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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, and S. T. Karnick present episode 461 of the In The Tank Podcast. The concept of free speech is once again under assault. The Europe Union's Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote an open letter to X CEO Elon Musk warning him to stop the "amplification of harmful content." Meanwhile, authorities in the UK have been cracking down on so-called "hate speech" on social media, even going as far as threatening American citizens of extradition over supposed incitement of violence. Are any of these restrictions justifiable? Should free speech be absolute? The In The Tank crew discusses these topics and more.
PRIMARY TOPIC - FREE SPEECH UNDER ASSAULT
CNBC - EU warns Elon Musk ahead of Trump interview to keep hate speech off X
Politico - EU’s Breton warns Musk on hate speech ahead of Trump interview; receives profane response
The Guardian - Two men jailed for social media posts that stirred up far-right violence
NYP - UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail US citizens over online posts: ‘We’ll come after you’
Reason - VP Candidate Tim Walz on "There's No Guarantee to Free Speech on Misinformation or Hate Speech, and Especially Around Our Democracy"
The Conversation - Americans love free speech, survey finds − until they realize everyone else has it, too
Creators & Guests
Host
Donald Kendal
Donald Kendal hosts podcasts In The Tank and Stopping Socialism for The Heartland Institute.
Host
What is Heartland Daily Podcast?
The “fire hose” of all podcasts produced by The Heartland Institute, a national free-market think tank.
And we are live, ladies and gentlemen. The concept of free speech is once again under assault. The European Union's digital commissioner, Terry Brenton, wrote an open letter to ex CEO Elon Musk warning him to stop the amplification of harmful content. Meanwhile, authorities in the UK have been cracking down on so called hate speech on social media, even going as far as threatening American citizens of extradition over supposed incitement of violence. Are any of these restrictions justifiable?
Donald Kendal:Should free speech be absolute? We are gonna be talking about all of this and more on episode 461 of the in the
S. T. Karnick:tank podcast.
Protestor:I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?
Donald Kendal:Oh, god. Help us all, everyone. Welcome to the In The Tank podcast. As always, I'm your host, Donald Kendall. And joining me today, we've got Jim Lakeley, VP of the Heartland Institute.
Donald Kendal:How are you doing today, good sir?
Jim Lakely:I'm I'm doing alright. Let me unmute. Classic Jim, I know. Yeah. I'm doing okay.
Jim Lakely:But to be honest, I am feeling a bit off, like, I'm not quite myself. But I am seeing things from a whole new perspective, that's for certain. You know how in the Matrix, Neo takes the red pill? Or is it the red pill or is it the blue pill? I think it's the red pill.
Jim Lakely:And he wakes up from the Matrix. Well, that's not me. I feel like Cypher. I love the Matrix. It is comforting.
Jim Lakely:It has juicy and delicious steaks. I want back in there. I want to go back to the Matrix. In fact, I think I am in there now. Is that weird?
Donald Kendal:Jim, did you change shirts just real quickly there? Yeah.
Jim Lakely:Much like a Taylor Swift concert, I have many wardrobe changes for the In The Tank podcast. So, yeah, we were trying to make a little bit of a gag. It's I think it still works pretty well. But, yeah, I mean, AI is just getting so advanced. I mean, I I used a a program that is not expensive and, pretty fun, and I gave it a 22nd clip of my voice from this show.
Protestor:Mhmm.
Jim Lakely:And, it cloned my voice, and you could just type in any text, and it'll say whatever you want. I thought it was pretty amazing and also kinda scary. So and as we're talking about Elon Musk, he's got Grok 2 point o coming out. That's his AI, service, and it's, everything is advancing so fast. The the world is becoming a little bit crazy, and maybe we are in the matrix and just don't know it.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. You know, well, I'll get back to the AI thing, but I also want to introduce Sam Karnick, director of publications here at the Heartland Institute. How are you doing today, good sir?
S. T. Karnick:Doing just fine, Donald. How are you?
Donald Kendal:Wonderful. Wonderful. So I'm
S. T. Karnick:all ready I'm all ready to provide a whole bunch of misinformation, disinformation, also known as truth.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. And we're not a 100% sure whether or not that is the AI version of Sam Karnick that's joining us, but, I don't know. I guess we'll be able maybe we'll be able to figure that out by the end of the episode. But, so Justin, not on the show today, but, and I I I was gonna actually ask him if I could talk about this, but I'll just talk about it in a less detailed version. But he was reached out to by a person that is the head of a, startup, like an AI startup, and they approached Justin, with this idea of what their what their AI startup is.
Donald Kendal:It's basically trying to create AI replicas of experts, whether it's experts in different fields, scientists, policy experts, that sort of thing. And their idea is that they wanna make AI replicas of these, these experts and so that people can, you know, converse with these AI replicas, you know, 247, you know, you know, times a million or whatever. Right? So they they apparently not only do they do, like, the sound thing to make it sound like the person, but they have it they have it run through all of their written stuff, any videos that they've ever done, and, create, like, an advanced algorithm that mimics, like I said, not only their their voice and everything, but just, like, their opinions and the way they talk about stuff. Also, a hyper realistic, apparently, video version of of that expert.
Donald Kendal:And they approached Justin wanting to make an AI replica of him, and I encouraged him to do it. I don't know where that conversation currently stands, but it's very possible that maybe next episode or a couple episodes from now, Justin will be joining us, and he won't necessarily know if it's the real Juster or the AI version of it. So so like Jim said, echoing what Jim said, this technology is moving very quickly. I mean, some of this existed several months ago, but it's it's also getting a little bit more, available to just, like, the general public. Like Jim said, the the program that he's using is very cost effective and pretty good.
Donald Kendal:The the clip that you showed there was a little stunted in the kind of the way that it was talking, but there was another video that you showed me introducing me to the fact that you kind of are playing with this, where it was, like, it was almost, like, 5 times better. It was very naturalistic sounding except for in certain parts. But, you know, again, any any shortcomings of this technology will be probably rectified, you know, before we could even before we could even close out the year.
Jim Lakely:Well well, instead of just you know, because you had the option of, it was a program called Speechify. So I actually did separately. I I did the audio on Speechify, and you can speak into a microphone for 20 seconds and say something or read something for them and and they can do it, or you can upload a clip. So I decided, since I go and and I speak more naturally on the podcast than I would reading some text, I grab 20 seconds of the last podcast and put it in there. And if you listen to the, you know, the playback of your AI clone voice, it does things like emphasize a different word and have the end of the sentence sound like, you know, a more natural end of the sentence like that.
Jim Lakely:It was it it put an it put an and an in where I didn't have one. In Yeah. I did my I typed in what I wanted it to say. It's amazing. It's amazing how this how, how far advances this.
Jim Lakely:Guys, literally a year ago or maybe, like, definitely 2 years ago, none of us could even conceive of this. And here it is, where it is so good. I mean, Andy has, loves fooling around with AI stuff of all sorts of different guys, and they're our producer in the background. Hey. I told Mike.
Jim Lakely:You know, we've had drops of of fake Joe Biden saying stuff, you know, that is pretty funny, and it's obvious that it's fake. You know, we're not trying to, you know, pull pull anything over anyone's eyes. We're just trying to have a little bit of fun. But he did that. I think the last time, Andy, you pulled that was, I think when you did those little gags, it was about a year ago maybe.
