodox priests have also been subjected to pressure from the Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian law enforcement officers searched the homes of bishops and priests, churches and monasteries, including the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in order to find traces of “anti-Ukrainian activities.”
Stacey Plaskett: allowing RFK Jr. to speak will make the Biden administration “hesitant” about stopping “misinformation”
She then complains that people are accusing her of censorship
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 24, 2023
Some politicians seem either unwilling or unable to pick a lane: are they pro, or against censorship?
In other words, they’re dedicated to trying to eat their cake and have it, too. Take Democrat Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, who on one hand wants to silence people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK), and on the other, complains when faced with criticism of advancing censorship.
The way Plaskett rationalizes the first of her efforts is that allowing people like RFK to speak freely is not only “insidious” in nature, and not only equals “desensitizing Americans” (to what?) but brings about a host of serious, and it seems, powerful problems, that would afflict such institutions like the US administration, and (major) social platforms.
Free speech, according to Plaskett – who was commenting on RFK’s testimony in Congress, i.e., giving him an opportunity to speak there – would make the White House and social media “hesitant” to combat misinformation. You would think the First Amendment would be what gives the administration the most pause.
But then Plaskett doesn’t want to be seen as a champion of censorship. And this behavior might, or might not, prompt her supporters to stop and think what, then, it is that she is championing (other than the Biden administration). And, it becomes increasingly clear that all these roads lead to the 2024 presidential election.
The concern about Republicans “elevating” RFK – pejoratively dubbed an “anti-vaxxer” by outlets like MSNBC – is “far more insidious” than simply criticizing Biden, suggests Plaskett. That’s because of the fear the current administration might get stripped of the tools of censorship, stubbornly yet less and less convincingly promoted as noble and just fight against “untruths and misinformation.”
And if anybody was wondering if Democrats would drop the tactic of claiming that any election that doesn’t go their way must be the work of ingenious foreign masterminds – they will not.
Judging by Plaskett, the current apparently “steely will” to stop disinformation (and the Twitter Files tell us how it’s done) might turn into “hesitancy.”
And, of all times – “during the height of the 2024 presidential elections.”
And just like that, seamlessly Plaskett and MSNBC managed to link the issue of giving the likes of RFK a voice in Congress, with “Russian, Iranian, and Chinese” trolls that the congresswoman is certain will swarm the internet, as they “try to suppress the American voters.”
Are we Slipping Toward Dictatorship?
By John S Leake | The Kennedy Beacon | July 24, 2023
History teaches us that dictatorial power is rarely if ever achieved all at once. The aspiring dictator invariably begins with censorship. By controlling the flow of information to the public, he shapes public perceptions in his favor, and against his critics.
Facts, worldviews, and opinions that challenge his own are expunged from the marketplace of ideas. Individuals who communicate to the public about these facts and opinions are silenced, segregated, and ostracized.
Through this process of elimination, the aspiring dictator hones his craft and eventually becomes a complete dictator.
Enter the current Biden Administration. In a recent interview with Aaron Kheriaty, MD—a psychiatrist and medical ethics expert who is a plaintiff in Missouri v. Biden—Kheriaty told me about the censorship program that the White House and an array of federal agencies have erected in recent years. He and his co-plaintiffs knew that some such program was operational, but they were still shocked by the discovery of its size and scope. As Kheriaty described it, the program is a Leviathan—a vast and systematic apparatus for exerting pressure on social media companies to censor any opinion or content that displeases the government. There’s a name for such an apparatus—namely, DICTATORSHIP.
In other words, a program of widespread censorship is the creation and work of a dictator. By way of censorship, the fledgling dictator not only silences his critics, but also prevents his dictatorial powers, privileges, and activities from being detected and reported. Thus, censorship is the means by which an aspiring dictator becomes a complete dictator.
Missouri v. Biden shows us that the Biden Administration, its lackeys in Congress, and its electoral organ, the DNC, have not yet erected a full dictatorship. Nevertheless, their conduct reveals that they aspire to do so and have already done much to achieve their ambition. They therefore treat with withering contempt anyone who threatens their ambition.
We saw a shocking expression of this at the House Judiciary Committee (Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government) hearing that was held on Thursday, July 20, 2023. While the Committee’s chair, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and his fellow Republican members welcomed the testimony of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Committee’s minority (Democrat) members did everything in their power to censor the hearing.
