Podcasts about permanent select committee

The Democratic National Convention is on its third day and what some are noticing is a lack of policy talk. While Democrat sweethearts like Former President Barack Obama and the Former First Lady Michelle Obama took the stage to tell the country to embrace Kamala Harris, many speakers have stayed away from specifics about what a Harris administration would bring to the table. FOX's Eben Brown speaks with Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and first Green Beret to serve in Congress, who says besides the lack of policy details, the DNC has insulted families of those who have served by not mentioning foreign policy failures. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Democratic National Convention is on its third day and what some are noticing is a lack of policy talk. While Democrat sweethearts like Former President Barack Obama and the Former First Lady Michelle Obama took the stage to tell the country to embrace Kamala Harris, many speakers have stayed away from specifics about what a Harris administration would bring to the table. FOX's Eben Brown speaks with Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and first Green Beret to serve in Congress, who says besides the lack of policy details, the DNC has insulted families of those who have served by not mentioning foreign policy failures. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Democratic National Convention is on its third day and what some are noticing is a lack of policy talk. While Democrat sweethearts like Former President Barack Obama and the Former First Lady Michelle Obama took the stage to tell the country to embrace Kamala Harris, many speakers have stayed away from specifics about what a Harris administration would bring to the table. FOX's Eben Brown speaks with Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and first Green Beret to serve in Congress, who says besides the lack of policy details, the DNC has insulted families of those who have served by not mentioning foreign policy failures. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This morning, Greg and Dan received a call from friend of the show Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of the 8th Congressional District in Illinois.   Mr. Krishnamoorthi is a Peoria native and serves for the US House of Representatives for the State of Illinois, and serves as the assistant whip for the Democratic Party. He also serves on a series of committees from the House Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as well as the first oversight committee on the assassination attempt of Former President Donald Trump. Greg and Dan ask about the Congressman's experience with the recent Chinese Olympic Doping Scandal, his insight on the Assassination Attempt on Trump's life, and his thoughts on the tragic death of Sonya Massey in Sangamon County in Southern Illinois.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since the events of October 7, the Chinese Communist Party has been spreading virulent antisemitic memes in the U.S. via its favorite information warfare tool: Tik Tok. We have had episodes on Tik Tok before, but the urgency of this issue has reached a fever pitch, culminating with the celebration of Osama bin Laden's “Letter to America” on the app last week. Tik Tok is pervasive – around a third of young adults use it for news – and it is incredibly effective. It is not just the propaganda that is convincing young Americans to hate America and ally themselves with bin Laden, Iran, and antisemites everywhere. And it is not even the losses on Xi Jinping's “smokeless battlefield.” It is the question of the easy control of young American hearts and minds – which apparently march to the TikTok algorithm's orders – and the consequent control the Chinese Communist Party has over American opinions and American politics. Bonus: There are also transgenic mice.Congressman Mike Gallagher has represented Wisconsin's 8th District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2017. In the 118th Congress, Representative Gallagher serves as Chairman of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, as Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, and on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.Download the transcript here.

