Foreign collusion? FCC moves with 'unprecedented' speed to approve Soros' capture of 200+ radio stations with foreign cash just before election



Leftist billionaire and Democratic mega-donor George Soros has been leaning on the Democrat-controlled Federal Communications Commission for months in hopes of fast-tracking his group's acquisition of over 200 radio stations in over 40 markets — including stations that run shows from Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Erick Erickson, Sean Hannity, and Dana Loesch.

On Wednesday, the FCC reportedly adopted an order to approve the purchase, meaning that in a matter days, Soros will likely take control of communications to over 165 million Americans with the help of unvetted foreign investors whom Democrats have spared from the FCC's customary national security review process.

National syndicated radio host and Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck asked Trump-appointed FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr Tuesday about the Democratic FCC commissioners' apparent willingness to cosign Soros' latest play for narrative dominance.

Carr made clear that "it's an unprecedented decision for the commission" that would not have alternatively been accepted were Soros a partisan of another stripe — a decision that comes amid a broader "weaponization of government power ... against free speech."

Background

Audacy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas on Jan. 7 to reduce its debt.

Months later, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas approved the company's reorganization plan, paving the way for an equitization of over 80% of the company's debt.

In February, Soros Fund Management acquired roughly $414 million of Audacy's debt — nearly 40% of the company's senior debt — emerging as the company's primary shareholder.

'Soros took foreign investment to make his bid.'

Audacy asked the FCC to approve the transfer of its broadcast licenses to the reorganized company.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and other critics noted, however, that such a transfer would be problematic as the reorganized company would exceed legally acceptable foreign ownership limits. Section 310(b)(4) of the Communications Act prohibits foreign owners from having a stake in a radio station license exceeding 25%.

Media Research Center noted in its April petition to deny the "special Soros shortcut" that "the Soros group expressly states in their FCC filing that they have determined that the aggregate level of foreign ownership in the company when it emerges from bankruptcy will exceed the 25 percent limit specified in Section 310(b)(4) of the Communications Act due to the various entities that it expects to hold voting or equity interests."

Audacy requested that the five-member FCC, which has a Democratic majority, take the unprecedented step of not only waiving the foreign ownership restriction in order to allow the purchase to move forward but of putting off a national security review of the stations' foreign-interest holders.

Democrat-anointed foreign takeover

Following a New York Post report stating that the three Democrats on the FCC voted Wednesday to approve Audacy's reorganization plan, Commissioner Carr spoke to Glenn Beck about what happens next.

"Now, the vote came down in the FCC. It was partisan. Three Democrats voting for it. Two Republicans voting against it," said Beck. "But here's the real problem: According to existing FCC rules, foreign company ownership of U.S. radio stations is not supposed to exceed 25%. But Soros took foreign investment to make his bid, and then he asked the FCC to make an exception to the usual review process."

Carr said, "I've been very outspoken on this particular issue for the reasons that you talked about. We have a very clear process at the FCC that we set up — it could take six months, it could take a year — to go through to [the national security] review the foreign ownership at issue here. But for reasons that are not sort of plain to me, the FCC ... for the very first time ever, has skipped that process for the benefit of this Soros-backed group."

"It's an unprecedented decision for the commission," added Carr.

When Blaze News asked how the Soros group dodged the Communications Act prohibition, Carr said:

What happened here was that the Soros group came in and said, 'Look, approve our takeover of these stations now. We will wall off the foreign interest holders from any sort of significant, relevant decision-making authority for the time being, then we'll come back to you down the road and file the petition and go through the petition process.'

Apparently, that was good enough for the Democratic commissioners.

"Usually, you don't let the people get the licenses first until we go through the foreign ownership. I would imagine that they're going to have to come back to the FCC and run this foreign ownership process," continued Carr. "And if that does uncover — and I'm not saying it's likely — but if that does uncover some untoward level of foreign influence, then the FCC should have the full tools available to it to take action."

'This is sort of the reverse side of a pattern that we've been living under the last couple of years.'

While remedies might be as simple as further walling off of investors or selling off an interest, Carr indicated that the FCC could "go so far as to reconsider the grant of a license," although he does not anticipate revocation being necessary.

Rules for thee

Carr alluded to what the implications of this decision might be, noting that the affected radio stations are not just playing classic rock but in a number of cases have conservative talk shows and news.

When Beck suggested the reverse wouldn't fly, Carr indicated that conservative buyers were shut down in the past when trying something similar.

"Not too long ago — a year ago — there was a group of conservative buyers that wanted to purchase some South Florida radio station," said Carr. "And a number of Democrats spoke up very loudly and said the FCC cannot allow these conservative outlets to buy these radio stations because, in the Democrats' view, it can cost them an election in South Florida."

Carr contextualized this hypocrisy in a broader trend of Democrats seeking to "weaponize the government to go against conservative speech."

"This is sort of the reverse side of a pattern that we've been living under the last couple of years — of weaponization of government power, in my view, frankly, against free speech."

When asked whether there has been any pushback on the Soros takeover from Democrats, Carr laughed, telling Blaze News the only lawmakers who came to mind in terms of raising alarm were Cruz, Roy, and Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.).

— (@)

Motive

Beck asked Carr why Soros might want to invest this kind of money in what appears to be a "dying medium."

