Barack Obama Openly Advocates for Censorship by the Elites to Help the Unwashed Masses

Obama is clearly advocating the need for censorship in this video:

Part of what we’re going to have to do is to start experimenting with new forms of journalism and how we use social media in ways that reaffirm facts and separate facts from opinion. We want diversity of opinion. We don’t want diversity of facts. That, I think, is one of the big tasks of social media. By the way, it will require some government regulatory constraints…

I'll paraphrase: "We," (the pre-ordained elites) will be in charge of what you can say and hear. We're helping you and you need our help because you're too dumb to think for yourself. You'll love it!

This is no one-off for Obama. Despite being a former professor of law, who taught constitutional law, Obama considers himself one of the elite leaders of the censorship industrial complex.  Consider this brand new article by Michael Shellenberger: "Obama-Linked Stanford Center Held Secret Meeting With Foreign Governments To Plot Global Internet Censorship: Top EU, UK, Brazil, and Australian officials met in September with US censorship advocates to combine and coordinate efforts." Excerpt:

In the spring of 2022, former President Barack Obama gave a major policy address at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, where he laid out a sweeping proposal for government censorship of social media platforms through the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act. Six days later, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security announced that it had created a “Disinformation Governance Board” to serve as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth with the clear goal of controlling the information Americans could access online.

At the heart of Obama’s vision for Internet censorship was legislation that would have authorized the US government’s National Science Foundation to authorize and fund supposedly independent NGOs to censor the Internet. The DHS and Stanford Internet Observatory, which was part of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, pioneered this censorship-by-proxy strategy as a way to get around the First Amendment in 2020 with posts raising concerns about the 2020 elections and in 2021 with “narratives” expressing concern about the Covid vaccine.

The 2024 election of President Donald Trump significantly reduced the threat of Obama, DHS, and NSF censoring the American people. Trump defunded much of the Censorship Industrial Complex. The Platform Accountability Act is going nowhere in Congress.

To be fair, Trump is no saint on free speech. As FIRE's Will Creely testified recently, Trump has been bludgeoning numerous entities to curtail free speech:

To be sure, the government may speak for itself, and the public has an interest in hearing from it. But it may not wield that power to censor. As Judge Richard Posner put it: The government is “entitled to what it wants to say — but only within limits.” Under no circumstances may our public servants “employ threats to squelch the free speech of private citizens.”

So the law is clear: Government actors cannot silence a speaker by threatening “we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,” as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission did last month. Nevertheless, recent examples of jawboning abound: against private broadcasters, private universities, private social media platforms, and more. The First Amendment does not abide mob tactics.

Democrats, however, are more on board with Obama's approach to censorship than republicans:

[More ...]

Continue ReadingBarack Obama Openly Advocates for Censorship by the Elites to Help the Unwashed Masses

The CIA’s Rent-a-Riot Instruction Manual

Mike Benz: "The CIA's "How To Start A Riot" Guide. Shows use of hiring professional criminals and agitators to get ethnic minorities groups, student groups and unions angry against a government, then trigger riots of 10,000 ppl with just 100 agitators."

Grok offers these examples of potential rent-a-riots this and this:

Over the past 20 years, there have been numerous allegations of CIA involvement in orchestrating or supporting protests and riots in various countries, often through indirect means like funding NGOs, training activists, or intelligence operations. These claims frequently come from governments opposed to the U.S., media outlets, or commentators, and are often framed as "rent-a-riots" involving paid agitators or external manipulation. However, many such accusations are disputed or labeled as conspiracy theories by Western sources, with evidence often circumstantial or based on leaked documents, official statements, and investigative reports. Below are some prominent examples based on public claims and reports, presented with balanced context where available.

1. Ukraine's Maidan Revolution (2013–2014) Allegations suggest the CIA played a role in fomenting the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv, which escalated into riots and led to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych. Critics claim the U.S. provided funding and training to opposition groups via organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), seen by some as a CIA proxy, to destabilize a Russia-aligned government. Reports indicate the CIA established secret bases in Ukraine post-2014 to train intelligence operatives, building on pre-revolution ties. Russian sources and some analysts describe this as a CIA-orchestrated coup, involving covert support for protesters amid violent clashes that killed over 100 people. Counterarguments assert the protests were organic, driven by corruption and EU aspirations, with no direct CIA orchestration.

2. Hong Kong Protests (2019–2020) Chinese officials and state media accused the CIA of backing the massive anti-extradition bill protests, which turned into widespread riots involving clashes with police. Claims include funding through the NED to train and equip pro-democracy activists, portraying the unrest as a U.S.-led "color revolution" to undermine Beijing. Photos and reports of U.S. diplomats meeting protesters fueled these narratives. Debunkings from pro-Hong Kong sources argue the movement was leaderless and grassroots, dismissing CIA involvement as propaganda to discredit legitimate demands for autonomy.

Continue ReadingThe CIA’s Rent-a-Riot Instruction Manual

Luxury Beliefs in Chicago

Rob Henderson coined the term "Luxury Beliefs" as follows:

Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the lower classes.

Here, Rob offers a more expansive discussion:
In addition to my own experiences with social mobility, my luxury beliefs idea stems from Thorstein Veblen’s work, particularly his 1899 book, The Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen, a sociologist and economist, described how the elites of his era displayed their status through conspicuous consumption, such as wearing delicate, expensive clothing, carrying pocket watches, or attending lavish ballroom events. While material possessions still play a role in signaling status today, I argue that they have become a noisier indicator of wealth. A century ago, one could easily distinguish the rich from the poor based on appearance alone. However, in our wealthier modern society, where access to goods is more widespread, it’s harder to gauge someone’s wealth at a glance.