The second Republican presidential debate is set for Wednesday night, and if Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, were the debate's moderator, he knows what he would ask the candidates relating to China.“Maybe the most obvious question is perhaps the most important, which is: ‘Why should an average American care about the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party?'” he says.“It may be obvious to those of us who work in D.C. or people who work at think tanks in D.C., but at times I fear it can seem like a distant “over-there” threat, when my view is very much that it's a “right-here-at-home-threat” and a threat to American sovereignty,” says Gallagher, who is also chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation. Gallagher, also member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, adds:Perhaps the most important policy question, though, is: “What is your plan for rebuilding American military power in order to deter a war with China over Taiwan?”And then, if they want to stoke debate, they can ask questions about TikTok, because candidates have different opinions about whether we should ban TikTok, force a sale, or do nothing at all.Gallagher joins today's episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss some key issues relating to China that he thinks candidates should be focused on and address while campaigning, along with his pitch to young voters who are on TikTok about why the Chinese app should be banned. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Adams Archive, where we slice through the noise to bring you the unvarnished truth. In today's rollercoaster of an episode, we tackle a CIA whistleblower's shocking claim that analysts were financially incentivized to bury evidence supporting COVID's lab origin. Then, we dig into the dark cloud hovering over Russell Brand as allegations and YouTube demonetization tarnish his reputation. We also unveil the controversial denouncement of Tim Ballard by none other than the Mormon Church. And if you think that's where it stops, stick around. We dive into Mexican doctors' extraordinary findings on alleged alien corpses and explore the lingering mysteries surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Air 370. Don't be another cog in the misinformation machine—hit subscribe and leave a five-star review to help us expose the truth that mainstream media often chooses to ignore. Head over to austinadams.substack.com for exclusive content and updates. Buckle up; it's time to challenge the status quo!   All links: https://linktr.ee/theaustinjadams Substack: https://austinadams.substack.com ----more---- Full transcription    Adams Archive. Hello, you beautiful people and welcome to the Adams Archive. My name is Austin Adams and thank you so much for listening today. On today's episode, we are going to dive deep into some wild situations. The first one being that the CIA has whistleblower come out and said that the CIA was actually paying off It's analysts to bury the findings that COVID was a lab leak, literally giving. Their own analysts, financial incentives to switch their opinions on whether or not that was the case. So we read about that, then we will discuss Russell Brand, who is in the news for some not so good things. Some reports coming out and accusations regarding some sexual assault allegations and potentially even worse, he was actually had his YouTube channel suspended or D demonetized today. So we'll discuss. That as a result. And then going a little bit deeper into that, we're going to look at the Mormon Church actually denouncing Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard being the once founder of Operation Underground Railroad. Also the person who is depicted in the movie, the Sound of Freedom, which we've talked about at length here before. So we'll look at what these allegations are, why they denounced him, and. Tim Ballard had a response to this that he did a video on this guy with his PRs is pretty, pretty wild stuff. So we'll look at that. After that, we'll look at a Texas church talking about churches Texas church, which is experimenting with AI generated services using chat GPT for worship sermon and original songs. That is one of the most dystopian things that I've ever heard. So, we'll discuss that. Now, again, as always, the longer you stay with me, the deeper we get. So, after that, we'll discuss the findings of the Mexican doctors who concluded after their tests were done on the alleged non human alien Corpses. So we have their findings on that. So if you don't know, we haven't talked about this yet here because we had a little bit of a layoff over the last couple of weeks for several reasons. But what happened was Mexico had a congressional hearing where there was two alleged alien bodies, which were shown at the congressional hearing. And they look every bit of ET that you could imagine. So what ended up happening is these Mexican doctors actually did a, some tests on these bodies and we'll see, I haven't read this yet, so we'll see what they actually found. And then, last but not least, this is a story that has been surfacing. Pretty consistently somewhat recently regarding, if you recall, Malaysia Air, I believe it was Malaysia Air 370. That was a airplane which had gotten lost, you know, we go all the way back to 2000 and, let's see. This was filmed in 2014, yeah, lost in 2014, I believe. Now there's some really big deep dives that some people did into this situation. And they came up with some pretty wild stuff. And we'll discuss it all. But first, I need you to head over to the substack Austin Adams dot substack calm, go ahead and get signed up. If there's any news, if there's any podcast companions, articles that I write, all of it is there for free, head over there right now, Austin Adams dot substack calm, then I need you to hit that subscribe button. All right, hit that subscribe button. If it's your first time here, if it is not your first time here, Or if it is, go ahead and leave a five star review. Just helps me get up in the rankings. It's really one of the only ways that you can show your appreciation for my hard work here. So go ahead, leave a five star review, hit the subscribe button, head over to austinadams. substack. com. And let's jump into it. The Adams archive. All right. The very first thing that we're going to discuss today is going to be that the CIA had a whistleblower come out and say that the CIA was paying off its own analysts to bury the findings that COVID was a lab leak from Wuhan. China. So let's read this article. It comes from the New York Post and it says, the Central Intelligence Agency offered to pay off analysts in order to bury their findings. That Covid most likely was from a lab in Wuhan China. A new whistleblower testimony to Congress alleges, and this goes on to say that a senior. Level CIA officer told house committee leaders that his agency tried to pay off six analysts who found that SARS COVID 2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab. And if they changed their position and said that this, the virus jumped from animals to humans, according to a letter sent Tuesday to CIA director, William Burns. Select committee on the coronavirus pandemic chairman, Brad one strap and. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner requested all the documents, communications, and pay info from the CIA's COVID Discovery Team by September 26th. So they're actually going to be doing further investigation into this, thankfully, and that will be in just about a week's time. So we'll have to see what comes up from that. According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID 19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The house. Panel chairman wrote. That's crazy. Six out of the seven people on this specific team believed that the virus came from a lab leak, and the CIA wanted to hush every one of them, and they tried to do so by incentivizing them, allegedly, With money. So now they're pulling all of those financial hearings. Now we actually have the document from Congress which says. Which is comes from the Honorable William J. Burns says to select to Director Burns to the Select Committee of the Coronavirus pandemic and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence together. The committees have received new and concerning whistleblower testimony regarding the agency's investigation into the origins of COVID 19. A multi decade, senior level, current agency officer has come forward to provide information to the committees regarding the agency's analysis into the origins of COVID 19. According to the whistleblower, the agency assigned seven officers to a COVID discovery team. The team consisted of multidisciplinary and experienced officers with significant scientific expertise. According to the whistleblower, at the... End of its review, six of the seven members of the team believed that the intelligence and science were severe sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID 19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The seventh member of the team who also happened to be the most senior was the lone officer to believe that COVID 19 originated through zoonosis. The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a sufficient or significant monetary incentive to change their position. These allegations from a seemingly credible source requires the committees to conduct further oversight of how the CIA handled its internal investigations into the origins of COVID 19. To assist the committees, and again, this is What they actually wrote to Congress with their investigations. We request the following documents and information as soon as possible, but no later than September 26, 2023, all documents and communications regarding the establishment of all iterations of the COVID discovery teams. All documents and communications between or among the members of all iterations of the COVID discovery team regarding the origins of COVID 19 and all documents and communications between or among members of all iterations of the COVID discovery team and other employees or contractors of the agency regarding the origins of COVID 19all documents and communications between them or among members of all iterations. Including but not limited to the US Department of State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Department of Health and Human Services to include the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the US Department of Energy regarding the origins of Covid 19. And lastly, all documents and communications regarding the pay history to include the awarding of any type of financial or performance-based incentive financial bonuses to members of all iterations of the C Ovid 19 discovery team. The select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic is authorized to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, including but not limited to the federal government's funding of gain of function research and executive branch policies, deliberations, decisions, activities, and internal or external communications related to the COVID coronavirus pandemic. Whew, that's a mouthful. Further house rule. 11 Clause 2 and 1B grants committees of the House of Representatives with the authority to require by subpoena or otherwise the attendance and testimony of such witnesses in the production of such books, records, correspondence, memorandums, papers, and documents as it considers necessary should the required information not be produced in an expeditious or satisfactory manner. You should expect the committee or committees to use its additional tools and authorities to satisfy our legislative and oversight requirements. Thank you for your attention. And then signed by the chairman. Of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Mike Turner, and the Chairman of Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus Pandemic, Brad Wenstrup. Curious who this Brad Wenstrup is. Anyways. The Honorable Raul Ruiz Ranking Member. Alright, so there's your, there's your document on that. Alright so. This goes on to say that in a separate letter the House Committee leaders, and I'll go ahead and just pull this up on the screen for you guys so you can actually. Look with me here. There we go. All right. So this also goes on to say, In a separate letter, In a separate letter, the House committee leaders identified former CIA chief operating officer, Andrew McCready, Mac, Macridis, as having played a central role in the COVID investigation, and asked him to sit for a transcribed interview. At CIA, we are committed to the highest level of standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity. Of course you are, just not when it comes to assassinating Kennedys. We do not pay an analyst to reach specific conclusions. Of course we wouldn't do that. The post, in a statement, we take these allegations extremely serious and are looking into them. We will keep our congressional oversight committees appropriately informed. Hmm. Interesting, interesting to see if there's anything more from this article that we should be discussing now to the comment section, which is really what matters, which says that if they are actively covering up evidence that COVID came from gain of function research that was weaponizing a virus, then I wonder what other part they might have in all of this. It seems as if we would want to know the truth of origin if we truly want to prevent similar future. outbreaks. That's a good point, right? Why would you want to cover up the origins of this? Why would you not want to get to the bottom of what happened to prevent it from happening again in the future, unless you or somebody, you know, or somebody who's giving you money. Had any take or partook in any of it, right? Why, why, if you, if you don't have any skin in the game, if you're not somebody who's going to be held liable, if you're not concerned about anything coming back to you as an organization, or maybe as the person who ordered these things to happen, why would you be doing this? That's weird. Huh. The next person said, remember when it was the political left that challenged questions and were skeptical of the various three lettered agencies yet now the left is in unquestioning lockstep when with its former arch enemies, pretty remarkable change in the last. generation. It is pretty crazy to like you go back to the 70s, you go back to the 80s, you go back to the 90s, right? The Democratic Party, the left was primarily the hippies, not the the suit and tie wearing grandfathers that we used to think were Republicans back in the day, right? You always that's always how it was pictured for a very long time, right? That that Republicans were these stiff old white men, and The cool people, the, the artists, the this, the that, the, you know, the people who were free thinkers were the people who were on the left, right? Those were the liberals. Those were the the, the Democrats. And, and it seems like we have shifted pretty, pretty significantly to where the left just wants to be completely in line with anything and everything that daddy government says that they should be in line with. And the right questions literally everything, right? For how long were we saying that there's alien evidence, alien evidence, alien evidence? And all of a sudden, the government comes out with alien evidence, and all of a sudden, we're all questioning it, right? Just because the government actually told us that. There was no winning scenario there. But, now that that information's coming out, and it's coming from the mouth of the government, and not other institutions, which we actually trust, we're questioning that too. Because, Everything the government does has an agenda or else they wouldn't be doing it because the government is just about siphoning money from the pool of tax money that they extorted from its people, right? So once you realize that, you have to realize that there's an agenda behind everything, right? The only way for you to be successful in politics, the only way for you to get into the positions that you want to is, well, maybe a already have hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank and self fund yourself and not have to take money from lobbyists, but maybe there's only been. A handful of people like that in recent history and by handful, I mean, maybe two or three and by recent history, I mean, since 1776, but but it's, it's pretty wild to see that, you know, the left is just so in line with everything the government says, so in line with mask mandates, so in line with you know, what, what the CIA is doing with, with everything and anything that comes out from the government. They're just immediately fall in line with it, right? All of that. They are the propaganda Enforcers is the liberal far left, right and and we have to say far left Although I I tend to believe that the left is far more radical in this ideologies than the right is Even if you go to like the far right, right, the far right, being the proud boy type people the, the QAnon conspiracy theorists on, on all of the the deep channels of 4chan, right? It's like when, in order to get to that level, you're probably looking at when it, when it comes to the liberal left, right? We're talking about what, what are the extreme ideologies of the liberal left? The extreme ideologies of the liberal left is that, oh, Any single moment prior to birth, a child should be able to be killed within the womb, right? There's, there's no, there's no conversation more than until it's born, right? That's a pretty radical idea. And I would say, let's say 30 percent of Democrats agree with that idea. Okay, there's one. All right, the secondary idea being that, you know, let's let's say socialism, like true capital, not capitalism, but socialism, that, you know, everybody and anybody should have their fair share of everything, regardless of work ethic, right? Equality of outcome, right? And you might look at it, maybe not straight socialism, but equality of outcome, right? They want the top 1 percent of people to pay the top, you know, 75 percent of taxes, right? Okay, that seems like somewhat of a radical ideology. They don't want people to be able to have Guns that's a that's a pretty radical ideology. Let's just say again for argument's sake that that's 30 percent 30 percent of the radical left Believes that we shouldn't be able to own any weapons at all any weapons at all Well in 30 percent might be generous. It's probably closer like 35 40 and again, I'm just throwing shit out there, but 35% And then you go into what's another radical idea? Oh, well, maybe that your children at the age of two to three years old, four years old should be able to determine their gender, even though they were born with the chromosomes that they were born with. Okay, that's a pretty radical ideology that your child should be able to choose its own gender when it can't choose its own lunch. Because it would choose candy every day. And that's maybe closer to 60 percent of the, let's say, the radical left, or the left in general, believes that. Okay? We can probably even take that further and further and further, looking at the different ideologies. But let's say 30 60 percent of the far left ideologies Trickle into the majority almost of what the left believes right now. We, we can go to the other side of things and say, what are the radical ideologies of the radical? Right. Right. Okay. Trump's been in president for the last, or has been president during Biden's entire term, and we're just waiting on him to raise his hand and say, it was me the whole time, guys. And rip off his mask like it's Scooby-Doo You know, that's like the radical, radical, right. QAnon people. Right. And obviously, you know, QAnon's been, been has some, some merit to some of its belief systems when it comes to the the child sex trafficking rings and things like that. There's obvious merit to that. But, but when we're talking about the fact that there's going to be Trump's. In charge of the real military and he, and I think we haven't heard much whispers of that over the last year or so, but for about the first year or two for, for Joe Biden's presidency, there was a serious group of small group of extremist conservatives, extremist conservatives who were thinking that Trump was going to come back and take over and be like, ha, it was me, right? I'm still president. And, and, you know, that's, that's pretty radical, but I would say maybe Four, three, 3%, maybe less than 3% of of people right now. Another radical ideology on the right might be what? I can't, it's hard to even think of any. I dunno that you shouldn't have drag shows in front of children Like what is, what is the radical rights belief systems that the government shouldn't you know, we didn't even get the freedom of speech when it comes to the left, right? Censorship. The, the, the right might think that there should be No. No. No censorship of speech, right? That's not even radical. So it's just hard to see. It's hard to see what is the what? And I'm open to the conversation. So send me a message. Let me know what is the radical ideas of the right. And maybe maybe we can start to have the percentage conversations I just had with the left, but it's so much easier. Okay, let's just go with abortion. Right abortion. Let's say every single person believes that there should be no ability to have any abortion. And that let's call that a A radical ideology within the right. Let's just say that just for argument's sake. What percentage of people do you think That are conservatives that hold that belief that just zero abortions for any reason whatsoever, regardless of age, regardless of circumstance, regardless of medical situations, maybe, maybe 10%, maybe 5%, I would think like Uh, and primarily made up of people who are highly religious and for religious reasons, not just ideological reasons. So it's just a weird conversation, right? The far left is far more of the left than the far right being part of the right, right? The percentages of those people are just so much lower than what we see. So the craziness... That the entire left is pretty crazy in their ideology because you get thrown out of the group if you don't agree with all of it. Right? So, anyways, there's your tangent on that. Where were we? I don't think it matters. Last comment says there was no lab leak, virus developed in Georgia and released worldwide through various means with various intensities. Not natural, not an accident, U. S. military operation under the auspices of the deep state. Hmm. That's an interesting one. Now, if you go back, I did a whole episode on the what is it called? The water in the water. What was it? That guy, Peter or something did a documentary about how he believed that it was some form of snake venom that was being released to people through the water systems, right? That was a pretty, that was a crazy, crazy idea. But there's a whole documentary on it. Let's see if I can remember what it was called. Let's go. COVID, Snake, Venom, Water, Documentary. And I did a whole podcast breaking this down. So, you can go back and listen to that. Watch the water. Watch the water. That's what it was. Hmm. Yeah, I believe that was, and this guy is the guy who did it. That he interviewed. This, what's the guy's name? Here he is. Pretty sure the guy's like a chiropractor or some shit. But that's a pretty crazy one that the water, the drinking water was being poisoned with snake venom. That was a, that was a pretty wild one, but, but interesting. And I believe if you go back and actually listen to it, there was, there was some interesting arguments within that. But anyways, maybe that's what they were discussing within that comment there. But wrapping that topic up, the CIA was apparently and allegedly, according to this whistleblower, Paying people not to say that it was a lab leak. And again, you have to ask yourself why. All right? In other news, Russell Brand has been accused of sexual assault. And as a result, his YouTube channel has been immediately demonetized without any actual trial, any hearing. Right? And this is somebody's income. So... YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money from videos on his channel over sexual assault and rape allegations. Right? Something, something that's embedded in our law is innocent until proven guilty. Right? The guy from That 70s Show that Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis was just basically sticking up for in a letter. Was convicted of rape by two women convicted, right? We can demonetize his YouTube. Not sure he would have access to it anyways. But do you just get to as a company? D demonetized the platform people kill their income for allegations. Now, are you playing judge and jury? And how does that play into when somebody goes to court for these things? Right? If you're if you're saying that you believe this person is guilty and also who's making these decisions at YouTube and that. Different companies like this. Anyways, let's go ahead and read this article, which says YouTube has suspended advertisements on Russell Brand's channel in light of a slew of sexual assault and rape allegations made against the comedian as clips of his former wife, Katy Perry, have resurfaced the platform suspensions for violating its policy will still allow brand to. Upload videos, of course it will, it just won't give him money, but he will not profit from advertising. Meanwhile, footage has re emerged of the moment Brand ended his relationship with US singer Perrie by text message in 2011 following their 14 month marriage. Presenter Vanessa Feltz has also shared deeply offensive footage of Brand. Asking to sleep with her and her daughters. When she appeared on his chat show in 2006 and the late comedian, Sean Locke disclosed the reason he hated brand and the clip from the panel show eight out of 10 cats in 2014, explaining he had a fear for his he had a fear his daughters would bring home a man like brand one day. I don't see how that has any merit. Brand has vehemently denied the very serious criminal allegations and said his relationships were absolutely always consensual. So let's see if we can get maybe some of these videos. No, they're just going to send us to a big page of random stuff. All right. So it goes on to say a timeline key points. YouTube suspends monetization. Big brother co creator describes brand allegations as. depressing and BBC confirms removal of brands, content, brand episodes removed from C4 website. No evidence to suggest channel four bosses knew of brands alleged assaults and review into the timeline at BBC led to by director of editorial complaints. This was three hours ago. It says that who cares? That's a silly one. It says the allegations against Russell Brand over the weekend have got people examining the age of consent. Rightly so, that a 30 year old man would embark on a sexual relationship with a schoolgirl feels instinctively wrong to many of us. The woman in question, Alice, who has said that she now feels she was groomed by Brand, though he also denied all of the allegations, has called for consent law to be reviewed in light of her experience. The law enabled it, she told reporters. For the times Saturday night, it shouldn't be legal for a 16 year old to have a relationship with a man in their thirties. Now, most of us are comfortable with the idea that a 16 year old can consent to have sex with another 16 year old, that two teenagers can have a sexual relationship, but we start to feel iffy when there's an adult in the sexual relationship with a minor, as the gap age gap increases, so does our discontent or disquiet. That's not mere hand wringing or moralizing, and it's not about. Trying to deny young people their sexuality, it's because we understand implicitly, even when we can't articulate it, that an imbalance of power can affect consent. Okay, agreed. 16 year olds and 30 year olds shouldn't be having sex. Let's see this clip. Can I have it off with either you or your daughters, the answer's no, and I'm, no. It's terribly awkward when you're a guest on somebody else's show, particularly in a theatre which is full of great fans of, of the presenter, Russell Brand, so they all loved him, they were cheering him and egging him on, and I was in this unbelievably awkward position where you don't quite know what to do. Are you meant to pretend you think it's funny and laugh along? Are you meant to stand up and walk out in high dutch and, and, and look as if you're a spoilsport and a party pooper? You know, what are you supposed to do? But I know I was deeply offended then as I remain deeply offended now. Now that woman looked about in her 40s and not very attractive at the time. And now that's not to take away the seriousness of this clip, but I don't see that there being any merit to that of people just trying to smear him. Now, now something that's come out as a revolt result of this, you know, and something that there seems to be a lot of attention on Russell Brand right now, right now, Russell Brand speaking out consistently, consistently, consistently against the deep state against George Soros against the world economic forum. So To me, it would be no surprise that there's things coming back. Now, from 20, 30, 20 years ago, 10, 15, 20 years ago, that obviously have not been litigated. There's no, nothing going through the court system. So again, I'm not saying that I don't think a 30 year old and a 16 year old should have a sexual relationship. That's creepy. It's weird. It's gross. I, I don't know if I, you know, we just had the one side of that, but he seems to say that he. didn't do any of that. Now telling a woman in her 40s during a talk show, let me have a go at you or your daughters and she's 40 and maybe your daughter's 2025 or something like, okay, it's still nothing there. You know, I would love to see, you know, and here's a, here's a good quote that came from Reddit. That's pretty popular right now. It says, All start caring whether or not Russell Brand had some questionable sex a decade or two ago when the media starts caring what Bill Gates or Prince Andrew was doing on Epstein Island. Or when it starts naming the customers Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of supplying trafficked minors to. Right. There seems to be a lot of emphasis, right? I'll start caring about Russell brand. When you start to show that you actually care about the victims, right? That's what this is saying here. Not, not, let's not diminish if there was some allegations. Cause I haven't read enough into them to say they weren't true or they were true or whatever. Let's just say, sure. There's allegations here, but what we know 100 percent besides the fact that Russell brand had, what seems like a still. Something that has not been convicted against him. And he still hasn't even gone to court for this. That doesn't seem like there's any charges. But there has been somebody who was supplying and trafficking hundreds, if not thousands, of underage women to Prince Andrew, to Bill Clinton, to Hollywood executives, to Hollywood elites, to... Everybody in power, and everybody knew about it. Oh, and also, so did the news companies who silenced the articles to come out. Right? Everybody knew about this, but nobody said anything. And still... They're protecting the lists today, you're going to tell me you're going to tell me that they raided Epstein's Island and found nothing of merit that they're releasing to the public about who was a part of this, how they did it, about what we're doing as a result of that, you're going to tell me they raided an entire island that was used specifically for track picking and found nothing, not a Bit of evidence, not a single strand of evidence that led them to convict somebody who was on that island doing those things. Bill Gates, like I said, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton just person after person after person. And the list, you know, we've gone into that and the whole breakdown of the black list that came out or black book that came out from Epstein. So you can go back and listen to that to see who was all a part of it. But. It's pretty crazy. And, and so this article or this, this person posted and goes on to say that I'll care what about what one former US president is or isn't guilty of. When the media starts caring about what other former US presidents are or are not guilty of. And I'll care about a more powerful country invading a less powerful country when the media reports the conflict and its context in exactly the same tone. And with the degree, same degree of neutrality versus moral outrage as it uses when there's a more powerful country in question is the U S A. Until that day, the mainstream media and everyone who repeats its talking points on social media is not, but idle gossip and the sound of one hand clapping. Until the day I could not give less fucks about what mainstream media says any person did or didn't do, so... Well, that's not what it said. It says about who the mainstream media says any fucker fucked or didn't fuck. And so fuck the mainstream media. Let anyone... It fucks with tell