Is Free Speech A Relic In America?

Is the First Amendment becoming a historic relic? On July 4, 2023, federal judge Terry Doughty condemned the Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” That verdict was ratified by a federal appeals court decision in September 2023 that concluded that Biden administration “officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government.”

In earlier times in America, such policies would have faced sweeping condemnation from across the political spectrum. But major media outlets like the Washington Post have rushed to the barricades to defend the Biden war on “misinformation.” Almost half of Democrats surveyed in September 2023 affirmed that free speech should be legal “only under certain circumstances.” Fifty-five percent of American adults support government suppression of “false information” – even though only 20 percent trust the government.

The broad support for federal censorship is perplexing considering that courts have vividly laid out the government’s First Amendment violations. Doughty delivered 155 pages of damning details of federal browbeating, jawboning, and coercion of social-media companies. Doughty ruled that federal agencies and the White House “engaged in coercion of social media companies” to delete Americans’ comments on Afghanistan, Ukraine, election procedures, and other subjects. He issued an injunction blocking the feds from “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

Censors reigned from the start of the Biden era. Barely two weeks after Biden’s inauguration, White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty demanded that Twitter “immediately” remove a parody account of Biden’s relatives. Twitter officials suspended the account within 45 minutes but complained they were already “bombarded” by White House censorship requests at that point.

Biden White House officials ordered Facebook to delete humorous memes, including a parody of a future television ad: “Did you or a loved one take the COVID vaccine? You may be entitled….” The White House continually denounced Facebook for failing to suppress more posts and videos that could inspire “vaccine hesitancy” — even if the posts were true. Facebook decided that the word “liberty” was too hazardous in the Biden era; to placate the White House, the company suppressed posts “discussing the choice to vaccinate in terms of personal or civil liberties.”

Flaherty was still unsatisfied and raged at Facebook officials in a July 15, 2021, email: “Are you guys f–king serious?” The following day, President Biden accused social-media companies of “killing people” by failing to suppress all criticism of COVID vaccines.

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Inside the battle to water down the UFO bill that will disclose confidential ‘non-human intelligence’ data to the public set be signed by President Biden

Joe Biden is set to sign into law eye-popping legislation citing ‘technologies of unknown origin and non-human intelligence’ this month – with top lawmakers pushing for a giant leap in UFO disclosure.

But UFO activists say the legislation has already been ‘gutted’, and blame congress members funded by big defense companies for watering down the bill.

Behind closed doors in the halls of Congress, a tooth-and-nail fight has been raging over disclosure of what the government knows about UFOs.

On one side are whistleblowers and former top intelligence officials, who claim knowledge of a secret program that has allegedly retrieved crashed flying saucers – and who have convinced top lawmakers to back them, including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Senate intelligence committee ranking member Marco Rubio, and Senate armed services committee member Mike Rounds.

On the other is the $112 billion defense company Lockheed Martin, and two powerful House Republicans to whom it donates thousands of dollars: House intelligence committee chair Mike Turner, and House armed services committee chair Mike Rogers.

The fight began in July this year, when Schumer introduced a groundbreaking bill that would mandate a panel of experts with presidential-level authority to sift through government UFO records with the aim of disclosing them to the public.

It also gave the government the power to seize any ‘technologies of unknown origin’ or even ‘biological evidence of non-human intelligence’ held by private companies.

The apparent references to alien bodies and tech were shocking, in a piece of legislation put forward by senators as senior as Schumer and Rounds.

And proponents of the amendment point to its fierce opposition by senior House Republicans as a sign that they touched a nerve.

Sources close to the bill’s drafting said lawmakers decided to put forward the legislation after classified briefings by whistleblowers who allegedly worked on crashed UFOs recovered by the US government and handed to defense contractors, in secret programs not disclosed to Congress.

Schumer and Rounds said their bill was modeled on the 1992 law that led to the disclosure of records about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Sources told DailyMail.com the legislation was drafted with input from former officials who worked on the Pentagon’s programs investigating ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena’ (UAP).

