Glenn Beck issues chilling warning: ‘This is the new nuclear weapon’



While the Israel-Hamas ceasefire is dominating the news cycle and letting citizens of the world breathe mass sighs of relief, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck believes there’s something brewing silently — and we should remain on our toes.

“Beijing just tightened its grip on rare earth elements. These are the minerals that make absolutely everything possible: your smartphone, your electric car, your missile defense system, your refrigerator. Everything depends on these rare earth minerals,” Glenn says.

“China, because of our inaction and stupid policies over the last couple of decades, control now 80% of the world’s supply chain. That cannot stand. Now, what they’re doing is they’re choking it off. They are now closing it up, and they are threatening the West, ‘No more rare earth minerals,’” he explains.

“If that happens, we cannot defend ourself,” he adds.


Glenn also notes that out of nowhere, the Pentagon has made a billion-dollar emergency order for those same rare earth minerals.

“That’s not normal. That’s not paperwork. That is the sound of a military quietly preparing for something — a shortage, possibly in a storm,” Glenn says.

In addition, JPMorgan Chase has just announced a $1.5 trillion investment plan in security and resilience.

“That’s not going to mom-and-pop shops. That’s not going to community loans. That money is being funneled straight into AI, defense manufacturing, and critical minerals. It’s as if the Pentagon and Wall Street just linked arms and decided to build a fortress economy together,” Glenn explains.

And interestingly, Glenn notes that the Dutch government has seized control of the Chinese-owned chipmaker on its own soil.

“They invoked emergency powers and nationalized the company to stop the Chinese influence over the semiconductor industry,” he says.

“That’s not good. Four stories, four continents, four quiet tremors in the ground. When you weave them all together, that’s when you begin to understand what all of this means,” Glenn continues.

And what it means is that “the old world as we know it is dying.”

“The world of free markets, the world of open trade, individual enterprise, the world that lifted billions out of poverty is being replaced now, slowly but surely, by something new. And this one is being done in the name of security,” he explains.

“This is the government aligning themselves with tech, rare earth minerals, et cetera, et cetera, to be able to win the AI war. All of this is a single unspoken motive, and that is the race to dominate artificial intelligence,” he continues.

“This is the new arms race. This is the new Manhattan Project, the new nuclear weapon, except this is a million times more enslaving than nuclear weapons could ever hope to be,” he adds.

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Mass immigration means dependence, and dependence means control



Power always seeks to expand. It never halts for principles or words on paper, but only for rival powers strong enough to resist it. Those rivals must have deep roots, independent resilience, and the ability to demand loyalty. They must project sovereignty in ways the state cannot easily replicate, establishing spheres of influence that can resist government overreach without ever firing a shot.

Historically, strong communities provided this check. Their religions and folkways became the rhythms of life, passed down through generations. These beliefs drew authority from transcendent sources no earthly power could reproduce. Families built churches, schools, libraries, civic organizations, unions, and fraternities to preserve culture, transmit values, and care for members.

Communities with shared traditions can limit state commands. But diversity dissolves those limits.

Such communities formed spheres of sovereignty. They made competing demands on their members and provided services the state could not: spiritual grounding, mutual aid, a sense of identity. Membership required specific behaviors to remain in good standing, norms the state could not easily reshape. Because traditions were deeply ingrained, the state had to respect them or risk serious resistance.

Over time, these communities often accumulated wealth. Virtue and stability generated surplus capital, which supported robust institutions and provided safety nets. Their members no longer relied on government in times of need. They relied on each other. These were the kulaks — the middle class — people whose independence created natural barriers to state expansion. Not atomized “self-reliance,” but communal reliance: stability rooted in culture and habit. That is precisely why governments sought to break them.

High and low vs. the middle

The political theorist Bertrand de Jouvenel, in "On Power," described the classic formula: high and low versus the middle. The ruling class always wants more power, but the middle class resists. The poor, being dependent and disorganized, cannot mount opposition. Only the middle class, with property, institutions, and traditions, can stand in the way. To expand power, rulers must dissolve these spheres of sovereignty.

Their method is alliance with the dependent lower classes. Sometimes this means the domestic underclass. But that group still shares culture and traditions with the middle, making it less reliable as a tool. Importing a foreign underclass works better. Immigrants lack roots in the land or its traditions. They can be counted on to side with rulers against the entrenched middle.

Mass immigration delivers cheap labor to the wealthy while creating a new political client base. The upper class benefits from gardeners and nannies. Politicians gain millions of new voters to whom they can promise state benefits.

