We previously discussed the defunct Disinformation Governance Board and its controversial head Nina Jankowicz. After the outcry over the program, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas finally relented and disbanded the board while insisting that it was never about censoring opposing views. Jankowicz has sued over the portrayal of her views. Now, Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) has exposed just how broad the scope of the censorship efforts were under the board in combatting “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM). This range of authority in what the agency called the “MDM space,” included targeting views on racial justice and the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
New documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests show that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argued that the agency could regulate speech related to “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of US support to Ukraine” as well as “irregular immigration.”
Those subjects stretch across much of the “space” used for political speech in the last few years.
Notably, within DHS, Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” The resulting censorship efforts included combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” I testified earlier on this effort.
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In an interesting speech about the way US imperial aggression provokes violence around the world, antiwar commentator Scott Horton made reference to an April 2022 article from Yahoo News that had previously escaped my attention.
The article is titled “In closer ties to Ukraine, US officials long saw promise and peril,” and it features named and unnamed veterans of the US intelligence cartel saying that long before the February 2022 invasion they were fully aware that the US had “provoked” Russia in Ukraine and created a powderkeg situation that would likely lead to war.
“By last summer [meaning the summer of 2021], the baseline view of most US intelligence community analysts was that Russia felt sufficiently provoked over Ukraine that some unknown trigger could set off an attack by Moscow,” a former CIA official told Yahoo News’ Zach Dorfman, who adds, “(The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.)”
Dorfman writes that initial support provided to Ukraine during the Obama administration had been “calibrated to avoid aggravating Moscow,” but that “partially spurred by Congress, as well as the Trump administration, which was more willing to be aggressive on weapon transfers to Kyiv, overt US military support for Ukraine grew over time — and with it the risk of a deadly Russian response, some CIA officials believed at the time.”
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Ron Paul Has a New Book!!!
Here's the amazing news: Ron Paul has a new book! As you know, Dr. Paul is a New York Times bestselling author and has written numerous books including "End the Fed," "Liberty Defined," "Swords into Plowshares," and many more.
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Put Up Time for the National Libertarian Party Leadership
Reasonable people will look at Libertarian Party candidates’ election results — votes largely, but also the nature of attention obtained — through the November 2024 general election to judge if the new leadership of the national Libertarian Party has succeeded or failed.
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Reject Masks and Mask Mandates Says the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
You may have expected that by now all the mask pushers would have presented their mea culpas. But, some of them still cling to and bluster on about quack assertions that wearing masks is important for stopping the spread of coronavirus, as well as totally safe.
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Ron Paul at The Duran Discusses Nonintervention and the Military-Industrial Complex
Many supporters of the United States pursuing a foreign policy of nonintervention have benefited from information and insights presented at The Duran regarding developments around the world.
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Drug Enforcement Administration to Consider Marijuana Rescheduling
Back in April of 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informed members of the United States Congress that the DEA hoped to release in the first half of that year its determination of whether marijuana should be moved from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to another schedule. Such rescheduling could result in a curtailment of aspects of the US government’s war on marijuana.
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