The mind reels in trying to comprehend this strange and paradoxical reality, so I will restate it. Last week, a hearing was held to “examine the federal government’s role in censoring Americans, the Missouri v. Biden case, and Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech.” Instead of listening to the witness and considering his testimony, the Committee’s minority members tried to censor him.
Ranking Member of the minority, Stacey Plassket—a non-voting delegate to the House from the United States Virgin Islands’ (USVI)—began by asserting that presidential candidate RFK, Jr.’s speech is not protected by the First Amendment:
Many of my Republican colleagues across the dais will rush to cover that they have Mr. Kennedy here because they want to protect his free speech. This is not the kind of free speech that I know of.
Free speech is not an absolute. The Supreme Court has stated that. And others’ free speech that is allowed—hateful, abusive rhetoric—does not need to be promoted in the halls of the people’s house.
These folks have a plan. They want to give expression to the most vile sorts of speech here in this committee room because it prepares the ground for their own conspiracy theories and pseudoscience.
And they apparently don’t care how many people are hurt or die as a consequence of their actions.… Because nothing, nothing is more important to them than power.
Plaskett’s assertions are an expression of the same strategy deployed by every dictator in history—namely, to dehumanize a dissident by characterizing his opinions as vile and dangerous. By the dictator’s logic, the dissident is not free to express his opinions because they pose a threat to the body politic. While such assertions are couched in the benevolent sounding language of protecting the citizenry, the true threat the dissident poses is not to the citizenry, but to the dictator’s power.
Assuming the role of Grand Inquisitor at the hearing was Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). She began by motioning the Committee to move into executive session, thereby closing the hearing to the public. She made this motion on the grounds that RFK, Jr.’s remarks about COVID-19 at a recent press event are harmful to the public.
Readers who are interested in the reality of these remarks—as distinct from the mainstream media’s blitz of mendacious propaganda about them—may consider reading my Substack post about it. In a nutshell, RFK, Jr. mentioned the vast medical literature about genetic variations in the ACE-2 receptor that cause some ethnic groups, especially Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews, to be less susceptible to severe COVID-19 illness than other ethnic groups.
Following the Committee’s rejection of Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s motion, she characterized RFK, Jr.’s recent remarks as perpetuating a longstanding anti-Semitic trope that Jews are responsible for infectious disease outbreaks. She then claimed (with perfect humbug) that she wanted to give the witness “a chance to correct his statements and repair some of the harm that he’s helped cause” to the Jewish people.
Her idea of “giving the witness a chance” was making grossly distorted representations of what he has purportedly said in the past, and then interrupting him every time he tried to set the record straight. Such methods of interrogation have been employed by every dictator’s kangaroo court in history.
Readers of this Substack may recall that Schultz is the former chair of the Democratic National Committee. On July 28, 2016, leaked emails showed that she and other DNC staff had taken actions to favor Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries. The leaked e-mails indicate that she did this in exchange for funds for paying off the DNC’s remaining debt from the 2012 presidential campaign. After eliminating Sanders from the 2016 race, Schultz is now (in her capacity as member of the House) hard at work to eliminate Kennedy from the 2024 race.
Schultz’s conduct is another expression of the dictator’s spirit—that is, the conviction that the ends justify means. It doesn’t matter that she once resigned her chair at an institution governing the electoral process after her corrupt, duplicitous, and unfair conduct was exposed. Her party and its supporters are still giving her license to abuse and censor RFK, Jr., and to mislead the public about statements he has made about public policy.
To learn more about Missouri v. Biden, please see my interview with plaintiff Aaron Kheriaty, MD.
John Leake with Aaron Kheriaty on Censorship
John Leake with Aaron Kheriaty on the origin of the citizenry needs to be protected from itself.
John Leake with Aaron Kheriaty on the way to correct false ideas.
Full Interview
The Kennedy Beacon Podcast EP1: John Leake with Aaron Kheriaty, MD
The FBI Told Twitter The Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was Real The Day The Story Broke, New Testimony Shows
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | July 20, 2023
In newly unveiled testimony, Laura Dehmlow, section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), disclosed that the FBI was aware of the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop as early as 2019. However, the Bureau declined to affirm its legitimacy to major tech companies during the 2020 election period.