'Maybe there's a business case there that they're smart enough to see, that everyone doesn't see.'

"It's a good question," said Carr. "I don't know a lot of billionaires right now that, with all the options for where they're going to place their money, sit around saying, 'You know what really kicks off a lot of cash right now are local radio stations.' Maybe."

"We're seeing a flight of capital from local broadcasting because it's so challenged right now with competition from social media companies and over-the-top providers," continued Carr. "So maybe there's a business case there that they're smart enough to see that everyone doesn't see."

NPR president Katherine Maher, a censorious alumna of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader program who previously worked at the National Democratic Institute, which is primarily funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundations, provided a possible clue as to why her fellow travelers might want to take control of American radio stations.

Maher, who toured the ground zeroes of various regime changes in recent years as they were unfolding, penned a December 2010 NDI blog post, titled, "Can a Radio Station Govern a Country?"

The article concerned an electoral crisis in the Ivory Coast that led to civil war and the desire by one faction to seize control of the state broadcaster, Radiodiffusion Television Ivoirienne.

Maher quoted her friend who suggested:

Control over RTI has become a flashpoint in the crisis precisely because information is both severely limited and crucial to building legitimacy, however tenuous, with the public. In the absence of a robust private media to report on the election controversy, the state-run broadcaster may effectively have as much power to declare the ultimate winner as the electoral commission formally tasked with doing so.

Maher concluded, "Control over the flow of information in a closed society can be tantamount to control over the state."

— (@)

Carr told Beck that after the FCC releases its final decision, Soros' control over hundreds of American radio stations will be "instantaneous."

Rikki Ratliff-Fellman, director of programming at Blaze Media, suggested on X, "The Harris-Biden admin doesn't actually care about 'foreign malign influence' in our elections. If they did they would object to Soros' takeover of the 2nd largest chain of U.S. radio stations made possible by foreign investment and Democrat blessing."

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Bill Gates pushes for digital IDs to tackle 'misinformation' and curb free speech



Bill Gates has evidenced, both directly and through his foundation, an intense desire to shape public health, the news landscape, education policy, AI, insect populations, American farmland, the energy sector, foreign policy, and the earth itself. He recently hinted that he would also like to see free speech and engagements online shaped to his liking.

CNET asked Gates about what to do about "misinformation" — a topic explored in his forthcoming Netflix docuseries and some of his blog posts. The billionaire answered that there will be "systems and behaviors" in place to expose content originators.

The online environment Gates appears to be describing is some sort of digital ID-based panopticon.

Gates suggested that the "boundary between ... crazy but free speech versus misleading people in a dangerous way or inciting them is a very tough boundary."

"You know, I think every country's struggling to find that boundary," said Gates. "The U.S. is a tough one because, you know, we have the notion of the First Amendment. So what are the exceptions? You know, like yelling 'fire' in a theater."

The billionaire has previously hinted at the kinds of speech he finds troubling.

For instance, in a January 2021 MSNBC interview, Gates took issue with content encouraging "people not to trust the advice on masks or taking the vaccine."

When fear-mongering about potential "openness" on Twitter following its acquisition by Elon Musk, Gates intimated the suggestions that "vaccines kill people" and that "Bill Gates is tracking people" were similarly beyond the pale.

Gates, evidently interested in exceptions to constitutionally protected speech, complained to CNET that people can engage in what others might deem "misinformation" under the cover of anonymity online.

"I do think over time, you know with things like deep-fakes, most of the time you're online, you're going to want to be in an environment where the people are truly identified," continued Gates. "That is they're connected to a real-world identity that you trust instead of people just saying whatever they want."

The online environment Gates appears to be describing is some sort of digital ID-based panopticon.

Gates has backed various efforts to tether people to digital identities.

Gates' foundation has, for instance, been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a program called the United Nations Development Program-led 50-in-5 Campaign, which features a strong focus on digital ID.

The UNDP said in a November 2023 release, "This ambitious, country-led campaign heralds a new chapter in the global momentum around digital public infrastructure (DPI) — an underlying network of components such as digital payments, ID, and data exchange systems, which is a critical accelerator of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."

Return previously reported that the Gates-backed Gavi, also known as the Vaccine Alliance, Mastercard, and NGOs in the fintech space have been trialing a digital vaccine passport in Africa called the Wellness Pass.

This vaccine passport, characterized as a useful way to track patients in "underserved communities" across "multiple touchpoints," is part of a grouping of consumer-facing Mastercard products aimed ostensibly at bringing people into a cashless digital ID system that both automates compliance with prescribed pharmaceutical regimens and fosters dependency on at least one ideologically captive non-governmental entity.

Extra to funding research into biocompatible near-infrared quantum dots indicating vaccination status, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backed the World Health Organization's 2021 "Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates: Vaccination Status" guidance, which discussed the deployment of a vaccine passport "solution to address the immediate needs of the pandemic but also to build digital health infrastructure that can be a foundation for digital vaccination certificates beyond COVID-19."

Whereas there remain ways online by which people can interact anonymously — including whistleblowers and persons whose employment situations might otherwise preclude them from freely expressing their views publicly — largely free from government or private clampdowns, Gates fantasized in his CNET interview about "systems and behaviors that we're more aware of. Okay, who says that? Who created this?"