Dependence as a weapon

Immigrant groups rarely possess cohesive culture or resilient institutions. They lack roots, leisure, or unity to resist. They depend on the ruling class for entry, employment, rights, and welfare. Many don’t speak the language. They need the state to survive — and they reward the state with loyalty. This isn’t passive dependence. To succeed, they actively require the state to expand.

To serve this new underclass, rulers pillage the middle. Kulaks are blamed for inequality. They are guilted, taxed, or coerced into surrendering what they built. That wealth is transferred to immigrants, cementing the state’s power over both. The middle grows poorer, loses property, closes institutions, and becomes more unstable. Families that once resisted government control now depend on it.

RELATED: ‘Paperwork Americans’ are not your countrymen

Blaze Media illustration

Mass immigration also erodes culture, another obstacle to power. Communities with shared traditions can limit state commands. But diversity dissolves those limits. Forced to mingle with newcomers, the shared identity frays. Cultural separation becomes taboo. Institutions that once passed on values and provided aid collapse. Charities are drained. Public spaces decay. And those who maintained them see no reason to sacrifice for strangers.

The state ensures that escape is impossible. First taboo, then law, forbids communities to separate and reform. Those who try are smeared as bigots, then prosecuted. The middle is barred from reconstituting its way of life. Virtue fades. The spheres of sovereignty are gone. Everyone becomes a rootless dependent, giving the state a blank check to expand its power.

Why immigration became policy

This is why mass immigration became a priority across Western liberal democracies. It doesn’t just dismantle barriers to state power; it builds a machine to demand more of it. Rulers gain cheap labor, grateful voters, and excuses to raid the middle. The cost is cultural dissolution, but to elites that is a feature, not a bug.

If we want an elite that serves its people rather than undermines them, we must choke off this supply of outside populations. Stop importing clients. Stop dissolving communities. Restore the middle class and the spheres of sovereignty that protect liberty. Only then can the leviathan be caged.

The Russia hoax and COVID lies share the same deep-state fingerprints



“Conspiracy theory” is the go-to smear against those of us who questioned any aspect of the government’s authoritarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But as the great Austrian economist Murray Rothbard once observed, the smear serves one purpose: to divert the public’s attention away from the truth.

“An attack on ‘conspiracy theories,’” Rothbard writes in “The Anatomy of the State,” means that the subjects of a regime “will become more gullible in believing the ‘general welfare’ reasons that are always put forth by the State for engaging in any of its despotic actions.”

The democratization of information means that censorship just doesn’t work as well as it used to.

“A ‘conspiracy theory,’” he continues, “can unsettle the system by causing the public to doubt the state’s ideological propaganda.”

The more I dig into the origins of the COVID pandemic, the more “despotic” our state seems to become — and the more “conspiratorial” I get.

Unsettling the system

I am trying to put together the final pieces of the puzzle of what I consider among the greatest public policy scandals of my lifetime — not only who did it, but more importantly, why would they do it?

A few months ago, I spent a day with Matt Taibbi, the iconoclastic muckraker and “Twitter Files” reporter, for the latest episode of my BlazeTV investigative series, “The Coverup.”

As he dug through the trove of emails and texts, Taibbi discovered the conspiracy to blacklist and silence Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the subject of the first episode of “The Coverup” and now the head of the National Institutes of Health. Taibbi soon learned that the same tactics and tools — and even many of the very same deep-state actors — have their fingerprints all over both the Russia collusion hoax and the COVID cover-up.

A precedent for censorship

Recently released documents from Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard reveal that the so-called Russia collusion hoax wasn’t just wrong — it was deliberate. The Obama administration orchestrated the fabrication, pushing U.S. intelligence agencies to leak a report suggesting Vladimir Putin had helped Donald Trump steal the 2016 election.

That leak, repeated endlessly by the press, fueled a national narrative branding Trump’s presidency as illegitimate — despite those same agencies having already dismissed the claim.

This kind of manipulation would be outrageous if it weren’t so familiar.

Five years after the COVID lockdowns stripped millions of Americans of basic liberties, we’re still uncovering how the deep state used propaganda to silence dissent. Throughout the pandemic, scientists and doctors raised alarms about the damage lockdowns would cause — and did cause. Some of the world’s most respected experts signed the Great Barrington Declaration to oppose the government’s heavy-handed response.

But the public never heard from them. Bureaucrats and media allies moved swiftly to smear, suppress, and sideline these voices using one of the oldest authoritarian tactics: control of information.

In fairness, public health agencies didn’t have to twist many arms. The legacy media followed their lead willingly — even when the guidance contradicted itself or defied basic logic.

