Crisis Update - A Free Speech Call To Arms

Incoming U.S. Republican House triggers unprecedented propaganda and censorship

Dec 04, 2022

Democratic spin meister David Brock to launch First Facts ‘Cheka’ to control news.
Fear of looming Congressional investigations prompts attack as best form of defence.
Massive funding of research and messaging, with ad hominem attacks on individuals.

Twitter reveals collusion with White House, FBI and Democratic Committe.
State corporate media abuzz with hive-mind fury, despearate to sting Matt Taibbi.
Unified response, identical talking points, reveals that the old media is dead.

Democratic Party Rapid Response Unit copies NATO and European Union messaging.
Pepper the facts and the messenger — kill the conversation, set the narrative.
Clue to globalist, militarist character of the deep state and its uniparty.

(About 3,000 words or 14 minutes of your time.)

David Brock — one of these persons is a danger only to himself.

Dec 4, 2022

This week it was my turn to feel the power of censorship with the deletion of my Discord server, which is inconsequential yet coeval with some truly ground-shaking developments.

A massive news management operation is about to be launched by the Democratic Party spin meister David Brock.

Given the way in which state, military and political operatives have been embedded in news organizations over the past three years of Covid, this could be a formidable force for censorship and propaganda.

It should concern citizens of any political persuasion because it suggests that the system is no longer representative nor responsive. It has become a top-down, hyper-financialised, psychological nudge mechanism for manipulating the public.

Politics has always been more corrupt than politicians or citizens care to admit. We are schooled to believe “things like that” don’t happen in our neck of the woods.

There is a difference, however, between money and connections purchasing an advantage within a plurality; and a world in which the people are managed like livestock to produce an outcome desired by the owners and the controllers.

The latest example of this is the reaction of state corporate journalists to the revelation that Twitter colluded in censorship with the White House, the FBI and the Democratic Party before the 2020 election.

The evidence, revealed by the Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi, is bad enough: that Twitter’s staff took instruction from the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee; and that its head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde played a key role in banning president Trump under the nose of then CEO Jack Dorsey. Twitter restricted users from sharing The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story which suggested influence peddling by the Biden family in China and Ukraine.

A political consultant conveyed to Twitter an informal poll of Democratic Congressmen who suggested that the First Amendment right to free speech was “not absolute.”

The response of the journalist hive is even more alarming: identical talking points repeated ad nauseam to attack Taibbi, as fellow progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald points out on his Substack.

Whatever you think of Elon Musk — and his technocratic heritage raises many flags; look up his grandfather Joshua Haldeman — his cleaning of the Twitter stables was overdue.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”

It was a clever move to bring in Taibbi to review the “Twitter files.” As a left-leaning journalist he could not be called biased — but, oh, he can! The state corporate media pack has no trouble turning on one of their own.

The response has been ad hominem attacks on Taibbi, while the state corporate networks spin the Twitter files as a nothing-to-see damp sqib of information long in the public domain.

Not only are these the tactics of the political gutter and patently untrue, the aspect that should set off a thinking person’s BS detector is the uniformity of these media talking heads; a feature of the state corporate media in the time of Covid.

Not-so-hidden hand

The answer to who finances or directs this narrative performance lies in another document that was released around the same time, but which is getting somewhat less attention.

The David Brock memo leaked last weekend exposed how the political system is controlled by a bipartisan tsunami of money flowing through non-profits and controlling journalists, district attorneys, seeking to influence the legal system and the bureaucracy and, as we've seen in 2020 and 2022, the very electoral system.

The memo was drawn up as a briefing for the uniparty dated Oct 25th, 2022 — Facts First USA: A SWAT Team to Counter Republican Congressional Investigations.

Tellingly, it seems always to be the same groups behind these non profits — though the money is not always private.

In the memo Brock boasts that during the 2022 election he controlled “an $80 million dollar media campaign in three swing states to elect President Biden.”

One of his companions runs “Project 65” that targets attorneys and tries to get anyone who questions election integrity — can you credit it — disbarred!

The non-profit’s name suggests that it will once again operate via the meme of "keeping you safe." As a 501(c)(4) its sources of funding are hidden, channeling money in the service of the deep state and potentially even foreign ones.

The journalist Jovan Pulitzer points out that this combines media influence with a campaign of intimidation. If anyone has doubts about 2020, the article by Molly Ball in Time magazine confirmed that the Transition Integrity project, identified before the election, was indeed implemented to “fortify” the Biden win. [1]

About a month before the recent U.S. mid-terms, when polls were predicting a “red wave,” Brock wrote that the Republicans would win the house with a wafer-thin margin — and “with an anticipated majority that will be smaller than Republicans initially hoped, they will have a harder time passing legislation and so will place greater emphasis on investigations.”

How did he know? The same people who fund Brock also fund the election initiatives, including Arabella Partners, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Mark Zuckerberg’s “charity” on election counting, as Mel K points out in an interview with Pulitzer.

