Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Ben Shapiro that the closure of the Global Engagement Center (GEC) put an end to a State Department agency that “was labeling American speech by Americans as foreign interference.”
“It metastasized and metamorphosed into a government-run entity that was targeting political speech in America, labeling it disinformation and silencing it, all paid for by the American taxpayers directly and indirectly,” Rubio said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Biden’s regime used YOUR tax dollars to censor you. <a href="https://twitter.com/SecRubio?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecRubio</a> is nuking their propaganda machine—firing the censors, ending the abuse, restoring free speech.
Full breakdown on The Ben Shapiro Show tomorrow. Don’t miss it. <a href="https://t.co/5V0KptOZyg">pic.twitter.com/5V0KptOZyg</a>
— The Ben Shapiro Show (@BenShapiroShow) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenShapiroShow/status/1912552542719902129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
President Donald Trump closed the agency, which was created to counter terrorists, but eventually shifted its focus to combating domestic “misinformation,” via executive order.
“What we are announcing today is that we are taking the whole thing down,” Rubio said. “We’re going to be in the business of promoting free speech in America and around the world.”
Rubio added that the organization’s record will be investigated for being “used as a weapon against the American people.”
The GEC was created in 2011 under President Barack Obama as the Center for Strategic Counter Terrorism Communications. It was renamed the GEC in 2016. The organization was tasked with coordinating government communications “aimed at countering foreign terrorist propaganda, particularly from groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda.” Its mission later expanded to countering misinformation from adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran.
But after the 2016 election, the agency turned its focus from terrorists to countering &#8220;misinformation&#8221; on American social media platforms, which was deemed a national security threat. GEC established an office in Silicon Valley to ramp up pressure on social media companies. The agency is accused of funding projects that created blacklists of media companies, especially right-wing media.
“They started it by saying Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and all of these terrible groups are radicalizing people online, we should do something about it,” Rubio said. “Then it metastasized, and they [said], ‘There is foreign interference in our elections, we need to start going after that. Well then, by 2020, it became a big movement to go after voices inside of American politics and begin to label people.”
Although GEC was forbidden from operating on Americans as a State Department program, it is believed that the organization may have circumvented the ban by funding private companies to classify news as “misinformation.” It reportedly paid groups like Global Disinformation Index and NewsGuard.
The former labeled outlets, including The Daily Wire, as “risky” and put them on its “Dynamic Exclusion List” that was distributed to advertisers. In response, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and the State of Texas <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-texas-ag-ask-court-to-block-state-departments-domestic-misinformation-efforts">sued</a> the GEC for working to “render unprofitable, disfavored press outlets by funding the infrastructure, development, and marketing and promotion of censorship technology and private censorship enterprises to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press.”
“The issue here is they put labels on people and then that was used to go to social media companies and used to go to outlets to say you have to deplatform these people, you have to cut back on how much views they’re getting,” Rubio said.
The organization fought to censor “conspiracy theories,” including the belief that the coronavirus came from a Chinese lab, which has since been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cia-assesses-chinese-lab-leak-responsible-for-coronavirus-pandemic">echoed by the CIA</a>.
When the GEC hit its eight-year sunset, Republicans refused to refund it, leading to the Biden Administration rebranding it under a new name but with similar staff.

Senate Holds Confirmation Hearing For Secretary Of State Nominee Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio Tells Ben Shapiro Why He Nuked State Department’s Censorship Agency

Ben Shapiro

Marco Rubio

Misinformation

State Department

A rapid response team created by the Democratic National Committee shared a fake video of Donald Trump Jr. purportedly saying the U.S. &#8220;should have been sending weapons to Russia,&#8221; not Ukraine.
FactPostNews posted the video of Trump Jr. speaking with someone who prompted, “But they forget that Ukraine isn’t the kind of country you go all in on — this is ridiculous,” Mediaite <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/viral-video-of-don-jr-arguing-america-should-have-been-sending-weapons-to-russia-is-fake/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, adding, “The alleged comments went viral on social media, and were promoted by a number of prominent accounts including <a href="https://archive.ph/keItD" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FactPost</a>, which is run by the Democratic National Committee.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The Democratic National Committee shared a fake clip of Donald Trump Jr. saying the US should have sent weapons to Russia, not Ukraine. <a href="https://t.co/pJQPTV8hwZ">https://t.co/pJQPTV8hwZ</a>
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) <a href="https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1894873341107863640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The video reportedly shows Trump Jr. responding, “I honestly can’t imagine anyone in their right mind picking Ukraine as an ally when Russia is the other option. I mean, just think about it: Massive nuclear power loaded with natural resources everyone needs, literally the biggest country on the planet. And ha ha, there’s Ukraine, which has Chernobyl, and some radiation-proof dogs. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is definitely the ally we need. Let’s dump all our money into them.’ Honestly, if anything, the U.S. should have been sending weapons to Russia.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I deleted a post with a clip of Don Jr talking abt Russia bc I&#39;m having a hard time tracking down the source of it. It&#39;s circulating on a number of big X accounts, but when I scrolled through the podcast from which it purportedly came, I couldn&#39;t find original soundbite. Will…
&mdash; Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1894849661422178366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Democratic National Committee <a href="https://democrats.org/news/icymi-dnc-launches-new-factpost-digital-accounts-economic-messaging-to-take-on-trumps-billionaire-cabinet-as-confirmation-hearings-kick-off/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the formation of FactPostNews in mid-January, heading the announcement, “DNC Launches New FactPost Digital Accounts, Economic Messaging to Take on Trump’s ‘Billionaire Cabinet’ as Confirmation Hearings Kick Off.” In the announcement, the DNC hilariously trumpeted the “wildly popular @KamalaHQ social media team” as they stated:
<blockquote>
The Democratic National Committee is tapping veterans of the wildly popular @KamalaHQ social media team for a new rapid response push ahead of Donald Trump’s return to office. … The new rapid response @FactPostNews initiative will try to combat online misinformation and respond to Trump administration actions by pushing out memes, videos and graphics. … The DNC is also teeing up fresh economic attacks on Trump as he takes office, per a memo obtained by Axios. &#8230; @FactPostNews will start on X, Threads, and Bluesky and will eventually expand to TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
</blockquote>

President Trump Holds MAGA Rally

DNC-Created Group Promotes Fake Video Of Trump Jr. Urging Arms Sales To Russia

Democratic National Committee

Donald Trump Jr.

