Tucker: Biden administration deems censorship 'applicable to private speech'
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host sounds off on Democrats' censorship push on private speech, vaccine 'misinformation'
Last March, as the first big clusters of coronavirus cases started to appear in this country, media executives in Silicon Valley coordinated with officials in Washington to determine how much the public was allowed to know about the growing epidemic that was killing them.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook emailed Tony Fauci at NIH, to assure him that Facebook users would see only Tony Fauci’s approved guidance on COVID-19. Twitter and Google effectively did the same.
Twitter and Google eliminated any post that deviated from Washington’s official line. In many cases, they censored information from front-line physicians that was both medically sound – it was the science – and potentially lifesaving. Posts about treatments for example were downplayed. They have never apologized for this, they probably never will.
Historians will assess it. They will likely record the early days of COVID-19 as a turning point in our society – an unprecedented assault on our most basic civil liberties, that somehow very few people seemed to notice when it first started happening. The usual stooges and think tank libertarians assured us at the time none of it was a big deal. Soulless multinational media monopolies censoring essential medical information? No problem. That’s how the free market works. Build your own Google if you don’t like it. Start your own NIH. And anyway, in private you can still say what you want. You’re still free. It’s not like this is North Korea. So calm down, conspiracy nut. You’re starting to sound like Alex Jones. Most of us obeyed, we dutifully calmed down, and went back to Netflix.
We shouldn’t have. Today we learned the Biden administration considers censorship is applicable to private speech as well. What you say in private, when you’re alone with your phone, you won’t be able to say or read what you want because the DNC plans to control – and apparently have the ability to control – the flow the information you receive on your phone. Nothing that questions official regime policy will reach you. According to a report in Politico – and believe it or not, we're quoting here directly:
"Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively, and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages."
We'll say that again because it’s a sentence we never thought we’d see written in English: The DNC is planning to censor any quote, "misinformation about vaccines" that you receive privately over text message. What does "misinformation" mean? It’s not the same as false information, as factually inaccurate information. Misinformation can be factually true. In fact, it very often is factually true. That’s why they’re angry about it.
Misinformation is anything the Biden administration doesn’t want you to know – including, for example, how effective the COVID vaccines actually are, and what the potential side effects from them might be from taking them.
Let’s say you’re interested in finding out that information and looked it up from the administration’s own official websites, starting with the VAERS database. You’re no longer allowed to text what you find on their database to other people in this country – the country you were born in. Your private conversations will be controlled by the DNC. Is that the picture of a free country?
Looks like we should have worried about civil liberties last year when all this started. "It’s a global health emergency. We have no choice. Things will go back to normal when it ends." But will they go back to normal? If the government can ban discussion of the drug they’re making you take, what can’t they do? And by the way, are they doing this now, expanding censorship on the conversation about the pandemic as the pandemic recedes? The COVID vaccines have been around for more than seven months. Pretty much everyone who wants a shot has had one. You can get the shot very easily – they’re free.
According to the administration, the vaccine works perfectly, so vaccinated people are protected from COVID. They’re bulletproof. They can’t get sick. That’s why they took the vaccine in the first place. So why is official Washington so angry at the people who won’t get vaccinated? How precisely do they propose a threat? It makes you think that maybe none of this is really about COVID. Maybe it’s about social control. Tony Fauci all but admitted that the other day. Here’s what he said:
Jake Tapper: I know you have been very clear that the government isn't mandating vaccines, but do you think it's generally a good idea for businesses or schools to require vaccinations? Anthony Fauci: Right. I have been of this opinion, and I remain of that opinion, that I do believe, at the local level, Jake, there should be more mandates.
"There should be more mandates." Actually, they didn’t tell us that. Do you remember hearing that when they first rolled out the vaccine, that we’re for mandates? No, they said they’re not for mandates actually – but now they are. These drugs will be mandatory, in many places they already are. If you want to get an education, for example, you need to take one. Many questions arise from this – deep questions about civil liberties and what it means to be a free country. But even on a medical level, questions arise for example: Do we know enough to make these drugs mandatory?
