I originally planned to jump right back into the saddle today – the first trading day of the year – with our usual format of exploring the most interesting and exciting developments in the world of tech, biotech, and investing at large.

But something happened over the last two weeks that had me enthralled. It was something that I didn’t expect… and the implications are profound.

Before we dig in, though, I hope that all of you had a wonderful holiday season – and that you had the chance to tune out and focus on friends and family over the holidays.

Now that the final numbers are in for 2022, it was the worst combined year for stock and bond returns in more than 100 years. That really puts things into perspective.

I’m happy, as I suspect many of us are, to put 2022 behind us and focus on what I believe will be a far better year… though, not without some volatility. We’ll have plenty of time in the weeks ahead to review together the craziness of what I believe is coming in the first half of this year.

But for today, I’d like to kick off 2023 with the truths that have emerged from “The Twitter Files.”

What “The Twitter Files” have revealed so far…

For those who haven’t yet read about this, “The Twitter Files” are the internal documents that Elon Musk and his team have been releasing to a handful of independent journalists that have combed through and analyzed mounds of emails and communications at Twitter from the last three years.

I have to say, I’m rarely surprised by much in the world of business, investing, politics, and geopolitics. But “The Twitter Files” absolutely knocked me over.

Perhaps Elon Musk described it best in an interview that he conducted on December 27 when he said:

Almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true. Is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true? So far, they’ve all turned out to be true. And if not, more true than people thought.

Now, whatever any of us thinks about Musk, he is a genius. And he’s also making the most of one of the smartest business moves that any executive can make when coming into a problematic and/or corrupt organization… He’s performing an audit and sharing the results openly.

Doing so protects him and the organization going forward by demonstrating that the corruption took place under the previous management. And, ultimately, it will make large strides toward restoring trust in Twitter as a public platform for debate, information, and networking.

Said another way, it will be great for Twitter’s future business.

Before I go any further, it’s important to state that my comments aren’t meant in any way to be political. I’m just going to share the facts about what’s been revealed to-date from the release of “The Twitter Files.”

Even more importantly, I would argue that it doesn’t matter what any of our own political preferences are – whether they be liberal, libertarian, conservative, socialist, progressive, or independent. What “The Twitter Files” have revealed is so much bigger and profound than anything I could have imagined.

When the first drop of the files was released, I expected that they would reveal an organization that had a very heavy political bias that was used to censor, ban, and manipulate the information that we saw on Twitter, with the goal of affecting certain outcomes – like elections – and supporting heavily biased political narratives.

After all, this bias has been well-known over the last three years. Any regular Twitter user could see scientists, experts in their field, and popular commentators getting deplatformed from Twitter for the “crime” of simply providing factual information that wasn’t consistent with the desired political narrative.

And if Twitter didn’t take the accounts down entirely, it actively engaged in something called “shadowbanning.” This is the practice of blocking or throttling a user’s posts from the Twitter community.

One way this is done is by making posts invisible to those on Twitter. Another way is by making it impossible to comment on or retweet an individual post. These tactics were done without the knowledge of the user.

Everyone knew that it was happening, but they just didn’t have the confession from Twitter that it was true. In fact, Twitter executives denied this was a practice on many occasions. That’s no longer the case.

What Twitter did was wrong, a violation of our rights, and was most certainly unfair. But as a public company offering a free product, we as consumers could simply stop using Twitter if we didn’t like its practices.

I myself didn’t bother posting because I knew, for example, that if I shared peer-reviewed scientific research that was counter to the desired narrative, I’d just get banned. So why bother?

[Note: You can now find me @BrownstoneTBE. There are several other fake accounts that we’re trying to get removed from Twitter.]

But here’s the thing. That’s not the story at all.

Widespread silencing took place at Twitter…

Yes, “The Twitter Files” have now evidenced the removal of accounts – even those that shared factual and true information. The files have also revealed that shadowbanning was real and widespread on the platform.

But what’s shattered my trust in the government was the revelation that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several other government agencies were directing – even paying Twitter – to comply with their requests to take down the accounts of independent journalists, scientists, executives, and individuals who said things that they simply didn’t like.