Fake News

General

Politics

Russia

A grant from the National Science Foundation went to George Washington University to police so-called misinformation and harassment online.
The grant, which began in September 2022, allocated $5 million to GWU to address “the links between two significant problems impacting trust in contemporary communications systems: (1) The broad and rapid spread of misinformation and (2) abuse and harassment directed at members of expert communities,” <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_2230683_4900" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the grant summary says</a>.
“Misinformation-driven harassment campaigns have particularly large impacts on those at the forefront of efforts to accurately inform the public, including journalists, scientists, and public health officials,” the grant continues. “As a result, this harassment undermines confidence in pivotal sources of knowledge and reduces expert participation in the information ecosystem.”
The grant provides no examples of what “misinformation” needs to be corrected, what “harassment” took place, or even which “experts” were being harassed.
Given the timing of the grant, it is likely that the “misinformation” being targeted was the same “misinformation” the Biden administration warned against: Conservatives pointing out facts with which the Left disagrees. For example, for years the idea that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China was considered misinformation, yet now it is the dominating theory about where the virus originated. Combatting misinformation has always been less about actual misinformation and more about censorship.
In November, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-spent-267m-on-grants-mentioning-misinformation-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that the Biden administration spent at least $267 million on research grants to combat “misinformation,” but the administration itself <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mary-poppins-of-disinformation-returns-with-new-group-to-defend-disinformation-industry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoted</a> misinformation.
Likewise, “harassment” has also meant criticism of “experts” anointed by the Left – who also agree with Leftist policies such as endless masking, rather than the doctors who spoke out against such policies.
A Daily Wire inquiry to George Washington University went unanswered prior to press time.
The grant to GWU went to creating “a socio-technical system that provides real-time support to experts experiencing online harassment” and would focus on “journalists” in the beginning, but expand to others.
The system would include: “(1) personalized assistance with digital safety and security, (2) support monitoring and reporting abuse, and (3) help identifying and building a community care system.”
That community care system would be “[g]rounded in best practices from trauma-informed care,” which has also been weaponized in certain situations. For example, colleges and universities use “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/junk-science-behind-trauma-informed-investigations-ashe-schow" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trauma-informed care</a>” to insist women claiming to be the victims of sexual assault are telling the truth because they exhibit the actions of some other women who have been victims. That translates into absurd levels of belief, including insisting that women who lie about details of the alleged encounter or continue to send loving messages to their alleged attacker are only doing so out of trauma.

Joe Biden

Biden Admin Gave University $5 Million To Combat ‘Misinformation’ And Harassment of ‘Experts’

Biden Administration

George Washington University

U.S.

It’s one thing to hear the alarm go off … and another to roll out of bed and hit the ground running. After several years of increasing revelations about the growing complex of private enterprises, non-profit organizations, and governments — federal and state — that have been censoring Americans’ speech, it’s refreshing to see political leadership that throws back the covers and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-the-weaponization-of-the-federal-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confronts the danger head-on</a>.
Our newly re-elected president, to his credit, seems clear-eyed on what we’re facing. “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country — it’s as simple as that,” now President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNcLWKdyiOY&amp;t=403s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told the nation</a> shortly after the November election. “If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple … like dominoes.”
Few people in the public eye have as much reason as the president to take seriously the blunt instrument of political censorship being wielded against all Americans by the <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Biden-WH-Censorship-Report-final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal government</a>, its <a href="https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2023/11/new-york-announces-it-will-take-citizen-surveillance-and-censorship-to-the-next-level/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blue state allies</a>, and their <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/free-speech-issue-our-generation-corporate-cancellations-threat-freedom/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">private enterprise proxies</a>. Even fewer are in so ideal a position to do something about that threat.
The mere fact that Trump is beginning his second term signals his remarkable personal triumph over the massive campaign of censorship hurled against him over the last 10 years. He was still serving his first term when he found himself removed from Facebook, invisible on Google, and locked out of what was then called Twitter.
“This censorship is unlawful, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s completely un-American,” he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4d6jiGEXWU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in 2021, announcing a class-action lawsuit against the three platforms. “We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well.” Four years don’t seem to have assuaged his determination to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNcLWKdyiOY&amp;t=4s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lay an axe</a> to the roots of the problem.
He won’t be swinging his axe alone. Another key member of the incoming administration, Elon Musk, has already taken some major initiatives, buying Twitter and rebranding it as “X,” after <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60979656" target="_blank" rel="noopener">raising his own questions</a> about political censorship on major social media platforms.
And Rep. Jim Jordan’s congressional subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has released multiple reports—including <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/final-report-weaponization-federal-government" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one</a> last month detailing the Biden administration’s largely successful “monthslong campaign … to coerce large companies … to censor books, videos, posts, and other content online.” This campaign, the committee’s report concluded, “needlessly imposed harm and suffering on Americans across the country.”
Earlier this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhY5ggQK08" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confirmed</a> those findings, describing how Biden administration officials angrily and aggressively demanded that Facebook remove Covid-related content, “even things that were facts, or memes and humor. When we refused, we found ourselves under investigation by several agencies.” His was one of many social media platforms, he admitted, that buckled under the government’s pressure.
In fact, these revelations are only the tip of a very large iceberg. In recent years, an illegal Cold War against unwelcome messaging and messengers has targeted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNhGAWtzbTY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">schoolchildren</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvt5IBRBQ8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">college students</a>, <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/ohio-school-district-coughs-450k-settle-free-speech-case-teacher?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">teachers</a>, <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/families-doctors-affirm-counseling-based-biological-reality-effective?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">counselors</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3vyja7NKrM">artists</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZE6KKpbj1U&amp;t=2s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pregnancy care centers</a>, <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/adf-court-church-speech-ban-must-go" target="_blank" rel="noopener">churches</a>, <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/de-banking-victim-steve-happ-indigenous-advance-ministries-bank-america-i-dont-want/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ministries</a>, and <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/babylon-bee-files-suit-against-humorless-california-censorship-laws/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">humor websites</a> all over the country, intimidating ordinary Americans through everything from <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/educators-have-rights-too/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">job termination</a> to <a href="https://adflegal.org/support/debanking-video/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">de-banking</a>, and with threats of <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/virginia-photographer-now-free-government-coercion/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">costly fines</a> and even <a href="https://adflegal.org/client/brush-nib-studio/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jail time</a>.
But recognizing the threat — like hearing the alarm — isn’t enough. Someone has to rise to challenges posed by this Censorship Industrial Complex to cut Americans off from news, information, and viewpoints that some in positions of power and authority don’t want them to have.
Fighting this good fight is going to require significant and concentrated effort by the executive and legislative branches to root out the offenders — even within the federal government itself. All records evidencing governmental attempts to censor speech should be made public — after all, those records belong to the American people. The officials who acted to infringe rights of free speech must be held accountable. And each leader in every government agency must make one thing abundantly clear: state power may never be used to censor, limit, or diminish protected speech — it’s that simple.
Thankfully, the incoming administration seems intent on pursuing all these actions — and keenly aware of the stakes. “The fight for free speech is a matter of victory or death for America,” Trump recently said, “and for the survival of Western Civilization itself.”
So the president himself has sounded the alarm, most recently through his executive orders. Here’s hoping the rest of this administration won’t be caught napping.
* * *
Philip A. Sechler is senior counsel and director of the Center for Free Speech at <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ADFLegal">@ADFLegal</a>).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Government Officials Who Engaged In Censorship Must Be Held Accountable

