Dismantling the government censorship apparatus (10-21-2025--Hour3)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. In the last hour I mentioned this limitation. I guess you could call it that a lot of leftists have when it comes to discussing political topics. And I understand this. I have sympathy for them because if I had to defend these positions, I would not be able to do so from a like a rational logical point of view, and so, like, I know, that's got to be difficult. However, their inability to articulate a cogent, logical, rational argument for a lot of their positions, they become frustrated. And when people don't go along with them because they have not been persuaded to go along with them, that then frustrates them and a lot of them get angry, and that then leads. You know, as I was going over in the last hour, Saul Olinsky's rules for radicals, this moral relativism that now you are justified in doing all sorts of things, even if it conflicts with your conscience or societal norms. You can blow through those guardrails if the quote greater good is on the line, and you hear Democrats saying these things. And again, I don't know if all democrats hashtag not all democrats. I don't know if all of them are aware that when they talk about the democracy, you know, and they say everything is a threat to the democracy. Trump is a threat to the democracy. We're losing the democracy. That's what they're channeling, like, that's that's the uh. The Olensky tactics are sort of the well spring from which they are drawing. And again, I don't know if all of them understand that. I suspect a great many of them have simply been essentially trained into speaking in these talking points, these little bumper sticker bromides, if you will, and they don't really, they don't. They don't convince. They may look good on your little poster board that you carry to the No King's protest, but you're not actually persuading it about anybody. I have seen a great many political signs at protests in my life, and I have never seen one that has prompted me to change my opinion about anything. Anything. All Right, it's there. It's like a placard at a panther game. Wait, I don't think you're allowed to bring those into the stadium, but if you could, Okay, It's like having a sign that says, you know, panthers. You've not convinced me to cheer for the panthers. You've not made a compelling argument. You've just screened at me about something you know. So this, this then leads to the censorship. This then leads It's a direct line because I can't stop or I can't persuade you that you are wrong. I can't recruit you to my side. I can't get more critical mass development around a particular policy or direction or nominee or whatever. I can't get enough people over here because they're listening to you. So stop saying what you're saying. And so now I'm going to, as Alensky says, right, pick the tar, get isolated, personalize it, and so now I'm gonna attack you. I'm gonna try to cancel you. I'm gonna make you radioactive. I'm gonna call you all the isms, all the names. Nobody's gonna want to associate with you, and then you'll shut up. But what if you don't shut up? Well, V had some vase. That's a terrible German impression. But uh yeah, there are ways that we can shut you up, particularly now if you're doing your yammering on social media. So little noticed story. A couple of weeks ago, the Trump administration officially dismantled the GEK. Do you know what the GEK was? The GEC. I call it the GEK because it sounds like some sort of regurgita, involuntary regurgitation movement. Anyway, it was called the Global Engagement Center. It was housed in the US State Department, and it became a tool of censorship against conservative voices. The State Department announced last month its decision to close the remnants of the GEK, an office that the Biden administration had rebranded last year after it came under scrutiny for contributing to the censorship of conservatives online. Right, they tried to hide this thing, this unit principal deputy spokesperson, Tommy Pigot. Pigott, Pigott, how would you pronounce it's Pigott Pigout. I don't know, Tommy Pigot, he said. The framework, initially launched by the GEK to counter so called disinformation, devolved into tools for politicals censorship instead of protecting Americans from foreign adversarial propaganda. Yeah, it didn't even do that, right, It didn't even do that if it ever actually was designed for that. That's what they said that the GEK was supposed to do, but for some reason, it spent all of its time ferreting out, you know, Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and the Federalist and the New York Post. The Biden administration reshuffled the GEK into another named operation that they called the Frameworks to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation or the fc FS I am or as I call Yeah, I'm actually not gonna call it fc I'm not actually no, I'm not going to do that, just to maintain the face license. So they tried to hide this thing, the GEK. They tried to give it a different name and oh, now we're totally going to look at just the foreign people, the foreign adversaries, because Congressional Republicans defunded the GEK in twenty twenty four. They shut down the GEK after widespread backlash among conservatives against the agency over the pressure that it put on social media companies to censor