The FBI had weekly, and sometimes daily, communications with Twitter that spanned not just matters related to the 2020 Presidential Election, but engagements with FBI agents operating at the state and city levels as well.

And the FBI was just the interface for what’s now been documented as involvement of the Pentagon, the State Department, and even the CIA, which is often referred to as OGA (or Other Governmental Agency) in “The Twitter Files.”

Here’s what a communication for a regular conference between the government and Twitter executives looks like naming both the FBI and the CIA:

Internal Communication Between Twitter Execs

Source: taibbi.substack.com

[Note: Stacia Cardille was a legal executive at Twitter, and Jim Baker was a Twitter executive who formerly worked for the FBI.]

Leading up to the 2020 elections, the FBI was aggressively pushing Twitter to take down accounts, often sending spreadsheets with hundreds of names to be addressed.

Twitter was so overwhelmed with the requests to suppress and silence voices in the lead-up to the elections that it asked the FBI to prioritize requests.

Twitter Enlists the FBI’s HelpSource: taibbi.substack.com

Also remarkable was the FBI’s pressure on Twitter to confirm narratives of foreign influence.

The below email I found just incredible. It’s a great example of the pressure that Twitter felt, and its own willingness, to manifest information to support the FBI’s desired narrative.

FBI Collusion

Source: taibbi.substack.com

It clearly states that, “After I reviewed the accounts, and found no links to Russia…” and further says: “I can brainstorm with XXXXXX and see if we can dig even deeper and try to find a stronger connection.” Unbelievable.

Aside from literally influencing the outcome of both national and local elections, Twitter and other tech platforms were actually getting paid to do it through a reimbursement program managed by a division at the FBI called SCALE (Safety, Content, and Law Enforcement).

The FBI’s Reimbursement Program

Source: twitter @shellenbergerMD

And it wasn’t just the suppression of voices and censorship that the FBI was demanding of Twitter and other tech platforms.

The FBI submitted countless Emergency Disclosure Requests (EDRs). These are nothing more than a warrantless search request for data on private citizens. Sickening.

So much for freedom of speech…

After learning of the above, it came as no surprise that the same tactics and force were used to control the debate surrounding COVID-19.

Independent journalist and author David Zweig summed up how Twitter “rigged” the debate around COVID:

By censoring info that was true, but inconvenient to U.S. government policy.
By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed.
By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s own data.

Independent journalists like Alex Berenson, who shared information about peer-reviewed scientific research, COVID “vaccine” efficacy (or lack thereof), and information about COVID “vaccine”-induced injuries, including death – just as I have done over the years – were booted off the platform.

Ironically, Berenson had the resolution to sue Twitter, and he won. Twitter had to settle and reinstate him on the platform.

Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard Medical School epidemiologist, was also banned. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA technology – banned. Peter McCullough, the world’s most widely published cardiologist – banned. Andrew Bostom, a Rhode Island physician – banned.

I could go on and on… but all of them were deplatformed and silenced.

We’re only just scratching the surface of what “The Twitter Files” released in the last two weeks. The world has only seen less than 5% of what’s been going on. This week, there will be a drop of “The Fauci Files,” which we can be sure will be revealing.

But the real gut punch for me is how widespread and coordinated this whole operation really was. It’s the kind of thing that we would normally say is “unthinkable.” And it wasn’t just Twitter that “they” were controlling.

Here’s a partial list that’s been documented of those that were being instructed on what to do:

Yahoo
Twitch
Cloudflare
LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft)
Wikimedia (owner of Wikipedia)
YouTube (owned by Alphabet)
Google (owned by Alphabet)
Apple
Facebook (owned by Meta)

And of course, we know that the mainstream media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC were all receiving the same instructions. It was like listening to parrots – at times, the messaging was identical down to the last word.

If something like this doesn’t scare us, I don’t know what will. This isn’t only a violation of our constitutional rights, it’s a dystopian nightmare.

It’s an entrenched beginning to what would only become a totalitarian state. It affects all of us negatively, irrespective of our political and philosophical beliefs.