According to CNBC, Gates is "sensitive" to concerns that restricting information online could adversely impact the right to free speech. Nevertheless, he still wants new rules established, though he did not spell out what those would entail.

However, he has, in recent years, given an idea of where he thinks the government crackdown should start.

Gates told Wired in 2020 that the government should now permit messages hidden with encryption on programs like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

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Stanford outfit that helped Biden admin 'monitor and censor Americans' online speech' is disintegrating



The Stanford Internet Observatory is the narrative curation outfit at Stanford University that reportedly worked hand-in-glove with the Biden administration and social media organizations to flag and clamp down on undesired speech, especially regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election.

Despite having proven their value to the powers that be, the key players at the SIO have recently abandoned ship. The newsletter Platformer, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, revealed this week that ship is now all but sunk.

Background

The SIO was founded in 2019. It took the lead on the so-called Election Integrity Partnership, which was created in July 2020 to tackle perceived wrongthink on the right in the lead-up to the presidential election and subsequently launched the Virality Project, an initiative to tackle "the dynamics specific to the COVID-19 crisis."

The narrative curation outfit received a $748,437 grant from the National Science Foundation in 2021 "to support research into the spread of misinformation on the internet" after having demonstrated its capabilities in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

The SIO features in the Twitter Files as well as in a controversial case soon to be decided concerning some of the Biden administration's First Amendment violations.

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on whether the Biden administration violated the Constitution when it leaned on social media companies to censor and suppress Americans' protected free speech in an effort to advance preferred narratives during the pandemic and in the years since.

The case in question,Murthy v. Missouri, got kicked up to the high court after Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana blocked various entities and personalities within the Biden administration from pressuring social media companies to censor "protected free speech" on their platform."

Having observed that the Biden administration "seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth,'" Judge Doughty also prohibited further governmental collaboration with the "Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech."

According to the ruling, the SIO and its narrative-curation spin-offs worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other elements of the federal government.

'Stanford and others, in collaboration with the federal government, established the EIP for the express purpose of violating Americans' civil liberties.'

Renee DiResta, a Truman National Security Project fellow who long served as research manager at the SIO and allegedly worked for the CIA, allegedly admitted that the EIP was designed to "get around unclear legal authorities, including very real First Amendment questions" that would arise if CISA or other government agencies were to monitor and flag information for censorship on social media.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government indicated in a November report that "Stanford and others, in collaboration with the federal government, established the EIP for the express purpose of violating Americans' civil liberties: because no federal agency 'has a focus on, or authority regarding, election misinformation originating from domestic sources within the United States,' there is 'a critical gap for non-governmental entities to fill.'"

"EIP's managers both report misinformation to platforms and communicate with government partners about their misinformation reports," said Doughty's ruling. "Social-media platforms that participated in the EIP were Facebook, Instagram, Google/YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Nextdoor, Discord, and Pinterest."

In the 2020 election cycle, the EIP processed 639 "tickets," 72% of which were related to delegitimizing the election results. Overall, social-media platforms took action on 35% of the URLs reported to them. One "ticket" could include an entire idea or narrative and was not always just one post. Less than 1% of the tickets related to "foreign interference."

The tickets "encompassed millions of social-media posts" and sometimes flagged as "misinformation" truthful reports "that the EIP believes 'lack broader context.'"

The EIP usually targeted content on the political right and allegedly "called for expansive censorship of social-media speech into other areas such as 'public health.'"

The Virality Project assumed this role when it came to the pandemic.

Matt Taibbi indicated on the basis of exposed SIO emails that after the "2020 election, when EIP was renamed the Virality Project, the Stanford lab was on-boarded to Twitter's JIRA ticketing system, absorbing this government proxy into Twitter infrastructure — with a capability of taking in an incredible 50 million tweets a day."

Taibbi highlighted that in one email, the Virality Project recommended that social media platforms take action even against "stories of true vaccine side effects" and "true posts which could fuel hesitancy."

The Virality Project, whose final 2022 report listed DiResta as principal executive director, apparently called for "more aggressive censorship of COVID-19 misinformation ... for more federal agencies to be involved through 'cross-agency collaboration,' and ... for a 'whole-of-society response.'"

"The Virality Project also targeted the alleged COVID-19 misinformation for censorship before it could go viral," said the ruling.

The ruling noted that like the EIP, the Virality Project predominantly targeted American content, in many cases without any evidence of it being false. Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Alex Berenson were among the Americans the Virality Project branded as purveyors of misinformation.

According to Taibbi, the SIO-Twitter relationship amounted to the "ultimate example of the absolute fusion of state corporate, and civil society organizations." He dubbed the result the "Censorship Industrial Complex."

Jumping ship

Platformer indicated that DiResta left the SIO last week after her contract was not renewed. Another staff member's contract apparently expired, while others at the outfit have been allegedly told to find employment elsewhere.

SIO's founding director and EIP co-founder Alex Stamos jumped ship in November, just months after he gave testimony in a transcribed interview before the House Judiciary Committee.

According to Platformer, what remains of SIO will be "reconstituted" under the lab's faculty sponsor, communications professor Jeff Hancock. The outfit's Journal of Online Trust and Safety and corresponding conference will apparently continue, thanks in the former case to the funding of the Omidyar Network.