Just today, The Washington Post reported that the FDA is preparing to announce a new warning for the Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccine, saying it's been linked to a nerve DISORDER called GBS, which can cause paralysis and has. Millions of people in this country alone have taken the Johnson and Johnson shot, but other vaccines could be implicated, too. According to the government's own VAERS database, which tracks vaccine side effects, GBS has been reported as a potential symptom for every other COVID vaccine too. That’s not a small thing. If that sounds familiar, you must be over 40 and have a decent memory.
You may recall that in 1976, the federal government ended its mass vaccination program for influenza after several hundred people came down with GBS. People started asking questions, and very quickly, the Ford administration determined the vaccine wasn't worth the risk. But that's not happening now. People are not asking those questions because they can’t – they’re not allowed to in public. This is one of the only platforms in all of American media that can operate outside the control of tech monopolies and ask obvious questions. It’s not because we're against vaccines – we certainly are not – but because you have a right to know a lot before you take a medicine. But Tony Fauci isn't stopping the vaccines in the United States. Instead, he's accusing anyone who has questions about the vaccine of having a sinister political motivation. They must be QAnon:
Anthony Fauci: You know, Jake, it's an inexplicable pushing back on the part of some people about getting vaccinated. // I mean, we have got to put aside this ideological difference or differences thinking that somebody is forcing you to do something. // I really don't have a good explanation, Jake, about why this is happening. I mean, it's ideological rigidity, I think. There's no reason not to get vaccinated. Why are we having red states and places in the South that are very highly ideological in one way not wanting to get vaccinations?
So Fauci on the one hand says this should be mandatory and then moments later says for some reason people think we are forcing this on them – and that’s "inexplicable." They must be right-wingers. You think if you were interviewing them you’d say, "Wait a second, didn’t you just say it should be mandated? Maybe that’s why they think it’s mandated because you said it was."
But Fauci’s claim the resistance to the vaccine is somehow political is a bad-faith attack posing as science. In fact, it has been the Democratic Party, very much Anthony Fauci’s party, that has engaged in partisan discussion about the vaccine from the very first day. Less than a year ago, in September 2020, Kamala Harris announced that the coronavirus vaccine might be dangerous. Why? Because Donald Trump oversaw its development, she said, "is going to be an issue for all of us." Really? No longer an issue because Kamala Harris is in charge. So now that she’s in charge anyone asking obvious questions, even nonpartisan questions, must be a White supremacist. Here’s Dick Durbin of Illinois doing his best today to divide the country further along partisan lines, because that helps him, and tar anyone who wants more information about a specific drug as a lunatic who is against all vaccines:
Dick Durbin: There are two hosts of programs on Fox Primetime that can only be characterized as anti-vax quacks. I’m referring of course to Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. They have been spreading what I consider to be irresponsible information about vaccines across America and about effort of this nation to deal with them.
Spreading irresponsible information. Notice Durbin doesn’t accuse us of spreading false information. He did not accuse us of being factually wrong. We haven’t been. Nor are we against vaccines. Few Americans are against vaccines. Virtually every American has had a ton of vaccines and was expecting to take this one. But when you refuse to answer basic questions about the vaccine and when you dodge them with partisan talking points like that, you make people nervous, Americans have the right to have basic questions answered before taking a medicine, that is their right. But Durbin, and hacks like Fauci, persist in pretending that any resistance to mass vaccination is somehow partisan. That's a lie – it’s a provable lie. Take a look at numbers from the government's own accounting. It turns out that it's African-Americans – the Democratic Party’s most faithful voters – who are still the most hesitant to getting vaccinated. It’s not an attack, just an observation.
According to the CDC, from the period of Dec. 14, 2020, to July 12, 2021, a total of 26.2% of African Americans have gotten one dose of a COVID vaccine. Only 23.7% of African Americans are "fully vaccinated."
