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When the founders created the Bill of Rights they placed freedom of speech religion assembly and the
press above all others. There was a reason; those who had come to the colonies had fled
persecution where none of those rights existed. People still come to this country even today for
the same freedoms that do not even exist in the western democracies of Europe. You cannot deny
the Holocaust without going to jail in Germany and Austria and other nations for instance. You
cannot say arbitrary things or challenge the legitimacy of the government in many nations
without persecution and prosecution but here we can. Or can we? How has the First Amendment
been attacked in recent years? How did the modern far-left Marxists control media and interfere with
the 2020 election? What has been or is being done to counter this threat to our most basic
rights? Hello I'm Colin Heaton military veteran
historian author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten
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History. Presidents have a history of suppressing free speech even going as far as
to put journalists in jail for disagreeing with their policies or reporting factual information
that undermined their authority. Republican President Abraham Lincoln's Administration
arrested more than 14,000 political prisoners including many journalists and suppressed more
than 300 newspapers. He issued an executive order on May 18th 1864 for the "arrest and
imprisonment of irresponsible newspaper reporters and editors specifically sent
to Major General John A. Dicks stating" "You are therefore hereby commanded forthwith to arrest
and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command the editors proprietors and
publishers of the aforesaid newspapers and all such persons as after public notice has been
given of the falsehood of said publication print and publish the same with intent to to give aid
and comfort to the enemy and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they
can be brought to trial before a military commission for their offense. You will also
take possession by military force of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal
of Commerce and hold the same until further orders and prohibit any further publication
therefrom." Lincoln did not allow freedom of speech to continue or undermine the war effort.
Likewise Democrat Woodrow Wilson created the Committee on Public Information by executive order
and as just one example he urged Attorney General Gregory to consider charging businessman Theodore
Lunde for publishing pamphlets with treason for publishing criticisms of the government. Democrat
Franklin D. Roosevelt complained constantly about the press's "poisonous propaganda" .The threats
became real when during the age of radio NBC for example announced that it was limiting broadcast
"contrary to the policies of the United States government." CBS Vice President Henry A. Bellows
said that "no broadcast would be permitted over the Columbia Broadcasting System that
in any way was critical of any policy of the administration." FDR even used the Department
of the Treasury Federal Communications Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to dig into the
tax records of journalists going as far back back as 1925 of such critics as David Lawrence of the
United States News. William Randolph Hurst the legendary newsman was also targeted and
he had been instrumental in securing Roosevelt's nomination in 1932 but had since turned against
his old ally. Roosevelt instructed the Department of the Treasury to closely monitor Hearst's
taxes. FDR had violated the First Fourth and Fifth Amendments of journalists whom he wanted silenced.
He targeted those journalists and newspapers that he saw as "the foes of democracy by accusing them
of unfairly maligning him." These attacks on freedom of the press became less obvious under
the Biden Administration since most newspapers TV news government agencies the Biden White House and
social media pretty much all belonged to the hard left which is no secret. The attacks against the
First Amendment actually came from the press and social media especially when it came to silencing
voices who disagreed with progressives. The First Amendment does not protect social media platforms
as they are private and can allow whatever they wish on their platforms. However where
the liberal social media platforms went wrong was that they only allowed one point of view
and during an election cycle which was considered contributions in kind and a violation of federal
election laws by favoring one party over another while denying the opposition an equal opportunity.