That was already known. But it turns out that on the day the New York Post broke its report about the laptop, the FBI confirmed its validity to Twitter, only to retract their statement with a hasty “no further comment” response. From that point forward, the Bureau withheld comment on the laptop’s veracity to other tech giants, leading to widespread confusion and speculation ahead of the 2020 election.
According to a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Dehmlow revealed in her testimony that FBI staff, who had been warning social media platforms of potential Russian interference via a “hack and leak” operation prior to the 2020 election, were aware that the Hunter Biden laptop story was not an instance of Russian disinformation.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
When Twitter inquired about the laptop’s legitimacy on the day of the New York Post’s release, an FBI analyst confirmed its authenticity. However, an FBI attorney swiftly interrupted, leaving the conversation with “no further comment.” Following suit, Facebook also received the same vague response from the Bureau.
As per Dehmlow’s account, Twitter, after receiving initial confirmation about the laptop’s legitimacy, joined Facebook in imposing a censorship campaign that significantly influenced the voting behavior of a large number of Americans. Sharing the link was prohibited on Twitter, and the New York Post account was locked for several weeks. Facebook reduced the story’s visibility as well.
The FBI reportedly had regular interactions with major tech companies leading up to the election but chose to avoid answering direct questions about the laptop’s authenticity after the initial admission to Twitter.
In the backdrop of this confusing narrative, Big Tech was led to believe, by the FBI and other influencers, including the Biden campaign, that the controversial information from Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation aimed at manipulating the election. When, in reality, many consider the censorship of the story to be the true attempt at election manipulation.
The FBI had possession of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop as early as December 2019, a fact confirmed in Gary Shapley’s testimony, an IRS whistleblower, to the House Ways and Means Committee. Yet the FBI chose to maintain its “no comment” narrative until after the 2020 election, further compounding the confusion.
A federal judge’s memorandum ruling in Missouri v. Biden demonstrated that this approach deprived millions of Americans from getting a clear understanding of an important issue in the 2020 presidential election.
Chairman Jordan is now demanding that Wray identify those within the FBI’s FITF who knew about the laptop’s authenticity yet still advocated for the agency to remain silent until after the election. He also demanded all documents, records, and communications related to the FBI’s meetings with Silicon Valley giants since 2017 be handed over by August 3 and that all FBI employees involved in this issue be available for transcribed interviews with the committee.
Report: FBI Analyst Conducted Improper Query of Senator’s Name in Surveillance Database
Sputnik – 21.07.2023
WASHINGTON – An analyst with the FBI conducted an improper search of a US senator’s name in a surveillance database, American media reported on Friday, as lawmakers weigh the future of the agency’s surveillance authorities.
The FBI analyst searched information collected using warrantless surveillance programs using the names of a US senator and a state senator, the report said, citing a recently declassified court document.
The June 2022 searches were reportedly conducted due to information indicating the lawmakers were potentially targeted by foreign intelligence agents. However, the analyst failed to receive approval from higher-ups before conducting a sensitive search involving public officials.
Moreover, the analyst failed to demonstrate the searches would be reasonably likely to produce foreign intelligence or criminal evidence, the report said.
It was also reported the declassified court document notes there is no reason to believe the FBI has improved its compliance with surveillance protocols.
The revelation comes as lawmakers in Congress weigh whether to extend the FBI’s surveillance authorities, following multiple allegations of misuse. US intelligence and national security officials have repeatedly defended the program and its importance to their missions.
The Free Speech Scare
By Jeffrey A. Tucker | Brownstone Institute | July 21, 2023
It was a strange experience watching the House hearing in which Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was testifying. The topic was censorship and how and to what extent federal government agencies under two administrations muscled social media companies to take down posts, ban users, and throttle content. The majority made its case.
What was strange was the minority reaction throughout. They tried to shut down RFK. They moved to go to executive session so that the public could not hear the proceedings. The effort failed. Then they shouted over his words when they were questioning him. They wildly smeared him and defamed him. They even began with an attempt to block him from speaking at all, and 8 Democrats voted to support that.
This was a hearing on censorship and they were trying to censor him. It only made the point.
It became so awful that RFK was compelled to give a short tutorial on the importance of free speech as an essential right, without which all other rights and freedoms are in jeopardy. Even those words he could barely speak given the rancor in the room. It’s fair to say that free speech, even as a core principle, is in grave trouble. We cannot even get a consensus on the basics.