Jim Lakely:And now 2 years ago even. And so now, I mean, things are just so much better. And now video is just getting, ridiculous, that where you can put you can impose your own face
Donald Kendal:Mhmm.
Jim Lakely:On something. It's just so you know? Is it irrelevant to bring up maybe as a as a fun topic since we're talking about free speech and the pushback against so called misinformation and disinformation? And satire has a place in a free piece free speech discussion, and, you know, a lot of people, especially on x, are just having fun, you know, doing goofy stuff with AI. But, you know, there is a danger, I think, in the future where people will not really be able to tell the difference.
Jim Lakely:I mean, you could tell the difference in that little little bit we played in the beginning, I hope. But, it's gonna be harder and harder to tell the difference very, very soon.
Donald Kendal:Oh, yeah. There's definitely gonna be some policy issues related to this if there isn't already. I mean, we've talked about deep fakes on this podcast before and how they're kind of getting into the election cycle. We've talked about, who was the guy that ran against, the mayoral race in Chicago, ran against the Brandon Johnson. He was like a little bit more of a conservative type at least as far as Chicago goes.
Donald Kendal:You know, I'm talking about? Yes.
S. T. Karnick:I can't remember the name.
Jim Lakely:I can't remember the name. He's a white dude. I can't remember him, though.
Donald Kendal:But, but, yeah, there was some deep fake, you know, voice generation stuff that was going on around there, making it seem like he was, like, basically, like, saying that, like, oh, yeah. Back in the day, police could shoot a whole bunch of unarmed people or whatever. And then that that fake audio was shared 200,000 times or something crazy like that in just the span of a couple of days right before the election, before it was pulled off of social media for being fake. But it's like, you know, how much damage did that do for that, that guy's I wanna say JD Vance, but that's not his name, obviously. But, how much damage did that do to his campaign right into the lead up of the election?
Donald Kendal:I've done a ton of research on this, and, like, there was a I originally heard it from the World Economic Forum, but there was this, this claim that there was more people going to the ballot box over the next 18 months, than any time in the worldwide history or something like that. So I got into the habit of just seeing what elections were coming, whether it was, like, Indonesia or, I don't know, something else. And I would just Google, like, Mexico. I would just Google Mexico deep fake election, and something would pop up for every single one of these countries. People, bad actors, whatever these campaigns were messing around with deep fakes to, bludgeon their political opponents.
Donald Kendal:So this is especially as the technology continues to advance. This is gonna continue to be a kind of a big issue, and I I don't exactly know where we'll all kind of fall out when it comes the to the policy prescriptions of trying to push back against some of this stuff, but it's gonna be interesting. But I guess, as of now, I could just warn all of you to you can't even more than ever, you can't even believe your own ears or trust your own eyes, and you have to verify and triple check basically everything at this point.
Jim Lakely:Do you know what would be do you know what would be extremely valuable at a time like this? A corporate mainstream media that you could trust to tell the truth. Unfortunately, we have a media that does absolutely nothing else but lie to you all the time. So this is a confluence of some very bad things called coming together.
Donald Kendal:Mhmm. Yeah.
S. T. Karnick:This is, that's an important point, Jim. And I was thinking about that too, that the decline of trust of the media has been precipitous throughout the century. And it's interesting that I think people probably have a little more trust of social media in the sense that an online media in the sense that, well, they know that this is slanted. And wherever you go, you you kind of have to discount what you're what you're seeing and and take care. So you you you go to your, the particular websites that you like to visit and you say, well, okay, that's what they said.
S. T. Karnick:I wonder how much of that is true. Maybe 80%, maybe 50%, maybe 20%. But the bottom line is that there was, right from the beginning with the sort of lower professional standards of social media and online media in a lot of cases, there is more skepticism on the part of the the person who is, viewing or listening to that material. Whereas, the trust toward the major media, the the old fashioned media, was much higher. They blew it by taking advantage of that, by using that trust or in abusing that trust, really, by making statements that were just obviously slanted, in many cases, false.
S. T. Karnick:And, a perfect example would be the the repeated claims that the Hunter Biden laptop was fake and that it was Russian disinformation. The they didn't know that. And in fact, the evidence was clear that it that it was authentic, but they repeatedly stated that. And I I believe that that was a very much of a turning point in the whole process. So I think it was, in fact, the end of any trust of the mainstream old media.
S. T. Karnick:So the old media have now become much like the new media in that regard, that people trust them less really. Don't trust them at all. You have to figure out whether whether you're going to believe any particular thing you run across there. That can be a good thing.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm just, like, less trusting than most. But, like, anything that I come across, I feel like I have to double check it, triple check it. People send me stuff all the time, and I'm just like I always look at it like, alright.
Donald Kendal:I'll look into it, but I'm not sure. Like, even if it's like something completely believable, I'm like, I gotta look into it a little bit further. And that's actually there's an example of that, that we'll talk about a little bit later, but we do have a lot to talk about, so I want to jump into some of these topics. A lot of the topics that we have, most of them, I think, you could argue are kind of free speech centric. The first one I want to talk about is in regards to Elon Musk and and x, formerly Twitter, of course, and that is this this just kind of transpired, I think, over this past weekend because Elon Musk invited Donald Trump on for an interview.
Donald Kendal:I think it was, like, an hour and a half long interview or something like that on Monday of this week. Correct me if I'm wrong here, gentlemen. And prior to the prior to the, interview, the European commissioner, Terry Breton, who is from the European Union, he sent a letter to Elon Musk, an open letter to Elon Musk, essentially threatening him, about misinformation and allowing hate speech and misinformation on his website, invoking the what is it called? The, it's called DSA. It's a specific law that was passed in the European Union.
Donald Kendal:I can't find it in the article right now. But it was basically saying that, you know, with a large audience comes a larger sense of responsibility and that, that there would be punishments essentially that they would wield all the entire toolbox against Elon Musk if he allowed for x to, host misinformation and and hate speech and all of that sort of stuff. And Elon Musk responded as you would expect Elon Musk. He basically told this guy to bugger off in so many words. I don't think I could use the exact quote of the meme that he responded with, but this is the world that we're now in.
Donald Kendal:I mean, we've talked about Twitter and social media a ton and how they're intended to be kind of the new public square where free and open dialogue is allowed, all of that sort of stuff. And Elon Musk, that was the reason why he took over Twitter was to ensure that that was the case and that we wouldn't be constructing these arbitrary, restrictions on content that, you know, as as we've talked about numerous times, seems to be slanted against conservative speech and all of that. So this is where we're at now, where the public square is being threatened by sitting bureaucrats, politicians, or whatever in, you know, Europe to basically say, like, no. You can't allow this sort of speech or else we're gonna or we're gonna punish you. So, Jim, I mean, I don't know.
Donald Kendal:I'll I'll let you take first swing at this. I I don't think it was a surprise how Elon Musk responded, telling this guy to jog on. But, but, you know, if Jack Dorsey was still in control of the platform, I mean, how do you think he would respond? I I almost feel like he'd say, oh, yeah. Of course.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. We'll do whatever you say. What do you think?