them to fuck the fuck off. With its farce ial fuckery. Now, the top comment on this, and I don't disagree with this, is you are allowed to care about all of those things simultaneously. Right. I don't disagree with that. It definitely seems like you should, you know, If you care about people who are the victims, you should just care about them regardless, but it doesn't seem like it's obviously not the same level of situation here. Now, in light of these things coming up here, I'm actually going to skip. We'll maybe push off the Tim Ballard one to a different episode here, because we have a little bit more to go. And I have a little bit limited amount of time here. So the next one that we're going to move to is a Texas church experiments with. AI generated service and uses chat GPT for worship sermon and original songs to praise the Lord says the church said the experiment would be a one time event. And this comes from Fox news. Now, if this isn't the most dystopian thing you've ever heard of when it comes to religion, I don't know what it is. This is just So sci fi, weird, and cult y. It says, with artificial intelligence seemingly infiltrating every facet of our lives, one church decided to experiment with the technology for one of its services last week. The Violet Crown City Church, located in Austin, held an AI generated service on Sunday, describing the experiment as uncharted territory. Yeah, because you're starting a cult with... a robot at the head of it. This, and you're, you're, you're actually the, so here's a philosophical issue with this is that you're, you're taking the person who is, let's say the, the coding behind the AI and turning that into a deity, right? You're, you're giving it infinite amounts of power over people. When somebody gives their life to a God or a deity or a religion and says, I believe in you. I trust in you. I give you my life. I give you my faith. You know, faith is a faith is a. a tricky thing, right? Faith is, is now not always blind faith, but, but faith with with a little bit of suspicion is, is healthy, right? But faith, faith is a tricky thing. And if you give that faith to something who's, who's being, can be at any single point manipulated by man. Right? You're, you're giving religious potential. You're giving deity like power to something that is man itself, right? We cannot have man worshiping man. That's the problem that we saw with science during COVID science, right? It turned into a cult, right? There's no man who should be a deity and there's no artificial intelligence that should be a deity because what does that become other than the manifestation of the programming, right? Right? So this says. This Sunday, they said, we're entering somewhat uncharted territory by letting Chachibiti create the order of worship, prayers, sermon, liturgy, and even an original song from our 10 a. m. service, the church wrote on its official Facebook page. The purpose, the purpose is to invite us to consider the nature of truth and challenge our assumptions about what, what God can make sacred and inspired. The Church acknowledged such an experiment would be easy to write off, but encouraged its members to keep an open mind. Why not attend instead of an experience for yourself, the Church said, clarifying that this would be a one time experiment and not something we'll likely do again. Yeah, I hope not. The Church assanjed any worries that Skynet, a reference to the fictional AI, I'm not sure an AI can actually express the emotions of love and kindness and empathy, Chambers said. I think that we must practice love and express that. Not only feel it, but we must. Express it. Interesting. Now the comment on this was pretty sure God was not impressed with the vanity of that service. They wanted the creator of the entire universe to interact with a machine? It's like man saying, here, listen to this thing we created. God made man so he could interact and connect with man. Not so that man could make a machine and use it as his proxy. Yes. Agreed. Right, this is, if you think there is layers to reality, one of those layers being the higher, the higher reality, right, which is, let's call it heaven or we're, we're, we're God lives, right? And the layer that we're on being a lower dimension of reality, right? You cannot create, and you cannot, when, when somebody is creating a sermon, when somebody is writing a song, when somebody is deciding on what they do or do not want to talk about, If you believe in, in the faith of, of Christian, Christianity and religion, you believe that God is speaking through that person, right? God's not going to speak through an AI chatbot that was created by some Silicon Valley, woke, purple haired, ear ringed, Weirdo, right? Earrings like there's something wrong with earrings but it's all, you know, I, I pictured like 22 earrings on their head and gate big gauges. Right? But God's not going to speak through that person or at least through the coding that they wrote. I'm sorry. Right? So, so if you believe that that is of this reality that is of this realm and it's not going to be the real thing and all that opens up is a weird it. Alien based cult. Let's get into the good stuff. Alright, so the doctors, if you go back, the doctors in Mexico actually have come out and done testing on the alien bodies that were found in Peru. Now they claim that these were almost over a thousand years old when they were found and they were found in the ruins of I believe it wasn't wreckage, but they were just found and dug up by like archaeologists. So it says Mexican doctors have found no evidence of any assembly or manipulation of the skulls of the so called non human being remains that were presented to Mexico's Congress last week. Seemingly proven the remains were not human made. The scientists conducted a number of tests on the two specimens at the Neuer Clinic on Monday and live streamed the entire procedure. Wow, that's pretty cool. In the end, Jose Zels Benitez, the director of Health Sciences Research Institute and the secretary of the Mexican Navy offices, said the studies proved the alleged aliens belonged to a single skeleton and were not assembled with human objects. He also said his team found that one was alive, was intact, Was biological and was in gestation, pointing to large lumps inside the alleged E. T. 's abdomen, which suggested could be eggs. Whoa. I can affirm that these bodies have no relation to human beings, he previously claimed. The pair, which were allegedly unearthed in Cusco, Peru in 2017, have elongated heads with three fingers on each hand. Creepy. Super creepy. Especially when you look at the pictures of this MRI. Whoa, how are these pictures not out? That's crazy. Also, I do just want to say that nobody seems to give a fuck about the fact that they just showed alien corpses on live TV and then just did an autopsy on them with MRI machines and cat scans and came out with the results. I haven't seen a single person. I found this literally randomly on the New York Post. It says, but otherwise they appear humanoid in shape with two arms and two legs. Each my son. Said that they had strong light bones and no teeth, and had implants of ca, ca, ca, ca, cadmium and osmium, which is one of the scary, scariest elements on Earth. Also, one third of their d n A is unknown. He testified claiming that beings are not part of our terrestrial evolution. These specimens are not part of our evolutionary history on earth. They're not beings recovered from a U F O crash site. Instead, they were found in diatom. Minds and subc subsequently became fossilized, which is an algae. This is the first time it is presented in such a form. And I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non human specimens. They're not related to any other species in our world, but many have expressed skepticism about the discovery. For years, academics, archaeologists and scientists said that mummified remains, that UFO enthusiasts claim or aliens are generally just modified human bodies. And there's people looking at these pictures. There's picture after picture of these skulls. Oh my gosh. Could you imagine being in this room? How wild is that? The very first comment on this said, I am partly convinced they are not human and could be extraterrestrial. However, the DNA results will tell the tale. It should be easy to send a small sample of DNA to a reputable company. In fact, why not send one of the eggs as well? If it was alive at one time, that should be. The final proof of origin. Somebody else commented back to that person and said, is anyone going to believe anything coming from Mexico? Says they performed the same tests on Biden and got the same results. Oh, pretty crazy.  All right. And last but not least on today's episode, we're going to dive into the Malaysia air three 70 conspiracy. This was posted eight days ago on conspiracy Reddit by additional underscore add 3796. And I've dabbled in this a little bit. I haven't read the whole thing, but it's pretty crazy. So this says, Hello, this is Ashton from Twitter, and I have been writing about the MH370 videos for the past month. They are real, leaked, military videos. I don't want you to believe me, I want to convince you with the facts. This isn't all of the facts, just some of the most compelling. The videos... Oldest Archive is a satellite stereoscopic video from the Regenik Dianon with an archive upload date of May 19th, 2024. The description reads, Received March 12th, 2014. Source, protected. Alright, let's go ahead and see and make sure that he doesn't have any prior posts on this that give us a... T. L. D. R. A little bit on his post. So this was, well, he replies a lot. Let's go to his posts. We're looking at an overview. All right. So the one that we had looked at was from eight days ago. Let's just see if he has any the real story of MH three 70 all pertinent evidence and theories. That was 70 or seven days ago. Facts and theories to help the investigation. And okay. So this Reddit looks like started eight days ago or 10 days ago. And it says proof the Northern coordinates are correct and facts. Hey guys, this is Ashton from Twitter. I've noticed a lot of things have gotten destroyed here. Let's see if he gives us a quick synopsis here. And he does not. So let's jump first to the one that he says is all evidence and theories. Okay. So, so my J the general consensus. Well, not general consensus because I haven't done a census, but the idea here is that the original story was, was wrong, that this is a conspiracy and that it didn't just evaporate into thin air or fall into the ocean as everybody thinks. So this says Ashton Twitterson here, many people ask for a comprehensive list. Of the evidence of the M H 370 video. So I delivered most people's immediate reaction will be that the MH 370 videos are stupid or impossible, but they line up with all the facts to date. Don't believe me or trust me, verify the evidence. The U S government made a huge mistake recording this event. There's no excuse they can use to deny it. If you want to destroy all credibility and world governments here is. Your unique opportunity. Each piece of evidence can be verified either visually in the video from works of the community or my own investigation research. If it's not on the list, I either haven't verified it or don't find it to be credibly linked to the investigation. At this time, I'm limited in images that can be used or I would add more. I only put links and sources when it's a contentious point. When the time comes, all those who contributed will be giving credit. Quick disclaimer, they said This is not Q Anon. This is not to distract from Trump or Biden. This is not an alien invasion. This is not a hoax, misinformation, or disinformation. There are ufology elements, but that does not mean it is the explanation. This is the power of the community used to tell the story of the greatest conspiracy of all time. Is this the greatest conspiracy of all time? Note, I don't want to talk to any mainstream media. They'll never tell the truth. I'll talk to any alternative media or Tucker Carlson, Bill Maher, Joe Rogan. If these three can be convinced, I believe the world can be. Interesting. All right, so let's see if we can start with the theories, because I feel like he could have written this better to give us a brief synopsis first. But essentially. Oh, so that's what that video was. Okay, so this is showing that the Malaysia Air 370 was being circled by three unidentified objects in this crazy weird orbs all surrounding it and rotating. I did see this video. And then there's a zap, which is a cold event in the thermal because this was being picked up by thermal imaging. The zap accurately illuminates the clouds in the background and the foreground. All right. So. Let's go through this full. Let's go through this full deep dive. All right. So let's just go back to the top here because now it's starting to make a little bit more sense to me. There's a video that was circulating, which was showing and I'll pull it up here for you guys. So you can watch it if you're on YouTube with me here or on rumble or on the sub stack. This is the web archived video. Okay. Now, again, this comes from 2014 back when this airliner went missing. And here's a video. That they're saying is credible evidence of the Malaysia air showing, and here's my cursor showing there's the orb. There's three orbs that fly right around it in a crazy, crazy quick way that has no, wow. And they're, they're surrounding it like almost in a symmetrical triangle, rotating back and forth and in sync. Almost completely in sync and then rotating and turning back around and all surrounding this airliner, the same airliner that went missing suddenly back in 2014 and they go faster and faster and faster and faster, see if, and then disappears, what completely disappears. So we need to verify obviously the legitimacy of this video, but a lot of people seem to think it's legit. That was crazy. Okay. So one more time at the point where it disappears, the rotating, rotating, rotating, rotating, and it's gone big flash. And the airliner is just completely gone after being surrounded by these three orbs. Now there's a second video that comes from this, and we'll see what this shows us. That was the one that I saw, I believe. It says capture airliners and UFOs, UAV. And here's the thermal imagery. Alright, so here's the aircraft flying. Now why is a UAV this close to this airliner is a better question with thermal imaging. There's an orb, one orb, two orbs. Rotating, rotating, and leaving a thermal trail behind them, which is interesting. Oh, they're perfectly circling when you see the trail around them. Whoa, that's so weird. Super weird. And let's see if it shows it disappearing. Whoa, and it's Gone, dude, if this is real, and this if this is Malaysia air and the whole time I remember this, this was like, this was as big as the Titanic submarine situation. Like all those, you know, the three billionaires, this was an entire airliner just gone, gone. And I believe there was some high profile people on this airliner. But yeah, They we were looking for this for days and days and days went by and days went by and it should have been out of fuel and maybe they they landed here and maybe they didn't and maybe we just haven't their transponder went off whatever it was if this is the airliner and this is real this is one of the craziest conspiracies ever okay Now I'm in. Now I'm in. Alright. So, we got the background now. Filmed in 2014 with technology from 2014. Spy satellite videos, presumed from USA 229 is the earliest archived source. Received March 12, 2014. 3D stereoscopic video, technically a third video, which means we need two satellites in close proximity and on the same orbital trajectory. Satellite perspective changes eight times as do the coordinates, with coordinates visible in six of them showing us the location and direction of travel, south and east. A thermal layer of MQ 1C Grey Eagle posted by Rejiknion received, I don't know what the hell that's supposed to be a name or something received June 5th of 2014. And cameras on the equipment are made. For filming these events, it says this the thermal layer on a specialized electro infrared camera on the MQ one secret Eagle matches the mission purpose for this S I B R S and S I G I N T tracking boats and planes, electronic signals, monitoring intelligence and battlefield awareness, alternate sources and higher quality exists that point to none of these users being the original source. Maybe we can see if these are the same exact videos and higher resolution, but this is two minutes long. So I wonder maybe it's, it looks slowed down a little bit. That's probably why it's two minutes. I want to see it disappear like that. Slow motion. Gone. Whoa, that's wild. Okay it's a speculation. The original source may have come from a private forum or left on the dark web to be found. Videos show coordinates in them that change, but not when the mouse moves. Videos show satellite designations presumed to be N r o l 22 due to seeing 93 and thus ruling out threes. Not sure what that's supposed to mean. Satellite vis video explained by remote terminal access mouse drift. Explained by a JPEG wheel track ball that does not have the click activated screen capture of terminal running at some resolution. 30 frames per second. Citrix remote terminal running at default on 24 frames per second. Okay, very technical. So they're trying to figure out where did this video come from because you see on the screen a mouse going back and forth on top of it over top of the video. So I think that's what they're trying to do here. Remotely navigating around a very large resolution video playing at. Eight frames per second, or is that six? Six frames per second. Okay, so they're just trying to figure out where did this video come from? Plane is making a left hand turn and descending consistent with a circle formation consistent with capabilities of a 777 to 200. Plane's altitude is low based on how close they are to the cumulus cloud formations. Okay, true. There's a heat signature near the center bottom half of the plane. Yes, also true. There's an exhaust smoke coming from the plane, which is likely too low for contrails. Three orbs approach. The plane seemingly not affected by gravity. Yeah, that's that's what I said. It was just moving. It didn't seem to follow Newton's laws. Like it's just moving around in a way that our aircraft absolutely could not. Does the orbs have cold trails that are in front of the orb leading the orb? Yes. Saw that. Speculation. Orbs may be changing the pressure of the atmosphere or absorbing energy from it. Orbs entered a lock formation and begin a pattern and change patterns. Wow, they really broke down this pattern this way the way that they were rotating. Very interesting. And the two of them almost intersect and then change their formation and then go perfectly in sync. Perfectly in sync. It says the orb's pattern encircles the plane over time. The orbs may not be visible to the human eye. Both cameras are infrared. Huh, interesting. A zap occurs as the orbs bend and move towards the plane. The zap is a cold event in the thermal, and the zap accurately illuminates the clouds in the background and the foreground. Huh. So was this at night? The plane completely disappears after the zap, including the plane's visible trail. The MQ 1C is cropped out of the satellite video, just out of view. The user closes the window after the plane disappears, indicating this was not recorded in real time. It requires knowledge of classified military systems. Person who recorded or leaked these videos is likely in prison. How would a hoaxer know? They would never find a plane. Why this is M H three 70. Okay. Good question. How do we know that this is the plane, right? Is this says that it's the only missing seven 77. There was no debris field found official flight path. Has it running out of gas? Because there's nowhere else for it to go and the official search searched everywhere along the final ping art and along the flight path even the Nicobar Islands area, right? So the perfectly along this flight path perfectly around the time that it was flying and it's the exact aircraft type says the thermal matches the exact silhouette of a 777. Okay, yep, which is overlaid at the top of this image here. The color tone matches that of Malaysia Airlines. And satellite coordinates put it on the flight path of MH370 around... 640 Nicobar Islands, which is the smoking gun. Note, this is the suspected location of the turn into the South Indian Ocean. It has an imagery around that. It says NROL 22, released in 2006, is presumed to be a relay satellite due to its molnia. Orbit and clear view of the satellite that took the video, the smoking gun USA two 29 at the right location. Time apparent angle with a sister debris satellite capable of taking stereoscopic video at six 40 UTC. So it's just verifying that there was something in this location at that time that could have taken this video and says propose of. Signal intelligence and space based infrared systems is to track airplanes like this. Interesting, it shows a Lockheed Martin space based infrared system. And then it says the U. S. military had to have tracked MH370. We've proven they had the satellites in the area. US military confirmed the provided data to the intelligence community to help solve the mystery of MH370 and the freedom of information act about the DSP detection of the impact of 370 was ignored. Goes on to show the flight path. The pilot says good night. MH370 at 5 19 UTC at 17 21. 521 UTC MH370 disappears from all civilian radar due to both 8S, B and A cars being shut off. Captain Blelly suggests whoever was in command of the aircraft had intentionally achieved this by disconnecting all four electronic Electrical generators and APU. The radar says the plane makes impossible altitude changes from 5, 000 feet to 55, 000 feet. The radar loses the plane, but tracks an object they believed to be the plane as the satellite system resets three minutes and a log on request happens around 1724 plane changes directions. When the plane gets over Penang, the copilot cell phone pings, huh? The last Malaysian. Radar in between 1815 and 1822, 200 miles West by Northwest of Penang. Hmm. Very interesting. So it's showing basically the flight logs and the the pings of information that was being sent out from it. It says the witness interesting. So it's showing her blog post, Catherine T. It says the reported facts, their timing, and their identified geometrical relative position provided by Miss T are coherent, providing confidence in her reporting. So let's see this blog post while that's loading. She says, I thought it was coming to land. I felt it was traveling slowly. The aircraft was probably flying in L2 between 2000 and 100, 000 feet, held same tack for five minutes. The aircraft had considerably descended. from the first or from the first second of observation until the accidental change of tack. I saw that what looked like black smoke behind the orange glow, which resembled a contrail, but black, but I couldn't see any fire flames or anything like that. I just saw a plane glowing orange. Whoa. This comes from chat GPT, which has gases in the atmosphere, particularly oxygen. Nitrogen can glow orange under influence of electromagnetic effects, ionization, and other electron or energetic processes. The Aurors are a prime example of a phenomenon. Interesting. Says the glowing plane did not have any navigation lights. Alright, as it moved behind the boat, I could see the shape very clearly, which was a passenger plane. Here is the blog post. Which, quite lengthy. But maybe we'll have to send that out in the sub stack. Hmm. Interesting. So this woman says that she saw Malaysia Air right around the time that it disappeared. And wrote a blog post about it. It says other pertinent information. It says, my impression of the hall was that it was monocolor. I assume light matte gray. I doubted my sanity at the time. The plane circles around the boat counterclockwise from the Southeast. Hmm. The silence is sinister was the last tweet. It says other pertinent information to fake passengers using stolen passports that changed their appearance. What one possible passenger who bypassed security. And an SOS at 243 intercepted and reported only in Chinese news, which is a plane attempting emergency landing. Trump leaked a similar satellite photo in 2019 of USA 224, which launched in 2011, same year as USA 229. And then it says debunking the suicide myth. Everyone stands up for him, including officials and his wife. 18, 000 flight hours. Coworkers loved him. So it's talking about the pilot. No indication of suicide intent in the flight path. Had a huge custom simulator. Not standard model. Zahari's flight simulator had been used to pilot two data points in the southern Indian Ocean. Or to plot. And route found on the simulator closely matches MH 150 route to Jeddah with a diversion at the end of the South Pole. He was rostered to fly MH 150, impossible to disconnect all four electrical generators. Flying over his hometown is silly. It was an emergency and people would kick down the door before they would get knocked out. Depressurization is slow. In most emergency scenarios, the plane is not going to last until it runs out of fuel. Now it's going on to debunk the fact that the actual of the debris, no debris found by the official search or above or below water. It says the debris found years later was not consistent with barnacle growth. Only the Flay Perrin was matched with a non unique serial number. One person claims to have found 10 plus pieces, which was featured and contested on a Netflix documentary. Oh, excuse me. No one is allowed to inspect it. Okay. So it's trying to debunk it addressing debunks of the videos. Clouds do move just slowly. So it's just going over some of the things that people are saying about that. Hmm. Interesting. Plane disappears. So it says teleportation. Plane disappears from space time instantly. Intermediate black hole event. Which was it being cold? A witness sees a possible red shifted glow or orange glow Using a plane because it's in open space, huh? Teleportation may be to hide the plane Family's phones were proven ringing on Chinese TV for days Impossible if underwater or in another dimension, huh? Traveling forward in time doesn't break causality But traveling backward in time does See time Dilation says the science wormholes have been shown to be theoretically possible by at least three scientific papers They all show that exotic material is not necessary One paper argues a thin shell could be used to safely transport an object outside of space time Description of an intermediate black hole is consistent with the zap we see in the videos And one paper discusses needing to remove unwanted particles from the area The orbs may have been super conductive the orbs could be cleaning the area in Deucing the mouth of the wormhole and or acting as the barrier for passage. And there's a real patent for a magnetic vortex wormhole generator. What the fuck? No way. Let's pull that one up. Patents. google. com. A patent number is. U. S. 20030197093A1, and I will include this in the sub stack as well, because now we need a sub stack on this one. So this invention, which is called Magnetic Vortex Wormhole Generator. What? This invention relates to a magnetic vortex generator, which has the ability to generate negative mass and a negative spring constant, which, according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, is required in order to create a stable wormhole between R space and hyperspace. Whaaaaat? Very interesting, above my scientific pay grade. But I will definitely be reading through this another time. And maybe I'll highlight some stuff for you when I throw it in the sub stack. Here's the article that came from the last day of Malaysia airline passengers with stolen passports. Okay, interesting. Could these be the aliens? Alright let's wrap this up here. It says Diego Garcia, 1, 700 military and 1, 500 civilian personnel. Space Force has 86, 000 total servicemen and women. Okay. Sighting of a passenger plane 50 miles north of the base flying low in the early morning. I wish he would have put this together better. Pilot had Diego Garcia in his simulator. Not open to commercial aircraft. Enough space for a 7 77. So wait, what is this? Diego Garcia? Is this supposed to be like a a military base or something? What is Diego Garcia? Diego Garcia Base. It's gotta be a military base. Diego Garcia is a British atoll in the Indian Ocean. It is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, an overseas territory of the United States Kingdom or the United Kingdom. It is a militarized atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean and the largest of 60 small islands. Huh. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Because there was a theory that it landed there, I guess. Okay. Alright, moving on here. Not open to commercial aircraft, has enough space for a 777, has underground facilities with a black vault Freedom of Information Act showing it may be a CIA black site. Message from Philip Wood saying he had held captive with a picture of EXIF data, placing it at Diego Garcia. Tens of millions. To black construction for dredging and other activities. Lockheed Martin contract for upgrading power and water photos of Diego Garcia, Facebook that look like the crew seems like the new area 51 Strava heat map and the small boat Harbor outside of the yacht club seems very active. Do D reassessed privacy's policies for the troops after Strava revelations in 2018. Hmm. Theories and speculation. The reason to do this must be large enough to warrant the risk unlikely to be about money. Shadow war for control of this technology, 20 semiconductor scientists on board. Whoa. So saying that basically the reason that they would have done this was that there was 20 semiconductor scientists on board Malaysia air and they wanted to either remove them, kill them, whatever. Or transport them to this base. Says video suppressed to hide hyper advanced technology not known to the public. Interesting. Video suppressed to hide non human intelligence. Filming had intent. UAV is too slow to catch a 777 and US 229 is only in position for minutes. So the only reason it got filmed, they're saying, is because they wanted to see this, and then somebody leaked it. Primary narratives. Ones with the most evidence, and we're getting towards the end of this. Set the satellite computer to stick to IOR 30 minutes prior to takeoff to make the plane difficult to trace. Three fake passengers possibly in on the hijack. Pilots and crew may be in on it. Flight changed to the last minute. Same data of Diego. 1721 UTC event is electromagnetic jamming plane is flown to Penang as a waypoint and for flies directly towards the coordinates. U. S. military equipment is waiting to teleport the plane to Diego Garcia. Deals are made with the crew and passengers, countries of the passengers. Maldives sighting just north of Diego Garcia in the early morning, Philip Wood resists, where is he now, witness protection. Who is Philip Wood? Debris later thrown in the ocean. Crew lookalikes found on Facebook at Diego Garcia. Motive is control of the very technology we see in the video. And the last portion of this says, UFO emergency event. All right, it says 1721 event disconnects all four electrical generators and APU transponders similar to what an EMP or electromagnetic interference may do damage to the plane will cause it to ground quickly depressurization may be slow fire could have started lithium batteries could be a source of fuel or interest in the UFO angle copilot cell phone pings over Penang. Indicating calling for help. Next logical place to land is in the water. Other narratives, USO, UFO teleports the plane to another dimension or location. Ooh. And motive of the cover up is to hide non human intelligence and technology from the world. Whoa. Decoy plate theory. Second 777 used to spoof the pings and track trick in Marsat. This event was to gain control of patents for some nanochips related to the Rothschilds. What? This event was to gain control of patents for some nanochips related to the Rothschilds. Huh. UFO is saving the passengers from their own doom. UFO is attracted to the lithium batteries, or the governments are working with the NHI for shadowy purposes. Interesting. That is a crazy one. Crazy one. He says, submission statement, the MH370 videos are the largest verifiable conspiracy of all time. This has been a cover up by multiple nations and multiple individuals. This conspiracy has the potential to break the minds of many, as well as destroy confidence in world governments. And this came from the same individual who said, Thank you for contributing, supporting, and getting the message out. Wow. That's a... Crazy one, crazy one. That's one of my most favorite conspiracies that we've gone over. All right. Wonderful. I hope you got something out of that. Code to the Substack, austinadams. substack. com, subscribe, leave a five star review. That'