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Donald Trump

Free Speech

Hate Speech

Jim Jordan

Social Media Censorship

In a world of mounting censorship, it’s never been more important to protect every person’s right to speak. Freedom of speech is indispensable to a free society—there’s little meaning to an electoral system if we can’t speak our mind to one another and to our representatives. It’s also a fundamental human right, guaranteed by the First Amendment and every major human rights treaty around the world.
Responding to this rising threat, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), where I serve as legal counsel, recently launched a new litigation team, the <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/introducing-the-adf-center-for-free-speech/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Center for Free Speech</a>. ADF’s mission in creating this dedicated team of attorneys is to defend every person’s right to free speech and to hold the government and powerful corporations accountable when they unlawfully censor or punish speech.
This new era of censorship calls for innovative strategies. A complex international web of shadowy government actors, nonprofit groups, and for-profit corporations are colluding to stop speech they don’t like, invoking buzzwords like “misinformation” and “disinformation” as their pretext for viewpoint-based restrictions. We will stop unlawful censorship while preserving the fundamental rights of individuals and organizations.
My team’s efforts will include suing private-sector censors who are working with the government or abusing their power to suppress or deplatform disfavored speech. There must be consequences for governments and government proxies that participate in the corrupt Censorship Industrial Complex (CIC).
The coordinated push of government, universities, think tanks, NGOs, and private businesses bleeds into almost every major industry and part of life. When entities or people are deplatformed, debanked, blacklisted, or refused business for their speech because the government has enlisted private sector participation in engaging in unlawful censorship, that is government corruption and must be stopped.
In Brazil, a justice on the country’s Supreme Court <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/brazil-elon-musk-x-and-censorship-what-you-need-know/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspended the social media platform X</a> across the country after the company declined to censor certain voices. The justice’s order spoke of the “real danger” posed by X of influencing the electorate with “massive misinformation.” Once a government begins using such vague criteria to censor messages, it opens the door to widespread suppression of speech.
But it’s not just happening in Brazil. The U.S. Department of Justice <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/adf-scotus-govt-cant-coerce-social-media-companies-act-speech-police/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pressured</a> Facebook, Twitter, and Google into silencing dissenting voices on a wide range of hot-button cultural issues, including climate change, abortion, economic policy, gender identity, and COVID-19 policies. Big tech companies collude with the government to censor viewpoints they don’t like.
We’ve already begun to litigate several cases under the umbrella of the Center for Free Speech including a pair of cases where we’re suing the state of California.
In <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/humor-trial-babylon-bee-challenges-california-laws-censoring-political-satire/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Babylon Bee v. Bonta</a> and <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/rumble-joins-the-babylon-bee-in-challenging-californias-censorship/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rumble v. Bonta</a>, ADF represents popular satire website The Babylon Bee, attorney and blogger Kelly Chang Rickert, and video platform Rumble. One of the laws our clients are challenging is AB 2655, passed by the California legislature earlier this year. The law requires large online platforms to become state censors by sometimes labeling and other times taking down posts with “materially deceptive content” about elections.
And in <a href="https://adflegal.org/case/studnicki-v-sage-publications/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Studnicki v. Sage Publications</a>, we represent several doctors who published multiple papers in a peer-reviewed medical journal on the dangers of abortion drugs. After the publisher received complaints about the authors’ pro-life affiliations, Sage retracted these articles and even removed one of the authors from the journal’s board of directors.
Defending free speech is nothing new to ADF. We’ve won landmark free speech victories before the U.S. Supreme Court and have been especially prolific on public university campuses as its Center for Academic Freedom has <a href="https://adflegal.org/issues/free-speech/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">secured</a> more than 400 victories protecting students’ free speech rights.
Government agencies and powerful private actors – or worse yet, a combination of the two – are using vague buzzwords as an excuse for censorship. The outgoing administration spent the past four years relentlessly attacking our constitutionally protected freedoms and unlawfully extending executive power.
But we cannot expect the entrenched censorship apparatus to unilaterally disarm. And we must insist that the new administration dismantle the CIC instead of trying to wield it for its own purposes.
That means calling balls and strikes, especially when President-elect Trump hangs a curve with a nominee like <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14154833/donald-trump-surgeon-general-dr-janette-nesheiwat-maga-fury-covid.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Janette Nesheiwat for Surgeon General</a>, who previously “commend[ed] Mark Zuckerberg for taking action” against so-called vaccine misinformation on Facebook.
It’s critical that the Republican party keeps its avowed commitment to free speech. The new administration has a great opportunity to lead the defense of our First Amendment rights. If the majority of current nominees do what they claim they want to do, there is reason to be hopeful.
Through pioneering legal strategy, ADF will tear down the Censorship Industrial Complex and preserve free speech in the new frontier of our digital age. We will ensure that ordinary people worldwide have full clarity on their free speech rights and are empowered, without fear, to expose any government or its agents attempting to undermine them.
* * *
Logan Spena serves as legal counsel at <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ADFLegal">@ADFLegal</a>).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Censorship vs Free speech

