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Massie Introduces Bill to Stop the Government From Propagandizing Americans
The New American ^ | October 10, 2025 | Paul Dragu

Posted on 10/10/2025 5:57:56 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wants to make it illegal for the federal government to target Americans with propaganda. Republican leadership has already blocked recent attempts to do this.

Massie introduced on Wednesday a bill to repeal the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2013. Representative Scott Perry (R-Pa.) co-sponsored the proposal. Massie explained in a press release:

The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, legislation that ended a prohibition on the federal government exposing American audiences to its propaganda. I voted against that NDAA, and I offered an amendment to the 2026 NDAA to reinstate the original prohibition, but Speaker Johnson blocked a vote. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act needs to be repealed. Taxpayer-funded fake news should not be used by the federal government to wage influence campaigns against the American people.

The Congressman brought up Johnson’s block from mid-September on his X account when it happened.

Consistent Views

It just so happens this issue was one of the first votes Massie cast after entering Congress in 2012. He pointed this out during a phone call with The New American on Friday. Massie opposed the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, and many years later he hasn’t changed his views. He said his time serving on a select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government and the way the federal government behaved during Covid mania have emboldened him to sponsor this kind of legislation.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a companion Senate bill last month dubbed the Charlie Kirk Act. He said in a statement about the bill:

From the end of World War II until the Obama administration, it was illegal for the US government to use the State Department’s foreign broadcasting apparatus to target American citizens with propaganda. In 2013, these protections were taken...


(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

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1 posted on 10/10/2025 5:57:56 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I don’t see how this even gets a committee hearing in the Senate.


2 posted on 10/10/2025 6:04:30 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The issue would be WHO defines what propaganda is.


3 posted on 10/10/2025 6:25:11 PM PDT by Bikkuri (We are all Charlie now. I am Charlie!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Taxpayer-funded fake news should not be used by the federal government to wage influence campaigns against the American people.

Since when Massie, does the VOA target the "American people"?

I believe VOA mainly targets people in other countries around the world, and Karrie Lake is the one who is now in charge of the content.

Massie should point that out.

4 posted on 10/10/2025 6:38:48 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: Bikkuri
The issue would be WHO defines what propaganda is.

Currently, we have a legitimately elected pro American president, who appointed a pro American Karrie Lake to decide.

This is when Massie springs into action.

5 posted on 10/10/2025 6:44:41 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

They have no intention to stop doing that.

Further, such a move is propaganda itself.

Remember, its uniparty in charge.


6 posted on 10/10/2025 6:48:15 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

THE DEMS HAVE SHOVELED MORE “PROPAGANDA” OVER MY 85 YEARS THAN THE R’s” COULD EVER THINK OF.

THIS IS CHUTZPAH.


7 posted on 10/10/2025 7:06:54 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: FreeReign

Once that gateway is open, all it takes is the opposing side to come in and change the rules/definitions.

“What IS is?”


8 posted on 10/10/2025 7:23:44 PM PDT by Bikkuri (We are all Charlie now. I am Charlie!)
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To: Bikkuri
Once that gateway is open, all it takes is the opposing side to come in and change the rules/definitions.

That's what elections are for.

9 posted on 10/10/2025 7:38:37 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: Mariner

“I don’t see how this even gets a committee hearing in the Senate.”

That just proves Massie’s ineffectiveness.

/sarc

Massie never gets any thing done! /sarc /sarc


10 posted on 10/10/2025 7:40:35 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (We cannot vote our way out of these problems. The only way out is to activist our way out.)
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To: Bikkuri

Exactly, everything could be labeled propaganda depending on which side you’re on.


11 posted on 10/10/2025 7:44:44 PM PDT by Bullish (My tagline ran off with another man, but it's ok---- I wasn't married to it.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Johnson is such a pill. The usual faux-GOP operative who does just enough to stay in power.


12 posted on 10/10/2025 7:47:16 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: FreeReign


"That's what elections are for."


How well did that work out for the stolen Federal elections in 2020?
What about all of the stolen State and Local elections every cycle?
13 posted on 10/10/2025 7:48:27 PM PDT by Bikkuri (We are all Charlie now. I am Charlie!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

There goes public education and the media.

It’s a start.


14 posted on 10/10/2025 8:46:29 PM PDT by Organic Panic ('Was I molested. I think so' - Ashley Biden in response to her father joining her in the shower.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Decades ago I posted a thread entitled Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
The point was, and remains, that while it is legitimate to note that the rest of “the media” tilts left, only putative nonfiction could possibly be regulated. And then only in the “public” (read, government controlled) airwaves.

And much more so now than back then, the “bandwidth scarcity” which justified the “public airwave” theory, internet is widely the medium of choice for the acquisition of information. So while Democrats moan about government censorship of unfunny comedians, nobody thinks that their - or their putatively censored “comedians” - cannot make their speech accessible to the general public. What they are fussing about is that their favorites are losing special access to the public with is in any event not available to you or me.

Journalists should have to settle for the same access to the public as you and I have - let them earn their audiences rather than being able to spoon-feed propaganda to the public under the cover of having the imprimatur of putatively “broadcasting in the public interest as a public trustee.”

The other necessary reform is the overturning of the NY Times v. Sullivan decision which suppressed libel suits by politicians (read, Republicans libeled by Democrats).

15 posted on 10/11/2025 7:53:24 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: Bikkuri
How well did that work out for the stolen Federal elections in 2020? What about all of the stolen State and Local elections every cycle?

Voters in the US don't listen to VOA. I've never met anybody in our country who uses VOA as a news source.

Globalist control of VOA in 2020 had nothing to do with The 2020 Steal.

It's the globalists now, who want to stop Trump's and Lake's takeover of the VOA, which is heard around the world.

And that's when Massie springs into action.

It figures.

16 posted on 10/11/2025 8:04:24 AM PDT by FreeReign
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To: Bullish

“everything could be labeled propaganda depending on which side you’re on.”

Fair enough.

Nobody in .gov should complain when we think they are all a pack of liars.

They have earned it over many decades.


17 posted on 10/11/2025 8:09:49 AM PDT by cgbg ("The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.")
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

“broadcasting in the public interest as a public trustee”

What did that even mean?

Who gets to define the “public interest”?

Every human has a conflict of interest in defining the “public interest”.

It was a license to lie from day one.


18 posted on 10/11/2025 8:12:13 AM PDT by cgbg ("The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.")
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