In 2022 the donations came from Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, and in the fog of war it is conceivable that taxpayer money flowed from the billions unaccounted for in Ukraine. In this way money benefits not individual politicans so much as the status quo, fueling the fire from which the citizens take the iron to hammer upon the anvil their own manacles.

An example: John Podesta, the founder of the Center for American Progress, who oversees $370 billion in clean energy investments as the president’s domestic climate adviser. You can be sure some of this money will finance media outlets that promote the Green message and counter reporting that offends its narrative. That, of course, won’t be their only political agenda.

Managed outcomes

It is a self-defeating mind game, so why would society take such a route? Or to put it another way, what is the outcome? Such contempt for the electorate risks societal breakdown — “systemic and structural,” as the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab puts it.

The state corporate media no longer exists as a check on government — it’s not even interested in the news; it is merely a tool of manipulation: a vector for “what you need to know.”

The memo issued to Democratic activists before the mid term elections, concerning how to deal with potential loss of majority, is available below as a PDF and read aloud by Jovan Pulitzer to Soundcloud. [2]

Timeline of scandal

If you want a brief summary of the great political scandals of our time, the memo is a must-read. Brock reviews past investigations, from the Clinton’s Whitewater real-estate scandal to Vince Foster’s “suicide,” to the Internal Revenue Service’s politically-motivated targeting of conservative organizations under Obama.

It is not a mea culpa but a “lessons learned” review of how investigations occupied previous Democratic administrations and led to further unfortunate revelations. House inquiries have a habit of revealing additional compromising information. The Bengazi investigation exposed then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's secret email server.

Upcoming investigations that Brock expects include:

Hunter Biden, Burisma, CEFC China Energy. “As Representative [Elise] Stefanik recently tweeted: The public has a right to know who the big guy is.”
Afghanistan. “This investigation, unlike that involving Hunter Biden, will have the imprimatur of credibility and, quite possibly, bipartisanship. It also has the potential to reach deep into the Biden Administration, with so many different departments and officials involved in the planning and carrying out of the effort. Indeed, inspectors general from Homeland Security, State, Pentagon, Health and Human Services, and USAID have already been conducting reviews.”
Border policy. “Republicans contend that Secretary Mayorkas is responsible for “the influx of fentanyl and illegal immigration… Rep. Jordan plans to focus on at least two areas: border enforcement and what he labels as the Department of Homeland Security’s “disinformation board.”
Covid. “To appease their base,” Republicans are planning to tackle Dr. Fauci, lockdowns, mask mandates, COVID’s laboratory origins, and, tangentially related, the baby formula shortage. “The attacks Republicans are planning against Dr. Fauci come directly from the far-right conspiracy theorists and evidence-deniers who now dominate the party.”
Defending the bureaucrats. “Discrediting Dr. Fauci discredits administrative agency work more broadly, which has long been a goal of Republicans.”
Department of Justice. “FBI misdeeds in the Mar-a-Lago raid, bias in the Department’s work prosecuting January 6th insurrectionists and Steve Bannon, and in investigating the false electors... Republicans will seek to discredit the FBI, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and (ultimately) jury that are responsible for his fate. Republican fealty to Trump is too strong for them to do anything but impeach Attorney General Garland.”

Once Congress begins an investigation it can lead anywhere so it is impossible to predict all topics and individuals who will become targets.

Republicans themselves will be under pressure from constituents. The only way they can avoid being punished at the polls, writes Brock, is to vote to impeach Biden.

The problem:

“The media today are radically different, with misinformation and extreme, conspiratorial reporting running rampant. Additionally, our politics is far more calcified and tribal, with a large percentage of Republicans being willing to believe anything bad about Democrats with no regard for whether it is grounded in reality – the rise of QAnon and the Big Lie being prime examples.

“These facts combine to put significant pressure on mainstream journalists to act quickly and to accept packaged narratives without confirming the facts. As a result, mainstream thought and opinion has become contaminated. We must prevent the pollution from further seeping into news coverage at the expense of factual reporting.”

The solution:

“For these reasons, a key objective of any effort to counter the Republican strategy will be to limit the reach of the right-wing rage machine — to keep it within their own echo chamber rather than allowing it to become part of the mainstream media coverage. The White House cannot be the sole nucleus for publicly responding to the onslaught of congressional investigations for a number of reasons.”

Only a truly independent outside group with no ties to the Biden White House coordinating a bipartisan response will be an effective counter to the right- wing smear machine.
Some of the topics may be too personal or delicate for the White House to be responding or to even be seen as directing a response.
Finally, the media — and the public, as well — will consider voices from outside the Administration as more credible than those inside.

The model:

A SWAT team “must be in place to ensure that the media and public do not accept the false narrative that flows from congressional investigations.”
A standalone hybrid Super PAC that under the law is able to coordinate with the administration.
Bolster talking points in the media, "so that the right-wing conspiracy theories remained cabined."
Rapid publication of books on topics so these can be used to counter investigative journalists - Media Matters for example arranged the publication of The Benghazi Hoax.