Combating The Rising Threat Of Censorship In 2025

Brazil

Censorship

Federal Government

First Amendment

Opinion

An astonishing report details how the Biden administration <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/11/22/us-news/feds-blew-267m-on-misinformation-grants-under-biden-much-on-covid-report-finds-as-trump-vows-to-ban-term/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spent $267 million</a> since 2021 on research grants whose proposals mentioned “misinformation.”
The report was issued by OpenTheBooks, a nonprofit organization founded in 2011 as a transparency group. Ironically, in 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama <a href="https://www.fsrs.gov/#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Funding%20Accountability%20and,wasteful%20spending%20in%20the%20government.">co-sponsored</a> the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which permitted public access to federal spending. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) also co-sponsored the bill, later serving as the honorary chairman of OpenTheBooks before his <a href="https://www.openthebooks.com/in-loving-memory-of-open-the-books-honorary-chairman-dr-tom-coburn/">passing</a> in 2020.
Of the $267 million, “The feds have spent at least $127 million in grants specifically targeted to study the spread of “misinformation” &#8212; or to help people ‘overcome’ it, so to speak &#8212; by persuading them to go along with Covid-related public health recommendations and mandates,” the <a href="https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/taxpayer-funded-censorship-how-government" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> states.
Further, a methodology note in the report states, “This likely does not cover all grants given to combat misinformation, because transaction descriptions may not include this keyword, but the trend in spending illustrates a sudden explosion of interest in misinformation starting in 2021.” The report adds that the Department of Health and Human Services issued grants totaling $185 million, the National Science Foundation total was $65 million, and the Stated Department $12 million.
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Last month, a <a href="https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/We_Can_Do_This_NIH_PR_Campaign_Report_PUBLIC_82616d81eb.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the House Committee on Energy &amp; Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations noted that in August 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services initiated the “We Can Do This” campaign — a campaign that ultimately cost more than $900 million — which was meant to affect the public’s response to the COVID pandemic. “The Campaign came to serve as a critical vehicle for disseminating the Biden-Harris administration’s messaging on mask usage, social distancing, vaccine effectiveness, the risks COVID-19 posed to children, and how to reopen schools, businesses, and civil society,” the report stated.
“It appears the administration most concerned with ‘misinformation’ itself trafficked in misinformation: on masks, on risks to children, on social distancing, and on the need to vaccinate even infants,” the OpenTheBooks report asserted.
In December 2022, then-former President Donald Trump <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/trump-vows-to-ban-feds-from-id-ing-domestic-misinformation-if-elected/">stated</a> he would &#8220;prohibit federal policing of lawful domestic speech&#8221; upon becoming the 47th president: “Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis’- or dis-information.’ And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship — directly or indirectly — whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.”