In fact the Aspen Institute was a major player along with the 51 former heads of acronym and
intelligence agencies working to protect Joe Biden from his family's criminal activities
by suppressing and pre-bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 election. Social
media played a huge role during Congressional hearings. We heard the social media Giants
such as Mark Zuckerberg Jack Dorsey and others deny and in fact commit perjury that they were
working with Democrats and even federal agencies to suppress opposing viewpoints even when those
opinions were solid and based in fact. Zuckerberg testified before a joint hearing of two Senate
committees. The first was to explain a Russian propaganda group called the Internet Research
Agency which used Facebook ads fake accounts and pages to influence voters in the run up to
the 2016 U.S. election. Conservative voice suppression was deafening. The most recent
was Facebook's admission that a data firm named Cambridge Analytica received unauthorized access
to up to 87 million users private data without their consent beginning in 2014. Dorsey of
Twitter committed perjury when he stated that his platform "does not use political ideology
to make any decisions," a lie that became apparent to everyone after he stepped down
as CEO of Twitter. When Elon Musk bought Twitter he exposed all of these illegal activities that
Dorsey had allowed and Twitter had committed and how the Biden Administration was in full
drive mode to censor information detrimental to Democrats in general and the Biden crime
family in particular. Facebook and Twitter shadow banned or outright removed those voices who posted
information the liberals felt was misinformation or disinformation while they continued putting
their own lies within the public domain. The shutdown opposing medical specialist being the
top scientist medical specialist and virologist in the world who challenged Dr Anthony Fauci's
lies and fabrications regarding the origins of the Wuhan Virus also known as the "China Virus" were
silenced. They shut down anyone who disagreed with mask mandates and shutdowns of schools churches
and small businesses while the large corporations remained open because they donated to liberal
candidates. People who came forward and proved Fauci was lying and challenged the various
pharmaceutical companies were removed from these platforms many without any explanation.
The platforms hid behind their "Community Guidelines" which clearly favored liberals
with a bias that was impossible to hide. Then the federal government joined the media in touting the
false allegations of President Trump's Russia collusion hoax spurred by the Steele Dossier
created by Hillary Clinton and the current fraudulent and highly unqualified National
Security Adviser the fake Jake Sullivan. Opposing voices with contrary evidence or
real facts proving the false narrative leveled by democrats during the last year of the Trump
Administration and later the outright lies of the Biden administration were closed down on Facebook
and Twitter. Facebook also deleted my friend actor and producer Kevin Sorbo for his conservative and
religious views but he was not alone. Thousands of people were kicked out of various platforms
including Linkedin.com for challenging or ridiculing any Democratic politicians while
anti-Republican anti-conservative hate speech was allowed to flourish. I know this firsthand. The
double standard finally became so glaring that the House of Representatives led by Republicans
wanted answers hence the required testimonies of Zuckerberg and Dorsey. It has also surfaced
that the FBI had contacted Facebook and Twitter and informed them that they were going to be
"exposed to political disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and that it was in fact proven to
be Russian disinformation." Well we know that was a lie. Even after the FBI and the Justice
Department knew the laptop was genuine they still pushed the order to suppress the information from
social media orders given by the White House. They also pushed the removal of any voice that
tried to defend releasing the information ahead of Joe Biden's presidential run. Then the Biden
Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department really violated many Americans constitutional
rights when they began leaning on journalists like reporters Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger.
Taibbi being a Democrat was the toast of the progressive left appearing regularly on shows
like "Democracy Now" and other liberal programs and others hosted by Bill Moyers and Rachel
Maddow. Yet when Taibbi first testified as to his evidence of social and news media suppression of
free speech before the committee in March Congressional Democrats denounced him as a
":so-called journalist a hypocrite a proper and Twitter owner Elon Musk's lackey". In fact the
Marxist Virgin Islands delegate Stacy Plaskett the ranking Democrat threatened Taibbi with perjury
charges and a 5-year prison sentence after she claimed he had made a minor misstatement in his
testimony. The Federal Trade Commission demanded as The Post noted, "all internal Communications
by from or about Musk and telling him to name reporters he shared information with," as if
exposing White House misconduct were a federal crime. Shellenberger testified that the federal
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its nonprofit partners had targeted political
jokes hyperbole and specific viewpoints contrary to the Democratic narrative for
social media companies to suppress. On July 4th federal judge Terry Doughty ruling in Missouri
V Biden condemned the Biden Administration for "potentially the most massive attack against free
speech in United States history." Several federal judges ruled against the Biden Administration for
aggressive anti-illegal censorship especially when it concerned the Covid-19 vaccinations or anything
posted challenging the 2020 election "thereby subverting Americans awareness of problems with
mail in ballots and polling booths." In state of Missouri V Biden case number 23-30 445 in
the Fifth Circuit of 2023 the plaintiffs included three doctors a news website a healthcare activist
and two states had posts and stories removed or downgraded by Twitter and Facebook collective.