The strategy:

“Similarly, even before Republicans take control in January 2023, Facts First will distribute media guidelines for covering these alleged scandals — putting the mainstream reporters on notice that they will be held accountable if they simply buy into Republican propaganda…

“But Facts First will win the war of public opinion by controlling the narrative – not just by defending against the partisan witch hunt, but by aggressively turning the tables on the attackers with offensive maneuvers and strong counter narratives that reveal their motivations and misconduct and tell our side of the story. We will create an environment of backlash against the Republicans so that the 2024 elections can be decided on the merits.”

The team:

The Facts First team draws significantly from The 65 Project which has been actively pursuing the lawyers who played a role in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

In addition to legal analysis to undercut Republican allegations, the accent is on control of the media narrative:

Research – a fast, dynamic, and well-structured research team prepared to dig in on any topic surfaced by the investigations as well as to engage in opposition research against those involved in the efforts.
Surrogate coordinating – assembling, arming with talking points, and booking a ready group of bipartisan, nationally recognized speakers without direct ties to the Biden Administration to combat the narrative.
Rapid response – through the research, legal analysis, and surrogate operation, be ready to respond quickly, nimbly, and, when appropriate, with ferocity.
Digital strategy – leveraging social media and digital marketing to engage key audiences and ensure that facts are presented to counter Republican-driven disinformation narratives, preventing lies and half-truths from enveloping the mainstream media coverage.
Earned and paid communications – bringing the fight to the airwaves with pointed events and paid advertising.

One final note - the American Bridge 21st Century, Super PAC is the heart of the media operation. It claims to the largest footage and information source in politics, a research tool bigger than the Library of Congress. It runs “large-scale paid media programs that center storytellers and utilize a data-driven approach.”

Censoring “hate”

If you think this is a purely political, privately-funded initiative, be aware that the government bureaucracies are flying in a holding pattern, readying their “hate bills.”

The Irish government has passed a law permitting harsh censorship under a wide range of “emergencies”. Its hate crimes legislation is a classic of the genre being desperately vague. Hate does not need to be the motive — the crime may be unrelated — but if a person has demonstrated hatred of a protected group, an additional offence is tacked on. [3]

German police have launched their annual crackdown on “hate speech” and carried out 91 operations in 14 German states. They arrested nine people. As well as defamation and libel, accusations include the abstruse “incitement to hate.” [4]

The European Union’s Digital Services Act came into force last month and in the name of human dignity demands companies protect children, fight “disinformation campaigns,” counter online violence against women and enforce the party line on the pandemic of the day. [5]

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who oversees digital policy for the 27 nations, warned Musk after his acquisition of Twitter: “There is a European rulebook, and you should live by it.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Musk’s purchase of Twitter would warrant a government review if deemed to raise national security concerns.

The New Zealand government confirmed it has direct access to a Facebook portal where governments can flag stories for deletion. [6]

Governments have been using the tech companies as a means to control the political debate. The content that tech companies have censored includes criticism of government policies and reporting of corruption. Under hate speech laws governments are leaving the definition of hate to tech companies.

Britain’s Online Safety Bill (OSB) would fine tech companies up to 10 per cent of their annual turnover if they fail to ensure content is not false, not intended as a threat or reaching vulnerable audiences.

The OSB will be amended to apply “legal, but harmful” to children but how can a tech company, facing billions of dollars in fines, be sure content doesn’t reach anyone under 18 — only by censoring everything or by employing digital proof of identity, which is one of the objectives of the Rockefeller-backed Common Pass and Bill Gates-backed ID2020.

The editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson wrote that Britain was sleepwalking into a system far harsher than anything that the EU or the US is proposing, and could end up with “one of the most draconian regimes in the free world.” [7]

For decades media companies have cut their spending on news, while the Internet and industry consolidation have put the local press out of business. Search engines don’t sell much advertising alongside news stories and, if they face potential fines for distributing content, they may simply cut back on news, warns Nelson.

The route that governments are going is unnecessarily complicated, beginning with the privileges afforded to tech companies in the U.S. under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This declares Facebook and Twitter to be platforms which can’t be sued for slander.

If governments force Facebook and Twitter to take editorial decisions about the content of articles — to block one story and promote another — then effectively they become publishers.

If governments pursue the logic of censorship, they will end up demanding people browse the web using a digital ID — ending the partial anonymity of the net. This is a path that ends with an Internet kill switch, such as Russia has, which can isolate its population from the world wide web.

This is ultimately not consistent with the Internet as a place to create communities, share information, and to use creative talents to tailor the web for friends. Already the excuse of “spreading misinformation” is being used as an excuse to close down such communities.

The answer, of course, is not to censor. Laws already exist against threats of violence and defamation, and against abuse including sexual, as well as obscenity. Academia and two generations of students are already familiar with trigger warnings: content may offend; proceed at your own risk.

Benign policies, from officials who cared for the people, would have no need of blindfolds and gags. Censorship is about keeping the people in the dark, or preventing citizens from resisting.

One is forced to conclude that since governments fear open discussion, they have something to hide.

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