Free Republic

Evidence suggests our intelligence agencies launched the Russia-collusion hoax months before the Clinton campaign joined in full force.Tuesday’s explosive news — that long before the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, the U.S. intelligence community had asked foreign intel agencies to surveil 26 people connected to Donald Trump — raises the question of whether our intelligence community colluded with the Clinton campaign in these efforts. After all, it was then-Biden campaign adviser and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken who “set in motion the events that led to” 51 former intel officials issuing the public statement that falsely framed...

Where’s the binder? That’s the burning question echoing through the swampy marshes of DC, and it’s been hanging in the air for some time. Rumor has it, this binder is packed with the real story behind the Russia Hoax—a narrative that deviates sharply from the widely reported “tip” originating from our Australian pals. Insiders suggest this saga didn’t kick off on some whim but was a coordinated effort by the CIA, Obama, and the FBI. CNN, of course, spins it as a dossier uncovering Russia’s plot to meddle in elections. Yet, the buzz among those in the know hints it’s...

When the Trump-Russia operation began unraveling, it was clear that there was an international cast of characters involved in the frame-up. The operation to get Trump — in time to torpedo his election in 2016 and then subvert his presidency — involved the Hillary Clinton campaign, the CIA's John Brennan, who informed President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden of the operation, the FBI, which appeared to cover it up, a reputed Russian spy working for a Democrat think tank, a mysterious Maltese professor, an international honeypot, an Australian diplomat, and a British spy. It was the earthly equivalent of...

Apologies for any inexact language, I’m dictating from the road back from Ithaca. This afternoon a story came out on Public that I co-wrote with Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag. Like our previous collaborations, this is a breaking news story, one that we worked on for many weeks. Without giving away the whole story, this first installment relies on a never-released classified report to describe a broad political espionage campaign that reportedly involved at least 26 Trump aides and associates. I strongly urge anyone interested in the topic to check out the article, titled “CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On...

The keynote speaker of the World Economic Forum’s 2024 annual conference in Davos was Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President. She stated the top global risk for the EU is disinformation and misinformation, declaring disinformation destroys trust and limits the ability to “tackle the big global challenges.” In plain English, trust can only be restored by censoring inconvenient facts and evidence. Below is a short clip (1:39) highlighting her disinformation sermon. The top risk in the WEF’s 2024 Global Risk Report is disinformation. If not controlled, societies will be polarized, elections will be disrupted, and there will be mistrust...

A whistleblower has come forward with an explosive new trove of documents, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook Files in scale and importance. They describe the activities of an “anti-disinformation” group called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, or CTIL, that officially began as the volunteer project of data scientists and defense and intelligence veterans but whose tactics over time appear to have been absorbed into multiple official projects, including those of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The CTI League documents offer the missing link answers to key questions not addressed in the Twitter Files and Facebook Files....

It’s heartening to see so many faces here in London, to talk about the crisis of free speech around the globe, or to protest censorship, or whatever it is we’re doing exactly. Before we begin, I think it’s important to make a distinction. Unlike Russell and the rest of our hosts, Michael and I, and a few of us in the crowd, are Americans. For us, belief in unfettered free speech is a core part of our character. It’s a big reason that we Americans enjoy the wonderful reputation we do all around the world, especially here in Europe, where...

[FROM LARRY JOHNSON — I am posting this for a friend, David L. He prefers to keep his identity a secret. However, he has something important and useful to share about Matt Taibbi.]I first became acquainted with Matt Taibbi when he came to Moscow in the late 1990s and was co-editor of a newspaper called The eXile, along with another American, Mark Ames.The eXile’s motto was “We $#it on everybody equally.”Ames and Taibbi wrote all manner of expose articles on the corruption of the Boris Eltzin administration, the World Bank, the IMF, and USAID. One of their favorite targets was...

HOLY MOLY. James Baker was Twitter's legal counsel. He formerly worked for the FBI, and it is alleged that he removed references to the FBI's involvement in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story after the NY Post published it before the 2020 election. Remember, about 17% of voters said they would have switched their vote if they had heard about the laptop or other scandals around the Biden name. More from The Post Millennial: On Tuesday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that attorney Jim Baker had been "exited" from the company following recent revelations that he may have played a...