It seemed to viewers that RFK was the adult in the room. Put other ways, he was the preacher of fidelity in the brothel, the keeper of memory in a room full of amnesiacs, the practitioner of sanity in the sanatorium, or, as Mencken might say, the hurler of a dead cat into the temple.
It was oddly strange to hear the voice of wise statesmen in that hothouse culture of infantile corruption: it reminded the public just how far things have fallen. Notably, it was he and not the people who wanted him gagged who was citing scientific papers.
The protests against his statements were shrill and shocking. They moved quickly from “Censorship didn’t happen” to “It was necessary and wonderful” to “We need more of it.” Reporting on the spectacle, the New York Times said these are “thorny questions”: “Is misinformation protected by the First Amendment? When is it appropriate for the federal government to seek to tamp down the spread of falsehoods?”
These are not thorny questions. The real issue concerns who is to be the arbiter of truth?
Such attacks on free speech do have precedent in American history. We have already discussed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 which led to a complete political upheaval that swept Thomas Jefferson into the White House. There were two additional bouts of censorship folly in the 20th century. Both followed great wars and an explosion in government size and reach.
The first came with the Red Scare (1917-1020) following the Great War (WWI). The Bolshevik Revolution and political instability in Europe led to a wild bout of political paranoia in the US that the communists, anarchists, and labor movement were plotting a takeover of the US government. The result was an imposition of censorship along with strict laws concerning political loyalty.
The Espionage Act of 1917 was one result. It is still in force and being deployed today, most recently against former President Trump. Many states passed censorship laws. The feds deported many people suspected of sedition and treason. Suspected communists were hauled in front of Congress and grilled.
The second bout occurred after the Second World War with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Army-McCarthy hearings that led to blacklists and media smears of every sort. The result was a chilling of free speech across American industry that hit media particularly hard. That incident later became legendary due to the exaggerations and disregard for the First Amendment.
How does the Covid-era censorship fit into this historical context? At Brownstone, we’ve compared the wild Covid response to a wartime footing that caused as much trauma on the homeland as previous world wars.
Three years of research, documents, and reporting have established that the lockdowns and all that followed were not directed by public health authorities. They were the veneer for the national security state, which took charge in the month of February 2020 and deployed the full takeover of both government and society in mid-March. This is one reason that it’s been so difficult getting information on how and why all of this happened to us: it’s been mostly classified under the guise of national security.
In other words, this was war and the nation was ruled for a time (and maybe still is) by what amounts to quasi-martial law. Indeed, it felt like that. No one knew for sure who was in charge and who was making all these wild decisions for our lives and work. It was never clear what the penalties would be for noncompliance. The rules and edicts seemed arbitrary, having no real connection to the goal; indeed no one really knew what the goal was besides more and more control. There was no real exit strategy or end game.
As with the two previous bouts of censorship in the last century, there commenced a closure of public debate. It began almost immediately as the lockdowns edict were issued. They tightened over the months and years. Elites sought to plug every leak in the official narrative through every means possible. They invaded every space. Those they could not get to (like Parler) were simply unplugged. Amazon rejected books. YouTube deleted millions of posts. Twitter was brutal, while once-friendly Facebook became the enforcer of regime propaganda.
The hunt for dissenters took strange forms. Those who held gatherings were shamed. People who did not socially distance were called disease spreaders. Walking outside without a mask one day, a man shouted out to me in anger that “masks are socially recommended.” I kept turning that phrase around in my mind because it made no sense. The mask, no matter how obviously ineffective, was imposed as a tactic of humiliation and an exclusionary measure that targeted the incredulous. It was also a symbol: stop talking because your voice does not matter. Your speech will be muffled.
The vaccine of course came next: deployed as a tool to purge the military, public sector, academia, and the corporate world. The moment the New York Times reported that vaccine uptake was lower in states that supported Trump, the Biden administration had its talking points and agenda. The shot would be deployed to purge. Indeed, five cities briefly segregated themselves to exclude the unvaccinated from public spaces. The continued spread of the virus itself was blamed on the noncompliant.
Those who decried the trajectory could hardly find a voice much less assemble a social network. The idea was to make us all feel isolated even if we might have been the overwhelming majority. We just could not tell either way.