Jim Lakely:Well, you know, when the European when European bureaucrats are trying to dictate global speech and especially speech in the United States and saying that because x is available, on the continent or in the United Kingdom, that we are going to enforce our totalitarian speech laws to shut you up, based on nebulous definitions of so called misinformation or disinformation. I think the United States response it would be if Trump was president. The United States response would would be, okay, then we're pulling out of NATO. You guys are on your own. Good luck with Putin.
Jim Lakely:Because for the entire lifetimes of everybody listening to this podcast with the exception of people maybe near 90 years old, but them as well. The United States has been the the first guarantor of freedom and free and free speech and, all across the globe. We we saved World War 2 from Hitler's tyranny. We saved Europe from Soviet domination, which would have been the destruction of Western civilization entirely, except for United States on this planet. And what do we get for it now?
Jim Lakely:You know, what 60 years on, 70 years on from the end of World War 2, we get some lickspittle, unimpressive bureaucrat in the in Europe saying that, you guys can't say what you want over here. We have laws on that stuff, you know, for misinformation and disinformation. And so the suppression of free speech increasingly in the West, and we're gonna have some examples from the UK, some video that we can show. But, you know, people are being arrested in the UK right now for Facebook posts that the government says is this is harmful disinformation. 161 year old man, at a protest against unchecked immigration from societies that do not embrace the western ideal of freedom in the United Kingdom, 61 year old man, was was at a was at a rally, and it got a little there's a little pushing and shoving and stuff, but he's 61 years old.
Jim Lakely:He wasn't really getting into fisticuffs, but he shouted in the face of a police officer, and he was arrested. And this happened, like, a week ago. He was arrested, tried, and convicted, and sentenced to 18 months in prison in, like, no time flat. China would be impressed with that sort of crackdown on free expression, and and and they're thinking, you know, the idea that the United Kingdom is all but all but learned from the Tiananmen Square massacre doing everything except for slaughtering their own people for expressing themselves, is almost unthinkable even just a few years ago. The thing is that the reason why this is really dangerous is that, you know, if you don't allow free speech, you are disenfranchising enormous swathes of people.
Jim Lakely:And usually, it's everyone on the right and increasingly, it's anybody, not employed by the corrupt leftist media these days. But, you know, when you disenfranchise enormous swathes of people, then you end up with getting direct action on the streets, as the left likes to romanticize it. You get violence, You get j 6. So, you know, even putting aside the natural right of free speech, free speech cools political and social tensions. It's it it calms them.
Jim Lakely:It can satisfy, the frustration that the disempowered, among us, which is basically especially the people are really disempowered, especially in places like Europe. But when you squelch that speech, you don't just stop people from thinking what they think. You just turn up the boil. And, you know, it's it's it's one thing to speak, and then have that speech countered with more speech. Right?
Jim Lakely:That's the way it's supposed to be in a in a free speech society. But even if you speak, you can be ignored. That comes with the territory. You know, the the whole idea that we used to say, those of us who are old, don't remember, hey. It's a free country, man.
Jim Lakely:You can say what you want. We don't live in that world anymore, obviously. But when you speak and you are not ignored by the government, when you are identified and actively silenced and then jailed, that leads that can lead to will lead to inevitably a breakdown, a complete breakdown of the social and political order. And that's when the real big trouble starts. And it's not just in Europe.
Jim Lakely:We saw this happen, if you guys remember, in Canada, people protesting, the COVID lockdowns. They were they were tracked down. They were, arrested. They had their businesses ruined. They had their assets seized, their bank accounts frozen.
Jim Lakely:I mean, what the hell is going on in the west? And what's going on is that the long march of the institutions has now finally reached the top. There is a there is a a tipping point, if you will, of people who are against freedom, who are totalitarian at heart and in their philosophy, who have now sufficiently infiltrated almost all the levers of power in all of the west. This is a pretty scary time. This is something you take very seriously.
Jim Lakely:And, there are people on the streets of the United Kingdom who are, who are trying to protest this right now, and they're getting cracked down on, like like, they live in a totalitarian society for do for putting things on Facebook, for saying things, for retweeting stuff. They have the cops come at them, and they do it with glee. I I know Sam must feel the same, but I do not recognize our societies anymore. And we don't live in the world that we we grew up to to respect and thought we would always be able to protect because it seems like it's slipping away more and more every single day.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I wanna I wanna get into the UK stuff in a little bit specifically, because there's just some crazy stories out of the UK with all the crackdowns on the social media posts and all of that. But, Sam, I wanna stick with Twitter for a little bit because it's kind of strange to me that these other countries or the European Union as a, whatever, multinational government trying to, like, enforce their regulations on what is, like, a global platform. Right? Twitter is used by people all over the world.
Donald Kendal:And and I wonder, like, there's gotta be, like, some precedent for this. I mean, I can't imagine that prior to, like, the advent of the Internet that there was considering that, like, I think the New York Times was probably just selling newspapers, you know, in the United States or something like that. But once the, you know, the the worldwide web went worldwide, you know, different countries started to restrict certain content coming into their countries, usually a little bit more heavy handed. China comes to mind. I know that they have, like, a censored version of the Internet.
Donald Kendal:I think Twitter in total is banned, on, in the entire country. So, I mean, what what is the what is the precedent for, like, a a country trying to mandate their own personal regulations on a company that's headquartered in a different country and has an audience that's worldwide. Do you have any insight into that?
S. T. Karnick:Well, it's interesting because, first of all, there is no tradition in Europe of freedom of speech. It's not like the United States where they say the the the national government simply can does not have the authority to to do anything about this stuff. And so in Europe, I think what we've seen from, from Europe right now, especially in regard to to Musk and and Trump, is just a reflex action. They're used to being able to shut down people and shut them up, and if need be, put them in prison. As Jim said, it's it it leads to more social unrest.
S. T. Karnick:And if you look at Europe over the centuries, there have been a few wars over there at times, some of which we ended up involved in. And so what you see is that that that attempt to to suppress any kind of dissent that goes beyond a certain level or beyond a certain point. If you dissent and and say that, well, we it's immigration. Oh, it's great, but then that's okay. But if you say that the whole system is bad, then that's disinformation and it's it's prejudice and it's simply unacceptable.
S. T. Karnick:So the problem that you have is that once the doors are open, then the words can go through there because people can hear what other people say. So you have an Internet and you and you say, well, we do really want to have the Internet in Europe, but we want to be able to limit the destruction that freedom of speech can do because that's our thing. We limit the destruction that freedom of speech does because speech is destructive. So when you operate from that premise, then you say, well, if you if you do this, if you, spread disinformation or misinformation, then what we'll do is we'll fine you. So they've been doing that, and it doesn't do any it doesn't have any effect.
S. T. Karnick:And then they say, well, if you are running a platform that allows people to do this, we're going to fine you. So they so they broaden it. Then they say, look, you're if if you're doing this, then you're leading to deaths over here in Europe. People are being killed because of you. And so therefore, you are responsible.
S. T. Karnick:You did that. You you contributed to this killing. You wouldn't say the same thing about, say, people who who call a poll an American politician a an existential threat. You wouldn't say that about them, but you would say that about somebody who said immigration is too high. We have we have migrants over here who are committing incredible amounts of rape in in Britain.
S. T. Karnick:The the Rotherham situation was just a small part of what's been going on in Britain. And so we we have these incredible rapes that are occurring again and again again. We have all kinds of violence that is simply being covered up by the by the mass media. And so when this comes in from the United States, what it does is it creates a backlash in Europe where people say, wait, wait, this isn't what we voted for. This isn't what we want.