These include Jay Stratton, who headed the Defense Department’s UAP Task Force from 2018 to 2021, his former chief scientist Travis Taylor, and program predecessor Luis Elizondo. 

The most involved with the drafting was David Grusch, a senior intelligence official who later became an Air Force liaison to the Task Force, and has claimed to Congress that the US has recovered multiple crashed UFOs.

The bill passed in a Senate vote, but key parts were stripped out by top lawmakers in the House before it was officially added as an amendment to the annual defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed its final vote on Thursday. 

Ohio representative and UFO skeptic Mike Turner told News Nation Schumer’s original 64-page bill was ‘poorly drafted’ and complained that ‘no one has even raised it’ with him.

In an interview on podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, Grusch called out Turner and Rogers for ‘blocking’ the bill.

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JOE BIDEN KEEPS REPEATING HIS FALSE CLAIM THAT HE SAW PICTURES OF BEHEADED BABIES

ON OCTOBER 11, four days after the Hamas-led attacks in Israel, President Joe Biden addressed a group of Jewish community leaders in the Indian Treaty Room of the Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” Biden said. “I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.”

It was a jarring statement. And it was false.

Biden had seen no such pictures, nor received any such confirmation. He made those comments after Nicole Zedeck, a journalist for Israel’s i24 News, reported that 40 babies had been decapitated, citing Israeli soldiers at the scene of the attacks at Kfar Aza. A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently stated that babies and toddlers had been found with their “heads decapitated.”

Three hours later, Biden promoted the claim to the world and asserted he personally saw pictures of the horrifying scene, giving the story supreme legitimacy.

Hamas denied the allegation, and other Israeli journalists at the scene began reporting they had not seen evidence such beheadings had occurred nor had they been told it had happened by any of the Israeli soldiers they spoke with. Zedeck, the reporter from i24 News who was first to spread the allegation, later tweeted that “soldiers told me they believe 40 babies/children were killed. The exact death toll is still unknown as the military continues to go house to house and find more Israeli casualties.”

An anchor at the network defended the reporter and said that three separate Israel Defense Forces officials had told i24 News “that around 40 babies & small children were murdered in Kfar Aza, some burned, some beheaded.” CBS News and CNN also spread Israeli assertions that babies and toddlers had been decapitated.

Eventually, the Israeli government was forced to admit it had no evidence to support the claim, though it continued to imply that it might be true. A military spokesperson said that the IDF would not further investigate the beheading charges because it would be “disrespectful for the dead.”

White House officials then “clarified” what they claimed Biden was actually referring to. “U.S. officials and the president have not seen pictures or confirmed such reports independently,” reported the Washington Post. “The president based his comments about the alleged atrocities on the claims from Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports from Israel, according to the White House.” The purpose of such graphic descriptions, according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, was “to underscore the utter depravity and the barbaric nature with which these terrorists murdered and butchered innocent Israeli civilians.” Kirby, who dodged direct questions about whether Biden had personally seen any photos, added, “And that further underscores why — and this is what the President’s specific point was yesterday — that we got to stay with Israel. We’ve got to continue to make sure they have the support that they need.”

Biden has never publicly retracted the incendiary claims. And the Washington Post reported that the president had been urged by staffers not to make that allegation in his speech on October 11, “because those reports were unverified.”

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Blaze journalist who covered Jan 6 to be charged by Biden DOJ

Journalist for The Blaze Steve Baker has been notified by the FBI that he is going to be charged by Biden’s Department of Justice for his work covering the protest and riot at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. He was told to surrender to authorities on Tuesday and has not yet been made aware of the charges.

He said that he entered the Capitol on that day, “like about 60 other journalists, but “Did no damage or parading or violence.”

Info Wars journalist Owen Shroyer just served a nearly 2 month sentence for having been on the Capitol grounds on that day. Other journalists have also been arrested and tried. 