The CIA worked to hide the origins of Covid! This is an allegation of Congress, not conspiracy folks! The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a statement accusing the CIA of having hid the origins of Covid. This comes from a whistleblower who they say is a “highly credible senior-level CIA officer." He accused the CIA of paying scientists to conclude that Covid did not come from a lab. This means that the CIA used YOUR tax dollars to bribe scientists to conclude that Covid could not have come from a lab. Why would they do that? Who asked them to do that? 

The First Amendment prohibits the U.S. government from censoring speech. In this episode, drawing from internal Twitter documents known as “the Twitter files” and Congressional testimony from tech executives, former Twitter employees, and journalists, we examine the shocking formal system of censorship in which government employees are using their influence over private companies to indirectly censor speech in a way that they are clearly prohibited from doing directly. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! View the shownotes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd270-the-twitter-files Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD224: Social Media Censorship CD141: Terrorist Gifts & The Ministry of Propaganda (2017 NDAA) CD113: CISA is Law The Twitter Files "Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary.” Matt Taibbi. Jan 4, 2023. Racket News. Matt Taibbi “The Democrats' Disastrous Miscalculation on Civil Liberties.” Matt Taibbi. Mar 12, 2023. Racket News. “#1940 - Matt Taibbi.” Feb 13, 2023. The Joe Rogan Experience. Hunter Biden Laptop Story “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” “13. They did the same to Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ‘The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, “Hey... you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There's about to be some kind of dump similar to that”'” [tweet]. Michael Shellenberger [@ShellenbergerMD]. Dec 19, 2022. Twitter. Influence, Propaganda, and Censorship “From the Twitter Files: Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb secretly pressed Twitter to hide posts challenging his company's massively profitable Covid jabs.” Alex Berenson. Jan 9, 2023. Unreported Truths. “Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign.” Lee Fang. December 20, 2022. The Intercept. “Facebook, Twitter dismantle a U.S. influence campaign about Ukraine.” Aug 24, 2022. The Washington Post. Angus King Takedown Request Spreadsheet Audio Sources Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Twitter Files March 9, 2023 House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Witnesses: Matt Taibbi, Journalist Michael Shellenberger, Author, Co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition Clips 17:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): In the run up to the 2020 Presidential election, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan, in his deposition in Missouri versus Biden, said that he repeatedly, repeatedly, informed Twitter and other social media platforms of the likelihood of a hack and leak operation in the run up to that Presidential election. He did it even though there was no evidence. In fact, he said in his deposition that we hadn't seen anything, no intrusions, no hack, yet he repeatedly told them something was common. Yoel Ross, Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, testified that he had had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other folks regarding election security. During these weekly meetings, federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected a hack and leak operation. The expectations of a hack and leak operation were discussed throughout 2020. And he was told they would occur in a period shortly before the 2020 Presidential election, likely in October. And finally, he said "I also learned in these meetings, that there were rumors that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden." So what did the government tell him? A hack and leak operation was coming. How often did the government tell him this? Repeatedly for a year. When did the government say it was going to happen? October of 2020. And who did the government say it would involve? Hunter Biden. 19:35 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): How did they know? Maybe it's because they had the laptop and they had had it for a year. 21:50 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Finally, as if on cue, five days later on October 19, 51 former intel[ligence] officials signed a letter with a now famous sentence "the Biden laptop story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." Something that was absolutely false. 25:25 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): And the Republicans have brought in two of Elon Musk's public scribes to release cherry-picked, out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative, Elon Musk's chosen narrative, that is now being paroted by the Republicans, because the Republicans think that these witnesses will tell a story that's going to help them out politically. 25:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): On Tuesday, the majority released an 18 page report claiming to show that the FTC is quote, "harassing" Twitter -- oh my poor Twitter -- including by seeking information about its interactions with individuals before us today. How did the report reach this conclusion? By showing two single paragraphs from a single demand letter, even though the report itself makes clear that there were numerous demand letters with numerous requests, none of which we've been able to see, that are more demand letters and more requests of Twitter. 28:05 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, Americans can see through this. Musk is helping you out politically and you're going out of your way to promote and protect him and to praise him for his work. 28:15 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): This isn't just a matter of what data was given to these so-called journalists before us now. 31:35 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, I'm not exaggerating when I say that you have called before you two witnesses who pose a direct threat to people who oppose them. 32:30 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): We know this is because at the first hearing, the Chairman claimed that big government and big tech colluded to shape and mold the narrative and suppress information and censor Americans. This is a false narrative. We're engaging in false narratives here and we are going to tell the truth. 37:35 Michael Shellenberger: I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private companies to moderate content on their platforms and I support the right of governments to communicate with the public, including to dispute inaccurate information, but government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often these acts of censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist, Section 230. If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship, and as one law professor, it raises serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly. 41:50 Matt Taibbi: My name is Matt Taibbi, I've been a reporter for 30 years and a staunch advocate of the First Amendment. Much of that time was spent at Rolling Stone magazine. Ranking Member Plaskett, I'm not a "so-called" journalist. I've won the National Magazine Award, the I.F Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and I've written 10 books, including four New York Times bestsellers. 45:35 Matt Taibbi: Ordinary Americans are not just being reported to Twitter for deamplification or deplatforming, but to firm's like Pay Pal, digital advertisers like Xandr, and crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe. These companies can and do refuse service to law abiding people and businesses whose only crime is falling afoul of a distant, faceless, unaccountable, algorithmic judge. 44:00 Matt Taibbi: Again, Ranking Member Plaskett, I would note that the evidence of Twitter-government relationship includes lists of tens of thousands of names on both the left and right. The people affected include Trump supporters, but also left leaning sites like Consortium and Truthout, the leftist South American channel TeleSUR, the Yellow Vest movement. That, in fact, is a key point of the Twitter files, that it's neither a left nor right issue. 44:40 Matt Taibbi: We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government from the FBI, the DHS, the HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at [the Department of] State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi private entities doing the same thing, including Stanford's Election Integrity Partnership, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and many others, many taxpayer funded. A focus of this fast growing network, as Mike noted, is making lists of people whose opinions beliefs, associations, or sympathies are deemed misinformation, disinformation or malinformation. That last term is just a euphemism for true but inconvenient. Undeniably, the making of such lists is a form of digital McCarthyism. 1:01:00 Matt Taibbi: So, a great example of this is a report that the Global Engagement Center sent to Twitter and to members of the media and other platforms about what they called "the Pillars of Russian Disinformation." Now, part of this report is what you would call, I think you would call, traditional hardcore intelligence gathering where they made a reasoned, evidence baseed case that certain sites were linked to Russian influence or linked to the Russian government. In addition to that, however, they also said that sites that quote, "generate their own momentum," and have opinions that are in line with those accounts are part of a propaganda ecosystem. Now, this is just another word for guilt by association. And this is the problem with the whole idea of trying to identify which accounts are actually the Internet Research Agency and which ones are just people who follow those accounts or retweeted them. Twitter initially did not find more than a handful of IRA accounts. It wasn't until they got into an argument with the Senate Select Intelligence Committee that they came back with a different answer. 1:06:00 Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Before you became Elon Musk's handpicked journalists, and pardon the oxymoron, you stated this on Joe Rogan's podcast about being spoon fed information. And I quote, "I think that's true of any kind of journalism," and you'll see it behind me here. "I think that's true of any kind of journalism. Once you start getting handed things, then you've lost. They have you at that point and you got to get out of that habit. You just can't cross that line." Do you still believe what you told Mr. Rogan? Yes or no? Yes or no? Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Good. Now, you crossed that line with the Twitter files. Matt Taibbi: No. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk -- It's my time, please do not interrupt me. Crowd: [laughter] Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk spoon fed you his cherry-picked information, which you must have suspected promotes a slanted viewpoint, or at the very least generates another right wing conspiracy theory. 1:11:20 Matt Taibbi: That moment on the Joe Rogan show, I was actually recounting a section from Seymour Hersh's book, Reporter, where he described a scene where the CIA gave him a story and he was very uncomfortable. He said that "I, who had always gotten the secrets, was being handed the secrets." Again, I've done lots of whistleblower stories. There's always a balancing test that you make when you're given material, and you're always balancing newsworthiness versus the motives of your sources. In this case, the newsworthiness clearly outweighed any other considerations. I think everybody else who worked on the project agrees. 1:14:45 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Richard Stengel, you know who that is? Matt Taibbi: Yes, he's the former, the first head of the Global Engagement Center. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): I want the American people to hear from him for 30 seconds. Richard Stengel: Basically, every country creates their own narrative story. And, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the "chief propagandist" job. We haven't talked about propaganda. Propaganda. I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. 1:24:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): December 13, the very first letter that the FTC sends to Twitter after the Twitter files, 11 days after the first Twitter file, there have been five of them come out, the FTC's first demand in that first letter after the Twitter files come out is identify all journalists. I'm quoting "identify all journalists and other members of the media" to whom Twitter worked with. You find that scary, Mr. Taibbi, that you got a federal government agency asking a private company who in the press are you talking with? Matt Taibbi: I do find it scary. I think it's none of the government's business which journalists a private company talks to and why. I think every journalist should be concerned about that. And the absence of interest in that issue by my fellow colleagues in the mainstream media is an indication of how low the business has sunk. There was once a real esprit de corps and camaraderie within Media. Whenever one of us was gone after, we all kind of rose to the challenge and supported -- Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): It used to be, used to be the case. Matt Taibbi: Yeah, that is gone now. 1:28:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): How many emails did Mr. Musk give you access to? Michael Shellenberger: I mean, we went through thousands of emails. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Did he give you access to all of the emails for the time period in which? Michael Shellenberger: We never had a single, I never had a single request denied. And not only that, but the amount of files that we were given were so voluminous that there was no way that anybody could have gone through them beforehand. And we never found an instance where there was any evidence that anything had been taken out. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. So you would believe that you have probably millions of emails and documents, right? That's correct, would you say? Michael Shellenberger: I don't know if -- I think the number is less than that. Matt Taibbi: Millions sounds too high. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. 100,000? Matt Taibbi: That's probably closer. Michael Shellenberger: Probably, yeah. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): So 100,000 that both of you were seeing. 1:37:10 Matt Taibbi: There were a couple of very telling emails that wepublished. One was by a lawyer named [Sasha Cardiel???], where the company was being so overwhelmed by requests from the FBI and in fact they, they gave each other a sort of digital High Five after one batch, saying "that was a monumental undertaking to clear all of these," but she noted that she believed that the FBI was essentially doing word searches keyed to Twitter's Terms of Service, looking for violations of the Terms of Service, specifically so that they could make recommendations along those lines, which we found interesting. 1:48:15 Michael Shellenberger: And we haven't talked about Facebook, but we now know that we have the White House demanding that Facebook take down factual information and Facebook doing that. 1:48:25 Michael Shellenberger: And with Matt [Taibbi]'s thread this morning we saw the government contractors demanding the same thing of Twitter: accurate information, they said, that needed to be taken down in order to advance a narrative. 1:49:55 Matt Taibbi: You know, in conjunction with our own research, there's a foundation, the Foundation for Freedom Online, which, you know, there's a very telling video that they uncovered where the Director of Stanford's Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) talks about how CISA, the DHS agency, didn't have the capability to do election monitoring, and so that they kind of stepped in to "fill the gaps" legally before that capability could be amped up. And what we see in the Twitter files is that Twitter executives did not distinguish between DHS or CISA and this group EIP, for instance, we would see a communication that said, from CISA, escalated by EIP. So they were essentially identical in the eyes of the company. EIP is, by its own data, and this is in reference to what you brought up, Mr. Congressman, according to their own data, they significantly targeted more what they call disinformation on the right than on the left, by a factor I think of about ten to one. And I say that as not a Republican at all, it's just the fact of what we're looking at. So yes, we have come to the realization that this bright line that we imagine that exists between, say the FBI or the DHS, or the GEC and these private companies is illusory and that what's more important is this constellation of kind of quasi private organizations that do this work. 1:52:10 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): What was the first time that Mr. Musk approached you about writing the Twitter files? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman that would — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I just need a date, sir. Matt Taibbi: But I can't give it to you, unfortunately, because this this is a question of sourcing, and I don't give up... I'm a journalist, I don't reveal my sources. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): It's a question of chronology. Matt Taibbi: No, that's a question of sourcing — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Earlier you said that someone had sent you, through the internet, some message about whether or not you would be interested in some information. Matt Taibbi: Yes. And I refer to that person as a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you're not going to tell us when Musk first approached you? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman, you're asking me, you're asking a journalist to reveal a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You consider Mr. Musk to be the direct source of all this? Matt Taibbi: No, now you're trying to get me to say that he is the source. I just can't answer — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Either he is or he isn't. If you're telling me you can't answer because it's your source, well, then the only logical conclusion is that he is in fact, your source. Matt Taibbi: Well, you're free to conclude that. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well, sir, I just don't understand. You can't have it both ways. But let's move on because -- Unknown Representative 1: No, he can. He's a journalist. Unknown Representative 2: He can't, because either Musk is the source and he can't talk about it, or Musk is not the source. And if Musk is not the source, then he can discuss [unintelligible] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): No one has yielded, the gentlelady is out of order, you don't get to speak — Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): The gentlelady is not recognized...[crosstalk]...he has not said that, what he has said is he's not going to reveal his source. And the fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do so is such a violation of the First Amendment. Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I have not yielded time to anybody. I want to reclaim my time. And I would ask the chairman to give me back some of the time because of the interruption. Mr. Chairman, I am asking you, if you will give me the seconds that I lost. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): We will give you that 10 seconds. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Thank you. Now let's talk about another item. When you responded to the ranking member, you said that you had free license to look at everything but yet you yourself posted on your...I guess it's kind of like a web page...I don't quite understand what Substack is, but what I can say is that "in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions." What were those conditions? She asked you that question and you said you had none. But you yourself posted that you had conditions? Matt Taibbi: The conditions, as I've explained multiple times -- Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): No sir, you have not explained, you told her in response to her question that you had no conditions. In fact, you used the word licensed, that you were free to look at all of them. All 100,000 emails. Matt Taibbi: The question was posed, was I free to to write about — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Matt Taibbi: The condition was that we publish — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Yes or no? A simple question. Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): All right. Could you tell us what conditions those were? Matt Taibbi: The conditions were an attribution of sources at Twitter and that we break any news on Twitter. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But you didn't break it on Twitter. Did you send the file that you released today to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: Did I send the...actually I did, yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you send it to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread? Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): That was one of the conditions? Yes or no, sir. Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread actually did come out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But sir, you said earlier that you had to attribute all the sources to Twitter first. What you released today, did you send that to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: No, no, no, I post I posted it on Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): First. First, sir, or did you give it to the Chairman of the Committee or the staff of the Committee first? Matt Taibbi: Well, that's not breaking the story, that's giving...I did give — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you gave all the information that you did not give to the Democrats, you gave it to the Republicans first, then you put it on Twitter? Matt Taibbi: Actually, no, the chronology is a little bit confused. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well then tell us what the chronology was. Matt Taibbi: I believe the thread came out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Where? Matt Taibbi: On Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): On Twitter. So then you afterwards gave it to the Republicans, and not the Democrats? Matt Taibbi: Yes, because I'm submitting it for the record as my statement. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you give it to him in advance? Matt Taibbi: I gave it to them today. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You gave it to them today, but you still have not given anything to the Democrats. Well, I'll move on. 1:57:20 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Now in your discussion, in your answer, you also said that you were invited by a friend, Bari Weiss? Michael Shellenberger: My friend, Bari Weiss. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So this friend works for Twitter, or what is her....? Matt Taibbi: She's a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, I didn't ask you a question. I'm now asking Mr. Shellenberger a question. Michael Shellenberger: Yes, ma'am, Bari Weiss is a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I'm sorry, sir? Michael Shellenberger: She's a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): She's a journalist. So you work in concert with her? Michael Shellenberger: Yeah. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Do you know when she first was contacted by Mr. Musk? Michael Shellenberger: I don't know. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You don't know. So you're in this as a threesome? 2:00:10 Michael Shellenberger: Reading through the whole sweep of events, I do not know the extent to which the influence operation aimed at "pre-bunking" the Hunter Biden laptop was coordinated. I don't know who all was involved. But what we saw was, you saw Aspen and Stanford, many months before then, saying don't cover the material in the hack and leak without emphasizing the fact that it could be disinformation. Okay, so they're priming journalists to not cover a future hack and leak in a way that journalists have long been trained to in the tradition of the Pentagon Papers, made famous by the Steven Spielberg movie. They were saying [to] cover the fact that it probably came from the Russians. Then you have the former General Counsel to the FBI, Jim Baker, and the former Deputy Chief of Staff to the FBI, both arriving at Twitter in the summer of 2020, which I find, what an interesting coincidence. Then, when the New York Post publishes its first article on October 14, it's Jim Baker who makes the most strenuous argument within Twitter, multiple emails, multiple messages saying this doesn't look real. There's people, there's intelligence experts, saying that this could be Russian disinformation. He is the most strenuous person inside Twitter arguing that it's probably Russian disinformation. The internal evaluation by Yoel Roth, who testified in front of this committee, was that it was what it looked to be, which was that it was not a result of a hack and leak operation. And why did he think that? Because the New York Post had published the FBI subpoena taking the laptop in December of 2019. And they published the agreement that the computer store owner had with Hunter Biden that gave him permission, after he abandoned the laptop, to use it however he wanted. So there really wasn't much doubt about the provenance of that laptop. But you had Jim Baker making a strenuous argument. And then, of course, you get to a few days after the October 14 release, you have the president of the United States echoing what these former intelligence community officials were saying, which is that it looked like a Russian influence operation. So they were claiming that the laptop was made public by the conspiracy theory that somehow the Russians got it. And basically, they convinced Yoel Roth of this wild hack and leak story that somehow the Russians stole it, got the information, gave us the computer, it was bizarre. So you read that chain of events, and it appears as though there is an organized influence operation to pre-bunk.... Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Why do you think they could predict the time, the method, and the person? Why could the FBI predict it? Not only did they predict this, they predicted it, so did the Aspen Institute, seemed like everyone was in the know saying, here's what's gonna happen, we can read the future. Why do you think, how do you think they were able to do that? Michael Shellenberger: I think the most important fact to know is that the FBI had that laptop in December 2019. They were also spying on Rudy Giuliani when he got the laptop and when he gave it to the New York Post. Now, maybe the FBI agents who are going to Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Twitter executives and warning of a hack and leak, potentially involving Hunter Biden, maybe those guys didn't have anything to do with the guys that had the top. We don't know that. I have to say, as a newcomer to this, as somebody that thought it was Russian disinformation in 2020, everybody I knew thought it was Russian disinformation, I was shocked to see that series of events going on. It looks to me like a deliberate influence operation. I don't have the proof of it, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty disturbing. 2:14:30 Matt Taibbi: We found, just yesterday, a Tweet from the Virality Project at Stanford, which was partnered with a number of government agencies, and Twitter, where they talked explicitly about censoring stories of true vaccine side effects and other true stories that they felt encouraged hesitancy. Now the imp— Unknown Representative: So these were true. Matt Taibbi: Yes. So they use the word truth three times in this email, and what's notable about this is that it reflects the fundamental misunderstanding of this whole disinformation complex, anti-disinformation complex. They believe that ordinary people can't handle difficult truths. And so they think that they need minders to separate out things that are controversial or difficult for them, and that's again, that's totally contrary to what America is all about, I think. 2:17:30 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): Of course we all believe in the First Amendment, but the First Amendment applies to government prohibition of speech, not to private companies. 2:33:00 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): And even with, Twitter you cannot find actual evidence of any direct government censorship of any lawful speech. 2:33:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): I'd ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the following email from Clarke Humphrey, Executive Office of the Presidency, White House Office, January 23, 2021. That's the Biden Administration. 4:39am: "Hey folks," this goes to Twitter, "Hey folks, wanted..." they used the term Mr. Goldman just used, "wanted to flag the below Tweet, and I'm wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP." 2:35:40 Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): He said the First Amendment applies to government censorship of speech and not private companies, but what we're talking about and what the Chairman just illustrated is that what we have here and what your Twitter files show is the Federal government has partnered with private companies to censor and silence the speech of American citizens. 2:29:20 Matt Taibbi: In the first Twitter files, we saw an exchange between Representative Ro Khanna and Vijaya Gadde, where he's trying to explain the basics of speech law in America and she's completely, she seems completely unaware of what, for instance, New York Times v. Sullivan is. There are other cases like Bartnicki v. Vopper, which legalized the publication of stolen material, that's very important for any journalists to know. I think most of these people are tech executives, and they don't know what the law is around speech and around reporting. And in this case, and in 2016, you are dealing with true material. There is no basis to restrict the publication of true material no matter who the sources and how you get it. And journalists have always understood that and this has never been an issue or a controversial issue until very recently. 2:44:40 Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Would you agree that there was a black list created in 2021? Michael Shellenberger: Sorry, yes, Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford Professor, who I don't think anybody considers a fringe epidemiologist, was indeed -- I'm sorry, I couldn't, I didn't piece it together -- he was indeed visibility filtered. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Correct. And so this blacklist that was created, that really was used to de-platform, reduce visibility, create lists internally, where people couldn't even see their profiles, that was used against doctors and scientists who produced information that was contrary to what the CDC was putting out, despite the fact that we now know that what they were publishing had scientific basis and in fact was valid. Michael Shellenberger: Absolutely. And not only that, but these are secret blacklists, so Professor Bhattacharya had no idea he was on it. 43:05 Matt Taibbi: The original promise of the internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere. What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise and use machine learning and other tools to turn the Internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role. We saw the first hints and communications between Twitter executives before the 2020 election, when we read things like "flagged by DHS," or "please see attached report from FBI for potential misinformation." This would be attached to an Excel spreadsheet with a long list of names, whose accounts were often suspended shortly after. #1940 - Matt Taibbi February 13, 2023 The Joe Rogan Experience Clips Matt Taibbi: So this is another topic that is fascinating because it hasn't gotten a ton of press. But if you go back all the way to the early 70s, the CIA and the FBI got in a lot of trouble for various things, the CIA for assassination schemes involving people like Castro, the FBI for, you know, COINTELPRO and other programs, domestic surveillance, and they made changes after Congressional hearings, the Church Committee, that basically said the FBI, from now on, you have to have some kind of reason to be following somebody or investigating somebody, you have to have some kind of criminal predicate and we want you mainly to be investigating cases. But after 9/11 they peeled all this back. There was a series of Attorney General memos that essentially re-fashioned what the FBI does, and now they don't have to be doing crimefighting all the time. Now they can be doing basically 100% intelligence gathering all the time. They can be infiltrating groups for no reason at all, not to build cases, but just to get information. And so that's why they're there. They're in these groups, they're posted up outside of the homes of people they find suspicious, but they're not building cases and they're not investigating crimes. It's sort of like Minority Report there, right? It's pre-crime. Matt Taibbi: We see reports in these files of government agencies sending lists of accounts that are accusing the United States of vaccine corruption. Now, what they're really talking about is pressuring foreign countries to not use generic vaccines. Right. And, you know, that's a liberal issue, that's a progressive issue. The progressives want generic vaccines to be available to poor countries, okay? But, you know, you can use this tool to eliminate speech about that if you want too, right? I think that's what they don't get is that the significance is not who [it's used against], the significance is the tool. What is it capable of doing, right? How easily is it employed, and you know, how often is it used? And they don't focus on that. Joe Rogan: Has anything been surprising to you? Matt Taibbi: A little bit. I think going into it, I thought that the relationship between the security agencies like the FBI and the DHS and companies like Twitter and Facebook, I thought it was a little bit less formal. I thought maybe they had kind of an advisory role. And what we find is that it's not that, it's very formalized. They have a really intense structure that they've worked out over a period of years where they have regular meetings. They have a system where the DHS handles censorship requests that come up from the States and the FBI handles international ones, and they all float all these companies and it's a big bureaucracy. I don't think we expected to see that. Matt Taibbi: I was especially shocked by an email from a staffer for Adam Schiff, the Congressperson, the California Congressman. And they're just outright saying we would like you to suspend the accounts of this journalist and anybody who retweets information about this Committee. You know, I mean, this is a member of Congress. Joe Rogan: Yeah. Matt Taibbi: Right? Most of these people have legal backgrounds. They've got lawyers in the office for sure. And this is the House Intelligence Committee. Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter's Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story February 8, 2023 House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Witnesses: Vijaya Gadde, Former Chief Legal Officer, Twitter James Baker, Former Deputy General Counsel, Twitter Yoel Roth, Former Global Head of Trust & Safety, Twitter Annika Collier Navaroli, Former Policy Expert for Content Moderation, Twitter Clips 14:50 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): What's more, Twitter's editorial decision has been analyzed and debated ad nauseam. Some people think it was the right decision. Some people think it was the wrong decision. But the key point here is that it was Twitter's decision. Twitter is a private media company. In America, private media companies can decide what to publish or how to curate content however they want. If Twitter wants to have nothing but Tweets commenting on New York Post articles run all day, it can do that. If it makes such tweets mentioning New York Post never see the light of day they can do that too. That's what the First Amendment means. 16:05 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Officially Twitter happens to think they got it wrong about that day or two period. In hindsight, Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey called it a mistake. This apology might be a statement of regret about the company being overly cautious about the risks of publishing contents and potentially hacked or stolen materials, or it may reflect craven surrender to a right wing pressure campaign. But however you interpreted the apology just makes the premise of this hearing all the more absurd. The professional conspiracy theorists who are heckling and haranguing this private company have already gotten exactly what they want: an apology. What more do they want? And why does the US Congress have to be involved in this nonsense when we have serious work to do for the American people? 26:20 James Baker: The law permits the government to have complex, multifaceted, and long term relationships with the private sector. Law enforcement agencies and companies can engage with each other regarding, for example, compulsory legal process served on companies, criminal activity that companies, the government, or the public identify, such as crimes against children, cybersecurity threats, and terrorism, and instances where companies themselves are victims of crime. When done properly, these interactions can be beneficial to both sides and in the interest of the public. As you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Jordan, and others have proposed, a potential workable way to legislate in this area may be to focus on the actions of federal government agencies and officials with respect to their engagement with the private sector. Congress may be able to limit the nature and scope of those interactions in certain ways, require enhanced transparency and reporting by the executive branch about its engagements, and require higher level approvals within the executive branch prior to such engagements on certain topics, so that you can hold Senate confirmed officials, for example, accountable for those decisions. In any event, if you want to legislate, my recommendation is to focus first on reasonable and effective limitations on government actors. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 31:05 Vijaya Gadde: On October 14, 2020, The New York Post tweeted articles about Hunter Biden's laptop with embedded images that looked like they may have been obtained through hacking. In 2018, we had developed a policy intended to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials. We applied this policy to the New York Post tweets and blocked links to the articles embedding those sorts of materials. At no point to Twitter otherwise prevent tweeting, reporting, discussing or describing the contents of Mr. Biden's laptop. People could and did talk about the contents of the laptop on Twitter or anywhere else, including other much larger platforms, but they were prevented from sharing the primary documents on Twitter. Still, over the course of that day, it became clear that Twitter had not fully appreciated the impact of that policy on free press and others. As Mr. Dorsey testified before Congress on multiple occasions, Twitter changed its policy within 24 hours and admitted its initial action was wrong. This policy revision immediately allowed people to tweet the original articles with the embedded source materials, relying on its long standing practice not to retroactively apply new policies. Twitter informed the New York Post that it could immediately begin tweeting when it deleted the original tweets, which would have freed them to retweet the same content again. The New York Post chose not to delete its original tweets, so Twitter made an exception after two weeks to retroactively apply the new policy to the Post's tweets. In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the Post account immediately. 35:35 Yoel Roth: In 2020, Twitter noticed activity related to the laptop that at first glance bore a lot of similarities to the 2016 Russian hack and leak operation targeting the DNC, and we had to decide what to do. And in that moment with limited information, Twitter made a mistake. 36:20 Yoel Roth: It isn't obvious what the right response is to a suspected, but not confirmed, cyber attack by another government on a Presidential Election. I believe Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016. 38:41 Annika Collier Navaroli: I joined Twitter in 2019 and by 2020 I was the most senior expert on Twitter's U.S. Safety Policy Team. My team's mission was to protect free speech and public safety by writing and enforcing content moderation policies around the world. These policies include things like abuse, harassment, hate speech, violence and privacy. 41:20 Annika Collier Navaroli: With January 6 and many other decisions, content moderators like me did the very best that we could. But far too often there are far too few of us and we are being asked to do the impossible. For example, in January 2020 after the US assassinated an Iranian General and the US president decided to justify it on Twitter, management literally instructed me and my team to make sure that World War III did not start on the platform. 1:08:20 Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): Did the US government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to censor or moderate certain Tweets, yes or no? Vijaya Gadde: We receive legal demands to remove content from the platform from the US government and governments all around the world. Those are published on a third party website. 1:12:00 Yoel Roth: The number one most influential part of the Russian active measures campaign in 2016 was the hack and leak targeting John Podesta. It would have been foolish not to consider the possibility that they would run that play again. 1:44:45 Yoel Roth: I think one of the key failures that we identified after 2016 was that there was very little information coming from the government and from intelligence services to the private sector. The private sector had the power to remove bots and to take down foreign disinformation campaigns, but we didn't always know where to look without leads supplied by the intelligence community. That was one of the failures highlighted in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report and in the Mueller investigation, and that was one of the things we set out to fix in 2017. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): On September 8 2019, at 11:11pm, Donald Trump heckled two celebrities on Twitter -- John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen -- and referred to them as "the musician John Legend and his filthy mouth wife." Ms. Teigen responded to that email [Tweet] at 12:17am. And according to notes from a conversation with you, Ms. Navaroli's, counsel, your counsel, the White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate? Annika Collier Navaroli: Thank you for the question. In my role, I was not responsible for receiving any sort of request from the government. However, what I was privy to was my supervisors letting us know that we had received something along those lines or something of a request. And in that particular instance, I do remember hearing that we had received a request from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet, and that they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement towards the President. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): They wanted it to come down. They made that request. Annika Collier Navaroli: To my recollection, yes. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): I thought that was an inappropriate action by a government official, let alone the White House. But it wasn't Joe Biden, about his son's laptop. It was Donald Trump because he didn't like what Chrissy Teigen had to say about him, is that correct? Annika Collier Navaroli: Yes, that is correct. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): My, my, my. 1:45:15 Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH): Mr. Roth, were those communication channels useful to Twitter as they work to combat foreign influence operations? Yoel Roth: Absolutely, I would say they were one of the most essential pieces of how Twitter prepared for future elections. 2:42:35 Rep. Becca Balint (D-VA): Ms. Gadde, did anyone from the Biden campaign or the Democratic National Committee direct Twitter to remove or take action against the New York Post story? Vijaya Gadde: No. 4:15:45 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And now we forward to 2020. And earlier you had testified that you were having regular interactions with National Intelligence, Homeland Security and the FBI. Yoel Roth: Yes, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And primarily to deal with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Primarily, but I would say -- Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): But you had said earlier your contact with Agent Chang was primarily with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Yes, that's right. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And these were emails....were there meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, Twitter met quarterly with the FBI Foreign Interference Task Force and we had those meetings running for a number of years to share information about malign foreign interference. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Agents from Homeland Security or Intelligence, or just primarily the FBI? Yoel Roth: Our primary contacts were with the FBI and in those quarterly meetings, they were, I believe, exclusively with FBI personnel. 4:18:05 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Earlier today you testified that you were following national security experts on Twitter as a reason to take down the New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop. Yoel Roth: Yes, sir, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So after 2016, you set up all these teams to deal with Russian interference, foreign interference, you're having regular meetings with the FBI, you have connections with all of these different government agencies, and you didn't reach out to them once? Yoel Roth: Is that question in reference to the day of the New York Post article? Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Yeah. Yoel Roth: That's right. We generally did not reach out to the FBI to consult on content moderation decisions, especially where they related to domestic activity. It's not that we wouldn't have liked that information, we certainly would have. It's that I don't believe it would have been appropriate for us to consult with the FBI. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): In December of 2020, you did a declaration to the Federal Election Commission that the intelligence community expected a leak and a hack operation involving Hunter Biden. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the FBI warned Meta that there was a high effort of Russian propaganda including language specific enough to fit the Hunter Biden laptop security story. You're talking to these people for weeks and months, years prior to this leaking. They have specifically told you in October, that there's going to be a leak potentially involving Hunter Biden's laptop. They legitimately and literally prophesized what happened. And you didn't contact any of them? Yoel Roth: No, sir, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Did they reach out to you? Yoel Roth: On and around that day, to the best of my recollection, no, they did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): After the story was taken down and you guys did it, and you personally disagreed with it Ms. Gadde, did you contact them and say is "Hey, is this what you were talking about?" Yoel Roth: If that question was directed to me. No, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Ms. Gadde, did you talk to anybody from the FBI? Vijaya Gadde: Not to the best of my recollection. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So I guess my question is, what is the point of this program? You have constant communication, they're set up for foreign interference. They've legitimately warned you about this very specific thing. And then all of a sudden, everybody just walks away? 5:18:55 Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM): We are devoting an entire day to this conspiracy theory involving Twitter. Now, the mission of this committee is to root out waste, fraud and abuse and to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people. And if you need any evidence of waste, fraud and abuse, how about the use of this committee's precious time, space and resources to commit to this hearing? 5:58:25 Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): Back to Mr. Roth, is it true that Twitter whitelisted accounts for the Department of Defense to spread propaganda about its efforts in the Middle East? Did they give you a list of accounts that were fake accounts and asked you to whitelist those accounts? Yoel Roth: That request was made of Twitter. To be clear, when I found out about that activity, I was appalled by it. I undid the action and my team exposed activity originating from the Department of Defense's campaign publicly. We've shared that data with the world and research about it has been published. 6:07:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, I want to go back to your statement in your declaration to the FEC "I learned that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden," who did you learn that from? Yoel Roth: My recollection is it was mentioned by another technology company in one of our joint meetings, but I don't recall specifically whom. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): You don't know the person's name? Yoel Roth: I don't even recall what company they worked at. No, this was a long time ago. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): And you're confident that it was from a tech company, not from someone from the government? Yoel Roth: To the best of my recollection, yes. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did anyone from the government, in these periodic meetings you had, did they ever tell you that a hack and leak operation involving Hunter Biden was coming? Yoel Roth: No. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did Hunter Biden's name come up at all these meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, his name was raised in those meetings, but not by the government to the best of my recollection. 6:09:30 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, why were you reluctant, based on what I read in the Twitter files, why were you reluctant to work with the GEC? Yoel Roth: It was my understanding that the GEC, or the Global Engagement Center of the State Department, had previously engaged in at least what some would consider offensive influence operations. Not that they were offensive as in bad, but offensive as in they targeted entities outside of the United States. And on that basis, I felt that it would be inappropriate for Twitter to engage with a part of the State Department that was engaged in active statecraft. We were dedicated to rooting out malign foreign interference no matter who it came from. And if we found that the American government was engaged in malign foreign interference, we'd be addressing that as well. 6:13:50 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Twitter is a private company, but they enjoy special liability protections, Section 230. They also, according to the Twitter files, receive millions of dollars from the FBI, which is tax dollars, I would assume. And that makes it a concern of the Oversight Committee. Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior? October 28, 2020 Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Witnesses: Jack Dorsey, [Former] CEO, Twitter Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet and Google Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook [Meta] Clips 2:20:40 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that they're leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, they're amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy. 3:15:40 Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as I testified before, we relied heavily on the FBI, his intelligence and alert status both through their public testimony and private briefings. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Did the FBI contact you, sir, than your co star? It was false. Mark Zuckerberg: Senator not about that story specifically. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Why did you throttle it back? Mark Zuckerberg: They alerted us to be on heightened alert around a risk of hack and leak operations around a release and probe of information. Emerging Trends in Online Foreign Influence Operations: Social Media, COVID-19, and Election Security June 18, 2020 Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Watch on YouTube Witnesses: Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy at Facebook Nick Pickles, Director of Global Public Policy Strategy and Development at Twitter Richard Salgado, Director for Law Enforcement and Information Security at Google 1:40:10 Nathaniel Gleicher: Congressman, the collaboration within industry and with government is much, much better than it was in 2016. I think we have found the FBI, for example, to be forward leaning and ready to share information with us when they see it. We share information with them whenever we see indications of foreign interference targeting our election. The best case study for this was the 2018 midterms, where you saw industry, government and civil society all come together, sharing information to tackle these threats. We had a case on literally the eve of the vote, where the FBI gave us a tip about a network of accounts where they identified subtle links to Russian actors. Were able to investigate those and take action on them within a matter of hours. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