War and censorship go together because it is wartime that allows ruling elites to declare that ideas alone are dangerous to the goal of defeating the enemy. “Loose lips sink ships” is a clever phrase but it applies across the board in wartime. The goal is always to whip up the public in a frenzy of hate against the foreign enemy (“The Kaiser!”) and ferret out the rebels, the traitors, the subversives, and promoters of unrest. There is a reason that the protestors on January 6 were called “insurrectionists.” It is because it happened in wartime.
The war, however, was of domestic origin and targeted at Americans themselves. That’s why the precedent of 20th century censorship holds in this case. The war on Covid was in many ways an action of the national security state, something akin to a military operation prompted and administered by intelligence services in close cooperation with the administrative state. And they want to make the protocols that governed us over these years permanent. Already, European governments are issuing stay-at-home recommendations for the heat.
If you had told me that this was the essence of what was happening in 2020 or 2021, I would have rolled my eyes in disbelief. But all evidence Brownstone has gathered since then has shown exactly that. In this case, the censorship was a predictable part of the mix. The Red Scare mutated a century later to become the virus scare in which the real pathogen they tried to kill was your willingness to think for yourself.
Deny, Deflect, Defend: The Censors’ Strategy on Display
Brownstone Institute | July 20, 2023
Despite the uproar surrounding the case, Judge Terry Doughty’s order in Missouri v. Biden was straightforward. It prohibited government actors from colluding with social media companies to censor “content containing protected free speech.”
In other words, the defendants – including the White House, the CDC, and the Department of Justice – must obey the Constitution they swore to uphold by adhering to the First Amendment. The censorship regime responded with familiar doublethink: denying the censorship exists while arguing that it must continue.
On Tuesday, the court held a hearing to consider whether Judge Doughty’s order should be reinstated. The oral arguments revealed the government’s three-part strategy: deny, deflect, and defend. Its lawyers denied the established facts, deflected from the controversy, and defended its actions through outlandish justifications.
In doing so, they demonstrated the censorship apparatus’s lack of remorse for stripping Americans of their constitutional liberties. Even worse, they insist that the totalitarian operations must continue.
- Deny: Blame the Facts
At the hearing, government defendants maintained that plaintiffs have manufactured the case. Like their allies in the media, they argued that allegations of censorship were nothing more than “an assortment of out-of-context quotes and select portions of documents that distort the record to build a narrative that the bare facts simply do not support.”
The censorship is nonexistent, they insist. It is a “thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory,” in the words of Larry Tribe.
Unlike issues of legal interpretation, this is a factual matter. Either government actors colluded with Big Tech to suppress Americans’ free speech rights or they did not. Discovery revealed extensive documentation proving that they did, and the defendants make no effort to explain how Judge Doughty’s 155-page order detailing dozens of violations of the First Amendment is merely “an assortment of out-of-context quotes.”
Journalists including Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Berenson have detailed the “censorship industrial complex,” the entangled web of government agencies, NGOs, and private-public partnerships that seek to control the free flow of information. But reviewing that series of connections and collusions is unnecessary – the defendants’ recorded statements contradict their denial.
“Thank you for the ongoing collaboration,” one bureaucrat wrote after a US Government “industry meeting” with Big Tech companies in October 2020.
White House Advisor Rob Flaherty took a different tack in his demands to Twitter: “Please remove this account immediately.” The company complied within an hour. “Are you guys fucking serious?” he wrote to company officials after they failed to censor critics of the Covid vaccine. “I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.” His boss was similarly direct regarding posts from RFK, Jr. “Hey Folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”
There is no need to recreate Judge Doughty’s 155-page opinion, but the denial of the censorship regime is facially absurd. Alex Berenson’s case, the revelations of the Twitter files, and the undisputed facts of Missouri v. Biden refute the defendant’s premise.
- Deflect: Blame the Russians
Rather than address the case’s inconvenient facts, government lawyers quickly pivoted to their second tactic: deflection. They avoided the case and Judge Doughty’s ruling in favor of a hypothetical narrative.
At one point, they defended government agencies’ right to issue health advisories that say “the vaccines work or smoking is dangerous.” They argued, “There’s nothing unlawful about the government’s use of the bully pulpit.” That reasoning was uncontroversial, but it was not responsive to Judge Doughty’s order.