Far-left journalist John Sullivan, who sold his footage of J6 to mainstream media outlets, was also charged after covering the event. He was charged with Obstruction of an Official Proceeding; Civil Disorder; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building; and Aiding and Abetting, per the Department of Justice.

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HOW BIDEN’S STATE DEPARTMENT CONCEALS ITS “HUMAN RIGHTS BLACK HOLE” IN THE MIDDLE EAST

LAST WEEK, Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted a meeting with leaders of human rights organizations to mark the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. But through subtle stage management, the State Department arranged for Blinken’s praise for human rights to be recorded and promulgated — while the world was not able to hear the retorts from human rights advocates who criticized America’s backing of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The Universal Declaration was a landmark in history. While it was only a statement of principles, and so did not have legal force in itself, it was broadly inspirational and has formed the basis for numerous subsequent treaties and laws. According to Guinness World Records, it’s been translated into more languages than any other document — over 550, from Abkhaz to Zulu.

After the December 7 meeting, the internet exploded in bitter laughter at Blinken, and it’s easy to understand why. At the start of the meeting at the State Department, Blinken informed the assemblage that “the universality of human rights is under severe challenge and rights are being violated in far too many places …  And of course we see atrocities in the midst of conflict.” Yes, of course. Just one day later, on December 8, the U.S. vetoed a resolution at the U.N. Security Council calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza.

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The Georgia State Farm Center Election Night Report Is Proof that Chris Wray’s FBI Was in on the Election Fraud Cover-Up and More

As reported on Monday – Chris Wray’s FBI, along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, released a report in June 2023 where they announced that they “did not uncover any violations” during their investigation of the late-night ballot counting at The State Farm Center in Atlanta, Georgia on Election Day November 3, 2020.

According to the report, “Teams of investigators from the FBI, GBI, and Georgia SOS conducted independent and simultaneous interviews of Fulton County elections workers who were involved in the processing and scanning of absentee ballots at State Farm Arena on Election Night on November 3, 2020. Investigators from the three law enforcement agencies also reviewed the entire unedited security video footage of the events in question at State Farm Arena. SOS investigators independently interviewed party observers who were present at State Farm Arena that evening.”

They say they did not uncover any violations or evidence of wrongdoing. That’s because they hid it from their report.

The interviews for this investigation took place back in December 2020 following the November 2020 election.

According to the FBI-GBI report, the “bulk of the investigation appears to have been conducted in December 2020 and January 2021, but both the State Election Board and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office was backed up reviewing claims.”

Again, the report was just released in June 2023 by Chris Wray’s FBI and the GBI in Georgia – along with Georgia SOS Brad Raffensperger. It appears that there was no new information in the report other than what was known in December 2020, so it begs the question – Why did it take three years for Chris Wray’s FBI to release the report?

Several election officials went back to the State Farm Arena and they began counting ballots late at night without observers present. According to the Georgia Republican Party at the time, this was unlawful activity.

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Israel’s genocide in Gaza has Biden’s green light

As Israeli warplanes resumed bombing Gaza on December 1st, putting an end to a seven-day pause, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s motorcade “sped out of his hotel in Israel on its way to the Tel Aviv airport,” the Washington Post reported.

Before exiting Israel, Blinken claimed that he had pressed its government to prioritize “minimizing harm to innocent civilians.” But according to Axios, “Blinken didn’t ask Israel to stop the operation but… said the longer the high-intensity military campaign goes on, the more international pressure will build on both the U.S. and Israel to stop it.”

Additionally, Blinken asked Israel to “make sure that a military operation in southern Gaza doesn’t lead to an even higher amount of civilian casualties.” To Blinken, “minimizing harm” to the people of Gaza apparently means murdering slightly fewer of them.

After more than one week of relentless Israeli attacks on civilian targets, Blinken has been forced to acknowledge that even his token requests were ignored. When it comes to Israel’s assault, Blinken said Thursday, “there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there — the intent to protect civilians — and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”

There is not merely a gap between what Blinken and his colleagues say out loud and the reality on the ground, but an endless chasm.