Their content touched on a host of divisive topics like the Covid-19 lab leak theory state of
Louisiana V Biden was lost for the same reason the U.S. Supreme Court received these cases on appeal
and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and placed an injunction preventing the government from
coercing the social media platforms. The court of appeals found that "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.'" The federal appeals court issued an injunction prohibiting federal officials
from acting "to coerce or significantly encourage social media companies to remove
delete suppress or reduce including through altering their algorithms posted social media
content containing protected free speech. The major newspapers such as the New York Times also
distorted and bent the First Amendment rights of Americans. In fact they are so bent to the left
they fired editorial page editor James Bennett in June 2020 actually forcing him to resign after his
department published a widely criticized opinion article written by Republican Senator Tom Cotton
of Arkansas for suggesting using the National Guard to protect cities against BLM terrorist
riots a clear violation of Senator Cotton's First Amendment rights. Currently liberal prosecutors
and judges have been issuing gag orders against former President Trump ordering him not to talk
about the various cases he is involved in while these same prosecutors have no such
restriction. They talk about the cases all the time. The appeals have been favorable for Trump
stating that he cannot be gagged especially as a presidential candidate as it violates his First
Amendment speech rights. During the so-called "Summer of Love" riots by the domestic terror
groups Black Lives Matter and Antifa any opposing viewpoints that did not support Burn Loot Murder
Antifa and their allies during their over 600 riots including arson assault and even murder was
suppressed and scrubbed. But other violations were also in play. The FBI under Director Christopher
Wray authorized a memo allowing spying on and then contemplating charging Catholic Americans
for domestic terrorism since they were quote considered "far right extremists." The FBI at
first lied stating that it never happened. In fact they claimed the memo never existed until
the memo surfaced and after Congressional grilling of Wray Attorney General Merrick Garland had the
memo rescinded by the FBI after facing criticism from federal and state officials clergy and other
groups. That violated freedom of religion. Since the start of the Biden Administration due to the
outcry and the exposure of their practices they cannot control the media as they used to. Several
court cases have ensured that but what they do now is provide their own disinformation service by not
accurately reporting facts only giving their slant when it benefits the liberal narrative. Colleges
and universities have become hypocritical bastions of progressive influence claiming
"diversity equity and inclusion" except when it comes to an opposing viewpoint. For example female
swimmer Riley Gaines was invited to give a talk on keeping men out of women's sports. She was the
2022 Southeastern Conference Women's Swimming and Diving Scholar Athlete of the Year and a
champion until transgender man Lea Thomas competed against the women defeating them.
As may have been expected the gender pronoun and biologically confused in the audience shouted her
down and threatened her chasing her into a hallway requiring her to seek shelter until campus police
came to her rescue. Emiritus Harvard University Law Professor Alan Dershowitz a lifelong Democrat
has been shut down and shunned by the Democrat Party for calling the progressives out for their
consistent hypocrisy regarding free speech. Dershowitz being a constitutional scholar of
the first order clearly outlined the violation of civil and constitutional rights for which
he fought to ensure being perpetrated by the progressive left-wing Marxists. His exposure
of their activities and being a logical voice of reason was not welcomed with the Marxists.
Freedom of speech only goes one way apparently. They have in their majority shut down conservative
thought and terminated and harassed conservative speakers on campuses they've shut down ideological
opponents thus violating the First Amendment. Likewise the progressive Marxists who have sided
with global terrorists had tried to shut down pro-Israeli voices even resorting to violence
resulting in the death of 69-year-old Paul Kessler in Thousand Oaks California. He was
murdered by 50-year-old Pro Palestinian Moorpark College Professor Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji on
November 5th 2023 but the media portrayed it as an "accident." The current Justice Department
has little interest in protecting the rights of conservatives only using their vast resources
to attack arrest and indict those opposed to the Biden Administration and their progressive
agenda. Thanks for watching today's episode of Forgotten History. If you
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