Under Doughty’s ruling, the White House can denounce journalists, deliver press briefings, publish on social media, enjoy the bully pulpit, and take advantage of the friendly media environment; it just can’t encourage private companies to censor constitutionally protected speech.
The defense conflates free speech with control over information to deflect attention from the censorship at issue. The tactic is not limited to the government’s powers under the order.
During the hearing, the judge asked the defense attorneys whether saying “the COVID vaccine does not work” is constitutionally protected free speech. “That speech itself could be protected,” the attorney responded at one point. After repeatedly refusing to concede that the First Amendment protects political opinions that deviate from President Biden’s agenda, he resorted to Russian fear-mongering.
“Let’s say it was spoken by a covert Russian operative, that would not be protected by free speech,” he told the judge. Like the issue of the government’s “use of the bully pulpit,” restricting Russian operatives’ speech is unrelated to Judge Doughty’s order.
The attorney’s refusal to defend basic First Amendment liberties was telling. The defense instinctively changed the issue from free speech to national security, relying on an oft-used fear tactic to subvert the First Amendment.
These deflections deliberately obfuscated the purpose of the hearings. Defendants implied the plaintiffs sought to ban anti-smoking PSAs and fund Kremlin media campaigns. Like their strategy of denial, the goal was to avoid discussion of their extensive censorship operations.
- Defend: Blame the Virus
When the government was forced to address the case, it resorted to claiming that Covid justified the abolition of constitutional liberties. The pandemic-made-us-censor argument continued the pervasive Doublethink. Eradicating democratic norms was necessary to protect democracy, they reasoned. Previously, the Biden Administration told the court that reversing the order was necessary “to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.”
Defendants argued that the evidence of the case vindicates the government actors. The attorneys said “It shows, in the face of urgent crises, a once-in-a-generation pandemic and bipartisan findings of foreign interference with U.S. elections, the government responsibly exercised its prerogative to speak on matters of public concern.”
They continued, “It promoted accurate information to protect the public and our democracy from these threats. And it used the bully pulpit to call on various sectors of society, including social media companies, to make efforts to reduce the spread of misinformation.”
Demonstrating no remorse, they remain proud of their efforts to usurp the First Amendment because of their self-professed noble aims. They expect this defense to evade judicial scrutiny.
When confronted with past censorship – including CISA’s “switchboarding” leading up to the 2020 election – defendants reasoned that prior conduct was not pertinent to the case because plaintiffs could not prove it will happen again.
They described the Department of Homeland Security’s unconstitutional censorship campaigns as “occurring long in the past.” They argued that health officials’ emails working to silence opponents should be disregarded because they were sent “more than two and a half years ago.”
The censorship apparatus is asking the courts to trust them to act responsibly despite repeatedly demonstrating its indifference, or perhaps disdain, toward the First Amendment.
While the government’s denials and deflections are insulting to the citizens they purport to represent, we must remain focused on their aim: they appealed Doughty’s order because they oppose constitutional restraints on their control of information.
We would hope that requiring the government to obey the Constitution would be uncontroversial; now, it may signify whether the rule of law still stands in the United States.
RFK Jr. Pleads with Fellow Democrats for More Civility and Less Censorship
By Dan Hart | The Washington Stand | July 20, 2023
A fiery hearing held Thursday by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government” unexpectedly became an opportunity for Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reflect on civility and the seminal importance of free speech in the wake of Democratic committee members accusing him of being racist and anti-Semitic.
In his opening statement, Kennedy announced that he would be setting aside his prepared remarks so that he could address the accusations of racism and anti-Semitism leveled at him by ranking member Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-Fla.), and others. Kennedy’s testimony ended up becoming an impassioned plea for Americans of all political persuasions to become more empathetic of each other and to have greater respect for the free speech protections enshrined in the Constitution.
“Debate — congenial, respectful debate — is the fertilizer, it’s the water, it’s the sunlight for our democracy,” he said, after noting that his speech in April announcing his Democratic 2024 presidential bid was deplatformed by YouTube. “We need to be talking to each other.”
Kennedy then referred to a letter signed by 102 of his fellow Democrats in Congress that attempted to get him barred from testifying at the hearing because of his supposed “anti-Semitism,” noting that “this itself is evidence of the problem that this hearing was convened to address. This is an attempt to censor a censorship hearing.”