Today you’ll find two new #TwitterFiles threads out, one by longtime Racket contributor Matt Orfalea, and another by Andrew Lowenthal, who worked for 18 years defending digital rights at EngageMedia and watched activists in his space slowly be absorbed by what we’re now calling “The Censorship-Industrial Complex.” The two new threads collectively show the wide political range of revelations in the #TwitterFiles material, which have been slandered — absurdly — as a partisan exercise. Lowenthal, who in his “Insider’s Guide to ‘Anti-Disinformation’” describes himself as a “progressive-minded Australian,” printed a series of exchanges between journalists who attended a summer “tabletop...

On March 9th Matt Taibbi testified before the House Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.At the same time, he was testifying before the committee the IRS paid a visit to his house–an almost unheard-of tactic used by the agency. Usually, they use the mail. The weaponization of Government? Not a thing, we are told. And if you disagree the IRS will remind you of that fact, forcefully and in person.John did a write-up yesterday that lays out the facts, although I admit to being more cynical than he. I need to get a few beers or bourbons in...

Earlier this month, journalist Matt Taibbi appeared before congress where he testified about the Twitter Files. Taibbi’s statement to congress included a summary of what he saw as the thrust of what he has learned from his investigation (along with help from Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss).The original promise of the Internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere.What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise, and use machine...

An IRS agent stopped by the home of Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi the same day of his congressional testimony on the weaponization of the government, according to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who’s demanding an explanation over the oddly timed visit. Jordan sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and the Department of Treasury on Monday in hopes of getting to the bottom of why the federal agent appeared at Taibbi’s New Jersey home on March 9 and left a note, according to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal that cited the letter. The note reportedly instructed...

Matt Taibbi provides more disturbing evidence of how extensive the government’s desire and the outlets’ cooperation were to kill accurate information. Matt Taibbi has just posted the latest batch of internal messages from the social media giant: The Twitter Files #19. This latest release comes just after he and Michael Shellenberger made an appearance before a House Committee regarding the activities at Twitter, and the contentious attitudes and belittling of these reporters by certain House members on March 9 are made even clearer as a result. ... These latest revelations lay out cleanly the organized effort that took place to...

1.TWITTER FILES #19 The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories”

Testifying with Michael Shellenberger before a House Subcommittee was one of the more surreal experiences of my life. I expected serious attacks and spent a nervous night before preparing for them. Then the hearing began, and an episode of Black Adder: Congress broke out. The attacks happened, but it was more farcical horror and a parade of self-owns that made me more sad than upset. The Democrats made it clear they were not interested in talking about free speech except as it pertains to Chrissy Teigen, seemed to suggest a journalist should not make a living, and finally made the...

Democrats revealed their clear disregard for free speech in the second hearing of the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Thursday that featured prominent journalists who published the “Twitter Files.” Substack reporters Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified in the nearly three-hour hearing and explained how the federal government uses major social media platforms as conduits to regulate speech through censorship. Both voted for President Joe Biden and possess decades of experience covering American politics with liberal backgrounds far from anything that could be considered “ultra MAGA.” “American taxpayers are unwittingly financing the growth and power of...

Journalist and author Matt Taibbi noted the U.S. government’s role in creating a “new cottage industry” of “disinformation labs” ostensibly combatting fraudulent online propaganda in the interest of national security in his latest Twitter Files report published Thursday. The “Twitter Files #17” thread focuses on the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a subsidiary of the State Department, and its claimed objective to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.” The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab...

The Twitter Files show how the FBI deputized Twitter to conduct illegal censorship of American citizens and undermine the First Amendment. ... Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter last October and the subsequent reporting on the “Twitter Files” by journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and a handful of others beginning in early December is one of the most important news stories of our time. The “Twitter Files” story encompasses, and to a large extent connects, every major political scandal of the Trump-Biden era. Put simply, the “Twitter Files” reveal an unholy alliance between Big Tech and the deep state designed to...

n a recent addition to the “Twitter Files,” Matt Taibbi revealed to the public how Twitter — the preferred social media platform of politicians, academics, and journalists — co-opted the algorithmic blacklist of a bipartisan neoliberal propaganda outfit known as Hamilton 68. Hamilton 68 was a digital dashboard that, as my colleague Emily Jashinsky recently discussed, was used to perpetuate and mainstream the myth of Russian interference in American politics through algorithmic censorship and suppression. But it wasn’t just egghead professors, left-wing activist journalists, and the tragically narcissistic (Adam Schiff) who perpetuated the thoroughly repudiated lie that Russia determined the...