The House committees. Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) formally removed Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (commonly known as the House Intelligence Committee). McCarthy announced the move after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) penned a letter pressing him to allow Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, to keep his seat. McCarthy has also pledged to move Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her seat on House Foreign Affairs. Plus, a question about the spate of tech layoffs. You can read today's podcast here, today's “Under the Radar” story here, and today's “Have a nice day” story here. Today's clickables: Quick Hits (1:42), Today's Story (3:35), Right's Take (7:38), Left's Take (12:44), Isaac's Take (17:33), Your Questions Answered (21:01), Under the Radar (23:20), Numbers (24:07), Have A Nice Day (25:05) You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tanglenews/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tanglenews/support

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 619, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Female Flyers 1: On August 1, 1911 Harriet Quimby became the first American woman to get one of these. Pilot's license. 2: "Charlie", now in the Smithsonian, was the plane in which Flying Angel Geraldine Mock did this in 29 days in 1964. Circumnavigate the globe. 3: Anne Spencer Morrow's first date with this man, her future husband, was a flying lesson. Charles Lindbergh. 4: Some say Ruth Law was the first woman to perform this big circle trick, others say it was Katharine Stinson. Loop-the-loop. 5: Geraldyn Cobb began testing to get into this program in 1960; after besting many of the men, she wasn't allowed in. Space/astronaut program. Round 2. Category: The Circulatory System 1: Carbon dioxide is swapped for oxygen in the alveoli of these organs. lungs. 2: Blood pressure is measured in millimeters of this poisonous metal. mercury. 3: When the heart's atria contract, blood flows from the right atrium into the right this. ventricle. 4: The plasma globulin called transferrin transports this ferric material. iron. 5: These tiny bits of cytoplasm lacking nuclei are there to gang up in clots. platelets. Round 3. Category: It's A Living 1: Donna Karan,Mossimo. a fashion designer. 2: Aka custodians, they may use the supplies of the Cintas Corp., which sponsors an award for the one of the year. janitors. 3: A specialized job in a police force, CSI stands for this, just like on TV. crime scene investigator ("crime scene investigation" accepted). 4: In 1968 a U.S. craft with this name, also George Washington's pre-military occupation, landed on the moon. Surveyor. 5: 2-word term for one who studies the plant and animal life of the oceans. marine biologist. Round 4. Category: Money, Money, Money 1: In 1792 Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized construction of a mint in this city. Philadelphia. 2: In 1994 a portrait of this author whose father went to debtor's prison was put on the British 10-pound note. Charles Dickens. 3: From 1792 to 1873 the U.S. issued silver 5-cent coins called not nickels but "half" these. dimes. 4: Iraq's 25-dinar note features Saddam Hussein on the front and this ancient city's Ishtar Gate on the back. Babylon. 5: Unit of currency used by the greatest number of Arab countries. dinar. Round 5. Category: House Standing Committees 1: There's a committee for this size of business. a small business. 2: Transportation and Infrastructure is one committee; this and Means, another. Ways. 3: There's a Permanent Select Committee on this headed by Porter Goss; how smart!. Intelligence. 4: The name of a small committee says it covers the "standards of official" this for House members. conduct. 5: C.W. Bill Young has a tendency to pass out (money) as chairman of this committee. Appropriations. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

Joe spoke with Mike Rogers, former Michigan Republican Congressman and Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Ukraine's push for more advanced weaponry and U.S. Relations with Saudi Arabia, Andra Gillespie, Emory University Political Science Professor on how close the Georgia Senate race is. Plus, Bloomberg Politics Contributor Rick Davis & Democratic Strategist Roger Fisk on Ukraine aid and President Biden's sit-down with CNN, Herschel Walker's emotional interview, questions about Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman's health, and the LA City Council controversy over leaked audio of a council member making racist comments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

March 8, 2022 ~ The Former Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence talks to Paul about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and he predicts that Putin is going to get more violent in his war against that country and its people.

Today's guests: Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina Chairman Mike Rogers, congressman from Alabama-3, Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Admiral James Stavridis, co-author of “2034” Josh Kraushaar, political editor, National Journal & columnist, “Against the Grain” David Drucker, Washington Examiner, senior political correspondent See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Intelligence Matters, Michael Morell speaks with Congressman Jim Himes, a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Chair of the Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research Subcommittee of HPSCI. Congressman Himes discusses coronavirus as a national security threat, re-building trust in the intelligence community, and his confidence in Biden’s national security team.