S. T. Karnick:We need to do something about this. And when the the government's choice is that, no, we're not going to do anything about this and you need to shut up about it. They can't make them do that. They can't make them shut up as long as Twitter exists. So they have to go as far as they can against the owners and the the perpetrators of these despicable scams, such as Twitter, or x, where someone is as, scoundrel y as Donald Trump could just talk for an hour and a half, 2 hours.
S. T. Karnick:And nobody nobody does anything to stop this guy. And so what they do is they say, well, then we're we can extradite you. And the answer to that is, well, you can try. Now the the bottom line is, of course, they're there. They know that the so called Joe Biden administration might very well, might very well okay in extradition.
S. T. Karnick:However, I don't see how you could do it on the national level. So it'd have to be the state of Texas that would extradite Elon Musk. And, if so if Kamala Harris is elected president and they try to extradite, Elon Musk, it again, what you're do what you're doing there what you're doing then is you are importing into the United States the kind of disruption that your own governments have created. Your governments are oppressive. The people are tired of it.
S. T. Karnick:And so you say, okay, we're going to be more oppressive. And we've seen in Europe's past how that works out. And it never it never works out with just, okay, we we the government relents. No. The government is always forced to relent.
S. T. Karnick:So you bring that into the United States where you where where the the the next administration, say, tries to tell Texas, oh, you have to you have to surrender Elon Musk to us so that we can surrender him to, the UK. I'm not sure that that's going to work.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I mean, it just seems so crazy, but it's like this is kind of the world that we have to play in now. I saw on Twitter somebody, you know, with, like, a blue check mark. I know that doesn't carry as much weight as it used to, but, someone on on Twitter with a number of followers was basically advocating that they, you know, the the European Union or whatever jurisdiction, like, releases, like, an arrest warrant for, for Elon Musk because of his response to this letter to him. And in it, they had the gall to accuse Elon Musk of being the fascist.
Donald Kendal:That's the world that we live in now. We're gonna crack down and want to, you know, multinational conglomerate, you know, European Union governmental supergovernment state like that to arrest Elon Musk for speech issues because he's the fascist. Got it. Got it. Yeah.
Donald Kendal:That's the world we live in. Jim, another interesting, I mean, it's a whole saga. I mean, we've been covering Twitter and the free speech issue as it relates to Twitter and social media for years now. Years. And before we would talk about it in terms of, you know, the whether it's a publisher or a platform.
Donald Kendal:And if it's a publisher because it's acting like a publisher under the Jack Dorsey years, then they shouldn't have the protections to section 230 and all of that. But now Elon Musk is running it. Must have taken. He is running it more like a platform, but not just a publisher. So he should have those protections of the section 2 30 protection.
Donald Kendal:So it does kinda get in the weeds a little bit, but it's just funny that now is the time when these governments are coming down and trying to, you know, regulate regulate him when he is operating it like an open platform. So it's all so mixed up, but I can understand why people would be confused by it.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Well, it's because the west, but especially I'll just speak for the United States. I know we have a lot of, viewers in the UK and elsewhere around the world. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the live stream.
Jim Lakely:But, yeah, in the United States, we had argued, for a long time that platforms such as Twitter slash x or Facebook, should be treated, as a platform and not a publisher, and they are treated under the law as a platform, not a publisher. That way, they're not held liable for, you know, crazy comments or libelous comments. I mean, it's it's a protection to allow free speech and to not hold not to make, the owner of a platform carry out the impossible absolutely impossible duty of removing anything that could get them in trouble. You know, they can't be responsible for that. That's how they're supposed to be treated under the law.
Jim Lakely:But the United States, our, our government, especially since after, Biden was elected, was treating all of these like publishers. And in fact, they were colluding with these social media sites that are supposed to be open platforms to act as government publishers, or I should say government censors, and dot not publish things that are critical of the regime. Not not publish not not allow people to tweet and share a link to a story about the Hunter Biden laptop, which exposed corruption out the wazoo in the entire Biden family. So the the government leaned on him, and, of course, they took that all down. And so our government treats these, you know, treated x Twitter like a publisher instead of a platform.
Jim Lakely:And, yeah, Donnie, you're right. The irony is that, Elon Musk is is actually, since he bought it, using it the way it's supposed to be used, even under the law. Elon Musk is following the law more closely than any other, social media company that's ever existed in treating it as it's supposed to be under section 230 of the Communications Act as a platform. And for that, he is now being threatened by bureaucrats in the, European Union. And I should point out, I think it was I don't know if it was the letter from that you had referenced earlier, Donnie, from Europe or whether it was somebody.
Jim Lakely:I think there was actually yeah. I think there was a clip of a cop, a Bobby, in the UK, saying that, by the way, you Americans are not getting off, scot free on this either. We're not just talking about Elon Musk. So if you retweet stuff that, violates our law, we're going to come after you. We're going to ask you to be extradited, to to the to to Great Britain, and we will prosecute you.
Jim Lakely:So you're not getting off the hook. I think, yeah, I saw that on on x, and my response was, you don't have enough prisons. You're gonna you better get going and start making some prisons because that's not the way we do things in this country, and you're gonna have to, figure that out. But, yeah, it's it's somebody in the comments actually meant it, you know, mentioned or commented on my my idea that, if they keep this garbage up gosh. I'm trying so hard not to swear.
Jim Lakely:If they keep this garbage up that we tell them that, well, okay. American military protection is no longer, valid now because, that's not the value of the United States. And this is such an important issue that we are going to leverage our most important asset to all of Europe, and that is our military. We'd be happy to bring everybody back home and, maybe put them on
Donald Kendal:the southern border. Yeah. The, the one issue that we kind of tip keep tiptoeing around, we'll just get into it now, is this, the separate issue that's going on in the UK. There's this unrest, riots, whatever you wanna call it. It's protests, kicked off because of violence that was, I I don't even know what the full story is.
Donald Kendal:I think that originally it was, you know, violence caused by, like, migrants in the area, but then that's being disputed and whether or not the initial reports of this were misinformation. But regardless of that, it kind of kicked off this little firestorm, of kind of building up, I don't know, hostilities, I guess, about this whole issue that resulted in, like I said, like, riots and all of that. So what has been happening, other than, you know, different protesters and whatever being rounded up by police in the streets, but now they're cracking down on social media posts. So this is, you know, we've seen a few stories. I'm sure that if you're tapped into kind of conservative media at all, you're hearing stories about this idea of people being arrested for Facebook posts.
Donald Kendal:And so there's a a number of kind of, higher profile examples of this. A gentleman given 20 months in prison, you know, over a year and a half in prison for some post. You know, the the the accusation is that they're inciting violence through their social media posts. I think another woman got like or I think it was another man, I don't know, had, like, 3 year prison sentence because of a Facebook post. And, yes, just like Jim said, UK police commissioner threatens to extradite international people for doing that same thing.
Donald Kendal:So theoretically, if I go on to Twitter or Facebook and say, like, oh, yeah. Like, those I don't even know if I wanna say it. Maybe the UK police commissioner will specifically release the extradition, you know, whatever for me if I if I say something like that. But, yeah, that's apparently the again, the world that we're living in here where it's like, you know, the crime on the streets of London and all of that, you know, that's secondary. But what Donald Kendall in Suburban Illinois says on Facebook, we gotta make sure to crack down on that.
