MRC Vice President Dan Schneider says the “tide has turned” against government-funded censorship.
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider and The Federalist’s Ben Weingarten went on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight on Monday to discuss how the federal government outsourced anti-free speech operations to private entities, including biased ratings firm NewsGuard, through grants. As this censorship funding is expected to soon be cut from spending legislation by House Republicans, Schneider predicted, “This is the beginning of the end of that Biden censorship effort.”
Schmitt asked Schneider about the government’s funding of the biased and secretive blacklister Global Disinformation Index (GDI) “to silence conservative speech.” Even Democrats are willing to defund this anti-free speech nonsense, Schmitt suggested. But Schneider offered a different perspective. “The Democrats are doing the bare minimum. They are fighting tooth and nail, hammer and tong, to try and keep all that funding in there,” he said.
Schneider discussed the State Department program that funded GDI. “The State Department Global Engagement Center … was doing these censorship programs. They agreed to stop funding them, but they did not claw back any of the money.” So Schneider suggested reform. “What we need to be doing now is actually clawing back illegally spent money.”
Weingarten also slammed the federal government for funding these “left-wing speech assassins.” Not mincing words, he added, “The federal government should not be using our tax dollars to silence ourselves. And so there should be amendments just like this included in every funding bill.”
Schneider also praised House Speaker Mike Johnson who he said “fought hard to stop the Biden censorship regime.” He added that "this is the beginning of the end of that Biden censorship effort." While the war is not over, free speech advocates can have hope. As Schneider put it, “We’ve got a long fight in front of us, but we’re beginning to win. The tide has turned.”
Weingarten agreed with Schneider but also added that it might take “Supreme Court action to change” the federal censorship activities. He cited the landmark Missouri v. Biden case going to the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited exclusive MRC research based on CensorTrack.org data. “That’s the next phase: defund, dismantle and criminal penalties for those who violate our most sacred rights,” Weingarten added, referring to proposed legislative solutions.
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