We haven’t been living in a democracy. If “The Twitter Files” have shown us anything, it’s that we’ve been subject to nothing short of a massive, coordinated, psychological operation designed to control our access to information and influence how we think.

That, my friends, is not the sign of a free and democratic society.

Elon Musk has given us a remarkable gift by pulling the sheep’s clothing off the wolf. Now it’s time for us to do something about it. All opinions should be heard. Scientific debate must be restored. And freedom of speech is a constitutional right.

Happy New Year to all! I wish the very best to you and your families for a happy and healthy 2023.

Regards,

Jeff Brown

Editor, The Bleeding Edge

3 Jan 2023

Keep your children away from members of the Democrat Party!

Does any sane person believe that the exploitation of our children, for the past few years, was caused by Make America Great Again exponents or champions of what makes America such a great place to live, work, worship and raise a family? Of the way our children are being indoctrinated by the media, social web sites, Universities, Public Radio and TV, MSNBC. CBS, NBC, ABC or CNN? Why would Entities like these institutions want to harm our little ones by exposing them to Drag Queens, encourage them to change genders when they don't really know who they are yet, or teaching them that climate change is going to kill them?! Haven't found anyone that supports this hazardous paradigm except Democrats!

When did this downward slope of American values really start to ramp down? To my memory, it was during the Obama Administration. The seeds of this discourse seems to have started, originally, during the HIV aids crisis in the 1980s. The Democrats were telling everyone, including the Republican, that this was a crisis for every living American. If anyone disagreed they were called a homophobe. Well, the Republican party wasn't going to incur the wrath of all of the above mentioned media, so they withheld their knowledge that this terrible disease was caused by a behavioral dilemma and did not, in its beginning, create a threat to the heterogeneous community, which at the time was about 98 % of the population but the tactic succeeded in quelling opposition from the Republican Party.

Fast forward to the Obama Administration, President Obama and VP Joe Biden had both expressed their opposition to marriage, other than between a man and a woman. But one day, Joe Biden let it slip, that he was in favor of marriage between the same sexes. It is believed that they were expecting a firewall of opposition but it didn't come but the money from groups that favored same sex marriages did. The money began rolling in. With all of the major networks supporting the Democrats and only a small fish in a big pond, like Fox, opposing, they were well on their way to getting what they wanted out the Supreme Court. This was just the beginning of the “Fundamental Transformation of America” Suddenly our school system was targeting children, (we confirmed this during the pandemic) even more exploitatively, than in the past. They were getting away with teaching Critical Race theory, grooming our kids for NAMBA man/boy love, giving them puberty blockers, medically coaxing young girls to get mastectomies, and attempting to convince young girls and boys they can identify characteristics that will define the sex they should be. These are sick peoples of the Democrat Party and they are led by sick Party members that have been encouraging their followers to commit violence. They have used the January 6th demonstration to distract from their own involvement and incitement in lethal behavior.

So where do we stand now?

We have a potential Speaker of the House that has a hard time speaking. We have a minority leader of the Senate (who seems to enjoy the minority) that has a 7% approval rating!

The New York Times, a paid member of the establishment, that recently reported results from a poll that was conducted for them by Siena College about who or what is the biggest threat to our democracy and the number one culprit that is a danger to our democracy is the Media and the second biggest threat to our democracy is the Democrat party. Case Closed!

In closing.

We have the facts now and from now on it depends on us to vote for responsible leaders, hold the current leadership responsible for the damage they have inflicted and call them and let them know where you stand on all of these issues. Visit their websites and see what their positions are on these critical matters. There is very little evidence that they pay attention to email but they do keep up with phone calls. So make them!

And for an experiment, to give yourself a lift, raise your voice level. And unlike our current leadership in Washington, PUT PASSION IN YOUR VOICE.

If You Really Wanted to Destroy the US, Then…

Victor Davis Hanson

December 1, 2022 Updated: December 1, 2022

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First, you would surrender our prior energy independence.

Reduce new gas and oil leases on federal lands to the lowest levels of any president in history. Cut back production at precisely the time the world is emerging from a two-year lockdown with pent-up consumer demand.

