With so many other big news events garnering media attention and a “boy who cried wolf” aura to all these highly partisan Congressional investigations, another House Republican led hearing into alleged Democrat weaponization of the federal government passed by last week with little notice. The opening witness statements were interesting and led me to some googling. The linked hearing video starts at the 36 minute mark. Committee Chairman, Jim Jordan, delivered his opening statement, followed by Democrat Representative, Stacey Plaskett, whose opening statement was a very typical Democrat, “nothing to see/Republicans are wasting our time” mantra. Plaskett was zinged last summer for what appeared to me to be a Freudian slip in an interview, where she said Donald Trump should be shot. She immediately backtracked.
Being weary of partisan investigations and Congressional grandstanding, I haven’t watched the entire hearing and don’t know if I’ll sit through the full three hours, but the opening witness statements included some information that likely is important. This hearing is an expansion of information by investigative journalists, Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi, who looked into Twitter files Elon Musk provided to them when he bought Twitter last year and a few other witnesses, who spoke on free speech and censorship.
Yesterday I watched a YouTube video by an older lady homesteader, who was talking about her first experience having one of her videos removed from YouTube. I’m not going to mention her name, because I don’t want to cause her any harm. She was so cautious about her words, as she tried to explain her video YouTube pulled. That video was from six years ago. That would hint there’s a big purge of information effort ongoing. She related her social media history getting online with her gardening videos and setting up a blog. She said that video was from a National Heirloom Expo event, where she recorded a panel of speakers, one who is a current presidential candidate and they were discussing a chemical in a popular weed-killer. Some video from six years ago, by a small homesteading You Tube channel about a panel discussion at an heirloom seed expo was just banned…
No matter how much I’d like to move on from the American spin information war, I remain convinced this information war remains a serious threat to American free speech, our personal liberty and to our republic writ large. Some will likely consider this an overstatement or hysteria, but I believe it’s reality. While most of America, myself included, with all the other news events happening, didn’t pay an iota of attention to last week’s House hearing on the weaponization of the federal government, we probably should have been taking down notes.
It’s become a regular thing for several years to see YouTube videos where the content creator(s) mentions having videos demonetized or pulled. Similar complaints about social media moderation have been ongoing on other social media platforms. Of course, the most famous social media moderation action occurred on Jan. 8, 2021, when Twitter permanently banned former president, Donald J. Trump’s personal Twitter account. Although, I’d rather not be writing about the very online American spin information war, it’s real and it’s expanding and accelerating.
In 1998 the Clinton spin team launched what they termed a “scorched earth” spin effort to derail the Clinton impeachment investigation. Looking back at their rather thuggish efforts at witness intimidation and tampering (all women), cable news repetitive messaging barrages, with James Carville ranting nightly, and their nascent efforts at online spin information warfare on emerging social engagement venues (precursors to today’s social media platforms) things were less sophisticated than today’s high-tech/surreal psychological manipulation efforts at information manipulation and control. It’s always about control.
The Patriot Act, passed during the GWB Bush presidency, dramatically loosened the restraints on our intelligence agencies to gather information and monitor, not only foreigners, but American citizens. Sophistication in the Dem’s spin war grew and all sorts of academics devised theories and media manipulation tools to try to police and manipulate the vast media information terrain. By the Obama years, ideas and programs emerged to use things like behavioral nudge theory to manipulate (nudge) Americans into making better choices, especially in the health area. Nudge theory was the brainchild of American academic, Richard Thaler and popularized by a 2008 book, Nudge, written by Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The Obama administration embraced not only Sunstein’s wife, Samantha Power, who served in the Obama State Department and later as US ambassador to the UN, they embraced incorporating nudge theory into US government programs to nudge Americans on what to think.
We’ve come a long way baby, as the first witness opening statement by Michael Shellenberger asserted there’s an entire “censorship industrial complex,” that formed and has been evolving since 2017. He described the formation of the Cyber Threat Intelligence League in 2017. He related that he received whistleblower information and this sounds eerily like another version of the Steele dossier, replete with an assist by people in intelligence circles in the UK and the US. Here’s a bit from the Schellenberge, Taibbi, Gutentag, Substack piece, CTIL Files #1: US And UK Military Contractors Created Sweeping Plan For Global Censorship In 2018, New Documents Show, published on November 28, 2023:
“The whistleblower alleges that a leader of CTI League, a “former” British intelligence analyst, was “in the room” at the Obama White House in 2017 when she received the instructions to create a counter-disinformation project to stop a “repeat of 2016.”
So, while this is an assertion by some journalists right now, who claim they have a whistleblower providing information and documents, we’ll have to see what information comes out. It’s worth remembering Trump’s inauguration was January 20, 2017 and the Obama team, Democrats and the vast liberal media apparatus in America were going bonkers about “Trump the Authoritarian” and desperate to #Resist Trump, by any means necessary.
Another of the witnesses at this House hearing was Canadian Free Press journalist, Rupa Subramanya, who related what’s been going on in Canada to quell free speech. Using the COVID hysteria, Canada passed a new law, which allows the government to police speech and “debank” citizens for violating the speech laws. Subramanya testified more than 800 Canadians have had their bank accounts frozen, so they can’t access their own money.
Back in August I wrote a blog post, Who are the totalitarians?, where I mentioned efforts to crackdown on speech in the UK, Germany, Ireland and other countries were escalating. Now, we’re learning about a secret, hybrid UK-US program to monitor and control speech in America, hatched in the Obama White House, right before Trump took office, with tentacles into US and UK intelligence circles, but outside of executive branch (Trump’s) control and Congressional oversight, but allegedly having access to government funds.
And, as a reminder, in April 2022, the Biden administration launched, the short-lived Disinformation Governance Board, within the Department of Homeland Security, headed by a flaming liberal, Trump-hating, COVID zealot, Nina Jankowicz, who had tweeted during 2020 that she wanted the government to get tough and lock us down. That DHS effort lasted three weeks, but never fear, the left will always try another avenue to push their progressive agenda through.
Again, if this story about a “CTI league” operating outside of government control or oversight, yet with powerful partisan political guiding hands and access to government funding, is true… Who are the totalitarians?
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