Instead, status is increasingly expressed through what I call luxury beliefs, which have largely replaced luxury goods. These beliefs reflect what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu termed cultural capital. Elites invest in attending prestigious schools and universities, where they adopt the mannerisms, vocabulary, habits, and fashionable opinions of the upper class. This process enculturates them into the elite and sets them apart from the broader population. For example, while the conventional view might support law enforcement, someone seeking to signal their elite status might advocate for abolishing the police or reimagining law enforcement with ideas like hiring “violence interrupters.” Such unconventional or avant-garde views serve as a way to distinguish oneself from the masses and signal a superior social position.

Today, I noticed this post by A Gene Robinson, who doesn't use the term "luxury beliefs," but is angry about non-stop high crime in Chicago contrasted with what he considered the detached cheap signaling of those who participated in the Chicago No Kings Rally:

I asked Grok to compare the economic circumstances of those in Chicago's crime ridden neighborhoods to the circumstances of people who work for corporate media:

Corporate media workers earn 2–5 times more than residents in these Chicago neighborhoods ($60,000+ vs. $25,000–$50,000), enabling comfortable lifestyles with savings, travel, and leisure. They benefit from employer perks like health insurance and flexible time off, contrasting with reliance on public aid in high-crime areas, where poverty rates are 2–3 times higher (40%+ vs. national 12%). Media lifestyles involve professional growth and urban amenities, while these neighborhoods face survival challenges, unemployment-driven desperation, and violence that perpetuates economic stagnation. This disparity highlights broader urban inequalities, where media professionals might even report on these communities from a position of relative privilege.

Then I asked Grok to compare the economic circumstances of those in Chicago's crime-ridden neighborhoods to those who marched in the Chicago no-kings rally:

The economic divide between residents of Chicago's crime-ridden neighborhoods and No Kings rally marchers is stark, highlighting urban inequalities in race, class, and opportunity. Neighborhood residents endure entrenched poverty, with incomes 2–4 times lower than the implied stability of rally participants, who benefit from assets like homes and retirement funds accumulated over decades.

While the former face unemployment, reliance on aid, and violence-linked economic stagnation, marchers—often older, white, and from more affluent backgrounds—enjoy financial security enabling activism without personal economic risk.

This contrast underscores how protests like No Kings may draw from privileged demographics, potentially overlooking the direct economic hardships in the city's most vulnerable areas.

Continue ReadingLuxury Beliefs in Chicago

Mike Benz Describes the Challenges of Dismantling Joe Biden’s Censorship-Industrial Complex

Because they cling to corporate media as their main source of “the news,” many of the most vocal people online don’t realize that the Biden Administration poured billions of tax dollars into censoring and propagandizing Americans. Nor do they know the details. This secret operation was so vast and so ghastly that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded:

[T]he Supreme Court has rarely been faced with a coordinated campaign of this magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life. Therefore, the district court was correct in its assessment—“unrelenting pressure” from certain government officials likely “had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.” We see no error or abuse of discretion in that finding.

Who were the recipients of this tax money? Answer: Numerous government agencies, including DHS and USAID (and many others), who funneled the money out to dozens and dozens of NGO and non-profits with disarmingly patriotic names (e.g., Global Engagement Center and the National Science Foundation) who did the dirty work, often in close coordination with prestigious American universities. They worked in tandem with each other and with the CIA, which continued to make good use of all of its favorite Project Mockingbird techniques to convince you to be someone else. Many of the doubters don’t know CIA history. They don’t know that the CIA has topple dozens of governments Or they assume that the CIA used to be bad but they somehow got to be the good guys when after they displayed animus against Trump.

This censorship-industrial complex (also sometimes referred to as “the Blob”) has convinced you that you were well-informed and that you were thinking your own thoughts. They made sure you only heard one version of every story so that you voted only for the “correct” candidate. They were so good at their jobs that you believed that virus particles couldn’t pour through cloth masks. They made sure that you slurped up every government-approved position and that you deep-down hated those who disagreed with you, including your friends and family members.

[More below, including the transcript of Mike Benz' entire talk at NatCon

Continue ReadingMike Benz Describes the Challenges of Dismantling Joe Biden’s Censorship-Industrial Complex

Antifa as a Terrorist Organization

I agree with Bret Weinstein on the topic of Antifa. Weinstein:

I have no illusions about ANTIFA. They are a terrorist organization by any reasonable definition—they cultivate fear from which they derive power.

BUT I don’t want ANTIFA declared a terrorist organization by the executive branch, because the post 9/11 definition of ‘terrorism’ isn’t reasonable at all. It is now a magic legal term loophole that, once applied, obliterates a person’s constitutional rights.

And the executive can apply it to anyone, with no court review. Don’t forget, the DHS declared mis, dis and malinformation terrorism during Covid. That’s mistakes, lies and truths-that-make-the-government-look-bad—all were declared terrorism, for a reason. The reason was to empower the government to do unconstitutional things to anyone who didn’t agree with their bullshit.

If we allow this toolkit to be used on ANTIFA, that legitimizes it. And next time it is likely to be pointed at us.

If anyone has doubts that Antif is a terrorist organization, take a look at the postings of Andy Ngo on X.

Continue ReadingAntifa as a Terrorist Organization