“Censorship is antithetical to our [Democratic] party,” Kennedy continued. “It was appalling to my father, to my uncle [John F. Kennedy], to FDR, Harry Truman, Thomas Jefferson. … [Opposition to censorship] sets us apart from all the other forms of government. We need to be able to talk. The First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was written for the speech that nobody likes you for.”
He went on to observe that the Biden administration invented the word “malinformation” to censor him and others. “There was no misinformation on my Instagram account. Everything I put on that account was cited and sourced by peer-reviewed publications or government databases. … I was removed for something they called ‘malinformation.’ Malinformation is information that is true but is inconvenient to the government, that they don’t want people to hear. That’s antithetical to the values of our country.”
Kennedy further explained that after he announced his candidacy for the presidency, it was harder for the administration and social media platforms to censor him. “So now I’m subject to this new form of censorship which is called ‘targeted propaganda.’ … I am being censored here … through smears, through misinterpretations of what I’ve said, through lies, through association, which is a tactic that we all thought had been discredited and dispensed with after the Army-McCarthy hearings in the 1950s. But those same weapons are now being deployed against me to silence me.”
Kennedy then launched into a fervent appeal for the Democratic Party to turn away from polarization, censorship, and demonization.
“This toxic polarization is destroying our country today. How do we deal with that? This kind of division is more dangerous for our country than any time since the American Civil War. … Every Democrat on this committee believes we need to end that polarization. Do you think you can do that by censoring people? I’m telling you: you cannot. That only aggravates and amplifies the problem. We need to start being kind to each other. We need to start being respectful to each other. We need to start restoring the comity to this chamber and to the rest of America. It has to start here.”
After noting that his uncle, former Senator Ted Kennedy, was able to pass a record amount of legislation by reaching across the aisle, Kennedy discussed the cordial relationship between Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.
“There are no two people in the country who feel more differently about American politics than these two people, and yet they are friends,” he observed. “Dennis attended his children’s basketball games, attended his daughter’s wedding. This is how we need to start treating each other in this country. We have to stop trying to destroy each other, to marginalize, to vilify, to gaslight each other. We have to find that place inside of ourselves of light, of empathy, of compassion. And above all, we need to elevate the Constitution of the United States which was written for hard times. That has to be the premier compass for all of our activities.”
Immediately after Kennedy finished his statement, Wasserman Schultz moved to halt the hearing, claiming that his past statements on race violated the committee rules. Her motion was voted down. Later in the hearing, Wasserman Schultz refused to allow Kennedy to fully respond to her direct questioning of him regarding his reference to an NIH-funded study that suggested that the coronavirus may have been engineered to target particular ethnicities. Instead of allowing Kennedy to provide context for what he said, Wasserman Schultz repeatedly interrupted his attempted response by stating “reclaiming my time” over and over again.
Later in the hearing, Kennedy issued a stern warning about where government censorship of the citizenry can lead.
“A government that can censor its critics has license for every atrocity,” he underscored. “It is the beginning of totalitarianism. There’s never been a time in history when we look back, and the guys who were censoring people were the good guys. All of us grew up reading Arthur Koestler, Robert Heinlein, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and they were all saying the same thing: once you start censoring, you’re on your way to dystopia and totalitarianism.”
Ireland’s public broadcaster – undeclared earnings bad, endorsing The Great Reset good?
By Gavin O’Reilly | OffGuardian | July 17, 2023
Over the past several weeks, Ireland has been rocked by a scandal related to the significant undeclared earnings of Ryan Tubridy, the most prominent presenter on the public broadcaster of the 26-County State, RTÉ, and the long-time host of its flagship talk show, The Late Late Show, until his departure earlier this year – prior to the revelations related to his salary becoming public knowledge.
In response, Director General of RTÉ Dee Forbes tendered her resignation, and both Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly have been brought before a government tribunal to account for the undeclared earnings, something that has received significant media coverage across Ireland, including OJ Simpson-style live television coverage of the proceedings.
What has been noticeable however is how this extensive media attention lies in stark contrast to the virtually non-existent mainstream media coverage of RTÉ’s endorsement of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset initiative over the past three years, intended to usher in a totalitarian global corporate dictatorship, where technology is used to stifle and censor debate.