Those are the lowest number of any racial or ethnic group that the CDC tracks, by a significant margin. We don’t judge anybody for taking or refusing to take the vaccine. Medical choices are by definition personal choices. They are not choices that politicians get to make for you. You should never be forced to take medicine you don’t want, period. That used to be a common observation. In fact, many people like Dick Durbin, who are attacking anyone who has questions as partisan or racist, are the very same people who told us for decades that they were very upset about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments and they were right to be upset about those experiments, Now they’re telling you that anyone who resists mandatory vaccination is a White supremacist – this is the talking point of the moment. You know that because it was on MSNBC from their in-house doctor:
Dr. Chris Pernell: I don’t have any tolerance for the anti-vaxxer movement. And I don’t have any tolerance for politicians who befriend, who cozy up to, or become allies of that movement. I actually see that as another example of the proliferation of White supremacy. Because in particular, they are targeting communities of color, and they are targeting the historical injustices, the atrocities, that communities of color have experienced, as a way to play on their vulnerabilities.
Imagine someone who would say something so provably untrue, factually untrue, so irresponsible and so divisive having a medical license in this country. That person does. Something is very wrong with our system. She’s claiming African Americans aren't taking the vaccine because White supremacists have asked questions about the vaccine. That's lunacy, of course. A reporter at CNN recently spoke to someone else who offered another explanation for it. It turns out there are people out there maybe because of doctors you just saw who no longer believe the medical experts on cable news anymore:
Amara Walker, CNN correspondent: Do you plan to get vaccinated? Destiny Britt: No time soon. WALKER (voice-over): Twenty-one-year-old Destiny Britt says she's given the COVID-19 vaccine a lot of thought. BRITT: Don't take it as being rebellious. Listen to and understand and be compassionate and sympathize of the history of black people, black and brown people, and the medical industry. WALKER (voice-over): The Atlanta native is skeptical of the vaccines thanks in large part due to the legacy of the unethical Tuskegee study in which Black men with syphilis were deliberately not treated // BRITT: And the more that it's a push for me to go get vaccinated, it makes me not want it even more.
"The more that it's a push for me to go get vaccinated, it makes me not want it even more." And of course, that makes sense. If the vaccine is so great wouldn’t it sell itself? There would be no reason to force people to take it.
But people are being forced to take it. The people who are trying to force us are the ones who lectured of for decades about "my body my choice"—they are leading the way. The levels of irony here are exhaustible.
The former head of Planned Parenthood, who is a truly irresponsible person called Lena Wen, just went on television to explain how to force millions of Americans to take the drug. It's easy, she said. Just make their lives as miserable as possible until they comply:
CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Lena Wen: It needs to be hard for people to remain unvaccinated. Right now, it’s kind of the opposite. It’s fine. It’s easy if you’re unvaccinated. You can do anything you want to do anyway. At some point, these mandates by workplaces, by schools, I think it will be important to say, hey, if you want to opt out, but if you have to sign these forms, get twice-weekly testing. Basically, we want to make getting vaccinated the easy choice. That is what it’s going to take for us to actually end the pandemic.
You wonder the damage this is doing to the credibility of the medical establishment. Most Americans grew up believing in science, believing their doctors, they had every reason to, we led the world in science. Our health care was the best in the world – expensive, granted – but very effective and the outcomes were remarkable compared to any other place on the planet. That was a system – like all systems – that worked on trust. You trusted what the medical authorities said. But when they start talking like that, when they start making claims that have no logic, no clear medical justification, they’re just transparently political – in that case clearly illegal – when they start talking about punishing Americans who don’t want to do their will, follow instructions they refuse to explain, policies that will not account for using data, instead they throw talking points at you and bumper stickers and attacking you as immoral – who’s going to believe them ever again? The damage they are doing to our system is profound. And you think people on the other side would stand up for Americans – the Republican Party anyone? Some are, most aren’t.