One month ago, the Biden administration claimed that it was pressuring Israel to use smaller bombs against the densely population Gaza Strip. “If the United States can get those smaller munitions to Israel, American officials hope Israel will use them to mitigate the risk to civilians,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 4th. That talking point is long forgotten. “In the first month and a half, Israel dropped more than 22,000 guided and unguided bombs on Gaza that were supplied by Washington,” according to US intelligence figures obtained by the Washington Post. During this same period, the US has given Israel at least 15,000 bombs, including 2,000-pound bunker busters. So much for “smaller bombs.”

The Wall Street Journal characterizes the current US approach as “urging its top ally in the region to consider preventing large-scale civilian casualties while supplying many of the munitions deployed.” The US position is therefore akin to an accomplice continuing to re-arm a school shooter’s assault rifle while asking him to consider slaughtering fewer students. The Biden administration is so committed to fueling the carnage in Gaza that it has even invoked rare emergency powers for transferring tank ammunition without Congressional review. “The arms shipment has been put on an expedited track, and Congress has no power to stop it,” the New York Times reports.

The White House’s circumvention of Congressional review is consistent with its refusal to follow US law, which bars weapons transfers to countries that commit serious human rights abuses. The Biden administration has evaded this requirement by simply pretending that it is a helpless bystander, rather than willing accomplice.  

As the first phase of Israel’s military campaign expanded to multiple hospitals in mid-November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted to CNN that his military “is doing an exemplary job trying to minimize civilian casualties,” and “fighting according to international law.”

In an appearance on the same network moments later, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declined to endorse Netanyahu’s self-assessment. Asked if Israel is operating according to the rules of war, Sullivan replied: “I’m not going to sit here and play judge or jury on that question.” Sullivan’s non-response was a tacit admission that he does in fact know the answer: if he believed that was Israel was adhering to international (and US) law, he surely would have said so.

The US decision to not play “judge and jury” continues to this day. According to the Washington Post, administration officials now “acknowledge the United States is not conducting real-time assessments of Israel’s adherence to the laws of war.” The reason is obvious: if the White House were to conduct such assessments, it would be forced to stop supplying Israel with weapons.

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Congress Spent $7.5 Billion on E.V. Chargers. After 2 Years, None Are Built.

President Joe Biden has made a transition to electric vehicles (E.V.s) a key part of his presidency, spending billions of dollars both to help companies build them and to help customers afford them.

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included $7.5 billion to build 500,000 public charging stations across the country. Under the program, states can qualify for as much as 80 percent of the cost to build chargers and bring them online. But as Politico reported this week, not a single charger funded by the program is yet operational.

It’s the latest setback as Biden attempts to change consumer preference by force rather than allowing the free market to innovate its way there.

Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency mandated that by 2030, half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. must be electric. This will require an enormous ramp-up in resources, especially around charging infrastructure. As Politico notes, “consumer demand for electric vehicles is rising in the United States, necessitating six times as many chargers on its roads by the end of the decade, according to federal estimates.”

Other estimates are even more dire: In January, Stephanie Brinley at S&P Global Mobility wrote that “even when home-charging is taken into account, to properly match forecasted sales demand, the United States will need to see the number of EV chargers quadruple between 2022 and 2025, and grow more than eight-fold by 2030.” As of this writing, there are just under 158,000 public chargers, meaning there may need to be more than 1 million to support the Biden administration’s timeline.

The federal program is off to a slow start: Politico reports that while more than $2 billion has been given out, only two states—Ohio and Pennsylvania—have actually broken ground on chargers, while just six others have awarded contracts. Fewer than half of U.S. states have even submitted a proposal for funds.

What’s the hold-up? “The slow rollout…primarily boils down to the difficulties state agencies and charging companies face in meeting a complex set of contracting requirements and minimum operating standards for the federally-funded chargers, according to interviews with state and EV industry officials,” the article notes.