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-BIDEN-HARRIS

Biden Admin Spent $267M On Grants Mentioning ‘Misinformation’: Report

Biden-Harris administration

Grants

Migrants

On Monday, I was wondering what exactly the October surprise from the Democrats and the media would be; one week out from an election and they haven’t had much. Is attacking comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and supposed jokes about Puerto Ricans all they had? Is that really all they had in their bag?
And then I received a text.
It came from a reporter at the New York Times, and read as follows:
<blockquote>Good day, Mr. Shapiro. I hope you&#8217;re well. I&#8217;m Nico Grant, a reporter at The New York Times. I wanted to give you an opportunity to comment for an upcoming article that takes a look at how political commentators have discussed the upcoming election on YouTube.
We rely on an analysis conducted by researchers at Media Matters for America. Could you kindly provide us with a comment or decline to comment by the end of day tomorrow, Tuesday, October 29? Thank you so much for your time. 
Here are points we plan to include. Media Matters identified 286 YouTube videos between May and August that contained election misinformation, including narratives that have been debunked or not supported with credible evidence. Researchers identified videos posted by you in those four months that contain election misinformation. We feature a clip of you saying, “ &#8230; Your party rigged many of the voting rules in advance of the election in order to ensure an extraordinary number of mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting &#8230;”
I also have a few questions: 1. Are you a member of the YouTube partner program? 2. If so, how frequently does YouTube demonetize your videos? 3. Has YouTube sent you messages, emails or notices in the last year that your content contains misinformation? Thanks for your time. </blockquote>
This is not just a text. This is the October surprise.
Here&#8217;s what the New York Times was planning, as they were pretty obviously and clearly working with Media Matters for America, which is a far-Left radical organization, started by David Brock in an overt attempt to destroy all conservative media. Media Matters was launched to astroturf boycotts on conservative media and anyone who would advertise with conservative media.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2073-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Media Matters became incredibly famous by essentially launching secondary boycotts on people like Rush Limbaugh. They&#8217;ve tried it with us at Daily Wire as well. They&#8217;ve tried it with our hosts. This is what they do.
The New York Times is overtly, clearly admitting to using Media Matters research in order to pressure YouTube to demonetize people on the Right and destroy them, because when you are demonetized, that also limits your reach.
They want to destroy the dissemination of information from people on the Right one week prior to an election.
That&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on here. It turns out the October surprise from our media, along with Media Matters — again, both Media Matters and the New York Times are Democratic apparatchiks — is an overt attempt to silence dissent one week before an election.
That is what this is about. That is what the text is about. That&#8217;s the entire game. They run an article on the front page in the New York Times saying that YouTube is subsidizing election misinformation which, in turn, pressures YouTube (owned by Google, the number one donor to the Democratic Party) to censor any and all hosts, any and all information that disagrees with the Left.
The important point is: They didn’t just reach out to me. As we now know, they reached out to pretty much everybody on the Right, other hosts from The Daily Wire, people like Tucker Carlson — everyone on the Right.
Why?
Because their goal is to shut the spigot off so you can&#8217;t get any information on places like YouTube. Thirty-seven percent of Americans get their news from YouTube, according to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/">Pew Research</a>.
Theoretically, that number is even higher because some people engage with news on YouTube without even knowing it. Political ads run on YouTube. It is possible to watch a non-political video and be pushed to a political video, watch for five minutes, and only then tune out.
Shutting off the spigot on news information one week in advance of an election: That is the New York Times’ trick.
Obviously, none of this is about election misinformation and about shutting down “bad information,” as everyone knows.
How do I know? Because they reached out to me about “election misinformation.” To me, of all people. If you listen to the show, you know I have been perfectly consistent since November of 2020 in that I believe Joe Biden won the 2020 election. I thought Donald Trump had every right to legally challenge that election, but I did not see the actual evidence that the allegations he was making about fraud in the election and the election itself were sufficient to overcome the state certification of the ballots.
So of all the people to come to about election misinformation, coming to me is absolute proof that this trick has nothing to do with election misinformation. Instead, it is about silencing anybody on the Right. That is the goal. It is always the goal for the Left. It&#8217;s always the goal for the New York Times.
Consider the craziness of this. The New York Times is supposed to be the tip of the spear in terms of freedom of the press and free speech; that same media outlet is overtly and clearly attempting to pressure the biggest video platform on planet Earth to shut off other press outlets.
That&#8217;s crazy. They say it&#8217;s a challenge to the press if Trump calls them “fake news.” Imagine if we at the Daily Wire called for the New York Times to be completely demonetized and shut down on social media because of misinformation. Would that not be a challenge to free speech principles?
It&#8217;s unbelievable.
What&#8217;s hilarious is the quote they sent me about “election misinformation,” where apparently I said, “Your party rigged many of the voting rules in advance of the election in order to ensure an extraordinary number of mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting…”
Really?
FiveThirtyEight <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2020-election-changes-election-administration-laws/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in 2023, “One of the most striking aspects of the 2020 election was the unprecedented use of mail-in voting. Nearly half (43 percent) of all voters cast a ballot by mail in 2020, a record share, according to the latest Survey of the Performance of American Elections, a post-election poll of tens of thousands of registered voters run by MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III. Much of this was driven by COVID-19 — states changed voting rules and requirements to make it easier to vote by mail, and voters hoping to avoid crowded polling places in the middle of a pandemic took advantage.”
Wait, that sounds like rigging the voting rules in order to increase mail-in balloting.
<h3><a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH&#8217;S &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a></h3>
Maybe they ought to fact-check CBS News about ballot harvesting. In 2020, CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ballot-harvesting-collection-absentee-voting-explained-rules/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, “The Nevada Assembly passed legislation that would allow the state to mail a ballot to every registered voter, and the bill allows for third parties to collect ballots. Fierson argues that the threat to Postal Service funding and the warning of mail delays ‘makes ballot assistance even more important.’ But critics argue it opens the door to abuse and interference. The Nevada law does not limit how many ballots a person can collect. The Trump reelection campaign filed a lawsuit against the measure in Nevada and in other states.”
Again, that sounds like rigging the rules so as to increase ballot harvesting.
In 2020, the late-breaking media interference came in the form of shutting down the Hunter Biden laptop story. The New York Post had the Hunter Biden laptop story, and the social media “bros” were pressured into taking down that story by both the press and by members of the federal intelligence agencies. They shut it down. They throttled it. They prevented dissemination of the story on places like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).
Now, they are doing something even more overt. They are overtly attempting to shut down all conservative dissemination of information on the biggest video platform in existence one week in advance of an election.
If that&#8217;s not an attempt to rig an election, I don&#8217;t know what is.