disfavored points of view. Because again, this is the natural trajectory, there is an authoritarian mindset. Do what I tell you to do. Oh you're not going to do what I tell you to do, all right, shut up. Oh you're not going to shut up. I'm gonna make you shut up. I'm gonna censor you. That's the trajectory. The Daily Wire sued the State Department in December of twenty twenty three, alongside the Federalist and the State of Texas because of the gek's support for the quote Global Disinformation Index or the GDI, that is a British organization that attempted to pressure advertisers into defunding right wing news sites. This was something the Biden administration really took advantage of. They used foreign allies to go after their domestic opponents, so they would use the British GDI in order to try to silence conservatives in America. The lawsuit argued the State Department violated the First Amendment by supporting third party organizations that were engaging in censorship and targeting media outlets. The GEK collaborated with the Election Integrity Partnership that's a group of organizations that work together on censoring election related speech. Beginning in twenty twenty, the EIP targeted conservative voices, and the GEK worked with it on numerous occasions to flag speech for social media platforms to take down. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences, connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. 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Google promises to offer all creators who had previously been kicked off of YouTube due to political speech violations on topics like COVID nineteen and elections, they will have an opportunity to return. Now. I have heard that this isn't exactly like an amnesty, so not everybody is being allowed to return, But this is what Google told the Judiciary Committee. They were like, okay, fine, I know we censored a bunch of people at the behest of the Biden administration vi them off of our platform. And you know, some people who were these YouTube content creators, that was where they were making their money. They made a living off of the YouTube platform. And then they started, you know, questioning some of the COVID stuff. And I don't know every single person that got booted. I don't know what every person was saying. Okay, So I don't know if there were violations of policy or whatever. I do know that the Biden administration was in constant contact with the with these tech companies and flagging content and telling them take it down. And some of the content that they were flagging what's true they were censoring, like the Great Barrington Declaration. They put out, you know, a fatois against those doctors that signed the Great Barrington Declaration that was against the lockdownes. So stuff that actually was true that doctors were saying was stuff like that was also getting demonetized and censored. So Google says, okay, fine, we'll let some of these people back on. They also acknowledged the following. Number One, the Biden administration pressured Google to censor Americans and remove content that did not actually violate YouTube policies. That's a problem, right If YouTube's got a platform policy that says you can't talk about xyz and then they kick you off even though you did not talk about xyz, well you're not in violation of their policies. But when the Biden administration comes calling you, bend the knee. See, I don't believe that Google will not bend the knee once again in the future. Okay. Number two, they acknowledge the Biden administration censorship pre pressure was quote unacceptable and wrong. Number three, public debates should never come at the expense of relying on quote unquote authorities. Number four the company will never use third party fact checkers like the GEK or the GDI or the FCF whatever whatever whatever, right, which were basically like shadow governments. These were people that were connected to all the Democrat and geos and think tanks and former administration officials that you know, migrate over to like you know how it works over in like England, they've got they call like the shadow government, so like they have all of so like I don't know, all of the different offices they call them weird things like the Home Office is one of them, and so the government that's in power, they've got their you know, home secretary. Okay, well there's the political coalition or parties that are not in power, and they will have a shadow home secretary because of the volatile nature of their politics. Like you can have like a no confidence vote or something and then the coalition falls apart. Now you're out of power, and so you call for a new election and all of a sudden everything gets shifted around, and now you've got all new people in there. And so the idea is that you've got a home secretary ready to step into the role. Right, So they are shadow government, and like that's what these fact checking organizations were operating as. And this revolving door. This has been the case in Democrat circles for my entire adult life. They just I saw it first with John Edwards, right, he got a scholarship. Basically, they create in the UNC Chapel Hill campus, they create a little was it the Center for Poverty and Work or something like that, and they give them some one hundred and fifty thousand dollars annual salary and it's just like a it's like a no show job. And