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Censorship Industrial Complex

Julian Assange laments growing censorship, suppression of truth in the West upon release

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Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, attends the European council on October 1, 2024, in Strasbourg, France

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Speaking after 12 years of confinement, Julian Assange warned of the erosion of free speech in the West, linking his own prosecution to global censorship, political corruption, and attacks on honest journalism.

On October 1, Julian Assange made his first major speech since his release. In it, he delivered a verdict on how we are governed which is as damning as it is revealing.

“I am not free today because the system worked,” Assange said, “I am free today because after years of incarceration I pled guilty to journalism.”

Julian Assange was convicted under the U.S. Espionage Act and spent 12 years in confinement, first taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, followed by five years in Britain’s maximum-security prison in Belmarsh.

Had his plea not been accepted he faced a sentence of 175 years in prison. He was speaking in Strasbourg, France, at a hearing convened by the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council – which recognized Assange as a “political prisoner.”

Saying how “incarceration has taken its toll,” Assange noted how the world he had rejoined had changed – for the worse:

I regret how much ground has been lost during that time period. How expressing the truth has been undermined, attacked, weakened, and diminished.

Assange gave a chilling account of the state of the Western world today, saying he now sees “more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth, and more self-censorship.”

He believes that his own treatment was a turning point for the suppression of freedom of speech in the West:

It is hard not to draw a line from the U.S. government’s prosecution of me – its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism – to the chill climate for freedom of expression that exists now.

During his speech, Assange alleged that former CIA director Mike Pompeo devised a plan to kill him, following Wikileaks’ revelation in 2017 of CIA operations in Europe.

Citing the testimony of “more than 30 former and current U.S. intelligence officials,” Assange said that “it is a matter of public record that under Pompeo’s explicit direction the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me” while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Assange was originally pursued for having publicized U.S. actions in Guantanamo Bay, and alleged war crimes in Iraq, which he explains intensified following Wikileaks’ CIA revelations.

Cracks in our system

Assange’s case and his extraordinary testimony reveals one of many fault lines in the Western world.

“Today, the free world is no longer free.” said Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele, describing also how the West is becoming “more pessimistic,” adding that, “[t]ragically, we can see more evidence of this decline every day.” Speaking at the United Nations on September 30, he said:

When the Free World became free it was due to freedom of expression, freedom before the law. But once a nation abandons the principles that make it free it’s only a question of time before it completely loses its freedom.

His observations are echoed by statements from across the political divide in the U.S.

The former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard warned on October 5 that the party she left now seeks to undermine the First Amendment. She said on X, “People like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris do not believe in the First Amendment because they see it as an obstacle to achieving their real goal: ‘total control.’”

Her remarks followed those made by Hillary Clinton in a recent video interview, in which Clinton said “whether it’s Facebook or Twitter/X or Instagram or TikTok … if they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control.”

Clinton’s remarks about losing “total control” come after Sen. John Kerry spoke at the World Economic Forum on September 25, saying “our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer [disinformation] out of existence.”

Kerry argued that opposition to the polices of the WEF was fueled by “disinformation” when critics in fact simply dislike its policies. Populism generally is described as a threat to democracy in the West, when it is also simply the preference for popular policies, against the unpopular ones of the current ruling elite.

“Disinformation,” and “misinformation” are terms invented and used by the language and ideological police to hide their malicious intent.

It appears that unpopular policies such as those of permanent war, Net Zero, deindustrialization, and denationalization can only be pursued with “total control” of the information seen by the public.

The meaningful political debate is not about left and right. It is about the meaning of what is right, and the outrage at what is obviously wrong. Assange says “it is uncertain what we can do” about the “impunity” of our leadership, which as yet has faced no meaningful consequences for its pursuit of deeply unpopular policies at the expense of widespread corruption and defended by censorship.

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Elon Musk Warns Harris Will Try To Shut Down X ‘By Any Means Possible’ If Elected

Published on October 8, 2024

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Harold Hutchison

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk said Vice President Kamala Harris will launch “lawfare” in an effort to shut down X “by any means possible” if she wins the 2024 presidential election.

Musk sat down for a two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation, released on Monday. Musk said that should Harris win the presidency, he anticipated that he and his companies would face legal action.