Make war on coal and nuclear power. Drain the strategic petroleum reserve to make the pain for consumers more bearable for midterm election advantage.

Cancel the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas field. Block pipelines like the Keystone oil pipeline and the Constitution natural gas line.

Overregulate and demonize frackers and horizontal drillers. Ensure there is less investment for their exploration and production.

Make use of internal combustible engines or fossil fuel power generation prohibitively expensive. Achieve a green oil-dependency along the lines of contemporary Europe.

Second, print trillions of dollars in new currency as the lockdowns end, demand rises, and consumers are already saturated with COVID-19 subsidies. Keep interest rates low, well below the rate of inflation, as you print more money. Ensure that passbook holders earn no interest at the very time prices skyrocket to the highest per annum level in 40 years.

“Spread the wealth” by sending money to those who already have enough, while making it less valuable for those deemed to have too much. Ensure runaway high prices to wean the middle class off its consumerism and supposedly to inspire them to buy less junk they don’t need. Damn the rich in the open and in the abstract, court them in the concrete and secret of darkness.

Third, end America’s physical boundaries. Render it an amorphous people and anywhere space. End any vestigial difference between a citizen and resident. Up the current nearly 50 million who were not born in the United States—27 percent of California’s population—to 100 million and more by allowing 3 million illegal aliens to enter per year.

Fourth, destroy the public trust in its elections. Render Election Day irrelevant. Make proper auditing of 110 million mail-in/early ballots impossible. Normalize ballot harvesting and curing.

Urge leftist billionaires to infuse their riches to “absorb” the work of state registrars in key precincts to ensure the correct “turn-out.”

Blast as “election denialists,” “insurrectionists,” and “democracy destroyers” anyone who objects to these radical ballot changes, neither passed by the U.S. Congress nor by state legislators. Weaponize the FBI, CIA, and Department of Justice.

Fifth, redefine crime as one rich man’s crime, another poor man’s necessity.

Let those who need “things” exercise their entitlement to them. Rewrite or ignore laws to exempt the oppressed who take, or do what they want as atonement for past systemic racism and oppression.

Six, junk the ossified idea of a melting pot and multiracial society united by common American values and ideals. Instead, identify individuals by their superficial appearance. Seek to be a victim and monetize your claims against perceived victimizers. Call anyone a “racist” who resists.

Encourage each tribe, defined by common race, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation affinities, to band together to oppose the monolithic “white privilege” majority. Encourage social and tribal tensions. Racially discriminate to end discrimination.

Greenlight statue toppling, name changing, boycotting, cancel culturing, ostracizing, and Trotskyizing. Erase the past, control the present, and create a new American person for the future.

Seven, render the United States just one of many nations abroad. Abandon Afghanistan in shame. Leave behind thousands of loyal Afghan allies, billions of dollars in equipment, a billion-dollar embassy, and the largest air base in central Asia. Appease the theocracy to reenter the Iran nuclear deal.

Beg enemies like Venezuela, Russia, and Iran to pump more oil when it is politically expedient for us to have abundant supplies—oil that we have in abundance but won’t produce. Discourage friends like Guinea from producing more energy and cancel allies’ energy projects like the EastMed pipeline.

Trash but then beg Saudi Arabia to pump more oil right before the midterms for domestic political advantage.

Eight, neuter the First Amendment. Enlist Silicon Valley monopolies to silence unwanted free speech while using Big Tech’s mega profits to warp elections. Declare free expression “hate speech.” Criminalize contrarian social media.

Nine, demonize half the country as semi-fascists, un-Americans, insurrectionists, and even potential domestic terrorists. Try to change inconvenient ancient rules: seek to pack the court, end the filibuster, junk the Electoral College, and bring in two more states.

Twice impeach a president who tried to stand in your way. Try him when he is an emeritus president and private citizen. Raid his home. Seek to indict a future rival to the current president.

Ten, never mention the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Never blame China for the release of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Exempt investigations of U.S. health officials who subsidized Chinese gain-of-function research. Ignore the Bill of Rights to mandate vaccinations, mask wearing, and quarantines.