Everyone who uses Facebook, Google, and Twitter has probably noticed the disappearance of posts and the appearance of labels, especially during the 2020 election season. In this episode, hear the highlights from six recent House and Senate hearings where executives from the social media giants and experts on social media testified about the recent changes. The incoming 117th Congress is promising to make new laws that will affect our social media experiences; these conversations are where the new laws are being conceived.  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Episodes CD196: The Mueller Report CD186: National Endowment for Democracy Articles/Documents Article: President Trump’s latest claims about Wis. absentee ballots debunked by election officials WTMJ-TV Milwaukee, November 24, 2020 Article: Don’t Blame Section 230 for Big Tech’s Failures. Blame Big Tech. By Elliot Harmon, Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 16, 2020 Article: Biden, the Media and CIA Labeled the Hunter Biden Emails "Russian Disinformation." There is Still No Evidence. By Glenn Greenwald, November 12, 2020 Article: Ad Library - Spending Tracker: US 2020 Presidential Race Facebook, November 3, 2020 Article: What’s the deal with the Hunter Biden email controversy? By Kaelyn Forde and Patricia Sabga, Aljazeera, October 30, 2020 Article: Congress Fails to Ask Tech CEOs the Hard Questions By Elliot Harmon and Joe Mullin, Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 29, 2020 Article: With the Hunter Biden Expose, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than The Actual Story, by Matt Taibbi, TK News, October 24, 2020 Article: Read the FBI's letter to Sen. Ron Johnson The Washington Post, October 20, 2020 Article: DNI Ratcliffe: Russia disinformation not behind published emails targeting Biden; FBI reviewing, by Kevin Johnson, USA Today, October 19, 2020 Article: Twitter changes its hacked materials policy in wake of New York Post controversy By Natasha Lomas, Tech Crunch, October 16, 2020 Article: Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad By Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge, New York Post, October 14, 2020 Article: The Decline of Organic Facebook Reach & How to Adjust to the Algorithm By Sophia Bernazzani, HubSpot, May 3, 2020 Article: Facebook launches searchable transparency library of all active ads By Josh Constine, TechCrunch, March 28, 2019 Article: MAERES Alumna Nina Jankowicz Awarded Fulbright-Clinton Fellowship to Ukraine SFS, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, June 21, 2016 Article: Organic Reach on Facebook: Your Questions Answered By Brian Boland, Facebook for Business, June 5, 2014 Article: NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program The Washington Post, October 4, 2013 Additional Resources General Guidelines and policies: Distribution of hacked materials policy, Twitter, October 2020 Business Help Center: Fact-Checking on Facebook Facebook Business Business Help Center: Rating Options for Fact-Checkers Facebook Business Commit to transparency — sign up for the International Fact-Checking Network's code of principles, IFCN Code of Principles Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Electronic Frontier Foundation Mission Statement: OUR MISSION Open Markets About News Media Alliance Leadership News Corp Clint Watts Foreign Policy Research Institute About FPRI Foreign Policy Research Institute Nina Jankowicz Wicszipedia Sound Clip Sources Hearing: Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression and the 2020 Election, Senate Judiciary Committee, November 17, 2020 Witnesses: Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Inc. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Inc. Transcript: [30:50] Jack Dorsey: We were called here today because of an enforcement decision we made against New York Post, based on a policy we created in 2018. To prevent Twitter from being used to spread hacked materials. This resulted in us blocking people from sharing a New York Post article, publicly or privately. We made a quick interpretation, using no other evidence that the materials in the article were obtained through hacking, and according to our policy, we blocked them from being spread. Upon further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours. We informed the New York Post of our air and policy update and how to unlock their account by deleting the original violating tweet, which freed them to tweet the exact same content and news article again. They chose not to, instead insisting we reverse our enforcement action. We do not have a practice around retro actively overturning prior enforcement's, since then it demonstrated that we needed one and so we created one we believe is fair and appropriate. [35:13] Mark Zuckerberg: At Facebook, we took our responsibility to protect the integrity of this election very seriously. In 2016, we began to face new kinds of threats and after years of preparation, we were ready to defend against them. We built sophisticated systems to protect against election interference, that combined artificial intelligence, significant human review, and partnerships with the intelligence community, law enforcement and other tech platforms. We've taken down more than 100 networks of bad actors, we're trying to coordinate and interfere globally, we established a network of independent fact checkers that covers more than 60 languages. We made political advertising more transparent on Facebook than anywhere else, and including TV, radio and email. And we introduced new policies to combat voter suppression and misinformation. Still, the pandemic created new challenges, how to handle misinformation about COVID and voting by mail, how to prepare people for the reality, the results would take time, and how to handle if someone prematurely declared victory or refused to accept the result. So in September, we updated our policies again to reflect these realities of voting in 2020. And make sure that we were taking precautions given these unique circumstances. We worked with local election officials to remove false claims about polling conditions that might lead to voter suppression. We partnered with Reuters and the national election pool to provide reliable information about results. We attach voting information to posts by candidates on both sides and additional contexts to posts trying to de legitimize the outcome. We lock down new political ads and the week before the election to prevent misleading claims from spreading when they couldn't be rebutted. We strengthened our enforcement against militias and conspiracy networks like QAnon to prevent them from using our platforms to organize violence or civil unrest altogether. I believe this was the largest election integrity effort by any private company in recent times. [40:50] Jack Dorsey: We have transparency around our policies, we do not have transparency around how we operate content moderation, the rationale behind it, the reasoning. And as we look forward, we have more and more of our decisions of our operations moving to algorithms, which are, have a difficult time explaining why they make decisions, bringing transparency around those decisions. And that is why we believe that we should have more choice in how these algorithms are applied to our content, whether we use them at all so we can turn them on or off and have clarity around the outcomes that they're projecting and how they affect our experience. [45:39] Mark Zuckerberg: We work with a number of independent organizations that are accredited by the Poynter Institute. And they include Reuters, the Associated Press. AJans France presse, United States, USA Today, factcheck.org, Science Feedback, PolitiFact, Check Your Fact, Leadstories and the Dispatch in the United States. [48:54] Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Do both of you support change to 230? Reform of Section 230? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator I do. Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Mr. Dorsey? Jack Dorsey: Yes. Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Thank you. [54:10] Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): How many times is Steve Bannon allowed to call for the murder of government officials before Facebook suspends his account? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as you say, the content in question did violate our policies and we took it down. Having a content violation does not automatically mean your account gets taken down. And the number of strikes varies depending on the amount and type of offense. So if people are posting terrorist content or child exploitation content, then the first time they do it, then we will take down their account. For other things. It's multiple, I'd be happy to follow up afterwards. We try not to disclose these... Sorry, I didn't hear that. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): Will you commit to taking down that account? Steve Bannon? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, no, that's not what our policies would suggest that we should do in this case. [1:07:05] Jack Dorsey: What we saw and what the market told us was that people would not put up with abuse, harassment and misleading information that would cause offline harm, and they would leave our service because of it. So our intention is to create clear policy, clear enforcement that enables people to feel that they can express themselves on our service, and ultimately trust it. Sen. John Cornyn (TX): So it was a business decision. Jack Dorsey: It was a business decision. [2:56:34] Mark Zuckerberg: We do coordinate on and share signals on security related topics. So for example, if there is signal around a terrorist attack or around child exploitation imagery or around a foreign government, creating an influence operation, that is an area where the companies do share signals about what they see. But I think it's important to be very clear that that is distinct from the content moderation policies that we or the other companies have, where once we share intelligence or signals between the companies, each company makes its own assessment of the right way to address and deal with that information. [3:59:10] Sen. Mazie Hirono (HI): I don't know what it what are both of you prepared to do regarding Donald Trump's use of your platforms after he stops being president it? Will he still be deemed newsworthy? And will he still get to use your platform to spread this misinformation? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, let me clarify my last answer. We are also having academic study, the effective of all of our election measures and they'll be publishing those results publicly. In terms of President Trump and moving forward. There are a small number of policies where we have exceptions for politicians under the principle that people should be able to hear what their elected officials are saying and candidates for office. But by and large, the vast majority of our policies have no newsworthiness or political exception. So if the President or anyone else is spreading hate speech, or inciting violence, or posting content, that delegitimizes the election or valid forms of voting, those will receive the same treatment is anyone else saying those things, and that will continue to be the case Sen. Mazie Hirono (HI): Remains to be seen. Jack Dorsey: So we do have a policy around public interest, where for global leaders, we do make exceptions in terms of whether if a tweet violates our terms of service, we leave it up behind an interstitial, and people are not allowed to share that more broadly. So a lot of the sharing is disabled with the exception of quoting it so that you can add your own conversation on top of it. So if an account suddenly becomes, is not a world leader anymore, that particular policy goes away. [4:29:35] Sen. Marsha Blackburn (TN): Do you believe it's Facebook's duty to comply with state sponsored censorship so it can keep operating doing business and selling ads in that country? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator in general, we try to comply with the laws in every country where we operate and do business. Hearing: BIG TECH AND SECTION 230 IMMUNITY, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, October 28, 2020 Witnesses: Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Inc. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Inc. Transcript: [10:10] Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): In policing, conservative sites, then its own YouTube platform or the same types of offensive and outrageous claims. [45:50] Jack Dorsey: The goal of our labeling is to provide more context to connect the dots so that people can have more information so they can make decisions for themselves. [46:20] Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): I have a tweet here from Mr. Ajit Pai. Mr. Ajit Pai is the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. And he recounts some four tweets by the Iranian dictator, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which Twitter did not place a public label on. They all four of them glorify violence. The first tweet says this and I quote each time 'the Zionist regime is a deadly cancerous growth and a detriment to the region, it will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.' That's the first tweet. The second tweet 'The only remedy until the removal of the Zionist regime is firm armed resistance,' again, left up without comment by Twitter. The third 'the struggle to free Palestine is jihad in the way of God.' I quote that in part for the sake of time, and number four, 'we will support and assist any nation or any group anywhere who opposes and fights the Zionist regime.' I would simply point out that these tweets are still up, Mr. Dorsey. And how is it that they are acceptable to be to be there? Alan, I'll ask unanimous consent to enter this tweet from Ajit Pai in the record at this point that'll be done. Without objection. How Mr. Dorsey, is that acceptable based on your policies at Twitter? Jack Dorsey: We believe it's important for everyone to hear from global leaders and we have policies around world leaders. We want to make sure that we are respecting their right to speak and to publish what they need. But if there's a violation of our terms of service, we want to label it and... Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): They're still up, did they violate your terms of service? Mr. Dorsey? Jack Dorsey: We did not find those two violate our terms of service because we consider them saber rattling, which is, is part of the speech of world leaders in concert with other countries. Speech against our own people, or a country's own citizens we believe is different and can cause more immediate harm. [59:20] Jack Dorsey: We don't have a policy against misinformation. We have a policy against misinformation in three categories, which are manipulated media, public health, specifically COVID and civic integrity, election interference and voter suppression. [1:39:05] Sen. Brian Schatz (HI): What we are seeing today is an attempt to bully the CEOs of private companies into carrying out a hit job on a presidential candidate, by making sure that they push out foreign and domestic misinformation meant to influence the election. To our witnesses today, you and other tech leaders need to stand up to this immoral behavior. The truth is that because some of my colleagues accuse you, your companies and your employees of being biased or liberal, you have institutionally bent over backwards and over compensated, you've hired republican operatives, hosted private dinners with Republican leaders, and in contravention of your Terms of Service, given special dispensation to right wing voices, and even throttled progressive journalism. Simply put, the republicans have been successful in this play. [1:47:15] Jack Dorsey: This one is a tough one to actually bring transparency to. Explainability in AI is a field of research but is far out. And I think a better opportunity is giving people more choice around the algorithms they use, including to turn off the algorithms completely which is what we're attempting to do. [2:15:00] Sen. Jerry Moran (KS): Whatever the numbers are you indicate that they are significant. It's a enormous amount of money and an enormous amount of employee time, contract labor time in dealing with modification of content. These efforts are expensive. And I would highlight for my colleagues on the committee that they will not be any less expensive, perhaps less than scale, but not less in cost for startups and small businesses. And as we develop our policies in regard to this topic, I want to make certain that entrepreneurship, startup businesses and small business are considered in what it would cost in their efforts to meet the kind of standards to operate in a sphere. [2:20:40] Sen. Ed Markey (MA): The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that they're leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, they're amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy. [3:04:00] Sen. Mike Lee (UT): Between the censorship of conservative and liberal points of view, and it's an enormous disparity. Now you have the right, I want to be very clear about this, you have every single right to set your own terms of service and to interpret them and to make decisions about violations. But given the disparate impact of who gets censored on your platforms, it seems that you're either one not enforcing your Terms of Service equally, or alternatively, to that you're writing your standards to target conservative viewpoints. [3:15:30] Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Okay for both Mr. Zuckerberg and Dorsey who censored New York Post stories, or throttled them back, did either one of you have any evidence that the New York Post story is part of Russian disinformation? Or that those emails aren't authentic? Did anybody have any information whatsoever? They're not authentic more than they are Russian disinformation? Mr. Dorsey? Jack Dorsey: We don't. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): So why would you censor it? Why did you prevent that from being disseminated on your platform that is supposed to be for the free expression of ideas, and particularly true ideas... Jack Dorsey: we believe to fell afoul of our hacking materials policy, we judged... Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): They weren't hacked. Jack Dorsey: We we judge them moment that it looked like it was hacked material. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): You were wrong. Jack Dorsey: And we updated our policy and our enforcement within 24 hours. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Mr. Zuckerberg? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as I testified before, we relied heavily on the FBI, his intelligence and alert status both through their public testimony and private briefings. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Did the FBI contact you, sir, than your co star? It was false. Mark Zuckerberg: Senator not about that story specifically. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Why did you throttle it back. Mark Zuckerberg: They alerted us to be on heightened alert around a risk of hack and leak operations around a release and probe of information. And to be clear on this, we didn't censor the content. We flagged it for fact checkers to review. And pending that review, we temporarily constrained its distribution to make sure that it didn't spread wildly while it was being reviewed. But it's not up to us either to determine whether it's Russian interference, nor whether it's true. We rely on the fact checkers to do that. [3:29:30] Sen. Rick Scott (FL): That's becoming obvious that your that your companies are unfairly targeting conservatives. That's clearly the perception today, Facebook is actively targeting as by conservative groups ahead of the election, either removing the ads completely or adding their own disclosure if they claim that didn't pass their fact check system. [3:32:40] Sen. Rick Scott (FL): You can't just pick and choose which viewpoints are allowed on your platform an expect to keep immunity granted by Section 230. News Clip: Adam Schiff on CNN, CNN, Twitter, October 16, 2020 Hearing: MISINFORMATION, CONSPIRACY THEORIES, AND `INFODEMICS': STOPPING THE SPREAD ONLINE, Committee on the Judiciary: Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, October 15, 2020 Watch on Youtube Hearing Transcript Witnesses: Dr. Joan Donovan: Research Director at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School Nina Jankowicz: Disinformation Fellow at the Wilson Center Cindy Otis: Vice President of the Althea Group Melanie Smith: Head of Analysis, Graphika Inc Transcript: 41:30 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): And I should acknowledge that we're pretty careful. We understand that we shouldn't be in the business of fighting misinformation that's probably inconsistent with the First Amendment. So what do we do? We ask that it be outsourced to people that we otherwise are pretty critical of like Mark Zuckerberg, and Jack Dorsey, we say you do it, which strikes me as a pretty lame way to address what may or may not be a problem. 42:00 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Miss Jankowicz said that misinformation is dismantling democracy. I'm skeptical of that. And that will be my question. What evidence is that is out there that this is dismantling democracy, I don't mean that millions of people see QAnon I actually want to see the evidence that people are seeing this information, and are in a meaningful way, in a material way, dismantling our democracy through violence or through political organizations, because if we're going to go down that path, I need something more than eyeballs. So I need some evidence for how this is dismantling our democracy. And secondly, if you persuade me that we're dismantling our democracy, how do we get in the business of figuring out who should define what misinformation or disinformation is? Nina Jankowicz: To address your first question related to evidence of the dismantling of democracy. There's two news stories that I think point to this from the last couple of weeks alone. The first is related to the kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. And the social media platforms played a huge role in allowing that group to organize. It allowed, that group to, it ceded the information that led them to organize and frankly, as a woman online who has been getting harassed a lot lately, lately, with sexualized and gender disinformation, I am very acutely aware of how those threats that are online can transfer on to real world violence. And that make no mistake is meant to keep women and minorities from not only participating in the democratic process by exercising our votes, but also keeping us from public life. So that's one big example. But there was another example just recently from a channel for in the UK documentary that looked at how the Trump campaign used Cambridge Analytica data to selectively target black voters with voter suppression ads during the 2016 election. Again, this is it's affecting people's participation. It's not just about fake news, stories on the internet. In fact, a lot of the best disinformation is grounded in a kernel of truth. And in my written testimony, I go through a couple of other examples of how online action has led to real world action. And this isn't something that is just staying on the internet, it is increasingly in real life. Rep. Jim Himes (CT): I don't have a lot of time. Do you think that both examples that you offered up Gov the plot to kidnap governor, the governor of Michigan, and your other example passed the but for test? I mean, this country probably got into the Spanish American War over 130 years ago because of the good works of William Randolph Hearst. So how do we, we've had misinformation and yellow journalism and terrible media and voter suppression forever. And I understand that these media platforms have scale that William Randolph Hearst didn't have. But are you sure that both of those examples pass the buck for they wouldn't have happened without the social media misinformation? Nina Jankowicz: I believe they do, because they allow the organization of these groups without any oversight, and they allow the targeting the targeting of these messages to the groups and people that are going to find the most vulnerable and are most likely to take action against them. And that's what our foreign adversaries do. And increasingly, it's what people within our own country are using to organize violence against the democratic participation of many of our fellow citizens. Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Okay, well, I'm out of time I would love to continue this conversation and pursue what you mean by groups being formed quote, without oversight, that's language I'd like to better understand but I'm out of time, but I would like to continue this conversation into, well, if this is the problem that you say it is, what do we actually do about it? Hearing: ONLINE PLATFORMS AND MARKET POWER, PART 2: INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, Committee on the Judiciary: Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, July 16, 2020 Watch on Youtube Witnesses: Adam Cohen: Director of Economic Policy at Google Matt Perault: Head of Global Policy Development at Facebook Nate Sutton: Associate General Counsel for Competition at Amazon Kyle Andeer: Vice President for Corporate Law at Apple Timothy Wu: Julius Silver Professor of Law at Columbia Law School Dr. Fiona Scott Morton: Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics at Yale School of Management Stacy Mitchell: Co-Director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Maureen Ohlhausen: Partner at Baker Botts LLP Carl Szabo: Vice President and Gneral Counsel at NetChoice Morgan Reed: Executive Director at the App Association Transcript: [55:15] Adam Cohen: Congresswoman we use a combination of automated tools, we can recognize copyrighted material that creators upload and instantaneously discover it and keep it from being seen on our platforms. [1:16:00] Rep. David Cicilline (RI): Do you use consumer data to favor Amazon products? Because before you answer that, analysts estimate that between 80 and 90% of sales go to the Amazon buy box. So you collect all this data about the most popular products where they're selling. And you're saying you don't use that in any way to change an algorithm to support the sale of Amazon branded products? Nate Sutton: Our algorithms such as the buy box is aimed to predict what customers want to buy, apply the same criteria whether you're a third party seller, or Amazon to that because we want customers to make the right purchase, regardless of whether it's a seller or Amazon. Rep. David Cicilline (RI): But the best purchase to you as an Amazon product. Nate Sutton: No, that's not true. Rep. David Cicilline (RI): So you're telling us you're under oath, Amazon does not use any of that data collected with respect to what is selling, where it's on what products to inform the decisions you make, or to change algorithms to direct people to Amazon products and prioritize Amazon and D prioritize competitors. Nate Sutton: The algorithms are optimized to predict what customers want to buy regardless of the seller. We provide this same criteria and with respect to popularity, that's public data on each product page. We provide the ranking of each product. [3:22:50] Dr. Fiona Scott Morton: As is detailed in the report that I submitted as my testimony, there are a number of characteristics of platforms that tend to drive them toward concentrated markets, very large economies of scale, consumers exacerbate this with their behavioral biases, we don't scroll down to the second page, we don't. We accept default, we follow the framing the platform gives us and instead of searching independently, and what that does is it makes it very hard for small companies to grow and for new ones to get traction against the dominant platform. And without the threat of entry from entrepreneurs and growth from existing competitors, the dominant platform doesn't have to compete as hard. If it's not competing as hard, then there are several harms that follow from that. One is higher prices for advertisers, many of these platforms are advertising supported, then there's higher prices to consumers who may think that they're getting a good deal by paying a price of zero. But the competitive price might well be negative, the consumers might well be able to be paid for using these platforms in a competitive market. Other harms include low quality in the form of less privacy, more advertising and more exploitative content that consumers can't avoid. Because, as Tim just said, there isn't anywhere else to go. And lastly, without competitive pressure, innovation is lessened. And in particular, it's channeled in the direction the dominant firm prefers, rather than being creatively spread across directions chosen by entrance. And this is what we learned both from at&t and IBM and Microsoft, is that when the dominant firm ceases to control innovation, there's a flowering and it's very creative and market driven. So the solution to this problem of insufficient competition is complimentary steps forward in both antitrust and regulation. Antitrust must recalibrate the balance it strikes between the risk of over enforcement and under enforcement. The evidence now shows we've been under enforcing for years and consumers have been harmed. [3:22:50] Stacy Mitchell: I hope the committee will consider several policy tools as part of this investigation. In particular, we very much endorse the approach that Congress took with regard to the railroads, that if you operate essential infrastructure, you can't also compete with the businesses that rely on that infrastructure. [3:45:00] Morgan Reed: Here on the table, I have a copy of Omni page Pro. This was a software you bought, if you needed to scan documents. If you wanted to turn it into a processor and you could look at it in a word processor. I've also got this great review from PC World, they loved it back in 2005. But the important fact here in this review is that it says the street price of this software in 2005 was $450. Now, right here, I've got an app from a company called Readdle, that is nearly the same product level has a bunch of features that this one doesn't, it's $6. Basically now consumers pay less than 1% of what they used to pay for some of the same capability. And what's even better about that, even though I love the product from Readdle, there are dozens of competitors in the app space. So when you look at it from that perspective, consumers are getting a huge win. How have platforms made this radical drop in price possible? Simply put, they've provided three things a trusted space, reduced overhead, and given my developers nearly instant access to a global marketplace with billions of customers, before the platforms to get your software onto a retail store shelf. companies had to spend years and thousands of dollars to get to the point where a distributor would handle their product, then you'd agree agree to a cut of sales revenue, write a check for upfront marketing, agree to refund the distributor the cost of any unsold boxes and then spend 10s of thousands of dollars to buy an end cap. Digging a little bit on this, I don't know how many of you know or aware that the products you see on your store shelf or in the Sunday flyer aren't there because the manager thought it was a cool product. Those products are displayed at the end of an aisle or end cap because the software developer or consumer goods company literally pays for the shelf space. In fact, for many retailers the sale of floor the sale of floor space and flyers makes a huge chunk of their profitability for their store. And none of this takes into consideration printing boxes, manuals, CDs, dealing with credit cards if you go direct translation services, customs authorities if you want to sell abroad in the 1990s it cost a million dollars to start up a software company. Now it's $100,000 in sweat equity. And thanks to these changes, the average cost for consumer software has dropped from $50 to three. For developers. Our cost to market has dropped enormously and the size of our market has expanded globally. [3:48:55] Stacy Mitchell: I've spent a lot of time interviewing and talking with independent retailers, manufacturers of all sizes. Many of them are very much afraid of speaking out publicly because they fear retaliation. But what we consistently hear is that Amazon is the biggest threat to their businesses. We just did a survey of about 550 independent retailers nationally, Amazon ranked number one in terms of being what they said was the biggest threat to their business above, rising healthcare costs, access to capital, government, red tape, anything else you can name. Among those who are actually selling on the platform, only 7% reported that it was actually helping their bottom line. Amazon has a kind of godlike view of a growing share of our commerce and it uses the data that it gathers to advantage its own business and its own business interests in lots of ways. A lot of this, as I said, comes from the kind of leverage its ability to sort of leverage the interplay between these different business lines to maximize its advantage, whether it's promoting its own product because that's lucrative or whether it's using the manufacturer of a product to actually squeeze a seller or vendor into giving it bigger discounts. [3:53:15] Rep. Kelly Armstrong (ND): When we recognize, I come from very rural area, the closest, what you would consider a big box store is Minneapolis or Denver. So and so when we're talking about competition, all of this I also think we've got to remember, at no point in time from my house in Dickinson, North Dakota have I had more access to more diverse and cheap consumer products. I mean, things that often would require a plane ticket or a nine hour car ride to buy can now be brought to our house. So I think when we're talking about consumers, we need to remember that side of it, too. Hearing: EMERGING TRENDS IN ONLINE FOREIGN INFLUENCE OPERATIONS: SOCIAL MEDIA, COVID–19, AND ELECTION SECURITY, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, June 18, 2020 Watch on Youtube Hearing transcript Witnesses: Nathaniel Gleicher: Head of Security Policy at Facebook Nick Pickles: Director of Global Public Policy Strategy and Development at Twitter Richard Salgado: Director for Law Enforcement and Information Security at Google Transcript: [19:16] Nathaniel Gleicher: Facebook has made significant investments to help protect the integrity of elections. We now have more than 35,000 people working on safety and security across the company, with nearly 40 teams focused specifically on elections and election integrity. We're also partnering with federal and state governments, other tech companies, researchers and civil society groups to share information and stop malicious actors. Over the past three years, we've worked to protect more than 200 elections around the world. We've learned lessons from each of these, and we're applying these lessons to protect the 2020 election in November. [21:58] Nathaniel Gleicher: We've also been proactively hunting for bad actors trying to interfere with the important discussions about injustice and inequality happening around our nation. As part of this effort, we've removed isolated accounts seeking to impersonate activists, and two networks of accounts tied to organize hate groups that we've previously banned from our platforms. [26:05] Nick Pickles: Firstly, Twitter shouldn't determine the truthfulness of tweets. And secondly, Twitter should provide context to help people make up their own minds in cases where the substance of a tweet is disputed. [26:15] Nick Pickles: We prioritize interventions regarding misinformation based on the highest potential for harm. And the currently focused on three main areas of content, synthetic & manipulated media, elections and civic integrity and COVID-19. [26:30] Nick Pickles: Where content does not break our rules and warrant removal. In these three areas, we may label tweets to help people come to their own views by providing additional context. These labels may link to a curated set of tweets posted by people on Twitter. This include factual statements, counterpoint opinions and perspectives, and ongoing public conversation around the issue. To date, we've applied these labels to thousands of tweets around the world across these three policy areas. [31:10] Richard Salgado: In search, ranking algorithms are an important tool in our fight against disinformation. Ranking elevates information that our algorithms determine is the most authoritative, above information that may be less reliable. Similarly, our work on YouTube focuses on identifying and removing content that violates our policies and elevating authoritative content when users search for breaking news. At the same time, we find and limit the spread of borderline content that comes close but just stops short of violating our policies. [53:28] Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): Mr. Gliecher, you may or may not know that Facebook is headquartered in my congressional district. I've had many conversations with Sheryl Sandberg. And I'm still puzzled by the fact that Facebook does not consider itself a media platform. Are you still espousing that kind of position? Nathaniel Gleicher: Congresswoman, we're first and foremost a technology company. We may be a technology company, but it's your technology company is being used as a media platform. Do you not recognize that? Congresswoman, we're a place for ideas across the spectrum. We know that there are people who use our platforms to engage and in fact that is the goal of the platform's to encourage and enable people to discuss the key issues of the day and to talk to family and friends. [54:30] Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): How long or or maybe I should ask this when there was a video of Speaker Pelosi that had been tampered with - slowed down to make her look like she was drunk. YouTube took it down almost immediately. What did Facebook do and what went into your thinking to keep it up? Nathaniel Gleicher: Congresswoman for a piece of content like that, we work with a network of third party fact checkers, more than 60 3rd party fact checkers around the world. If one of them determines that a piece of content like that is false, and we will down rank it, and we will put an interstitial on it so that anyone who would look at it would first see a label over it saying that there's additional information and that it's false. That's what we did in this context. When we down rank, something like that, we see the shares of that video, radically drop. Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): But you won't take it down when you know it's false. Nathaniel Gleicher: Congresswoman, you're highlighting a really difficult balance. And we've talked about this amongst ourselves quite a bit. And what I would say is, if we simply take a piece of content like this down, it doesn't go away. It will exist elsewhere on the internet. People who weren't looking for it will still find it. Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): But it you know, there will always be bad actors in the world. That doesn't mean that you don't do your level best to show the greatest deal of credibility. I mean, if YouTube took it down, I don't understand how you couldn't have taken down but I'll leave that where it lays. [1:40:10] Nathaniel Gleicher: Congressman, the collaboration within industry and with government is much, much better than it was in 2016. I think we have found the FBI, for example, to be forward leaning and ready to share information with us when they see it. We share information with them whenever we see indications of foreign interference targeting our election. The best case study for this was the 2018 midterms, where you saw industry, government and civil society all come together, sharing information to tackle these threats. We had a case on literally the eve of the vote, where the FBI gave us a tip about a network of accounts where they identified subtle links to Russian actors. Were able to investigate those and take action on them within a matter of hours. [1:43:10] Rep. Jim Himes (CT): I tend to be kind of a First Amendment absolutist. I really don't want Facebook telling me what's true and what's not true mainly because most statements are some combination of both. [1:44:20] Nathaniel Gleicher: Certainly people are drawn to clickbait. They're drawn to explosive content. I mean, it is the nature of clickbait, to make people want to click on it, but what we found is that if you separate it out from the particular content, people don't want a platform or experience, just clickbait, they will click it, if they see it, they don't want it prioritized, they don't want their time to be drawn into that and all emotional frailty. And so we are trying to build an environment where that isn't the focus, where they have the conversations they want to have, but I agree with you. A core piece of this challenge is people seek out that type of content wherever it is. I should note that as we're thinking about how we prioritize this, one of the key factors is who your friends are the pages and accounts that you follow and the assets that you engage with. That's the most important factor in sort of what you see. And so people have direct control over that because they are choosing the people they want to engage. Hearing: ONLINE PLATFORMS AND MARKET POWER, PART 1: THE FREE AND DIVERSE PRESS, Committee on the Judiciary: Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, June 11, 2020 Watch on Youtube Witnesses: David Chavern: President of the News Media Alliance Gene Kimmelman: President of Public Knowledge Sally Hubbard: Director of Enforcement Strategy at the Open Markets Institute Matthew Schrurers: Vice President of Law and Policy at the Computer and Communications Industry Association David Pitofsky: General Counsel at News Corp Kevin Riley: Editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Transcript: [55:30] David Chavern: Platforms and news organizations mutual reliance would not be a problem, if not for the fact that the concentration among the platforms means a small number of companies now exercise an extreme level of control over the news. And in fact, a couple of dominant firms act as regulators of the news industry. Only these regulators are not constrained by legislative or democratic oversight. The result has been to siphon revenue away from news publishers. This trend is clear if you compare the growth in Google's total advertising revenue to the decline in the news industry's ad revenue. In 2000, Google's US revenue was 2.1 billion, while the newspaper industry accounted for 48 billion in advertising revenue. In 2017, in contrast, Google's US revenue had increased over 25 times to 52.4 billion, the newspaper industry's ad revenue had fallen 65% to 16.4 billion. [56:26] David Chavern: The effect of this revenue decline in publishers has been terrible, and they've been forced to cut back on their investments in journalism. That is a reason why newsroom employment has fallen nearly a quarter over the last decade. One question might be asked is if the platforms are unbalanced, having such a negative impact on the news media, then why don't publishers do something about it? The answer is they cannot, at least under the existing antitrust laws, news publishers face a collective action problem. No publisher on its own can stand up to the tech giants. The risk of demotion or exclusion from the platform is simply too great. And the antitrust laws prevent news organizations from acting collectively. So the result is that publishers are forced to accept whatever terms or restrictions are imposed on them. [1:06:20] Sally Hubbard: Facebook has repeatedly acquired rivals, including Instagram and WhatsApp. And Google's acquisition cemented its market power throughout the ad ecosystem as it bought up the digital ad market spoke by spoke, including applied semantics AdMob and Double Click. Together Facebook and Google have bought 150 companies in just the last six years. Google alone has bought nearly 250 companies. [1:14:17] David Pitofsky: Unfortunately, in the news business, free riding by dominant online platforms, which aggregate and then reserve our content has led to the lion's share of online advertising dollars generated off the back of news going to the platforms. Many in Silicon Valley dismissed the press as old media failing to evolve in the face of online competition. But this is wrong. We're not losing business to an innovator who has found a better or more efficient way to report and investigate the news. We're losing business because the dominant platforms deploy our news content, to target our audiences to then turn around and sell that audience to the same advertisers we're trying to serve. [1:15:04] David Pitofsky: The erosion of advertising revenue undercuts our ability to invest in high quality journalism. Meanwhile, the platforms have little if any commitment to accuracy or reliability. For them, a news article is valuable if viral, not if verified. [1:16:12] David Pitofsky: News publishers have no good options to respond to these challenges. Any publisher that tried to withhold its content from a platform as part of a negotiating strategy would starve itself of reader traffic. In contrast, losing one publisher would not harm the platform's at all since they would have ample alternative sources for news content. [1:36:56] Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA): So Miss Hubbard, let me start with you. You were an Assistant Attorney General for New York State's antitrust division. You've also worked as a journalist, which online platforms would you say are most impacting the public's access to trustworthy sources of journalism? And why? Sally Hubbard: Thank you for the question. Congresswoman, I think in terms of disinformation, the platforms that are having the most impact are Facebook and YouTube. And that's because of their business models, which are to prioritize engagement, engaging content because of the human nature that you know survival instinct, we tend to tune into things that make us fearful or angry. And so by prioritizing engagement, these platforms are actually prioritizing disinformation as well. It serves their profit motives to keep people on the platforms as long as possible to show them ads and collect their data. And because they don't have any competition, they're free to pursue these destructive business models without having any competitive constraint. They've also lacked regulation. Normally, corporations are not permitted to just pursue profits without regard to the consequences. [1:38:10] Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA): The Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly declined to interfere, as Facebook and Google have acquired would be competitors. Since 2007, Google has acquired Applied Semantics, Double Click and AdMob. And since 2011, Facebook has acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. What do these acquisitions mean for consumers of news and information? I think sometimes antitrust is seen and regulation is seen as something that's out there. But this has very direct impact for consumers. Can you explain what that means as these companies have acquired more and more? Sally Hubbard: Sure, so in my view, those, of all of the acquisitions that you just mentioned, were illegal under the Clayton Act, which prohibits mergers that may lessen competition. Looking back, it's clear that all of those mergers did lessen competition. And when you lessen competition, the harms to consumers are not just high prices, which was which are harder to see when in the digital age. But its loss of innovation is loss of choice, and loss of control. So when we approve anti competitive mergers, consumers are harmed. [1:55:48] Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL): Section 230, as I understand it, and I'm happy to be corrected by others, would say that if a technology platform is a neutral public platform, that they enjoy certain liability protections that newspapers don't enjoy, that Newscorp doesn't enjoy with its assets. And so does it make the anti competitive posture of technology platforms more pronounced, that they have access to this special liability protection that the people you represent don't have access to? David Chavern: Oh, absolutely. There's a huge disparity. Frankly, when our contents delivered through these platforms, we get the liability and they get the money. So that's a good deal from that end. We are responsible for what we publish, we publishers can and do get sued. On the other hand, the platforms are allowed to deliver and monetize this content with complete lack of responsibility. Hearing: Election Interference: Ensuring Law Enforcement is Equipped to Target Those Seeking to Do Harm, Senate Judiciary Committee, June 12, 2018 Watch on C-SPAN Witnesses: Adam Hickey - Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at the Department of Justice Matthew Masterson - National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security Kenneth Wainstein - Partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP Prof. Ryan Goodman - New York University School of Law Nina Jankowicz - Global Fellow at the Wilson Center Transcript: [9:00] Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA): We know that Russia orchestrated a sustained and coordinated attack that interfered in our last presidential election. And we also know that there’s a serious threat of more attacks in our future elections, including this November. As the United States Intelligence Community unanimously concluded, the Russian government’s interference in our election—and I quote—“blended covert intelligence operations, such as cyber activity, with overt efforts by the Russian government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social-media users or trolls.” Over the course of the past year and a half, we’ve come to better understand how pernicious these attacks were. Particularly unsettling is that we were so unaware. We were unaware that Russia was sowing division through mass propaganda, cyber warfare, and working with malicious actors to tip scales of the election. Thirteen Russian nationals and three organizations, including the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency, have now been indicted for their role in Russia’s vast conspiracy to defraud the United States. Hearing: Facebook, Google and Twitter Executives on Russian Disinformation, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, October 31, 2017 Watch on Youtube Witnesses: Colin Stretch - Facebook Vice President and General Counsel Sean Edgett - Twitter Acting General Counsel Richard Salgado - Google Law Enforcement & Information Security Director Clint Watts - Foreign Policy Research Institute, National Security Program Senior Fellow Michael Smith -New America, International Security Fellow Transcript: [2:33:07] Clint Watts: Lastly, I admire those social-media companies that have begun working to fact-check news articles in the wake of last year’s elections. These efforts should continue but will be completely inadequate. Stopping false information—the artillery barrage landing on social-media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced. Silence the guns, and the barrage will end. I propose the equivalent of nutrition labels for information outlets, a rating icon for news-producing outlets displayed next to their news links and social-media feeds and search engines. The icon provides users an assessment of the news outlet’s ratio of fact versus fiction and opinion versus reporting. The rating system would be opt-in. It would not infringe on freedom of speech or freedom of the press. Should not be part of the U.S. government, should sit separate from the social-media companies but be utilized by them. Users wanting to consume information from outlets with a poor rating wouldn’t be prohibited. If they are misled about the truth, they have only themselves to blame. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

