Censorship at the censorship hearing: Government weaponization continues in full sight
The Dems, seeing a 10 to 8 advantage in the room, vote to censor Kennedy on the basis of his speech to the chamber, preventing him from giving his prepared testimony
A recess was called for 45 minutes and the hearing will reconvene at 11 am. I am taking this opportunity to write about what transpired in the first 80 minutes.
Stacey Plaskett (the ranking D member and recently-unearthed Jeffrey Epstein associate who is famous for her interruptions and tirades) claimed the following about RFK even before he uttered a word, claiming he was racist and antisemitic.
His used “vile sorts of speech,”and “lies about vaccines,”
“Freedom of speech is not absolute”
And she ended her nasty harangue by calling for the house to “be better than the witnesses. stop the divisiveness !!!”
RFK Jr. was the first witness. He spoke extemporaneously, asking to give his prepared testimony afterward. I tried to jot down the main points.
He said that 102 Dem. members wrote a letter to the Subcommittee in an attempt to censor this censorship hearing! He pointed out that the First Amendment was not written for easy speech, but for difficult speech. Bobby said he was censored by the Trump admin as well as the Biden admin. He never was attacked for misinformation (which was inaccurate speech) but for malinformation: a newly invented word that stood for ‘inconvenient truths.’
Now he is being subjected to a new form of censorship, targeted attacks: accusations of anti-semitism and racism, which are applied to me to silence me because they don’t want to have the conversations about the cost of living or the war in Ukraine. The tactics being used against me —we thought they were finished after the Army-McCarthy hearings (in 1954).
The toxic polarization that is destroying our country today—how do we deal with that? Do you think you can do that by censoring people? We need to start being kind and respectful to each other, restoring the comity.
My uncle Ted Kennedy has more legislation with his name on it than any Senator in this country. Why? Because he reached across the aisle. He was effective because he understood that kindness, respect and compassion were important in this chamber.
If you think I said something that was antisemitic, let’s talk about what I said. Yet this letter is attempting to marginalize, gaslight and destroy, not talk together.
Plaskett is very unhappy So unhappy she wants to move into executive session as if she has been defamed. What a snake. She demands a point of order to censor/stop Kennedy from giving his prepared statement.
Someone has counted the members who are present at the hearing and realized the D’s have a majority. A vote is called regarding whether to stop Kennedy from proceeding, and the Dems win the vote, 10 to 8. Kennedy is stopped from giving his prepared speech.
Will it be censored from the published record as well? Do the Dems realize they have just given themselves a very black eye by censoring a presidential candidate, and to top it off he is from their own party?
Ms. Wiley is a witness for the Dems, who was recently added to the 3 Repub-chosen witnesses. I understand later that she is there as a foil for Plaskett, demanding censorship (or something) to protect people, becasue there are killers out there.
Did you know that Mary Poppins/Nina Jankowicz (aka the 34 year old brief head of the Disinformation Governing Board before an outcry led to its cancellation) claims to have received thousands of death threats? Apparently censorship would protect people like her. Or something. She wanted to fight dirty, but she got some blowback. This admin always sends in women (preferably black) for the dirtiest jobs.
It is so disconcerting that 2 black (women lawyers) are being put forth to speak out against free speech, using straw man arguments. They are both excellent extemporaneous speakers. I wish they were working as litigators to help the disempowered whom they claim to represent. Wiley also claims to be in favor of facts and courtesy, as Bobby said earlier.
Plaskett just lost her black audience when she called the COVID death weapons “safe vaccines” and she indicates that Bobby, when warning black families of the danger of the vaccines for their children, was trying to harm them (implying he wanted the vaccines for white people) while at the same time claiming he is anti-vax. She is never troubled by consistency or logic.
Now Ms. Wiley and Ms. Plaskett are going back and forth to try and paint Bobby as racist, because he tried to discourage people from getting a vaccine. Slavery and Tuskegee are given prominent places in the discussion.
I’d like to remind them that it was the Public Health Service of the federal government that conducted the Tuskegee trial for decades—withholding penicillin from mostly black sharecroppers and others after it became available, to chronicle the horrible sequelae of the disease.
Rep Massey then spoke: “The Irony and cognitive dissonance from the other side of the aisle is astounding. They deny censorship is happening then suggest more of it should happen. They have kept Bobby from speaking.”
Kennedy responds to the defamatory statements made by Plaskett. Virtually every statement she made about him is inaccurate. My views are misrepresented so I cannot have a conversation about them with the American people. I think vaccines should be tested like other drugs. The ‘replacement theory’ raised by Plaskett is racist and he never supported it or had anything to do with it. It was Teddy Kennedy who held hearings to finally end the Tuskeegee experiment.
Plaskett keeps interrupting and interrupts to say she is not censoring him.
Bobby says that malinformatin was invented to stop true info that challenges current orthodoxies. His Hank Aaron post was taken down, as was his 900,000 follower instagram account, not for anything he said that was inaccurate. The Center for Countering Digital Hate called for the censorship of the so-designated by them “Dirty Dozen” of which he is a member. Yet this is a dark money organization.
Then there was a recess for 45 minutes.
In Love, in Life - we send Energy to dearest warrior: Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Great reporting--thank you!