The New York Times

I Got A Shocking Text From The New York Times

2024 Election

Elections

Legacy Media

New York Times

YouTube

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) lied over the weekend about his past remarks where he claimed a couple of years ago that there was &#8220;no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;ve said there&#8217;s no guarantee of free speech for misinformation or hate speech,&#8221; &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; host Shannon Bream opressed Walz, referring to his remarks in a 2022 MSNBC interview. &#8220;But first of all, the Supreme Court was very clear in a unanimous 2017 decision that hate speech is protected, that&#8217;s the kind of stuff that needs to be protected, stuff none of us like to hear.&#8221;
&#8220;But more importantly, who gets to decide on the issue of what misinformation is?&#8221; she asked.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Fox’s <a href="https://twitter.com/ShannonBream?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ShannonBream</a> brought up how <a href="https://twitter.com/GovTimWalz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovTimWalz</a> said “there’s no guarantee to free speech for misinformation or hate speech,” asking “who gets to decide on the issue of what misinformation is?” Walz answers by bringing up “book bans.” <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FNS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FNS</a> <a href="https://t.co/tZx8QKzGw4">pic.twitter.com/tZx8QKzGw4</a>
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrentHBaker/status/1845460464475525391?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2024</a></blockquote>
Walz responded that he was talking about &#8220;censorship coming in the form of book bannings in different places.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re seeing attempts in schools,&#8221; he claimed. &#8220;The issue on this was the hate speech and the protected hate speech — speech that&#8217;s aimed at creating violence, speech that&#8217;s aimed at threats to individuals. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re talking about in this.&#8221;
&#8220;The decision on that, society decides on a lot of this, the idea of someone going on and threatening someone&#8217;s life or a child&#8217;s life online,&#8221; he claimed. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think any of your viewers think that that is something that should be acceptable.&#8221;
Bream quickly pushed back: &#8220;No. No. No. That&#8217;s not misinformation.&#8221;
&#8220;There&#8217;s a distinction you would say though, between something like a threat and misinformation?&#8221; she pressed.
&#8220;Certainly and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re talking about,&#8221; Walz claimed. &#8220;And that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m so opposed to book banning. That&#8217;s why in Minnesota we ban the practice of book banning, but you make the decision of what you&#8217;re going to read, whether you find it objectionable or not. The difference is, is threats, that type of speech.&#8221;
But that is not what Walz was talking about in 2022.
Walz specifically was talking about the issue of voter intimidation, and making false claims about voting when he said that there was &#8220;no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.&#8221;
Nowhere in the interview did he discuss book bans or threatening children online.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Minnesota Gov. Walz Asks Fellow Democrats To ‘Think Big’ When It Comes To Fixing Voting Issues" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y8ns76RCmWs?start=206&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Tim Walz Holds A Campaign Rally In Erie, Pennsylvania

Walz Lies To Fox Host, Says He Never Claimed There’s ‘No Guarantee To Free Speech On Misinformation’

Fox News

Tim Walz

Democrat <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-kerry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Kerry</a>, who served as President Joe Biden&#8217;s U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, said last week that the First Amendment was in the way of Democrats&#8217; desire to fight &#8220;disinformation.&#8221;
Kerry made the extreme remarks during a discussion with the World Economic Forum on Green Energy when asked by an audience member what could be done to fight online disinformation.
&#8220;You know there&#8217;s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you&#8217;re going to have some accountability on facts, etc.,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they&#8217;re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.&#8221;
&#8220;So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you&#8217;re free to be able to implement change,&#8221; he added.
He said that the problem was unique to democracies because there was an &#8220;absence of a sort of truth arbiter, and there’s no one who defines what facts really are.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1726313279401000&amp;usg=AOvVaw115_qPFFEePDP86-Fvo-Vd">Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!</a>
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
&#8220;Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. What we need is to win&#8230;the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.&#8221;
No thanks.<a href="https://t.co/SLGHOLVjCr">pic.twitter.com/SLGHOLVjCr</a>
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) <a href="https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1840231811554664541?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 29, 2024</a></blockquote>

COP28 UNFCCC Climate Conference: High-Level Segment Day Two

John Kerry: If Democrats ‘Win,’ We Can ‘Change’ First Amendment To Fight ‘Disinformation’