The university has attempted to put a positive spin on the organization's ostensible dismantling, telling the newsletter in a statement, "The important work of SIO continues under new leadership, including its critical work on child safety and other online harms, its publication of the Journal of Online Trust and Safety, the Trust and Safety Research Conference, and the Trust and Safety Teaching Consortium."

"Stanford remains deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research — both at Stanford and across academia," added the university.

The House Judiciary GOP account suggested on X that this turn of events is a "BIG WIN," and Elon Musk said it was "progress."

While many free speech advocates and victims of censorship similarly celebrated the news that SIO may be winding down, others indicated similar initiatives will crop up.

Bret Weinstein noted, "The enemies of freedom will morph, and regroup, of course. We should expect them — and the natural immunity we now have should shut them down whenever and wherever the infection re-emerges."

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The WHO didn't get its pandemic treaty through. Critics say it still managed to consolidate 'unchecked authority.'



WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other globalists have campaigned feverishly in recent months to promote an international pandemic agreement, lashing out at those who dared to suggest the legally binding pact would undermine American sovereignty and burden U.S. taxpayers with yet more financial obligations, as well as at those who noted that the WHO is an untrustworthy, corruption-prone, and Chinese communist-compromised organization.

Ghebreyesus, who leaned on concern-mongering about "Disease X" to move the needle, sought a successful vote on the globalist pact at the 77th meeting of World Health Assembly from May 27 to June 1 in Geneva, Switzerland. His hopes were dashed as the Assembly couldn't agree on the wording or passage of the pact.

Blaze News previously reported that the WHA did, however, manage to adopt a package of amendments to the International Health Regulations allegedly aimed at strengthening "global preparedness, surveillance and responses to public health emergencies, including pandemics."

Critics have expressed concern that the amendments, adopted by "consensus" contra an actual vote, might not be as advertised or even be legal under the WHO's own rules.

American biochemist Dr. Robert Malone claimed Monday that the "hastily approved IHR [amendments] consolidate virtually unchecked authority and power of the Director-General to declare public health emergencies and pandemics as he/she may choose to define them, and thereby to trigger and guide allocation of global resources as well as a wide range of public health actions and guidances."

'The WHO's failure during the COVID-19 pandemic was as total as it was predictable and did lasting harm to our country.'

The IHR make up a legally binding international instrument authorized under Article 21 of the WHO Constitution to which all 194 member states of the WHO, including the U.S., are parties. While amendments submitted to the WHA can be advanced by consensus, decision-making by vote "is a legally available option."

WHO member states agreed in January 2022 to consider potential amendments to the IHR. This decision was prompted, in part, by concerns over "the negative effects of discrimination, misinformation and stigmatization on public health emergency prevention, preparedness and response as well as unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade, and recognizing the need for strengthened coordination."

The amendments were negotiated parallel to the so-far unsuccessful pandemic pact but crafted in the same spirit.

According to Liberty Council, the proposed amendments took "major steps in the wake of COVID-19 to conform and integrate each nation's pandemic responses by directing them to develop 'core' capabilities in areas of Surveillance (vaccine passports/digital health certificates), Risk Communication (censoring misinformation and disinformation), Implementation of Control Measures (social distancing/lockdowns), Access to Health Services and Products (greater sharing of resources and technologies between countries), and more."

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that the Biden administration was actively engaged in the negotiations despite the urging of Republican lawmakers, such as Sens. Dr. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), to spike the amendments, noting they would "substantially increase the WHO's health emergency powers and constitute intolerable infringements upon U.S. sovereignty."

Cassidy, Johnson, and the entire Senate Republican Conference told President Joe Biden in a May 1 letter, "The WHO's failure during the COVID-19 pandemic was as total as it was predictable and did lasting harm to our country. The United States cannot afford to ignore this latest WHO inability to perform its most basic function and must insist on comprehensive WHO reforms before even considering amendments to the International Health Regulations."

'We consider any such agreement to be a treaty requiring the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate under Article II Section 2 of the Constitution.'

Like Dr. Malone and the Heritage Foundation, the Republicans indicated that the adoption of new IHR amendments at the 77th WHA would be in violation of the WHO International Health Regulations, specifically Article 55, which states, "The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration."

"As the WHO has still not provided final amendment text to member states, we submit that IHR amendments may not be considered at next month's WHA," wrote the Republican lawmakers. "Should you ignore this advice, we state in the strongest possible terms that we consider any such agreement to be a treaty requiring the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate under Article II Section 2 of the Constitution."

Extra to facing potential congressional pushback, the Biden administration negotiated the amendments with the foreknowledge that the U.S. might not be bound by them depending on the results of the 2024 election. After all, President Donald Trump is expected to once again move to withdraw America from the WHO.

'The final version of the IHRs significantly enhances the WHO’s authority.'

The WHO said in a statement Saturday that the WHA and its 194 member countries "agreed [on] a package of critical amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR), and made concrete commitments to completing negotiations on a global pandemic agreement within a year, at the latest."