Donald Kendal:It seems like an idle threat more or less because, like, the practicality of that, Jim, like, as you said, you gotta build more prisons. Like, theoretically, what are they gonna extradite 3,000,000,000 people from a 180 countries around the world? It seems outrageous, but, I don't know, Sam. I mean, this it it kind of calls into question the priorities of these people that are kinda wielding the power in countries like this. What are your thoughts about this story?
S. T. Karnick:They're operating out of fear. 100% fear that they they look at this situation and see their governments falling, Not not the present government, the entire structure of government falling. And I'm quite serious about that. That's what they're facing. So when they say that we're, we're going to arrest you Americans and bring you over here and put you in our prisons.
S. T. Karnick:And it sounds like an idle threat, but, really, it's not. They're not expecting to take, take 300,000,000 Americans over there or a 100 or 10000 Americans. But what they're intending to do is set an example and say, you shouldn't do it because it could be you. It's a lottery, but you could lose this lottery by being taken to prison over here in Britain. Now, the problem, though, is it's not going to happen because what you have is not just not enough prison spaces to put these people in.
S. T. Karnick:You don't have enough guns. You don't have enough guns to get them over there. And what this is what this is leading toward, and I'm very serious about this, this is leading toward this this infection in Europe reaching the United States where the government goes too far. I mean, what we've seen we've seen in our government do incredible things that we couldn't have imagined having. We couldn't.
S. T. Karnick:It's 10 years ago, 15 years ago. We couldn't imagine our government doing this. We've seen incredible things. It's absurd and disgusting. But this would be what they're what they're pushing us toward is far beyond that.
S. T. Karnick:Because the point I'm making about the the, trying to take US people over to Europe and and put them in prison, you are you are invading America with that. You are invading us, and we're not gonna take that. We're not going to take that. The the the state of Texas is not going to let you take Texans and put them on planes and fly them to Europe and put them in prison. It's not going to happen.
S. T. Karnick:It's not going to happen in Florida. It's not going to happen in North Carolina. It's not going to happen in Indiana. And if it happens in Illinois, hey. Tough luck.
S. T. Karnick:You know? That's what you get for living in Illinois, I guess.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. But
S. T. Karnick:you know what? What this will be what this will be is a very clarifying moment.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Yeah. You know, actually, something that you just said there, you know, kinda reminds me of that idea of, like, the the chilling effect. Just them throwing this thread out there might be enough to, have some people stifle their, you know, keyboards or their tongue. It actually kinda makes me regret me not saying what my hypothetical message that could incite something would be at the beginning of this segment, but, you know, whatever.
Donald Kendal:So be it. Jim, surely you have a ton to say about this. This is just I I have a bunch of questions, but I just wanted you to take the direction, whatever direction you you want with this story.
Jim Lakely:Alright. Well, let's let's stay in the UK, because just give some more details on these, on these cases. Andy, if you you could bring up the, the tweet I just shared in the private chat. And so, a man named, Lee Joseph Dunn was given a prison sentence, for sharing 3 Facebook posts. One, they were posts that, that had groups of Asian men.
Jim Lakely:They don't be they're not more specific than that, but with captions like coming to a town near you, and hopping off a small small boat because they have a lot of illegal immigrants coming in, across the English Channel. When it's on your turf, then what? And one of the images even depicted men wielding knives in front of the Palace of Westminster. And so this case that I mentioned earlier, and we have a clip of a woman being arrested at this protest. When I mentioned that that old man who was given 18 months in prison for shouting in the face of a police officer, not assaulting him, not not, making a mark on him.
Jim Lakely:18 months for, disturbing the peace, I suppose, and shouting in the face of a police officer. 61 year old man, retiree, in jail for the next year and a half. And this fella here, so I guess I think what was that? Was it 3 years in jail or something? But, he's definitely it's gonna be significant, it's gonna be significant time.
Jim Lakely:And and then then recently, 3 young, girls, I think all of them under the age of 10, were stabbed and killed, by a young person. The assumption and what kind of really got people enraged was that was that they thought that the man who killed those 3 innocent babies, girls, that he was one once once again, one of these, you know, one of these recent arrivals illegally on boats just pouring over, the shores of the UK. And let's be this needs to be put in the context of what has been happening in the UK over the last decade or so, and it is this, you know, completely unregulated immigration of so called refugees into the country. And there are places in major cities in the UK that are no go zones unless you are one of those recent arrivals and adhere to the popular the most popular and universally adhere to religion in those. I'm trying not to get this channel completely smashed.
Donald Kendal:Appreciate it.
Jim Lakely:You you get where you get you could pick up what I'm putting down here. Right? And so the the the riots, the the protests happened. People are just taking to the streets because they had enough. I mean, yes, there recent immigrants with machetes waving them at royal palaces, and the the the people of the United Kingdom have had enough.
Jim Lakely:They're fed up. Nigel Farage is going to be speaking at our benefit dinner on September 13th. He is the leader of the conservative movement, the real conservative movement in Great Britain, and he's gonna be with us on September 13th. You go to heartland.org and you get your tickets, and you listen to what this man has to say because he is on the front lines of defending the west from, barbarians, both inside and outside his country, as it turns out, and and certainly here in the United States, we have similar problems, as far as the destruction of our liberties by people who wish to rule over us, not govern us, you know, constitutionally, say. And so so people were riding over this, and the and the person who perpetrated that heinous murder of 3 young people was not one of the more recent arrivals, but was the first generation.
Jim Lakely:His parents were immigrants. He was 1st generation. So I suppose to the people, that were upset, and everybody should be upset about it, that, the kid looked the part. The the the man who did these crimes looked looked the part. And so people got arrested.
Jim Lakely:The government came for them, knocked down their doors, or rounded them up on the streets for saying that that kid was was an actual new arrival that he that and so because he wasn't, because his parents, were were the immigrants and not him, that was sufficient misinformation to start rounding up people and arresting them and throwing them in jail for, for sharing and posting, quote, unquote, harmful information. So it it's amazing. We have a clip here of of a woman, who was arrested at one of these protests. She does not seem very capable of doing any physical harm to anyone, but, apparently, she got a little too mouthy too and and thought that she had free speech rights. I know that in Great Britain, their free they don't have a first amendment.
Jim Lakely:Their free speech rights are very different than they are, here in the United States, but it is similar. And, certainly, it has been a tradition in the past that, especially if you're on the left, in in the UK, you could say whatever the hell you want out on the streets. You could probably even, commit violence like they do here in the United States, and it's just totally fine. You will have no consequences. But if you're a 71 year old woman, who is there because she's upset that these three children were killed, and it seems that the the the context for this is that it seems that their own government is not enforcing any laws against, people who hate their country, who hate the United Kingdom, who take to the streets in so called pro Palestinian, protests and demonstrations and end up rioting and burning things and assaulting people, and nothing happens to them.
Jim Lakely:All that's happening right now in Great Britain is that so called right wing extremists are being arrested and rounded up. And so this will not be able to sustain itself for too much longer, but just to give you a sense of how desperate I think a lot of people, in Great Britain feel right now, let's let's let's queue up that, video, for us here, Andy.