John Kerry

In a viral post on X, Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris falsely blamed her opponent, former President Donald Trump, and pro-life legislation for the tragic death of a young woman in Georgia named Amber Thurman.
&#8220;A young mother from Georgia should be alive today, raising her son and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,&#8221; the Veep wrote. &#8220;This is exactly what we feared when Roe v. Wade was struck down. In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans prevent doctors from providing basic medical care.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A young mother from Georgia should be alive today, raising her son and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school.
This is exactly what we feared when Roe v. Wade was struck down. In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans prevent doctors from providing basic medical care.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) <a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1836225824510324818?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
Thurman&#8217;s death, however, followed complications from a legal abortion, contrary to Harris&#8217; glaringly false post. Also, notably, there is no such thing as a &#8220;Trump Abortion Ban&#8221; since these pro-life restrictions are state-level. The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ashe Schow <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/media-claims-a-georgia-woman-died-due-to-laws-banning-abortion-heres-the-truth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thoroughly debunks</a> the narrative parroted by Harris and her allies in the media, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/media-claims-a-georgia-woman-died-due-to-laws-banning-abortion-heres-the-truth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1726313279401000&amp;usg=AOvVaw115_qPFFEePDP86-Fvo-Vd">Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!</a>
Politicos on social media sharply criticized Harris for the blatant misinformation.
&#8220;This is some sick stuff,&#8221; Red State&#8217;s Bonchie reacted. &#8220;The woman died because she took multiple prescribed abortion pills and became septic. Abortion literally killed her.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is some sick stuff. The woman died because she took multiple prescribed abortion pills and became septic.
Abortion literally killed her. <a href="https://t.co/L1vgH03chy">https://t.co/L1vgH03chy</a>
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) <a href="https://twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1836709733480178144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;The woman was killed because she took an abortion pill,&#8221; Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles wrote. &#8220;Can we get [X Community Notes] on this whopper?&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The woman was killed because she took an abortion pill. Can we get <a href="https://twitter.com/CommunityNotes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CommunityNotes</a> on this whopper? <a href="https://t.co/YJ3vCaWnHs">https://t.co/YJ3vCaWnHs</a>
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaeljknowles/status/1836605282123706805?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Kamala Harris is lying,&#8221; pro-life advocate Lila Rose stated bluntly. &#8220;Abortion pills killed Amber Thurman, as well as her twin babies. It is reprehensible to use a mother’s tragic and preventable death due to abortion to advance more abortions. Like suggesting putting out a forest fire with gasoline.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Kamala Harris is lying. Abortion pills killed Amber Thurman, as well as her twin babies. It is reprehensible to use a mother’s tragic and preventable death due to abortion to advance more abortions. Like suggesting putting out a forest fire with gasoline. <a href="https://t.co/ABOKhAg8Uz">https://t.co/ABOKhAg8Uz</a>
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) <a href="https://twitter.com/LilaGraceRose/status/1836407891810750646?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;This is wicked disinformation,&#8221; author Megan Basham reacted. &#8220;It is spreading lies in the service of keeping the murder of babies legal. Think Christianity Today’s editor in chief will go on MSNBC to condemn those spreading these false claims?&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is wicked disinformation. It is spreading lies in the service of keeping the murder of babies legal. Think Christianity Today’s editor in chief will go on MSNBC to condemn those spreading these false claims? <a href="https://t.co/wN5EHo87N6">https://t.co/wN5EHo87N6</a>
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) <a href="https://twitter.com/megbasham/status/1836500932055453771?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Malicious disinformation,&#8221; host Allie Beth Stuckey said. &#8220;This woman died from her abortion. She tragically tried to abort her twins via a medication abortion. As is too often the case, parts of the baby were left inside her, which caused her to suffer from fatal sepsis. Yes, she should have received a D&amp;C and antibiotics. But that is not the fault of any Georgia law, which fully permits a D&amp;C when the baby has already passed. She died because of the abortion pills and because of the negligence of doctors. She did not die because of any pro-life law.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Malicious disinformation. This woman died from her abortion.
She tragically tried to abort her twins via a medication abortion. As is too often the case, parts of the baby were left inside her, which caused her to suffer from fatal sepsis. Yes, she should have received a D&amp;C and… <a href="https://t.co/bH9JYTELOt">https://t.co/bH9JYTELOt</a>
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) <a href="https://twitter.com/conservmillen/status/1836400100353994991?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
Harris was not the only one to promote the false narrative. Here are some headlines from the media:
The New York Times (Opinion): “It Was Only A Matter of Time Before Abortion Bans Killed Someone” 
MSNBC (Opinion): &#8220;Georgia&#8217;s &#8216;pro-life&#8217; abortion ban literally killed a woman &#8211; and she won&#8217;t be the last&#8221; 
Slate: &#8220;The Supreme Court Cost Amber Thurman Her Life&#8221;
The Atlantic: &#8220;The Women Killed By the Dobbs Decision&#8220;
Democrats Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) also posted the false narrative. 
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/media-claims-a-georgia-woman-died-due-to-laws-banning-abortion-heres-the-truth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Media Claims A Georgia Woman Died Due To Laws Banning Abortion. Here’s The Truth</a>.

Kamala Harris

Kamala Spreads Egregious Lie About Trump And Abortion, Gets Hammered Online

Kamala Dragged For Post Blaming Trump For Woman’s Abortion-Related Death

Abortion

The Associated Press and top Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, were blasted on Thursday after taking Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance&#8217;s remarks on the Georgia school shooting out of context.
During a rally on Thursday, Vance addressed the deadly shooting where two students and two teachers were killed allegedly by a 14-year-old student at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Vance said of the shooting, &#8220;I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security, so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they’re not able.&#8221;
Reporting on Vance&#8217;s comments, the Associated Press wrote the headline, &#8220;JD Vance says school shootings are a &#8216;fact of life,&#8217; calls for better security.&#8221; After getting slammed on social media and receiving a community note on X explaining the full context of Vance&#8217;s quote, the AP updated its headline to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jd-vance-georgia-shooting-7d7727a1aff8491f66914a4d8a14cd8c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a>, &#8220;JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and calls for better security.&#8221;
The AP then posted the new headline on X, writing, &#8220;This post replaces an earlier post that was deleted to add context to the partial quote from Vance.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Whatever shred of credibility still existed within the Associated Press was just executed by the Associated Press <a href="https://t.co/Chi8fF5NZA">pic.twitter.com/Chi8fF5NZA</a>
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1831923121722737124?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
Vance spokesman William Martin <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/vance-spox-blasts-ap-brazenly-lying-out-context-quote-lost-any-all-credibility" target="_blank" rel="noopener">slammed</a> the AP in a statement to Fox News, accusing the legacy media outlet of &#8220;brazenly lying.&#8221;
&#8220;This is yet another case of the fake news media brazenly lying about a Republican politician. Senator Vance said exactly the opposite of what the Associated Press claimed,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It should come as no surprise that the AP lost any and all credibility it had years ago, because they will lie about literally anything in order to prop up the Democrats. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has called for all police officers to be removed from schools, putting children all over America at risk. It&#8217;s yet another example of how Kamala Harris&#8217;s weak, failed, and dangerously liberal agenda makes her unfit for office.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724361346607000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1ZhyOQfEkxcMH_D1Ago3CQ">Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you.</a>
Even after the AP revised its headline, Harris and Walz continued using the out-of-context quote to attack Vance. The Harris campaign <a href="https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> a clip of Vance&#8217;s remarks with the caption, &#8220;JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just &#8216;a fact of life&#8217; and attacking common sense gun safety reform.&#8221; Harris reposted the clip, saying, &#8220;School shootings are not just a fact of life.&#8221;
&#8220;It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children—and we will,&#8221; she added.
Walz, Harris&#8217; running mate, also responded to the clip, writing, &#8220;This is pathetic. We can’t quit on our kids — they deserve better.&#8221;
Vance hit back at Harris, saying, &#8220;Instead of addressing her own failures, she lies about what I said.&#8221;
&#8220;More desperation from the biggest fraud in American politics,&#8221; Vance added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Kamala wants to take security out of our schools instead of protecting our children. Instead of addressing her own failures, she lies about what I said.
More desperation from the biggest fraud in American politics. <a href="https://t.co/KNOwOtpcLx">https://t.co/KNOwOtpcLx</a>
— JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1831898053508526554?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Shortly after the shooting on Wednesday, President Joe Biden released a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-calls-for-gun-bans-condemns-republicans-after-georgia-high-school-shooting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> calling for gun bans and condemning Republicans for not doing more to pass gun laws.
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724211156439000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2xQ8bdTcpfdrPBAzczIuck">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
&#8220;Republicans in Congress must finally say ‘enough is enough’ and work with Democrats to pass common-sense gun safety legislation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines once again, require safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers.&#8221;