"The amendments to the International Health Regulations will bolster countries' ability to detect and respond to future outbreaks and pandemics by strengthening their own national capacities, and coordination between fellow States, on disease surveillance, information sharing and response," said Ghebreyesus. "This is built on commitment to equity, an understanding that health threats do not recognize national borders, and that preparedness is a collective endeavor."

Despite the insinuation of consent among member nations, the Sovereignty Coalition suggested that roughly 30% of member states were present and Ghebreyesus declined to conduct a roll-call vote.

The amendments ultimately adopted by 77th WHA include a new definition for "pandemic emergency"; another "equity"-driven international wealth redistribution mechanism; the creation of a new bureaucracy to oversee the implementation of the other half-measures; and the creation of IHR authorities for member countries to "improve coordination of implementation of the Regulations within and among countries."

While acknowledging that the language of the amendments was weakened during the negotiations, Liberty Counsel indicated that "the final version of the IHRs significantly enhances the WHO's authority."

The U.S. State Department claimed the amendments will "make the global health security architecture stronger overall while maintaining full respect for sovereignty of individual states."

The Kaiser Family Foundation indicated that if "approved at the WHA, the [IHR] revision does not require further Congressional approval or ratification in the U.S."

The British government indicated that each member state has the right to evaluate "each and every amendment before making a sovereign choice of whether to accept or opt out of each — or all of — the amendments."

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Biden admin accused of 'making a power grab for the National Guard'



Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida penned letters Friday condemning a proposal that would effectively allow the Democratic administration to wrest control over National Guard units away from governors across the country.

The Republican duo was late to the party when signaling opposition to U.S. Air Force's Legislative Proposal 480. The governors of 48 states and the leaders of five American territories voiced their opposition to LP480 last month in a letter to the Pentagon.

An indecent proposal

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall approved the draft legislation on March 15. The Pentagon subsequently delivered LP480 to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 29.

LP480 would enable the Secretary of the Air Force to transfer the covered space functions currently performed by the Air National Guard to the U.S. Space Force. The secretary would be enabled to change the status of an ANG unit to a unit of the USSF, to deactivate the unit, or to assign the unit to "a new Federal mission."

The proposed legislation also waives the requirement to first obtain a governor's consent prior to making such changes to a National Guard unit.

Kendall suggested to lawmakers that the legislation would not set a precedent that would enable other services to cannibalize elements of the National Guard without gubernatorial consent, reported Breaking Defense.

"This [issue] is an artifact of the creation of the Space Force," said Kendall. "It's a unique situation. There's absolutely no intention to make any other changes, moving things out of the Guard."

Following a House Armed Services Committee hearing last month on the USAF and USSF fiscal year 2025 budget requests, Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) reportedly said he was "fully supportive."

"I think that what the Air Force is suggesting is going to be successful," said Rogers. "We are used to the National Guard Association being a very political organization that deploys these kind of political activities. This is not one in which they should waste their time and this is not one in which they're going to be successful."

If every governor in the country has their way, then the National Guard Association will prove Rogers wrong.

Backlash

Ret. Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, head of the National Guard Association of the United States, noted in an April 16 op-ed that the proposal constituted "an existential threat to the National Guard."

"This move represents a significant federal overreach that should concern governors and federal lawmakers alike," wrote McGinn. "This is an attempt to bypass the longstanding authority Congress gave to governors requiring their consent before any National Guard units can be removed from their states."

Noting that the proposal states that the transfer of units "shall occur without regard to" two existing laws concerning gubernatorial authority, McGinn likened the legislation to "asking the government for permission to rob your neighbor by asking legislators to ignore laws against robbery. Such a ham-fisted approach is legally dubious at best and a breach of the established legislative process."

Kendall said in response that the "reaction from the Guard, quite frankly, has been over the top on this."

"We're not talking an existential threat. No one is suggesting dismantling the guard," he added.

The Air Force secretary evidently did a poor job of winning over skeptics.

Several weeks after Colorado's Democratic Gov. Jared Polis more or less told the Pentagon to keep its hands off the state's ANG units, and days after the Council of Governors wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with its objections, the governors of 48 states plus the five U.S. territories followed suit.

The National Governors Association noted in its late April letter to Secretary Austin that the proposed legislation "disregards gubernatorial authorities regarding the National Guard and undermines over 100 years of precedent as well as national security and military readiness."

Recognizing the importance of ensuring that the National Guard is equipped and ready to serve as the "operational combat reserve for national security mission and to support domestic emergencies," the governors stressed it is imperative that they "retain the authority laid out in United States Code (U.S.C.) Title 32, Section 104."

The governors' letter further noted that LP480 conflicts specifically with Section 18238 of Title 19, which "states that there should be no removal or withdrawal of a unit of the Air National Guard without consultation and approval from Governors. Additionally, section 104 of Title 32 states there is to be no change in the branch, organization or allotment of National Guard units within a state or territory without the approval of its Governor."

The governors indicated that the legislation would ultimately strain their relationship with the Pentagon; undermine governors' authority; adversely impact military readiness; and threaten the careers of state-based service members.

Abbott, DeSantis, and congressional lawmakers join in

Abbott and DeSantis got in on the action Friday.

The Texas governor underscored in his Friday letter to President Joe Biden that LP480 would sideline governors as the commanders-in-chief of their respective National Guards.