And mediocrities like Asa Hutchinson, who pretends to be governor of Arkansas, are in fact joining in and promoting it. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois, just demanded that every American take the coronavirus vaccine on national television:
Adam Kinzinger: This is outrage politics that’s being played by my party and it’s going to get Americans killed. Our party has been hijacked, my party has been hijacked. It is on its way to the ground and for some people it’s a fun ride but this plane is going to crash into the ground. (edit) I call on Leader McCarthy. I call on every leader in the Republican party to stand up, say 'get vaccinated,' and to call out these garbage politicians, these absolute clown politicians playing on your vaccine fears for their own selfish gain.
Adam Kinzinger, in his defense, has a low IQ and cannot be held fully responsible for most of the things he said. But neither he nor anyone else who is making that case has answered a very simple question: why should people who’ve recovered from COVID-19, and there are millions in this country who are immune to the virus, why should they be forced to get the vaccine? What’s the answer? What’s the harm rate from the vaccine? Why can’t we ask? What’s the answer? When you attack people rather than answer their questions they don’t trust you anymore and they don’t trust the drugs you say they must take and that’s a shame. We’re not attacking the vaccine, never have. We don’t judge anyone who takes it and we never will. We judge people like that.
And where are the Republicans when they learned the Biden administration decided they can police your text messages? That the DNC is in charge of what you text to other Americans? There is almost no resistance to it in Washington. That means it's likely going to get worse.
And for people who are working in the United States military, who must obey, it’s going to get much worse. It's clear now that the military is going to expel anyone who doesn’t get the shot.
The Department of the Army headquarters just announced an executive order to make the vaccine mandatory by Sept. 1. It's the first time since the Army forced soldiers to take a vaccine since the anthrax vaccine – a decision that killed and injured several soldiers. One naval officer explained how he's being coerced.
Quote: "I'm a naval officer who's spent the last 15 years on active duty. I'm now potentially facing forcible discharge if I won't submit to taking the COVID vaccine. ... I've spoken to two command chaplains regarding religious exemption (I'm a Christian abortion abolitionist and cells from aborted children were used in the vaccines' development), and am told exemptions won't likely be granted. So, my choices are vaccination and forcible discharge."
There's no scientific basis for this. In the thread, the naval officer lays out the data to prove how unnecessary this is. The numbers are straight from the Department of Defense's website.
Quote: "202,567 active duty service members have had COVID, of whom 26 have died. [That's] better than a 99.987 percent survival rate."
Those are the numbers, no one’s disputing them. Not Adam Kinzinger or Dick Durbin. No one disputes the number so what’s the answer? There is no answer. The government is purging the military, and spying on its own citizens, because of a virus that isn't killing very many people anymore. And keep in mind: vaccination isn’t like voting. They don’t trust you to do it yourself at home and mail in the results. They’re keeping track. How East German is this country becoming? The FBI just announced in a tweet that it's encouraging Americans to snitch on family members who exhibit signs of "extremism." The federal government – the Biden administration – is encouraging your family to snitch on each other. Does extremism apply to people who have questions about the vaccine? Of course, it does.
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In March, the FBI put out an official bulletin announcing they'd be cracking down on fake vaccine cards. Since then, undercover agents all over the country have been arresting people for distributing unapproved vaccine documents bearing an official government logo. They just conducted a sting operation that nabbed the owner of the Old Corner Saloon in the small town of Clements, California, for example. What's interesting is that the FBI hasn't put out any bulletin on illegal immigrants using fake driver's licenses or Social Security cards lately – that’s endemic, that’s everywhere. They haven't shut down any businesses or harassed any California bar owners for hiring illegal immigrants at a time of mass unemployment. Why haven’t they done that?
You know the answer. The people running the government have one standard for enforcing the law for people who agree with them, and a different one for those who don't agree with them. That is third world. Now those same people just gave themselves the power to read and censor your text messages. We got to resist this, you can’t let this continue. Or else you’re going to wake up in a very different place from the place you were born.
This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the July 12, 2021, edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
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