But unlike the days of Project Mockingbird, when the CIA could shape coverage by nudging the New York Times or CBS, controlling the old guard wasn’t enough. The rise of social media — decentralized, fast-moving, and open to anyone with a computer or phone — posed a new challenge. The administration needed a more aggressive strategy to dominate the narrative.

Strong-arming social media

In episode 5 of “The Coverup,” I ask Taibbi how they pulled it off. As one of the first journalists to dig into the Twitter Files, Taibbi exposed the machinery behind the censorship regime. Americans suspected that platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were suppressing dissent during COVID. But the Twitter Files confirmed what many feared: They weren’t acting alone. They took orders from the FBI directly.

And these weren’t polite requests, either. When the government “suggested” something, tech companies treated it as a command.

It all traces back to — surprise, surprise — the Russia hoax.

In 2017, Congress hauled tech executives into hearings and accused them of letting Russian disinformation run wild. Essentially, they were given an offer they couldn’t refuse: Allow the government to play a role in content moderation or prepare to be regulated into submission.

RELATED: On the 9th anniversary of Russiagate, the hoax is finally crumbling

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Their surrender gave U.S. intelligence agencies de facto control over what Americans could say online. The feds told platforms which posts to delete, which users to silence, and how to suppress the rest. You could post your opinion — as long as no one could see it. “Shadow bans” became the preferred method of censorship: clean, quiet, and deniable.

The silver lining

Thanks to Taibbi — and a handful of journalists who still value truth over access — we now see how the government sold Americans on fiction. Russia hacked the election. COVID came from a bowl of bat soup. Question either and you’d vanish from the digital public square.

Millions believed these lies. And under their influence, they did real damage — locking down schools, closing businesses, and sowing doubt about fair elections.

But truth has a way of leaking out.

It’s taken time, but the lies are unraveling. And that’s the silver lining. In a world where information moves faster than censors can keep up, suppression doesn’t work like it used to. So long as we have truth-tellers willing to dig and defy — like Taibbi — the regime won’t have the last word.

We won’t get fooled again.

Episode 5 of “The Coverup” premieres Thursday, July 31.

Why the Epstein story cannot be buried



Why does the story of Jeffrey Epstein matter so deeply to the American right? Why does it persist, years after his death, as a source of outrage, fascination, and dread? Why is the call to “move on” met with such visceral resistance?

The answer lies in what Epstein’s case reveals. It is not merely the record of one man’s depravity or even the scale of the crimes committed. It is a window into a concealed architecture of unaccountable power, intelligence protection, institutional rot, and elite impunity. For many on the right, it confirms long-standing fears about how power in the United States is really organized and who it is designed to serve.

These questions strike at the heart of an older conservative concern: Who governs? And who is permitted to ask?

These concerns are hardly new. They are the very ones that helped elect Donald Trump, and they have shaped conservative criticism of the American regime since the New Deal. The Epstein affair provides a rare glimpse into the soft underbelly of the administrative state. At some point, moral clarity demands that we stop parsing and start acting. This is a time to strike, to “fire for effect.”

From the expansion of the federal bureaucracy under Franklin D. Roosevelt to the postwar rise of the national security state, conservatives have warned about the merger of government power with private influence. The most dangerous feature of that merger is not the bureaucracy itself, but the consolidation of authority among entrenched intelligence services, elite financial networks, and foreign-aligned interests. These actors operate in close coordination, beyond democratic oversight, and with the consistent protection of institutional power.

Epstein is valuable because he exposes that structure in plain sight. He had no obvious source of legitimate wealth. His hedge fund, insofar as it existed, had only one known client. Yet, he moved in elite circles, befriended presidents and princes, and maintained access to corporate titans and scientific institutions.

Most disturbingly, Epstein appears to have operated a long-standing sexual blackmail network. The question is not merely how he got away with it, but who allowed him to do so.

Staggering implications

The answers are deeply unsettling. The FBI curtailed its investigations. The CIA has remained silent. The media showed little interest and declined to pursue the story in any depth. Meanwhile, the possible involvement of foreign intelligence services (especially those operating through figures like Leslie Wexner) has been treated as politically untouchable. This refusal to investigate is not born of ignorance or oversight. It is protective behavior. It signals that the wrong people are implicated.

Even if one adopts the minimalist position, that Epstein was not a formal intelligence asset, the implications remain staggering. Why would a known predator be permitted to operate so openly, with so many connections to power? Is the American state unable or unwilling to act when the guilty hold the right kinds of passports or relationships? Have we reached a point where elite networks are simply beyond reach, shielded by layers of shared interest and mutual compromise?

