Free Republic

Half a century ago, George Orwell, writing on literary censorship, wrote that “unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban.” That dynamic now broadly extends to an opaque network of government agencies and self-proclaimed anti-misinformation groups that have repressed online speech. There’s no official ban on discussing the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines or criticizing American involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war, but editors and journalists have realized that writing on such topics can come at a cost. News publishers have been demonetized and shadow-banned for reporting dissenting views and the bureaucratic means...

VIDEOSelf-proclaimed "propagandist" and founder of the State Department's Global Engagement Center as well as one of the founders of Hamilton 68, Richard Stengel reveals himself as Mr. Disinformation. He doesn't even try to hide that he thinks the First Amendment has a design flaw and that a workaround has to be attained by the government pressuring private social media to suppress information (aka CENSORSHIP) and to push the official narrative. You can also see him justify the "fortification" of the 2020 election. Eventually, House hearings on the weaponization of the federal government will need to hear from "propagandist" Richard Stengel.

Richard Stengel, new ‘team lead‘ for Joe Biden’s agency for global media, wrote an op-ed last year arguing for free speech restrictions. Stengel, a former MSNBC political analyst until he was named to Biden’s transition team, argued that the First Amendment needed redefining and that “hate speech” should be a crime. “All speech is not equal. And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails,” he wrote. “I’m all for protecting ‘thought that we hate,’ but not speech that incites hate.” ‘Speech that incites hate’ was defined in Stengel’s op-ed by two examples – Burning the Quran,...

Democrat and George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley is warning that the Biden transition team has taken an "ominous turn" after former Vice President Joe Biden hired a number of anti-free speech zealots. "For those of us who have been critical of the growing anti-free speech movement in the Democratic Party, the Biden transition team just took an ominous turn. The New York Post reports that Biden tapped Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty," Turley writes...

When I was a journalist, I loved Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s assertion that the Constitution and the First Amendment are not just about protecting “free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” But as a government official traveling around the world championing the virtues of free speech, I came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier. Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to...

FULL TITLE: Dan Gainor: Media decide Trump is wrong on Iran — whether he strikes back or not. Plus, more press missteps Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. Welcome to the media’s Iran coverage where President Donald Trump is never really right — whether he responds militarily to Iran or opts not to do so. Iran, a theocratic loony bin that is the world’s No. 1 terror state, shot down a military drone this week that was worth at least $130 million. While it was flying over international waters. What followed was a high-speed, condensed version of media...

Richard Stengel, a former high-level U.S. government official, head of the office for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department from 2013 to 2016, former editor of Time Magazine and a regular pundit on MSNBC, said in April of 2018 at a Council on Foreign Relations forum about “fake news,” that he “supports the use of propaganda on American citizens.” He then continued; “Basically, every country creates their own narrative story and, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the ‘chief propagandist’ job.” Keep in mind, that in 2013,...

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Richard Stengel gave a peculiar apology to outraged Twitter users on Sunday after he tweeted #UnitedForGaza to his 15,000 followers. In a tweet directed to the State Department, Mr. Stengel said, “Critical for a full, credible and unimpeded intl investigation of crash. Urge Russia to honor it’s [sic] commitment,” Twitchy first reported. After receiving swift backlash, the tweet was deleted, and Mr. Stengel sent out a terse explanation. “Earlier tweet with wrong hashtag was a mistake. My bad,” he said. (Snip) Twitter users weren’t buying Mr. Stengel’s apology.

The account for U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Rick Stengel published a tweet with a pro-Gaza hashtag, which was captured by the following screenshot.

Several readers sent me for comment a lengthy cover article in Time Magazine by managing editor Richard Stengel. Stengel’s piece is one result of new public interest in our Constitution and in “first principles”—interest that has forced political liberals to think about the document’s real meaning. While it’s good that they are now addressing it, like a baby learning language the results are often garbled. Correcting all of the irrelevancies, distortions, and errors in his essay of nearly 5000 words would take far longer than it is worth. Below is just a sample: Stengel: “Here are a few things the...

Provocative? Perhaps, but that’s nothing new for Time magazine with a history of taking iconic American symbols and using them to make political statements. On Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Time magazine editor Richard Stengel presented the cover of his new July 4 issue, which features the U.S. Constitution going through a paper shredder and asks does the document still matter. According to Stengel, it does, but not as much anymore. “Yes, of course it still matters but in some ways it matters less than people think,” Stengel said on “Morning Joe.” “People all the time are debating what’s constitutional...

It’s wasn’t the first Time and it won’t be the last Time. Showing an utter disregard for ethical journalism, the editors at Time twisted American patriotism into an ad for the green movement to promote “winning the war on global warming.” Green is the new red, white and blue we are told by editors who never liked the old red, white and blue. The magazine used the historic Iwo Jima flag raising photo as a global warming marketing gimmick for its April 28 issue. The flag the Marines were raising was replaced with a tree to equate the evils our...

April 23, 2008 Richard Stengel Managing Editor Time Magazine Mr. Stengel, The cover of your April 28, 2008 Special Environmental Issue is appalling, and offensive to the veterans of the battle of Iwo Jima, the United States Marine Corps, all members of our Armed Services and every American who understands and reveres the sacrifice of those Marines who fought and died to raise our flag atop Mount Suribachi and to everyone who has ever stood up to serve to help us remain free. Your subsequent “explanation”, devoid of an apology, was no better. Co-opting the hallowed image of the United...

You'd hardly know it if you relied on the mainstream media, but the government's case against the Haditha Marines took another body blow last Friday that may be the beginning of the end for this whole sorry attempt to severely punish eight heroic United States Marines for doing what they are trained to do. In a surprise development on the day Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum's court martial was scheduled to begin, all charges against him were dropped without explanation. Tatum, facing charges of reckless endangerment and aggravated assault that could have sent him to prison for 18 years, was the...