Even with federal funds, part of the problem may also be cost, because the chargers are quite expensive to build and maintain. The types of chargers mentioned in the law are either Level 2 or Level 3, also known as Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC). Level 2 chargers use alternating current electricity and take between four and 10 hours to charge an E.V., while DCFCs use direct current and can charge an E.V. in less than an hour.

Any long-term solution would prioritize DCFCs—no road-tripper will want to wait all day for their car to charge when fueling up a gas burner takes minutes. But DCFCs are considerably more expensive to install: A 2019 study by the Department of Energy found that while Level 2 chargers can cost up to $6,500 to install, DCFCs can cost as much as $40,000. Depending on factors like hardware costs, other estimates have put the price between $50,000 and $100,000.

Maintaining the faster chargers can be quite expensive as well. Mark Mills, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, wrote in August 2022 that a single DCFC “requires electrical infrastructure equivalent to that needed for 10 homes.”

And yet the Biden administration is plowing ahead, apportioning billions of dollars for states to build exorbitantly expensive chargers and requiring half of all cars to be electric by 2030, even as E.V. demand has softened in recent months. In surveys, consumers indicate that higher prices have eclipsed range anxiety as the primary source of their hesitation.

“Implementation is everything,” says Bill Klehm, a former Ford Motor Co. executive who is now the CEO of e-bike manufacturer eBliss. Klehm sees “a lack of true coordination with industry and local government.”

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Biden admin uses emergency authority to approve tank shells sale to Israel

The Biden administration has authorized the sale of almost 14,000 tank shells to Israel, bypassing congressional rules, the Pentagon announced Saturday.

The Department of Defense used an emergency declaration from the Arms Export Control Act to sell 13,981 tank cartridges, worth $106.5 million, immediately to Israel as the country continues its ongoing war against the militant group Hamas.

The Arms Export Control Act “authorizes the President to control the import and export of defense articles and services,” according to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

“The Secretary of State determined and provided detailed justification to Congress that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended,” reads a release from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

It continued, “The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives.”

This sale is part of a larger package, first reported by Reuters Friday, that President Biden has asked Congress to approve. The overall deal includes 45,000 shells for Israel’s Merkava tanks, which have been consistently deployed by Israel during its fight in Gaza.

The sale of the tank shells comes after the United States used its veto power to block a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The ceasefire would have required Israel to halt its war with Hamas on Friday.

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White House Delays Implementing Ban On Menthol Cigarettes Until At Least 2024

According to a Dec. 6 updated regulatory agenda, the review process will now continue into 2024, with a current target date of March to possibly implement the ban.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been developing a rule to eliminate menthol as a characterizing cigarette flavor since 2022. The federal agency estimates a ban on the flavor additive could prevent 300,000 to 650,000 smoking deaths over several decades. They claim most of the preventable deaths would be among minority groups and Americans of African descent, who disproportionately smoke menthol cigarettes.

In the proposed rule, the federal agency said the new product standard would reduce the appeal of cigarettes, particularly to youth and young adults, and possibly decrease the likelihood of them progressing to “regular cigarette smoking.” If the rule is successfully implemented, cigarette companies will have one year to phase out menthol. It’s unclear if they would face any penalties for failing to adhere to the new rule.

“In addition, the tobacco product standard would improve the health and reduce the mortality risk of current menthol cigarette smokers by decreasing cigarette consumption and increasing the likelihood of cessation,” the FDA rule reads.

According to the FDA, menthol is a flavor additive with a mint taste and aroma that aids in reducing the harshness and irritation of smoking. It says the additive also helps boost the appeal of cigarettes and makes the menthol variants interact with nicotine in the brain, enhancing the nicotine’s addictive effects.

Anti-smoking groups have been backing the FDA’s efforts since the beginning. Following the updated rule implementation date, some of the anti-smoking groups warned the delay could see the effort to phase out menthol held up indefinitely.

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