Protestor:To me. You've just over I've got a pacemaker.
Protestor:From halfway down the street.
Protestor:I've got
Protestor:a pacemaker. Area.
Protestor:I've got a pacemaker, and they've just arrested me for walking up here.
Jim Lakely:No. It's it's just 60,000 people.
Protestor:Oh, because they're you wanna do them any tighter? That's right. I'm trying to lock them so they can stop it. Well, actually, you're really tightening them. Well, I'm not.
Protestor:You really You really are tightening them, and you're really are making me my body. You are. So can you relax? You're joking. 5 seconds.
Protestor:Are you joking? I've never been arrested in my life. Madam, I have don't you miss don't you? I have never been arrested in my life. Saying?
Protestor:I'm 73 years old. Listen to my And I have come here because of them babies who's died. And I am being arrested.
Jim Lakely:It sure is great news to know that all the serious crime in the in, in Great Britain has been solved so that they can concentrate all of their time on rounding up 73 year old women with pacemakers for walking the streets and protesting, the murder of 3 people, not to mention arresting people for their social media posts. I mean, it people have said I've I've seen images on Twitter of, of the the the flag the the British flag at half at half, staff saying that, you had a you had a nice run from the Magna Carta to to 2024, but, the Great Britain is dead.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Well, I don't know. You probably could have put that, that gravestone up during COVID at some point too for the UK. But but, yeah, I mean, it's it's there's a lot of interesting questions that arise from this. And I think that the one of the big problems one of the big problems, when it comes to cracking down on, you know, free speech or speech related issues is that it becomes so broad that, like, you can only selectively enforce it.
Donald Kendal:You know, we we just kinda joked about the idea of, like, you're gonna arrest, like, millions of people around the world. Like, that's, like, an absurdity. But, But, like, even one of these articles, and I was looking through it while Jim was talking. I I don't think it's in one of the articles that I, have in the show notes, but it was specifically about some of the people that are getting, prison sentences for these Facebook posts. And one of the gentlemen that got arrested, it said that his post was originally liked by 6 people.
Donald Kendal:So he made a Facebook post, and it was liked by 6 people. And then the issue came when it was then shared a whole bunch of times. So then, you know, once it was shared a whole bunch of times, it reached a much larger audience. So my question to that was, can you really blame the that guy for, you know, that post that he made that 6 people liked, you know, probably 3 of his uncles and a cousin, you know. And and, like, shouldn't shouldn't the people that shared the content, they're also expressing some sort of speech by sharing somebody else's words.
Donald Kendal:So shouldn't the onus be or the liability if they're if they're gonna throw these charges around for this incitement of violence or whatever it was beyond those people that shared that? So are we in a world now where, like, the UK can arrest people from for sharing a post? I mean, this is this is, like, the questions that need to be asked. And, you know, like, we were just saying, you'd probably have to arrest everybody. Like, it's an absurdity, so you can only selectively enforce it.
Donald Kendal:And laws that are selectively enforced are probably the worst ones out there because that just puts all of the power in the in the the hands of the government and the authorities to basically pick and choose who they want to punish. Sam, free speech, though. I mean, you know, we we have a a way of talking about it, especially here in, in America as being like, you know, are you a free speech absolutist or, you know, are there certain little carve outs that you, you know, you you don't, that that aren't protected or something like that. And actually, before I go to you, Sam, I do have a link here. I'm gonna share it for Andy to share it on screen.
Donald Kendal:So this is, this is an outline of free speech. I'll let you kind of take a swing at free speech after I go over this, but this is an outline of kind of the speech that's unprotected. And this is from Fire, which, they they are a good outfit. I forget what they stand for. Sam, do you know it off the top of your head?
S. T. Karnick:Foundation for Individual Rights in Education?
Donald Kendal:Pretty close. Pretty close. Rights and expression, but I'll give you a point.
S. T. Karnick:It used to be individual rights and education, and now it's rights and expression. Yes. You're right.
Donald Kendal:So, it goes through the categories of unprotected speech, and these are very narrow. And that's kind of the point that they're trying to make with this post, that these things are very narrow. So the first thing is incitement, and I think that this is kind of the category that most of these, cases in the UK are kind of based around even though they don't have the same free speech protections as us. I know that's the case. But in this case, the the the the line that has to be crossed, and this is established by the Supreme Court's 1969 decision of Brandenburg verse verse Ohio, is basically it requires, like, a, an immediate, that it's likely to provoke an immediate unlawful action, and and, like, the idea that it's like there's, like, an imminent quality to it or something like that.
Donald Kendal:There's, like, 2 different bars that it has to meet. And when I'm looking at, like, these posts of these people that are getting scooped up in the UK, especially this guy that was his post was originally liked by 6 people, like, it doesn't meet those requirements. I know that there was actual protests going on, but by Joe Schmo in some backwater, you know, town in the UK post something on Facebook for his 6 people to like, like, that's not, you know, likely to provoke immediate unlawful action. Apparently, it's enough in the u in the UK to be considered incitement, but not here in the United States. There's a whole another thing about true threats.
Donald Kendal:This is basically going up to somebody and threatening their life, like, right to their face. There's a very small carve out for fighting words. There's obscenity issues, and obviously, there's defamation and fraud issues too. But like I said, these are all very, very narrow. But, Sam, I mean, it's easy for Elon Musk to say that, you know, we're not putting any further regulations on speech other than the things that are, like, outlined in American law.
Donald Kendal:Like, that just seems like the easiest way to go about things. And, again, I can go back to the idea of selective enforcement, but but I don't know. What what are your thoughts on this? I mean, are there some examples of this of of these, you know, crackdowns in the UK and these posts on Facebook that you do think might be crossing the line? I mean, I'll even acknowledge that some of the posts that I see, like, are abhorrent.
Donald Kendal:Some of the things that they say are very ugly things, but do they require the government coming in and putting shackles on them and throwing them into jail? I don't think so. What what are your thoughts?
S. T. Karnick:First of all, I would say that in the United let's start with the United States. None of this should be handled on the federal level at all. None of it. The the it's the constitution says no. Let the states do that.
S. T. Karnick:So the I think that would solve a lot of problems if we would, have a more sensible and decentralized mentality about censorship. As far as I'm concerned, I live in a particular state. If some other state, they they wanna say that you you can't have, you you can't talk about, the the vaccines or whatever, you can't talk about that, I don't care. It's not it's not my problem. But because we live we live with this assumption that everything must be uniform across the nation, these things become very fraught issues.
S. T. Karnick:Now, when you you look at the situation in Britain, number 1, I think that if you incite some if you incite someone in print or on the Internet or on TV or on radio, you say, go and attack this building. I think you have every right to do that, and the government has no right to suppress that. And if they do, they're they're putting pressure on the society that is going to blow up in their faces. None of this was going on a few months ago because Keir Starmer was not the prime minister of England. The Labour Party took over, and now this is what you're getting.
S. T. Karnick:They are very fearful. As I say, they're very, very fearful of the very existence of their system. So what happens is, as you talked about the the selective enforcement, what's really wrong there is when you have a law that absolutely must be selectively enforced
Donald Kendal:Mhmm.
S. T. Karnick:You obviously have a bad law. If you will log in to murder and you enforce that selectively, you have a you have bad people.