K-LOVE's Ed Lenane talks with Congressman Michael Conaway who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House committee on Agriculture which includes numerous agricultural subcommittees.

Chris Stewart is the Congressman from Utah's Second Congressional District. He is a No. 1 New York Times best-selling and national award-winning author, world-record-setting Air Force pilot, and the former owner/CEO of a small business.  Chris is one of ten children and grew up on a dairy farm in Cache Valley. He graduated from Utah State University, where he earned his degree in economics. Upon graduation, Chris joined the United States Air Force where he was the Distinguished Graduate (top of his class) in both Officer Training School and Undergraduate Pilot Training. He served for fourteen years as a pilot in the Air Force, flying both rescue helicopters and the B-1B bomber.  He holds three world speed records, including the world’s record for the fastest non-stop flight around the world. Chris is a prolific author having written 17 books, several of which have become national best-sellers, and have been published in six different countries. Before being elected to Congress, Chris served as president and CEO of the Shipley Group, a nationally recognized firm for consulting expertise in energy and the environment. He and his wife, Evie, are the parents of six children. Chris now serves as a member of the following committees: Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Budget Committee, and the Appropriations Committee.

Unfiltered, unedited, uninterrupted...The A&G Longform with Mike Rogers. The former Michigan Congressman and Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence knows a thing or two about national security. Additionally, he talks to Jack & Joe about the woeful relationships that exist in DC.

Unfiltered, unedited, uninterrupted...The A&G Longform with Mike Rogers. The former Michigan Congressman and Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence knows a thing or two about national security. Additionally, he talks to Jack & Joe about the woeful relationships that exist in DC.

Host Carol Castiel and VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson talk with U.S. Congressman Will Hurd, a Republican from the state of Texas who serves on the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Topics include national security issues from immigration reform, the Russia probe, the nuclear threat from North Korea, to international trade, especially talks on renegotiating the NAFTA agreement, which has a direct impact on Hurd's home state of Texas.

WASHINGTON, DC – Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers, the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, delivered a speech to a Bully Pulpit Policy Breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society, discussing the need to strengthen cybersecurity, the threat posed by China, and the bipartisan legislation he has authored that would help shore up America's vulnerabilities in this regard.

My guest in this podcast is former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. From 2007 until just this year, she represented Minnesota’s 7th district in Congress and in 2012 Michele Bachmann ran for the Republican nomination for President. In Congress, she served on the House Financial Services Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which oversees the CIA, the NSA, and other intelligence agencies. She has been a strong supporter of the Tea Party movement from it’s earliest days and founded the House Tea Party Caucus when she was in Congress. On this podcast, she’ll talk about the Tea Party’s role in the Republican party today and her thoughts on the GOP field in 2016. As a former tax attorney, she’ll also share her ideas on how to simplify the tax code, and talk about her grave concerns about Russia, Iran, and Syria, and America’s shrinking role in the world under President Obama. Plus she’ll reveal how one of her foster children’s 11th grade homework assignment led to her career politics. For more information, visit www.KickAssPolitics.com, and if you enjoyed the show and would like to help keep us on the air, then please help us reach our fall fundraising goal & donate to the show at www.gofundme.com/kickasspolitics. Also, we’d appreciate it if you would take our listener survey to give us an idea of who our audience is at http://www.podtrac.com/audience/start-survey.aspx?pubid=VaSxWQpFs7xV&ver=short

Low-lights of the Ryan budget are described after we run down the bills passed by the House this week. We also look into an eighteen-year emergency continued this week by President Obama. H.R. 749: Eliminate Privacy Confusion Act The banks currently have to send out a notice regarding their privacy policies every year. This bill would change the law so the banks only have to send the privacy notices out when they change their privacy policies. The privacy policies will be posted online. HR 890: Preserving the Welfare Work Requirement and TANF Extension Act This bill extends the the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, which is welfare, through the end of this calendar year. The bill also prohibits the Obama administration from following through with a plan to give states waivers which would allow them to operate their own welfare programs, so long as there is a proven 20% increase in the number of welfare recipients who find work. This bill would effectively make sure the Federal government has a one-size-fits all approach to welfare. HR 803: SKILLS Act [caption id="" align="alignright" width="159"] Grandma Foxx of North Carolina sponsored the SKILLS Act[/caption] Would be effective for fiscal year 2014 Most significant effect: It would change the make up of local boards that decide how our taxpayer money would be spent on welfare-to-work and job training programs. The local boards would effectively be in corporate control. Currently: The boards are already required to be a majority of people from the business community, specifically business owners. This bill would change it so that a 2/3 majority of the boards would be business owners. Also, the seat for representatives from labor organizations would be eliminated. The boards are required to come up with a plan for the states on how they run their work programs, including how the state will spend taxpayer money. The boards would also be able to award government funded contracts to the entities that provide training services. It would effectively allow businesses to tell states how to govern. It also prohibits the government job training centers from competing with private employment agencies. The bill would also consolidate 35 different programs into one giant program. The bill would order an accounting of the number of federal workers who administer job training programs and within one year, fire all the federal workers whose positions were gobbled up in the merge. President Obama and the Senate Democrats have already said they don't support it; it won't become law. Ignored Subpoenas Ted Poe (TX) informed Congress that he intends to ignore a subpoena sent by Orly Taitz, a lawyer from Rancho Santa Margarita, CA. Orly Taitz is part of the Defend our Freedoms Foundation and her website proclaims to be the "World's Leading Obama Eligibility Challenge Website". Taitz filed a temporary restraining order to prohibit President Obama's inauguration because they claim that he's using a fake social security number and his birth certificate is forged. US Attorney's filed an opposition on behalf of Congress to stop Taitz's restraining order. Now she's sending subpoena's to members of Congress to try to get them to say they didn't support the US Attorney's effort to squash her restraining order against the President. Ted Poe's response: "After consultation with the Office of Gen-eral Counsel, I have determined under Rule VIII that the subpoena seeks information that is not ‘‘material and relevant'' and that it is not ‘‘consistent with the privileges and rights of the House.'' Accordingly, I intend to move to quash the subpoena. God and Texas, TED POE" Another subpoena was ignored this week by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The subpoena was issued for a criminal trial being prosecuted by the US District Court for the District of Arizona. The stated reason the subpoena was ignored was because the "documents sought are not material and relevant" and that subpoena is not consistent with the privileges and rights of the House." No more information could be found. Continuing Emergency from 1995 National Emergencies Act automatically ends a National Emergency after 90 days unless the President informs Congress that the emergency needs to continue. President Clinton signed an Executive Order on March 15, 1995 that puts sanctions on Iran's nationalized oil industry. The sanctions prohibit any United States citizen or company from entering into a contract to develop Iran's oil resources, either by physically managing the development or financing it. President Clinton enacted these sanctions after Iran opened their petroleum resources to foreign investment, allowing our corporations to get their invested money back, but not take home profits. Obama Emergency Notification sent to Congress on March 12, 2013: "The actions and policies of the Government of Iran are contrary to the interests of the United St ates in the region and continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. For these reasons, I have deter-mined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to Iran and to maintain in force comprehensive sanctions against Iran to deal with this threat." The Ryan Budget  Taxes * Change the tax structure from seven brackets to two. The rate for poor people would be 10% * Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax * Lower the top tax rate to 25% for individuals and corporations Education * Remove regulations in higher education to allow more online classes * Freezes cap on Pell grants for college at $5,645 per year (currently $5,500) * "Eliminate ineffective & duplicative federal education programs. Health Care * Repeal ObamaCare bit by bit * Repeal the Federal expansion of Medicaid (100% paid by Fed gov't, down to 90% in 2016) * Repeal the health-care exchanges * Repeal the entire health-care law. * Want to make sure that "not a penny goes toward implementing the new law." * Ban on denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions would remain illegal. * Choice program that would allow workers to devote their employer's health-coverage contribution to purchase a health plan that works for them.. if their employer allows it. Medicare * For people born in 1959 or later, Medicare would be privatized. You would have to choose between private plans or a fee for service, go bankrupt if you get really sick, plan. Taxpayer money in the form of a voucher would pay for the private insurance for people whose savings has been drained. * Medicare would have exchanges, just like the ones that would be defunded for the rest of us. * Seniors would get gov't money only for the "second-least-expensive private plan or fee-for-service" plan, whichever costs less. If the senior wants a better plan, they pay the difference out of pocket. Prohibiting Lawsuits * Limits on noneconomic and punitive damages in medical liability lawsuits. Retirement *  Make federal workers pay more towards their pensions so that their benefits come closer to sucking as much as the private sector * "The CBO estimated that, on average, federal employees make 16% more in total compensation than their private-sector counterparts. This reform would begin to rectify that imbalance." Federal Workforce Cuts * Reduce the federal workforce by 10% by 2015. * Reduce the federal workforce "not through layoffs, but via a gradual, sensible attrition policy." Energy * Defund renewable projects; "The budget aims to roll back federal interventional and corporate-welfare spending across energy sectors." * Open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling * Sell off "millions of acres federal land" to oil & gas companies. "The federal government owns nearly one-third of the land in the country… substantial volumes of oil and gas are known to lie under these government lands." * Prohibit the government from buying land. Right now, proceeds from land sales need to go towards buying other parcels of land. The Ryan budget would take 70% of that and put it towards deficit reduction. * "The sale of billions of dollars' worth of federal assets would… remove economic distortions by reducing public ownership." * Limit the amount of money the Department of Interior could collect from the fire sale to $60 million per year. Transportation * Eliminate funding for high-speed rail projects * "High speed rail and other new intercity rail projects should be pursued only if they can be established as self-supporting commercial services" Defense * $560.2 billion for 2014, $6 trillion over the next decade = spending increases. * "It is approximately $500 billion more than will be available absent changes in the Budget Control Act. Our security is the federal government's top priority. The budget must reflect that fact."