JD Vance

‘Brazenly Lying’: AP, Kamala Slammed After Taking JD Vance School Shooting Comments Out Of Context

'Brazenly Lying': AP, Kamala Slammed After Taking JD Vance School Shooting Comments Out Of Context

Associated Press

Media Bias

School Shooting

Big tech employees overwhelmingly support<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/wisconsin"> Wisconsin</a> Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D.), contributing tens of thousands of dollars to her campaign while giving no money to Republican challenger Eric Hovde, according to a review of Federal Election Commission data.
Employees and high level executives at the Big Five — Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — are stepping in to help Baldwin amid her contentious campaign for a third term in the Senate. The notoriously left-learning tech industry has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks as Google and Meta face accusations of censoring information about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. 
Baldwin has received nearly $70,000 dollars from employees of the Big Five, with over half coming from employees at Google,<a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?data_type=processed&amp;committee_id=C00326801&amp;committee_id=C00830687&amp;contributor_employer=Microsoft&amp;contributor_employer=Meta&amp;contributor_employer=Google&amp;contributor_employer=Facebook&amp;contributor_employer=Apple&amp;contributor_employer=Amazon&amp;contributor_employer=Alphabet&amp;two_year_transaction_period=2024"> according</a> to a Daily Wire review of Federal Election Commission data. Hovde, a Wisconsin businessman, appears to have received<a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?data_type=processed&amp;committee_id=C00870139&amp;contributor_employer=Alphabet&amp;contributor_employer=Amazon&amp;contributor_employer=Apple&amp;contributor_employer=Facebook&amp;contributor_employer=Google&amp;contributor_employer=Meta&amp;contributor_employer=Microsoft&amp;two_year_transaction_period=2024"> no donations</a> to his Hovde for Wisconsin or Hovde Victory Committee from workers at those tech companies.
Employees and executives of Google and its parent company, Alphabet, have given at least $35,520 in donations to Baldwin so far this election cycle.
Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google and Alphabet, has donated $6,600 to Baldwin this election cycle while Google CMO Lorraine Twohill gave Baldwin $3,300. Fernando Pereira, a vice president and engineering fellow at Google, gave $1,500 to Baldwin while Vinton Cerf, another Google executive, gave the Democratic senator $3,300. 
Donations from employees at the other four tech giants were similarly lopsided, though smaller in number. Amazon employees gave Baldwin $13,172, while Microsoft employees gave her $12,175. Workers at Apple donated just $4,575, while Meta employees gave $2,721. 
While Baldwin won her last election in 2018 by over 10 points, her race this November is expected to be closer, with Wisconsin projected to be one of the battleground states that determines the result of the presidential election. Hovde, who locked up the Republican nomination on Tuesday, is backed by Trump. 
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Zach Bannon, a spokesman for Hovde, said that the tech donations showed that Baldwin is a “bought and paid for corporate special interest career politician.”
“She sides with the big-tech donors that fund her campaign over the concerns of everyday Wisconsinites, which is why the people of Wisconsin are tired of corrupt career politicians and are ready for change,” he told The Daily Wire. 
As a senator, Baldwin has<a href="https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/search?access=p&amp;as_dt=i&amp;as_epq=&amp;as_eq=&amp;as_lq=&amp;as_occt=any&amp;as_oq=&amp;as_q=&amp;as_sitesearch=&amp;client=baldwin&amp;sntsp=0&amp;filter=0&amp;getfields=&amp;lr=&amp;num=15&amp;numgm=3&amp;oe=UTF8&amp;output=xml_no_dtd&amp;partialfields=&amp;proxycustom=&amp;proxyreload=0&amp;proxystylesheet=default_frontend&amp;requiredfields=&amp;sitesearch=&amp;sort=date%3AD%3AS%3Ad1&amp;start=0&amp;ud=1&amp;q=misinformation"> called</a> for crackdowns on alleged “misinformation” on topics from monkeypox to COVID vaccines, frequently calling on companies like Facebook and Google to further restrict certain information. 
For example, in January 2021 Baldwin<a href="https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/tech-leaders-combat-coronavirus-vaccine-misinformation"> joined</a> efforts to urge social media platforms like Google and Facebook to restrict posts critical of COVID vaccines. 
“While we understand that your companies have implemented policies regarding the removal of vaccine-related misinformation and dedicated resources to stop the spread of misinformation, we believe more must be done. It is imperative that you be transparent about the amount of harmful misinformation that appears on your platforms and the effectiveness of your efforts to remove this content, so that public health organizations and experts can respond appropriately,” Baldwin wrote. 
Baldwin did not return a request for an interview about her stance on “misinformation” and Big Tech. 
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The left bias of Google employees is no surprise, as donations were<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/google-employees-overwhelmingly-back-warnock-other-senate-democrat-candidates"> similarly lopsided</a> in key Senate races during the 2022 election. The search engine has consistently asserted that it is politically neutral and not biased against conservatives. 
However, in the weeks following the assassination attempt on Trump, users noticed that Google would not autocomplete searches related to the attack. In response, Republican lawmakers<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawmakers-expand-probe-into-google-meta-over-alleged-censorship-of-trump-assassination-attempt-info"> have launched</a> an investigation into the platform, calling for comprehensive documentation of the company’s policies and programs. 
None of the Big Five returned requests for comment.

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