Donald Kendal:Right.
S. T. Karnick:You're bad people. But if you have a law against murdering, the only law on murder is against murdering people of an income below or above this number, that's obviously an unjust law, and it's just simply not even justifiable. So you look at what's going on in in Britain. The the rather frightening situation is that they are they are not imprisoning or they're letting people out of prison, in fact, who have committed violent crimes.
Donald Kendal:Mhmm.
S. T. Karnick:But they're saying that if you incite someone to a violent crime of the sort that we don't like, then you'll go to you'll go to prison. Now that's critical here because what's going on is they're actually affirming a rather scoundrel y, premise in, political philosophy that the law is made and maintained for the powerful to use against those who are powerless. And that is exactly what is going on in Britain today and has been going on all over Europe and increasingly in the United States. The laws are built to protect the privileged. Now if you look at what's going on in Britain, they are saying that we will put you in jail for doing one thing and one thing only, and that is threatening the power, the system of power that we have in place, which is the system of government, the system of the economy and the social institutions.
S. T. Karnick:If you threaten that in any way. No matter how minor a tweet that got 6 likes, you're going to prison. If you kill somebody, well, we'll go after you because people found out about it and they're mad. So that's a little bit of a threat to us because if we don't do it, then, you know, people will start killing us. We can't have that.
S. T. Karnick:You know, so when so what what is really going on? There is actually a reification of that terrible what used to be a lie, that the rule of law was based solely on the political regime sustaining itself. Now they're approving it. It really is true. So why why you would go to jail for something as trivial as that is because to them is the biggest threat of all.
Donald Kendal:Right. And it seems easy for the UK, obviously, because, again, they don't have the same first amendment protections as we do in the United States. But I think your point is absolutely proven by some of the topics that we've talked about that relate to this over the course of the last few years. I mean, I don't think that there's been more of a concerted effort against free speech than what took place, during the COVID, you know, with the misinformation that kinda got blown into a whole another, you know, atmospheric level, you know, with all the the accusations of misinformation when it came to anything anything from vaccines to the way that, you know, the disease spread to the origins of it. You know, there were so many accusations of misinformation and crackdowns that needed to take place over there.
Donald Kendal:And then just like the the the election results, you know, the idea of disputing any type of election results was like heresy or something. But as you talked about that, this this idea of it being perceived as an attack against the institutions or undermining the credibility of the institutions and that being the real threat, that really kind of puts into perspective why that there was such a concerted effort to kind of chase down that sort of free speech. And I think that we're just gonna see more and more of it. Jim, I kind of fear that, this isn't gonna be the end of this kind of attack on free speech from multiple different angles. I think we're seeing maybe not more than ever, but at least an increasing in the last several years, of just politicians stateside, talking about this idea needing to crack down on whether it's misinformation, which seems to be the buzzword the past several years, or hate speech or anything like that.
Donald Kendal:I didn't have this prepared in the show notes, but I just remembered it, like, yesterday. The, Elon Musk shared some post that was, Kamala Harris's, like, campaign ad, but it was, like, altered to make it, like, a, you know, a criticism of her. And Gavin Newsom, you know, California governor Gavin Newsom came out and basically said that he wants to sign legislation into law. He's gonna propose legislation that would basically prohibit people from doing that. It was just like, what?
Donald Kendal:Like, that's just pure satire going on right there, but it's gonna be labeled as misinformation, and we're gonna crack down on it. And the ability to crack down on it is gonna require another arm of the United States government or some new authority statewide or however it is, installed. But, but, yeah, Jim, I mean, this this I I think a lot of people in the United States kind of take this first amendment free speech thing for granted, and they don't realize that there are constantly concerted efforts to undermine, you know, certain foundational principles of that free speech. What are your thoughts?
Jim Lakely:Well, by the standard they were trying to hold Elon Musk to with his little parody, campaign ad against Kamala Harris, Then I guess, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and, all the other late night talk show hosts and the entire cast of Saturday Night Live should be arrested in front of you. Right. You know, of course, that's absurd. And the thing is, like, conservatives, those of us on the right, libertarians, people who believe, that the constitution is a meaningful document and it is really all that's as we're learning increasingly every day as we observe the world around us in the United States and beyond, the constitution of the United States is the only thing that stands between us and the gulag. That's not overstating it because that's where these things end up eventually.
Jim Lakely:And the most I guess it's not that surprising, but one of the most depressing aspects of this entire thing is that our media, our corrupt legacy media in this country that used to be respected. Once upon a time, Sam knows this, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. Now we, of course, come to learn that he was lying to us about the Vietnam War and the Tet Offensive. But at the time, you know, you couldn't find somebody more respected, and trusted in the United States than Walter Cronkite who was the, who was the legendary anchorman for the CBS Evening News back in the 6 50, sixties, seventies. But today, we have members of the media who have well, it's been a while now.
Jim Lakely:They've decided that the first amendment, which protects their rights, as a for a free press, but also, protects our right to free speech and a free press. The the one of the great things about the modern world is that everybody can be a publisher, everybody can be a newspaper, you know, sign up for Substack and start your own, you know, whatever you want. You know? So everybody enjoys first amendment protections. But increasingly, and I think, now permanently, our corrupt legacy corporate media believes that the first amendment only applies to them, those the professional journalists.
Jim Lakely:And for everybody else, the digital gulag. And as we're seeing in the UK, maybe eventually a real gulag. And I think that's where, you know, these these power mad, un American people, in the media, in our own country, are gonna eventually end up. I just I I wanna play a video, and we're almost done here. This triggered me this week.
Jim Lakely:I shared it, earlier this week on Slack. We we will now witness the spectacle of a reporter, a White House correspondent for The Washington Post. I was a White House correspondent for The Washington Times, the good newspaper in Washington DC. And it doesn't get any better for your journalist's career than to be covering the White House. It's the pinnacle of any journalist's career.
Jim Lakely:And so here is the White House correspondent for the Washington Post asking, Karine Jean Pierre if the White House can do anything to stop, people from being able to see Elon Musk interview Donald Trump on his platform. A an interview, by the way, which in some reports has been seen a 1000000000 times. Just on x, it within less than 24 hours, it had 26,500,000, tuned in, at some point during it live, and the tweet itself was shared, I think, 500,000,000 times. So was it seen by a 1000000000 people? Probably, which is amazing.
Jim Lakely:But, yeah, let let let's let's, have a little peek at what our 4th estate, thinks about your ability and Elon Musk's ability to speak however they wish.
Protestor:Elon Musk is slated to interview Donald Trump tomorrow tonight, on on x. I don't know if the president is gonna tune in. Feel free to say if he is or not. But I I think that, misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue. It's a, you know, it's a America issue.
Protestor:What role does the White House, or the president have in sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or, sort of inter intervening in that? Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but, you know, it's a wider thing. Right?
KJP:Yeah. No. I mean, you've heard us talk about this many times from here about the responsibilities that social media, platforms have, when it comes to misinformation, disinformation. Don't have anything to read out from here about, specific ways, that we're working on it, but we believe that that they have the responsibility. These are private companies, so it was we're also mindful of that too.
KJP:But, look. It is, I think it it is incredibly important to to call that out as you are you're doing. I just don't have any specifics on on what we have been doing internally, as re as it relates to the interviews. And that's something that I'm tracking, and I'm sure the president's not tracking it either.