they so you're basically just giving him money so he can make his bills while he runs around doing speeches and gets ready to launch his next presidential campaign. And it's the same idea, except with all the different people that actually work in the bureaucracy and would get these appointments and would fill these roles in a Democrat administration. They just go off to a think tank and then they generate I don't even know, a white paper here or there, they give some speeches, right, and so this was operating as this shadow government, these fact checking groups, and finally they acknowledge Google acknowledged Europe's censorship laws target American companies and threaten American speech, including the removal of lawful content. As I mentioned, the Biden administration was relying on the EU and Britain. They were relying on those nations to target American companies tech companies to censor Americans because the Biden administration couldn't directly do it. So they would go after these tech companies and their advertisers and they would say, if you want to do business and you want your platforms to be available in the EU, you have to agree to our rules. Well, they don't have the First Amendment over there, and so they will censor you. You make a joke about the prophet Mohammed over there, you're going to jail in the UK, So you're inciting violence or something. If you like, fly your Union Jack flag from your house. So these admissions come after the Judiciary Committee subpoena at Google and they launched a year's long investigation into the company. So let's take the win. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 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And that is apparently what occurred during the Biden administration in late twenty fifteen early twenty sixteen see at the specific request of the Vice President, Joe Biden. Twenty fifteen, he was still vice president, so Trump hadn't won yet his first election. So think let's go back and think about that timeframe. What was in the news in twenty sixteen, because Biden wasn't running, right, he was not running for office. Hillary Clinton was the anointed one, as the Party of Democracy cleared the field for Hillary the most qualified candidate ever until Kamala Harris came along. Do you hear her say the other day at some interview, she's hawking her book and it's like one hundred and seven days is the name of it. How I lost in one hundred and seven days something like that. Anyway, she was and she said, some people have told me that I'm the most qualified presidential candidate in history. And the interviewer like laughed, thinking she was joking, and she wasn't. Who would say that Thomas Jefferson could write like in Latin in his right hand and Greek with his left hand at the same time. Not that that's a qualification for president, but still, I don't think you're the most qualified person to ever run for president. That seems like a bit of a stretch, you know. Anyway, at the time, Joe Biden is the vice president, and they requested, actually he requested specifically him the CIA Berry, an embarrassing intelligence report that detailed the poor view that the Ukrainian government had of his diplomatic efforts, as well as the business dealings of his family in that country. Huh interesting. So the business dealings that then Trump started asking about with Hunter Biden Ukrainian energy company Barisma, and your visit over there where you're like, you need to fire this prosecutor or we're going to withhold all the money, like all of that stuff. Biden had traveled to Kiev in December of twenty fifteen ostensibly to meet with leaders of the fledgling democracy and to deliver a warning against quote the cancer of corruption aka the Biden crime family. And I'm just kidding it. I threw that last part it and during an address to the Ukrainian Parliament, he condemned the pervasive poison of cronyism, corruption and kleptocracy. That's Joe Biden saying that, yes. But behind the scenes, Ukrainian officials expressed quote bewilderment and disappointment that the Vice president had crossed the Atlantic almost exclusively to deliver a generic speech. Officials close to then President Petro Poroshenko had hoped for guidance in support of or against specific officials within the Ukrainian government. They discovered instead that Biden had no intention of discussing substantive matters. Those were all direct quotes from the CIA brief after Biden comes home members of the poor. Sheenko administration quote privately mused at how American media treated the alleged ties of his family to corrupt business practices in the Ukraine. It was in their minds over in Ukraine, the Poorshenko administration, it was evidence of a double standard within the US government towards matters of corruption and political power. Because of course it was. That's why it looked like that is because that's what it was, right, and the Ukrainian government is like, here's this guy coming over here lecturing us about corruption, and look at the media coverage of his own kid with barisma. So all of that was the determination of a twenty sixteen report that was prepared by the CIA and has now been reviewed by Real Clear Politics. Philip Wegman, the reporter on the story. It would have been a humiliating assessment for Biden, whom President Obama had entrusted with all things Ukraine. Remember he told Biden, like, you