These questions strike at the heart of an older conservative concern: Who governs? And who is permitted to ask?

RELATED: The White House will need to do plenty more to get past Epstein

Photo by ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Epstein’s case offers a rare and ugly answer. What it uncovers is not a fever dream of conspiracy but an observable mode of governance that relies on secrecy, compromise, and shared immunity. It appears that intelligence actors have conducted operations not only abroad but also inside the United States, targeting the American elite itself. An immoral country condones sexual blackmail as a mechanism of influence and protection, integrated into a broader system of control ... ironically an indication of a country spinning out of control.

A complicated inquiry

One can find instructive parallels in the operations of Israeli intelligence during the 1980s and 1990s. Under the direction of Mossad officials such as Efraim Halevy, Israel conducted systematic surveillance and developed personal leverage over Syrian elites. These methods included financial inducements, covert recordings, and exposure of private behavior. Such tactics are common in international espionage and are recognized tools of statecraft.

What makes Epstein so alarming is the apparent use of similar techniques within the United States, directed inward rather than outward. The uncomfortable possibility is that foreign intelligence services (including Israeli cutouts operating through figures like Wexner) were not merely bystanders, but active participants or beneficiaries of the Epstein operation. That possibility remains largely uninvestigated, not because it lacks merit, but because it threatens established political alignments.

Wexner’s history as a major donor to Republican candidates is one example of how these relationships complicate any honest inquiry. For a sitting senator or rising intelligence officer, confronting these questions comes at great cost.

This story is not important only because of the criminal sexual behavior it contains. That abuse, particularly of underage girls, is monstrous and demands full exposure and justice. But Epstein’s operation mattered at a higher level because those crimes were used to build networks of control. They were not incidental. They were instrumental. This is the cold logic of espionage deployed inside a supposedly self-governing republic.

RELATED: The conspiracy theorist is the last honest man

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

For the political right, Epstein represents a grim vindication. The warnings about politicized intelligence services, compromised elites, and foreign impunity were long dismissed as paranoia or fringe thinking. Yet, the details of this case suggest those warnings were not only plausible, but understated.

Consider the unequal application of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Consider the way domestic allies are hounded while foreign-aligned actors operate with impunity. Consider the cultural message that those with the right credentials and connections will never face consequences. Epstein’s story reveals the inner wiring of a regime that no longer pretends to serve the citizen, only itself.

Denial becomes confirmation

Was Epstein a direct employee of a domestic or foreign intelligence apparatus? I highly doubt it. My best guess is he was a very well-connected money launderer with a psychopathic lack of empathy who was therefore the perfect tool for intelligence gathering and manipulation. He operated in the open, however, and was criminally harmful to some of the most vulnerable U.S. citizens. But we have seen how little citizenship means in the modern internationalist cosmopolitan soup.

Efforts to bury this story are morally callous and institutionally suicidal. Each attempt to suppress, ignore, or discredit the legitimate questions raised by the Epstein case erodes the remaining credibility of the agencies involved. The denial becomes confirmation. The silence becomes testimony. The cover-up increases the criminality, the offense to the American people.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) warned in his farewell address of a rising military-industrial complex. But the deeper danger he identified was the fusion of state power, private capital, and unaccountable influence. Epstein should be understood as a grotesque product of that fusion. Refusing to confront it will not preserve institutional authority. It will ensure its collapse.

In the end, the Epstein story is not simply salacious. It is foundational. It forces a reckoning with how the American regime truly operates and what moral and political compromises have become routine. That is why so many are eager to see it buried.

And that is precisely why it must not be.

Can artificial intelligence help us want better, not just more?



The notification chimes. Another algorithmically selected product appears in your feed, something you never knew you wanted until this moment. You pause, finger hovering over the “buy now” button. Is this truly what you desire or just what the algorithm has decided you should want?

We’re standing at a fascinating turning point in human history. Our most advanced technologies — often criticized for trapping us in cycles of shallow wants and helpless determinism — could offer us unprecedented freedom to rediscover what we truly desire. “Agentic AI” — those systems that can perceive, decide, and act on their own toward goals — isn't just another tech advancement. It might actually liberate our attention and intention.

Rather than passively accepting AI's influence, we can actively shape AI systems to reflect and enhance our deeply held values.

So what exactly is agentic AI? Think of it not just as a fancy calculator or clever chatbot, but as a digital entity with real independence.

These systems perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions with significant autonomy. They learn from experiences, adapt to new information on the fly, and pursue complex goals without our constant direction. Self-driving cars navigate busy streets, trading algorithms make split-second financial decisions, and research systems discover scientific principles on their own.