Jim Lakely:So so there we have that statement from probably the number one purveyor of mis and disinformation in the United States. Talking to a reporter who works for a publication that is among the leaders in disseminating mis and disinformation, lying to you, gaslighting you on what has happened over the last 3 years, lying about Hunter Biden's laptop, lying about Russia collusion with with, you know, Trump's allegedly colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election, for which they won a Pulitzer, by the way, and haven't given it back. We we live in bizarro world where the idea of of Elon Musk just speaking publicly to Donald Trump for a couple of hours on the platform that he owns is a threat to democracy, and it's a shame. Oh my gosh. Can you can the government do something to stop this pernicious misinformation?
Jim Lakely:No one's gonna be there to fact check him. Hey. Was anyone there to fact check, Hillary Clinton when she went on The View? Did any of those did any of those, you know, screeching harpies on The View, fact check any of the things that that Hillary Clinton said? It is it is everybody that reporter should be fired from the Washington Post for asking a question like that.
Jim Lakely:But you can see and hear in his voice how concerned he is. Oh my gosh. People might actually hear what Donald Trump has to say without, us being able to present it for them. We it it's you and I, guys, the podcasts like this, the listeners, and fans of the Heartland Institute have to be the ones to defend free speech in this country because our media has no interest in it. Our media is our media's job is not to actually tell you what's going on in the world.
Jim Lakely:Our media's job is to make sure Democrats win as many elections as possible, and they will do anything, anything required to ensure that end, including take in trying to suppress your speech and Elon Musk's speech and Donald Trump's speech. They think the first amendment only applies to them and that you, have no right to say what you wish. The the thing about freedom is that it also includes the freedom to be wrong, and nobody on the right that I know or respect would consider for a millisecond suppressing the you know, shutting off the presses at the Washington Post, shutting down their websites, so that nobody can read what they what they produce, a lot of which I would call mispurposeful mis and disinformation. Before and I'll throw it over to Sam, and we may maybe you can wrap up. But, Christine Laurel mentioned in the comments here that, the conversation between Trump and Musk was supposed to start at 8 PM.
Jim Lakely:I guess, I think it was on Tuesday night. Twitter and you would think this is one of the most protected websites in the world owned by the wealthiest man in the world. Yet somehow, a, distributed denial of service attack was launched on x to stop it. They got it fixed. It took about 40 minutes, but then they were able to go ahead and and broadcast that live.
Jim Lakely:Who did that? Is that I'm really curious as to who decided that they needed to attack x, one of the most protected websites in the world, to stop this from happening. Was it our own government? I would not be surprised if it was. Can we can we rule that out?
Jim Lakely:I can't. But somebody powerful forces out there with enormous technology and know how tried to stop that from from taking place. So, you know, free speech is under attack from a lot of places, but everybody on the right, that I know like I said, that I know and respect and everybody on this podcast wouldn't dream of interfering in any way, even the lies that are told by the left. Yet we live in a in a one way world now. Everything, all rights and, privileges are extended to the left, and all punishments are, meted out on the right.
Jim Lakely:But we don't really have any rights in this country. They're supposed to be universal, but they only seem to apply to one, political viewpoint.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Sam, I'll I'll let you kind of have the last words on any topic that we've talked about in this podcast so far or, you know, any other topic, whatever. If you wanna bring up something else, feel free. But, Jim, something that you were saying just reminded me of that, what should be an infamous quote from, Mika Brzezinski. Is that the that's how you pronounce the lady from the Morning Joe.
Donald Kendal:Right? Where she was talking about how Trump, like, undermines messaging to in an attempt to control what people actually think, and that's our job. Right. A little a little slip of the veil there. Yeah.
Donald Kendal:That's our job to control what people think. But, yeah. Go ahead, Sam. Wrap up the show for us here.
S. T. Karnick:Thanks, John. I think that what you and Jim have both just said kinda does bring it all home, which is that there is not just a big government that is, oppressive. What you have is a a large, you do have the takeover of the nation's institutions such that government and the media and academia and almost all of big business just somehow all end up on the same page.
Jim Lakely:Correct.
S. T. Karnick:And so what happens is that you have a a so called self styled journalist saying that it's very bad that people might hear somebody else talk. And what it is is that we own this, we, they, own all the institutions of this country. We like it that way. We want it that way, and we're going to do everything we can to keep it that way. The people of the United States have not yet got enough damage from that, as bad as it's been.
S. T. Karnick:And I think COVID was was, certainly a turning point for us. As bad as it's been, the people of the United States have not got enough damage from that, unlike the people of Great Britain, the people of especially Northern Ireland, they're furious over there. The Netherlands, France, Germany, they've had enough. I think the people of the United States have just about had enough, And we are moving toward, very, very difficult times unless the rulers, the regime, which includes not just the government, but all these other institutions, unless they relent, which they won't do.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Yeah. All these institutions, the government, corporate media, you know, intergovernmental organizations, it's all one giant club, and you're not in it. Quote my one of my favorite comedians, George Carlin there. But, we're already 13 and a half minutes late, so we're gonna wrap up this episode.
Donald Kendal:I wanna thank all of you who have tuned in to this episode of the in the tank podcast. Join us every week for a new episode for those audio only listeners that are catching the show probably on a Friday or later. First of all, why don't you leave a review for us on iTunes? That would be greatly appreciated. And maybe consider joining us a day earlier where we are live streaming this on, Thursdays at noon CST on Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and x, and you can join the conversation.
Donald Kendal:Throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on the screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly. You could also support the show, not by super chats because YouTube demonetized us. Apparently, you can still do that on Rumble, but another way that you can support the show financially is going to heartland.org/inthetank.
Donald Kendal:And you can, donate to the show directly that way. And that way, YouTube doesn't take 30% cut of your donation. So that would be greatly appreciated. But if you wanna support the show but don't have a penny to spare, you can do so by just hitting that like button, sharing this content, subscribing if you haven't already, or just leaving a comment under the video. All those things help break to those big tech algorithms that prevents content like this from being shown to more people.
Donald Kendal:If you'd like, you can follow us on x at in the tank pod. And if you have any questions, suggestions, or, you know, anecdotes for the show, feel free to email us at in the tank podcast atgmail.com. Jim Lakeley, where can the fine people find you?
Jim Lakely:Find me at jlakeley on Twitter, at heartlandinst on Twitter, and at the Hilton Chicago on September 13th with Nigel Farage and Larry Arnn. And, also, Jay Bhattacharya is also gonna speak at that event. So it's gonna be fantastic. Please go to heartland.org. We wanna see you there.
Donald Kendal:Absolutely. And Sam Karnick, what do you have to pitch today?
S. T. Karnick:Thanks, Donald. It's been great being here. Check me out at atstkarnick on all them, their social media apps. And, also, yes, by all means, please, if you can, come and see Nigel Farage, Larry Arnn, Jay Bhattacharya. This is an incredible group of people, and you can meet some Heartland Institute people as well.
S. T. Karnick:Yeah. That's wonderful.
Donald Kendal:Throw my name in there. Those those three people and me. You'll see me behind one of the tables or something like that. Alright. Thank you all for tuning in to this week, and we will talk to you next week.
S. T. Karnick:He's a lion dog faced pony soldier.