We have done all of the above. It would be hard to imagine any planned agenda to destroy America that would have been as injurious as what we already suffered the last two years.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Victor Davis Hanson

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Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative commentator, classicist, and military historian. He is a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, a senior fellow in classics and military history at Stanford University, a fellow of Hillsdale College, and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. Hanson has written 16 books, including “The Western Way of War,” “Fields Without Dreams,” and “The Case for Trump.”

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Mitch McConnell must step down!

Recently stumbled across an old T-shirt from the past that was purchased during the rally in Washington, DC about the terrible Iran Nuclear deal that was being considered by the U.S, Senate, led by Bob Corker from Tennessee and negotiated behind the scene or in a cloak room with President Barack Obama. After it was ironed out, so that the senate would have to vote in a super majority to override it, it was determined to be in our interest and approved by the Senate. The deal was so bad for America that Bob Corker did not even bother to run for reelection but tucked his tail in and went home. So where lies the true blame for this debacle?

Who engineered this pro Iranian deal?

Does anyone believe that this agreement could have been negotiated and delivered by anyone other than Senator Mitch McConnell, from Kentucky? How he escaped finger pointing on this one could have only been carried out without the blame being aimed at him, could only happen with an anti-U. S. Press and a bunch of Republicans that don's want to gather the ire of the media. McConnell is directly responsible for this and it is not too late to hold him accountable. Mitch McConnell must step down!

Who is his constituency?

According to the latest polls Mitch McConnell has a 7 % approval rating with Republicans. Why would 40 Republicans vote for this guy as Minority leader with barely a scintilla of support? How do they expect to win with a man that has such little support. Does he look attractive to women? No! Does he garner support among Africa Americans? No! Does he pull or magnetize a following among any minority group? No! Is he attractive or commands the attention of ages between 18-35? No!Then why is he still there? Who is his constituency? Mitch McConnell must step down!

What has he done and said in the past?

In 2004 McConnell told a fake news media that if Republicans didn't start talking all this right Wing stuff that we would become a Regional Party. In 2008 McConnell told a fake news media that him and Cornan were out there recruiting the most Moderate candidates they could find. And boy, have they found some doozies! Ending up with Mitt Romney in the Senate and his niece over at RNC, ineffectively, running it. He has recruited a bunch of sycophants, judging by the votes to make him Senate Minority leader. I don't think i have ever seen a major party leader so comfortable serving in the Minority. Mitch McConnell is a terrible leader or better, person-in-charge, of a powerful body. Mitch McConnell must step down!

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CORPORATE IRRESPONSIBILITY

Open Letter to State Farm

Dear Mr. Soto,

I am a State Farm customer, and I am very concerned about your actions leading State Farm away from its corporate mission. In my experience, State Farm has always made good service to its customers its highest priority, and yet now you seem to be involving the company in hot political controversies which are sure to divert resources from the company's longstanding purpose.

Fostering interest in LGBTQ lifestyles among children is destructive in two clear ways. First off, it has a high likelihood of running counter to their parents' values, thus undermining the family relationship, and increasing conflict with their parents, at a time in their life when children need parental guidance and protection. Secondly, the statistics all plainly show that children who choose LGBTQ lifestyles suffer higher rates of suicide, runaway behavior, drug abuse, and a much higher risk of being subjected to sex trafficking.

Insurance companies are supposed to help their customers avoid risk. So why would you want your company to increase risks for your customers' (and other peoples') children? If State Farm wants to get involved in helping children lead safer lives, they should be supporting constructive programs like Big Brothers, scouting, Good News Clubs, abstinence programs, YMCAs, and other organizations which help build and support families, rather than trendy ideologies which alienate children from their family's values.

As a long-term State Farm customer, I am appalled at your presumption in diverting resources derived from profit on sales to millions of ordinary people like me who are opposed to the sort of divisive sexual propaganda you are trying to promote. Not only will I find another company if this effort is not quickly stopped, I will publicly post this letter and call upon other State Farm customers to drop their policies and find other insurance sources - companies that respect their customers and maintain a clear focus on their company's purpose.

If you wish to persuade me to stay with State Farm, please respond promptly.

Make It

What the Twitter Files Tell Us So Far