After highlighting the crucial role the Texas National Guard plays in protecting Texans, addressing civil disturbances, and in responding to disasters, Abbott wrote that LP480 "poses an intolerable threat" to the service.

"Congress has long required the consent of a governor before units can be transferred out of the National Guard he commands. See 32 U.S.C. § 104; 10 U.S.C. § 18238. By departing from this sensible arrangement, and allowing the Secretaries to dismantle National Guard units on a whim, Legislative Proposal 480 would set a dangerous precedent," added Abbott.

In the X post accompanying his statement, Abbott wrote, "President Biden and his Admin. are making a power grab for the National Guard. They want to give the Secretaries unilateral authority to dismantle National Guard units on a whim."

DeSantis penned his condemnatory Friday letter to the Senate chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services committees.

"As a low-lying, storm-prone state, Florida is uniquely vulnerable to hurricanes and flooding that require significant, operationally ready logistics and disaster support, including from our National Guard units," wrote DeSantis. "This legislative proposal weakens that guarantee and sidesteps the authority of the Governor to ensure Floridians are prepared and protected to address whatever domestic emergencies may arise, especially as we approach another hurricane season."

Extra to the governors, there has been bipartisan opposition to the scheme in both chambers of Congress.

Twenty-nine senators and 56 representatives have urged the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Service committees to keep the proposal out of the fiscal 2025 National defense Authorization Act, reported the Washington Examiner.

In their letter to their respective committees, the lawmakers called LP480 "deeply flawed" and noted that Congress "has a duty to maintain the integrity and longstanding tradition of the National Guard," adding that "a proposal of this magnitude threatens to under [sic] over 120 years of precedent."

According to The Hill, a White House official indicated the Biden administration supports the proposal.

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Sage Steele says her 2021 Biden interview was ‘heavily scripted’ by ESPN execs, but the sports network likely wasn’t the head of the snake



Former ESPN journalist Sage Steele, who’s now an independent podcaster, has revealed that her 2021 interview with Joe Biden was “heavily scripted.”

“It was so structured, and I was told, ‘You will say every word that we write out. You will not deviate from this script,’” she told Fox News in an interview, adding that “every single question was scripted and gone over dozens of times by many executives.”

“I knew that this was a lot bigger than just the wonderful editors that I worked with. This went up to the ‘fourth floor,’ as we said, where all the bosses, the top executives, [and] the decision-makers are,” she continued.

“I think it's obvious to anyone paying attention why ESPN executives needed her to stick to the script when interviewing the dementia patient in chief, seeing as the network decided years ago to just carry water for the Democrats no matter the cost,” says Sara Gonzales.

BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden, however, thinks the ESPN execs who were puppeteering Sage’s interview with the president aren't where the chain of command stopped.

“Who is ESPN owned by?” he asks.

For those who don’t know, the answer is Disney.

“Interesting,” says Marsden. “It’s almost as if there are these conglomerates that have a vested interest in the Democratic Party.”

“I’ll go one further on that same line,” says Jason Buttrill, “dedicated interest in propaganda.”

“If you’re writing the script, you’re not allowing a journalist to be a journalist and get information out. You’re just spewing propaganda,” he continues.

So what’s making the majority of these journalists so willing to regurgitate the leftist narrative? Is it because they genuinely believe in left-wing ideologies?

According to Marsden, some probably do buy into the wokeism, but many others are just “scared of losing their jobs.”

As an actor, “I know all about that,” he says. “If you stray away from the narrative, you get canceled, and then once you get canceled, you can't get any more work so then you're out there working at Trader Joe's.”


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Who Is Disney Working With To Control Biden?

Who Is Disney Working With To Control Biden?

World Economic Forum ranks weather and 'misinformation' as greatest global risks, prompting ridicule



North Korea's communist dictator kicked off the year by threatening to annihilate America. China, facing another year of economic turmoil and record-high youth unemployment, continues to threaten to conquer Taiwan and engage its defenders. Ukraine remains occupied by nearly 500,000 Russian troops. While signaling continued support for Israel in its war against Hamas terrorists, American forces, running low on munitions, recently sank the ships of Iranian proxy fighters.

Despite the pressing threat of worsening armed conflicts and possibly even nuclear holocaust, Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum revealed this week that the world has far more pressing concerns.

According to the WEF's " Global Risks Report 2024," the greatest threats facing humanity over the next two years are "misinformation and disinformation" and bad weather.

The report — based on a September survey of 1,490 academics, politicians, bureaucrats, and other elites ostensibly severed from Main Street concerns — analyzed global risks through three time frames "to support decision-makers in balancing current crises and longer-term priorities."

Concerning the year at hand, 66% of respondents suggested weather was most likely to present a material crisis on a global scale. Only 25% said the same of war or escalations in ongoing conflicts.

After undesirable speech and weather events, societal polarization, cyber insecurity, and interstate armed conflict ranked third, fourth, and fifth in terms of risk severity, according to the technocratic outfit's two-year period risk assessment. Inflation of the kind now eating away into American savings and driving up the cost of living ranked seventh, while economic downturn barely made the top ten.

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Josie Glabach, the commentator known online as the Redheaded Libertarian, highlighted that the "first four concerns deal in how to control the populace. The following topics that deal more in the well-being of that populace come secondary."