“If she wins, how can they let X continue in its current form, in its current role in American society?” Carlson asked Musk about the future of the social network if Harris wins the presidency.

“They won’t,” Musk responded. “They will try to shut it down by any means possible.”

WATCH:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Americans to be “criminally charged” for spreading what she viewed as disinformation during a Sept. 17 interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, and warned that a lack of censorship was causing a loss of “total control” in a Saturday interview with CNN host Mike Smerconish.

Carlson asked Musk to explain what he meant when he said a Harris administration would use “any means possible” to shut down X.

“They might try to pass laws,” Musk said. “They’ll try to prosecute the company, prosecute me. The amount of lawfare we’ve seen taking place is outrageous.”

Musk noted the Biden administration had sued SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers

“I mean… the Department of Justice, for example, launched a huge lawsuit against SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers,” Musk continued as Carlson expressed shock. “Not those granted asylum, but asylum seekers. Now, there’s also a law called International Traffic in Arms Regulations that because SpaceX develops advancements in technology that can be used in nuclear ICBMs… we have to be careful who we hire. We can only hire a permanent resident or a citizen.”

The Justice Department announced the suit against SpaceX in August 2023, claiming the company “discouraged asylees and refugees from applying to the company” in legal documents. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Tesla in September 20203. claiming black employees faced harassment and threats, including nooses.

The Biden administration launched other investigations and lawsuits into companies Musk is tied to, including Tesla, since he purchased Twitter in 2022. Musk predicted a dirty tricks campaign in May 2022, as his purchase of Twitter was in progress.

Musk has been an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House, funding America PAC, speaking at Trump’s Saturday rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, at the site of an attempted assassination of the former president and donating to efforts to elected House GOP candidates.

Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Business

Trudeau gov’t suggests federal funding of media outlets an attempt to buy ‘social cohesion’

Published on October 7, 2024

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Liberal-run Heritage Department is backing a program that offers 100% payroll rebates for mainstream journalists.

Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s department admitted that federally funded media outlets buy “social cohesion.”

According to information obtained October 7 by Blacklock’s Reporter, the Canadian Association of Journalists praised a program from Canada’s Heritage Department, run by the Liberal St-Onge, that offers 100% payroll rebates for mainstream journalists.

“The crisis in local journalism is a threat to social cohesion,” the report claimed, failing to explain what it meant by “social cohesion.”

The report praised the Local Journalism Initiative and the rebates for mainstream media up to $19.6 million annually, effectively making federally funded journalists government employees.

“The Local Journalism Initiative contributes to social cohesion by having journalists tell stories about and for communities,” the report continued. “Local journalism helps to preserve a sense of community identity and social cohesion.”

“Local journalism relays information that has an impact on the daily lives of readers and reports on the political and social situation,” it claimed.

“It strengthens the reader’s connection to a community, emphasizing their role as a citizen in a democracy,” the report continued. “With the ever-increasing influx of digital information, local journalism is of paramount importance in the life of a community.”

While the report failed to explain exactly what “social cohesion” means, media funded by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has become infamous for propping up the Liberals while tearing down any opposition to the party or its radical agendas.

In fact, in September, House leader Karina Gould directed mainstream media reporters to “scrutinize” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly condemned government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals.

Indeed, there have been multiple instances of the CBC pushing what appears to be ideological content, including the creation of pro-LGBT material for kids, tacitly endorsing the gender mutilation of children, promoting euthanasia, and even seeming to justify the burning of mostly Catholic churches throughout the country.

Despite this, beginning in 2019, Parliament changed the Income Tax Act to give yearly rebates of 25 percent for each news employee in cabinet-approved media outlets earning up to $55,000 a year to a maximum of $13,750.

The Canadian Heritage Department since admitted that the payouts are not even sufficient to keep legacy media outlets running and recommended that the rebates be doubled to a maximum of $29,750 annually.

Last November, Trudeau again announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets that coincide with the leadup to the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.

Similarly, Trudeau’s 2024 budget outlined $42 million in increased funding for the CBC in 2024-25.

The $42 million to the CBC is in addition to massive media payouts that already make up roughly 70 percent of its operating budget and total more than $1 billion annually.

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