Michael Shellenberger’s Testimony to the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government

Michael Shellenberger testified before Congress on March 9, 2023. This is the Executive Summary of his presentation:

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of “the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial complex.” Eisenhower feared that the size and power of the “complex,” or cluster, of government contractors and the Department of Defense would “endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” How? Through “domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money.” He feared public policy would “become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded. Today, American taxpayers are unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex run by America’s scientific and technological elite, which endangers our liberties and democracy. I am grateful for the opportunity to offer this testimony and sound the alarm over the shocking and disturbing emergence of state-sponsored censorship in the United States of America.

The Twitter Files, state attorneys general lawsuits, and investigative reporters have revealed a large and growing network of government agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations that are actively censoring American citizens, often without their knowledge, on a range of issues, including on the origins of COVID2 , COVID vaccines3 , emails relating to Hunter Biden’s business dealings4 , climate change5 , renewable energy6 , fossil fuels7 , and many other issues.

I offer some cautions. I do not know how much of the censorship is coordinated beyond what we have been able to document, and I will not speculate. I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private companies to moderate content on their platforms. And I support the right of governments to communicate with the public, including to dispute inaccurate and misleading information.

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Sharyl Attkisson Discusses the Official COVID Narrative

Sharyl Attkisson is a five-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for Investigative Reporting. She's the author of two New York Times bestsellers including “The Smear How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What you Think and How you Vote.” For 30 years Attkisson was a correspondent and anchor at CBS News, PBS, CNN and local news and she is now the host of a weekly show, “Full measure,” which focuses on investigative and accountability reporting. Excerpt from her discussion with Steve Kirsch.

Steve Kirsh: How are people being misled and how can we tell when people are telling you the truth?

Sharyl Attkisson : I think some important trends started in the past 15 to 20 years and have become more visible as time has gone on. Now you have to dig deeper. When you hear a prevalent narrative on the news, if you understand how the news has been co opted--like virtually every source of information that we use--you have to almost think two layers beyond what they're trying to tell you.

Number one, you have to assume that when everybody's on the same narrative, typically, if they're using the same language, interviewing the same experts all on board saying everybody knows something, then that's your cue that there's probably a really important piece of the puzzle that's being hidden by some important interest that would suffer if we knew the truth. So as you hear these narratives, your first thought should be "Who wants me to believe this and why?" And I know that ordinary people, including me, when I'm just leading my normal life, we don't have time to deeply research, every question that arises. We are used to counting on the news to help us do that. But I'm telling you today, you kind of have to rely on yourself, because there are very few sources you can go to where you can trust the information as being unfettered and dual-sided, presenting all viewpoints.

A lot of it is just purely strategic for the past five or six years, dishonest, not just even out of context, but completely false. But you'll never know if you're trusting your traditional source that we used to look to for such things.

This has never been truer than when we look at the COVID pandemic and the vaccines. And I certainly didn't know at the front end of the pandemic, what the truth was any more than anybody else did about how effective the vaccines might be, how bad the pandemic would be. But as time went on, this began to take on hallmarks of every other scandal that I've covered, including many non-medical scandals, where there are important interests, trying very hard to shape and censor information, trying to control the landscape where we get all of our information online, on the news, any source that we have. And I think it resulted in a lot of harm, number one, but number two, maybe irreparable damage to the credibility of the institutions that we rely on political institutions, medical institutions, law enforcement, whatever you're looking at, Department of Justice, media. People, by and large as a good chunk of the population, don't believe--nor should they--take at face value, what comes out of their mouths in terms of advice, and their fact checks, and so on.

Steve Kirsch: So what is your trusted sources that you rely on today?

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The Many Corporate “News” Media Lies about COVID

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya lists the main COVID lies the corporate news media fed us, while suppressing and censoring meaningful discussion that conflicted with this narrative:

Almost impossible to overstate how wrong so many news corporations were on the science of covid: - lab leak as conspiracy - efficacy of lockdown - harmlessness of school closures - recovered immunity - toddler masking - vax mandates A perfect record of anti- science failure.

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After Seymour Hersh Revealed Joe Biden’s Lawless Destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline, Congress has been Silent. Dennis Kucinich has Spoken Up.

Ever since Seymour Hersh revealed that Joe Biden instructed U.S. military to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, no sitting member of Congress has spoken up, protested, or called for a hearing. All members of Congress have thus ratified Joe Biden's dangerous lawlessness.

At the recent Rage Against the War Machine Rally, former member of Congress, Dennis Kucinich, was not silent:

In blowing up the Nordstrom pipeline, this government has deliberately circumvented Article One of the U.S. Constitution: the authority of Congress to make war. It has violated international criminal law by conspiring to commit acts of sabotage and violence on the high seas. It has used illegal and unconstitutional means to destroy the energy resources needed to protect millions of people in Europe during the winter and then to profit from its illegal actions by selling energy to Europe at a four to six times markup. It has done so blatantly and cynically, simultaneously taking credit for the destruction of the Nordstrom Pipeline and then denying any role in it.

I speak directly to those responsible thanks to a courageous journalist, Seymour Hersh. We know what each of you did at the Nord Stream pipeline, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary of State, Mr. National Security advisor and Madam Under-Secretary of State, and we will not rest until you are held accountable by Congress, by the international criminal court and by the American people at the next election for your reprehensible conduct, which has debased our Constitution, undermined the rule of law in our name, committed an act of War which threatens the Peace of the world and the stability of our own Nation. No amount of balloon militarism will distract us from your profoundly lawless and reckless conduct.

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Chapter 7,982: Journalists Refusing to do Journalism

Matt Taibbi's recent Tweet thread noting the silence by the mainstream media when it comes to stunning revelations based on the Twitter Files.

Instead of taking as leads stories like Hamilton 68 or CENTCOM’s fake social media accounts abroad or the FBI, DOS and DHS cranking out thousands of moderation requests, “reputable” journalists are spending all their time attacking me and throwing stupid partisan tantrums. Why?

Because they’re not real journalists. The lot of them are invested in protecting people in power and defending their own screwups (like their stories about #ReleaseTheMemo being driven by Russian bots), so they’re refusing to follow up on dozens of newsworthy stories.

How journalism works when the press is real: One reporter does a story. It may not be the whole story, but it’s newsworthy. The next reporter finds the next piece of the puzzle. A third adds more. We compete, but all push the story forward. The TF response exposes a fake press:

This is why I now have to hire people to help chase down all the stuff in the Twitter Files — because the “community” of reputable journalists not only won’t investigate as they once would have, they’re trying to shut such inquiries down.

Based on what passes as "news" in most regional and national outlets, Joseph Pulitzer must be spinning in his grave. Here is his 1907 Platform:

I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.
JOSEPH PULITZER • APRIL 10, 1907

Continue ReadingChapter 7,982: Journalists Refusing to do Journalism