The Virginia Project, a state Republican PAC, responded to the WEF's list, noting, "Literally every single one of these problems is driven by the kind of people who made this chart."

Unlike the globalized average, American respondents to the survey indicated their top five risk concerns were: economic downturn; infectious diseases; inflation; use of biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons; and energy supply shortage.

The report claimed that over the next 10 years, the top four perceived risks were all related to the environment: extreme weather events; critical change to Earth systems; biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; and natural resource shortages, in that order.

"Misinformation and disinformation" reappeared, ranking fifth. Unlike misinformation, war did not make the top ten for the list of 10-year global risks. Totalitarianism, plutocracy, sterility, and a declining birth rate similarly did not make the list or receive mention.

South African billionaire Elon Musk responded to the report, writing, "By 'misinformation', WEF means anything that conflicts with its agenda."

One critic suggested, "This is how Experts always end up sleepwalking into censorious and/or genocidal policies. Just take it to the logical conclusion: - 'Misinfo is worse than War because it causes War.' - 'Dissidents are worse than Misinfo because they create Misinfo.'"

The report defines misinformation and disinformation thusly: "Persistent false information (deliberate or otherwise) widely spread through media networks, shifting public opinion in a significant way towards distrust in facts and authority."

While acknowledging that the crackdown by authorities on so-called misinformation, particularly of an AI-generated sort, poses a risk of "repression and erosion of rights," the WEF suggested that there is also "a risk that some governments will act too slowly, facing a trade-off between preventing misinformation and protecting free speech."

The WEF report concluded by claiming "known and newly emerging risks need preparation and mitigation. ... Localized strategies, breakthrough endeavours, collective actions and cross-border coordination all play a part in addressing these risks. Localized strategies, leveraging investment and regulation, are critical for reducing the impact of global risks."

Unsurprisingly, the report stressed the need for "cross-border coordination."

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Liberal publications hype 'carbon passports'; cite changing weather patterns as cause to limit movement of free peoples



Academics, woke organizations, and liberal publications are promoting a social engineering scheme aimed at inhibiting travel and limiting freedom in the name of fighting the specter of anthropogenic climate change.

CNN was among the latest outfits to recycle the claim that so-called carbon passports have become a necessity.

From COVID to climate

Over the course of the pandemic, numerous Western nations introduced or considered introducing vaccine passports — supposedly secure digital immunity certifications required for travel and admission to various events, businesses, and facilities.

Critics warned that besides invading citizens' privacy, trampling their mobility rights, and serving to maximize the number of veins opened to profitable vaccines, there would also be "function creep" with the medical passports.

Financial Post columnist Terence Corcoran noted in September 2021, "Somewhere deep in the cranium of the climate intelligentsia a seed was planted to produce the florid idea that the global COVID-19 virus could serve as inspiration for humankind to once and for all tackle the looming climate crisis."

Corcoran highlighted how Bloomberg chairman and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney wrote in his then-new book "Value(s): Building a Better World for All," that "if we come together to meet the biggest challenges in medical biology, so too can we come together to meet the challenges of climate physics and the forces driving inequality."

Carney was evidently not alone in his thinking.

220 medical journals uniformly published the same editorial titled, "Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health."

The editorial stated, "Many governments met the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic with unprecedented funding. The environmental crisis demands a similar emergency response."

"Governments must intervene to support the redesign of transport systems, cities, production and distribution of food, markets for financial investments, health systems, and much more," continued the cabal of health professionals. "Global co-ordination is needed to ensure that the rush for cleaner technologies does not come at the cost of more environmental destruction and human exploitation."

A "perspective" paper published in the journal Nature Sustainability made explicit what various climate alarmists flying back and forth from the U.N.'s yearly Climate Change Conference had in mind.

"Personal carbon allowances (PCAs) could play a role in achieving ambitious climate mitigation targets," wrote a team comprising British, European and Israeli activists. "We argue that recent advances in AI for sustainable development, together with the need for a low-carbon recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, open a new window of opportunity for PCAs."

The multinational team concluded, "PCAs could be trialed in selected climate-conscious technologically advanced countries."

Carbon passports

Now, years later, there appears to be a concerted effort under way with predictions and excuses to prime Westerners for carbon passports.

CNN, for instance, recently recycled an article from the Conversation titled, "It's time to limit how often we can travel abroad — 'carbon passports' may be the answer."

The article, penned by a pronoun-providing Ph.D .candidate at Leeds Beckett University, begins with criticism of the tourism industry's apparent return to normal in the wake of the pandemic, suggesting that "there's concern that a return to the status quo is already showing dire environmental and social consequences."

Despite evidence that human error and arson are often to blame, the article cited recent wildfires as evidence climate change is a growing problem, then suggested tourism is partly to blame.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 29% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 came from transportation, including planes, trains, and automobiles. The year prior to the pandemic, the figure was 33%.

The article highlights a possible remedy detailed in a 2023 report from Intrepid, a travel company that claims to be ethical.

The report, which has been taken up by various travel zines, claims that a "personal carbon emissions limit will become the new normal as policy and people's values drive an era of great change."

Martin Raymond, co-founder of the Future Laboratory, a consultancy outfit, said, "On our current trajectory, we can expect a pushback against the frequency with which individuals can travel, with carbon passports set to change the tourism landscape."

