Obama’s ‘Censorship’ Office Goes Bankrupt

RealClear Politics ^ | 30 Dec, 2024 | Gabe Kaminsky

[MtnClimber]

Obama’s ‘Censorship’ Office Goes Bankrupt COMMENTARY By Gabe KaminskyDecember 30, 2024 Obama’s ‘Censorship’ Office Goes BankruptAP The Global Engagement Center, an office housed within the State Department and aiming to thwart disinformation and misinformation, has been forced by Congress to close up shop. It’s no mystery why; the taxpayer-backed GEC violated its mandate to work only overseas and devolved into a partisan enabler of speech suppression in the United States.

Here’s how.

Founded in 2016 and technically the product of an Obama-era executive order on counterterrorism, the GEC lapsed in December and lost congressional funding. Over the last two years, my investigative reporting in the Washington Examiner as well as that of Racket News journalist Matt Taibbi pulled back the curtain of the GEC’s ties to foreign and domestic NGOs trying to defund news outlets they say peddle disinformation – including RealClearPolitics. My reporting showed that the GEC and the State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy combined granted almost $1 million to the British Global Disinformation Index, which created a blacklist of U.S.-based websites that published content it determined to push “adversarial narratives” and then pressured advertisers to shut them down (think the Hunter Biden laptop story and COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis).

The GEC, moreover, was involved with the Election Integrity Partnership, a consortium of left-wing nonprofit groups, universities, and federal agencies that pressured Twitter and Facebook to remove GOP-aligned content in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. The GEC also bankrolled New York-based company NewsGuard, a “misinformation” tracker that, along with the Global Disinformation Index, has found itself at the center of a lawsuit brought by the Federalist, the Daily Wire, and the State of Texas against the GEC for allegedly funding an unconstitutional “censorship scheme” that suppressed voices on the right.

[MtnClimber]

Good Riddance!

[Starboard]

Unlimited money for Ukraine but no help for North Carolina storm victims.

[wildcard_redneck]

Every snake that worked for that department violated the constitutional freedoms of every American and should be prosecuted.

[WeaslesRippedMyFlesh]

Oh no.

[leaning conservative]

THIS!!!!!! I have very close ties to the black mountain, swannanoa, Asheville area. This administration is CRIMINAL for what they have not done to help

[AAABEST]

Now let’s bankrupt the Obamas... and send some feds and shark lawyers their way.

See how they like it.

[lgjhn23]

Their mighty god, odongo, needs to prsonally go bankrupt.
The full extent of whatever Lawfare is available should be fully used against this vile basstid for impersonating the existing POTUS....

[logi_cal869]

I did not know that GEC had its fingers in Newsguard.

Rather than defunding it, Congress should have brought those involved to testify before Congress.

I’m not sure, but I believe that the defunct omnibus/porkulus bill was to fund it through 2031.

I get the impression that Congress would rather it go away quietly. That’s disconcerting.

[logi_cal869]

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12475

[coloradan]

If they were formed to counteract foreign threats but then acted domestically, then they have violated their duty (and possibly the law) even if the US didn’t have a First Amendment. They should be investigated both for any possible violations of this type as well as for civil rights violations, the latter because the US actually does have the First Amendment.

[ncfool]

That office for years was the opposition that was spewing hate in israel against Netanyahu . The Democratic Party is so evil.

[marktwain]

It appears much of what the GEC was criminal. The people involved should be investigated, probably, at minimum, fired.

[AndyJackson]

GEC violated its mandate to work only overseas

VOA wasn't enough. I presume the misision statement was a lie and it was about domestic propoganda all along. The people are stupid and will never figure this one out.

[Texas resident]

Wasn’t that the ministry of disinformation headed up by a creepy crazy cat lady?

[Freeleesy]

Woke wall crumbling...

[TigersEye]

Now let’s bankrupt the Obamas...

I was going to say that. :)

I don't think there is a scarcity of things he could and should be investigated for.