From the outset of the ‘Covid Pandemic’ in March 2020, Ireland, like numerous other countries, introduced stringent lockdowns under the guise of preventing the spread of an alleged virus. In reality, the forced closure of vast swathes of society served the purpose of making it virtually impossible for smaller businesses to operate, thus creating a greater dependence on corporate outlets such as Amazon.
As a result, the global lockdowns saw the greatest upwards transfer of wealth from the working and middle-classes in history, with corporate elements receiving upwards of $1tn in profit.
With Taoiseach Leo Varadkar being a WEF ‘Young Global Leader’, RTÉ was fully complicit in endorsing the ‘Pandemic’ narrative, WEF-linked scientist Luke O’Neill being a regular guest on The Late Late Show under Ryan Tubridy in order to further its promotion.
The public broadcaster would also condemn Irish anti-lockdown protests as being ‘organised by the far-right’ in lock-step with similar mainstream media descriptions being ascribed to protests in New Zealand, France and Canada – each country also being under the respective rule of WEF ‘Young Global Leaders’, Jacinda Ardern, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau.
What would be perhaps the most sinister aspect of RTÉ’s two-year promotion of the ‘Pandemic’ narrative however, was the use of children to promote uptake of the ‘Covid’ Vaccine during the 2020 edition of The Late Late Toy Show, a seasonal edition of the programme used to showcase that Christmas’s latest toy selection, one that is traditionally very popular amongst families with young children.
Indeed, Ryan Tubridy himself would later double down on his promotion of the vaccine by infamously using his radio platform to encourage listeners to disinvite guests from weddings who had not been vaccinated, his incendiary remarks coming amidst a time when access to bars, restaurants, hairdressers and gyms in the southern Irish state, was forbidden to those who had not yet received a ‘Covid’ jab and the resulting digital QR code that would subsequently be placed on their smartphone.
This enforced segregation, in Ireland and further afield, served as a dry-run for the introduction of mandatory digital ID, a key part of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ that the WEF envisages will come about as a result of the Great Reset, with the ultimate goal being a cashless society. One where the corporate-government alliance has full control over its citizen’s financial transactions, and can easily impose sanctions against those it deems to be dissidents.
Indeed, this very situation would play out during last year’s Freedom Convoy in Canada, when Justin Trudeau would use emergency legislation to freeze the bank accounts of Truckers protesting against his decision to mandate that truck drivers re-entering Canada from the US had to be vaccinated. A truly dystopian move, and one that could be far more easily implemented in a society with no physical cash.
RTÉ’s two-year endorsement of the introduction of such a totalitarian society has come in for little criticism since the sudden collapse of the ‘Pandemic’ narrative last January however, the undeclared earnings of its chief propagandist being a far more newsworthy item it would seem.
Gavin O’Reilly is an Irish Republican activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism; he was a writer for the American Herald Tribune from January 2018 up until their seizure by the FBI in 2021, with his work also appearing on The Duran, Al-Masdar, MintPress News, Global Research and SouthFront. He can be reached through Twitter and Facebook and supported on Patreon.
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UN declares war on ‘dangerous’ conspiracy theories
‘World is not secretly run by elites’
Free West Media | August 5, 2022
UNESCO says it is seriously concerned about the increase in “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories”. And they plan to put an end to it through a network of informants.
“Conspiracy theories can be dangerous,” the UN agency warned. “Often they ignore scientific evidence and polarize society with dire consequences. This has to stop.”
Unesco’s director-general warned that “conspiracy theories” could cause damage to people as well as to their health. “They reinforce misconceptions about the pandemic, reinforcing stereotypes that can fuel violence and violent, extremist ideologies,” said Audrey Azoulay.
The UN agency has launched a campaign to help people identify, debunk and report “conspiracy theories” to prevent them from spreading further.
This campaign is being carried out in collaboration with the European Commission, Twitter and the World Jewish Congress. The UN has created a toolkit to “debunk” such theories and smear anyone who dares to claim that governments are not fair and transparent.
The UN also warned that George Soros, the Rothschilds and Israel should not be linked to “alleged conspiracies”.
World events “are not secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful players with malicious intent,” the UN agency maintained.
And if anyone therefore comes across someone who believes that the world elite is plotting to consolidate power or direct events, then that person needs to take action. According to the UN agency, when meeting a “conspiracy theorist”, under no circumstances should one enter into a discussion. … continue
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