The report claims that unnamed experts "suggest that individuals should currently limit their carbon emissions to 2.3 tonnes each year – the equivalent of taking a round-trip from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, the average carbon footprint in the US is 16 tonnes per person per year."

As a point of comparison, Biden climate czar John Kerry's flights around the world promoting a green future reportedly generated 9.54 million pounds or 4,329 tonnes of carbon just between March 2021 and July 2022.

A personal carbon emissions limit would apparently ensure that those without the blessing of the government or the ability to pay off a substantial fine would be prohibited from travel deemed excessive or unnecessary.

"By 2040, it will be unusual to see members of Generation Alpha without a carbon-footprint tracker on their smartphones. Every Uber ride, plane journey, and trip to the supermarket will be logged in their devices, noting their carbon footprint in real time," said the report.

While the Intrepid report predicted that carbon passports might be enforced by 2040, the Conversation article recycled by CNN appeared more hopeful, noting that "our travel habits may already be on the verge of change."

This optimism over the imminence of vaccine passport rollouts was informed by recent European initiatives, such as the move to axe short-haul flights and impose taxes dissuading the working and middle classes from flying.

The author of the article threatened, "Holidaymakers should prepare to change their travel habits now, before this change is forced upon them."

While such threats issued by junior scholars in leftist publications may be idle, there has been statist interst in such schemes. For instance, the British government has previously considered implementing personal carbon trading and placing a "ceiling on the carbon available for consumption, rather than seeking to reduce demand."

The Biden administration has not proposed climate passports but recently noted in an EPA report that "achieving a sustainable transportation future will require implementing bold changes and different sets of solutions to address unique challenges in different locations and across all travel modes and applications."

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UN agency telling Americans to reduce meat consumption in name of climate change is run by senior Chinese communist official



The United Nations wants Americans and other Westerners to eat less meat. Although the alleged purpose of the internationally requested diet is to futilely attempt to arrest global weather patterns, there appears to be more at play than just so-called distributive justice and climate alarmism.

After all, the director-general of the specific U.N. agency expected to issue this demand during the COP28 summit next month happens to be a top Chinese Communist Party member whose nation, the number-one source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, will likely be among the so-called developing nations exempted from the guidance.

What's the background?

Last November, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization indicated it would develop a plan to make the world's food system more sustainable, telling sovereign nations how to change their respective food and farming industries in order to align with internationalists' goal of halting global weather patterns and somehow keeping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Bloomberg reported that the FAO's guidelines, set to be published at the COP28 summit in December, will instruct developed nations whose populations allegedly consume too much meat — according to foreign metrics — to limit their intake.

According the FAO, the average American reportedly consumes around 279 pounds of meat a year. By way of contrast, the average Nigerian reportedly eats 15 pounds of meat annually and the average Chinese resident consumes 133.6 pounds of meat, as of 2020.

Under the guidance, developing countries, including the country with the world's second-biggest economy, will apparently be encouraged to improve their livestock farming.

Not only does the forthcoming recommendation seem to be punitive for Western nations, it may also be counterproductive.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) told Fox News Digital, "Regulating producers out of business in the U.S. will not effectively address global climate change, but export production to foreign countries with hostile regimes and worse emissions profiles while harming food security and affordability. Simply put, the world needs American farmers and ranchers more than the U.N."

Guidelines for thee, but not for Xi

China, which has all but indicated it will not live up to its Paris climate accord commitments, continues to claim it is a developing country.

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping's nominal second in command, Han Zheng, claimed at the U.N. general assembly in September that despite its $18 trillion GDP at the time, China is "the largest developing country" and "will remain a member of the big family of developing nations."

While it's presently unclear whether this self-categorization alone — which the U.N. entertains despite American criticism — would exempt China from the dietary recommendation, the director general of the FAO is unlikely to cross Beijing with his agency's road map.

Qu Dongyu has previously been accused of using his position to advance the merciless Chinese regime's foreign policy agenda. Beijing has also been accused of bribing officials to get Qu the gig.

Qu formerly served as vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs for the CCP. As FAO director, he has continued to cheerlead Chinese initiatives such as the communist regime's Global Development Initiative.

"Nobody actually takes him seriously: It's not him; it's China," a former U.N. official told Politico. "I'm not convinced he would make a single decision without first checking it with the capital."

Concerning Qu's promotion of the U.N.'s so-called sustainable development goals, Francesca Ghiretti, an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, said, "You need to be aware that these are policies that first and foremost are thought to advance China, either materially or in terms of international reputation, or in terms of diplomacy."

The Washington Free Beacon reported that a reduction in global meat production could greatly benefit China, which is the world's largest meat importer. China's foreign supply could conceivably become more stable and secure if American producers find themselves facing less domestic demand. Such security would undoubtedly be welcome after last year's large-scale food shortages and the regime's promise of material improvement in living year over year.

Concerning Qu's 2019 election to head of the FAO, Kristine Lee of the Center for a New American Security told Foreign Policy, "Chinese officials report back to Beijing and first and foremost serve the narrow interests of the [Chinese Communist Party], rather than truly advancing multilateralism and strengthening transparency and accountability at the U.N."

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