These aren't just tools any more. They're becoming independent actors in our world.

To understand this shift, I want to introduce you to two key thinkers: Marshall McLuhan, who famously said “the medium is the message,” and René Girard, who revealed how we tend to want what others want — a phenomenon he called “mimetic desire.” Through their insights, we can see how agentic AI works as both a medium and a mediator, reshaping our reality while influencing what we desire. If we understand how agentic AI will continue to shape our world, we can maintain our agency in a world increasingly shaped by technological advances.

McLuhan: AI as medium

McLuhan showed us that technology’s structure, scale, and speed shape our consciousness more profoundly than whatever content it carries. The railway didn’t just introduce transportation; it created entirely new kinds of cities and work.

Similarly, agentic AI isn't just another tool. It's becoming an evolving environment whose very existence transforms us.

McLuhan offers the example of electric light. It had no “content” in the conventional sense, yet it utterly reshaped human existence by eliminating darkness. Agentic AI similarly restructures our world through its core qualities: autonomy, adaptability, and goal-directedness. We aren't just using agentic AI; we’re increasingly living inside its operational logic, an environment where non-human intelligence shapes our decisions, actions, and realities.

Neil Postman, who built on McLuhan’s work, reminds us that while media environments powerfully shape us, we aren't just passive recipients: “Media ecology looks into how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value.” By understanding these effects, we can maintain our agency within them. We can be active readers of the message rather than just being written by it.

One big impact is on how we make sense of the world. As agentic AI increasingly filters, interprets, and generates information, it becomes a powerful participant in constructing our reality. The challenge is maintaining shared reality while technology increasingly forges siloed, personalized worlds. While previous technological advances contributed to this siloing, AI offers the possibility of connectivity. Walter Ong's concept of "secondary orality" suggests AI might help create new forms of connection that overcome the isolating aspects of earlier digital technologies.

Girard: AI as mediator of desire

While McLuhan helps us understand how agentic AI reshapes our perception, René Girard offers a framework for understanding how it reshapes what we want.

Girard’s theory of mimetic desire suggests that human desire is rarely spontaneous. Instead, we learn what to want by imitating others — our "models." This creates a triangle: us, the model we imitate, and the object of desire.

Now, imagine agentic AI entering this dynamic. If human history has been a story of desire mediated by parents, peers, and advertisements, agentic AI is becoming a significant new mediator in our digital landscape. Its ability to learn our preferences, predict our behavior, and present curated choices makes it an influential model, continuously shaping our aspirations.

RELATED: If AI isn’t built for freedom, it will be programmed for control

Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Peter Thiel, who studied under Girard at Stanford, suggests awareness of these dynamics can lead to more authentic choices. “The most successful businesses come from unique, non-mimetic insights,” Thiel observes. By recognizing how AI systems influence our desires, we can more consciously choose which influences to embrace and which to question, moving toward greater authenticity.

Look at recommendation engines, the precursors to full-blown agentic AI. They already operate on Girardian principles by showing us what others have bought or liked, making those items more desirable to us. Agentic AI takes this farther. Through its autonomous actions and pursuit of goals, it can demonstrate desirability.

The key question becomes: Is your interest in a hobby, conviction about an issue, or lifestyle aspiration truly your own? And more importantly, can you tell the difference, and does it matter if it brings you genuine fulfillment?

A collaborative future

The convergence of AI as both medium and mediator creates unprecedented possibilities for human-AI partnership.

Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology offers a constructive path forward. He argues that technologies aren't neutral tools but are laden with values. However, he rejects technological determinism, emphasizing that these values can be redesigned through what he calls “democratic rationalization,” the process by which users reshape technologies to better reflect their values.

“Technology is not destiny but a scene of struggle,” Feenberg writes. "It is a social battlefield on which civilizational alternatives are debated and decided." Rather than passively accepting AI's influence, we can actively shape AI systems to reflect and enhance our deeply held values.

This vision requires thoughtful design guided by human wisdom. The same capabilities that could liberate us could create more sophisticated traps. The difference lies not in the technology itself but in the values and intentions that shape its development. By drawing on insights from McLuhan, Girard, Postman, Ong, Thiel, Feenberg, and others, we can approach this evolving medium not with fear or passive acceptance, but with creative engagement.

The future of agentic AI isn't predetermined. It’s ours to shape as a technology that enhances rather than diminishes our humanity, that serves as a partner rather than a master in our ongoing quest for meaning, connection, and flourishing.

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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