take care of all the stuff in Ukraine because your son is the expert on Ukraine, you know, I mean, obviously because he landed the gig at Barisma. So the Vice President and his team killed this report. They spiked it. In an email sent to the CIA on February tenth, twenty sixteen, an individual in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said, quote, I just spoke with the Vice President slash nssay national Security advisor, and he would strongly prefer the report not be disseminated. The national Security advisor was Colin Kahl Kahl. These are the latest tranch of documents that were declassified by the CIA's director John Ratcliffe, as the Trump administration continues its review of how intel is collected and reported. Later on, Phil Wegman writes in his piece, what is striking is that a member of the intel community sought to clear a report with Biden and his team before presenting the information to the president. That's weird. That's kind of weird. Why would the VP get to veto a CIA report to the president? Weird? H I'm just I'm not even asking questions. I'm just saying it's weird. Why wouldn't it go to Obama first? Why would the Vice president get to spike anything? It's the Obama administration. He gets to see all of this intel generated weird. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple Why. Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news, slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news, slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent two stories to close out the hour here. Do you remember, I mean, I'm old enough to remember, but you may be too. Remember after what was the Hurricane Milton? Hurricane Milton, it's gone back aways. It was in Florida, And then there was another hurricane that hit North Carolina called Helene. Do you remember that, right? So? Do you remember the stories after the hurricanes about FEMA people not going to properties that had Trump signs in the yard or something, right, or flags Trump flags, that kind of thing. Matt Tayebe independent journalist writing at Racket News last November eighth, On the Saturday after the election, one of the more bizarre postscripts to Donald Trump's reelection emerged in the form of a FEMA decision to sideline one of its officials accused of telling FEMA workers to avoid Holmes advertising Trump while these workers were supposed to be canvassing for victims of Hurricane Milton in Florida. The Daily Wire spoke to multiple FEMA officials who produced screenshots of messages that said things like Trump sign no contact per leadership, which seems pretty clear to me, right, Trump sign no contact per leadership. Then FEMA administrator Diane Criswell testified after the election that this episode was simply an isolated incident, and she said it was unacceptable, it was heartbreaking, and said it was basically just one person, one eventually terminated disaster survivor assistant's crew leader named Marnie Washington. Remember this, I covered this story. Yeah. Well, she didn't like this much. She did not take the Cya maneuver lying down. According to Tayibe, she made a series of aggressive media appearances, saying repeatedly, my orders come from my superior, okay, and the instructions to the subordinates was to avoid homes that made FEMA workers uncomfortable because they had a Trump sign. That was That was her story. The Democrats generally maintained that decisions to skip over houses featuring Trump signs or signs about guns were legitimate and safety base. See Republicans blasted FEMA workers for comparing Trump voters to vicious dogs and suggested instructions like per leadership, no stop Trump flag or another one that said Trump signed no contact, per leadership, that this was indicative of a larger problem. It was n't till one off, It wasn't just Marnie Washington. Well A year later, the Privacy Office of the Department of Homeland Security is releasing a review of the episode. The new administration has found more than just the one isolated incident. It's described violations of the Privacy Act of nineteen seventy four, which, with a few exceptions, bars the collection of information about First Amendment protected speech like political science, DHS investigators found, in a near exact parallel to trends in pro censorship programs that a lot of the political controversy surrounding FEMA AID grew out of the vague way in which the agency's Disastro Survivor Assistance Field Operations Guide was written. In other words, the guidebook tells FEMA workers to rem move yourself from the situation if you feel threatened, if you're dealing with hostile individuals, right, something like that. But it's nebulous, and so FEMA employees they had wide birth to skip a house if a sign or a flag made them simply feel uncomfortable. The DHS report does not describe a huge number of instances, but does list examples from various efforts of FEMA people taking down political information. So like, that's not cool either, You shouldn't be getting like their voter cards and stuff. For that they collected prohibited information dating back to Hurricane Ida in twenty twenty one. And the problem is, how do you then change this, change the guide book right, because people are always going to then try to find a way around it to say I feel like this is a hostile environment. It's just a mess, all right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.